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"As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to
access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will
be taken next Wednesday, and employees will receive their cards in
two weeks." (This was the winning entry Fred Dales at
Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, WA) "What I need is a list of specific unknown problems
we will encounter." (Lykes Lines Shipping)
"How long is this Beta guy going to keep testing
our stuff?"
(Programming intern, Microsoft IIS development team)
"E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or
data. It should be used only for company business." (Accounting
Mgr., Electric Boat Company)
"This project is so important, we can't let things
that are more important interfere with it." (Advertising/Mktg.
Mgr., UPS)
"Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the
schedule." (R&D Supervisor, Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing/3M
Corp.)
My boss spent the entire weekend retyping a
25-page proposal that only needed corrections. She claims the disk
I gave her was damaged and she couldn't edit it. The disk I gave
her was write-protected. (CIO of Dell Computers)
Quote from the boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people
doing what 'I' say." (Mktg. executive, Citrix Corporation)
My sister passed away and her funeral was
scheduled for Monday. When I told my boss, he said she died so
that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He
then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, "That
would be better for me." (Shipping Executive, FTD Florists)
"We know that communication is a problem, but the
company is not going to discuss it with the employees." (AT&T Long
Lines Division)
We recently received a memo from senior management
saying, "This is to inform you that a memo will be issued today
regarding the subject mentioned above." (Microsoft, Legal Affairs
Division)
One day my boss asked me to submit a status report
to him concerning a project I was working on. I asked him if
tomorrow would be soon enough. He said, "If I wanted it tomorrow,
I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it!" (New Business
Mgr., Hallmark Cards)
As director of communications, I was asked to
prepare a memo reviewing our company's training programs and
materials. In the body of the memo one of the sentences mentioned
the "pedagogical approach" used by one of the training manuals.
The day after I routed the memo to the executive committee, I was
called into the HR Director's office, and was told that the
executive VP wanted me out of the building by lunch. When I asked
why, I was told that she wouldn't stand for "perverts"
(pedophiles?) working in her company. Finally he showed me her
copy of the memo, with her demand that I be fired, with the word
pedagogical" circled in red. The HR Manager was fairly reasonable,
and once he looked the word up in his dictionary and made a copy
of the definition to send to my boss, he told me not to worry. He
would take care of it. Two days later a memo to the entire staff
came out, directing us that no words which could not be found in
the local Sunday newspaper could be used in company memos. A month
later, I resigned. In accordance with company policy, I created my
resignation letter by pasting words together from the Sunday
paper. (Taco Bell Corporation)
This gem is the closing paragraph of a
nationally-circulated memo from a large communications company:
"Lucent Technologies is determined to promote constant attention
on current procedures of transacting business focusing emphasis on
innovative ways to better, if not supercede, the expectations of
quality!"
"No one will believe you solved this problem in one
day! We've been working on it for months. Now, go act busy for a
few weeks and I'll let you know when it's time to tell them." (R&D
Supervisor, Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing /3M Corp.) |
