The 5 H’s of Work in the 90’s

The workplace in the 1990's has become surreal in a way Kafka, in his most unczeched fantasies, could not have imagined. What we wouldn't give for some taciturn gatekeeper to not let us into The Trial of our senseless workplaces! Promotion of incompetents to remove them from the technical workforce where their inadequacies could actually do damage, heaping of millions on executives whose most brilliant decisions involve selecting the best outsourcer, and employees packed like humiliated cattle into impersonal and insulting cubicles are all de rigor. While no single piece of literature can hope to summarize the ignominy of this environment, this short work, in systematizing the stages of the workplace lifecycle, from hiring to firing, may help provide some levity if not elucidation.

The workplace lifecycle can be summarized by what are dubbed herein the "Five H's". The first is the "hunting" stage, when the prospective human veal is searching for her next episode of victimization. The second can be called the "happy" stage, since this is the ignorant yet willing suspension of disbelief, the credulous hope that the new job will be different, better, more meaningful. The term "halitosis" will also be chosen for this second stage, because it is common knowledge that a happy worker is a worker who doesn't bother brushing his teeth (thus, this second stage could also be considered the "hygiene-free" stage). The third stage is when the worker has been at the job so long that she is willing to participate in completely fruitless and unrewarding tasks such as "hiring" new employees, just to avoid the asininity of the now-tiresome workplace. Probably deep down, the employee recognizes that he is hiring his replacements at this stage. The fourth stage is the warning sign stage, when the employee knows she will be sacked soon. This is the "hinting" phase. And, finally, the weenie politically-correct environment of the 1990's prevents any actual firing phase, but the employee is soon on the "highway", anyway.

The stages are summarized in list form:

Stage 1. Hunting.


The Top 12 signs that an interview is going sour

12. The interview is cancelled on account of bad weather
11. The interview is cancelled on account of good weather

10. The interviewer keeps flicking her cigarette ashes on you

9. The interviewer says, "Mind if I fart?"

8. Your resumé has been made into an origami hangman

7. The interviewer has pictures of your spouse up in his office

6. A colleague of the interviewer pops into the office, and the interviewer says, "Not now, I'm getting information for my book on delusional behavior"

5. Phone rings. Interviewer answers. You hear her say, "No, I'm not doing anything right now"

4. During interview, interviewer keeps writing "Top 12" lists

3. Interviewer asks, "Do you have any cool body-piercing to show me?"

2. Mid-way through, interviewer feigns death. When paramedics arrive, asks quietly, "Is that idiot out of my office yet?"

1. The interviewer keeps making quotation marks with his hands whenever you mention your work experience


Stage 2. Halitosis


The Top 12 signs that you have halitosis

12. Everyone keeps asking who your friend "Hal" is

11. Your immediate surroundings continually looks like Chernobyl

10. Your work group meeting looks like a snorkeling convention

9. Even your dog doesn't like you to breathe on him

8. Your fortune cookie is a fortune listerine

7. The weather service tracks your location

6. Your pop can opens up automatically when you breathe on it

5. Your tongue looks like Sherwood Forest

4. All of your food tastes like Akron

3. Watching television, the actors try to move away from you

2. You attend a live performance of "King Lear", who stops to say "Would the bloody, pestiferous dragon-breathed fiend please vacate the premises?"

1. When you talk, insects come out of your mouth


Stage 3: Hiring


Top 12 reasons not to hire an interview candidate

12. "Name" field in application says "Tinky Winky"

11. "Name" field in application says "Jerry Falwell"
10. Keeps asking you if the stockroom has "good napalm"
9. Keeps winking at you

8. Asks if your company has mineral rights to the men's room

7. Every time you ask her about her past work experience, she replies "I think it's time for healing"

6. Keeps alluding to having done "too much weird stuff in the sixties." He was born in 1970

5. Asks if you're allowed to wear pornographic hand puppets to work

4. Pick her nose--often--and continually alludes to them as "God's bane"

3. Asks for his own meat locker with a private key

2. Asks if Friday is "casual naked" day

1. Every field in his application is filled in with "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"


Stage 4: Hinting


Top 12 signs your performance evaluation is going poorly

12. Boss keeps asking you how good your hitch-hiking skills are

11. Your boss is wearing a "Tinky Winky" hand puppet to the evaluation
meeting

10. Boss keeps referring to what you are working on as your "previous job"

9. Your boss shows up in a trenchcoat with bare legs

8. You have to walk through a metal detector on the way to your conference room

7. What you think is your boss turns out to be a stuffed animal with the continuous recorded message "I think performance band '-1' is a good fit. I think performance band '-1' is a good fit"

6. As you walk in, boss is reading "Company guideline for having employees arrested"

5. Boss keeps clearing throat during the evaluation

4. Boss finishes clearing throat by spitting it out at you

3. Boss keeps adjusted glasses with his middle finger

2. Boss blows her nose during the evaluation. Says, "Wow, look at this!"

1. As evaluation starts, boss hands you a mop and a pail. Asks you to hold them "just to see how they feel"

And, finally, Stage 5: Highway


Top 12 new euphemisms for "getting fired"

12. Right-sized

11. Down-sized

10. Super-sized

9. Excessed

8. Redeployment candidate

7. Medicare-enabler

6. New opportunity recipient

5. Nonaffirmed

4. Unassigned extraneous temporarily-employed artifact

3. Potential sanitation engineer

2. Re-engineered

1. Ethically cleansed


Okay, so this has been a bit of a cynical look at the workplace of the 1990's. Accurate or not, that decade is nearing completion, so we have hope for the future. Ah, yes, the upcoming end of the decade promises a wholesale change in the workplace environment! Yea right, and I woke up this morning as a cockroach.