The first computers were big clumsy machines that used vacuum tubes. By today’s standards, they were extremely primitive. For example, they believed the sun was carried across the sky on the back of a giant turtle.

But the modern computer is much more sophisticated, and far smaller, thanks to a device called the “micro—chip,” which, although it is less than one-thousandth the size of a moderate zit, is capable of answering, in a matter of seconds, mathematical questions that would take millions of years for a human being to answer (even longer if he stopped for lunch).

How does the computer do this? Simple. It makes everything up. It knows full well you’re not going to waste millions of years checking up on it. So you should never use computers for anything really important, such as balancing your personal checkbook. But they’re fine for corporate use.

Let’s say you have to write a Safety Report. The old-fashioned, pre-computer way to do this would be something like this:

In March, we had two people who got sick because they forgot and drank coffee from the vending machine. Also, Ed Sparge set fire to his desk again. Ed has promised that from now on he will put his cigar out before he dozes off.

But now, using the graphics capability on your computer, you can produce a visually arresting and easy-to-understand report.

No modern corporation can survive unless its employees communicate with each other. For example, let’s say that Stan, who works in Building Administration, notices that the safety valve on the main steam boiler is broken. If he doesn’t communicate this information to Arnie, over in Maintenance, you are going to have little bits and pieces of the corporation spread out over three, maybe four area codes. So communication is very, very important. It should not, however, be confused with memos.

Ask any business school professor, and he’ll tell you a good memo is clear, concise, and well organized.

Now ask him what his annual salary is. It’s probably less than most top executives spend in a month on shoe maintenance. What you can learn from this is that in your business correspondence, you should avoid being clear, concise, and well organized. Remember the Cardinal Rule of Business Writing (invented by Cardinal Anthony Rule, 1898-1957): “The primary function of almost all corporate correspondence is to enable the writer to avoid personal responsibility for the many major bonehead blunders that constantly occur when you have a bunch of people sitting around all day drinking coffee and wearing uncomfortable clothing.”

There are big balloons of blame in every corporation, drifting gently from person to person. The purpose of your memos is to keep these balloons aloft, to bat them gently on their way. This requires soft, meaningless phrases, such as “less than optimal.” If you write a direct memo, a memo that uses sharp words such as “bad” to make an actual point, you could burst a balloon and wind up with blame all over your cubicle.

1. ALWAYS START BY SAYING THAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED SOMETHING, AND ARE ENCLOSING SOMETHING. These can be the same thing. For example, you could say: “I have received your memo of the 14th, and am enclosing it.” Or they can be two different things: “I have received a letter from my mother, and am enclosing a photograph of the largest-known domestically grown sugar beet.” As you can see, these things need have nothing to do with each other, or with the point of the memorandum. They are in your memo solely to honor an ancient business tradition, the Tradition of Receiving and Enclosing, which would be a shame to lose.

2. STATE THAT SOMETHING HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO YOUR ATTENTION. Never state who brought it. It can be virtually any random fact whatsoever. For example, you might say: “It has been brought to my attention that on the 17th of February, Accounts Receivable notified Collections of a prior past-due balance of $5,878.23 in the account of Whelk, Stoat, and Mandible, Inc.” Ideally, your reader will have nothing to do with any of this, but he will think he should, or else why would you go to all this trouble to tell him? Also, he will get the feeling you must be a fairly plugged-in individual, to have this kind of thing brought to your attention.

3. STATE THAT SOMETHING IS YOUR UNDERSTANDING. This statement should be firm, vaguely disapproving, and virtually impossible to understand. A good standard one is: “It is my understanding that this was to be ascertained in advance of any further action, pending review.”

4. END WITH A STRONG CLOSING LINE. It should leave the reader with the definite feeling that he or she is expected to take some kind of action. For example: “Unless we receive a specific and detailed proposal from you by the 14th, we intend to go ahead and implant the device in Meredith.”

The beauty of this basic memo format is that it can even be adapted for sending personalized communications to your subordinates (“It has come to my attention that your wife, Edna, is dead.”).

In addition to writing memos, every month or so you should generate a lengthy report. This is strictly so you can cover yourself in case something bad happens.

I. SUBJECT. This is entirely up to you. If you follow the format, it will have virtually no impact on the rest of the report.

II. INTRODUCTION. This should be a fairly long paragraph in which you state that in this report, you intend to explore all the ramifications of the subject, no matter how many it turns out there are.

III. STATEMENT OF PURPOSE: This is a restatement of the Introduction, only the sentences are in reverse order.

IV. OBJECTIVES: This is a restatement of the Statement of Purpose, only you put the sentences in a little numbered list.

V. INTRODUCTION. By now, nobody will remember that you already had this.

VI. BACKGROUND: Start at the dawn of recorded time.

VII. DISCUSSION. This can be taken at random from the Encyclopedia Britannica, because the only people still reading at this point have been able to continue only by virtue of ingesting powerful stimulants and will remember nothing in the morning.

VIII. CONCLUSIONS: You should conclude that your findings tend to support the hypothesis that there are indeed a great many ramifications, all right.

IX. INTRODUCTION. Trust me. Nobody will notice.

X. RECOMMENDATIONS: Recommend that the course of action outlined in the Discussion section (Ha ha! Let them try to find it!) should be seriously considered.