Flip-Flops and Microwaved Fish: Navigating the Dos and Don'ts of Workplace Culture (Second Edition)

By Peter Yawitz

Revised Edition! A Young Business Professional’s Guide to Office Communication and Workplace Culture

Flip-Flops and Microwaved Fish offers very practical and hysterically funny advice on effective office communication. It has become the go-to guide for people either starting out in a career, being promoted to manager, or working for an American company for the first time.

The book provides useful career advice and workplace communication skills that can be immediately implemented to help anyone navigate through and succeed in their company culture.

In a light-hearted and conversational way, and using tons of examples, Peter Yawitz, a 30-year veteran in global communications consulting, walks readers through not only formal and written rules of office communication but also unwritten business norms. As “Someone Else’s Dad,” he counsels a new generation of workers without the nagging and judgment they might receive from their own parents. His candid and action-oriented advice will help readers get better at mastering small talk, writing persuasive emails, making sense of the hybrid workplace, dealing with sneaky coworkers, managing distracted bosses, and asking for a raise.

Readers will find an advocate in Yawitz, someone who can help them succeed both professionally and socially at work. They’ll laugh out loud while they develop the insights needed to advance in their careers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
• Release date: Aug 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9781632996213

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Day One

It’s finally here: your first official day at a new job. Your heart is pounding with nervous excitement, and you can’t wait to get to work. You spend your first few hours—or days—filling out paperwork with Human Resources and sitting through mandatory training about what you legally can or can’t do or say in the office. During your training you might watch short, poor-quality videos that you’re pretty sure were videotaped in the 1980s since all the people in them have wide ties, crazy shoulder pads, and big hair. Their collective acting ability stinks.

Eventually you get your ID badge and official photo and learn about systems and processes. So far, so good. Sure, earlier that morning you accidentally opened a door, causing an alarm to screech, and then had to deal with a lengthy interrogation from some burly, humorless guys from Security, but hey, at least no one threw you out in the street (not yet anyway) and said, Sorry, we made a big mistake hiring you.

Finally, after what seems like an eternity, you get settled at your new workstation, ready to be welcomed by the team you met during your interview process. Some of your new coworkers see you and with big smiles start walking over to greet you.

But suddenly you panic. Where you grew up, men and women who know each other go in for bear hugs. You’re almost positive that people aren’t supposed to hug and kiss at work even if they are wearing masks, but these excited-looking coworkers are rushing toward you so fast that you’re reminded of your family reunions, where crazy Aunt Minnie always bounds over for her annual unwanted slobber. The videos on harassment warned everyone that unwanted affection at work is a big red flag, but you’re scared all of a sudden that you’ll be forced to deal with a harassment suit within your first five minutes of working here. Not to mention being infected by the latest contagious viral strain.

Now that you think about it, these coworkers did send you some overly friendly emails (Can’t wait to have you join our team!!! Yippee!!☺☺). Maybe bro hugs are the norm here.

Now it seems those coworkers are walking toward you in slow motion— coming in for a very cheery welcome. As they close in, you wonder if they can see the sweat mustache forming over your upper lip or the circles of perspiration appearing under your armpits. Your mind is racing. Pucker up, bear hug, or handshake? Pucker up, bear hug, or handshake? You feel your body shaking in anticipation. You’re pretty sure you’re doing something weird with your lips, and the sweat mustache is starting to drip.

Finally, as your coworkers reach you, they extend their hands. Some even offer their elbows. Of course they do; what was that stupid stuff going through your mind? Though your palms are drenched, you gratefully return their gestures. Better a squishy handshake than an inappropriate smooch. That would have been embarrassing. You make a note to yourself: definitely no kissing, no hugs. You wish you had known someone to ask for advice about that beforehand.

Later in the day, you’re sitting in a room with the rest of the team, and you notice that one of your coworkers seems to be staring at your feet. You look down also, wondering if you’d stepped in something. But everything looks normal—your shoelaces are tied, your socks aren’t slipping down. Maybe your pants are a little short compared to everyone else’s. You also observe that in comparison to the dark or fancy striped socks your coworkers are wearing, your white cotton athletic socks really stand out. In fact, they are almost blindingly white. You were told to dress in business casual, but there was nothing in the welcome manual about appropriate sock type, material, or color. You feel your whole body and persona are screaming to the team, Outsider! You try to pull the legs of your trousers a little lower to cover them in case other people start to notice them too, and you wish your mother hadn’t sent you a 12-pack of them. Maybe your socks look inappropriate, and maybe, quite possibly, you look inappropriate. Did I dress all wrong for work? you wonder, feeling uneasy. If only someone had given you advice on this beforehand.

