Over the years, bosses have asked me to do many things. I’ve fired or laid off at least 200 people. I’ve disciplined probably half that many. I’ve had to tell people that they won’t be getting a raise this year, or that the raise they get wouldn’t buy them a cup of coffee at Starbucks. I’ve broken bad news of deaths, illnesses, and accidents; I’ve turned a parent in to Child Protective Services; I’ve turned away candidates with bad criminal records. I’ve never, in all this time, been asked to do as difficult a job as I am doing today.
The boss wants a picture of everyone in the plant.
I think, after today, I may begin getting death threats.
To be fair, having a picture taken while you’re covered in the white fibers that we use in our process – well, it makes you look something like a chicken. And though I warned everybody that picture day was coming, most people didn’t remember to do anything special with their hair, makeup, clothes, etc. But even so – these pictures are just going in a file, on the computer, to be trotted out whenever a visitor from corporate comes in, so they know who is who. They don’t go on IDs, or up on boards, or in the paper for heaven’s sake. They are just a tool to help our bosses learn names. I think its kind of nice that our bosses want to know our names!! And they live in Israel, so this is the only way to do it.
I walked around for about an hour with a digital camera, but then I couldn’t take the abuse. People were downright hostile. I gave some people an extension til Monday, so they could make other "arrangements" for their "couture." But for Pete’s sake, you’d think I was going around cutting off their pinky fingers or something! I even went first! And then they all say, "Well you are so pretty, of course you don’t care about having your picture taken!" And then I say, "Nice try, flattery will get you nowhere, just freakin’ SMILE so I can move on with my day."
Honestly, people.
I don\’t know why this made me laugh as hard as it did, but I really did laugh out loud. Probably because nearly every place I\’ve ever worked has required me to take a picture. It usually ends up being some grainy photo where you can\’t really tell who I am at all. Another place I worked required that we have our pictures up on the intranet so that employees from different locations could put a face with a name. I put up a pictures of Cindy Crawford for mine and no one ever said a word. Not one word! AH.
Amanda 🙂
Funny! I know a girl who is still mad at me because I when she asked if she could take my pic I was less than enthusastic. I don\’t think I was rude, but anyway, it made me think. My new policy is you can take it, but NEVER EVER show it to me, and we are all good!