New Attendance Policy Involving Attendance #FixThePlus

We, here at Life Explained, would like to point out Thursday has become the day of reckoning.  No longer will the staff be allowed to coast through the day, waiting as close as possible to the doors to dart out in anticipation of what has become lovingly known as Work From Home Friday.

Every Thursday employees will be required to provide their supervisor evidence of some sort of productivity for the week. This can be in the form of documents produced, spreadsheets constructed, scientific breakthroughs, or the performance of cooking, cleaning or organization of some type.

Initially we planned to have it signed in blood, but OSHA deep sixed that, and we had several managers faint, which led to some very amusing Instagram posts involving sharpies and "temporary" facial tattoos. Ink (on paper) will be sufficient.

Please prepare your documentation prior to your appointment, and remember performance art does not count toward your weekly quota.

Thank you, have a nice weekend, we will see you Monday.

A New Policy Yesterday, but An Old Day Now.

It could have been a hundred years ago, but it could have been yesterday, too.  Three guys, well two guys and a dog, unable to find a job, started their own company, Life Explained.  It was a top secret, covert, research and development facility (seeking to unravel the riddles of the universe, and make some money) with no clients.  

The United States government found out about this top secret organization somehow, it might have been the article in a local paper about the grand opening, and jumped at the chance to enter a partnership.  It is why top secret laboratories and governments are formed, to provide for each other.  Kind of like an oppressively expensive, clandestine social circle.  

Soon, the company grew, and three employees became one hundred and thirty two.  But, it was difficult to get anything done, work schedules were lax, progress came in short bursts.  Projects that were finished in one department, moved to the next, and sat there waiting for somebody to arrive.  Experiments languished in empty labs.  It was a mess, and it was getting worse.

It was obvious to the three owners, two guys, and a dog, that something needed done.  If the small company was going to become a big company rules were necessary.

A consultant was hired, a man with an impeccable resume, a man who understood the needs being on time.  He was brisk, efficient, and to the point.  One phone call and they knew they had found the right guy.  “If you implement my system you will have no more problems,” he guaranteed.

Monday the twelfth the email went out.  There was going to be a new attendance and tardiness policy.  The meeting would be on Thursday, the seventeenth, at Eight AM, in conference room B, the large room with theater style seating.  Be on time.

Thursday dawned, bright, early, and with a vengeance, the air smelled like a jail cell, and the sun looked fluorescent.  And the man was set up by 7:30.

At 8:00 he started, promptly.  At 8:15 Bob, from accounting came in.  “Sorry, stuck in traffic.”  The man was perturbed, but went on with the presentation.  It involved points, on a sliding scale of severity.  If a person was less than 5 minutes late it was ¼ of a point.

At 8:25 Bob, from R and D showed up, and said, “hey, I am really sorry, my alarm didn’t go off.”  The man was getting upset, noticeably, but continued.  At 8:30 Bob, from Marketing came in, his car wouldn’t start.  8:45 and a tardiness, accident on the freeway, 8:52 “sorry I’m late, my basement was flooded.”  By now the man was shaking, and his voice was cracking.  For the next several minutes a litany of excuses, and associates paraded in the door.  A fire in the garage, a snake in the toilet, spiders, aliens, and snoring in-laws, contorted the man’s face with rage. 

Finally, when Bob, from Human Resources stood up, saying “I am going to Dunkin’ Donuts for a croissant and a coffee, anybody want anything?” the man had had enough.

He threw down his notes, kicked over the table, and swore his way out of the room.

The three owners were shocked.  Still, something needed to be done.  Since they had heard part of the presentation, and were felt themselves to be fairly intelligent people, and dog, they decided to make it their own, the Life Explained Omnibus Tardiness and Attendance Policy.

Having heard the parts about accruing points, on a sliding scale, they extrapolated.  Surely, they felt, anybody, or group, who could build such a fantastically successful and innovative company could come up with something much better than the original.

Here is the scale they conceived, and executed, but something was missing. 

Occurrence	Points
Less than 5 Minutes Late	.25
Less than 30 minutes Late	.5
Less than 60 Minutes Late	.75
More than 60 Minutes Late	1
Missing Day	2

What would the results provide?  They locked themselves in an office, until they came up with the ideal solution.   

An announcement went out, with the details above, and the implications that whoever had the most points at the end of the year would win this nice clock radio.   

People were scurrying out the door, a tsunami of humanity, as they rushed by, they yelled “I need to take a day off tomorrow, and I will be late the next day."

Soon, they gave up on the idea, and went back to the old way, just relying on the common decency of their employees to do the right thing.  What could possibly go wrong there?

Managing for Success.

Yesterday, I announced to the world, at least the very small percent of the world who read this stuff, that I was going to be a kinder, gentler fan (see this, kinder, gentler fan,  I was going to appreciate the effort and applaud the results.  I told my friend Susan that my new motto was "I am a fan of the team, not the score."   Which, I think was ingenious as far as mottos go.  I was thinking about having a shirt made with that logo, but it would require too much explanation, so I scrapped the idea, temporarily, until one day the undead ghost of that fantastic thought rises from its shallow grave to haunt the landscape of free enterprise, hand me the right phrase, and turn me into a semi-retired millionaire.   But, that will have to wait.

Until I am independently wealthy, though, I need to maintain my edge, I need to keep sharp, and vigilant.  Waiting around every corner is a potential ambush, a chance for competitors and subordinates to gain an advantage.

As a fan I might be forgiving, but as a human, I will be a ruthless tyrant, running things with an iron fist, demanding obedience, and subservience, loyalty and blind, unquestioning fealty.

From now on I am the fastest rat in the race, the biggest dog in the pound.  As Graham Parker warned, so eloquently, "out in the jungle there's a war going down, you wind up eating all the new friends you found."  And, they will be delicious.

I ask no quarter, and I give none.  I am a monstrous, despicable, machine of oppression, crushing all who dare stand before me.  My supervisory style will be based on the teachings of Sennacherib, a manager in the Assyrian Empire in the 7th century.  Here is his how he handled problems.

"I threw down the city and its houses from the foundations to the summits...I knocked down and removed the outer and inner walls, and the temples and all the brick-built ziggurats and threw the rubble into the Arahtu canal, and after I had destroyed Babylon, smashed its gods and massacred its population, I tore up its soil and cast it into the Euphrates so that it was carried by the river down to the sea." 


Now, there is a guy who knows how to effectively deal with problems.  And that is how I am going to model my behavior from now on.  He had no use for attendance/tardiness policies, focus groups, or market research, he didn't touch base with, or reach out to, people.  When there was a problem he addressed it quickly, efficiently and cared little for the opinions of accountants or customer service associates.  Billing questions were answered with invasion, and destruction.  Trust me, people paid their bills, on time.

That is the way things should be done.  Smash, and burn, and trample, and crush.  When I see a potential problem it will be the next pile of rubble.  Someone takes a long lunch someone finds there whole department super glued to the ceiling.  I am going to be an uncaring, unforgiving rock of seething, barely controlled violence and anger.

Now, about that raise, how high would you like the gallows?