Do the Right Thing

The technology company where I work has this award they give out called the "Do the Right Thing" award. The line is that they wish to recognize and reinforce that it is good to act with integrity when we come to work. C'mon, we're not lawyers. But what is laughable is the reasons that some people get nominated for this "honor".

For instance, a director of customer support was nominated because he "resolved an installation problem with an end user. He identified the problem and was able to troubleshoot. The customer was up and running within minutes. " Excuse me, but isn't that his f*#!ing job? Nothing against this guy, he is a stand-up guy (If you know me, it's not the guy you think it is). But I do this job 8 times a day, and nobody nominates me for the "Showing up to work" award. Sheesh.

And then, I see our that HR director, who has helped sink our HR department to the lowest depths of any for which I have worked in my 20 year career, is nominated as well. This person is up for this honor because our lease expired, and this person had to travel to Sunny Southern California from their landfill in New Jersey and renegotiate it. And that they did, for a third less space, creating a hazardous construction zone in the office for 3 months before moving most people from their cozy offices into cubicles, lowering morale by the minute. But, this person saved the company a couple of shekels, so they are up for the "Did my f*#!ing job AND piss off the people I'm responsible for looking out for" award.

(I know that this would read a lot better if it were gender specific, I hate using "they" or "he/she". But I am also Tad Paranoid.)

The corporate culture that upper management wants us to buy into can be summarized nicely by our internal web site's listing of our basic beliefs (after all, it's not just a job, it's a religion!):

Our corporate culture is characterized by five basic values:

• Customer First
• Excellens in Execution
• Sense of Urgency
• Do the right thing
• Passion & Fun

Using a spell checker on a regular basis must have come in sixth and just missed being included. Guess it isn't so urgent. The funny thing is that 3 years ago they mass-printed desktop calendars for our customers, featuring a different motivational phrase each month. February's was "Excellenc (sic) - Anything worth doing is worth doing well." Like learning from past mistakes.

One of my colleagues, for whom I have a great deal of respect, once postulated "There are very few true geniuses in this world. What are the odds that any of them are running this company?" Hear hear. If they did, I'm confident that they wouldn't settle for a position in HR.

Waiting for the fun to start.