Our resident corporate Agony Uncle, CEO Ken Cheng, tackles business challenges – so you don’t have to.
Dear Ken Cheng,
I promised one of my employees a raise before Christmas. However, starting the New Year, I realised I won’t be able to follow through on this promise. What should I do?
– Linda, Ilford
Ken Cheng:
Don’t worry. Here’s a big secret to business:
Nothing you say before the end of a New Year matters.
The December period is a dead zone that exists outside of time and space. Every project you begin, every plan you devise, every promise you make. Meaningless.
Every single thing you say and do in this time is automatically null void.
This is a rule that every serious businessman (or woman) understands. If anyone takes anything you do seriously in this time, they’re delusional.
I don’t believe in object permanence. Once you throw away the 2025 calendar, it never existed.
Nothing in the previous calendar year matters now. It is a hard reset that wipes away all the mistakes you made.
The time you set your social media manager’s dress on fire during the Office Christmas party? Didn’t happen.
The time I backed into the intern’s car in the parking lot because I was too into my business self-help audiotape: never occured.
I once proposed to my partner on December 16th and she said yes. Unfortunately she wasn’t a serious businessman (or woman), and thought this was binding. Come January, I acted like we were never engaged.
That’s the power of the December null zone. You can do whatever you want in that time and you aren’t beholden to anything. Use and abuse it.
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