The company that employs me is like many corporations, highly skilled at making various processes overly redundant. For example, the process with which my employer tracks the hours I work in a given week:
Step 1: When arriving at the office we need to swipe a magnetic pass card that allows us access. Each time we swipe our card, it is recorded and the information is sent to pay roll. At the end of the day, we are required to swipe the card again indicating that we are leaving.
Step 2: We are required each day to keep a spreadsheet indicating exactly what we did during the day, and how long each activity took. So if I work on one project for an hour and a half, I enter the project name into one column, then what I did in another, the status of the project after I worked on it in another, and then finally I would enter 1.5 hours in the last column. This needs to be emailed to our management at the end of the work day.
Step 3: There is a sheet outside the door to every department with all of the relevant employees names on it. On this sheet we are required to indicate what time we arrived, what time we were in and out for our breaks and lunches, and what time we left for the day.
Step 4: This step isn't always used, but when working extra hours, or less hours than our normal shift, we are required to email payroll and our management and indicate what hours we worked, and the reason for the discrepancy.
I am not the most dedicated employee when it comes to this process. In fact, I often forget to swipe my card at the end of the day. The door that the card opens does not require a card swipe to leave, only to enter the building.
My manager sent me an email yesterday as I'd forgotten to scan out on Tuesday. My reply follows:
Hi (Managers name omitted),
I offer the humblest of apologies and pledge that moving forward, I
will dedicate less of my limited attention span to quality work and
focus more of it on the overly redundant process of logging my hours
worked (i.e: Scanning in and out, sending an email, completing a time
sheet that logs how every minute of my day has been spent and signing
the in/out sheet in the hallway).
Certainly every step of that process is absolutely essential to keeping
track of what hours I've worked, and I've no doubt that should one step
of that process not be followed with exact precision that the entire
Human Resources departments of (company name) and (parent company)
will fall into chaos and confusion, leading to the inevitable result of
(parent company) collapsing as a corporation.
And of course, after the collapse of such a large corporation brought
on by my seeming unwillingness to follow the proper time tracking
procedures, (parent company) would no doubt be left with billions in
outstanding debts. They would naturally have little recourse but to
sell all of the employees and their families into slavery in some east
Asian country, leaving said employees to wallow in despair for the
rest of their lives. Performing menial tasks such as cleaning toilets
and giving piggy back rides to the children of their wealthy new slave
masters.
With such an influx of free labor of course, the east asian economy
would face such an economic crisis as to rival the great depression.
The loss of paying jobs which have now been filled with indentured
laborers, would affect the economic stability of the region and
continue to reverberate through the global economy. Entire nations
would collapse into revolt and anarchy. Billions would die in the
ensuing chaos and human civilization as we know it would come to a
grinding halt. Leaving the survivors with little choice but to revert
to the hunter/gatherer ways of our ancient ancestors.
Over time, humankinds' progress would be forgotten as the survivors
focus their attention on a simpler life. Gone are the scientific,
literary and cutural wonders of the last 2000 years. Gone are the
cities that once marked the center of human progress and evolution,
abandonned in the great revolts and now taken back by nature. No,
humanity would not even reflect a shadow of it's former glory. It would
truly be the end of the world.
And all because I didn't scan out on Tuesday.
I am a horrible human being.
Andrew (last name)
Content Coordinator
What makes me really chuckle is that I know she'll be attempting to read this lengthy email from her Blackberry.
I love my job some days.
Note: I feel the need to clarify that the email I received from my manager that precipitated this reply was not actually chastising me, nor was it ill intended. It was a pleasant request for clarification of my hours. The reply was a result of my being a little too bored, and having had a tad too much coffee.
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