Anyway, what brought me back this time was the fact that my office never fails to shock amaze me. What with the spirulina issue, it's now the 5S issue. As far as I know, what I read from the 5S board, it's about increasing productivity and providing customers with best service, something like that. But somehow, the whole office is busy cleaning every nook and corner and tidying every shelf, desk and store room. Everything on everyone's table must look the same - you must have 5 L-boxes on the right hand side of your L table, the phone must be on the left side placed in front of you, the stationaries must be kept in this little drawer that everyone has and placed on the left next to the in-and-out tray, etc. One of them actually came around my table and commented that I have only two L-shaped boxes, which is more than sufficient for me since I'm such a paperless person and everything is on my laptop. Then they told me to stuff all the rest of my stuff in my car boot for the week because the auditors were coming for a check. GOODNESS! Auditors to check how clean and similar your desk is to everyone elses! Hearsay, the auditors also check for dusts on chair legs, air holes on the monitors, desk corners, etc. So, on Thursday, I had to wipe clean the legs of my chairs - why on Earth my boss decided to give me 3 chairs and a longer table when all I needed for work was my laptop and nothing else! Heck, I don't even clean the legs of the dining chairs at home.
Before the auditors came, a couple of my colleagues came to brief me about it. They said the auditors like to ask newer staff to get certain files from the cabinets and they'd want to see how organized you and your department are in getting a file. That really put me in panic mode. First, I don't really belong to the department. I'm sitting there just because I'm still a one-woman-show and there is insufficient office space for a new department. Second, what file? I have never ever opened any of the cupboards to look for any file which is not in my own department! And lo-behold they actually name every cupboard and file (which is by the way how I should be labeling the files on my table) and when you want to retrieve it, you have to use this magnetic stripe with your name on, to stick it on the panel of the cupboard and file name that you take. I was actually using those magnetic strips to stick my post-it-notes beside my table. Sheesh!
The whole department looked spick and span on Friday when the auditors came. I went to the toilet twice, not because I was afraid but because I really didn't want to mess their cupboards or failed their department of something that seems more important than real work itself. The auditors went around checking on everyone's desk, the notice boards and shelves. The moment they stepped in, they commented that not everyone's cables (telephone, computer, etc) has been tied up neatly. If two or more people didn't have properly tied up cables, then the department fails. At this point of time, my mouth is opened in awe - tied cables? How does that link to increasing productivity at all? Plus, the partitions had proper spaces where they hid all the cables neatly but they still had to tie the cables up before hiding them in the partition? It's a waste of tapes and wires if you ask me!
Then one of them ran his fingers on someone's paper tray and oopss.....he said it's got dust. At this point, I truly give up and pengsan. Throughout my working life, I've never seen a company which strives so hard at being spotlessly clean. Not that it's a bad thing but everything's got it's limit. I could have sat back on Thursday afternoon and learnt how to create a flashy banner for them instead of going on all fours to clean chair legs, digging the inside parts of partitions for dust and finding space to hide my lucky coin charm, the food on my table and my plant.
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