You may not have noticed, but another casualty of the recession has been the utterly pointless workplace survey. When times were good, not a week would pass without a press release from an eager PR agency plugging things like "the twelve most bizarre excuses for being late for work"*
Sadly, not any more – or at least, so rarely that we actually take notice when we see one. So thanks is due to Careerbuilder.com for revealing the most memorable requests or recommendations people have received in their office suggestion box, including:
- Allow people to change clothes in their cubicles.
- Add a tanning bed to the break room.
- Put beer in the vending machine.
- Jail time should be covered under family medical leave.
- Institute bikini Fridays.
- Only require work during daylight hours because employee is scared of the dark.
- Request a special smoking area for medical marijuana.
- Request that the HR person wear nicer shoes.
- More time off to pursue side business as a clown.
- Replace a desk with a futon so employee could lay down and work.
- Request that the lactation room with gliding chair be used for naps, so everyone can use it.
- Install a swimming pool for employees to use.
- Have the team meeting held in Hawaii.
Some of these, if truth be told, are not so silly after all: sleep pods were all the rage a few years back, but whether they have survived the recession is another question.
* Meanwhile, a reminder that the prize for the dumbess excuse for skipping work was won by a South African man whose attempt to use a stolen doctor's note to take time off work backfired after it was noticed that he was highly unlikely to be pregnant as the note (stolen from his girlfriend), claimed...