Friendly Addendum to Employee Handbook, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY
To: All Employees
From: Trish in HR
Hey,
This is Trish from HR, and on behalf of Jennifer Tyrann, Sr. VP of Human Resources, I’m writing to clear up some confusion about acknowledging coworkers in the work space; i.e., waving to people in the hallway. I know that sounds weird to some of you — I mean, you see someone so you say ‘hello’ — but not everyone seems to get it and it’s become a distraction to our work.
I mean, when Jennifer pulls me into her office, I know it’s serious. Just sayin’.
First off, let me acknowledge the elephant in the room — ‘Hello Elephant!’. (Just kidding.) Last year, we changed from high-walled cubicles to an open office environment. People complained at first about feeling exposed — we know, ‘change’ is ‘hard’. Then people made jokes about the glass wall dividers being like waiting in line for your sandwich at Subway (ha ha!).
Some argued that their ability to focus suffered, but Jennifer wanted me to share that the number of absences from cold and flu was down significantly last winter because workers are less likely to pick their nose when all of their coworkers can see everything you do. Also, sneezing and coughing without covering your mouth has been greatly reduced. Remember how we laughed when John Johnson in Quality Assurance coated his glass cubicle wall with snot?
(That reminds me, Corporate Communications needs more ‘candid photos’ sent in for The Hub, our company Intranet!)
The good news was that, three months after installing the open office environment, productivity began to increase. A year later, we have finally surpassed our previous productivity levels, thereby vindicating Jennifer’s belief that the change would make us a better (i.e., more productive) company.
However, in the past two months, productivity has plateaued, while complaints about the lack of friendliness in our open office environment have increased. So we put our HR heads together and came up with the following Addendum to the Employee Handbook:
SECTION 38, EMPLOYEE FRIENDLINESS
All employees are to be friendly towards each other at all times. If you’re having a bad day, you may use the newly created Having a Bad Day floating holiday, and receive a normal day’s pay, if approved by your immediate supervisor. Note, you can’t use your Having a Bad Day floating holiday immediately following the New Year’s Day holiday, the Monday following the Good Friday Holiday, or on any day you have a meeting scheduled.
The company encourages you to take advantage of this generous benefit, and not infect your coworkers with your sub-optimal attitude when you’re having a bad day.
Should an employee be deemed ‘having a bad day’, they will be directed by their supervisor to go home for the remainder of the day, and will be charged a Having a Bad Day holiday on their time sheet. If the employee has already used their Having a Bad Day holiday, the day will be coded as Unpaid Having a Bad Day, and the employee will receive no pay that day.
Should an employee be sent home for a second Unpaid Having a Bad Day, they will be suspended without pay, and must apply for reinstatement to the Employee Council. (Note, the Employee Council is currently made up of Jennifer Tyrann, Sr. Vice President of HR.)
SECTION 39, EMPLOYEE GREETINGS IN THE HALLWAY
All employees are to greet or otherwise acknowledge coworkers even if that coworker does not seem to notice, greet, or acknowledge you. Because of our open office environment (which is responsible for our recent productivity gains) we are able to see each other from corner to corner of the building, and to act as if we don’t see each other is offensive to some. Therefore, you should always treat every sighting of a coworker as an opportunity to not offend them and to acknowledge their presence by greeting them. This also acknowledges their contributions to our productivity.
Employees who do not greet or acknowledge their coworkers will be sent home on an Unpaid Having a Bad Day holiday, so we strongly encourage you to greet or acknowledge your coworkers.
The following gestures constitute the official, company-sanctioned greetings and acknowledgements:
- Waving at the coworker while also smiling
- Nodding at the coworker while smiling
- Saying ‘hello,’ ‘how are you,’ or ‘nice day, isn’t it?’ while making eye contact with the coworker and smiling
The following gestures do not qualify as a greeting or an acknowledgement:
- Jutting out one’s chin and saying “‘sup bitch?”
- Raising an eyebrow
- Muttering ‘is it Friday?’
The company realizes that, because there are three thousand employees currently stationed in our single-story, former B-24 Bomber factory (which we refurbished into a modern, award-winning, open office environment work space) it is theoretically possible to see hundreds of people at any given moment, and that greeting hundreds of people may itself be a distraction from your productivity. Furthermore, although the company compensates you handsomely to stay productive within the confines of your glass-walled cubicle, we recognize the following company-approved reasons to look around or otherwise leave your cubicle:
- Bathroom or lunch breaks (as stated in Section 27 of the Employee Handbook, the company strongly urges you to combine your lunch break with one or more bathroom breaks)
- Meetings, or the end of your scheduled work day
- Active shooter in the building
The company suggests the following gestures based on your spatial relationship to the coworker:
- 0–50’ — Smile, say ‘hello,’ and wave
- 51–150’ — Smile, nod, and wave
- 151–500’ — Smile, silently mouth the word ‘hello,’ and wave
Because of the transient nature of greetings in our open office environment, the company recognizes that there may be disputes as to the exact gesture made, and any employee offended by the lack of enthusiasm in a particular gesture, or if that employee feels no gesture was made at all, may report the incident to the Employee Council, who will summon all parties to review the pertinent facts.
Please note this policy is EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY and that these pages have been added to The Hub, our company intranet, which you can access by clicking the picture of the snot bomb John Johnson dropped on his glass cubicle wall last year.
Have a nice day!
— Trish, Assistant to the Sr. Vice President of HR
