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The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

shkspr.mobi

81–90 of 348 posts

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#81
post #23
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... had they read the book? Or just heard it was popular? I'm trying to mentally justify how this isn't the craziest, stupidest idea ever.

They probably didn’t read it. “Don’t attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance “.

'Ignorance of the (social) Law is no excuse.'

Regardless of motive, they deserve to be mocked for such a stupid act.

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#83

Considering how expensive staff are, I've never understood the culture surrounding penny pinching the stuff that would keep them happy/improve moral/improve retention. Forget the moral arguments for a second, even in purely financial terms it would likely pay for itself in recruitment savings alone, let alone brain drain/efficiency, training costs, and so on. Even a "cheap" employee in a white collar job, is likely c…

See also: open offices.

We've gone from Office Space being everyone's nightmare, to the Cube Farm being an upgrade from the hell of Open Plan. Talk about backsliding.

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#85

My employer, a US DoD component, had a program called “On The Spot” awards. The idea was that if you had done something outstanding, your first line supervisor could authorize an immediate bonus of up to $1000. Being the DoD, it couldn’t be that simple. They decided that actually the bonuses had to be approved by your second, third, and fourth line supervisors. And also by the program manager at the sponsoring agency…

Ouch. A slap in the face to you and they might as well have burnt that $150 (Likely $300 dollars before taxes) since it had the total opposite effect.

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#86

My employer, a US DoD component, had a program called “On The Spot” awards. The idea was that if you had done something outstanding, your first line supervisor could authorize an immediate bonus of up to $1000. Being the DoD, it couldn’t be that simple. They decided that actually the bonuses had to be approved by your second, third, and fourth line supervisors. And also by the program manager at the sponsoring agency…

I still don't have an email address.

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#87
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably didn’t read it. “Don’t attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance “.

'Ignorance of the (social) Law is no excuse.' Regardless of motive, they deserve to be mocked for such a stupid act.

Would merit a much stronger response than mockery IMHO.

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#89
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably didn’t read it. “Don’t attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance “.

'Ignorance of the (social) Law is no excuse.' Regardless of motive, they deserve to be mocked for such a stupid act.

Reframe that as: The ignorant should be mocked, and you can see why that attitude makes the world a more unpleasant place.

Re: The worst morale-boosting gesture I've experienced

#90

My employer, a US DoD component, had a program called “On The Spot” awards. The idea was that if you had done something outstanding, your first line supervisor could authorize an immediate bonus of up to $1000. Being the DoD, it couldn’t be that simple. They decided that actually the bonuses had to be approved by your second, third, and fourth line supervisors. And also by the program manager at the sponsoring agency…

Damn! My current CEO wants to do the same. But he wants people to vote across teams. EG, backend engineer nominates machine learning researcher. Machine learning nominates HR. For a $1000 bonus, or a new ipad previous generation. Reasoning is that the manager cannot approve because that would reward favoritism, so random people nominating random people it is. Bad ideas coming from a good place I guess, but people are going to feel demoralized for sure in the end.
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