You also notice that your coworkers are using sayings and expressions you’re not familiar with. "I’ll be out of pocket (What?), so don’t boil the ocean on this (Huh?). But remember, we need to play in the sandbox with them (Sandbox?)." Suddenly, you feel like more than just an outsider—you feel as though you’ve entered an alternate universe. How are you ever going to know what people are talking about here?

A Note from Dad on Weird Language

Don’t panic! Sometimes, even the people using the clichés and expressions don’t know what they mean. And some phrases are used more than others in different workplaces. Read on. I’ll explain some of the more common sayings later in the book.

Your anxiety level is at the near-explosion mark on the stress meter, and you realize that you’re much less prepared for working in this office than you thought. You are starting to feel like an imposter and wondering why you were hired.

Whom can you ask about some of this stuff so you’re not embarrassed and don’t look like you have no idea what’s going on? Who can help you figure out what you don’t know and communicate effectively in this bizarre new world? Who can reassure you that you do belong?

You could ask your dad, you think, but he’ll give the same just-be-a-team-player-and-keep-your-mouth-shut-and-by-the-way-did-you-talk-to-my-college-bud-Ed-about-working-for-him? speech he’s always given you. Thanks, Dad, talk to you soon. Bye.

Advice from Someone Who Knows His Way Around

The best advice you ever received might indeed have been from your own dad, a college professor, a wise but scary-looking old uncle, or maybe even a friend. But not all these people have navigated through different workplace settings. You need to talk to someone who can explain how work works in these kinds of situations. (And I’m not talking about your dad’s college pal Ed.) Even better, you need to hear from someone who not only is experienced but also has been a longtime consultant to global companies, working with teams and individuals of many nationalities. And since you won’t listen to your own dad, or call Ed, you need advice from me, someone else’s dad.

People often ask me how to behave, write, and speak when they’re dealing with unfamiliar situations such as starting a new job or working with colleagues or clients who come from different cultures. They ask questions like:

•What do my bosses really mean?

•Will people understand my emails?

•What’s the polite way to speak up in a meeting?

•How can I develop relationships when only half the people are in the office and the others are working from home?

•Do I really have to answer coworkers who talk to me from adjacent toilet stalls?

•Are white cotton athletic socks actually uncool? (Because I do have a 12-pack.)

•How can I remain true to who I am and still feel like I belong?

Whether you’re someone just starting out in the corporate world, an expat working for an American company, a non-American working for an American company, or a person reentering the workforce after a long time, I’m here to help you, coach you, and answer your questions about how to navigate a new environment or culture when you feel like an outsider. In this book, I share with you my best advice on how to communicate effectively in workplace situations and give you useful tips you can put into practice right away.

Do I have every single answer? No, that would be a much bigger book. But I do offer this as a solid starting point and promise great, actionable advice. And my website, www.someoneelsesdad.com, and social media accounts (@someoneelsesdad) offer advice on even more.

By the way, while I really am someone else’s dad, countless people have told me that I’ve been like a dad to them. During the course of my career, young professionals seem to have always gravitated toward me for advice. Maybe, knowing I won’t judge them, they find it easier to talk to me than to their own dads. Maybe, by virtue of what I do, I have some additional insights they just haven’t heard elsewhere. Maybe, because of the way I am, they like that I make things useful, understandable, and applicable for them. Whatever the reason, I’m glad they think of me that way, and I appreciate being able to step into the role of Dad to offer practical, caring, real-world, hopefully entertaining advice on how to manage life at work. I’ve guided a lot of people in their careers and done it in a way that’s made a positive, lasting impact in workplaces.

Even though I’ve been a communication coach, consultant, teacher, and facilitator for global companies for over 30 years, for ten years before that, I was an eager, young employee in fast-paced American workplaces. And I never forgot the anxiety I felt about making basic work decisions and feeling like I didn’t fit in. Today I train teams, both in-person and virtually, all across the globe, helping workers understand cultural differences, personality styles, and expectations to achieve specific goals—anything to ease people’s anxieties. I show professionals how and when to communicate, how to manage upward and sideways in a company, and how to deal with personalities, priorities, and peculiarities of their workplace.

