Writing

Comforts of Home

I work for a nice company. Nationally, it is large. The company owns several media outlets, such as newspapers, radio and TV stations and publishing businesses across the country. Despite the scope and the millions, maybe billions of dollars, however, it is truly family owned. There is no plan for a “public offering,” and the patriarch of the family knows little old me by name. For some reason I don’t understand he and his wife split most of their time between Bloomington and South Bend, Indiana. I don’t imagine he knows everyone across the nation by name, but I would like to think that many or even most of the employees have at least met or know some member of the family. There are still many aspects of the company that are run in a family company manner. Until recently Scott (yep, we’re on a first name basis) held a publisher’s dinner annually where you got a chance to sound off about anything you wanted and he always made sure to tell you happy birthday if he was around on your day. When he had to mostly retire from functioning as publisher due to age and some health issues, the man he hired to take over was a Bloomington native whose first job had been as a newspaper carrier as a child! It can’t get any home-townier than that! Many people stay with this company twenty, thirty, forty years and retire from here. I feel like that is a good indicator of how nice it can be to work here!

A few years ago when I had small children my son was sick. I took the day off to stay home and care for him. When I was filling out my time card for the week (no time clocks here!) I asked my manager if I had any sick days to take. He replied, “Just write it down as a sick day. I want you to know you are able to take care of your family when you need to.” I am grateful for the homey touches. We have pitch-in dinners around the holidays, our editor is usually simply, “Z,” and when I couldn’t get out of the driveway because the snowplow plowed me in, Rex came and fetched me in the four wheel drive so there would be someone in the office to answer the phone.

There are some benefits my little newspaper actually being part of a large company. Because of the true size of the company the benefits are able to rival some of the major corporations. Group rates for insurance, retirement plans and wellness options are nice. Those benefits seem to shrink a little every year, but I believe that also plagues much of the corporate culture these days. Mostly, however I am grateful for the homey touches.
Last year, the unthinkable happened. Our women’s bathroom went corporate.

Of course we have a modern, three-stall bathroom. With many employees in the building at one time, even three stalls upstairs and three stalls downstairs can get full. Even with the multiple stalls in effect, the upstairs bathroom is a sweet little place with an outer sitting room with a chaise lounge, a small table, a chair and a mirror where you can put on your makeup if you just couldn’t manage before you got to work that morning! That chaise has been the solution to many a work-induced headache, and is the perfect spot for a good cry that is just a little too personal to have at your desk. Often if employees have beauty products they realize they aren’t going to use they will bring them and leave them in the restroom so sometimes nice lotions, pretty-smelling sprays, high-quality hand creams and stuff that is fun to try is available to try. And for about nine of my past ten years there was nice toilet paper. Not soft-scented Charmin, not Quilted Northern, still kind of generic, single roll, wrapped in tissue, sold in bulk by the case for cost toilet paper, but NORMAL toilet paper. Then, the unthinkable. One day I entered my favorite stall (the first one) and mounted on the wall was one of those GINORMOUS, two compartment toilet paper holders, that holds the GINORMOUS rolls of corporate toilet paper. It has the little slidey door on the bottom so when one roll runs out you slide it on over and begin on the second ginormous roll. Sigh… What happened to the comforts of home? What happened to normal toilet paper? What happened to normalcy? Next thing you know, they’ll take away my mirror and expect me to put on my makeup at home every morning! Maybe it’s time for a letter to the editor, Hey Z! It’s time to start the annual publisher’s dinners again. I have something important to say about our company culture and it starts right at the bottom.