The 4 Primary colors are Blue, Yellow, Red and Integrity

Once a year we, as a department, take what’s called the VOE, voice of the employee. It’s this 50 question, multiple-choice, true/false, agree/disagree-sectioned survey to score how our unit measures up with other like-units on issues such as teamwork, communication, morale and especially management. If our department does “well” on the VOE, and by well I mean that the data collected demonstrates a healthy and happy department, our managers are then due for a raise or bonus or whatever the hell they get. Likewise if we score poorly on the survey their raises are then shortened and everyone gets ragged on by their superior.

Last year the results were abysmal. According to the results our department was deficient in every area possible…especially management. In fact we scored so low Corporate got involved and sent their minions out to spy on our department for about a week to analyze the problem. This year, to ensure that Corporate didn’t have to deploy a tug-boat of minions, our managers campaigned for our affection.

The first meeting Don asked what could he give us (besides monetary gifts) to make us “happy”. “The VOE is approaching and we can’t have the same results as last year,” he said. We were in the conference room at the oval table, all 7 or 8 of us at the time and one by one everyone told Don what might he be able to do to please them. When it came my turn, what would please Ken is job security and a fulltime position, something my department could not and cannot offer. So I told Don nothing. I simply shrugged my shoulders and pouted my fat bottom lip, “I’m fine”.

I had recently graduated from school at the time of this first meeting and it had been this unspoken understanding that, god willing, I was soon to leave and there would’ve been no need in placating him or rest of management by suggesting what they were unable to afford. The key item of discussion, though, became time and training. My colleagues wanted more time on the clock, “Hours!”—they cried, and they wanted information about training opportunities in other departments which, in turn, would give them more hours as well. Don agreed and the masses seemed appeased.

Weeks later there was a second meeting. This time the 7 or 8 of us crammed into Don’s office and on an easel, as if we were about to either play a game of charades or paint, was a huge sketch pad of Questions.

“I called you into my office,” Don begins, “to go over a few of the items that might be on the VOE that I think we should score favorably on. I’ll read through them and you’ll respond and if you have any questions about anything lets discuss it openly as a team.”

The pad might’ve had 15 questions written in big kid-blue marker, sampling items from each section of the VOE and with each passing section the questions gradually got sillier. Who is you manager?—silly. Does your manager communicate effectively with the team?—silly. Is communication thorough between departments?—silly. And with every question Don seemed to take an extra minute or so to clarify the language…so that we might understand what the item was asking of us—silly.

It wasn’t apparent the reasons for his case-sensitive approach until he reached the item in mid-sketch pad—The People I work with act with Integrity—agree or disagree. It was the word integrity Don figured my team would have an issue with.

Of the 7 or 8 individuals that I work with all of them are 30 or above, some even in their mid to late forties or older. Two, including myself, are male, which makes us the minority in a department of women and everyone is black except for the other male, Santiago, who is Hispanic and Don, the manager, who is some derivative of Asian. We are all hourly, part time employees with this job being the primary source of income for the majority of my team. Don, of course, is salary and fulltime. The hours are receding, the work is remedial and thoughtless, the turn over rate is High. Don thinks we’re stupid.

So he asked, “do we all know what integrity means?”—and Don had a real smooth way of making that question not sound as offensive as it was. When every nodded ‘yes’ Don didn’t seem convinced because he interrogated us a little more, “well then someone define it for me. What does integrity mean? Give me another word for integrity” And when no one volunteered to, Don, as I expected, volunteered the services of the only person he figured could define the word and rescue the rest of the group from the embarrassment of not knowing it… me. Why did he choose me?—because I’m the only other person college educated. Without so much as looking at anyone else Don says, “Ken, what’s another word for integrity?”—and everyone with a pensive stare leaned in to see me, the college kid, react.

So I folded my arms and looked at the board in disgust. Integrity. Who ever carries the text book definition of anything in their wallets? I crossed my legs. I looked at everyone looking at me and Don was standing in my peripheral, arms folded, looking at me and I began repeating the blasphemous line in my head again and again, The people I work with act with integrity, and it was in that spit of a second, of chanting that sentence and listening for a context clue to grant me at least one synonym did I realize how insulting it was for me to be lurching through the swamp water of my mental to further simplify a word and phrase that was already made simple. Everyone nodded to having understood!! What adult would you hire, Don, that wouldn’t know how to decipher the meaning of The people I work with act with integrity. How would he like it if someone questioned his intelligence: Tell me, Don, what colors make up red?

Maybe you deserved those scores from last year.

This is what happened to me mentally when I tried forcing Don a response:

Integrity

integrity equals morals

morals equals prowess

prowess equals scriptures

scriptures equals cleanliness

cleanliness equals bubbles

bubbles equals Cinderella

Cinderella equals blue

blue equals perfume

perfume equals magic

magic equals sparkles

sparkles equals pink

Integrity equates to one’s moral prowess would’ve been my response had I decided to respond with an answer but in lieu of being absolutely disgusted I told Don that I was but unable to break integrity down any further. So instead of challenging someone else with the question, Don gave the answer himself. Integrity is honesty, he said. Semantics.

One of my team members chimed in after Don’s answer-giveaway with a very New York snarky, “way to go college grad,” comment and scoffed a little. And I thought to myself: Self, had she really been in a flux over the term integrity I would’ve answered Moral Prowess and she would have peed the chair. Whereas she’s concerned about what my college grad ass can or cannot answer she should be worried that her manager thinks she’s black and stupid. Don’t give me too much, girl!!

Gee, thanx, Don.