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The Winners of the Workplace Turkey Awards
I’ve just finished tallying the votes, and
ta-dah: here are the winners of the first (and
probably last) Workplace Turkey Awards.
The Turkey of a Boss Award goes to Poindexter
Johnson III. He only got hired at the Western
Widget Waxing Company because his grandfather used
to be on its board of directors. He only got
promoted to manager because he slept with his boss
and demanded promotion or he’d tell all. He
tried to hide his inability to do anything by
intimidating his supervisees. “I TOLD you:
dashes, not semi-colons!” Finally, after two
years of documentation, the company fired
Poindexter whereupon he immediately filed a
wrongful termination suit.
The Turkey of a Co-Worker Award goes to Missy
Marcos, clerk for the overworked accounts payable
department of the EverBroke Unified School
District. She got her doctor friend to give her a
note for a two-week sick leave while she luxuriated
in a spa vacation replete with massages,
aromatherapy, and nightly naked ritual dances to
the Goddess. Meanwhile her already overworked
coworkers had to work nights and weekends to do
Missy’s work.
The Turkey of a Company Award goes to
HookADayTrader.com. Two Berkeley graduates in
mathematics, Dead Wong and Jag Deep rejected
careers in biostatistics in favor of starting
HookADayTrader.com. They allowed investors to make
1,000 free stock trades. Only one catch: all the
trades had to be made in 30 days. To get ‘em
additionally hooked, Dead and Jag took a lesson
from the casinos: Every time an investor made
money, his screen would blare with sirens and
flashing lights.
Despite cost-saving measures such as prohibiting
sending rejection letters to job applicants because
“it’s a waste of resources,”
HookADayTrader.com was unsuccessful, but Dead and
Jag still saw dollars signs in their eyes, so they
turned their mathematical minds to cooking their
books.
After the IPO, they established a 401K plan for
their employees, but gave them only one investment
option. You guessed it: HookADayTrader.com.
Dead and Jag slowly, quietly sold their grossly
overvalued shares, and then, when consumer advocate
Harriet Pitzer, investigated HookADayTrader.com,
the business went bust as did its employees’
retirement savings.
The Turkey of a Job Seeker Award goes to Anthony
Jones. Fired from his previous job and then partied
for a year, he finally began his job search by
hitting up three friends and two relatives:
“Hey, you know anyone who needs a guy with
good people skills?” His next and final job
search activity was to answer two ads for fun jobs
for which he was unqualified. Anthony’s 39
weeks on unemployment insurance has just run out
and he’s angry that America's taxpayers,
unlike Sweden's, don't provide a decent safety
net.
The Turkey of a Parent Award goes to Henry and
Rainbow Gottlieb When their daughter Cindy was
admitted to three University of California campuses
and the private USC, Henry and Rainbow urged Cindy
to consider the much less expensive University of
California, but Cindy’s guilt-tripping
tantrums (You would send me if you loved me)
worked, and Henry and Rainbow forked over the
$230,000 for the five years it took for Cindy to
graduate from USC (in art history.)
After graduation, Cindy's parents urged her to
get a job, but she insisted she needed time to
“find herself.’ She spent the next four
years setting up an art studio at her SOMA loft,
making a spiritual pilgrimage to Nepal, and hanging
out with friends, all, of course, at her parents'
expense.
Still “exploring, waiting to find her
passion,” Henry and Rainbow begged her to find
work, any work, and even got her a job, but Cindy,
who had by now changed her name to Chakra, refused
it: “I can’t work in a corporation.
Don’t you know me by now?”
Henry and Rainbow periodically threaten to cut
off the cash, but have yet to follow through.
Chakra’s most recent ploy to avoid work:
“Dad, mom I’m thinking of going back to
school for a masters in art history. Please pay for
it. After that I’ll get a job. I
promise.” Henry and Rainbow sighed.
They’ll pay.
May the only turkeys you encounter have
gizzards.
© 2008, Marty
Nemko
* * *
Marty
Nemko holds a PhD from the University of
California, Berkeley, and subsequently taught in
Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education. He is
the worklife columnist in the Sunday San Francisco
Chronicle and is the producer and host of Work With
Marty Nemko, heard Sundays at 11 on 91.7 FM in
(NPR, San Francisco), and worldwide on
www.martynemko.com
 .
400+ of his published writings are available free
on that website and is a co-editor of
Cool
Careers for Dummies.
and author of The All-in-One College Guide.
E-Mail.
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