Types of Employee Behavior Warranting Disciplinary Action

by Rick Spender, HR Director

Good Afternoon, Kiddies.

After a year and a half, top brass decided my"Interim" as HR Director was long enough and gave me the job and title for real. That means I have total control over policy decisions, up to and including "editing" the Employee Handbook. Heh heh...

Strap yourself in good, Mary Ellen - this road trip's gonna take some damned sharp turns!

Back in October 2006, I addressed a pressing Sexual Harassment issue with a common-sense self-policing approach that has seemed to work rather well - the whininess level over "uncomfortable working conditions" dropped to the point where I could actually put together a decent benefits package for everybody. With that little "editing" experiment turning out to be such an unqualified operational success, I figure why not revamp the whole stinking manual?

Our current manual reads like an Atlanta lawyer's hungover nightmare - the himbo haircuts in Marketing can't understand it and the malcontented jagoffs in Legal tuck into it like an Aspbergers kid to an evil-level Sudoku. This helps frickin' nobody - neither you employees who can't figure out your rights and responsibilities nor The Company, who pays those weaselly fourth-year law school interns to shove their discount store wingtips up it own ass. Therefore, the entire Employee Manual (herein called... you know - toss this parenthetical bollockery! If you can't tell what I'm talking about, you're too damned thick to work here!) will be revamped, starting with the Types of Employee Behavior Warranting Disciplinary Action section.

Effective immediately, the following will replace Section 12, Pages 12-1 through 12-26 in the Employee Manual. Seriously, rip that ass-covering verbal diarrhea right out of your handbooks and take it to the shredder box nearest your workstation - I never want to hear it quoted to me again.

Types of Employee Behavior Warranting Disciplinary Action

The following three categories of employee behavior are expressly inappropriate at the workplace and thus punishable with disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment with Company at management's discretion:

DUMBASSEDNESS

Wanton violation of safety rules and repeated incomplete or inaccurate performance of duties after instruction, training, retraining, and / or wetnurse-like handholding are the two main categories of employee behavior falling under the "Dumbassedness" heading. You get paid to do a job - if you're too untrainably imbecilic to do it right, you damned well shouldn't get paid for it. (Note: If you had too look up more than three of the words in that last sentence, practice saying this phrase at home tonight: "Welcome to Wal-Mart!". You'll need it for your next job.) Further, this is a functioning jobsite, not a casting call for "Jackass 4." Wear your safety equipment ON THE BODY PART FOR WHICH IT WAS DESIGNED - shoving a pair of hardhats under your shirt and shouting "Check it out, Cooter - I'm Scarlett Johanssen!" will be a knee-slappin' laugh riot to explain at the unemployment office.

DICKHOLERY

Co-worker harrassment of all types and chronic unexplained tardiness and/or unexcused absences constitute largely, but not exclusively, the inappropriate workplace behavior classified as "dickholery". Everybody you work with - even the IT guy with a nigh-religious aversion to deodorant - is a human being and deserves to be treated with some dignity. (Of course, the treat-others-with-respect blade cuts both ways, Lordak, Exalted Foe Of Hygiene - we all have to breathe the same limited quantity of air, thanks to the whole roof-and-walls structure of our building.) Racial, gender-based, and playtime-orientation based commentary of a derogatory nature will not be tolerated - with exceptions for those oh-so-deserving smug-as-Hell Notre Dame, Red Sox and Cowboy fan fartcatchers.

Further those of you who can't seem to time your route to work within half an hour or so of your scheduled starting time are technically classified as dickholes, and are subject to discipline as such. The only excuse one could have for being that damned late nearly every damned day is that one is a nomadic drifter who sleeps under the first unoccupied bridge they can find on a nightly basis - at which point Management is well within its rights to question your paycheck-spending priorities, thus tucking you right back into the "dickhole" bucket.

DOUCHEBAGGERY

Self-serving behavior enacted at the expense of other associates or The Company is herein categorized as "douchebaggery". Examples of douchebaggery include, but are not limited to, taking credit for others' work, backstabbing, petty office politicking, and self-contradictory management doublespeak. Look - we all have to work for a living. We may as well try to get along with each other and let the efficacious cream rise to the top rather than the jizzwad produced by self-satisfaction. The Company derives no benefit from arrogant associates tromping on productive associates, and the Company is the one paying your presumptuous ass. Bow before the one you serve, Bitch.

RESOLUTION OF DISPUTES REGARDING ABOVE

All charges of Dumbassedness, Dickholery, and Douchebaggery will be investigated thoroughly and arbitrated as fairly as an impartial outside party could reason with respect to the benefits and harms of the complainant, the defendant, and The Company. Sackless mewling will not be tolerated - The Company pays me to do a job, too, and that job isn't handing out lollipops to pretty popcorn princesses with eggshell egos. Should a full investigation bear out that the complainant was just jacking us all around to get back at a coworker, complainant will subsequently be charged with Douchebaggery and dealt with exceptionally harshly.

