Someone has laminated something. In any workplace, this is the first sign of the end. Nobody laminates good news. Nobody has ever laminated a pay rise.
The poster went up in the kitchen on Monday, between the microwave and the sign about the microwave. “OUR KITCHEN, OUR VALUES.” Two columns, Acceptable and Unacceptable, green ticks and red crosses, the way you’d explain things to a toddler or a board of directors, who need it more. Below is the full text, with notes from me, a man who has eaten lunch at his desk since 2019 and will, statistically, die there.
Acceptable
- “Washing your own mug.” Fair. There are 31 mugs and nine employees. The mugs are breeding. They will outlast us. One says “World’s Best Boss” and belonged to a man who was let go by email.
- “Labelling your food.” I labelled my yoghurt “ZACK”. It was eaten anyway. I now have a label with no purpose, like a middle manager, or my name on the org chart.
- “A positive attitude in shared spaces.” The kitchen has no windows and one working tap. A positive attitude in here is not a value. It is a hostage statement.
- “Coming in even when you’re a little under the weather. We’re a team!” This is where the poster stopped being about the kitchen and started being about owning you.
Unacceptable
- “Leaving dishes in the sink ‘to soak’.” The quotation marks around “to soak” are the most hostile punctuation I have seen outside a solicitor’s letter. Someone is going to get soaked. It won’t be the dishes.
- “Microwaving fish.” Agreed. The one universal law. Empires have fallen over less, and rightly.
- “Taking the last of the milk without saying anything.” Saying what? To whom? Is there a milk priest? Does he hear confession? Is he on the payroll while I’m on a “pay review pause”?
- “Calling in sick by text.” Followed, in smaller font: “I haven’t taken a sick day in ten years. Just saying! – Management.”
Nobody laminates good news.
A Note on “I Haven’t Taken a Sick Day in Ten Years”
This sentence is always delivered as an achievement, like climbing a mountain, rather than what it is, which is ten years of sneezing on the stapler and calling it loyalty.
The manager who says it is never ill like a normal person. They are “battling something”. They are “running at 60 percent”, which is still higher than their usual contribution. They attend Monday’s meeting in a scarf, coughing into a reusable cup, and want you to understand that this is leadership. It is not leadership. It is a distribution network with a car allowance.
Should you dare to be ill yourself, the guilt arrives on schedule. 9am: “Feel better!” 11am: “No pressure, but is the deck nearly done?” 4pm: “Just checking, are you around for a quick one tomorrow, or…” The ellipsis is doing most of the work. The ellipsis earns more than you. The ellipsis got a bonus.
Proposed Additions
In the spirit of shared values, I printed my own column and pinned it underneath. “Also Unacceptable”:
- Laminating grudges.
- Bringing a cough to a meeting about wellbeing.
- Describing your refusal to rest as “just how I’m wired”. Fuses are also wired. Look how that ends.
- Ending a threat with a smiley face.
- Asking someone with a temperature of 39 whether they’re “on mute”.
It has been up for three days. Nobody has removed it. Someone added a green tick next to “Laminating grudges”, which I read as solidarity, and which Management read as a request for a bigger laminator. It arrived Thursday. My annual review is Friday.
Ten years without a sick day is not an achievement. It is ten years of sneezing on the stapler.
The laminator now lives in Management’s office. It is warm. It is always warm. It has not taken a day off in ten years. It is the only thing in the building he has ever thanked. When he retires, they will give it his job, and nobody will notice for a month.