Surviving Nepocronyism

At the risk of creating an obscene neologism, the term Nepocronyism will be used throughout the article. Essentially, the practice of both Nepotism and Cronyism within the organization; I mean, it won’t be the first time that Uncle Bob’s nephew brings in one of his frat bros into the company and it won’t be the last time that the nephew squanders half the asset and still be chairman when Uncle Bob kicks the bucket.



It’s also quite the curiosity to note that Nepocronyism sounds a wee bit like Necropolis, the world of the dead in Greek mythology. Which directly translates to the career of most people in the organization, unless of course; you’re “in the family”.

My pet peeves with organizations that are blatantly Nepocronyistic is how they produce vision statements that are misleading, e.g.

“We are an organization of giants where every personnel will be given equal opportunity for success”.

Or

“We stand by an egalitarian and democratic process of advancement”.

For some strange reasons, the Dark Managers in these organizations just can’t bear the bad press of calling the company XYZ & Sons or XYZ and Co. I mean, the biggest organizations in the world are Nepotistic by nature, and for extremely valid reasons -> it’s a family run business. Look at IBM (the first bunch of decades), Bankcroft Family's Dow Jones, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, Sam Walton and Walmart etc.

As a Dark Manager, you have all the reasons to practice Cronyism. At the end of the day, it’s about who you can really trust in the company. With all the bad karma that you’ve been gathering, you’ll need the frat brother that shared a whore with you during sophomore. Heck, you still have pictures in case he runs out of line.

So here are a few hints on how to survive Nepocronism, in the event that the cards don’t play to your favour.

• Drop names when you’re talking to a head honcho, like, “I was classmates with Barrack Obama in Indonesia”. Barack sounds like “berak” which means “to take a dump” in Indonesian, so make up a number of anecdotes about how you use to stand up for Obama when he was still a scrawny big eared kid and that you guys still keep in touch.
  
  Dropping names do wonders as it elevates your social status without having to prove anything.
  

• Be chummy with them (Yes, you’ll have to go through an initiation of sorts)
  Be very careful with this advice, as it potentially means turning yourself into their servant dog and running errands. Being a blue blood all these years has helped them identify willing gophers. So be careful not to seem too obsequious. Secondly, you’ll have to shell out quite a fair bit of money to join in their leisure activities.
  

• Marry into them
  Pick the ugliest cousin and suck in your dignity. I need not go into details.
  
  
• Quit
  At the end of the day, if it’s really too hard and your manhood or womanhood just can’t stomach it, find yourself another company.
  

Better yet, start one with your friends, funded by your dad or a rich uncle’s money.