Phonus Balognus

Phonus Bolognus

He bustled into the room, impressing me with his busyness, plopped into the other chair, and launched into his spiel, "Wow! these new Management-by-Objective merit reviews are really efficient, much easier to go through than the old way: "no muss, no fuss".

I only grunted, to let him know he could continue.

"Now," he began, "You've done a bang-up job for us this period, but you've got to learn to get along better with your peers: we've had too many complaints from the other programmers that you are brusque when they question you and too blunt in your criticisms. You've done your technical work as well as we could expect, but we want you to work on your 'people skills'. So tho' your numerical ranking is well into the 'competent' category, I know you'll be disappointed in your ranking, and your bonus, but that's so that you can improve! Do you have any questions? This is the part we call the moan-and-groan section," he winked conspiratorially.

"Well, I need you to tell me how Jesus Christ could have done any better this period than I did? By what no-muss-no-fuss hocus-pocus did you lower what should have been a near-perfect ranking down to mere competence?"

"Well, we DO ask a little more of our most experienced people; the scale is a little higher for y'all..."

"What? an extra onus? on top of doing the work for these drones in addition to my own, there's an Onus Bonus? A no-muss-no-fuss, hocus-pocus onus bonus, AND I have to be nice to them, too?

"Oh, as I say, the other programmers ..."

"IF I WAS Jesus Christ," I thundered, "I would have driven them out of my cubicle with a whip, instead of a tongue lashing!"

"Hey! moan-and-groan is one thing, but ..."

"What kind of phoney-baloney is this?" I ranted, "the MBO rankings are supposed to be objective and individualized, but what you're telling me is that they're subjective and collective, and bogus!"

So he stood up, and made to leave, "Well, I hear you saying that you don't like the system, and I can see that you're upset, but this is the policy, now, and I have to follow it."

I swiveled my chair around to watch him leave, and I said to him, "You can take your no-muss-no-fuss, moan-and-groan, phoney-baloney, hocus-pocus, bogus onus bonus and shove it up your heinous anus!"

But I was only kidding.