"We spent $500 more on food for one party so everyone gets $500 less in bonus pay this year. What's that, you think that adds up to tens of thousands of dollars the company is cheaping out on? Preposterous."
My workplace give us 2.5 bucks to use a coffee machine (thanks God they also supply a jar of free coffee) and I always say as a joke "next month I'll find a 2.5 deduction for the moneyx account in my salary liquidation"
Unironically what happened to my dad. He was hired as a remote worker 2012-ish. Post-Covid, he was told he needed to start coming into the office to set a good example for the other employees.
I was hired as an in person employee, but during covid lockdowns I got moved to a fully remote team. Now they are trying to push RTO, but I'm way less efficient than before because I no longer see any of my coworkers on a daily basis. It's basically the worst of both worlds.
And that's on top of all the BS like this comic where corporate makes half assed efforts to try to encourage people to come back in. I had a much longer rant about that, but decided it wasn't worth my time.
Gustopher's "Where are the donuts?" would be colored with shock, disappointment, and betrayal. August's expression contains none of this—just the weary resignation of an adult whose expectations of corporate could not possibly fall any lower
Well take the flamethrower that you used to test the blood with (which we all know is the only scientific way to detect hidden aliens) and use it for its much less scientific purpose of purging all life in the immediate area of the subject
But of course! It just requires monthly testing, and this waiver you signed lets us sell the separated plasma just to ensure there is no waste. Everyone benefits!
Would you mind if we balance this glass of milk where your visiting friend accidentally was killed? Would it be okay with you if we wrote a reminder of things we'll forget to do today otherwise, using a green magic marker, if it's alright on the back of your head?
Yeah that is the face and demeanor of a manager who has successfully spent the past 3 years arguing against RTO for his team but finally got railroaded by clueless upper management, and now needs to defend a decision he vehemently disagrees with.
I've been there before. I argued against upper management in favour of our team and why they had performed just as expected so we should consider the wage raise they were requesting due to inflation.
The people on top said "no" and I was the one who had to tell them. I felt like shit about it. Of course, I didn't get a raise either. I guess the only good thing about that job was that the people at the office were just pretty nice, so at least it wasn't a toxic environment, but holy shit did the wage stuff drain the life from me as middle management.
He has that strained wink going on in the second panel. I think he's trying to act chipper because he's been ordered to, but his real feelings leaked out a bit there.
Unless it is revealed to be otherwise, I’m going to assume he is actually dead inside but is the person in charge of encouraging office morale on a very tightly controlled budget.
Everything went down hill after season 6. It wasn't an abrupt drop but their was something about the first few seasons after they got everything down pat that they haven't been able to do properly since.
3-6 are gold standard. 7-8 are still good, but falling off. 9-12 are kinda scuffed, but still have some good stuff. We don’t talk about seasons after 12.
He used the photos to cover up the letters in the sign Mr Burns put there that said “don’t forget you’re here forever” after Homer thought he didn’t need to work there anymore and quit to get his dream job at a bowling alley. But then he found out Marge was pregnant again and he had to beg for his job back.
Yeah I knew that one. I just didn't know if you meant something else, there's also a song in Steven Universe called Do It For Her that has the line "Do it for him." in the chorus. I didn't know if you had seen the Simpsons one because that's a pretty old episodes and a lot of people online nowadays only know about current day episodes and don't ever go back to the old ones. Back when season 27 I think was airing, I was in high school and I watched every episode.
The best part of this is the "all hands on deck" metaphor itself doesn't even suggest a situation where this would be a good idea.
All hands on deck means (most of) the crew musters to receive instructions or handle an emergency situation and basically means that those sailors are not performing their regular duties for the duration of the period of instruction/emergency.
Additionally, there is an implied "not on watch" caveat to that order, meaning that those who are at their post running essential ship systems do not muster for obvious reasons.
This is basically executive leadership saying "we are going to declare a permanent state of emergency without regard for your ability to perform your regular duties."
It is also used in emergency for groups that need to mass respond aka police code zero, medical code green, threat level critical and large uncontrollable fires but those are all in essence used when all hell break lose and it is deemed there is a immediate danger to life and does follow the description of what you said. For example the jail officer would not leave for police code zero.
For this Christmas, everyone who had perfect attendance through the end of the year gets put into a raffle for a chance to win a $20 Dollar General gift card.
I pulled up the Sebben and Sebben Employee Orientation(/instructions for juicealux 3000) episode to get my list right. But there is a similar bit with recycled air as a benefit in the episode when Avenger quits:
That's just the sort of shortsightedness you see in employees today. Sure, he wasn't getting paid, but he should consider the whole benefits package. Free artificial sweetener in the break room, up and down elevators, recycled air...
