Corporate HallucinationsWe’ve got your concerns right here

Over the years, I’ve probably read close to 100,000 employee publications. And I’ve seen a lot of unusual corporate titles and weird job descriptions.

But the one I found a minute ago might take the cake. I found it in a research laboratory’s employee newsletter. Here is the headline:

Concerns Coordinator welcomes employee suggestions

Here’s the lead:

‘Parking. Overhead costs. Benefits changes. Although she says she’s ‘really just getting started’ with the assignment, ORNL Concerns Programs Coordinator Cindy Kasak can readily recite a litany of issues raised by lab staff members so far in 2004.’

I bet she can! I’ve heard of corporate ombudsmen … but this is a step beyond that. Concerns Coordinator? Ha! This woman is a professional crap catcher! She catches do-do for a living! Her actual job is to listen to thousands of petty complaints day in and day out.

A picture of the woman comes with the article, and you can tell just from her photo that this is a woman on the edge. She’s gamely trying to smile, but she looks like she’s passing a kidney stone.

You can see she’s about to snap. You can almost hear what is going on in her mind: