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Change my pitch up, smack my bitch up
Alarm One, an Anaheim-based company which sells and installs alarm systems, apparently has a variety of interesting motivational practices. For example, in one office, sales teams compete with each other and the winners get to ridicule the losers by throwing pies at them, making them eat baby food, making them wear diapers, etc. These motivational practices spread through other Alarm One offices and their Fresno office took it a step further by spanking sales employees who were late for meetings, who talked out of turn or who were not being productive enough. While the spankings were issued, other employees would watch, hooting and hollering. A 53 year-old saleswoman in the Fresno office, Janet Orlando, quit her job as a field supervisor after receiving three such spankings, which she found embarrassing. And now Alarm One is being sued by Orlando for discrimination, assault, battery and infliction of emotional distress.
In it’s defense, Alarm One’s lawyer says that these are just antics like old-fashioned harmless fraternity hazing. “There was no intent to hurt anyone…it was motivation sales antics gone awry.” The ex-saleswoman’s supervisor testified that Orlando never complained following the spankings, and she used to hoot and holler when others were being spanked. “She was willing, ready and excited about being there.” Instead, says the supervisor, Orlando quit the company because she did not receive a promotion.
I just finished reading Max Barry’s most recent book, Company: A Novel, which was a satirical look at (stop reading now if you want to avoid a spoiler about this book) a company set-up solely as an experiment, with super-secret supervisors using the fake company and its unknowing employees to test various management theories and company operation ideas. This sure sounds an awful lot like such an experiment. I mean, this can’t be a real company using these “motivational” shenanigans, can it?
…and Western Civilization declines a little bit further.
