The Suggestion

by Bob Freye

She turned the tiny slip of paper over in her hands. It was covered with angry words, scrawled in large letters that filled the front side and spilled over onto the back.

“I don’t understand the problem,” she said. “What do you want me to do?”

Harold clenched his muscles to keep from shaking. He had called his boss into the room to put an end to this rampant insurrection in his department, but Ellen was treating the note like it was some inconsequential college prank.

“It’s supposed to be a suggestion box,” Harold muttered through clenched teeth.

“Treat it like a suggestion, if you like,” Ellen said. “Otherwise ignore it. No boss can make every employee happy.”

She tumbled the paper over and around, following the words as they ran in every direction.

“Somebody thinks you killed a project. They don’t think you allow people to do their jobs.” She let the paper drop to the table in front of her. “Every boss has someone like that in their department.”

“There’s more.” Harold lifted the suggestion box and dumped a pile of notes in the middle of the table.

Ellen pulled one from the pile and read it. A different penmanship, much neater, befitting a cooler and more composed complaint.

“They think you have a teacher’s pet, a little mentoring here in the department.” She looked up. “And now nobody likes that person, either.”

“I don’t want them to like me.”

“Well, you’ve succeeded, apparently.”

Ellen pulled yet another note from the stack of crumpled suggestions. Then another. And as she read, she summarized the notes for Harold, more for her benefit than for his.

“You’ve been manipulating the company handbook, deciding which parts you follow and which you ignore. You’ve canceled vacations and time off, but you didn’t show up for the last conversion weekend. You always dress well—that’s a point for you—but you haven’t been to a training seminar in three years.”

She stopped her commentary and stared at Harold.

“I know!” he said, fuming. “They’re all the same! I think we should fire somebody!”

“How long have you been getting these?” Ellen asked.

“Just the last few weeks.”

“But it sounds like this has been going on for a lot longer, maybe years.”

“No,” Harold said, shaking his head. “It just started. The box has been empty for years, and then these just start coming in, one after the other. I think they planned this.”

Ellen picked up another note, read it, and sank back in her chair.

“I have to ask this question, and I want you to be honest with me.” She was staring at the wall behind him. “Are any of these true?”

He scowled at her, as if the idea was completely irrelevant.

“What do you mean?”

“You weren’t at the last conversion,” she said. “Why not?” 

“You don’t get it,” he nearly shouted.

His hands dug through the papers in the middle of the table, lifting them in the air and letting them tumble down through his open fingers. 

“This is about the integrity of the department! I can’t work with these people trying to tear down everything I’ve built!”

Ellen reached for the phone and dialed her office number.

“Sandy, I need some people here in the conference room. Right now. Get Chase from Legal and Pat from HR. Right now.” She listened for a moment. “I don’t care. Get them out of that meeting and into this one. Thanks.”

When she hung up, Harold said under his breath, “Good help is hard to find.”

“Don’t refer to Sandy as good help,” Ellen challenged, looking at the note in her hand. “She is an excellent manager, and right now, I’m more interested in you. Are you the reason that we lost five good engineers last year?”

She set the note on the table and spun it, like a top. It made a few lazy circles and stopped, facing Harold, as if asking him to read the words again.

“They left on their own.”

“Because you wouldn’t let them do their jobs. Because you took credit for their work. Because you took bonuses that we authorized for them and paid them to yourself instead.”

He stared, blankly, as the words merely floated by him.

“I brought you in here to do something about my problem,” he complained. “So do something!”

“I will,” she promised. “I just don’t know what to do.”

“Fire somebody,” he suggested.

“I will. But I have to talk with Legal first. This problem may be too big. It may need more than just a termination.”

“What do you mean?” He sat down opposite her and leaned in, as if this was one more corporate problem to be solved in committee.

“I mean, Harold, that you may be going to jail.”  

He jumped back, as if he had been scalded.

“What?”

“I can’t be sure,” Ellen told him, “but then, that’s why we have lawyers. But one thing is certain, Harold. You are most definitely fired.”

He slumped in his chair, his jaw hanging open.

Ellen scooped up a handful of the little slips of paper from the table and fanned them out like playing cards.

“Look on the bright side,” she said. “Your suggestion box worked.”    

 
##

A last word:

In Matthew 23, throughout the entire chapter, Jesus offered a very serious appraisal of a group of workers who weren’t doing their job. They had been entrusted with a priceless gift, but they had wasted it, preferring to put their efforts into their image and their reputation, without doing any work.

They had kept an empty tradition, going through the motions of worship without actually turning their hearts to God.

It raises an interesting question that we can all ask ourselves. What have we done with the gift that God has given us? With every treasure comes a responsibility to serve. Some day, we will sit in our own performance appraisal, and he will tell us how we’ve done.

  
[-] © 2007 by Bob Freye