re: #447 BigPapa

They don’t think it’s important, or it’s too expensive to have all the employees in one spot for 30 minutes.

There is some similarity to my situation: reputed firm, owner is a Dartmouth/USC MBA holder, pretty smart guy. I was the highest up the food chain with the actual ‘down in the trenches’ experience base in our business. Yet somehow we didn’t do as well as they thought, so they kept changing things and trying new schemes to increase efficiency and productivity. These schemes were thought up with little input from the field, and the field was never invested in these new schemes because it was another stupid scheme thought up by management.

Then when I questioned those schemes challenged that thinking, Douche told me I ‘wasn’t being a Team player’ since I wasn’t going along with the plan. His plan, that nobody else thought was a great idea.

I’ve been through a couple rounds of corporate efficiency and productivity programs. Plus 2-3 rounds of attempts to form a “friendly corporate culture”, or at least some sort of common culture amongst the multiple plants. All have failed to a greater or lesser degree.

And right now I’m seeing attempt #4. However, with the current headquarters set-up there is a 20-24 seat lunchroom with a large TV (set to CNN usually) and essentially some strong official advice that the employees should use the lunchroom and not eat at their desks.

And as a result I’ve ended up eating sitting at a table and eating lunch and chatting with a visiting plant manager, the head of HR, and the VP of Finance at different times over the past two weeks. In my previous employment this is pretty much unthinkable outside of a special meeting/dinner that executives were at. There just wasn’t mixing of that sort between the departments and up-down the chain that far.