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Ask Dr. Babooner

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Anyone can be an expert when it comes to advising others.

We are ALL Dr. Babooner
We are ALL Dr. Babooner

Dear Dr. Babooner,

I was recently selected by my peers to be the new CEO of the company where we all work. Of course I’m flattered by this unexpected compliment (they really, really like me!) but I’m having trouble navigating the tricky historical, administrative and political terrain before me.

Our firm is rather formal and high-minded in its approach. We have some ambitious and laudable ideals, and a habit of not living up to them.

It is a tradition with us that the CEO takes on a new name when he (it has always been a “he”) ascends to the corner office. This honorific is supposed to symbolize the title holder’s preferred style of managing relationships, and it is always preceded by “The Respected And Loved Administrator” …. such-and-such.

Accordingly, my predecessor was The Respected and Loved Administrator Mr. Badass. The TRALAs before him were Mr. Ranklepeeps, Mr. Shovit, Mr. Hitman and Mr. Rockstar. Each one brought a different kind of swagger to the job, but they haven’t all been so dominant. In decades and centuries past, we’ve had Mr. Vacillator, Mr. Jollypants, Mr. Shambles, Mr. Pothead and Mr. Gigolo.

Now it’s time for me to pick my name. I’d like to call myself TRALA Mr. Happypal, but my advisers say to keep things in order I should pick something more ominous sounding that will make people watch their step when I’m around and yield to my whims, even at a distance.

Something like Mr. Fancrap.

Dr. Babooner, should I go with a name people will like, or something people will respect?

Undecidedly,
TRALA ?

I told TRALA ? he should never underestimate the power a name has over other people. Picking the title you’ll be known by is a rare privilege. Friendly, happy, exciting names can create warm feelings just as quickly as hard, scary names can demand obedience. But being liked but not respected is not an easy road to walk. And being respected but not liked is just no fun. I suggested a sweet/sour combination to get the best of both worlds. Like Mr. Punchkiss, Mr. Blusterlove, or TRALA Mr. Crusherhug.

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

53 thoughts on “Ask Dr. Babooner”

  1. Rise and thaw out, baboons!

    I have a somewhat lengthy response to the question of the name. Because my answer might quash others, I’ll sit on it until later in the day.

    For now, let’s address that corner office. I hope, TRALA, that you understand that occupants of favored locations are resented by everyone else. That’s no damn good for you, them or the organization. Unless your co-workers already have a really cool lunch area, you should assign the corner office over to everyone’s use for breaks. Take an ordinary cubicle for yourself, choosing one close to the team members whose work is most likely to benefit from your input.

    Organizations that award corner offices like this also tend to reward high managers with favored parking places. Avoid that like sin. Have the maintenance guys remove the sign that marks a great parking place as yours. Tell your group that that spot belongs to the first person in the group who shows up each day (unless someone begins to hog that space, in which case you’ll find a cute way of intervening so others occasionally get to park close to the office door).

    Ask for help from everyone, even the janitorial staff, listening to their ideas for making things go better. After all, you will tell them, you do not have a special pipeline to God. And if upper management tries to get you to wear red slippers, decline! Tell them that even Dorothy learned that red slippers aren’t necessary to achieve dreams.

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    1. Hmmm, a quiet morning. If any of you are wondering where I learned anything about progressive employee management, it was from my magazine editor days. Only the lessons were taught to me by a nasty CEO who did just the opposite of what he should. He cordoned off the prime parking spaces and designated them for himself and his two sons, neither of whom should have been working there. One of them was not qualified to sweep up the office, but he was treated like a little king. I got an advanced degree in business management there by seeing everything done just exactly the way it should not have been done! :-P.

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    2. In my building, there is only one office; everybody lives in a large cube prairie except the VP, who has an actual office with a door. However, her office is smack in the middle of the building, so no windows. I, on the other hand, sit in a cube along a wall of large, taller-than-I-am windows. Of course, this does occasionally make it difficult to concentrate, especially when the weather is doing anything interesting!

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  2. Good morning. I agree with Steve’s advice. As for the name, I think the power of a name isn’t as great as it might be. This is because we live in a world where ad executives try to control everything with their use of words and names. We are so use to being manipulated by catchy names that they don’t have very much effect on us in this day and age. It might help a little to pick a name that has a nice ring to it.. It should be fairly straight forward to set it off from the kind of overly clever names an ad executive might give you. How about Goodman?

