How to Kill Morale and Initiative. A True Story.*

An invoice for grounds-keeping work at “Any Street and Some Road” arrives in the Company’s mail. Over the course of the week, the invoice makes the rounds of all of the administrative desks, with no one wanting to claim it for their department because no one recognizes the address or the vendor.

The first person who gets it is Happy. She checks with her people, who disclaim any knowledge of it, so she passes it on to Bashful, saying she’s pretty sure it’s from that division. Bashful says that she’s checked with all of her execs, and it’s not any of theirs, so she passes it on to Dopey. Dopey calls Sleepy and Sleepy says that she doesn’t recognize it at all. So Dopey checks with all of her execs — she even contacts Grumpy, who is out of the country. None of her execs claims it, but Doc thinks that it’s Sneezy’s. Sneezy is one of Bashful’s execs. So Dopey gives it back to Bashful with a note that Doc says it’s probably Sneezy’s. Sneezy denies any knowledge of the property or the vendor.

Now, all the time this is going on, Dopey, who has been with the company for several years, has this nagging feeling that this problem is familiar. Finally, she remembers a conversation that Grumpy had with another employee three or four years ago while standing in front of her desk. She can’t remember much of it, because she tries not to eavesdrop, but she seems to remember Grumpy saying that this particular property was actually a vacant lot that that adjoins a small rental house owned by the Company. The land must be cleared a few times a year to keep the City from issuing a citation, and this vendor does the job — the only job he does for the Company.

So Dopey goes to the main accounting software and looks through all of the vendor names until she finds the name of the person who sent the invoice. She then checks the vendor file and finds the date of the most recent check issued, and notes that the invoices all occur between May and September, and that they appear to go back at least five years. Then she goes to the accounting archive and finds a previous invoice, which has all of the accounting codes and payment information.

Feeling triumphant, Dopey e-mails the other admins to say that in the future, the invoice should be coded to property number 999, with code 7777. When she calls Bashful to get the invoice back, Bashful codes it for her. Now all Dopey needs is a signature and she can turn in the mystery invoice. But she doesn’t know who to get the signature from, because the signature on the previous invoice is illegible.

And trouble is brewing. Dopey gets an e-mail from Happy, saying that there is no property code 999. So Dopey goes to accounting and asks one of the clerks, who tells her that there is a 999, it’s X House, and it has a zero balance, so it’s probably been sold.

Thoroughly confused, Dopey writes a memo to the Assistant Controller, copying the Controller, to ask that the account be verified as legitimate before the bill is paid, and asking who should sign to approve the payment of the invoice. The next thing she knows, the Controller is giving her a stern talking-to about the fact that this invoice has been coming in forever, and that Grumpy’s dad owns it, and Grumpy knows all about it. His attitude is, “why are you making such a big deal about this?”

Dopey responds, “Hey, I know all of that. I figured it out. But Grumpy said he knows nothing about it, and someone said I was wrong about the coding, and someone else said they thought the property was sold. So I just wanted someone in authority to confirm my conclusions before we paid a bill that we shouldn’t.”

And the Controller starts his explanation all over. So Dopey repeats the fact that she already knows what he’s telling her (first from her own research, and second from his initial lecture), and then asks who should approve it.

The Controller asks who approved the last one, and Dopey says, “I can’t tell. The signature is just a sort of squiggle with a circle around it.”

The Controller sighs loudly, rolls his eyes, forcefully wads up the paper he’s holding (which happens to be his copy of the memo) and tosses it in the bin, and stalks off.

And Dopey stands there wondering what on earth she did wrong and why she now feels depressed instead of triumphant.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Tags: True Stories, Work Life