iCheese
These are from the book “Who Moved My Cheese?” by Spencer Johnson, M.D.
- Change Happens
- They Keep Moving the Cheese
- Anticipate Change
- Get Ready for the Cheese to Move
- Monitor Change
- Smell the Cheese Often So You Know When It Is Getting Old
- Adapt to Change Quickly
- The Quicker You Let Go of Old Cheese, The Sooner You Can Enjoy New Cheese
- Change
- Move with the Cheese
- Enjoy Change!
- Savor the Adventure and the Taste of New Cheese!
- Be Ready to Quickly Change Again and Again
- They Keep Moving the Cheese
These are some real-life cheese rules.
- Never give your old cheese away in anticipation of finding new cheese.
- Never turn down cheese offered to you, even if you already have too much.
- Never turn down cheese offered to you just because you’ve never seen that kind before and have no idea what to do with it. When someone brings unfamiliar cheese to you, your response should be “I’ve done this many times.”
- Don’t let anyone else know you’ve found some cheese.
- Don’t share your cheese.
- Cheese can go away at any time without notice, hence #5.
- Cheese can go bad at any time. When this happens, disregard #5 and go ahead and share your cheese. An added benefit of this is that it will appear as if you’re finding cheese for others and you’ll be a hero. (Wait a minute? Isn’t this what the managers are supposed to be doing?)
- Do not ask for tools (e.g. software, or a computer that is at least as fast as the secretary’s) that will help you bring in new cheese.
- Do not expect your head cheese (i.e. manager, but we wanted to use the word cheese as much as possible) to find you cheese. You are expected to find the cheese so they can take credit for keeping their people working. (Besides, where did you think they get their overhead dollars?)
- Be careful. Just because it looks like cheese and/or smells like cheese, it may not actually be cheese.1 (This reminds us of the Cheech2 and Chong3 dog story4. If you don’t know who Cheech and Chong are then go to an antique store and try to find one of their records.5 Or you could look at their website. - editor)
- You know you’re in trouble when management actually instantiates initiatives with “cheese” in the title (as in, keep an even closer eye on your cheese, because they now know you have some and they are going to move/grate/melt/crumble/take it, whether you want them to or not).1
- Sometimes the cheese will be forced down your throat. When that happens, the correct response is “thank you sir, may I have another?” Remember, they know how old you are and after a certain age, they really don’t care if you stay or leave, and would prefer it if you left so they don’t have to provide a severance package. Forcing cheese down your throat will help them, and if you choke, no loss. There are others where you came from.
- When cheese is scarce, watch out! There are people you work with who are incapable of finding their own cheese. They are, however, capable of talking loud in meetings and criticizing the work of other as their only way to show management how important they are. Management, unfortunately, is clueless on technical matters so this will be the only way they can make a judgement, and they will start taking your cheese and giving it to these people.
- Did you ever think that maybe they keep moving the cheese because they don’t want you to find it?
And finally,
- Never cut the cheese (oh come on, you were thinking this yourself).
Other Cheese-Related Thoughts
- It’s not what you know, but who you know. The "N" in INL stands for Nepotism. (I tried to figure out how to insert the word “Cheese” into this but finally gave up.)
- When your management begins using the word “transparency,” begin to worry. Translated, it means “we want to know everything you᾿re working on because we᾿re clueless.” It does not mean what the word really means. It’s more like a one-way mirror. They want to know what you᾿re doing, but when you look to see what᾿s going on in the organization all you see is yourself. It᾿s just a word and means absolutely nothing. (No “Cheese” here, either. Sorry.)
- Always activate your screen-saver when you walk away from your computer. This will prevent others from entering your office while you’re out and discovering that you actually have cheese.
- Remember, cheese spelled backwards is eseehc.
- Yes, I can say “Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun” backwards, from memory. But surprisingly enough, that has never helped me in a single situation. (If you’re so young you don’t where that’s from I
feel sorry forenvy you.)
1 Submitted by Ron S.9 (Ron is now on the list of people who can’t report this website.)
2 Cheech Marin is on some show with Don Johnson, if anybody cares.8
3 Tommy Chong makes irregular appearances on That 70’s Show.8
4 Okay. It goes something like this. "Looks like dog , smells like dog , feels like dog , tastes like dog , it must be dog . Good thing we didn’t step in it." (Hey, come to think of it, this is exactly like some cheese I’ve come across.)
5 record (rêk’erd) n. a disc, usually made of vinyl, designed for playing on a phonograph6
6 phonograph (fo’ne-graf) n. An instrument that uses a vibrating needle to reproduce recorded sound from the grooves of a disc (i.e. a record). Commonly called a record player, (or turntable by an audiophile7).
7 audiophile (ô’dê-a-fïl) n. A person who calls a record player a turntable.
8 Cheech and Chong, neither of who (Or is it whom? Whom cares.) have provided any cheese-related quotes, both are still alive, and both make more money than you ever will.
9 Stewart
2 Cheech Marin is on some show with Don Johnson, if anybody cares.8
3 Tommy Chong makes irregular appearances on That 70’s Show.8
4 Okay. It goes something like this. "Looks like dog , smells like dog , feels like dog , tastes like dog , it must be dog . Good thing we didn’t step in it." (Hey, come to think of it, this is exactly like some cheese I’ve come across.)
5 record (rêk’erd) n. a disc, usually made of vinyl, designed for playing on a phonograph6
6 phonograph (fo’ne-graf) n. An instrument that uses a vibrating needle to reproduce recorded sound from the grooves of a disc (i.e. a record). Commonly called a record player, (or turntable by an audiophile7).
7 audiophile (ô’dê-a-fïl) n. A person who calls a record player a turntable.
8 Cheech and Chong, neither of who (Or is it whom? Whom cares.) have provided any cheese-related quotes, both are still alive, and both make more money than you ever will.
9 Stewart