White Glove Award

I suppose one of the more stupid things management has come up with is their new "White Glove Award." Once every few weeks a general clean up of all the production areas ensues and then a team of inspectors from outside the work areas roll through and judge the areas against each other for organization and cleanliness. The manufacturing team that comes out the winner gets a lunch or dinner on the company dime, they all get a certificate of recognition (big deal), and their area is presented with a white glove in a plexiglass case. To make it even more surreal they had the glove stuffed so it looks like there's actually a real hand sitting upright inside the case. These glove trophies remind me of beanie caps in an old 1950's movie by Dr. Seuss called "The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T." It's a strange movie but it's fun to watch. Check it out sometime if you've never seen it.

Yesterday evening I was walking down the main hallway heading back inside after a late night break. Something caught my eye inside a double doorway perched on top of an eight foot tall metal cabinet. It was one of the recent White Glove Award plexiglass trophies and someone had put it up on this cabinet right inside the doorway. It was angled so a person walking by might see it. As I got closer I noticed that the fingers had been unstitched and reformed to give me the middle finger. I was being flipped off by a stuffed hand under glass. I totally started laughing out loud. It was an awesome job.

Curious about it I walked into one of the commercial product areas to see if anyone was around. I wanted to ask who put that together. Wandering through three of the back rooms I finally found Army Guy working hard over some junk on a table. I asked him about the middle finger glove action and he started busting up. Army Guy copped to doing the rework on the glove and he said he's set up three more just like it around the building only in places Mr. Janitor should find them. He's trying to give Mr. Janitor the middle finger as much as possible. Most excellent. I wish I had thought of doing that.