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Today's Keyboard Smash
Jul. 28th, 2020 05:14 pmAt work, they decided to give us an employee appreciation lunch. This is, officially, to thank us for doing our essential work during the End Times. Unofficially, I suspect this was a last-ditch effort to bolster morale in the face of quarterly bonuses which are paying out later than normal and will be a pittance. A free lunch is nice and all. I mean, I don't normally eat at work anymore, but for free food, I'll disrupt my routine. Deli sandwiches, which isn't anything to write home about, but it was a respectable little lunchbox.
But here's the thing. For first shift, they set up the food pickup tables in the breakroom and moved all the other tables out to the parking lot. The parking lot has no shade. It was also eleven o'clock. In July. I can't say for sure how hot it was, but let me put it this way: I live about twenty miles away and it topped out at 108 degrees at my house today.
You know what they didn't set up out in the parking lot? Any kind of canopies or other pop-up shelters. There were four seats that had any shade. I was one of the first people out there, and I still couldn't get one. All of us, just stuck out in the sun, eating our slightly soggy box lunches and sitting two to a table and looking remarkably miserable for people being paid to eat lunch.
I'm not supposed to be out in the sun much--lupus--and was hoping to eat quickly and then slink back inside. There might not be any seating in there, but there's a floor. Hell, I would have just gone back to work if it came down to it. Instead, I got pigeonholed by one of the supervisors, who wants to hear all about our horses. I can't tell you how dull I personally find talking about the horses, at least with non-horse people with whom I can't really get into the weeds of the topic. It's just...it's like asking a teenager what they're learning in school these days. This is not going to engage them, no matter how much you personally want their report on the subject.
Half an hour. Stuck in the sun. Talking about horses. Lunch already eaten. Tea gone. IN. THE. SUN. I enjoyed this not at all.
I swear, my overwhelming impression of this company is that they have decent ideas but execute them in the most ill-conceived ways imaginable. Let's show our employees how much we care by giving them heatstroke. For fuck's sake. We are a multinational, professional operation. Not that you can tell by looking.
But here's the thing. For first shift, they set up the food pickup tables in the breakroom and moved all the other tables out to the parking lot. The parking lot has no shade. It was also eleven o'clock. In July. I can't say for sure how hot it was, but let me put it this way: I live about twenty miles away and it topped out at 108 degrees at my house today.
You know what they didn't set up out in the parking lot? Any kind of canopies or other pop-up shelters. There were four seats that had any shade. I was one of the first people out there, and I still couldn't get one. All of us, just stuck out in the sun, eating our slightly soggy box lunches and sitting two to a table and looking remarkably miserable for people being paid to eat lunch.
I'm not supposed to be out in the sun much--lupus--and was hoping to eat quickly and then slink back inside. There might not be any seating in there, but there's a floor. Hell, I would have just gone back to work if it came down to it. Instead, I got pigeonholed by one of the supervisors, who wants to hear all about our horses. I can't tell you how dull I personally find talking about the horses, at least with non-horse people with whom I can't really get into the weeds of the topic. It's just...it's like asking a teenager what they're learning in school these days. This is not going to engage them, no matter how much you personally want their report on the subject.
Half an hour. Stuck in the sun. Talking about horses. Lunch already eaten. Tea gone. IN. THE. SUN. I enjoyed this not at all.
I swear, my overwhelming impression of this company is that they have decent ideas but execute them in the most ill-conceived ways imaginable. Let's show our employees how much we care by giving them heatstroke. For fuck's sake. We are a multinational, professional operation. Not that you can tell by looking.