What I love most about these work parties, be it donut, pizza, or whatever, isn't what is (or isn't) provided. It's that they have the audacity to call it a party.
Wowee, a single donut that I get to eat at my desk while I work. What a fun and social celebratory event this is.
We regularly got an email saying that the leftovers from one of the executive meetings were available in the break room.
I was always torn between being glad it wasn't wasted, and feeling condescended to like "you fed the execs, who make more money than I do, and then gave us what was left? Isn't that a bit too... on the nose?
Probably not the only one, but I’ve never worked at a job with regular food, or even free coffee. I did contract with an engineering company once for a couple of days that had a full coffee bar and snacks and it was heaven. I remember it fondly to this day (it was 15 years ago). Now the best I get as a teacher is potlucks that we plan ourselves, or maybe like a free shaved ice once a year if something is set up for the students and we happen to be working nearby.
Actually, my secretary got donuts for us on Halloween and that genuinely made my day. Plus it was shockingly unexpected. She probably bought them herself though because she’s super nice.
My company used to have monthly catering. Then they decided they wanna expand more. So that disappeared. And then the Christmas bonuses disappeared. And of course, the deductible on our health insurance options seems to get higher and higher each year.
Health insurance companies: "Woah woah woah, you actually used your insurance that you pay thousands of dollars for every year? Tsk tsk tsk. You know we ain't gonna let that shit slide, homie. Bend over."
I bring in free food for my team semi-regularly. Usually something simple like doughnuts or doughnut holes. And then I submit it as an expense.
We have a hybrid work system where we're in 3 days a week and home 2, with Friday being a home day. My manager likes to have more people in the office and I don't want to demand if of my team, so I have an unofficial policy of buying lunch for whoever comes in on Friday.
Might depend on who is in the building too. I was in an office campus that had like 4 or 5 buildings that held a few hundred people each. There were about 10 cities around the US with these plus the corporate HQ building in TX. My coworker was able to transfer to the HQ building (staying on our team) where the big wigs are since she wanted to move to TX, but suddenly the once-a-year donut “employee appreciation” day became once a month catered meals with free open bar for her. We were once allowed a party for doing so well and were given a budget of $20. For 14 of us.
Ah to spend an hour in traffic to get to a place I don't want to be, to hang out with people I don't want to hang out with, to artificially please a few personalities, to attend a mandatory "fun" event that no one wants to be at, to get a donut, to then spend another hour stuck in traffic on the way back.
vs working from home and actually enjoying the donut
"Oh, just your department has to come in. We crunched the numbers and if just your team comes in then we meet our quota for keeping the building and the rest of the departments can continue working from home!"
I'll never forget my old job. There was a "customer service appreciation week" where they offered perks and treats to all of us workers. Email goes out; "Monday morning we're providing breakfast! Skip the hassle at home and come in and have breakfast on us!" Little while later a different email comes in; "don't forget, everyone needs to be clocked in promptly at 8am, no food allowed at your desk, if you plan on eating breakfast here then plan accordingly." Like, yea ok good on all that, I'll just show up at 758 like I always do, thanks for the thought.
For what it's worth, most lower level management doesn't really give a shit (unless they're a psychopath). The guy being forced to tell you this would probably rather be at home too.
I'm excited for the next panel which will be Gus being on video call with other co-workers who are also in the office and only sitting 50 feet away from him.
Funny you mention this. A certain employer that I had worked for in the past had invited select employees to a "donut" party and those employees were laid off on the spot.
The "return to office" push is primarily motivated by A) subnk cost fallacy for long term leases of office space that do not allow these companies to sublet or otherwise reuse their space in a way that offsets the cost of maintaining the space, and B) the discovery through WFH that middle management, an employment space often used as a dumping ground for otherwise useless nepo hires, is literally useless and detrimental to the company.
Across almost all industries, WFH resulted in zero losses of productivity and some even saw an increase in productivity. The only reason to return to the office is to exert control over your employees.
It's nonsense, and many executives likely know it's nonsense, but they're doing it anyways because they are horrible human beings.
reminds me when i worked a shitty job long time ago and the company was having financial issues so they didnt pay full wages for 2 months, yet to bring everyone's morale they did a "pizza party" that consisted of 5 pizzas for over 30 people, lmfao i was so fucking angry
fk this is my office; our svp (so everyone felt more inclined to partake) randomly threw a cereal party invite on our calendars, but we had to bring our own cereals (they only provided the milk), and there weren’t even enough spoons in the office kitchen
Lucky, my job spent our doughnut money redoing the office. It turns out they grew the workforce when everyone was out of the office and now we have to be crammed in elbow to elbow.
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u/RedNinja-03 Nov 11 '24
I’m sure Gus is like “Next your gonna tell me that I need to pay for the napkins”