Posted by denised in On Monday I introduced you to the Reprobate. Today you meet another group of incompetent, power hungry blowhards. This group of “managers” insisted on a no-snack policy and used surprise pantyhose checks and clandestine trashcan searches as their WMDs – weapons of morale destruction.
One of my previous employers had a no eating at the desk rule. Since no one likes to
call a business and be greeted with the sounds of a customer service rep polishing off the remains of her barbeque chicken and rib combo, I had no problem with the rule. It made sense…for the employees whose job it was to answer the phones. For the rest of us, it felt like just another rule that 1) penalized all employees for the unprofessional behavior of a handful and, 2) reminded us that we were being managed by people who had nothing better to do than spy on the contents of employees’ trashcans.
Each morning and afternoon, managers took turns walking down the cubicle lined aisles, peeking into trashcans for any sign of unauthorized snack consumption. Being a government agency with precise, militarily timed breaks of 15 minutes each, if you happened to be hungry at any other time than 11:15 am and 2:15 pm every day, you were stuck in a snackless hell. So, as adults who are treated like children often do, we disregarded the rule and with childlike fervor became adept at sneaking snacks into our work areas, masking our defiance and coming to the aid of fellow snack bandits with perfectly orchestrated hand signals and turret like outbursts.
It was in the midst of a particularly harrowing snack sneaking session, in which I had been balancing a bag of potato chips on my knees while tapping out Morse code signals and flashing gang signs to fellow colleagues, that it dawned on me that I was an intelligent, talented adult, and not, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, a five year old. How had it come to this? How had I allowed snack espionage to become the highlight of my day?
Which brings me to my point. When you routinely treat adults like children, they begin acting like them. There are managers that will argue that if employees just did what they were supposed to, management wouldn’t need to create silly rules in the first place. I agree that there are some employees (like the one in our office who tried to eat an entire pizza at her desk) who just don’t get it, and never will. But we didn’t hire them, you did.
You can read the rest of my snackless hell story here. And if you’ve got a great “I’m so glad you’re no longer my boss” story, email it to denised(@)reallybadboss.com.
