Thursday, January 22, 2009

My gift to Americans in a dull workplace.

My wife recently complained to me that a few people in her workplace filed or threatened to file harassment complaints for a few off hand comments made by her coworkers. Now, the once happy and verbal group sits guarded, droning through their days... I authored this document for her to begin a "grassroots" campaign in her workplace. It may divide the company. But maybe the company needs to be divided between those who work hard and want to have fun and those who want to live in a candy shell. If anyone else can make use of it in your place, please - USE IT! Special thanks to Rod for inspiring me to post this. This is the header of the roll. The actual .PDF form can be downloaded here. Shortly after sharing this with another friend who is famous for his timely frankness and succinctness, he rewrote it. If you prefer a shorter and more direct version without so much legalese, you can download that version here.

Good Spirits Association Membership Roll
In order to provide a working environment each of us can feel safe in and enjoy, we the members of the Good Spirits Association, recognize that certain laws have come to pass which are detrimental to a healthy and fun work environment. These laws specifically pertain to conduct in the workplace regarding spoken words of a age, health, sexual, racial or religious nature. We consider these laws to be far overreaching and thus a negative and detrimental force in our work environment by allowing individuals who may feel hurt, angry or vengeful at times to abuse these laws and cause each other and/or our employer undue stress and harm. We prefer to instead to handle these issues interpersonally and by discussion only. Therefore, we, the undersigned, each individually, under no persuasion or coercion freely desire and accept that we are members of the Good Spirits Association and thereby together and individually agree to and declare the following:
By signing this Roll, we each are a member of this Association. We acknowledge that The Good Spirits Association requires nothing and serves no purpose other than to recognize and collect those of us who by signing this roll, hereby publically waive all rights of protection granted to us under Federal, State, County and City laws and codes which allow us each to file claims or sue one another or our employer, through administrative or legal courses, for any verbal violations of conduct under any such scope of law whether the nature of those spoken words pertain to age, health, racial, sexual or religious subjects and be considered “harassing”. As adults, we recognize our common rights of choice to enjoy, endure, ignore or challenge such verbal comments among ourselves as sufficient means and thus a healthier choice for us each to enjoy each other and our workplace environment. Should any conversation lead to harmful physical action, the appropriate laws are already in place to address those physical actions and such laws are not waived by any member.

To join, a desiring member need merely sign the “Agreed” column with a member witness and date. Two non members may agree at the same time and be each other's witness. Each member may freely withdraw from this agreement at anytime by signing and dating in the “Withdraw” column in line with their originally signed “Agreed” column entry. This roll is to be placed in public view.

Printed Name
Signed
Witness
Date
Withdraw
Date

2 comments:

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