And now, our second internal memo-based blind item, which veers from new agency mandates set forth in the wake of Sandy to what seems like just a frustrated higher-up at a well-known, say, non-traditional agency who’s had it with tardiness on his/her own watch. Folks, in this house, 9am means 9am, no ifs, ands, faulty alarm clocks, oversleeping, hangovers and buts. It begins with a quote from wordsmith George Bernard Shaw, who once said, “Better never than late,” and segues into what you see after the jump. We get the feeling, though, that this type of message isn’t too uncommon regardless of the workplace, though as we all know, it’s always Bob in accounting’s fault.
“Hi guys
Quite a few people have mentioned to me that the office is like a ghost town in the morning.
So for the first, and hopefully last time in my life, I have been doing a little experiment and sitting in reception to see what time people make it through the door.
As you know we are supposed to start work at 9. That means sat at the desk, doing meaningful business. Freelancers this means you too – we pay you by the hour…
It is now coming up to ten o clock and people are still drifting in.
Interestingly from a social perspective, there seems to be a strong correlation between nationality and timeliness…the orderly flow of northern europeans before 9am giving way to a casual samba just before 10am.
As you know my main philosophy is that people should just do the right thing, and I don’t want the agency to become some police state.
But if people aren’t doing the right thing then sometimes they need a reminder and a bit of a wake up call.
This is that.
Please don’t make me have to do this again. You know who you are, and so do I.
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Ps this also applies to starting meetings on time. Let’s adopt a zero tolerance policy on this starting today.”