Caught my boss using a spreadsheet to 'track morale' and it was just a column of faces

I walked by his desk last Tuesday and saw a Google Sheet with employee names and a column labeled 'Vibe Check' with just smiley or frowny face emojis. He rated me a frowny face because I didn't laugh at his joke about coffee. Has anyone else seen managers try to quantify feelings in weird ways?

2 comments

2 Comments

wade_young8622h ago

The frowny face for not laughing at his coffee joke is brutal but also hilarious (in a sad way). One of my old managers used a "happiness thermometer" on a whiteboard where we had to put a dot under the temperature that matched our mood that day. It was so awkward because everyone would just look at what everyone else put and do the same thing to avoid being the one who seemed unhappy.

parkerb7517h ago

Did they ever figure out the happiness thermometer was basically just peer pressure with a dry erase marker? A buddy of mine had a manager who did something similar with colored cards on their desks, and people would literally hide their cards in a drawer so nobody could see them. It ended when the boss found a drawer full of green cards and realized nobody actually followed the system.