Old White Guy Playbook 

The short guide on how to succeed without really doing anything.  

Rely on your identity and social status in the following order of hierarchy.  

• Be a man in gender and sex.
• Be white.  
• Be heterosexual.
• Be tall.  
• Be rich. 
• Have a fancy title or social status. 
• Be handsome.

Performance tactics: 

• Ask for what you want, always get it.  
• Do extraordinarily little, make a lot of money, get a lot of praise.  
• Spend most of your time golfing or yachting and chumming it up with other old white guys, mutually talking  about how great you are and one up each other on what you know and what you have. 
• Be charming or be overbearing. Pick a side and stick with it or vacillate hard between the two for extreme whiplash.  
• If you choose charming, be so nice you become human Teflon for accountability, nothing sticks. 
• If you choose overbearing, be so loud nothing else is heard but you; control everything.  
• Take accountability for nothing, ever, at any time, except for good things other people have said and done. 

Behind every old white guy there are exhausted women doing all the work. Therefore, it is critical to follow the core 10 tactics of working with women and know how to use the tried-and-true confrontation skills. Do not worry, you do not have to be original, think much, or work hard, just pull from any of the below in any order.  You can also apply this to anyone who is not like you and you don’t like for any reason, our society at large says you are entitled to it.

When a woman is outperforming you: 

1. Be extra nice to her, turn on all charm, give her public compliments and appreciation while doing nothing, giving her more work, and collecting checks on her efforts and success. 
2. Take credit for all her excellent work. Repeat what she says, make all her good ideas yours. 
3. When assigning her more tasks that go above and beyond her job description or paygrade, be unclear, have unrealistic expectations, and offer no support or appreciation. 
4. Look for ways to get her out of the room at every turn. 
5. Undermine her at every turn with passive aggressive comments and questions, publicly point out her mistakes to spread doubt about everything she does. 
6. Micromanage. Show up for everything, get involved in everything, mansplain profusely. This will throw her off her game immediately. 
7. Find ways to set her up for failure by making mistakes yourself, then point the finger at her.  
8. Block and stall all progress and decisions she depends on you for.  
9. Punish her, make life unbearable and hope she leaves.  
10. Be extra nice to her face, then backstab her to everyone else. Backstabbing is best when done with profuse sexism because she is obviously a power-hungry bitch, too sensitive and emotional, or both. The double bind is an ancient ongoing project that is always effective due to its invasive nature.  

Woman confronting you: 

1. EVADE-EVADE-EVADE, never take accountability, EVER.

• Change the subject, if she brings it back to her issue, change it again. 
• Turn it around on her so she is on defense. 
• Bring up things you are concerned about. Pile these on her for the classic overwhelm effect. 
• Offer vague soothing comments with no substance. 
• Make it about you. Dump your stress or feelings on her as an excuse for your behavior and so she gives you empathy or help.  
• Question her authority or expertise to induce self-doubt. 
• Tell a long-long story that seems like there is a lesson or point but is really to distract and wear her down.  
• Gaslight! It never happened. You can also tell her that she is not remembering it correctly, replace it with your version of the story.
• Stop scheduling meetings with her, be less available and ignore her. 

2. Take verbal accountability-ish in the moment, say the “right things,” give her hope, then do nothing to change. Do not follow through or follow up. The “right things” to say are the following.  

4. Go to step 1: Woman outperforming you tactics.  Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

If you carefully follow these guidelines, the book of patriarchy and white supremacy will endow you with an ego the size of a stadium, success you haven’t earned, and a group of golf and yachting buddies who will echo chamber all of your ideas and experiences with the story of how you are all hard working self-made men. No one elses experience or opinion matters, especially if they have a vagina. You truly are great and deserve all the credit.

For further information please read Ijeoma Oluo’s Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America. The opening chapter is one of the best I have ever read and one I wish EVERYONE would read.

The critique here is not about PEOPLE, it is about BEHAVIOR, it is not about MEN but about TOXIC MASCULINITY. I appreciate all people who dismantle oppressive systems internally and externally everywhere. May we all sail in peace.

Shout out to my old white guy, who proves time and again that an old dog can learn new tricks and there are really lovely open hearted kind men in the world.