My friend M told me a strange workplace story last time we met for lunch. They had a bi-weekly call with their skip-level manager - something this guy does to rally the troops and give them a chance to engage with him directly. A very notable exception in her company which is fixated with level and title. M and her peers are appreciative of the gesture and effort. However, this last call went quite strangely - the majority of the time was spent in discussing questions and concerns about attendance in the office, how it is tracked and what happens when some folks are flagged for habitual patterns of non-compliance.
Folks were asking this guy scenario questions like if my dog were to become deathly ill and need me to give him medications five times a day, can I stay home for the day. The answer was that should be okay as long as the reason is properly documented and the manager has awareness of the situation. Someone else had a question about taking off a day in the week every week until their vacation days ran out - how would they be measured for the purposes of attendance compliance. This one the hapless skip-level manager simply could not answer.
M was the only one in the call who did not have any questions. She says she felt like she had regressed in age and intellect back to middle school, trying to score an unmerited hall-pass. We calculated the total amount of productive dollars wasted by this group of ten generously compensated resources for the hour long discussion of truancy scenarios could buy a years worth of groceries for a poor family of four. By her estimate 95% of meetings in her company are entirely pointless, the rest may have some passing point. With that kind of volume an hour of wasted time talking nonsense across the organization, could be enough to buy a house.
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