So I’m getting a vasectomy.

I know what you’re thinking: What does this have to do with communication?

Well, I submit that there is no more intimate form of communication than when one man fondles another man’s testicles, which is what just happened to me.

I just got back from my preliminary inspection with Dr. Mike, the man who will be responsible for clipping the wings on The Bald Eagle (how sick do you think Cindy is of me walking around the apartment saying things like, “The Bald Eagle is gonna have his wings clipped!!”).

You would think that a guy like Dr. Mike would be fairly stoic about his work. That’s why I was shocked when, after I first dropped my pants for the inspection, he blurted out:

“My GOD, you have a tremendous penis!”

Okay, I made that up. But he might have been thinking it.

The inspection overall went very well, with just one small, rather ugly incident. Right before we left, Cindy slammed Dr. Mike up against the wall, and screamed in his face:

“Listen to me, Mike. You need to understand that you’re monkeying with perfection on this one. Taking a scalpel to Steve’s genitals is like someone taking a chisel to Michaelangelo’s David. You better be real, real careful.”

Okay, I made that up, too. But she might have been thinking something along those lines.

The reason I felt the need to tell you about the vasectomy is because, as a communications consultant, I’m always on the lookout for “The Worst Job Possible.” I’ve done focus groups with retail employees, IT support staff, ditch diggers, assembly-line workers . . . all sorts of less than desirable careers, in my opinion.

But it dawned on me today that The Worst Job Possible has to be a urologist. I mean, Dr. Mike spends his entire working day fondling men’s genitalia and exploring their anuses. He’s sort of like a prostitute in that regard . . . only he gets paid more. I hope.

And through it all, he has to put up with yahoos like me, who think they are funny. Here was just one of the dozen or so exchanges we had, during the 10-minute fondling session:

Dr. Mike: “It’s important for you to know that you won’t be sterile until 12 to 16 weeks after the operation.”

Me: “Why’s that?”

Dr. Mike: “Because you’ll have live sperm in your system for that long. You need to ejaculate that sperm out before you’re sterile.”

Me: “Okay. Twelve to 16 weeks, huh?”

Dr. Mike: “Yes.”

Me: “If I ejaculate a lot, will I be sterile sooner?”

Dr. Mike: “Yes.”

Me: “I bet I can get it done in a week.”

Dr. Mike: “Sigh.”

Poor Dr. Mike. The next time you feel like you’re in a lousy job, just remember Dr. Mike.

Speaking of lousy jobs, I have a wonderfully horrific story to tell you about one communicator's run-in with a lying, scumbag of an IT person. I'll tell you about it on Monday.

Brace yourself: This may be the most important blog item I’ve ever written.

I know, I know. I know what you’re thinking: Steve, this blog has changed not only the entire industry of corporate communications, but in some small way the entire world, too. How can you top that?

You’re thinking: How can he possibly surpass the fiercely intellectual work that he’s already done? How can he possibly write something more significant than the item he wrote about the time he showed up hung over at a Catholic funeral, and accidentally sat his fat ass directly in the Holy Water tub, mangling the tub itself and forever soiling the Holy Spirit for Catholics everywhere?

Or maybe you’re thinking: How could he possibly write something more momentous and inspiring than the item he wrote about developing a near-homosexual crush on an IT person? What could be more weighty than his groundbreaking treatise on the importance of naps?

I realize the body of work on this blog will be studied by academics for years . . . but still, this may be the most important item I’ve ever written. Why? Because I’ve had a revelation that could change the way companies communicate bad news to their employees.

I had this revelation while undergoing a CAT scan. More on that later.

As anyone who works in employee communications knows, most organizations suck at communicating bad news to their employees.

Most companies, when faced with imminent bad news, take what I call the “Colonel Nathan Jessup Approach.”

You know Nathan Jessup. He’s the hard-ass Marine played by Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men.” He’s the one who screamed at that sissy little bedwetter Tom Cruise: “You can’t handle the truth!”

Most companies, when faced with bad news, play Nathan Jessup and treat their employees as wimpy little Tom Cruises. They think employees are scared little lambs who can’t handle the bad news.

So they sugarcoat things, they offer platitudes instead of hard truths, and rarely come out and just tell employees that things are about to get very, very bad.

So employees have all these false expectations. Then, of course, when the bad news hits, it’s worse than everyone thinks it’s going to be, because nobody—not their managers, not the company leadership, nobody—has been straight with them.

