The visit from our Company Inspector provided a rare photo opportunity for our Kitchen Staff, who received this fantastic, custom-made apron from the Inspector’s Manager!

Our company is a lucky one, indeed.

All photo series from the past few days, of course, must be credited to our visitor, the Company Inspector. It’s fun to get an outside point of view. Here we are in the cafeteria, over a meal of noodles and eggplant parm.

K.Lo, being K.Lo, has exhibited her full range of personality and emotion during our Company Inspector’s visit, and though notes have been steadily recorded and stowed away in the Inspector’s file, it has been somewhat validating to hear an outsider’s neutral, pragmatic assessments and observations. No points have been docked from our company’s overall performance review, thankfully, regardless of our first-hire’s fairly frequent trips to the Dark Side, even those that are triggered by the smallest, most inconsequential shifts in the workplace environment.

Exhibit A: The Manager sits in one Conference Room chair next to a sleeping K.Lo, while catching up on paperwork. Deciding she’s uncomfortable with the lack of elbow room, and assuming the employee might enjoy a little more space for her (unauthorized) Afternoon Break, she moves five (5) feet away to another Conference Room chair.

That’s it, she simply relocates to another chair. Same room. No words are spoken, no fanfare is created. The bear, however, has been poked by this clear violation, this great upset of employee order and control, and the following scene ensues.

Add in the appropriate screeching and wailing, crank up the volume, and then crank it up a little more. Let that tape roll about three times longer than you would expect it to last. Maybe four.

It’s…not at all dramatic. Really.

And, you know, what can a Manager do. Luckily, payoff and redemption eventually exist in the form of K.Lo in her Happy Place. One just needs to wait, assisting wherever and however possible in aiding this employee along, toward the light. The best managerial practices toward achieving this goal are not always clear, but we do return there, eventually.

A productive work day here at the Lo.Co., where the presence of the Company Inspector continues to incite some concern over whether we’re really performing to the best of our abilities, but we soldier on. The Inspector has thus far proven to be unflappable in the face of Employee Code of Conduct (ECC) violations, but I have noticed her taking notes. Regardless, she herself has adapted to company life with remarkable ease, and unfailingly provides assistance to whichever department requires it. Our staff is most grateful and impressed.

We dropped off K.Lo at the Outsourcer, where she would exchange valentines with her coworkers and eat a meal of many red things, such as the strawberries our company contributed. N.Lo accompanied us on our quest to explore two local produce markets, satisfying the Kitchen Staff’s recent (increased) obsession with providing the best nutrition possible for our company. I’m pleased to report success in this mission.

The afternoon was spent catching up on paperwork and training the Company Inspector to use the Wii, an important skill to have in our company if one wishes to go far.

Yesterday evening, the Company Inspector arrived. The visit was long overdue, and in fact our company had flown under the radar since its inception, avoiding the mandatory assessment of our operations. A sense of nervous anticipation prevailed: how would our company measure up? All departments engaged in preparations, hoping to win over our visitor even in advance, with its penchant for catering to our guests.

So far, employee performance has been, on the average, so-so. While initially the staff scored high marks for its pleasant, charming reception of the Inspector, points were lost the next morning with an escalated battle between K.Lo and Management that *may* have woken the Inspector from her jet-lagged slumber. The Manager, while mentally wringing her hands a bit at both employee performance and her own, hopes the company will pull it together for the remainder of the visit and ultimately receive a positive performance review.

Inversely proportionate: Marks Received vs. Volume Output