employee memo

June 1, 2006

From: The Publisher
To All Employees:

Due to recent reconfigurations of the work force and in an effort to improve efficiency, Management has elected to institute a new policy on sick and personal days:

1) Employees missing work for health reasons must supply documentation from a physician. Such documentation must be dated within two days of the missed work day.

2) Employees desiring to take personal days must submit a request for such days, in writing, at least 20 calendar days prior to the desired day off, to their immediate desk supervisor. The request must include a) the reason for the request, and b) a contact number the employee may be reached in case of emergency at the workplace.

3) The personal day request must be approved, in writing, by the employee's desk supervisor, the department supervisor, and the Publisher. The employee will be notified of the approval decision, in writing, in his paycheck 6 to 13 days preceding the requested personal day.

Thank you for your cooperation. Abuse of the previous policy has resulted in unacceptable overtime expenses and unfair inconvenience to employees, thus necessitating the new policy, which is effective immediately.

 

At our place personal days are treated just like vacation days, no reason needed but sufficient notice is required for scheduling purposes. I take all my personal days, usually tagged on to a vacation, but I haven't taken a sick day in nine years.

 

i'm only a law student and i'm taking employment discrimination next semester but i'm guessing this one would not be enforceable.

it's also idiotic and not in your company's best interests to have people who are not sick enough to see a doctor but sick enough to inflict others at the office. i mean who goes to the doctor for a bad cold? this will also drive up the company's health insurance premiums since every time you get a cold you'll be running to the doctor.

 

I don't like that part about needing a note from a physician if you take a sick day, especially if you're out just for one day. You running a fever or 100, don't feel well and want to take a day? Now you HAVE TO go the doctor, probably use your insurance and get a note. That's horseshit. I could understand if you're out for three or more days, but one? Hell, you get the sniffles and should have a light day and need a night off, you can't do that.

 

The issuer of that memo is an idiot. A lot of publishers couldn't survive at any level in any other business. At a lot of newspapers, they don't sell advertising, they accept it.

 

So much for pre-planning that vacation.

 

It's easier just to get a note from Epstein's mother ...

 

To: Disembodied Voice of Authority
From: a worker

Dear Sir:

In response to the new policies outlined above, I must ask that you please nuzzle my perineum.  In case you've forgotten your freshman-year-of-college human anatomy, the perineum is the soft, fuzzy area between my nutsack and my Curt Schilling (anus).  I would request that you nuzzle this area, not out of any sense of obligation or duty, but instead, with a sincere affection and gentleness approaching reverence.  I can assure you that my personal hygiene practices are de rigeur and that said area is as clean as any perineum can be expected to be, given, of course, the slightly sweaty conditions caused by the summer weather.  I exhort you to breathe in the musky aroma and let it permeate your palate as if you were a connoisseur of the finest brandy.  You may administer little kisses if you are so inspired, but don't be presumptuous or try anything forward.  Your mission is essentially one of nuzzling.  Nuzzle away, snoogums.  If you wish to be exempted from said nuzzling duties, I'll need a written notice from your physician, mental health care provider, dentist, art therapist, interior decorator, golf buddies, spouse, lover(s), auto maintenance technician and mommy to such effect.  All written notices must be notarized, sanitized, digitized, translated into Farsi and Old Church Slavonic, gilded, cuddled and signed by Marlon Brando; Tipper Gore; Bobby, Dennis and Brett Hull; the Pope; the Phillie Phanatic; Phillip Roth; Erica Jong; the Surgeon General of the United States and Kinky Friedman.  I anticipate said nuzzling at your earliest possible convenience.

love,
a loyal worker

 

you win. good stuff.

 

I believe that area is slangly called the "gooch" ...

 

Word around the office, in the first two weeks of the new policy, is that most (almost all) personal day requests have been denied.

Word also is, that the policy wasn't the idea of the publisher (although he is all for it), but was handed down to him from higher up the corporate ladder.