Dull Person's Guide to Corporate Success

The ultimate guide to win if you're a dull person

I wonder if I should make this a whole genre, like self-help in bizzaroverse. If you found it funny, leave a like. If you are definitely not dull but still found it useful, leave a comment because it helps me know how many non-dull people read this post. If you are a dull person a simple thanks would make my day.

Successful dull people

“If you’re dull and haven’t read this guide, stop whatever you’re doing and read it right now.”

- Me  

“The guide helped me unlock the true power of dullness and reach my dream of becoming a corporate leader!” - A thriving, dull person

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Are you a dull person?

If you said no, you’re missing out!

Dullness is the Spice in the dunes of corporate wasteland. Your neighbourhood corporate floor may have replaced its grey walls with colourful art, changed some cubicles into bean-shaped nooks, and filled the pantry with tasty junk, but at the end of the day, the machine runs on the fuel of dull people.

The three principles of setting up a successful corporate workplace are:

1. Make it airconditioned so no one can call it a sweatshop

2. Make the glass windows fully sealed so one can throw themselves out

3. Fill the space with dull people

Dull people keep the gears churning for shareholders. Dull people get the job done, day in and day out. They exploit their dullness to achieve corporate success and, oftentimes, great wealth.

Now, if you’re reading this, and you’re not dull, this is not a guide for you. I don’t write guides for losers. However, since you’re here anyway, you might as well go ahead and read this.

Now, on to the guide.

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#1. Find other dull people

Dull flocks. Like a lone fly seeking the nearest garbage dump, find where all the dull people hang out and join the group. If you happen to walk in the hallway and hear an impassioned discussion on the latest business review topic, seek the source of that noise. Attach yourself to the collective and create a force of mind-numbing mediocrity. Walk the halls like dementors, sucking anything remotely non-dull from the workplace. 

Did you know that a group of flies is called a Business?

#2. Wield meetings mercilessly

Captain America has his shield, Madame Web has psychic abilities, Narendra Modi has a 56” chest, and dull people have meetings. No one knows who invented meetings but I have a simple explanation for why these fantastically dull things exist in the world - dull gods.

See, if there are so many dull people in the world, there must be a dull god or two who, apart from keeping the gears of the god-business turning, also invent things like meetings and legal documents in their spare time.

As a dull person, seeing an empty slot on someone’s calendar must offend you. Pepper these empty slots with meetings, like a janky Superman, until you’ve eaten up all emptiness and instead filled them with reviews, catch-ups, discussions, weeklies and updates.

Stand in front of the mirror and practice saying these things until these become your default response:

“Let’s talk about it in a meeting?”

“It would be better to get everyone in a meeting and thrash this out”

“We should have a recurring meeting for this”

“Let’s meet”

Attend as many meetings as you can to infect them with dullness. Claim joyfully (with fake exasperation) that you are triple booked every hour of the day.

#3. Remember: Every meeting is an opportunity to crush the human spirit

“If a meeting happened in the woods and there were no minutes, did the meeting happen?”

- Another successful, dull corporate veteran

There is a profoundly innate spirit in every human (especially if they are not dull-broken) that’s yearning for more and sees beyond the beige meeting rooms. Break that with dullness.

Long, rambling monologues on ways of working, documentation, reporting clashes, and perhaps even SOPs are good. Make sure the voice of your dullness os heard on every point, raising more questions and wondering what-ifs. When you see the soulless glaze in other people’s eyes know that you’re winning.   

As a dull person, it is your dull-god-given right to take ownership of the meeting minutes. The minutes should be soporific masterpieces—a literary tranquillizer. 

Deposit the minutes like an alien spore to spawn more dull meetings on the calendar. A simple rule of thumb is that the birthrate of new meetings must be above the replacement line of 2.1 to compensate for all the meetings being killed off by non-dull people.

#4. Be great at the art of circling back and follow-ups

Everything is more dull the second time around so always ‘circle back’ on things. Cross-reference other dull things like “As per the minutes of the meeting on June 3rd” or “As per my last email” until you’ve created an inception of dullness no one can wake up from. Track the meeting minutes mercilessly and follow up with people, creating a never-ending minutes-to-meetings-to-minutes chain that is like a permanent pipeline to transmit human souls into the black hole of Outlook servers.  

#5. Show rank at every opportunity

Hierarchy and rank are cocaine for dull people. Never let anyone forget where they are in the rank. If you’re interacting with someone above you, ensure they know about your subservience. Share insignificant events and report on things as if your life depended on them. Show leader vibes by reporting wins like you lead a battalion with a magnanimous, “We did it! Go team. Thanks for your sacrifice”

It’s important to show rank in meetings. Let the little people speak first. Then summarize everything, all the time. Another way to show rank is by assigning someone to take minutes.

But remember: Never hand over minutes to a non-dull person! Ever!

Non-dull people ruin the minutes with precise, short action items that ruin the whole point. Instead, mentor young, dull people and deputize them for the task.

Another subtle way to show rank is to give feedback to those who didn’t ask. Package your annoyance at someone as high-sounding well-meaning feedback that also manages to condescend and let the other person know that they are little.

#6. Always be making content for leadership

A simple rule of thumb is that 80% of your time should be spent creating content for people above you (the leadership) to read, and 20% must be spent collecting information from those who know.

If you so much as fart at work, capture it in a nice stacked bar graph and present it to leadership. Tables and numbers are always good foil because they make it look like things are happening in your business area because numbers keep changing.

Make at least one well-meaning Business Analyst your serf and finagle new reports, dashboards, alerts, and paraphernalia that you can forward, copy, and discuss with your bosses. 

#7. Always be making rules

If you’re not coming up with one new SOP, tenet, guideline or process a month at least, you’re losing the dull game. Create an intricate series of spoken and unspoken rules and processes, and wait like a dull spider for the prey to fall into your trap. You can pick them off one by one until all you have left is a stolid organization of fellow dullards all secreting their web. 

#8. Talk shop incessantly and nothing else

Severance isn’t a dystopian sci-fi but a documentary on dull people in corporations. When you are in the halls of work or around people you work with, sever any part of your personality that has nothing to do with your team, KPI and machinations to rise the corporate rank. In fact, it would be ideal if you destroy any part of you that doesn’t serve this purpose anyway.

Never give a strong personal opinion - this makes you a unique individual, which corporates struggle to incorporate into their grey hall of fame. Instead, be remembered as the person who runs a team effectively and nothing more.   

#9. Practice dullness

The world is full of distractions that try to pull you away—a book, a vacation, or a social media post from someone doing something that stirs you are all minefields of distraction. Never waver. Have your corporate email, messengers, and documents readily accessible on your phone and be available always so that you can quickly dip back into practice dullness if you feel you’re straying from the path. Be strong!

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If you are not a dull person, don’t lose all hope. You can become dull, too! Just practice. Keep checking those emails, making those reports, responding to those messages and before you know it, you’ll be dull as a dishwater and set up for corporate success!

Could be Worse,

Tyag