Office Survival Skills (Part I)

At some point during your working life, you will be in an office. Whether you work there, or are just passing through, it's important that you remember some of these basic skills to avoid the potential embarrassment, or even career derailment, that might otherwise result.

We here at Political Calculations care about your career, so we've put together an erratic series of tips to help you overcome some of the more common embarrassing situations you might encounter in the office. As many office grunts already know, the modern office is fraught with danger, so heed our warnings and you just might survive until retirement.

Today's tip focuses on one of the most potentially embarrassing things that can possibly happen to you in an office: using a permanent marker on a dry-erase board. Sure, they write a lot better on them than the dry-erase markers do, but when you have to erase them, you're in for a nasty surprise as whatever you've written takes on the hint of dry-erase board immortality as all the scrubbing you're doing with that little dry-erase board eraser proves futile.

So what's the modern desk slave to do after committing what may be the most common act of office vandalism in front of witnesses? That's where your office ju-jitsu skills come into play! Tell your stunned audience to "Watch this!" Then, calmly pick up a dry erase marker (the one you *should* have used) and scribble over a portion of what you've written.

The same chemicals inside of the common dry-erase marker that make them much less effective at writing on a dry-erase board than a permanent marker will now act to dissolve the ink left behind by the permanent marker! Even more miraculously, that seemingly useless and hopelessly small dry-erase board eraser will now literally wipe the board clean as if it were designed to do just that, as opposed to occupy space in the dry-erase board marker tray!

It's that easy! So go ahead and use that permanent marker proudly on the executive office suite's main conference room - you know you've always wanted to! Now's your chance while all the brass is watching, because now you know how to get out of what could turned into a really bad performance evaluation.