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I will sometimes contradict myself. I will often contradict you, usually in front of your clients, and then pretend to take a call on my phone while you handle damage control.</p> <p>Asking employees to document and submit a log of their hourly activities does not count as busy work so long as I preface it by saying, “This is not intended to be busy work.”</p> <p>I will drop names. I will drop them like they’re hot.</p> <p>I believe that business is best done in person, which is why I never read important emails.</p> <p>One of my opinions is worth three of your facts.</p> <p>I will reward members of my team for good work with praise and other non-monetary forms of positive reinforcement. Examples of good work include responding to emails on weekends, agreeing with something I say in large group meetings, and belonging to a chapter of the same national fraternity as the one I was in.</p> <p>I will challenge my team to solve the problems I unnecessarily created for them.</p> <p>Every member of my team is unique and indispensable, so I will make it virtually impossible for them to be transferred or promoted.</p> <p>The fact that I have an <span class="caps">MBA</span> from a third tier university means that I can use words like “market valuation,” “expected yield,” and “externality,” but rarely ever in the correct context.</p> <p>I will lead my team, mostly through the elaborate maze of hoops I jump through while chasing a fictitious promotion which exists only so that upper management can keep me motivated to continue working 90 hour weeks.</p> <p>I will be reliably late to meetings which I myself called and tagged on your calendar as “urgent,” and then need to leave early, preventing anything from being accomplished.</p> <p>Jargon is not meaningless as long as it is strategic, measurable, and scalable.</p> <p>I will make at least one effort per month to engage my direct reports on a more personal level, whether that means talking about sports, asking about their children, or telling them about my marital problems. The topic is not important, so long as I have demonstrated that I am not too proud to stoop down to their level for a few seconds.</p> <p>I will become diabolically drunk with the slightest sip of power.</p> <p>I believe my female employees deserve as much recognition as my male employees, which is why every time I compliment a male employee for his intelligence, I also compliment a female employee for her looks.</p> <p>I will motivate my team to victory like a surgeon leading his soldiers into the championship game. When I have no idea what I am talking about, I will use an awkwardly-worded simile, which I will refer to as a metaphor.</p> <p>I will form a super exclusive club with other middle managers where we only eat lunch with each other, share all sorts of inside jokes, require an elaborate secret handshake to enter each other’s offices, and wear matching rings which, when touched together, turn us into a single, giant super-manager with unlimited budget approval powers.</p> <p>But if a promotion opens up, I will stab them in the back in a heartbeat.</p> </div> <div id="addThis">  <div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style "> <a class="addthis_button_facebook_like" fb:like:href="http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-middle-managers-oath" addthis:url="http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-middle-managers-oath" fb:like:layout="button_count" style="width:107px !important"></a> <a class="addthis_button_tweet"></a> <a class="addthis_button_google_plusone" g:plusone:size="medium"></a> </div> <script type="text/javascript">var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};</script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://s7.addthis.com/js/250/addthis_widget.js#username=mcsweeneys"></script>  </div> <div class="ornamentDivider"></div> <div class="whereToNextGroup"> <h2>SUGGESTED READS</h2> <a href="/articles/an-hr-manager-responds-to-alleged-infractions" class="chicletPadding coloredLink">An HR Manager Responds to Alleged Infractions</a><br />by Rick Stoeckel (5/17/2007)<br /><br /> <a href="/articles/things-i-imagine-my-boss-does-when-he-goes-home-for-the-night" class="chicletPadding coloredLink">List: Things I Imagine My Boss Does When He Goes Home for the Night</a><br />by Nick Pyle (5/4/2005)<br /><br /> <a href="/articles/things-i-cannot-say-to-my-unpaid-interns-as-it-would-make-me-look-like-an-ungrateful-bitch" class="chicletPadding coloredLink">List: Things I Cannot Say to My Unpaid Interns As It Would Make Me Look Like an Ungrateful Bitch</a><br />by Amy Adoyzie (5/4/2005)<br /><br /> </div> <div class="whereToNextGroup"> <h2>RECENTLY</h2> <a href="/articles/minutes-from-a-town-hall-meeting-of-my-anxieties" class="chicletPadding coloredLink">Minutes from a Town Hall Meeting of My Anxieties</a><img alt="New" class="newTag" height="10" src="/assets/newTag-ad0b11c72ebcca684b9f0a839f60f796.png" title="New" width="10" /><br />by Sam Shelstad (7/2/2014)<br /><br /> <a href="/articles/what-does-your-birth-date-say-about-you" class="chicletPadding coloredLink">Testomania: What Does Your Birth Date Say About You?</a><img alt="New" class="newTag" height="10" src="/assets/newTag-ad0b11c72ebcca684b9f0a839f60f796.png" title="New" width="10" /><br />by Janet Manley (7/2/2014)<br /><br /> <a href="/articles/a-prayer-for-the-sunburned" class="chicletPadding coloredLink">A Prayer for the Sunburned</a><img alt="New" class="newTag" height="10" src="/assets/newTag-ad0b11c72ebcca684b9f0a839f60f796.png" title="New" width="10" /><br />by Matt McCarron (7/1/2014)<br /><br /> </div> <div class="whereToNextGroup"> <h2>POPULAR</h2> <a href="/articles/client-feedback-on-the-creation-of-the-earth" class="chicletPadding coloredLink">Client Feedback On the Creation of the Earth</a><br />by Mike Lacher (5/30/2014)<br /><br /> <a href="/articles/our-band-only-sold-one-copy-of-our-album-and-wed-like-it-back" class="chicletPadding coloredLink">Our Band Only Sold One Copy of Our Album and We’d Like it Back</a><br />by Jake Tuck (6/26/2014)<br /><br /> <a href="/articles/im-comic-sans-asshole" class="chicletPadding coloredLink">Monologue: <span style="font-family:'Comic Sans MS', 'Comic Sans', 'Marker Felt';">I’m Comic Sans, Asshole.</span></a><br />by Mike Lacher (6/15/2010)<br /><br /> </div> <form accept-charset="UTF-8" action="/articles/search" class="articleSearchForm" method="get"><div style="margin:0;padding:0;display:inline"><input name="utf8" type="hidden" value="✓" /></div> <p> <input class="articleSearchFormTextField" id="q" name="q" size="50" type="text" /> <input name="commit" type="submit" value="Search" /> </p> </form> <div class='linksBar'> <a href="/articles/archives" class="coloredLink">ARCHIVE</a> | <a href="/authors" class="coloredLink">BROWSE BY AUTHOR</a> | <a href="/columns" class="coloredLink">ALL COLUMNS</a> | <a href="/columns/lists" class="coloredLink">LISTS</a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="divider"> </div> <div id='aboutMcSweeneysFooter'>McSweeney’s is a publishing company based in San Francisco.<br /> As well as operating a <a href="http://www.mcsweeneys.net/tendency">daily humor website</a>, we also publish <em><a href="http://www.mcsweeneys.net/books">Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern</a></em>, <em><a href="http://www.believermag.com/">the Believer</a></em>, and an ever-growing <em><a href="http://www.mcsweeneys.net/books">selection of books</a></em> under various imprints. 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