Well, it happened. The big boss called me into his office - I was busted. And not the good kind of bust that involves a bra (though you could argue that I was still dealing with a boob). You would think that as a 50 year old, I would no longer have to worry about "getting in trouble", especially with authority figures. You don't know me very well, do you?
First of all, let me state for the record: I am NOT a troublemaker. A prankster, maybe. A pain of conscience to those in charge who should know better, perhaps. But I don't intentionally act as that troublesome jerk we all loathe - such as our plant manager who set the events of this post in motion.
The plant manager is not a bad fellow. He just has the car salesman's gift of being very believable while lying up a storm. Perhaps this is why upper management never notices how productive always increases when he's on vacation. As a manager, his skill involves unprovoked yelling at the female workers until they cry. Since many of these women live in fear of losing their jobs, he has gotten away with incredible episodes of sexually harassment over the years. What's not to like about the guy?
In any case, three weeks ago the powers-on-high decreed that all salary folk will henceforth swap their ID card upon entering and upon exiting the plant. "It is for your safety and we will not track this activity!", said the CFO to our smiling, salaried faces at a meeting.
Hourly people don't have to worry about this new requirement. Apparently, safety isn't a factor and hourly people are expendable. At the wages they have to settle for, I'm not surprised.
Our CFO didn't exactly lie since "they" aren't tracking anything. The plant manager, on the hand, needed something else to add to his daily activities of harassing and spirit-crushing. When he learned that he had access to the security logs, we discovered that he would spending hours tracking everyone's comings and goings and then tattle to his bosses. "So-and-so arrived 2 minutes late," he would report while failing to mention that so-and-so put in 10 salaried hours that day.
So after enough of these misleading reports to upper management, a few of us salaried peons started swapping in with our id card and then immediately swapped out as we entered the building. No one is tracking us right? Why would the CFO lie?
The joke went on for 2 weeks. The plant manager would make derisive comments whenever he saw us. Then I got called to the office of our VP of operation. "You need to swap in and out properly," he said kindly. "We just would to make sure that we know when you are safely in the building."
So now we are all good and safe little worker bees. But the joking isn't over just yet. Next comes ...
No comments:
Post a Comment