2-Fer Tuesday Post #2

Well, I'm kind of curious about y'all.

Yeah, I said "y'all".

Sue me, some of my family have spoken like that for years, and there are some "country" phrases that just say it all, so there!

Anyway, back to my question..

Do you look forward to, or do you fear, the company Christmas dinner/party/whathaveyou.

Me? I can't stand it.

Why?

Because we've got an absolutely CLUELESS HR person, and she doesn't understand a thing about the employees.

Each and every single function we've done these past 5 years has been a complete and total FLOP.

She picks events, food, entertainment et all to her personal preferences, and not to the general consensus.

If she wanted to do something like that, why not put on her OWN party, and invite us over? Don't use the company money and time to make the associates grumble and gripe over what they're not getting, and how silly the theme is, or anything of that nature..

I'll give you a couple of examples of her style.

First, we've got the company gift-giving process we do each year.

Before we even got started on this, the warehouse personnel decided to save up funds to help the "Make A Wish" program for kids with, or recovering from, cancer.

What this program does is give the child, and their close family, the chance for a vacation of a lifetime. The only request from the foundation? $5000 for each child you want to try to sponsor.

If your facility is able to make that goal, you get to "adopt" a child's family, and you usually will get a visit from them once the trip is over.

If you make more than that, but less than enough for a second child, then the extra is put into a pool fund to help out causes who are falling short.

The last 4 years our facility has been able to support 4-5 kids per year. That's between 20-25k a year to a charitable cause.

This last year? She stopped it. When questioned why, her answer was this:

"I feel that we're putting WAY too much funding towards these kids, and not enough of it towards our own goals."

Translated, it means that she was hoping that the cash that we'd generate for the kids would then be diverted towards her coffers, where she could delegate the spending.

Sad to say that this year's Christmas gifts are going to seriously be lacking compared to the last few years. All because of some selfish reasoning.

Another example is the picnic we tried to plan for this year.

We tend to try to take pride in being a family-oriented business. Healthcare is paid for in full by the company, and that policy is blanketed to cover not only the associate, but his entire family of dependants as well.

Because of the family focus we have, the picnic planners decided to try to hold a carnival-type of cookout. Hamburgers, Hot Dogs, Corn Dogs, Fries, Pizza, Clowns, a couple of trick pets, and some games were in the works.

Enter in Ms. HR.

The picnic ended up like some kind of school fair, with cash being REQUIRED to be able to play the games.

What kind of games?

A cakewalk, that cost $5 per entry. It made exactly $0.

A water balloon toss. $2 per entry. It made $4.

A "Dunk the manager" contest. $1 per entry. This made $10.

No clown. No pets. No bounce house. No fair or circus-type of attitude anywhere.

Only 25 out of 300 employees showed up for it, once it was announced that games would cost cash to play.

There were 20 gifts to be awarded, and 10 were returned because they were things like $1 sun visors, or Water bottles that could be bought for less than $.50 each.

Needless to say, there were plenty of outraged folks over this.

And now we're hearing the plans for the "banquet" we're supposed to be having for this Christmas dinner.

Are we having anything traditional?

No.

Chinese Take-out is the menu.

Sure, it's being catered. However, Chinese food for a CHRISTMAS dinner?

Where's the ham? Roast Beef? Turkey? Mashed potatoes?

Wherever it is, I know you're not going to find it at my dinner.

And the prizes?

Well, like I said, 300 employees, and there's only 15 gifts to be given out.

Odds are that there are going to be some serious rumblings about that one.

Oh, and also add to that the news that the Christmas bonus program that everyone looks forward to this year has been decided upon (by HR) to be diverted towards a disaster relief program for this area in case of flooding or severe weather.

Last time there was something that severe around here, the employer I work for was just buying their first storefront back East!

That was 35 years ago!

So yeah, I'm pissed, I'm disgruntled, and I know that I'm going to hear about it from other workers.

What can I do about it?

Well, you're reading it.

Hope yours isn't as bad as mine's going to be!