Group Soak

Cultural differences can be a beautiful thing.  Or maybe not... it depends on your perspective.  I was chatting with one of my customers today who mentioned that she just got back from visiting a major supplier in Finland.  That supplier had a large factory, perhaps 500 people.  I'm going to paraphrase her description of an interaction between her and the plant manager:

Visiting customer (VC): "Beautiful conference room.  I really like glass walls."

Finland plant manager (FPM): "Yes, we believe in openness."

VC: "Why are all those people walking past us carrying duffle bags?"

FPM: "I can't show you now, but I'll show you after lunch."

After lunch he takes her down the hall and into what looks like a locker room with showers directly opposite the lockers.  There are no curtains or doors on the showers.

VC: "Nice locker room.  Is this the men's or women's?"

FPM: "Both."

VC: "OK.... so what do they use the lockers and showers for?"

The plant manager then walks the visitors through another door, and behold!  There's a hot tub that could hold about 30 folks.

VC:  "Very nice!  I always thought a hot tub would be a nice employee perk!"

FPM: "Our employees really like it, which is why it was too crowded to show you earlier."

VC: "So who decides when the men get to use the hot tub, and when the women do?"

FPM: "We all use it together."

VC: "So where does everyone change if there's only one locker room?"

FPM:  "Change?"

VC: "Into swimsuits."

FPM:  "Swimsuits?"

VC:  "OK...."

By this point I was alternating between being enthralled with our cultural differences and rather unpleasant visuals of imagining my coworkers in a hot tub in their birthday suits.  Maybe Finland is different, but over here factory folks are usually not exactly pinup material.  Then I got to thinking about a couple of recent petty employee issues along the lines of "so and so looked at me wrong."  Isn't babysitting employees a blast?  But at least they weren't sharing a soak together.  Or maybe such "openness" creates more acceptance, resulting in fewer petty HR issues?

Looking around at my coworkers, I think that's one management idea I won't try.  Smart and creative will only get you so far.  Although a few months ago I did threaten to lock two quarreling managers together in a dark closet in their Speedos until they resolved their differences.  Close enough.

Comments

[Alyson]

I would definitely avoid any hot tub that had my coworkers in it. Not a pretty sight! However if I worked in the office of the Boston Celtics...