Fangbear Gets What Fangbear Wants and So Can You!

As Fangbear understands it, you law school jerkburgers are off to the FMC Negotiation Competition in the coming days. That’s nice – you running around trying to fill your resumes with useful gobbledygook ahead of interview season. Fair enough. Being a master of all things evil, Fangbear is a fan of the market economy. Thus, to aid you in you pathetic attempts to succeed in life, let Fangbear guide you through the steps to negotiating well! You’re welcome, dorksticks!

Experts recommend the book “Getting to Yes”. It should be called “Getting to Sleep”. Fangbear wasted 45 seconds of his precious life leafing through that insomnia-buster before moving on to more engaging media – 1998’s The Negotiator starring Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey. Fangbear thinks it was a documentary.

This is what Fangbear learned.

FMC recommends business attire. Wrong! You’ll need a flak jacket and a bullet proof vest. As soon as you enter the negotiating room, pull out your megaphone and announce to the other side, “LET’S WORK THIS OUT! YOU HAVE TOO MUCH TO LIVE FOR!” This will open the lines of communication and put the other side at ease.

Now the negotiating can begin for real! You want to appear sensitive to their needs, but remain in the dominant position. Books suggest speaking in a measured tone to convey confidence and reasonableness. Fangbear suggests getting up in that pussmonkey’s face and shouting until you deafen them. Either way, arrive hydrated so you can mark your territory at a moment’s notice. By the end of this initial phase, you’ll want to have made you position clear. Ensure your demands are unreasonable.

Now they know what you want, and you know what they want – let the negotiations begin! Offer to send in pizza in exchange for release of the children. If your opposition doesn’t have any child hostages, consider bringing some of your own and trying to convince the other side to give you pizza in exchange for the release of your child hostages, because hey - who couldn’t use a free pizza?

Whenever the opposition asks for a concession, delay them by saying you must first consult a higher authority. Since there is no higher authority in a made-up negotiating problem, stall by telling them you have God on speed dial and then fake five-minute conversation as they sit there annoyed. Eventually they’ll grow tired of you telling ‘God’ about how hard it was to find parking, and they’ll drop the point. Further discourage your opponent by starting a sentence and then trail off and stare into the middle distance in silence. When they start talking, mimic their voices in a high-pitch schoolyard manner.

Lastly, we have the termination phase. Point out the weakness of the opposition’s position, demands and haircut. Reassert the veracity of your position by swinging a baseball bat around and then ask the adjudicator how much they enjoy having an un-dented skull.

Implement these simple strategies and you can’t lose! And if you do lose, it’s your own fault.