I have an undergrad degree from Princeton and an MBA from the Wharton School. I’ve also taught management communication at Columbia Business School, the MIT Sloan School of Management, and the Tuck School at Dartmouth. And, believe it or not, I’ve done a lot of comedy writing, lyric writing, and performing about business and communication. (Find me on YouTube and check out Cliché Bingo, a song I wrote using 85 business buzzwords.) Let me help you find your way in your new workplace. You’ll be navigating like a pro in no time. Maybe you’ll even be able to show off with some fancy business buzzwords.

I’ve always been a careful observer of how people interact (or don’t interact) at work. I’ve seen how seemingly innocuous words, comments, behaviors, and even body language affect people both positively and negatively. And I’ve watched bright young people from different regions and cultures struggle to understand and navigate different work environments, customs, personality types, hierarchies, and ways of communicating. Maybe it’s the dad in me, but it’s hard for me to see young professionals having a hard time when I know I could help them do something about it. So here it is, a book that offers you the practical advice and useful tips you need for dealing with life and people in different workplaces.

And don’t ever worry that you should be like everyone else. Companies thrive when their workforce is made up of people with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and ways of thinking. Just because everyone else goes to the trendy salad place and buys $20 super greens for lunch doesn’t mean that you can’t bring in a container of leftover stew. Don’t change who you are, just be aware of cultural norms. You do belong.

Think of this as a reference guide of sorts. You can read through it from start to finish or skip around to find answers to questions you have. You don’t need to tackle each topic I cover in this book, but at some point in your career if you find yourself looking for advice, flip through the pages in the section that applies.

Here’s my first bit of dad advice: Put on sunscreen even when it’s cloudy out, make sure you drink plenty of water, always use good grammar, and call me once a week so I at least know you’re alive. I’m kidding; you decide how much water you need. My advice will be better than that. But don’t forget the sunscreen.

One

A NEW WORKPLACE

I don’t want to generalize about a typical person or workplace. That would probably not help you a whole lot since there’s tremendous diversity of experience with different companies and, for that matter, with different personality types. A successful company can be located in an old, unrenovated industrial space, where your multinational office mates go to work every day wearing ratty clothes and put their feet up on broken-down, rickety furniture. A successful company can just as easily operate in a sleek, ultra-finished urban office, where the only sound might seem to come from the stylish, ultra-polished shoes of busy, ultra-polished employees on expensive, ultra-plush carpets. A successful company can also have no office space at all. Your coworkers might be ambitious or relaxed, bold or reserved, risk-taking or cautious, and everything in between.

For the purposes of familiarizing you with some of the terrain, I think we might be able to at least make some generalities about what many business leaders and companies strive to achieve. And the most general goal is to be successful.

Success, however, can mean different things to different leaders. And how those leaders aim to reach their goals can have a strong effect on the work environment. For example, one leader’s fiercely competitive way of achieving success can pervade a corporate culture. If all employees buy into that way of working, success may be easier to attain.

A problem can arise when merging companies with very different cultures have a hard time getting Company A’s employees to do things the way Company B has always done them. How does everyone achieve success together now?

What to Know about People at Work

Most people are reasonably friendly and receptive at work. Sure, grumpy, shy, inflexible, rude, nasty, and overall weird people find their ways into offices. Still, the openness many Americans display can perplex people who come from parts of the world where employees are expected to conform to more prescribed roles or more traditional social behaviors. It’s not uncommon for managers in the US to ask about employees’ spouses and kids, their hobbies and interests, and details about how they spent their weekends, because they have a genuine interest in knowing about others’ lives outside of work. As long as the questions stay within reasonable professional bounds—meaning staying away from topics you don’t consider too personal or uncomfortable—you’ll likely find yourself chatting from time to time about things you do outside of work.

To help you start out right, keep in mind three types of people with common but challenging communication styles you may encounter at work: 1) people who are direct; 2) people who are passive; and 3) people who are passive-aggressive.

People Who Are Direct

In general, businesspeople try to accomplish a lot in a day, so they tend to like to get information quickly. People with a direct, fast-paced style may speak quickly, brashly, or candidly. They might send prompt replies to emails, expect you to be ready at any time for a video call, approach you at your desk, and want tasks to be completed sooner than you might expect. It’s not uncommon for impatient businesspeople to twirl their index fingers in a circle to signify speed it up if a story or message they’re listening to is dragging on too long. If you’re not familiar with these cues, you might not recognize someone else’s impatience. (By the way, some say this behavior is aggressive. I dislike that label because the underlying meaning connotes force and potential nastiness. And while there are people around who fit that description, I want to focus on the much more direct style in which people want everyone to get the point of something as quickly as possible.)

