I never claimed to be a psychic, observant maybe, but certainly not psychic. I just happen to see things the way they are, the way they're going, right now. No otherworldly second-sight mumbo-jumbo was necessary to see the state we were in. I mean, all I need to do is look around me. People were ecstatic; they were smiling instead of sneering, and one morning-at the start of it all-I swear I saw someone give up their parking space to a pregnant woman who works in accounting. The earth must have turned sideways on its axis, causing everyone to become delirious as a result of such a cataclysmic shift in space.
That, or Casual Friday had been extended to include upper management, which in turn made them feel more at ease and more like “one of the grunts”. Everyone in middle management and below was involved in what was fated to be a major coup. I'm talking reversal of ranks and salaries wildly disproportionate to education and experience. Sheer bedlam. An all-inclusive Casual Friday was just the first step.
I'd love to take credit for the inception of what became not so much a plan of attack as an undercurrent of energy about the place, murmurs, knowing glances and bit of over-the-top outward displays of false affection for management. I don't know if I was truly the only one to notice the building of the tsunami that would eventually break above our heads and wash away all traces of the infrastructure we'd grown to know and loathe. Maybe I was just the only one who admitted to what was going on, rather than living in fear of what the change might bring, yet at the same time taking in every delicious moment of it.
I'm credited with “foreseeing the end” like I'm some sort of prophet because, in an effort to encourage a colleague, I told him that “one day [he'd] be making the big bucks.” The guy was worthy of promotion and I figured one day he'd be lucky enough to land one. At best I was predicting a logical course of events; at worst I was trying to reassure a colleague. I didn't need a crystal ball to do any of that. All I did was keep my eyes open, take note, and try not to get in the way. I didn't want to be a casualty of the process.
No, I didn't spark this particular powder keg but I may have an inkling as to who did. Enter Gerry, a stereotype with legs. She graduated with Honors from an east coast state university. Her major was literature but she's been oft quoted as saying that her “true passion has always been philosophy because it's deep.” Deep? Something tells me this girl was no deeper than her neckline. I don't mean to sound so catty; I rather like the girl these days, especially given the role of fire starter that I've now credited to her. This girl walked in as a paper doll and walked out the same way, but at least she changed something in her environment as she passed though.
So how did Gerry shift our little world on its side? Well, first let me explain that Gerry was working here as a paid intern. In other words she was given enough money to buy herself lunch on her break, and a reference for future employment, in exchange for eight hours of work, six days a week. As an intern, she's required to write up reports of her activities every two weeks. These reports are submitted to Human Resources, who then decide whether she's still worth her pittance. In one such report, it's rumoured that she wrote the following:
Week 12: Gerry H*******
In short these past two weeks have been a sheer waste of my life. I know how to make coffee. I have a coffee pot of my very own sitting at home. If you'd like to have coffee made your way, when you want it, perhaps you all should learn to make coffee yourselves. It's quite simple. I'd even be willing to teach a seminar on the subject if it will get you all to stop crying out “Gerry!” when the pot is empty or expecting me to be responsible for replenishing the filters. THIS IS NOT MY JOB. Kindly leave me alone and allow me to attend to the responsibilities for which I was hired. Thank you.
In most cases this display of utter contempt for those above her would have gotten Gerry fired on the spot. Respect for your superiors ranks highly around here, certainly higher than fair wages and health care. After all, you can always sell your possessions to pay for hospital bills but the respect of co-workers is priceless. But Gerry was lucky. Her boss was in a good mood that day what started out as a termination ended as a re-strategizing pow-wow.
That's where the company-wide Casual Friday idea came from. The boss man drew up a plan for boosting employee morale and production in response to Gerry's lackluster report. The casual dress thing came from the fact that he could never button all the buttons on his suit jacket and after lunch he always felt the need to unbutton his pants. This meant that he couldn't stand up from behind his desk to greet associates who came into the room. It goes without saying that this made the crucial seal-the-deal handshake impossible to execute.
Besides, if he was to start making his own coffee, there was a slim chance that coffee might inadvertently spill on his shirt, rendering him sloppy and unprofessional looking. If he was going to look sloppy, he may as well be comfortable while he was at it. Any excuse to trade in his business attire for a pair of sweats was more than welcome. And here it was disguised as a business plan. Genius! Pure Genius! Needless to say boss-man ran like hell to the CEO with the idea, taking full credit of course.
So Casual Friday was reborn to include the higher-ups and coffee was now made by a machine that told you to “Have a nice day!” after it gurgled out some scalding hot brown liquid purported to contain caffeine. That'll teach them all to scoff at my 98 cent travel mug that continually leaks all over me, my clothes, my papers, my car, my friends… Anyway, the point is, things were changing around here and presumably for the better.
But reorganization, however positive the change may be, inevitably leads to chaos and that's where something of a mutiny arose from, a hostile-yet remarkably civil and polite-takeover was in the works. Maybe I'll tell you the story of the coup over drinks sometime-when all of this is a distant memory and I can “look back and laugh.” Right now I need only look around me to find a laugh, but that makes people uncomfortable and is considered rude in some circles. So I must make a swift exit now before they discover that I ransacked the toner closet and also took those little mini post-it notes everyone is always fighting over….
