I'm About To Fire Your Child!
Apr 17 '00
I hesitated to write under the Family Values category since I don’t want to be hypocritical in giving advice- after all, I don’t have any children. But then it occurred to me that I have nearly 60 kids living all over town. Before you report me to the WOD for Offensive Content- please allow me to explain.
I manage a large department at my office and have noticed over my many years of managing that we are all pretty much the same ‘children’ our parents raised us to be. I am not being patronizing or condescending when stating this- I do not treat my employees like children, even when they act like children. While I often wish I could turn Vanessa over my knee and spank her (Offensive Content alert!), I have learned that Human Resources and various government agencies have issues with managerial techniques involving the buttocks.
My employees know that I consider them part of the team and respect them as adults, but don’t know that I can also ‘see’ how they were raised as children. It all boils down to a value which seems to be going the way of the dinosaur- a value known as the Work Ethic!
Perhaps we can learn from my human laboratory exactly how Little Johnny and Suzie will turn out by examining several real life examples of Big John and Susan. All names have been changed to protect my employees’ identities- except of those I never really liked anyway.
William calls in sick several times a month. He leaves me voice mails whining about vomiting, diarrhea, and nasal drip. Sometimes he even adds sound effects, although I won’t tell you what affliction he likes to let me listen to since I’d be slapped with yet another Offense Comment (<OC>) ticket. Let’s just say that William’s excuses wore pretty thin years ago. None of us over the age of 25 wake up without a few aches and pains (the last time I jumped out of bed ‘raring to go’ was 1987), but most of us also realize we have a responsibility to go to work. When I put William on Corrective Action for his excessive absenteeism, he insists with all sincerity, “But I was sick!” No matter how many times I explain that he has an obligation to his employer, he just doesn’t seem to comprehend.
Flashback to Young Billy’s childhood. Billy learned early on that Mom would let him stay home from school each and every time his tummy hurt. It was certainly more fun to stay at home playing Donkey Kong than doing those stupid multiplication tables. Sometimes Billy held the thermometer up to a lightbulb to add to Mommy’s guilt. He learned early on that 118 degrees was not a reasonable temperature for the flu and from then on, little Hard-to-Please- I mean Billy, knew exactly how long to heat the thermometer to manipulate Mommy into letting him stay home. (Fast Forward to present: my requisition for rectal thermometers for my department was denied due to that whole “no management involving the buttocks” rule. <OC>!)
Did Mom ALWAYS let Billy stay home from school? Does a bear sh*- -I mean, have diarrhea - -in the woods? Haha-gotcha-- ‘diarrhea’ used in the Kids and Family category is NOT OC! If Mom had occasionally told Billy to be strong and go to school, perhaps William wouldn’t be wheezing and hacking on my voice mail every other Monday!
Margaret shows up every day but I’m not sure why she bothers. She spends most of the day on personal calls between attempts at passing her work off to other people. Margaret is actually pretty successful at getting those with a generous dose of testosterone to do her work. She is quite talented at reaching over her cubicle in her low-cut blouse at just the right angle when asking Bob to do her a favor and finish the reports for her. Ted is always eager to assist Margaret in making her follow-up calls when she puts on the charm and wiggles those buttocks<OC> when making her request. Even Carol and Alice seem to cave in when Margaret bats her eyelashes and promises she’ll make it up to them ‘next time’. The only problem is that ‘next time’ never comes and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice have work of their own to finish. Why I am I paying 5 employees when only 4 of them actually work?
Flashback to Young Maggie’s childhood. “Daddy- I CAN”T do this- it’s too hard!”, followed of course by Daddy doing the task FOR Maggie. She learned that the best part of being Daddy’s Little Girl was never having to do her own homework and never having to pick up her toys- after all, ‘Daddy will do it!’ She got through 18 years of life without ever having to do anything ‘hard’ and came to rely upon Daddy coming to the rescue each and every time she needed ‘help’.
Did Daddy ever encourage Maggie to ‘give it your best shot’ or let her know that ‘sometimes we have to do things we don’t like’? Does a bear wear a mini-skirt in the woods? Of course not! Fast forward to present: I wish I would have hired Margaret’s father instead!
I have placed myself on a self-imposed limit of a thousand words or less for my reviews (with a limit of 6 occurrences of Offensive Content) and am about to reach my quota so must end without describing how everyone from Anthony through Zachary might have turned out differently if only they had been raised with the Work Ethic in mind.
I know it’s easier to always let Billy stay home sick and do everything for Maggie---just keep in mind that they may find themselves unemployed 20 years from now!!
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Epinions.com ID:
Hard_To_Please
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 - Top 1000 |
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Location: St. Louis, MO
Reviews written: 47
Trusted by: 743 members
About Me:
MARK IS MISSED!
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