Martial Law – The Company

Massive sleep break

It seems that everyday I am finding new reasons to quit from The Company.

The annual audit is scheduled tomorrow – as always, the heads are frantically trying to make The Company and the processes look their best for the auditors. Oh, I do know that most companies would brief their employees about structures and process but rehearsing how the employees should answer questions is just going too far. But that is not what I am ranting about. I don’t really care about this audit thing.

My real rant here is the way that our heads call meetings. In fairness to our team leader, she always tells us when she knows that a meeting is looming in the schedule. The higher ups are the ones who are really really really really irritating. And this has happened on about 95% of all meetings that it is almost expected {major double sigh!}.

Anyway, it was exactly 1:53 PM (yes, exactly because I made it a point to look at the clock on my computer!) when Head C informed us that there will be a meeting at 2 PM! The reaction from the group was almost unanimous – groans of protest and frustration. Why were we informed so late into the hour? Our work place is in a town next to our city so most of the people who will come fetch us are either already on the way or are already waiting outside! That means that they will have to wait outside until the meeting is finished. I had already raised this concern to Head C many meetings ago but the suggestion/reaction must have fallen to deaf ears!

Rebel as I am, I tried to sneak out at 1:55 PM to go home – hubby is already waiting for me outside! But the guards were actually informed that there will be a meeting and no one is allowed to go out! WTF? It’s Martial Law now? This was the common grumble by many of us left dumbstruck at the stairs. They had never done that before – close the doors during meetings! They even closed the door to the login/logout room just to be sure! What are they feeling so threatened about that they would resort to doing this?

So, we really had no choice but attend the boring meeting called by a boss from Manila on audit topics that we already know about. I mean, we were taught exactly how to lock our computers when we go on breaks or whatever: CTRL+ALT+DEL. Isn’t that too trivial? Really! So, his voice was drowned by most people grumbling and chattering. I think only about 15% of the people there were actually listening. Honestly, I only listened to about 10% of what he said. Such meetings of a large body of employees (two shifts) in such a large area (the whole first floor of the production building ) by one person is totally not effective at all -especially when you are trying to tell them how to answer the auditors on a major annual external audit!

All in all, the meeting – the way it was called, how we were informed, how it went – was a flop! But I guess that it was something expected of The Company! Again, why am I not quitting yet? Drat that contract!