Resisting Temptation

This week was Bring Your Kid to Work Day, the high holy day of human resources. I hate it. This year I hosted eight kids, but I had the brains to enlist the help of some of my administrative assistants who did most of the research and work. The event went off without a hitch, the kids were delirious with giddiness because they had some constructive fun projects, the parents were happy because the kids got very special attention and the rest of the employees enjoyed the novelty of kids running around the office drawing pictures and serving ice cream.

This morning I sent out a public thank you to the four people who helped with the event, along with pictures of the kids. It should have been all happy.

But in response to my e-mail I got an message from one of the employees whose office is near the kitchen, complaining that his entire day was a waste because of the noise the kids made. Understand that the kids were in the kitchen from 3:00 until a little after 4:00 having ice cream. The rest of the company was invited to join them and it was a nice little party -- a much needed boost to company morale.

But, you see, it was my event, and the complaining employee is the son of the Chairman of the Board. He suggested that the next time such an event was planned I be more considerate of him and the three other people whose offices are near the kitchen, and who might be there if they are not on the road.

This is the level of insanity that my work situation has devolved to. Without going into tedious detail, there are two of us who've been targeted by the Chairman because we are supporters of the CEO. The Chairman took his fight to the board of directors and ultimately lost. The CEO and his two main supporters are still standing. There have been other incidents, more severe than this and ultimately this week had to tell them to back off or I was contacting a lawyer. I can't go into detail here, but suffice it to say that making a case for sexual harassment would not be too difficult. Most of them backed off when I made that threat.

I took the high road in responding the complaint, apologizing for disrupting his day and swearing on a stack of bibles to consult his schedule if ever I have the urge to do something that would boost company morale. But, it has taken every bit of strength I have not to forward the e-mail to the entire company. Ooooh, but I want to soooo bad.