Cocktail Confessions

So it’s that time of year again, the time of year where companies try and pretend to get into the seasonal spirit and motivate employees by attempting to throw a ‘holiday’ party to help boost morale.  Note I said *holiday* because in a nation founded under the principles of a single creator, the political correct police and ACLU have infiltrated all facets of our lives and God forbid (pun intended) we offend someone.

It actually started with the ‘no tree’ policy this year.  When I started at my current place of employment just over three years ago, I recall that the department I worked in allowed its employees to decorate their cubicles with lights, and cards, and in the main lobby was a large Christmas tree.  Our division had a potluck and our boss took our particular department out for lunch.  Amongst ourselves a few people traded gifts if they wanted to and everything seemed ‘okay’, although somewhat downplayed a tad.

Two years ago we were told no longer could we decorate cubicles with lights.  It was now considered a possible saftey issue that could result in a fire or someone tripping.  We were also told too many decorations, Christmas or otherwise, was not in the ‘spirit’ of making our offices look neat, organized, and professional.  The tree was still in the lobby, but now the optional holiday lunch was in the cafeteria, although we had to do it in shifts and there was no longer any adult beverages. 

Last year the ‘departmental’ lunch was not in the budget, and we had a mandatory all company party in the warehouse.  They rented one dilapidated pool table, 8 ping-pong tables (each in various states of disrepair), and a few blackjack tables.  You could tell this was asian thing…it was all about ping-pong, gambling and bad karoke.  And who the hell thought one pool table was going to be enough for over 500 employees?  And yes, I want to hear broken-english Japanese metro-sexuals singing Christmas carols.

This year, there is no tree.  I guess I wasn’t the only person who noticed, but the poor receptionist wasn’t given any information to quell our various inquiries.  It’s all speculation as to why there is no tree.  Perhaps its a budget thing?  Well, that wouldn’t surprise me as it seems anything that costs more than $5 these days needs a myriad of signatures and approvals both up and down the chain anymore.  We also just terminated 21 employees the week after Thanksgiving, so maybe it was one of those poor folks that did the ordering and decoration of this years said missing tree?  Maybe no one felt festive enough to put up a tree with the black cloud of despair so thick in the air?

Nothing says "Happy Holiday's" like a car dealership.

But here’s the kicker…..we have a MANDATORY party offsite at a…car museum…of all places?  WTF?  Seriously….WTF? 

And get this, the company is asking us to come in early that day so we don’t lose a lot of productivity time AND they want us to carpool together to get there and back.  Yes, not only is the party looking to be mandatory (an automatic buzzkill in my opinion to make it required), but we now have to adjust our schedules to make sure we get to work by 7am in the morning AND they won’t rent any shuttles or buses, so we have to carpool oursleves?  Why in the heck do I want to drive the opposite direction of where I live to attend a party at a car showroom I don’t care about and make arrangements to get there and back in the middle of rush hour traffic??

Okay, so you’re probably thinking, “Hey, why don’t you be thankful you get a party to begin with, jerk?”  Yeah, I get that.  Yeah, I’m happy I have a job, that I wasn’t one of those 21 people who was let go just a mere 4 weeks prior to Christmas, I totally get that.  It’s the fact that this ‘morale boosting’ project is at a location no one wants to go to, cares about, and the discussion everyone is having is “Do we have to go?” , “Can we leave early?”.  I get that part of it.  Again, why do I want to drive further away from my house and get stuck driving back in rush hour traffic playing either playing taxi driver myself, or being dependent on someone else? 

Look how much fun we aren't having.

And why Euromasters showroom?  At the end of the day, it’s a CAR DEALERSHIP.  My ‘holiday’ party is at a fricken CAR DEALERSHIP.  Go ahead, repeat that out loud.  Now say that again.  Our holiday party is at a honest to goodness car dealership.   I don’t care if it is 37,000 square feet.  Can I drive the cars? No.  Can I sit in them? No.  Can I touch them? No.  Am I getting a new car that day?  No.  So what the heck are we going to do there?  Look at them and marvel from afar while we eat Subway sandwiches and drink luke-warm soda (no alcohol folks) from either a can or generic styrofoam cup with 500 other employees?  On top of all this blur of excitement, our V.P. sent out an email today asking that we wear ‘holiday sweaters’.  Oh joy.  How original.  How 1950′s and clever we are.  He wants us to wear our sweaters because “it’s cute“.  Yeah, and it is also supposed to be 80 degrees in So. Cal. that day, so no, I’m not wearing a fricken sweater.  Really?  This is our motivational holiday party?

I think I’ll be calling in sick that day.

