When I was growing up, Spam was one of my favorite foods. I can still remember the somewhat chemical taste, burning the tip of my tongue. We didn't have Spam all that often. My mother could only make it when my father was away. He'd had enough of it, courtesy of the U.S. Navy between 1942-1945, thanks.
Of course, I haven't had Spam in years, but I thought of it the other day when I received an e-mail from someone at a PR firm that's working with Hormel to promote something called Hormel Compleats, non-frozen, micro-wavable meals. (Spam is another Hormel product.)
What they offered was a survey on office culture that they'd had conducted earlier this year, so I thought I'd take a look.
The survey is pretty funny, and covers things like office gossip; business clichés; stealing from the office fridge; rewards; and length of lunch break (nearly twenty percent reported that they take between 1-14 minutes; talk about gulp and go!).
One of my favorite questions on the survey, asked respondents to check all the bad behaviors they'd seen in action. (People were asked to select as many as applied.) Here are the results:
- An Employee Back Stabbing A Fellow Worker 51%
- Higher Up Playing Favorites 44%
- An Employee Taking Credit For A Co-Worker’s Hard Work 32%
- An Employee Sabotaging A Co-Worker 27%
- Co-Workers Having A Secret Affair 26%
- An Employee Stealing Office Supplies 25%
- A Higher Up Hiring A Family Member 21%
- A Co-Worker Having Sex At The Office 11%
- None Of These 24%
Am I the only person who finds some of these percentages really, really, low?
Can it really be true that 49% of folks haven't seen backstabbing in action? They haven't seen anyone throw a colleague (or, as often as not, a subordinate) under the bus when the flames started licking a little too close for comfort?
Or maybe this is behavior is really front-stabbing, as it's just so out there.
I'm surprised that only 44% have seen higher ups playing favorites.
Sure, this one depends on whether you're the one being played or not, and the definition of "playing favorites" is almost completely subjective (and subject to irrationality). I've generally had good relationships with my managers, and I know that I've been viewed as someone who's been favored. But I've also felt those junior high twinges of envy when it's looked like the boss has a coterie that doesn't include me. That someone else has gotten the fun projects, while I've gotten stuck with the dreck.
Irrational, subjective - sure. But haven't most of us felt this way at least once or twice in our lives?
Only 32% have seen credit grabbers?
They haven't worked some of the places I've been, that's for sure. Mostly what I've seen is not out and out credit grab, it's the implicit acceptance of credit when you let someone think that you're the person who did the work, when in fact it was someone else.
When I worked at Genuity, one of the guys on my team had the opportunity to work with a peer of mine on a project. J did all the work on a report and, as a "reward", he was invited to the meeting where "S' was going to walk through the report for senior management. "J" was introduced as someone who was working with "S" on the issue. When "S" finished up, the senior execs complimented him on the thoroughness and quality of his work. This was the perfect opportunity for him to at least share credit for authorship with "J", but he just kept quiet.
"J" came to me both angry and hurt.
I called "S" on his behavior, and his response was that it wouldn't have been "appropriate" to acknowledge the work that "J" had done.
You know what, "S"? Ten years after the fact, I still say BS.
Secret affairs tend not to be all that secret, and I've certainly seen plenty over time.
Let's face it, when people are thrown together all day long, when they work late on projects, travel to conferences, etc., etc.: things happen.
At one company I worked for, the president - who spent half of his time in NYC, the other half in Boston - had a corporate apartment in downtown Boston. One of my friends was part of a team attending an off-site meeting to be held at the apartment, and when they got there they found a "love note" from another colleague taped to the fridge door. (Isn't it romantic?)
I haven't seen all that much office supply thievery, although I have always ended up with all sorts of pens in every pocketbook, tote bag, briefcase, and backpack I've owned. This is still the case, even though I'm now buying all those pens. I must buy 100 pens a year, yet I never seem to be able to find one I like when I need one.
Only later, when I reach into my backpack and find 17 pens, do I know where they've gotten to.
When I worked at Wang, I went to the supply cabinet in late August and found it locked. When I wen to the admin to see what was up with that, I was told that the cabinets were locked every August to prevent "back to school supply" theft.
I haven't seen all that man hire-ups hiring a family member, but I'm sure it happens plenty. And, as long as the family member is competent, why not?
Sex in the office?
Fortunately, most of the secret affairs that weren't so secret seemed to have been thankfully conducted off-premise, so I don't doubt this 11% figure. (One time, my sister Trish went into an interior, windowless conference room and found a pair of underpants on the floor. Yuck.)
The real wonder of this survey: how can it be possible that 24% of those surveyed answered "none of the above"?
Are they just not paying any attention? Are they in denial? Or are they so busy being scandalous themselves that they don't have time to notice what their co-workers are up to?
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Shout-outs:
Since I'm using their survey, here's a link to the Hormel Compleat page. The survey was conducted by Kelton Research, under the aegis of the PR firm, Burson-Marsteller.
And if you want a bit of a LOL, check out the Spam site.
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