by Joy Peters
Marcia Greenwood detested the last Friday of the month and had good reason to loathe this one especially. She was employed as an assistant personnel manager for an airline and was based at their office in Berkshire, where she had worked for about five years. She was thirty years of age and happily married. Her job with the airline was only her second after university. She had been previously employed in a similar capacity by a national high street retailer. It was there that she further studied for and passed her personnel management diplomas. The fringe benefits of working for a major airline were what enticed her away from her previous position.
The personnel department at her current position was large - unsurprising given the number of employees. There were a number of specialist personnel managers responsible for specific elements of the business, such as cabin grew, flight crew and ground crew to name but three. Marcia's role was at the centre of the organisation. She was responsible for managing overall sickness absences, recruitment of general staff (not flight or cabin crew) and managing the organisation's disciplinary system. This necessitated arranging disciplinary hearings and advising on procedure and company regulations and current employment law. She was also required to record and monitor employee misconduct.
The airline had a staff handbook that was issued to each member of staff on appointment. This clearly defined expected and acceptable standards of conduct. Behaviour defined as gross misconduct necessitated formal disciplinary procedures: investigation, disciplinary hearing, and outcome/award and followed by any appeal process. Lesser acts of misconduct were usually dealt with by a system of demerit marks. Each equated successively to a verbal warning, written warning and final written warning. Each demerit had a shelf life of eighteen months. A fourth demerit within this period resulted in a referral to the Personnel Director on the last Friday of the month at the head office. Marcia was responsible for managing this. It was complicated by the nature of the business and the need to interrupt and rearrange work schedules. It required much patience and liaison with other managers.
These appointments with the Personnel Director were formal affairs. Referred employees were required to attend smartly dressed and in full dress uniform if this was appropriate to the grade of the staff member. On these occasions the Personnel Director verbally reprimanded attending personnel and offered a choice of dismissal or the option. The option consisted of a painful caning applied to the employee's bottom. Most employees chose the option, informally referred to as a gating, as it was accepted as better than an uncertain future following dismissal.
It was Marcia's duty to record all demerits and disciplinary hearing awards. Managers reported demerits via email. Occasionally, employees found guilty of gross misconduct were offered the option as an alternative to dismissal but such awards were exceptional. She had to prepare a dossier summarising the employee's history and misconduct for the Personnel Director and have it on his desk by 2pm on the last Friday of the month. She had to attend his office personally to hand these dossiers over to him.
Marcia didn't really like John Chisholm the personnel director. She felt uncomfortable in his presence. She wasn't sure of the reason for this but it was probably because he was always so formal in speech and manner. Fortunately her contact with him was now limited to the monthly meetings they had on the last Friday. Whenever women employees were referred to him, Marcia had to be in attendance as a witness and chaperone. With men, Peter Finch, another assistant personnel manager attended. Marcia found these meetings quite distasteful but reluctantly admitted to herself that they were effective.
John Chisholm was an imposing man, immaculately dressed and standing six feet tall. He was forty-five years of age and had held his position with the company for the past three years having been promoted from the position of General Personnel Manager. He appeared to lack a sense of humour and rarely smiled. He seemed without emotion, but that said, he was regarded as an effective personnel director. Marcia had worked directly to him for her first two years at the airline. She was delighted when he was promoted - albeit for the wrong reasons.
Marcia was an extremely attractive woman. She kept herself fit with regular attendance at a local gym and was in training to run her first marathon. She was a natural blonde and was 5ft 8 inches tall. She had earned herself a demerit mark from John Chisholm the previous month for an error that saw an employee wrongly referred for a meeting with him. She was highly embarrassed by this but not as much as the employee, who was rightly furious. John Chisholm had handled the matter well.
Having apologised to the employee he casually remarked to Marcia, "Take a demerit, Mrs Greenwood, and make sure there is no repetition."
Unfortunately, this was Marcia's third demerit within the last eighteen months and effectively constituted a final written warning. She needed to be extremely careful over the following two months by which time two of her demerits would lapse.
The following week she forgot her security pass and had to be issued with a visitor's pass. She repeated this the following week and this initiated a referral to the security manager. She was extremely apologetic to him but was warned that a report would be made to her line manager if there was a third occurrence.
The following week Marcia was called away from her desk for an unscheduled meeting with her boss. On return to her desk some fifteen minutes later she found a written note asking her to contact security. She phoned the security office and was advised that she had left her computer on and unlocked. She was told that in view of the significant security breach, a report had been submitted to her line manager.
Almost immediately, her phone rang and she was told to come round to the office of her boss, Peter Blake. He was pleasant enough and invited Marcia to take a seat. "Security is quite perplexed at having found your PC left on, Marcia."