Here is my revelation: What if we flipped that? What if instead of sugarcoating things, we set the expectation that things were going to get really, really ugly?

What if we said that there were going to be tons of layoffs, slashed benefits, profit-sharing reductions, no Christmas bonuses, random castrations, and maybe even mandatory human sacrifices.

Or worse: What if we told the entire workforce that from now on, everyone would be reporting to IT? Or worse yet: Accounting.

But then what if—before there was a mass exodus out the door—we revealed the real bad news . . . and it wasn’t nearly as bad as what we had originally communicated?

In fact, what if this new bad news was almost good news, when compared to the original scenario that we had just rolled out a week or two earlier? Wouldn’t it be human nature to be so relieved that the news wasn’t as bad as originally predicted that morale might actually go up, despite the bad news?

I bet it would.

The reason I know this goes back to the CAT scan I just had. But first you need to know the back story. Literally.

I have a bad back. When you teach seminars and are on your feet for eight hours a day for days at a time, it’s easy to develop back pain. When you teach seminars and are on your feet for eight hours a day for days at a time, and you are fat, it’s almost guaranteed that you will have back pain.

My back pain comes and goes, and it’s never so bad that I can’t function. But last week, it got really bad. I think it’s because I’ve been traveling a lot lately, and teaching a lot.

It got so bad that last week I could barely drag myself to El Jardin’s for my regular Friday margarita lunch. That is bad.

And then something weird happened. The pain seemed to reach around from my back, and into my stomach. That had never happened. Now I had abdominal pain, and back pain.

And that was particularly scary for me, because my cousin Tommy went to the doctor with abdominal pain around this time last year, was diagnosed with cancer, and passed away this past summer. Tommy and I looked a lot alike . . . so I was convinced that I had the same genetic makeup that he had.

I was scared. Scared enough to go to the emergency room by myself, even though I’m petrified of doctors. Scared enough to get a CAT scan and full blood work. Scared enough to make about one zillion promises to God or anyone else who would listen that if I didn’t have a life-threatening disease, I was going to get and stay healthy.

Those hours in the ER, waiting for the results of the CAT scan, were some of the longest of my life. I must have replayed the phrase, “We found a mass in your stomach,” in my head at least 2,000 times.

I was convinced that my ticket was punched. I was already figuring out ways of making money while I was in whatever treatment I would have to take for whatever horrible disease I had.

I was writing the script in my head for the video message I would shoot for my son Zach, that he would read when he was 18, and that would be filled with all the life advice I never had a chance to give him.

I was mentally composing the message I would want someone to would read at my memorial service. I was wondering if anyone would bother having a memorial service.

I was saying things to myself like: “I don’t want to be a burden to anyone. When it gets to be so bad that I can’t function by myself, I’m going to get on my boat and drive it out into the middle of Lake Michigan, and blow my head off, Hemmingway-style."

And then the doctor came in. “The CAT scan didn’t show anything,” he said.

Then, after he disentangled himself from my bear hug (note to self: Asian doctors don't appear to be big on bear hugs), he continued: “The abdominal pain is probably just an extension of the back pain. I’m going to give you a prescription for Vicodin and a muscle relaxer. Try to take it easy.”

I was going to live! I was going to live with crippling back pain, but I was going to live! Medical science couldn’t do anything about the pain in my back and stomach . . . but I didn’t care!

I had staggered into the hospital as miserable as I’ve ever been, but I floated out on the wings of angels, happier than could be . . . even though my back and stomach were still throbbing!

Why? Because I was expecting the worst. So the reality, while it still sucked, was a blessing. In fact, any reality short of a terminal disease was a Godsend. Crippling back pain? Who gives a rat’s ass! Searing testicular cramps? Bring ‘em on!

Impotence? Ha! I laugh in the face of impotence. Kidney stones? I’ll piss rocks the size of marbles and giggle my ass off the the entire time!

What's that? I need a colonoscopy? Give me that tube, I’ll lube it up myself!

Why? Because I’m alive!

And after I got home and hugged my son for about 45 straight minutes, I started thinking:

Couldn’t this same principle work with communicating bad news? Couldn’t we lead employees to expect the absolute worst, so that the reality—no matter how bad it is—will seem okay by comparison?

It's certainly worth trying . . . because the way we do things now isn't working.

Oh, and guess what other good news came out of all this? I got Vicodin!!

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