Since you never can be quite sure who reads what these days, I’ll skip the specifics and post a general guide for employers who want to disgruntle their employees. This is a reflection of my personal views and does not reflect the views of anyone/anything else.

For the sake of clarity, the employee in the example below will be female. It could’ve just as easily been a male, but specifying a single gender will prevent the s/he and him/her references.

Step One. Ignore your employee when she tells you for months that she doesn’t want a specific position that she knows will need to be filled soon.

Step Two. When said employee expresses her concerns that she’s being cornered into the position anyway, tell her that it’s good for her career.

Step Three. When employee wants to meet to discuss the position and her concerns that she’ll be unhappy, make her feel like she’s being a spoiled brat and not a team player. If this is still not enough to make her fall in line, bust out “suck it up and take one for the team”. If she still resists, tell her that if she absolutely, positively won’t do it, you may be able to find her another position [that will end her career at your company].

Step Four. When the employee finally caves (because, really, it’s either that or quit), tell her that she’ll love it and it won’t be that bad.

So there you have it, four easy steps to turn a perfectly happy employee into a perfectly disgruntled employee. On a completely unrelated topic, if you’re a company in Austin that’s looking for a programmer (or you know of one that is), I may know someone that’s looking for a job…

So yesterday I was sent a link to the new Weird Al music video, White and Nerdy. I’ve always been a bit indifferent to Weird Al, some of his songs are good, some not so good, but this one is awesome. Check it out and you’ll see what I mean. :)

P.S. For a true nerd, the Wikipedia article lists all kinds of cool stuff about the video.