When Mediocrity is Better

    Some time ago, department managers (hourly employees) would voluntarily wander in on their free time and clean up their departments (like on Sundays when they did shopping as they all used to have weekends off). Later on a department manager was passed over for a promotion because her department wasn't as clean as her peers. She sued her boss and won. During the court hearing, she claimed that she was the only department manager who refused to ever do work off the clock. When she said that to her store manager, he replied that “Everybody else did what it took to get the job done.” She claimed that it was an unfair advantage. The store leadership team claimed that they never put such pressure on employees and in fact weren't responsible for what people did on their time off. It turned out under cross examination the store manager and district manager were asked if it were okay for an employee to work off the clock. They said no. Then they were asked if they'd ever told employees never to work off the clock. They said yes. Then they were asked if they'd ever terminated an employee for working off the clock. They said no.
     Ching! Game over and they knew it. Why? It comes down to American corporate norms and the long held legal view that: “a rule that is not backed up with both the threat of corrective action AND a consistent track record of corrective action is not a bona-fide rule.” Walmart lost the court case and had to pay millions in fines and class action money. The reason you wonder? “An environment where employees are allowed to work for free creates an environment where other employees feel pressured to work for free to be considered good performers. This deprives them of their rights and an even playing field when it comes to annual appraisals and opportunities for promotion.” No employer is permitted —even if you as ab employee offer it voluntarily— to ever allow an employee to work for free or work when they are not scheduled to without submitting it into their time card.

     Of course this has its own set of problems along with it, it pressures the employees to work better and make smarter decisions during their working hours because they don't receive the extra time to compensate. Furthermore it also creates money to be the soul head of the entire project, neglecting learning or communicating better. And of course all this could have been avoided if all the employees were equally motivated or as apathetic as the next but everyone is different in such a wide population array it is near impossible for all of them to concede with one concrete thing.

     But in such a workplace where complete strangers come together to interact closely for 8-12 hours within the day I think such a mediocre level is important, helpful, and maybe even needed. If you befriend a mediocre person you won't become threatening to them.  Not too smart, not too pretty, not too much of a work of art, not too witty. Not too anything.