Employee of the Month... and Other Divisive Tactics

When you have a fairly cohesive group of employees, who have been squeezed financially, with pay and benefit cuts, and have suffered the insult of "increased productivity", what does upper management do to improve morale?

Well, you could give bonuses, but for the real working class, bonuses went out with the air traffic comptroller union.  Remember office parties, turkeys for the holidays, those few hours when the office was unofficially closed early so you could get home to your family?

You don't need to punch a time clock to know that that doesn't happen anymore.

And there was a time when an employee, forced to work on a Sunday, would get time-and-a-half, or the hallowed double-time.  When business was bad, you lost that too, and when business got better, those extra bucks went to the shareholders or pay increases for management.

These days on Sunday you either get "comp time" or Sunday becomes just another work day, instead of Wednesday, so you can spend your day off alone while your family does their work/school routine, and on Sunday they can sit by the TV while you're at work.

Layers of management mean that no one has to look you in the eye and say, "I've decided that you have to work on Christmas Eve," or, "I can't give you that cost of living raise this year."  The people that decide whether your actually living wage goes up or down, or whether you can have that holiday with your family, are pretty far up the chain, with lots of rules buffering your immediate supervisor from the effects of his or her financial pronouncements or scheduling decisions.

What cracks me up, then, is the awards that management come up with to motivate employees.  The "employee of the month", "quarter", or whatever period of time management can pat itself on the back for acknowledging.  Awards come with framed photos in the front of the store, placques, and occasionally a day off or even a gift certificate.

Here's a news flash.  When employees are spread too thin between work and family, when incomes don't stretch to cover dental bills AND groceries, when necessary errands can't get run during work/business hours and sleepless nights ensue, I really don't give a damn about your placque.

And when the award is a day off, and you aren't even giving us a living wage, I just want to know why you think it's important to select one employee, to single out a single individual, to say to everyone that works for you, "This person deserves an extra day off... and you don't."

It's really quite the symbol of power when management can say, "You all have to work a bit harder today, because your fellow employee just got an extra day off... and you didn't."  It's a symbol of the heavy handed compliment that management is going to give one of us something that everyone but management has to pay for.

And the poor cowed employees who are just happy to have a job just keep working, some of us hoping that next year maybe we'll get that extra day off.