Inspirational Posters Cause Depression
May 29th, 2007An amusing spoof article on workforce trends at The Spoof:
A six-year study by industrial psychologists, the first of its kind, reveals that inspirational posters in company cafeterias and employee lounges cause depression among workers and may trigger homicidal rages.
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Inspirational posters in the workplace became popular in the 80′s as globalization first began to exert downward pressure on U.S. wages and benefits. “You don’t need them if you’re having a layoff because then people are motivated by fear,” says Flynn. “It’s when you’re grinding people down with nothing but a cost-of-living increase that you need to buck their spirits up.”
The posters lost some of their effectiveness as they became a common fixture in plants and offices across the country, forcing designers to refine their message. “‘Hang in there, baby!’ was a classic in its time,” says Carole Connolly of Workplace Solutions, a Cleveland benefits consulting firm, referring to a widely-used posting depicting a kitten clinging desperately to a tree limb. “We refocus that image for particular situations, such as loss of health insurance, so people are thankful they still have a job at all.”
The U.S. Postal Service, which has experienced some of the worst workplace violence in American history, has gone so far as to ban inspirational posters altogether. …
Copyright 2007, Con Chapman
