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MIAMI, FL Yesterday afternoon, Sean Stanley, the new intern at the Randall, James, Fields, and Howe law offices, took a bit more initiative than the rest of the office felt was necessary. At 3:12 pm, after returning from his biology lab, Sean sent out an office-wide email explaining the new office management system that he had developed. The system requires every member of the 32-person office to check in with him each morning. This check-in must take place between 7 and 8:15 am—because at 8:15 he has to leave for his pottery class. Each daily check-in will involve a fully detailed report of the previous day’s accomplishments as well as that day’s schedule. Every Monday, each staff member will receive a detailed spreadsheet, which will include his or her weekly assignments.
Within the next two weeks, the email said, Stanley will be instituting a point system for daily tasks. There will be several point scales—one for partners, one for secretaries, one for paralegals, and a few miscellaneous scales. No one is quite sure what these points are good for; although Stanley expects to post them in the kitchen to motivate all employees to do their best—and to publicly humiliate those who don’t measure up.
“This isn’t what I meant when I told Sean to ‘clean up the office.’ I meant for him to go and get the carpet sweeper out of the supply closet. I wasn’t really expecting him to force me to report to him. This is Randall’s fault. He hired the kid,” said Senior Partner Fred James.
Despite Stanley’s energy and enthusiasm, fellow employees are not amused. For some reason, they have not been motivated by Stanley’s excitement about “creating a new, effective RJF&H.” They don’t believe that his “well-thought-out plan” will make the office “a better, more efficient place to work.” And, most of all, none of them are inspired to impress Stanley in order to receive the monthly batch of chocolate chip cookies for the “Employee of the Month.”
Plans are in the works for the paralegals to ambush Stanley in the parking garage and “beat him senseless.” The partners are pooling funds to pay for a “business trip” to any war-ravaged third-world country. The secretaries won’t reveal their plan, but an anonymous spokesperson said it’s “not very nice.”
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