"suggestion" box

My work office is place of policy. We know the rules. We are given new rules. We are notified of past rules that have changed. We have rules that don't apply any more. Rules and Policies are what we are about.

For our sanity we are given a suggestion box in the lobby. We can fill out the little survey given to us to help us understand why there is a rule in place or to just get a complaint off our chest and feel like we have been heard. Sometimes it feels like our suggestion box really just should be a trash can with a piece of paper labeled "suggestions" on it.

We don't always feel like our complaints really go any where beyond our office, but it's nice knowing that our management still takes the time to hear us out and can give us more info on why we have the policies we do. I work with some really awesome people. They make our office such a great place to work.

One Monday morning I come into work dreading the worst and my email inbox has a reply to a suggestion that was submitted by someone on my team. This is awesome. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did;

SUGGESTION: THE WAY IT IS NOW: E Mail.
THE WAY IT COULD BE: We need a system of vacuum tubes that go to each desk in the call center.
HOW WOULD THIS BENEFIT THE COMPANY/EMPLOYEES: We could send messages to each other and it would be more fun than email and we would get to hear that “whooshing” noise!
SUGGESTED ACTIONS TO MAKE THIS POSSIBLE: A single cash out pay of approximately $600,000 by our business President to add a little excitement to the day!


COMMENTS: As always we enjoy and welcome your suggestions. Once we escalated this we were advised that it was cost prohibitive especially in these economic times. We were though, given an alternative! Everyone next time you eat soup, please wash your cans and bring one in. We will provide the string to put between these cans!

Thanks, Your Leadership Team!!