The Veggie Patch slogan, “50 years of excellence,” is a source of ridicule in my life. First, Shan and I developed the *real* slogan, “50 years of average,” which Dave topped last night with “50 years of excrement.”
Attended my “leadership” training like a good little girl today. Can we say *joke,* boys and girls? I will never forget how they told us that, as managers, sometimes we “just need to lower our expectations” of our staff.
Honey, at Club Medicated, we’re already doing the fucking limbo. People keep cracking their heads off the floor, that’s how low they can go.
I was fairly infuriated by that. The Veggie Patch is suffering because a person can achieve a “meets expectations” on their annual reviews simply by playing Solitaire for four hours a day, Marbles for two and by squeezing a two-hour lunch break in there.
Actually, that’s not entirely true. For those of us who produce and bust our asses and work weekends, the standards are different. It was articulated very clearly to us today that we need to be writing people up for not coming in on time and for being late with deadlines and what not. I shot up my hand and outlined that I have real problems with that, because I don’t think it’s fair to grade people on whether they were at their desk from 9 to 5 every day for the past year. I also articulated that I would never judge my staff on that, nor should my supervisor grade me on it, either. Personally, I said, “Look, you’ll never see me before 9 — you get me at 9:30 at the earliest — and you probably shouldn’t speak to me before 10. But that aside, you will see me here at midnight, and you get a newspaper every month. We shouldn’t nitpick on the useless details — we should evaluate people based on outcomes, not technicalities.”
The trainer, handpicked by Frosty, gave me the cold shoulder and absolutely ignored the fact that I even spoke. She changed the subject very quickly. I was mad enough to have a spotted cow.
The “lowered expectations” concept arose during this ridiculous video they showed of waves and beaches and what not. Weird little film. I think it was supposed to show us real-life stories from supervisors, but all it did was make me want to book a vacation to Antigua.
The video became downright laughable, when I finally started paying attention to it. A narrator asked us to picture someone in our organization whom we hate. I simply looked across the table to Town Crier and Mailroom Dipshit, and I was set. I also pictured Mouth Almighty and Pussy Demure. I could’ve crammed a few more images in there, but at that point, I was ready to throw up.
Anyway, the narrator told us to picture what that person’s life must be like, the problems they carry, the home life they had/have, the thought processes they have. It later asked us to pretend to walk around in their shoes for a full day (holy cliche, Batman!) and to wonder what they must think when they look at us. I was disgusted. Frankly, I could give a flying fuck about what any of them do after they leave for the day — it’s bad enough that they are all rude, incompetent and/or a waste of a salary during the workday — don’t fucking try to make me pity them. After all, the instructor had just finished telling us to not let our colleagues’ personal problems interfere with our work flow, and there she was contradicted by a cracked-out narrator, telling us to love our cubemates and be glad that we aren’t them.
Shan and I ran for Chi-Chi’s immediately after the training, and we bitched for no less than 90 minutes about the training, the Veggie Patch and the fact that the association says it demands excellence but truly accepts excrement from its longterm employees. And how dare they ever criticize us, when we are among their five top producers?
I’m tired of bitching. So very tired. My blood pressure shoots through the fucking roof when I even think about that place. I left early today (if early is 5:30 p.m.) because the layout is late (some stories were late, including mine) so I won’t see the document until early tomorrow. Oh well. Why should I strive for excellence when “a day late and a dollar short” is the motto of the year?