When I think about The Speak Easy where I gained my super hero status, I often wonder if I should have just kept my big mouth shut. Maybe if I had kept my yap closed, things would have turned out differently. Or maybe I would have gotten laid off just the same.
Is it better to get laid off and leave quietly or is it better to go with some notoriety attached to your name? I guess going with the former, rather than the latter, leads to a less interesting blog.
Since morale in the prestigious building was at an all time low, The Suits decided that it would be a good idea to set up special meetings called Speakeasies. A place where the common worker bee could ask a question of management and get an answer without power point presentations or agendas.
People had questions about the budget, new vice presidents that they would have to answer to, the new direction we were going in... I figured my question was pretty small potatoes, not much of a big deal. All I wanted to know was where the aspirin went!
Since we had to cut back and save money, management decided to stop refilling the first aid kits. Instead of headache, allergy and stomach meds, all we had left was band aids and burn gel. In the employee news letter were were told that in order to save money the first aid kit would only be stocked with things we needed in an emergency. So basically, if I decided to slit my wrists or if I suddenly burst into flames at work, we'd be all set with everything we needed.
But I started thinking.... ALWAYS A BAD IDEA! With a little bit of nursing school under my belt and a smidge of first aid training I deduced that if their argument was supplying us with things we needed in the event of an emergency, we needed the aspirin. If a person in the prestigious building had a heart attack, one of the things we'd need to do first is give this person some aspirin.
So off I go to the Speak Easy to make my case for some basic pharmaceuticals. While waiting for the meeting to start, some female co-workers were chatting about the lack of tampons. Tampons and sanitary napkins were supplied for free to the female employees since the 60s. Now they were nowhere to be found! The tampon machines were not being refilled. We were not even being given the option to pay for them with a stinkin' quarter! And we were given NO notice. No memo, no email, no article in the employee newsletter. Nothing to let us plan ahead. We were literally caught with our pants down! Literally!! Pants down!!
So the President and CEO of our very important workplace started the meeting. I decided to go first since I felt no one wanted to talk about aspirin. So I made my plea and I was great! I talked about what a heart attack is...how a thrombus forms... how aspirin keeps the thrombus from getting any bigger and causing tissue death...and how it can very well save someone's life...and how we need it in the event of an emergency, since that was their argument to begin with. The President was very impressed, even gave me a little applause and said how happy he was that I brought this to his attention. He said he was definitely bring this up again with his people to re-evaluate their decision because they clearly hadn't thought of that when they decided to nix the aspirin.
Maybe I was drunk on the adulation from top Suit so I opened my big yap and said, "And while you're at it, if you could fill up the tampon machine, that would be awesome! For a lot of us here, that's an emergency too!"
I got a big laugh from the audience...I got a big laugh from the President himself...apparently the only person not laughing was the head of Human Resources who was sitting in the back of the room writing down my name and department!
This is how my story begins...
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