(As a note to potential Douchebag complainants: Don't even try that weak-ass "vague and indeterminate policy" gambit against us. We have lawyers too. Big lawyers. Lawyers that have their own office BUILDINGS, not just offices. Our lawyers eat lawyers like yours for breakfast and shit out second-cousins-in-law-school before morning coffee break.)

Everybody Loves Barack

by Lars Eisenberg

2008 has given us the most interesting Presidential primary races in forty years. Not so much for the races themselves - I mean seriously, the GOP rolled out their standard "Pick A Stodgy Late-Middle-Aged Cracker Male" portfolio, and you can't wedge a credit card between the Democrats' platforms without KY Jelly and a French tickler - as much for the media coverage.

It seems that no matter where you turn for your 24-hour news cycle, you simply can't hear a pundit say anything that could possibly be interpreted as non-complimentary about Senator Barack Obama. With the Republican contest largely decided, that Krispy-Kreme-thick sugar glaze of the media's Obama Love is just getting spread around that much more. Call me paranoid, but when FOX News, CNN, MSNBC and the Oxygen Network all pretty much sound identical, I get suspicious.

Obama gives one hell of a speech - that's undeniable. He's the first candidate in my lifetime who gives a speech like he doesn't have a speechwriter. His message is inspirational, forward-looking and positive with just enough of reality's gravel strewn about his rhetorical Rainbow Road to let you know he doesn't live in Candy Land. If Barack were competing in the Illinois High School Speech and Rhetoric Society State Championships, I'd say give him the plaque right now - but he's not. He wants to run the most powerful friggin' nation on Earth, and for that position a great interview isn't enough - I think we should ask to see a resume.

Apparently, I'm alone in the media on that point. This same group of well-coiffed jackals that painted Al Gore as a pathological liar and John McCain a ticking timebomb of instability eight years ago aren't even asking about Obama's qualifications. Why not? Simple: Future Scandal Value

It's Barack Obama versus Hillary Clinton for the Dems. Media lives and breathes on and for outrage - and if one isn't one readily available, they make one up. Digging for dirt on an untested commodity like Barack Obama would be easy, and the media is all about picking the low-hanging fruit. On the flipside, there isn't a single political, personal or moral shortcoming that hasn't been attributed to Hillary Clinton over the last sixteen years from the healthcare crisis to 9/11 to the Iraq War to the deal with Mary Kate and Heath Ledger. Digging up new bones on Mrs. Clinton would require a Hoover Dam-like excavation project - and mainstream media "journalism" is as lazy as it is shallow.

Look - for all I know, Barack Obama could be the solution to America's problems. For all I know about him, he also could have been a Hell's Angel, an EEO hire for the John Birch Society, or Vice President of the Jefferson High School Mime and Balloon-Twisting Clown Society as a sophomore - that's all I'm saying, and the media doesn't seem to be interested in learning about any of it... at least until after the Democratic Convention.

Yes, I'm jaded. I've been studying the media too long, and perhaps that could be the tint in the turd-colored glasses through which I'm seeing the media's Obamapalooza of Love. Now that I look back, the last time the media held back and gave a candidate a free-pass was in 2000 when a belligerant once alcoholic and coke-snorting three-time failure as CEO strolled into the Presidency to a chorus of silence from the major news outlets... and that seemed to work out OK for us...

Loggeth Ye On The Multitudes And FAQeth

by God

Let's make this quick - I've got a universe to tend to.

I still answer tons of worthy earnest prayers, but it appears I may need to update my answering delivery system. Back in the day, my answer came in the form of floods and rainbows, a plague of locusts, breadstorms, chariots in the sky - you know, the flashy metaphorical stuff that really got people's attention. Well, now that there are thousands of times as many of you asking for hundreds of times as many favors each, such grandiose delivery would get really flippin' messy really fast. One day's worth of prayer-answering in the old style would have the whole lot of you wading armpit-deep in bread crubs and locust dung while ducking from flaming ethereal chariot wheels strewn about from the multitude of accidents during rush hour on the hyper-congested heavenly highway.

Therefore, I'll answer the greatest number of prayers in the quickest and clearest way modern technology allows - as FAQs on a website and advice columns in a blog.

First a FAQ...

Ye The Multitudes: "Please let me win the lottery! I'll do really great things with the money and honor Your glory and blah blah blah..."

GOD: No. There's your answer - no. Simple enough?

I don't deal with games of chance - those are all a random function of math. If I go tilting lotteries and poker games and football pools one way or the next, it's too much like playing favorites, since invariably another one of my children is asking the same thing of me for a different set of numbers, progressive slot machine, hockey team, what have you. I refuse to play favorites among my children (unless your initials are JC and have wicked carpal tunnel syndrome ;-}).

