So ture

Every day, a small Ant arrived at work early and starting work immediately, she produced a lot and she was happy. The boss, a lion, was surprised to see that the ant was working without supervision. He thought if the ant can produce so much without supervision, wouldn’t she produce more if she had a supervisor!

So the lion recruited a cockroach who had extensive experience as a supervisor and who was famous for writing excellent reports. The cockroach’s first decision was to set up a clocking in attendance system. He also needed a secretary to help him write and type his reports. He recruited a spider who managed the archives and monitored all phone calls.

The Lion was delighted with the cockroach’s report and asked him to produce graphs to describe production rates and analyze trends so that he could use them for presentations at board meetings. So the cockroach had to buy a new computer and a laser printer and recruit a fly to manage the IT department. The Ant , who had been once so productive and relaxed, hated this new plethora of paperwork and meetings which used up most of her time.

The lion came to the conclusion that it was high time to nominate a person in charge of the department where the ant worked. The position was given to the Cicada whose first decision was to buy a carpet and an ergonomic chair for his office.The new person in charge, the cicada, also needed a computer and a personal assistant, whom he had brought from his previous department to help him prepare a work and budget control strategic optimization plan.

The department where the ant works is now a sad place, where nobody laughs anymore and everybody has become upset. It was at that time the cicada convinced the boss, the Lion, to start a climatic study of the office environment. Having reviewed the charges of running the ant’s department, the lion found out that the production was much less than before so he recruited the Owl, a prestigious and renowned consultant to carry out an audit and suggest solutions. The Owl spent 3 months in the department and came out with an enormous report, in several volumes, that concluded that ” The Department is overstaffed..”

Guess who the lion fired first ?

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Every few months they will lay off a few ants. No logic is put into who is laid off, some high performers are pushed out, and some low performers remain. The remaining ants are worried about the constant layoffs and wonder who will be the next ant to go. Just when they start to get comfortable, focused on work and not worrying, another round of layoffs happen. Each time there is a layoff the remaining ants lose a little more engagement and motivation.....because they know there time is going to come. Not only that, the other larger animals push harder on the ants to pick up the workload of those that were let go. Of course, the ants don't get a raise, they lower the FY17 bonus plan, eliminate tuition, raise health care etc.

Finally the large animals say it is time for an employee survey and an offsite meeting at a fancy hotel so they can solve the companies problems. Without a survey, we don't know what the ants are thinking. Only the solutions they come up with are so empty you can here the crickets chirping. The ants fully understand what the future holds.

If you have many years in with this out house of a company, don't count on a severance. They'll drive you out before they lay you off. They'll give you the choice, quit or be fired. Either way, no severance. That has been a recurring theme. Follett isn't a good, nice, benevolent or decent organization. Unless you have VP in front of your name, you don't have a package waiting for you.

here is the issue my ants, many have out performed their cockroaches and the cockroaches hate to be shown up. So the cockroaches scamper to their beetles. The beetles will see that their cockroaches and they themeselves are looking bad. The beetle has to not look like a ladybug and put on his manly pants to get rid of the ants. So the beetles put on their manly pants to show their bosses they can still run things, by just appearing to have power when really their bosses, the frogs, will just eat them later for making the company fail. Too bad the frogs are croaking too loud to hear what's going on

Congrats to you ants that got severance packages and collected via other methods.

This ant knows that all the other insects want it to run, because it would be doing them a favor and would also save them a lot of money. However this ant is staying put. This ant has invested almost 20 yrs and will patiently and happily wait for their severance package. The end!

In the end the other insects, thinking them selves superior, convinced the lion to stomp around the ant to scare it into working harder. The lion did. The ant was left with two choices, find a way out and run or to chance not getting stepped on by the misguided lion.

I wonder what the any will do?

This.is.AWESOME! Totally agree with this story and it is true. Except the cockroach some of us know is hired to do nothing but shuffle the work to the ant. The ant does the work but the cockroach lies to others about the ant to try and make the ant look bad, but as we know, the cockroach needs extermination, so call the Orkin man. Too bad Follett paid for the cheapest exterminator who is afraid to do anything and sprays the cockroach with water instead of pesticides.

The ant decides to go into the circus with the ladybug, preying mantis, oh wait, wrong show.

well written true-to-life short story. the lion is blinded by greed. i'm sure the ant will be happy in the end. when will the lion ever learn?

Excellent and sadly spot on post for what is happening. Nobody wants to work for this company but most of us need another job before we can quit. Back on the hunt today for a new place where us ants are respected.

This describes what happened in my department.

Thread regarding Follett layoffs

So ture

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