Breaking: Chief People Officer Clarifies That 'Bringing Your Whole Self To Work' Was Not An Invitation To Bring Greg, HR Asks Greg To Please Return To The Car
MERIDIAN SOLUTIONS GROUP HEADQUARTERS — In what leadership is calling 'a clarifying moment' and what attendees are calling 'the reason I no longer attend these in person,' Meridian Solutions Group's quarterly all-hands meeting entered its fourth unscheduled hour Tuesday after Chief People Officer Dana Frelke paused mid-slide to clarify that the company's longstanding 'Bring Your Whole Self To Work' initiative was, and she cannot stress this enough, a figure of speech.
The incident began at approximately 10:14 a.m., when senior analyst Marcus Dolliver arrived at the all-hands with his brother-in-law Greg, whom he introduced to Frelke as 'the rest of me, emotionally speaking.' Greg was wearing a visitor badge he had apparently printed himself. It said 'GREG (MARCUS'S WHOLE SELF).' It had a lanyard.
'We want to be unambiguous,' Frelke told the assembled 340-person workforce and Greg. 'The initiative is about psychological safety and authentic professional presence. It is not a plus-one situation. Greg is not badged. Greg cannot access the third floor. We are asking Greg to please go wait by the Prius.'
Greg, according to multiple attendees, nodded slowly and said he understood, then asked if the Prius had been validated for parking.
The meeting did not resume for eleven minutes.
Workplace culture expert Dr. Pamela Storch, who was not present but was reached by phone and seemed to be eating something, called the episode 'a foreseeable consequence of deploying aspirational language without an accompanying glossary.' She added, 'Honestly, Greg sounds like he was trying his best,' then asked to be quoted as saying something more academic.
In a follow-up statement distributed via internal Slack at 2:47 p.m. — posted in the #general channel and then immediately reposted in #announcements because someone felt it 'had more of an announcements energy' — Frelke clarified that the Bring Your Whole Self initiative 'encompasses vulnerability, creativity, and personal values,' and specifically does not encompass 'relatives, emotional support contacts, or individuals who have their own strongly held opinions about the Q3 roadmap, which Greg expressed at length during the breakout session.'
Greg, for his part, reportedly left a three-paragraph note on the catering table suggesting that the company's OKR framework was 'spiritually hollow' before departing in the Prius, which had not been validated.
Several employees have since requested formal written clarification on what other commonly used HR idioms are 'metaphorical in nature.' A working group has been convened to address phrases including 'open book management,' 'low-hanging fruit,' and the company's mission statement, which reads 'We move fast and break things,' and which Facilities has asked be revisited following two separate and unrelated incidents in March.
As of press time, Greg had emailed the CEO directly with 'some thoughts,' the CEO had forwarded it to HR with the message 'is this ours,' and HR had forwarded it to Legal with no message at all.
The all-hands slide deck, sources confirm, never made it past slide six.