No workplace is without its battles or drama. But, in some workplaces, the staff accepts a greater responsibility to stifle, if not end, battles almost as quickly as they begin. So, they take their placebos, lick their wounds and pretend to heal- for the greater good of office peace.

However, even then, there are always signs of ongoing battles and drama. There are always the mean looks cast when someone thinks no one else is looking or general comments fired in the direction of no one in particular and other various acts of sabotage.

When the days of madness and darkness descended upon the R. Allen Stanford newspaper and print company, there was an almost imperceptible ripping of old wounds. And, one careful whiff of the office air gave the feeling that previous battles were suddenly being resurrected. That is the only explanation I can offer for how very quickly a peaceful and almost rose-smelling working environment turned rancid.

Some members of staff made it clear that they did not enjoy the arbitrary manner in which management seemed to enjoy doing things. They took to expressing their loud discontent. Day in and day out they shouted their disapproval in careful murmurs in darkish corners and alleys.  They dared to know, down to the very last detail, how their sacrifices would help the company. Worse, they wanted to know how the sacrifices of management stacked up to theirs.

These were far from pretty times.  Indeed, these turned out to be very petty times. I remember one particularly heated meeting with the editorial staff (news, sports and feature writers, editors and a few members of management).  It was a strange sort of meeting. It was a meeting which at least two other departments had already enjoyed and grudgingly shared the contents with us. But there we were, in our very own meeting, with management ready to bring us the breaking news.

During this meeting, the question of pay cuts and, by extension, the quality of sacrifice was raised.  One manager got extremely offended. He understood that line staff wouldn’t quite get his bills and lifestyle and would, of course, in all naïveté, ask for equal sacrifice. He got red in the face- a clear sign that he was not jesting- as he explained that managers had to maintain their particular standard of living and could not be called upon to give up more than was being rumoured.

Another member of management got around, somehow, to explaining that we women- a majority in the R. Allen Stanford newspaper and print company- were always a risk to the company.  We women, this manager explained, were bound to have babies sooner or later and so represented a gamble from the very start. This line of explanation was birthed, I think, from some very earnest reasoning by this manager (and no doubt, other managers) that staff should not question decisions since another option on the table was to send all employees home.

Once outside of the meeting room and away from managers, quite a few took to voicing their disapproval of the “pregnant” and “standard of living to maintain” comments.  One editor plopped near me to wonder viciously at the sterility of a particular manager's reproductive organs.  I listened patiently, responding as I deemed appropriate, while silently wondering at the infertility of this editor's voice box during the just concluded meeting. 

Coming Next Tuesday: #15 The Road to Unemployment