"I'm really sorry, Peter. You called me for a meeting and I just forgot to lock my PC."
"Security tells me that you also forgot your security pass on two successive weeks recently. Is there anything wrong? Anything I can help you with?"
"No I'm fine, it was just one of those things."
"Three things, Marcia. Now it's been brought to my attention formally I can't just ignore it. I'm afraid that I'm going to have to award you a demerit."
"Oh no, don't do that! It's my fourth and you know what that means?"
"I had no idea, but I can't ignore the situation. It wouldn't be right to alter my decision. You deserve the demerit for your actions so let's not discuss it any further, eh?"
Marcia was mortified and in a state of shock. She left Peter's office without further comment.
It was the penultimate Thursday of the month and Marcia started to compile the list for the last Friday. She needed to give a weeks' notice to ensure attendances. There were only two employees, apart from her.
Laura Fielding, 27 years of age and cabin crew. Sarah Brown, 32 years of age, flight crew, First Officer. The latter was quite unusual. Marcia couldn't recall having to invite a pilot before. Three attendees were higher than normal. Usually it would be only one or two but there was a previous occasion where there were five. John Chisholm was extremely unhappy on that occasion as he genuinely seemed to dislike the experience as much as the employee.
Marcia started making the arrangements for the attendance of Lauren and Sarah. As it turned out, both were on scheduled rest days so that simplified matters a little. She contacted their respective managers and soon had confirmations of their attendance.
Marcia then sent the following notifications, remembering to send one to herself:
You are required to report to the head office of the company on Friday 16 November at 12:00hrs for a review your conduct. You must attend in full dress uniform. You should report to the receptionist at the main entrance. Arrangements have been made for you to be medically examined prior to your meeting with me.
You are advised that in consequence of your recent misconduct following receipt of a final written warning, your future with this company will be an issue for discussion. You may be offered an alternative punishment to dismissal if this is thought to be appropriate.
If you have any queries you may raise these with my assistant, Marcia Greenwood.
John Chisholm, Personnel Director
The following week Marcia prepared the dossiers for John Chisholm. It seemed surreal as she prepared one on herself. On Thursday she telephoned Chrissie Smith, John Chisholm's PA.
"Chrissie, are you free for a chat?"
"Yes, why don't you come up? Mr Chisholm's at a meeting and not due back for at least an hour."
Marcia went straight up and both women went into John Chisholm's office where they could speak without being overheard. Marcia explained her predicament and asked if Chrissie could act as witness/chaperone the following afternoon.
"Not sure that I want to do that, Marcia. What would Mr Chisholm think?"
"I'll tell him when I see him at 2pm. I'm sure there won't be a problem. You don't need to do anything. Just be there really. It's just a safeguard for Mr Chisholm - to be able to verify that nothing improper happened. You never know, some employees might make a complaint. All you need to do is stand here (Marcia pointed to a spot near the desk) and watch. He does everything - your role is just to observe. I really hope you'll do it for me Chrissie. I think it would be too embarrassing if I asked someone else in personnel."
"OK Marcia. I'll do it but I'm not looking forward to it."
"Can't say that I am either Chrissie."
Marcia arrived at the office at 9am on Friday morning. She was immaculately dressed in a black two piece suit with a white blouse. Tights and high heeled black court shoes completed her outfit. The receptionist passed comment about her appearance especially as most staff chose to dress down. This was a tradition at the head office as staff were allowed to wear casual attire on the last Friday of the month so long as they made a charitable donation to the collection box in reception. Certainly Marcia felt a little out of place and self conscious but she tried to avoid the comments.
Marcia got on with her work and did her best to put her afternoon appointment out of her mind. At a minute or two after noon Marcia's phone rang. It was the receptionist at the main entrance.
"Your visitors have arrived, Mrs Greenwood."
"I'll be right down."
Marcia went down to the ground floor to meet her visitors. Laura unmistakable in her bright red cabin crew uniform and Sarah in a black trouser suit, white shirt and black tie. She displayed her status as First Officer with two rings on each cuff.
"Good afternoon, ladies. I'm Marcia Greenwood." She ushered them to a quiet area of reception and quietly said, "I'm firstly going to take you to Healthcare for your medical examinations. There's a loo on the way if you need a pit stop. I can tell you that there are three ladies to meet Mr Chisholm today." Rather embarrassingly she then confessed, "I'm the third."
Laura and Sarah both looked astonished but said nothing. They stopped briefly at the ladies rest room and then under Marcia's guidance made their way to the Healthcare Centre on the ground floor.
They were expected as Marcia had of course made the arrangements.
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