Laurel van der Toorn

From a management perspective, a late card at work, it feels almost comically small.

Yeah.

How did employees react to getting that card late?

Well, on the comically small side, you know, there has been a lot of research.

There is a stream of research, not on birthday cards, but on things that irritate people about their bosses in organizations, right?

And not surprisingly, if the issues are big, it's not a big shock to discover it really affects people's performance.

Basically, they're kind of trying to get back at you, right?

So the employer treats you badly or treats you like a poor performer.

They say, okay, I'm going to be a poor performer, right?

or you've taken something away from me, I'm going to say, all right, I'm going to take something away from you.

And that might be my effort, or it might be not paying attention, or it might be taking pencils home.

There's all kinds of little things like that.

Wait, wait, wait.

Stealing office supplies.

That's one of the great joys of working for a big company.

That's my understanding.

Yeah.

Oh, by the way, just for your listeners, there are these things called honesty tests that they give people for hiring.

And that is one of the questions on it is, is it okay to take home office supplies?

And the correct answer, by the way, is no.