Update from Friday

We interviewed Junior for the job he was the only applicant for (he did quite well) then virtually straight after we told him he’d got the job anyway. He’d sussed that the other guy could have applied for his job by mistake. Then he wanted to know what starting pay he’d be on, which we can’t decide. We got him to get us some coffees in while we filled in his score sheet. This is something you have to do after each interview, the boss likes to see it (even though he couldn’t be bothered to interview. Actually he did want to do the interview to get himself out of a more important meeting. Junior decided not to tell the rest of the office he’d been successful straight away. I think he told them on Friday when I was off.

On Friday the department had been invited to a buffet lunch with the boss and his manager. He’s meeting everyone to try and effect how people fill in their Employee Opinion Survey. Last years survey hadn’t gone as well as they had hoped and they have to account for the unhappiness of the staff. I was off, but I’ve got to attend this Friday with another section instead.

Eric had asked a question about if he tried harder would there be a chance of promotion.
Unfortunately our boss was in a funny mood and replied:
“You could work harder than you do already?”
Then through-out the meeting he was made to look daft, as they kept referring to his enthusiasm to work harder. By the sound of things, no one else said that much after that for fear that they put themselves in the firing line. His manager told them that they could go on any courses that they wanted to that might help with their chances of promotion, only to be told (once the manager had left) that any applications for courses would be turned down

So he ended up with a bunch of unhappy employees who’s only chance to vent their unhappiness is when the anonymous Employee Opinion Survey gets sent round.