Crazy work stories #2
“A culture is defined by the worst behaviour tolerated.”
This quote is often attributed to John Amaechi, an English psychologist. He is famous for many reasons including this often shared quote, however I searched the internet for a source and couldn’t find one. Thus, it may be attributed to John Ameachi or it may not. Regardless, it’s still a fantastic statement, full of truth.
At a prior company, the CEO’s assistant, called me on the office phone and said “I’m sending you a document for the CEO. Can you help me figure out how to print it as a newspaper?”
“Of course,” I said. “Email it to me.”
I opened my email and found an old scan of a college parody newspaper, something along the lines of MAD Magazine. The front page showed two naked men, one much shorter than the other, with rectangular black bars covering their eyes and their genitals. The headline stated in bold letters “First penis transplant successful.”
I thought several things:
this is weird
this isn’t work-related
this is inappropriate
But instead of stopping the process on the spot I instead asked the graphic designer in my department, Rachel, if she could format the PDF into a newspaper.
Rachel opened the email. “What the hell?,” she said. Then she laughed and said, “This is totally weird!” She worked on making the bars over the men’s eyes a little wider and formatting the document before sending it back to me.
I then sent the document to my printer, an external vendor. Within minutes he replied with a brief email, stating “Michele, I cannot help you with this project.”
It took that email from an outsider to jar me into action. Of course he couldn’t help. This was highly inappropriate. I was shocked I had forwarded the document to two other people. What was I thinking? I wasn’t. I was doing what everyone in the company did when the CEO had a request - appeasing him. Because if you didn’t, you faced him yelling at you and demeaning you, usually in front of other people.
I finally called the CEO’s assistant and told her that, together, we would bring this issue to another executive. The content was inappropriate, it was a personal project that was using employees’ work time, and the cost of printing the project was also going to be applied to the company. Apparently the CEO didn’t see an issue with this, as he had planned to distribute the paper at his college reunion during the same weekend he would be speaking about the organization’s program.
Every organization you will work at will have its share of flaws. Nothing is perfect. It’s all relative anyway. Your experience is different than your cubemates’. But there are a few basic tenets you can and should adhere to.
When poor behavior is tolerated consistently, there is little opportunity to make change. It’s difficult to be the one to speak up.
If you don’t speak up, the behavior will continue.
If you do speak up, the behavior may still continue, but at least you are not contributing to it.