Flatulence and Your Dignity
By Dr. Lars Trembleberry, MD/FRT
Dignity is in short supply in corporate culture today. I learned this when conducting multiple employee interviews in researching my book, Flatulence and Your Career.
Subjects ranged from those with high moral values to a surprising number of those who support a toxic, "kill-or-be-killed" work environment—mind you, "toxic" here refers to corporate behavior, not explosive gas.
My findings revealed that it's hard enough to advance one's career without a horrid gas problem. To emit gas on the job is an almost surefire way to a pink slip!
In Flatulence and Your Career, I note a few common gas-inducers that can occur from working in a toxic environment, such as:
Swallowing Air: The shock of learning that your CFO is going to prison for embezzlement; or a board member being caught with an underage prostitute. Upon hearing such news, you instinctively gasp air through your mouth, introducing a large bubble into your stomach. That bubble will fester, ferment, and discharge with smelly intestinal influences from another orifice: your anus.
Stress: Executing wasteful pet projects to the whims of your boss; discovering a colleague of equal rank makes more than you; or seeing your 401(k) bottom out due to corporate malfeasance. This aggravates the intestines, causing your bowels to react much like you would emotionally: cry out and emit disgruntled feelings of anger and pain (i.e., flatulence).
To those of you who care about maintaining your dignity at work, all is not lost. While Flatulence and Your Career can't change your work culture, it can, and will, give you total control over your gas problem. Which, dear sufferer, gives you a leg up on those who create and support workplace toxicity—including your golden-parachuted upper management.
In other words, from working with so many flatulence suffers over the years, I can tell you that toxic people pass toxic gas like everyone else. To illustrate, I'll borrow from another common gas-inducer in my book: consumption of rich foods.
Let's imagine you've been asked to accompany your toxic boss to an important client lunch. Your client prefers Tex-Mex, which is most certainly an intestinal troublemaker.
Now imagine this lunch occurs after you've read (and absorbed) Flatulence and Your Career. You are now the master of your entire gas-producing nether regions. Therefore, if you're affected by the refried beans with chili sauce, no one will ever know.
Your boss (who has not read my book) isn't so fortunate. Doubled over in pain, he catches an Uber back to work alone where he locks himself in his office demanding not to be bothered. Your client is perplexed. Employees at the office are puzzled by the strange sounds and odors coming from behind your boss's door. It is only when everyone has left for the day that he emerges in order to keep his dignity in tact.
You, however, return from lunch with yours completely in tact! In fact, you've been able to calmly come up with a seemingly valid excuse your client accepts, and appreciates.
Your boss owes you one. Advantage: You. Best of all, you have something you can hold over his toxic head!
Remember, always suppress your gas, but never let anyone suppress your dignity. I can guarantee you that my book will go far in making that happen. Here's wishing you happy reading, and much suppression success!
