ESPN's Secret Interoffice Complaint Memorandum, filed under "please give me back my stapler" at Deadspin, via Pajiba and YesButNoButYes.
The managers [at ESPN Headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut] in order to better maintain positive employee relations, host occasional "Town Meetings," in which the rank-and-file question their department heads about all the usual matters that come up in an office. It's our pleasure to have come across a complete transcript of an inter-office memorandum from John Skipper himself, answering all the different gripes from the ESPN staff...
Here are my favorite inquiries and their sad middle management responses (emphases mine):
Question:
I have requested the idea of having a speed bag set-up in the health & fitness center. My response to the question when presented to some of the staff members is "no room for it" or "people don't really know how to use a speed bag properly." I fully am aware of the space issue but anyone can learn how to use one. But I'm still not sold on the belief that space is the issue. Proper planning of the layout for one would allow for such a piece of equipment to be implemented to the facility, (basically, re-arrange some equipment and voila!)
Answer:
We are currently assessing whether or not a speed bag would be a piece of equipment that our members would utilize. It is a piece that is occasionally requested, but not often. Space is certainly an issue with regard to where and how the speed bag would be mounted without causing traffic flow issues or potential injury to members. We will certainly keep this request on the table for future consideration.
Question:
I know that it is human nature to find fault and seldom praise staff members. Everyone knows this is counter-productive. I would like to see improvements here. Do you agree everyone should be praised when they do a good job? Catch people doing something right?
Answer:
Recognition and praise for a job well done is always in order. If you see opportunities for us to do so, be sure to bring it to the attention of your manager.
Question:
Can employees keep the trees that ESPN throws away when doing new construction?
Answer:
No, employees cannot keep the trees. ESPN analyzes all trees and shrubs that are scheduled to be displaced. Once it is determined which trees and shrubs can survive the move we have them bagged, tagged and relocated. Anything left is then the possession of the contractor. Many of the trees and shrubs at the cafe project have been transplanted at Building 4 and other locations on the campus.
I guess the jocks are suffering through Corporate America just like the rest of us.
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Critics Question Whether A 40-Day Stay At 'Kid Nation' Summer Camp Is Healthy For A Child's Emotional Development, from Defamer.
With outrage over Isaiah Washington's unexpected casting in Bionic Woman fading, a new, and dare we say much more interesting, controversy is materializing at the TCAs over Kid Nation, CBS's attempt to inject some much-needed Lord of the Flies-style fun into their Fall schedule. Earlier, TV Week reported on how the producers took advantage of subsequently tightened loopholes in New Mexico's child labor laws and classified the production as a "summer camp" (summer camps, after all, are totally fun, and not at all child-exploiting places of employment) to get the show done...
I'm signing up my unborn children for Labor Camp, er, Kid Nation, right now!
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I'm white and live in Oak Park, Ill., a surprisingly multicultural, upper-middle-class suburb of Chicago. The street I crossed separates my town from the city neighborhood of Austin, an almost entirely black part of Chicago. Though I often traverse it by car, I never have on foot. One day, I thought: Huh. Why not?...
...Yet as I stepped over the curb, I became excruciatingly aware of my skin color, and my heart pounded with social anxiety. In going around a single block, I got stares. Mine was the only white face around, and for five minutes, five blocks from my home, I was a stranger in a strange land.
Of course, I'm that kind of white American for whom this shouldn't be true. I grew up in the 1970s, singing "We Shall Overcome" at school assemblies. I've had black bosses, written about Kwanzaa, and know what Juneteenth is. I even have a black cousin!...
I have a black cousin, too! I wonder if we're related.
