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The Boston Market Story

Sick Pay Takes a Holiday

MEMO

    To: Full-time staffers and part timers who work more than 47 hours a week.

    From: Human "Ken" Resources

    Effective January 1, 2003, both the Holiday Pay and Sick Pay policies will be reversed. The Sick Pay policy will now be known as the Holiday Pay policy and applies to all divisions of Bergen Media Group of Northern New Jersey And Its Surrounding Environs Or Something Like That with the exception of the Huey Long Division, which has been subtracted. The Holiday Pay policy, which is now known as the Sick Pay policy, applies to all divisions except the newly acquired Virginia Peanut Division, where holidays have been outlawed since Thomas Jefferson seduced Sally Hemmings by promising to show her his kaizen.

    Premium Pay: The revision increases holiday premium pay for full-timers who work four or more hours during a holiday to double-time and a half or to triple time and a quarter if they pick up a Box o Joe or cook a turkey and 45 pounds of mashed potatoes in the photo department test kitchen. Employees who work fewer than four hours in the holiday period and don't get sick will get paid double time for the hours they worked during the holiday period and straight time for the hours they worked during the non-holiday period unless they coughed or blew their nose with a degree of loudness exceeding 32 decibels in which case they will get Sick Pay for every hour in which they sneezed and Holiday Pay for every hour in which they blew their nose. If an employee works overtime at the end of a holiday shift, with or without sneezing or blowing his or her nose, any overtime will be compensated in the form of private design lessons with Dave Ostenburger.

    Sick Pay: The amount of sick pay an employee is eligible to receive (if any, you slouch) depends upon the length of service he or she has and the amount of TheraFlu in his or her medicine cabinet and the number of people whose nickname is "Ken" that he or she knows. Effective Jan. 1, 2003, active employees will be eligible for a sick hour allotment, based on years of contiguous service. Inactive employees will be required to take yoga classes in the second floor exercise room. All sick hours taken in 2003 will be divided by two aspirin and your supervisor will call you in the morning. All sick hours subsequently will be subtracted from the employee's sick-pay allotment. If an employee takes seven and a quarter sick hours with a 24 hour virus, the hours will be deducted at the higher of the two figures. Unused sick hours will carry over from one year to the next, but five sick minutes will be deducted per carried over sick hour per year; thus, if an employee fails to get sick for three years, his or her sick hours from two years prior will contain only 50 minutes each, whereas his or her sick hours from the previous year will contain 55 minutes. Unused sick hours that are more than 12 years old will begin deducting minutes from healthy hours. Sick minutes taken during happy hour will be automatically disqualified.

Also, the Perfect Attendance Program will be discontinued in 2003. As we reported earlier this year, the program has been under review as a result of regulations governing Family Medical Leaves of Absence. Since anybody who takes a Family Medical Leave of six months or longer would not be eligible for the Perfect Attendance Program, unless he or she left his or her baby or elderly parent home alone while working sick during a holiday, the program is therefore discriminatory. Bergen Media Group of Northern New Jersey and its Surrounding Environs or Something Like That will drop the program altogether and use the thruput to hire several more kaizen consultants.