Another update from the Jungle….
Dawn, the Chief Talent Officer for her company, is slogging through the remaining weeks of the political campaign. She hates what it’s done to her job. This week she’s thinking of changing her title to Chief Tortured Officer
Helen, the Voice of Doom, didn’t take the hint a couple of weeks ago when Dawn tried to politely tell her to get lost. Helen continues 
to show up every morning to depress Dawn with her worries that the election will degenerate into violence and mayhem.
After Helen leaves Allen, the Philosopher King, drifts in the door. His garbled theories on democracy in America sound profound until you listen closely. Then you realize he’s just fogging up the room with BS. Besides Dawn couldn’t care less.
She has a real political crisis this week. She’s been summoned to the President’s office. Rory, the Prez, also wants to discuss the election and what it means for the office. Rory’s channeling Jack Nicholson’s “Colonel Jessup” from “A Few Good Men” pacing the office and growling.
The workforce is as divided as the nation and it’s getting ugly. Yesterday Rory broke up a fight in the employee parking lot. The Trump and Clinton supporters were trying to rip the opposing candidate’s stickers off car bumpers. Rory waded in, knocked a few heads together and ordered everyone back to work.
He’s not worried about a little fight in the parking lot. He’s mad as heck that no one seems to be working. The company’s internet connections are smoking hot as workers visit “news” sites to hear the latest salacious details abou
t the candidates and their families. Then they stand around arguing about what they’ve read.
Rory glares at Dawn and asks if he can fire a few people to set an example for everyone else. Dawn begins to explain (again) about the progressive discipline policy. Rory cuts her off. If he can’t fire anyone, can he ban politics from he workplace?
What advice should Dawn give the Prez?
- She can give him a quick civics lesson about free speech.
- She can draft an email for him to send to all employees reminding them to do their jobs while on the clock.
- She can suggest that he should visit the gym more often to work off his aggression and grit his teeth for one more week.
The good news is that presidential elections happen every four years and we’ve got one more week to go. Then we’ll all go back to arguing about sports.
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Once upon a time, Rudy and Trish, a warlock and a witch, lived in a ranch-style suburban home next door to a werewolf named Jerry. A few times a year Rudy put a hex on Jerry for tearing up Trish’s flower beds during the full
Life is great until Ryan the leprechaun is hired at Screams R Us. Ryan brags about his pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He has iPhone photos of a pot of gold. Before long his co-workers are tired of him. If he’s so rich, why the heck is he working at a big box store annoying them?
m sofa.
ash register. She misses Ryan and hits Jerry who now looks like he has mange.
Dawn is the HR manager for her company. Five years ago, her title was HR Director. Then it was changed to Chief People Officer before changing again to Chief Talent Officer. These days, she thinks her title ought to be Chief Therapist.
election. She’s investigated several complaints of discrimination and sexual harassment as everyone becomes hyper-sensitive in response to the latest election news headline. A recent example is Monica who complained of a hostile workplace and named Steve as the perpetrator.
Dawn’s investigation findings are underwhelming. It turns out that twice in as many days, Steve drank the last cup of coffee and didn’t start a new pot brewing. Monica thinks he did it deliberately to disrespect women by forcing a woman to brew a new pot. Steve says he was in a hurry and simply forgot. He says Monica hates him because he was promoted before her. Dawn tells Monica and Steve in polite HR-speak to grow up.
Doom. Helen comes to Dawn’s office every morning with a coffee mug the size of a soup bowl, plops down in the spare chair and doesn’t leave until she needs a refill. Helen is a worrier. Her latest worry is that the political arguments among co-workers will degenerate into fist fights. She says she doesn’t feel safe walking around the office.
Helen could hide in her cubicle actually doing her job and ignoring the political fights around her, suggests Dawn. Helen explains for five minutes exactly why that wouldn’t work for her. Dawn asks if Helen wants to use accrued vacation days to stay at home. Helen says she doesn’t have enough accrued leave to stay home for the next three weeks and drifts away for a refill.
Alana always felt like a misfit, so when she started her own business, she decided to hire people like herself. Alana’s company sells works of art ranging from paintings to furniture. Oddballs seem to be more at home in the world of unique “art”.
They instantly boosted sales due to their smooth handling of customers. Art wasn’t the only thing they sold at Alana’s shop. Evan and Elsie had a side business growing high quality marijuana. To encourage sales, they invited customers to sample the good in the parking lot behind the shop.
Shrieking like a banshee, she chased off the customers. Then she explained to Evan and Elsie that de-criminalizing marijuana was not the same thing as legalizing it. She threatened
But as the company expanded, new employees lacked the camaraderie of the ones who had helped build the business. Adding employees meant more personality conflicts and scheduling difficulties. Bobbye wanted to add some structure to the company by creating HR policies to ensure everyone understood what was expected of them.
Bobbye decided to change the brand of coffee for the office. A day after the change, Billy walked in to the break room, saw the new brand name, and hurled the coffee can across the room into the garbage can. Now Billy and Bobbye don’t talk to each other in the office. They relay messages through employees. Their employees used to call them B&B or B-squared. Now it’s Bombs Away.
employee perks, starting with the health plan. He tells employees they will have to begin contributing to the premium. Cutting back on perksannoys the employees and Bobbye.
Even free beer at the Friday Afternoon Frazzle can’t attract most employees because they feel so uncomfortable around Billy and Bobbye. The least bright employees are choosing sides. The smarter employees are trying to stay neutral. The smartest employees have already bailed out for more stable workplaces. On its present trajectory, the company will implode.
team managed a product line worth more than all the rest of the products managed by Leo’s division. Luckily for Ted, he appealed to Oscar.
Now Leo and Ted are trying to screw each other’s careers by sucking up to Oscar. They suck up by inviting Oscar to happy hour. Oscar appreciates having Leo or Ted cover his bar tab. But all these soggy nights mean that productivity is suffering as Leo and Ted slide into alcoholism.
senior management team about Leo’s and Ted’s potential disability due to alcoholism.
named Trish was searching for true love. Like so many others, she found it at the office. Her Prince Charming was John, Vin another division of the company. John was also looking for true love having just wrapped up a nasty divorce with his former true love
Trish met John at the office Christmas Party and thought he was a jerk. She changed her mind at the summer picnic when she saw him playing with his kids and lobbing water balloons at other managers. John looked like an Olympic athlete compared to some of the other managers.
As in a fairytale, when a workplace romance fizzles people behave badly. John stopped responding to her emails and text messages. He also told Trish’s boss that Trish could never work in his division again because she was a lousy worker. Meanwhile, Trish’s performance nosedived as she realized her fairy tale was fizzling.
In the actual situation, the manager was counseled for violating HR policies and wrecked his chances at a promotion. The woman accepted a settlement of her claims and left the company still looking for true love.
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