I'm Feeling Clever Over the Office Blues

We're as perky as cheerleaders in our (sometimes feigned) excitement as we welcome employees in the New Hire Orientation! A few days before hitting the production floor, managers and supervisors describe the work measurement and targets. The leadership team also inspires the newbies about the story of how they grew and worked their way up the ladder, where they've been assigned, their shining moments, and how much they love the people in the company.

My spill is something like:

"I started in the industry as an agent back in 2001. I remember the first call I took and I probably felt just like you: butterflies in my stomach, jittery and urging myself to come out of my nutshell. To be honest, I was scared out of my wits when I took that first call. In the ten years between my first call and where we are now the landscape of this industry has changed. There's better training, a lot more industry-experience, stronger leadership, knowledge and process orientation, and as we are doing now - everyone is here to support you when you take that first call. You are better equipped and should not at all be afraid."

I go on about being deployed to several sites including Bacoor, Cebu & Kuala Lumpur and flaunting (quite truthfully) the merits and achievements of the Quality Staff. And yes, how this is a great company that values hard work and nurtures a culture of meritocracy with solid social responsibility, global diversity and publicly-traded stocks on its way up.

Once in a while, the repressed pseudo-intellectual-smarty-pants side of me shakes me up and urges me to tweak the spill a little bit and go with something clever-sounding:

"Have you ever read George Orwell's Animal Farm? You're in the Animal Farm. Welcome! And nah, given the genius qualification of our hires you probably haven't read that yet and if you did, you'll jump out of here as soon as you start realizing you're treated like one of the sheep. By the way, my story is - I used to be something like Boxer the horse, and a few years later I became something of Squealer the pig. And look, I'm standing on two feet."