Ah, 2007. A new year, new policies and unfortunately…the same shit. But this time, it’s in a different toilet.

Lately at the J-O, there has been an overnight ardent interest from upper management in the well-being of their employees, almost to the point of micro-managing. No, thank God none of them will become Micro-Managers, but to me, this all seems really weird. I mean, going from hands-off to hand-in-back-pocket is a little fast and a lot of people don’t like the change.

However, I am turning the situation into a positive.

One of the new things they’ve done is start to acknowledge people weekly for their contributions, whether it’s getting the highest production numbers for the week or stepping above and beyond for what could ordinarily be seen as a mundane task. So far, I’ve been production leader for the past two weeks AND I got kudos for a quick response on a hot problem AND I won a contest and got a free design book. Of course, it was all followed with comments like this:

“Oh, Karsh won something? Then I don’t care.”
“They’re just letting him win because he’s new.”
“Karsh must be some kind of robot.”

Yeah, a robot that’s spanking y’all human asses week after week. Compute that, bitches.

Another thing they’ve been doing is trying to figure out how the designers really feel about their job and such. And instead of doing it in a one-on-one setting where people could feel comfortable venting, they herded us all in one conference room and called folks out to speak. Needless to say, there wasn’t much feedback. So they broke that large group into two groups.

Still no feedback.

They broke those two groups into two groups.

Still no feedback.

At this point, the shit is so fragmented there’s no way the task will be completed. It’s like some adverse group mitosis type shit going on. This ended up with me sitting in a sub-sub-sub group with three other designers and Brooding Velma to talk about what’s going on at the job. The other three were very talkative and had lots to say. Me? I really didn’t. I totally put all that other crap about the job about not being taken seriously because I’m not some art school grad or them not talking to me in File 13. Now, I show up, put on my ‘phones, rock out and design and leave promptly when my eight hours are up. No muss, no fuss.

But now? Now they want to get to know a brotha.

“Karsh, you’re so quiet. Why don’t you talk?” Brooding Velma asked.

“I’m just taking it all in…I listen a lot.”

“Well it’s weird that you don’t say anything in meetings.”

“I don’t say anything in meetings because I don’t really have anything to contribute from my vantage point. I’m not a person that talks to hear themselves talk — if I have something to say, I’ll say it.”

“I guess…”

Two days later, she’s in front of the entire design group congratulating me for leading production numbers for the past quarter and issuing me a prize.

“And Karsh…since you came on the team you have really helped us out tremendously with your skill and speed and passion.”

Now…let me stop here for a minute. I take offense to being thanked for my passion anywhere outside the bedroom. And it was definitely odd to hear that out of her mouth. How insincere.

No matter though. I guess it’s just giving the rest of them something else to be envious over. Corporate life. High school. Is there really that much of a difference between the two?


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