Big Changes on the Workfront

Right now at work we’re undergoing some major changes. To prevent three of my five readers from throwing themselves in front of trains in an effort to quell the boredom that would inevitably result from my laying out these changes, I’ll just say that they’re supposedly really big and they take a long time. What I’d like to focus on today is the idea of a meeting and the idea of a meeting called something else so as not to be perceived as a meeting and not having to pay your employees for attending the meeting.

One of the steps in instituting all these major changes at work is that all these different committees got together and made all these recommendations about what needs to be overhauled and who has to do it. Problems is, there are five committees. And five or six departments. And only parts of what each committee does pertain to part of what some departments do. I realize this is confusing, so here is a flow chart to help you better understand how it works:

That was just a little joke. No one knows how it really works enough to make a flow chart.

Anyway, at this point, all the committees have to meet with basically everyone who works here in order to deliver all their commandments so that we can magically become a more effective, efficient, welcoming workplace. What this requires is at least five meetings with these committees all in the next three weeks. This is in addition to the already twenty meetings we have per month. While I happen to like meetings (nothing is more effective at burning up an entire afternoon than daydreaming through a two-hour meeting), most other people around here would rather sell their left nut than go to one more gathering of the employees. This is where the brilliance comes in.

At my work, we have these lunches every once in a while when we all gather in the conference room and do something fun. There’s either a fun presentation from an author or we watch a movie. Something like that. While this may not sound like anything exciting to you, it’s a f*@$ing carnival around here because most people never leave their offices to take lunch. So this week we get a meeting from the higher-ups because someone got the bright idea to name these committee meetings “lunch gatherings” that we aren’t required to go to, but that will be a “fun” way to go over all these “recommendations” that these groups have come up with over the past year. Hurray! And by the way, this counts as your lunch break, which is great, because there’s nothing I’d rather do on my lunch break than go sit in the conference room and listen to recommendations about what my department needs to stop screwing up! YAY! And just when you thought that was the last nail in the coffin, at the bottom of the email announcing this plan it says, “And don’t forget to bring your own lunch, as food will not be provided!” Of course it won’t! Thanks for the heads up, asshole! You have a great weekend, too! Hurray! Efficiency, hurray!

Fuck that noise.

In related but uplifting news, one of the people I hate most at my workplace will now be moving on to a bigger and better publishing house in the sky. *Sigh of sweet relief. No, she’s not dead; she got a better job. And I am very happy for her, because if I had to listen to her bitching about how oppressed we are for even five more seconds, I would definitely blow a gasket. So here’s to you, suit and sneakers sales conference person:

Here’s to hoping you make it at least a week in your new position before realizing that you hate it just as much as you hate this, and that you’re pretty much doomed to glorified secretarial work until you either hit the Mega Ball jackpot or you stop expecting to be everyone’s boss at the tender age of 25.