Besides, it's entirely impractical since you all pick different numbers... and even if you all got together and picked the same numbers, the pot wouldn't be worth winning. Sure I'm love and goodness and light whatnot, but you have to admit that we'd all be going through a heck of a lot of trouble to hit a jackpot that amounts to $3.27 a year for the next 26 years after it gets split so many million ways, eh? How about using all that communication and brotherhood to fix a poor man's house or solve the Arab-Israeli issue? That would actually answer one of MY prayers for a nice change of pace.

Now a letter...

To B.B. in Foxboro, MA - I did no such thing, YOU just missed the message: Establish the running game. Why do you think I gave your quarterback the gimpy ankle in the week off? Dope.

Talking Economics - Recession / Stimulus

by K. Russell Carlsson, Rogue Economist

What... you thought I could stay silent about this? Well, so did I, until the seventy-third person stood between me and my beer at the pub this past Thursday demanding answers. Fuckers. You know, even a tall Goose Island Honker Ale draught tastes like the congealing backwash of a congested troll if it gets warm and flat.

Anyway, let's get you your answers before another one of my beers spoils. I'd hate to have to punch someone in the dick who is earnestly seeking my professional insight.

The word "recession" is being tossed around like singles at titty bars these days. The vapid talking haircuts who read the big scary word off their TelePrompTers, however, never arse you with the petty details like what the hell a recession is and what it means. That, my friends, is why you have me.

Technically, (brace yourself for definitions!) a recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative macroeconomic growth - often as measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The GDP is a large, ferocious-looking formula packed with more figures and statistics than an autistic baseball fan at spring training which does a fairly decent job of defining overall economic growth from one time period to another. The GDP is usually calculated and reported quarterly and the percentage figure quoted by Newslie van der Mousse, such as "0.6% for the fourth quarter of 2007", indicates total economic growth with respect to the quarter immediately preceding.

Since the most recently reported quarter showed a gain (see above) , we are not currently in a textbook recession. However, since a textbook recession lags reality by six or seven months, by the time you're in one, it's pretty much too late to do anything about it. That is why Capitol Hill and the White House are screaming into every microphone they can find regarding an "economic stimulus package", which on the surface intends to head off, shorten, or reduce the severity an oncoming recession.

Should Washington be talking about a potential recession when the numbers just aren't there yet? With such a paltry gain in 4Q07 and reported overall job losses in January of 2008, one would think it wise. However, the facts are that the bulk of this slowdown can trace itself to the subprime mortgage meltdown, where smooth-talking rainbow-and-unicorn-poop selling mortgage brokers talked irresponsible and/or naive working people into buying houses they couldn't damned well afford. Home construction and related markets, real estate and lending institutions are the sectors of the economy really letting Big Bubba take the lead at the Prison Dance sock hop - all other sectors are still pretty solid.

Washington's answer to a pending recession is to give every working person in America a small sum of money and cut taxes on businesses yet again. Washington, however, is full of economically retarded vote whores. Giving away $150 billion we don't flipping have will only delay a true and solid recovery by burdening the future with higher interest payments on our ludicrously huge deficit. The best thing to do to help the economy right now: squat.

Yes, I went there. The government should do Johnny F. Bollocks to fix the mess toward which we're careening. Just like healthy forests need the occasional fire to burn off the scrub brush and dead wood, just like healthy populations need the occasional plague to rid itself of the weakest genetic bloodlines, healthy free-enterprise economies need the occasional recession to remind them of the price of excessive greed and/or stupidity. Adam Smith - the father of modern capitalism - referred to this reaping mechanism as "the invisible hand" of free-market economics in his magum opus The Wealth of Nations. Only by weasels and dipshits taking it in the shortpants will they learn not to repeat their weaseliness and dipshittery. If Government bails out the parties responsible for this economic downturn, the lesson learned is "If I crap all over myself finacially, Big Daddy Gubmint will swoop in and wipe my ass." Further, since the innocent will get paid as evenly as the guilty in this proposed "stimulus package", Jimmy Bag-O-Chips has no incentive to bitchslap the creeps and idiots into sensibility - if I get paid when weasels fuck over morons, why should I make the weasels play nice or keep the morons from taking it the wrong way up Hershey Highway?

However, doing nothing and saying why (namely telling the voters that they're scum and/or dumbfucks) won't win too many elections, where giving away free money and encouraging people to spend it will. 2008 is a major election year, so we have a "stimulus package". Reasons why the $150 billion vote-buyoff won't work on the macroeconomic level is another column for another time - right now, I've got a second chance with a cutie named Honker Ale Draught and I don't want to leave her idling any longer.