Morning. The week is dwindling down. I am going to work on some more local tax returns today. Should be a blast.

My side note is that since I stirred up feelings and a bit of trouble two weeks ago, (don't worry it was a bunch of anonymous questions left for our town hall meeting), I now have the opportunity to complete an employee survey. I was tired of all the crap around here and just went off. Some of the items were petty, I admit that, but most of what I said were concerns of many people around here. But I just wanted to make the CEO aware of the crap that goes on around here. Well, he had no idea and seems to be concerned. He has some of the talent and leadership people (I don't lie to you, that is a department here) construct a survey. It is now ready for our taking. They have done their best to make it completely confidential and took some extra steps to do so. I hope most people take the time to complete it, even if they have good things to say. I think they could have done better with the time. It is only open from 9am today to 5pm tomorrow. I need to organize thoughts.

Good day all.

Mema, I read this email exchange yesterday and thought it sounded like a response you might give.

Fuzzy, good for you! I'm surprised that the company is actually taking the time to listen. One time I worked for a very underhanded company that happened to hire a good HR director once. She did a ton of work with surveys and interviewing people to make the working environment better. Then she quit and a lot of good people got fired (I was one of them). But my boss was a conniving bastard. But it sounds like in your case, it's the management that cares. That's a good thing.

And now for a bit of irony:



-- Edited by MzHartz on Thursday 30th of July 2009 07:33:01 AM

Its sad, but probably nobody will say much of anything on the survey. There is always the paranoia that "anonymous" is not really anonymous. I never assume it is when it comes down to work surveys. Amusingly enough, I found out from one of my management friends that sometimes it is. He got some feedback specific to himself from the survey following his last all hands meeting... he said it was very candid and rude. He'd really like to know who it was so he could take some brass knuckles to them.

Most of those surveys are lacking. They want to know where the problems are, but generally really don't want to know how bad they are.

We used to have to take a yearly survey provided by an outside company that was supposed to help identify areas of improvement from the employee perspective. Basically, the deal was they give us a survey with a bunch of vaguely worded statements with which you could either agree or disagree, then bread down the results by work group. As a work group you were provided the results in a meeting with your supervisor or manager who would attempt to illicit feedback on the lower scoring items. From that we were supposed to pick 2 or 3 things to "work on". The problem was that you would get the results about 3 months after you took the survey. That is just enough time to forget how you answered the questions and what was on your mind when you did. Waste of time if you ask me.

Amusingly enough, they quit giving that survey about 5 years ago... when the multiple layoffs per year began. Coincidence? I think not.

oh hello.

If I had any kind of power, I would have won a big lottery jackpot by now and wouldn't be worried about this kind of junior high nonsense.

Sort of funny... a co-worker and I were talking  about 911. The one company we do work for claims that they can secure a Federal Building, showing the Pentagon. Hmm.
I lost my best job just after 911!