It was when I got to bed—for the second time—yesterday
afternoon that it hit me: I completely, completely, screwed up.
What I had been skating around, in my post about Robert
Louis Stevenson and Florence Nightingale, is nothing more than a completely
new, and thoroughly revolutionary concept in business management!
It’s an experience everyone should have—for a few
years—working in a major corporation, because it will entirely shred any belief
you might cling to about the efficiency or productivity of our current business
models.
An example?
Some years ago, the entire Human Resources department—some
forty people—was taken off to what was proudly championed as an adult
preschool. There were cushions, people sat on the floor, employees meandered
about and got sugared snacks, crayons were provided as well as large sheets of
paper, to be followed with post-it notes that were pasted on the
brightly-colored walls. People were milling about, rearranging the notes,
laughing, chatting. And what was the point of it?
I have no idea….
Nor, I’m sure, do any of the people involved. We knew at the
time; it made—depending how elastic your credulity was—sense at the time. A
plan was generated, meetings were held, committees were formed, reports were
generated, progress was measured and observed, goals were met. Finally, at the
end of the year, the department “morale” was measured, and guess what? It was
little changed from the previous year, and all of the eternal complaints that
everybody had about the department—those complaints that were so grave they
could never be spoken, only broached anonymously via the survey?
Still there!
There is, in short, an unbelievable level of silliness in
corporate America. Consider, for example, another “retreat”—which it was, from
sanity—in which a blindfolded woman stood on a platform, behind which her
colleagues stood, their arms outstretched, ready to catch her. The coach,
however, was urging her: dig deep, feel the fear of rejection, of not being
supported, of the fall, of the crash onto the concrete and the splattered flesh
and the splintered bones! In the meantime, her colleagues were shouting
messages of support.
“We’ll always be there for you, María!”
“We’ve got your back, María!”
“We love you, María!”
María was an out-and-out bitch whom nobody could stand,
except for the three members of her micro-division, all of whom formed a sort
of cell of nastiness.
Nor was it limited to Human Resources, though we seemed to
do this inanity with more panache. There was the Pizza Panic—which started when
the Mexican CEO of the company (whose stature was equal to the temperament of
Napoleon). This man, called Pancho, had ventured into a Sam’s Club, sampled the
pizza, and disliked the sauce.
“Why are we always trying to imitate Costco?” I had asked a
group of managers a few weeks previously. “Just because Costco has great pizza,
does that mean we have to slavishly copy them? Aren’t we the leader—at least in
Puerto Rico—of the industry?”
But no, we had to have pizza, and now it was five PM—rush
hour—and Pancho was calling William, the head of the Sam’s division. I was
chatting with William when the call arrived. William, of course, had to drop
everything to go see about the pizza. First, however, he had to summon the head
of the food division, and marshal him to action as well.
‘How far down will it go,’ I wondered, and stepped into the
office of the Deli division, who was on the phone saying, “Oh my God, I’ll be
there right away!” And so I went from office to office, as the alarm and panic
was sounded. Then I head for the door, and waited.
Remember Wilma and Betty shouting, “CHARGE!?”
Also remember—it was now 5:10, which meant that the five
miles to the club would now take an hour. During which Pancho was fuming in the
club, finding new atrocities, peppering his staff with calls. Taken in total,
there must have been a payroll of well over five hundred dollars an hour
stalled between the Home Office and the club.
The average manager? He or she is completely harassed by
emails, calls, text messages, meetings announced or improvised, reports that
have to be done, evaluations that have to be performed…and guess what? At the
end of the day, it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans, because the twenty-year
kid that you’re paying 7.60$ an hour to make the pizza? He could give a flying
phooey about it….
Now then—consider Miss Nightingale, as I often do. She was
sick, sick, deathly sick—so sick was she that it was impossible, utterly
impossible to see anybody. Did no one understand that? Was she always to be
hectored, to be surrounded by petty people as fruit flies swarm a rotten
orange!? It was impossible, utterly impossible for her to do anything—she had
to have complete silence and seclusion, since she was busy just at the moment
finishing up her 830-page report for Queen Victoria, and pioneering the use of medical
statistics! Couldn’t they see that?
Good Lord, and didn’t they realize that soldiers in peacetime die at
twice the rate of civilians in the general population! Good God, and these were
soldiers, presumably young fit men! Something had to be done, and at
once, and she was a lone, frail woman—utterly exhausted, but struggling,
struggling to finish her reports, and will someone please, PLEASE, put hay on
the streets? The clatter of the hooves is making it completely impossible to
work!
Enter the Invalidism Style of Management!
Everybody, absolutely everybody must be sick, pale, ailing,
clenching onto life even as the jaws of death gape wider and wider—an asp of
Homeric proportions. No cell phones can possibly tolerated, a meeting would be
quite out of the question, and email? Can’t you see that whatever spare
energy—piffling as it is—has to given to the question of how to increase the
efficiency of solar panels so that even in foggy London everybody will be
energy-sufficient!? Must I always be hectored?
Tremendous idea, if I do say so myself….
