Morale is an important safety component as low morale leads to a lack of attention, more accidents, injuries, and employee turnover. There are times when in the best interest of everyone to improve morale with a subversive act especially if it just slightly breaks a minor rule and of course has been coordinated with the entire staff.
Our family-owned company had recently been bought by a large corporation. We were their new shining addition to the family of foods and after a long grueling process of evaluating, and upgrading our systems and intercommunications, we were handed the new rules of the road. Training, new reports, new programs, new ways of doing things, and a new dress code. Morale began to drop and our new corporate masters were not seeing it at all and just kept pushing without stopping or breaking even for a second so we could catch our breath and digest the latest.
The future resistance leaders were all young professionals in their late 20s to early ’30s. Even though we each worked in a different department, (engineering, maintenance, production, quality control, and facilities) we had become pretty tight not only because we were close in age but because our eclectic mix of personalities meshed so well together as did our working relationships to resolve production issues. We also went to ballgames together usually after work, the Oakland A’s were only a few BART stops away and we shared drinks on Fridays to celebrate our victories and console our losses that week.
Even though the statute of limitations has long expired I will not reveal the other members of the resistance but will admit that I was one of its members. On one particular Friday night, while drinking and grumbling, it came up that July 1st was around the corner and the beginning of our new fiscal year. We knew the company had no plans to commemorate the event but what could we do to celebrate the occasion to help break up the funk and get morale back to where it needed to be. There was a definite correlation between the number of drinks consumed and the innovation and creativity of ideas put forward by the group. Some were very good, and most were illegal, immoral, or unscrupulous. Silliness turned to anger and then anger back again to silliness. The drinks and hours flew by until we broke for the night and our weekend.
Monday morning seemingly came around too fast. At our morning break, our maintenance supervisor friend was pretty upset. He was helping with a motor install had taken off his tie rolled up his sleeves paraded around with no tie and got reprimanded. The six of us talking just above whispers and constantly looking around so no one else could hear our conversation. We unanimously decided a strategic strike against the new dress code would bring a smile to almost everyone. Previously there was no dress code except the unwritten rule that, when we had visitors at the plant we had to wear slacks and a button shirt and now we had to dress that way every day and a tie. They wouldn’t even listen to us about having a dress-down Friday. We pinky swore our allegiance to each other and each put their part of the plan into play.
The fake memo was completed by a member of the group and the copies were produced late at night by another. Since I always arrived the earliest, my task was to come in and place the memos directly on each employee’s desk. The company leadership such as the President, VPs, Plant Manager, and HR Manager were left off the distribution list. The memo was on the usual company letterhead and was plain and simple. A picture of a Hawaiian shirt was the main focus surrounded by palm trees and stated, “To Celebrate the new fiscal year, Friday has been declared Hawaiian shirt day! Wear your best Hawaiian shirt and be ready to party.”
For the next two days, we monitored all channels of gossip and conversations to make sure this was really going to happen. Friday arrived and we met outside on the street, donning our Hawaiian shirts, and to no surprise, all of us had brought a backup outfit just in case it really went south as we still had no idea what kind of participation we would get from the rest of the staff. People sounded excited about the idea but? We huddled, put our hands in, and shouted, “ALOHA”!
The six of us walked in together to meet our destiny but were stopped in our tracks when our jaws dropped. Not only did most of the staff arrive wearing Hawaiian shirts, but the rest had brought them and changed when they saw others. Some really embraced the spirit of the day and were wearing leis or carried ukeleles and a few had plastic blow-up palm trees and one surfboard. Then there was a sound coming from the lunchroom that we hadn’t heard in a while. Laughter. People were enjoying the coffee and donuts, laughing, talking, smiling, and enjoying themselves. We did it!
Then the Monday Inquisition came. Our VP of Human Resources was a particularly special stick in the mud. No sense of humor, no jokes, no laughs, and extremely pompous. If you had the misfortune of a meeting with him they always took twice as long as with anyone else since he constantly took phone calls during the meeting so you can add rude to the list as well. Our VP of HR began his investigation into Hawaiigate to seek out the culprit or culprits responsible! First, the usual suspects were interrogated, and then other people were summoned to the office and asked, “Where did this memo come from?” They all answered as we hoped, it was on my desk when I arrived. Each member of the resistance was also called into his office, one at a time, and asked if we knew or heard anything. We all responded in kind, as shocked as he was that this could happen but had no clue as to who.
Mr. VP of HR eventually gave up his witch hunt and no one was ever punished for the crime but a flurry of new policies followed along with the new and improved consequences for future infractions of HR law. It turned out the President of the company actually loved the Hawaiian shirt idea so much, that every Friday was now a dress-down day and the second Friday of each month was a different-themed employee day.
As I said, sometimes the only way to shake a culture up is with a little internal rebellion.
Witzshared 
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