Coworkers who have a direct way of communicating may say things like:

•Don’t beat around the bush.

•So what’s the bottom line?

•Let’s cut to the chase.

•Net net.

•At the end of the day . . .

•Get to the point.

•Just give me the headline.

All these expressions mean the same thing: Quickly tell me what your main point, conclusion, or request is. And the subtext is, Stop wasting my limited time with unnecessary details.

Many people unfamiliar with direct communicators have come to me in a panic. My primary advice is not to take impatience personally. In most cases, people who are being direct don’t mean to be rude. If you learn how to take their directness at face value and respond appropriately, your interaction with them will be more effective, and you’ll do better at work.

To best communicate with coworkers and supervisors who have direct styles, practice getting to the point more quickly. Your cultural background or brain’s unique wiring may require you to work harder. Our minds work in a linear way: point 1, point 2, point 3; therefore, conclusion. Training yourself to bypass the points to get quickly to the conclusion takes practice. We’ll discuss how to do this more in chapter 5, The Right Way to Write.

Many non-Americans I’ve worked with have a very difficult time answering quick questions about what they’re trying to tell or sell at work because their schooling emphasized presenting lots of background before getting to a conclusion. Before I tell you what I need, let me go back to the history of the world and how we got there. Back in the Middle Ages . . .

In French schools, for example, students are taught from a very young age how to create an argument by formulating a thesis (la thèse), presenting a contrarian view with an antithesis (l’antithèse), and concluding with a synthesis (la synthèse). Since they learned this method early in life, many French businesspeople have had to adjust their thought process to present la synthèse up front, which requires them to be intentional in their approach and thinking. But they do it because that’s how you interact successfully with people who have a direct communication style.

A Chinese client once told me she totally bombed at a presentation at a US financial firm because culturally she wasn’t prepared with the kind of communication skills that would help her persuade a group of fast-paced US bankers. She said in China people would be considered rude if they tried to make a direct recommendation at the outset of a meeting. To illustrate this client’s cultural context, she told me to imagine a drawing of a large spiral with a big dot in the middle and a loose end on the outside. In China the actual recommendation would be at the dot in the center, but you would never go there first, and maybe you would never even get there at all. Instead, she said, you would start speaking obliquely, as though you were beginning at the loose end, then make your way inward, getting more and more specific as you slowly moved toward the center. Once it becomes apparent where you’re going with your message, decision makers may start to nod slowly, then eventually more rapidly to demonstrate that they get it. And once you realize that the decision maker understands your recommendation (I guess all that nodding would be the big clue), you would stop talking, even though you might not have arrived at that dot in the center. In Chinese cultural context, this would help lead to a mutual understanding or successful outcome. But in a cultural context in which some leaders and peers gravitate toward a direct style of communication, this would potentially lead to frustration, miscommunication, misalignment of goals, or an unrealized outcome.

Don’t let others’ direct styles upset you or make you think you’re incompetent because your mind doesn’t work as fast as theirs. When you work with very direct people, you may have to prepare a bit more before you speak or write to them. For example, think about presenting at the outset the main conclusions from a study you prepared and then present the supporting points. Remember that being direct doesn’t mean being abrupt; being direct and polite at the same time will be the way to go.

People Who Are Passive

On the other end of the spectrum are people who apologize for things they do or who won’t or can’t commit to a position. I don’t want to get into these people’s psychological profiles, but working with them can be as challenging as working with the direct types.

For example, because they have a hard time making decisions, passive people may ask you to research many options, listen to what you’ve come up with, and then ask what you think they should do. Since the original task was simply to research, you may not be prepared to come up with recommendations, especially if you don’t know all the relevant factors that would go into a suitable decision.

Similarly, passive managers may not be clear about a team’s goals because they fear they’ll make the wrong decision. In these situations, team members typically become frustrated because they haven’t been given any directions about how to prioritize tasks.

While this list isn’t comprehensive, I’ve put together some things you might hear passive people say. Note that many are apologetic and show a lack of confidence:

•I hope you don’t mind me giving my opinion . . .

•"I’m probably way off base here, and I bet I’m wrong, and this comment surely won’t add anything to our conversation, but