I had been looking over the latest absence figures recently and was shocked to see the percentages have shot up in the past few weeks. I had been trying to put this on Mr B’s radar for a while now. It was so strange how seasonal flu could spread through an organisation so quickly when the World Cup was on. It was almost as if the two things were linked together in some way. Mr B often discussed his love of the beautiful game, but only in the context of those sneaky players who managed to cheat their way into winning. Obviously I can’t prove anything but Mr B often chuckles to himself whenever anyone talks about ‘The hand of God’ moment. ‘Yeah, sure’ he said last time it was brought up, ‘Like he had something to do with it’.
So we were getting into a bit of a crisis really, the little worker imps were running riot without someone to whip them into shape. Wrath from the seven deadly sins department refused to participate in any of the heavy flaying activity. ‘Not with my back, he had said at his last wellbeing review meeting, ‘I could do myself a permanent injury’. He seemed to much prefer his time with his feet up in the back office sending passive aggressive tweets to the IT department. Any lighter duties and he may as well not have bothered to come in at all.
After last week when we banned the Four Horsemen from making any more travel claims I had thought they may have fallen into line a bit more. They were having none of it. I visited their office yesterday to share some good news about the discounted gym membership offer. They were playing ‘who can throw the work experience kid the furthest down the office’. Let me tell you it was really impressively far. I decided that if they were capable of so much exertion they really didn’t need or deserve the gym offer so I chose not to tell them about it. I had to spend the day taking statements from people while their four haunting mugs taunted me through the glass office door. ‘Bring it on!’ they were shouting. whilst slapping post it notes to the window with some very choice imagery on it. I had to return the poor work experience kid to Eton with his tailcoat in tatters. It was reputational damage all round. When Mr B finds out I doubt he will be happy. I was quite proud of the report I did though, the devil is in the detail so they say.
We normally manage absence pretty tightly round here but it seems the whole carrot vs red hot poker in the backside, or reward vs punishment approach as you may know it has become skewed somewhere along the line. There appears to be a general malaise about the place that I can’t quite put my finger on. In other news though I think I may have worked out who the mystery biscuit thief is. I can’t prove anything just yet but Greed from the SDD department (Seven deadly sins in case you have to ask) had crumbs all down his jacket the other day and he looked really sheepish when he saw me, hastily clawing the remains of a bourbon from his scruffy beard and pretending to look busy. They were good biscuits as well. Such is the work of a HR Manager in Hell. Perhaps we need a culture change. Should we be less People and more persecutions from now on?. I will put it to Mr B that we revise the policy. Maybe I could put our apprentice onto the task. Come to think of it, I wonder what happened to Alan? I haven’t seen him for a few days. Oh well, I’m sure he will turn up soon, unless he is as sick as the rest of them.
Till next time, I will see you in Hell
Phelan Tweed
Gavin Turner 