Counter-Clockwise Revolutions

This past Monday, a member of our finance team announced that she had sought to direct her career in an avenue other than finance, and had accepted another position in the company. This came as a bit of a surprise, considering she had only been with us for about six months, but I can understand her change in interest. After all, she hasn’t been the first one.

When I ran high school track, my two coaches (the short one and the one with chemistry in his veins) would always try and find ways to make us skinny white kids run faster in the sprint events. Aside from making us run to the YMCA camp a few miles away, they also decided when in doubt, to yell a solitary word. TURNOVER. And to this day, it seemed like a cryptic choice. They never would explain what they meant by turnover, so I’d have to guess a definition. It never made sense, since the turnover I was used to was set in an office setting, much like a revolving door. And have you ever tried to run fast inside a revolving door? Don’t. It really hurts.

Yes, the revolving door has claimed another worker here in my department. Now I have now been here a few weeks over three years, and for the most part, there are 5 other positions in my department, and I suppose it’s possible to have had the same 5 co-workers during my tenure. However, that’s not the case.

I’ve had 13. (4, no 8, no 12…)

Whether it’s been a promotion, demotion, relocation, or permanent vacation, we’ve had to order our share of nameplates. And what’s more, of the original 5, 2 of them are still here. Which means that’s 11 people to fill the other 3 positions. It took a team of eleven to serve as our two administrative staff and one financial controller. And that’s an average of 11 months on the job before running into the revolving door. What gives?

There’s no solution to my question, because consolidating all of the reasons reveals little similarity. Maybe it’s because a certain employee leaves old donuts out on his desk while he waits for his friends to debate that pastry’s fate.

(Which, I might add, ended up in the trash can. The late-inning rally for the runaway donut came too late. Apologies, little fella.)

Postscript: the one positive aspect of such high employee turnover is a complete need to exploit the fact that the newbies weren’t around when “times were tougher.” As an incumbent member of your department, it is your comedic responsibility to ensure you constantly recollect old stories, prior means of operation, and stuff you’re making up as instantaneously as it’s leaving your mouth. Now you don’t want to alienate your new compatriots when doing this. A longing for the past will only divide the tribe, a la most of the early season dynamics on Survivor. No, you’ve got to say stuff that will elicit the response, “Wow, it may have been harder to do your job before I joined the team, but DAMN, did you guys have a good time!”

Example: Hey, remember back in March when we got relocated outdoors? I mean, wow was that a tough few weeks. Thank God for wireless, you know what I mean? I didn’t mind the snow so much, since we hired the Heat Miser as a temp, and those polar bears were taking care of running the database, but when they started to drink all the Coke in the fridge – man, was that crazy. We really should have seen that one coming.