Health care costs have long been causing American companies to stagger financially. But some have managed to be creative.
“Oh, there was a really simple solution,” says Beau Gustorie, president of Your Dog Stinks in Peesaulot, Ga. “We just encouraged our employees to marry each other.”
Prior to this brainstorm, Your Dog Stinks — which makes a line of personal care products like underarm deodorants for dogs, cats and the occasional pet monkey — was like most other companies that discouraged office dating. Then Gustorie had his revelation.
“Even if we get a fraction of our 100 workers to fall in love and get married, we could cut our benefit costs dramatically,” the president added. Rather than insuring two workers, Your Dog Stinks gets to consolidate both employees into one coverage.
“Yep, two birds with one payment,” chortled Gustorie, who says he got the inspiration from his customers, the animals. “Sure, there might be someone else out there better suited to marry our workers. But animals aren’t so fussy in their mating and it works, and I think humans can learn a lesson from this.”
Occasionally there’s even a marriage on the rocks. Gustorie says, “Once we see a marriage in trouble, we pounce. We start introducing the employee to other employees, hoping they’ll find someone better for them and cheaper for us.”
Until the modern era in American corporate life there was plenty of hanky as well as panky going on in the office. Back in the days of the man in the gray flannel suit, bosses often dated their secretaries. And romances between colleagues were not only commonplace but also the source of immense intramural entertainment.
Love, however, was banished from the workplace by a series of laws, as well as lawsuits, that made perfect sense at the time. Too many bosses were taking advantage of their superior positions and forcing underlings to do things that had nothing to do with typing and filing.
In the end, corporations had to pay out millions of dollars in sexual harassment suits. So Cupid was sent packing and it took The Great Recession to bring him back.
“Keep in mind that lawsuits are very much a possibility,” says Len Mimoni, an attorney with Borrough, Borrough and Oh, a law firm that has won millions representing people who’ve been wronged in the workplace. “The only difference now,” says Mimoni, “is that companies can save more by allowing their employees to mingle than it will cost in legal fees.”
Every company, of course, has different rules about fraternizing.
At the one extreme, some employers won’t allow workers to pair up in twos for anything company related. A third person — a chaperone, if you will — needs to also be present. “If I have anything to say about it, that’s the way it will always be,” says Anne Teak, the office manager for a company that prints the numbers on single-digit billiard balls.
Personal feelings aside, some companies are coming around to a different, more modern view.
“Really, where are people supposed to meet, if not at work?” says Barb Bedal, who met her boyfriend Earl Lee Riser because the two of them had the 6 a.m. shift on the assemblyline of a Caesar salad factory.
In reality people like Gustorie, Your Dog Stinks’ president, are happy that people want to hook up at work. This plays right into his hand. “Keep encouraging it,” he said recently to a reporter. “The more publicity this gets, the easier it will be to solve the health care dilemma.”
Like those fostering office romances, other companies have come up with novel ways to cut the cost of employing people.
For firms in the battered printing industry, health care savings came in the form of rationing. Workers at NoJobTooSmall proofreaders in Oklahoma, for example, are now restricted to getting teeth cleanings only on Mondays and Fridays.
October, says company controller Irma Guerk, is appendix month. “Ya better not get an attack in September,” she said.
Once a company gets employees to play along the rest is easy.
“Listen, I was opposed to all this at first. I mean, whoever heard of waiting for the Christmas Eve lull to get your prostate checked?” said Lou Zaah, who is in charge of his company’s morale program.
Still, there are things you should know about the cost-cutting moves I mentioned above.
— Just because you are reading things here doesn’t necessarily mean they are true.
— Often columns will pull pranks on April 1.
— Keep in mind that this is, after all, April Fools Day.
— Even in hard times we have to forget our troubles for a while.
So, as the bold-faced letters at the start of each paragraph spell out: Hope You Like April Fools Jokes.