I know, you’re thinking, “Another one of those posts! Next!”
Bear with me.
Implied Social Worthiness Scores.
The last company I worked for, was very concerned that I didn’t have active Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn accounts. They were also very concerned that I didn’t attend employer sponsored events such as going to the water park, dinners, or baseball games.
I asked them why my having or participating in those things mattered.
They said It’s about being able to determine if our employees are engaged and happy with the workplace.
I said that my happiness was dependent on my paycheck. I was there to do a job, I did the job and went home. As to the company events, I couldn’t participate and be a good employee. My schedule was 5am to 1pm Thursday through Monday. Their events typically started at 6pm on a weekend defined as Saturday and Sunday. Since I was usually in bed by 7:30 to 8:00PM, were I to attend their corporate events I would not be good at my job the next day due to tiredness. As such I was behaving in a responsible way towards my employer.
I said regarding Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. That I found these services to be a waste of time. I felt no need to broadcast minute by minute, the details of my personal or work life to the entire world. (This blog notwithstanding) Therefore if they were concerned about my speaking out of turn about the workplace or my employer, they had nothing to fear. I kept my opinions to myself or confined to a small select group of people that I interacted with in person.
This was not good enough.
Because I wasn’t posting my life online for all to see, they were suspicious because there was no way for them to apply metrics about my life choices (Judgmental much?) I believe that they were trying to determine my social worth and obtain more leverage over me than a simple paycheck.
Eventually, after many annoying emails from HR and the Activities Committee, I conceded to creating a LinkedIn account. Upon which I would sometimes parrot the company announcements. Other than that, I didn’t post anything.
That wasn’t good enough. Now if I didn’t post something at least once a week I’d get an email from one of the two groups. Always such emails suggested posting something about my life and happiness. (Uh, nobody’s business but mine.)
While creating the LinkedIn account I thought, “This is a slippery slope and since they cajoled me into this, they’re going to apply more pressure for me to hand them a loaded gun in the form of information.”
This assumption was borne out when someone on the Activities Committee saw me getting out of a new car one morning. I had no sooner sat down at my desk, than there was an email suggesting that I post pictures of my “pretty” car on LinkedIn and use it as a first post to Twitter and Facebook too. The rationale was that everyone would love to see success and share in my happiness.
Frankly, that creeped me out on a number of levels.
Since I chose not to post it on LinkedIn, they did. With a picture clearly showing my license plate number. “Someone got a new car… Let’s all congratulate him”
I viewed this as an invasion of privacy. They seemed to view it as a corporate success story. Completely missing the rest of the story…
My old car had been totaled and this was a logical replacement. I wouldn’t have gotten a new car, if my old one, which I loved, and was in fine working order, hadn’t been destroyed. The new car represented not success, but a major life setback, because my old car was completely paid for. The new car represented payments, tighter budgeting, and a loss of disposable income.
I let it go, they were being childish and I didn’t need to point that out. LinkedIn did it for me, deleting the post as a violation of their terms. This of course was before LinkedIn became part of Microsoft.
It is possible that my lack of compliance in the social media arena led directly to my not being on the “retain list” when the layoffs happened. There is no way to prove it, but I do wonder from time to time.
It always leads back to the same question for me. Why couldn’t they just let me be a good worker and do my job? All I wanted from them was a paycheck, medical insurance, and something productive to do. Why do so many companies these days feel that external activities are so dang important?
People who can’t take what you say at face value
I’m currently involved looking after a neighbors cat. There is a lot of other drama in this situation. I won’t bore you with the details.
There are a couple of points that are really annoying. The largest is the delivery of supplies for the cat.
To the person’s credit, they don’t feel that I shouldn’t incur costs for litter and food and I applaud that.
But I said in the beginning, “Don’t worry about this, you’re ill and we can settle up at a later date. If this is only for a few weeks.”
That apparently was not heard. Instead, the person has to schedule delivery of cat supplies from a market 2 miles away. You’d think that’s fine except that I’m at or near the market pretty frequently so it’s no big deal to go in to get what’s needed.
I was also serious about this only going on for a few weeks. We’re now at 5 or 6 weeks and there appears to be no plan for it to end.
The problem with delivery is there’s a four hour window. So without thinking about it, this person has chained me to my home for half a day, watching for a delivery of stuff to appear on their doorstep. I know, they’re trying not to inconvenience me, but they’re doing a great job of that, in trying not to.
The other annoyance is that no matter what I say, the schedule is completely arbitrary. The person is 40 miles away and has zero idea what I’m planning to do or if I might plan to go do something to do with my life. They’re not intentionally trying to be selfish, but in that they’re succeeding mightily.
When I said don’t worry about it, I meant it. I told the person I’d keep receipts and we could just add it up whenever was convenient. They could write me a check and that would be all there was to it. It’s not like I can’t take 5 minutes while I’m in town to pick up a bag of cat food.
That would be far less inconvenience to me than having half my day shot to hell.
I just don’t understand why people refuse to acknowledge that you mean what you say. Is it that so many people don’t mean what they say?
Then there’s the gift as thank you for watching the cat. It will be alcohol, it’s always alcohol. That’s really nice, except that I don’t drink very much anymore. I still have an unopened bottle of Gentleman Jack from last year.
I don’t drink alone and am alone more than not.
In this particular situation, a better gift would be informing me that arrangements had been made for someone in their family to pick up the cat and look after it while the neighbor is laid up.
It would be much better for the cat and me. As it is, the poor thing is alone too much and is craving attention. I’m spending at least an hour a day playing with and cuddling the poor creature. That’s an hour I’m not playing with my dog who also likes a lot of attention. By the time I add it up I’m spending at least 2 hours, often more, of my day tending to animals, and not doing stuff that I need to do.
It’s not that the critters aren’t deserving of attention and love, it’s that I need to reclaim my life. That being said, it’s not the fault of the animals wanting the attention that their respective humans agreed to give them when we brought them into our homes.
In the case of cats, I like cats. But after my last cat passed away, I found that I enjoyed not having to scoop litter boxes, deal with nasty fur balls, the smell of cat urine or canned cat food.
Perhaps, the cat thing wouldn’t be so trying if the person’s house was neat and clean. It’s not! The place is a disaster and I do my level best to not touch anything other than what is absolutely necessary. The place is a hazmat site waiting to be discovered and red tagged. At least the stench of stale pot smoke has finally dissipated.
I’ve gotten in the habit of not eating breakfast before I go over there because I always feel like I’m going to vomit. When I come back, I’m not in the mood to eat. I guess the upside is that I’m saving money and losing weight.
Honestly 30 to 45 minutes is about all I can take. I’ve considered bringing the cat over to my house, and all that entails. I haven’t because I think my dog would decide to play with the cat and that wouldn’t end well for either of them.
The cat is fully armed and not afraid to scratch or bite with little or no provocation.
Then there’s the issue that the dog likes being able to go in and out to the back yard which means the door is open. That wouldn’t work with the cat.
I’ve considered opening the windows at the neighbor’s house but that doesn’t work because the windows and screens are in such poor repair that I fear the cat would escape via one of them, never to be seen or heard from again.
I’m not even going to delve into the mess caused by the neighbor rerouting all their mail to my small PO Box but neglecting to tell me that they’d done so. That, at least was relatively easy to fix. I’m now getting my mail again!
In summary,
The road to hell is most definitely paved with good intentions.
Nice guys do in fact finish last.
