Realist, not conformist analysis of the latest financial, business and political news

Aid Employees With Voodoo Dolls Of Their Boss

This sounds like a very good piece of advice. Workers should be given voodoo dolls of their bosses in order to relieve stress. Given that I work for myself on exactly these grounds, why not have a boss you know the foibles of, this sounds like an excellent idea:

Allowing disgruntled staff to stab voodoo dolls of their boss could help them feel less resentful and improve the quality of their work, a new study has suggested.

According to the Health and Safety Executive, more than 12 million Britons are forced to take time off work each year because of stress and anxiety, often caused by pressure from overbearing or abusive managers.

But rather than allowing staff to brood over their mistreatment, which can be detrimental to work, business experts have suggested they should be allowed to take out their anger on voodoo dolls.

There is a problem here of course – which is that we don’t know whether such voodoo dolls are a substitute or a complement. These having distinct and discrete economic meanings. Does sticking a pin in a doll of your boss replace the desire to stick a knife in him – a substitute – or does, say through desensitisation, it work with that desire and increase it – a complement? Good science insists that we do a proper double blind study of this. And given the quality of much British management we’re not going to miss the experimental subjects if it turns out to be a complement, are we?

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Total
0
Shares
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

4 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
BenS
BenS
6 years ago

Ha, when I first read the title, I though you were referring to Oxfam staff in Haiti… (Aid as adjective rather than verb).

Raffles
Raffles
6 years ago

You’ll never get the cultural appropriation of Voodoo dolls through the PC brigade!

Secondly, ha ha, wouldn’t that class as a hate crime?

Twatting on Timmy
6 years ago

Talking about Voodoo. he press has a great many stories about Oxfam this month. The Times is heavily targeting the charity over the conduct of some of its staff in Haiti in 2011. The facts seem to be well summarised by the Guardian. Let be be unambiguous: what these staff did was wholly unacceptable. And let’s also be clear: Oxfam clearly thought the same way. The staff were confronted. Four were found guilty of gross misconduct. They were dismissed. Three resigned – or were ‘allowed to resign’ according to the allegations. Quite how someone can, however, be prevented from resigning… Read more »

4
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x