Our resident corporate Agony Uncle, CEO Ken Cheng, tackles business challenges – so you don’t have to.
Dear Ken Cheng,
I was looking for something on my boss’s desk and I found a sheet of paper which had a ranking of all the employees’ names. Upon further inspection, I realised it was a tier-list of all the employees in order of attractiveness. I was disgusted – should I report this to HR?
– Naomi, Stoke-on-Trent
Ken Cheng:
This is entirely your own fault.
If you hadn’t gone through your boss’ private documents, you would have never been disgusted in the first place. After all, the list was just a collection of private thoughts inside your boss’ head (that they happened to write down and leave out on their desk in the open) until you read it.
Ergo, you disgusted yourself.
Listen, I agree it is not good to keep a tier list of your employees’ looks, but it is a necessary evil. We live in a shallow world and hotness is as important a skill as communication or knowing Python.
I won’t confirm or deny that I have one of these lists for my employees, nor would I admit to having it on in Excel document that just sits on my desktop background for ease of access. Certainly I won’t confirm or deny that I rank them on lots of different metrics, or make graphs and bar charts out of this data, and I definitely won’t confirm or deny that Rachel is a S+ tier employee in hotness.
In reality, all bosses keep this kind of list. It’s part of being a good boss. And while sometimes we make a mistake like letting someone see it by accident, it is a bigger mistake on that person’s part to read it.
So, Naomi, I think you should take this time out to reflect. Firstly, reflect on why you don’t respect someone’s private things. Your boss wouldn’t look through your underwear draw, and these lists are the male equivalent of a women’s underwear.
Secondly, reflect on why you don’t think people have the right to judge the looks of everyone who works for them in a professional setting. Why does that offend you so much? Is it perhaps, that you were lower down on the list than you thought?
A lot of food for thought here about who is in the wrong, but it certainly isn’t your boss and it is definitely you.
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