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  4. If any of you watched Mystery Science Theater 3000, you’ll know what I’m talking about. The show was, essentially, 3 guys making fun of really bad movies. One of the cult favorites they did was a Battlestar Galactica knockoff called, “Space Mutiny.” The guys had a great time coming up with new names for the lead character, David Ryder. Here’s a summary of them all…would any of these work?

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    2. My personal favorite so far is Riff Steakface, but I’m going to have to listen to this again! 🙂

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    5. An interesting side note, just when you think that these names are completely ridiculous, early in Mike Connors’ career, he did a movie called, “Swamp Women,” (which was also realeased as, “Swamp Diamonds”). But at the time, he was going by the name, ‘Touch Connors.’

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      1. Am I the only one who at the moment can’t see the video I posted above? Right now there’s a big blank space with the line “500 Empty API response data” where the video used to be. Weird.

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  7. trala wtf is my suggestion. implied inyourfaceness could be softened with an explained acronym like wonderful thankful forgiving but then give a little wink and hammer the first two offending underlings to let everyone know forgiving is a relative term. once you have those dogs trained a step out of line will only be done with the greatest distress ion and with the understanding that being thrown under the bus is a real possibility for grievous offences like touching other people’s parking spaces or private stationary.
    Respect with an understanding compassion will be primary response with whoopass as a n alternate response when required.

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  8. Taking the helm of this company will be a little like teaching, TRALA? . You should start with a strict hand, then you can ease up a bit when they’ve got the idea. So perhaps you could go with something like Mr. Firmthensoft, or Mr. Hard’n’lite.

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  9. I’m finding this story amusing because my firstborn occupies an all-glass 30th floor corner office in an international corporation headquartered in Atlanta, GA. I visited him one time and was duly impressed with this top-floor office. When I asked him just what it is that he does, he told me that when you swipe a credit card through that little device, whatever happens after this is what he does. This is so beyond my comprehension that I was speechless with his answer – and still am.

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  10. Today my name is “Nap consultant”. I get to go to Early Head Start and consult on napping problems in the Waddler Room (1-2 year olds). What fun!

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    1. 1 and 2 year olds that are having napping problems? I’m sure the people at Head Start would like to have them all take a good long nap. Also I expect that there are one or more that can not be persuaded to take a nap most of the time. I don’t see how anyone can get a young kid to take a nap if they don’t want one, but maybe I wasn’t the best one at getting kids that age to take naps. One of my daughters had trouble fitting in at her day care center because she didn’t like taking naps.

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        1. Yep, that would be the problem. I love it that they’re called the “Waddler Room”. 🙂

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        2. Actually, we did get them all to sleep at once today. I gave them some soothing strategies that worked pretty well. Those litle ones do waddle around. The workers in the room are pretty young, and they needed a little coaching on the need to decrescendo and ritardando as they settle the room down.

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  11. For me, the name/title thing is easy. There is one superb word or title: Coach. It is a term that at once conveys great respect (good coaches are rare) and humility (they are the coaches, not the players). The concept that this word implies is that each team member has personal goals and needs, just as the group has goals and needs. The coach works with all team members cheerfully and with wisdom until they and the group realize their goals.

    When the Twins won the World Series in 1991, coach Tom Kelly didn’t want to join the on-field team celebration because, as he saw it, it was the players who had won the game and the series. That kind of humility, if backed with enough hard work, will do well for you.

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    1. I just watched “Miracle on Ice” for fourth time with Herb Brooks astounding Olympic gold medal hockey team victory. This coach was amazing and it makes me sad that he died unnecessarily just days before the movie he helped produce opened in theaters. It was
      determined that a seat belt would’ve saved his life when he apparently fell asleep at the wheel.

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  12. OT – Barb in Blackhoof has some new goatlings in the barn today…. she says Steve should have blog updated shortly. 2 little boys and a girl… from Kona.

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  13. Based on my week this week, I would say a rotating title that reflects your current mood might be useful – so far this week mine might include TRALA Cranky Pants, TRALA Busy Pants and TRALA Jazzy Pants (or Happy Pants – you decide).

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