The last few days I’ve had a mild case of writers block when it’s come to thinking about a topic to discuss .  Oh, I’ve had a few ideas percolating within the old noggin, mostly about my upcoming few days off, or some great beers I’ve recently had.   However, just as I was about to put it off for yet another day, I realized my place of employment has a rich cavern of stupid gems I can mine from on a regular basis, and today I struck gold!

We have a thing at work called ’5S’, and the majority of normal folk can’t tell you what all the S’s stand for (Sort, Shine are all I can remember), but it’s an idea developed by the Japanese that has something to do along the lines of making your place of employment a better overall experience.  It has to do with maintaining a clean and safe environment, things should look tidy and put away, everything in order…blah, blah, blah.  In concept it sounds like a decent idea, but in practice and personal experience it’s more of a hassle that only a few people seem to really get off on. 

And by a few people, I mean a minority handful of select kiss-asses who take this concept to an irrational level of eleven.  I swear, it has turned these individuals into the Gestapo of ridiculous policies where a committee of ‘yes men’ all pat themselves on the back for forming an adhoc committee to discuss the obvious.  The problem I have with it is that it takes all the ability of logical problem solving skills and responsibility of the sane workers and places it in the hands of a handful who take forever to rule on what would seem a no-brainer to the rest. 

This committee of five or six has a tour once every three months, armed with a digital camera, clip boards, and frazzled panic and walk around the facilities to point out and document things that need to be cleaned up, repaired, or fixed for safety reasons.  Like I said, 5S seems decent in concept, but now its more of a nuisance than anything else.  The majority of big ticket items were addressed the first few times.  Now I have the feeling they are just making shit up or going overboard to justify their own experience.  It’s as if they ‘have’ to find something on each walkthru now, and if they don’t they either failed or try harder.  It’s gotten nit-picky to epic proportions and eye-roll inducing at worst.  I am convinced they are on a mission to write anything down now just so they can say they found something.  God forbid the company actually passes one of these tours.  It has literally come down to things such as which font is used to mark a door, or how wide a tape marker is….a half inch or a quarter inch these days.

All this leads up to today’s asinine event: The speaker.

Apparently they had a dry run today for the actual walkthru on Wednesday of this week.  In one of our least populated buildings there is a secured area that only a few people have access to and way out of the way for a regular employee to find themselves near.   Now in that secured room which has plenty of open space, there is a single mono speaker sitting on a portable plastic step….in the corner. 

There is nothing special or noteworthy about this speaker other than the fact it looks like it came from Radio Shack back in the late 70′s as it is adorned with some tacky beige tweed fabric.  It doesn’t work, or at least it hasn’t been hooked up to anything in at least three years that I have been with the company, and I’m sure many years before that.  Like I said, it is sitting in a corner doing nothing but collecting dust.

Anyway, even though the ‘committee’ has walked through this area multiple times in the past and this speaker has never caused a problem, stolen any kids lunch money, or made racial epithets, today it has now become a red-ticket, high priority, def-con-one issue.  Why today and not the last dozen times they’ve walked through this room?  Your guess is as good as mine.

So the committee of managers and higher-up muckity-mucks decide to talk amongst themselves and call my boss.  My boss in turns talks with another supervisor to discuss who owns the speaker, what is it doing now, what was it’s original purpose, and what can the company do about it before Wednesday.  Both my boss and supervisor then contact yours truly to understand and glean information from me on the history and current dossier of the six inch woofer.  I explain that is has been there for longer than I have been employed here, that it is not hooked up nor has been for at least three years and that no one knows who is responsible for it judging from the quarter inch of dust on it.  I simply reply, “Throw it out.”

I am instead met with “Well, we have to follow procedures.” and “We have to make some calls.” and more back and forth banter between them seemingly goes on for much longer than a govermental selection and vetting process of a Supreme Court nominee. 

Finally, when it is all said and done, they open an electronic ticket for me in our work process flow system to have me dispose of the speaker.  This equates to me printing out a ticket, walking down to the building, grabbing the speaker, throwing it in the trash, walking back, and then closing out the ticket.  My manual labor of throwing the speaker out was all of 30 seconds….the paperwork I had to acknowledge and then sign afterwards about ten minutes worth.

Now why none of the Muckity-mucks couldn’t just throw it out themselves in the beginning and just be done with it?  Why make multiple phone calls to various people to discuss the fate of a speaker that is clear close to forty years old and doing nothing but holding down a non-moving step ladder?  Why open a ticket and assign it to me for something this ludicrous?  Who the hell knows other than to justify their won existence.  I mean why bother with trying to improve employee moral, or invest in new equipment to make our jobs easier, or strategizing about how to improve our overall standing in the marketplace….there are paperclips out of place somewhere and mismatching paper cups in the cafeteria, and by golly, we’re going to find them.