Two New Protected Classes

Now that I have your attention, there’s an insightful, humorous post on the You Don’t Say blog about two protected classes in newsrooms. After reading the post, I’d say that these two classes are “protected” in most every workplace.

The first class is composed of stars. Stars are identified as very good writers and given freedom that lesser writers are denied. They’re stars, though, because they have patrons (some might call them sponsors). The patron is some kind of muckity-muck, whose initial devotion to the star survives what should be the star’s decline and demise. (Sound familiar in your workplace?)

The second class is composed of incompetents. These folks don’t have patrons, of course, but they’re protected by lazy and cowardly managers who won’t take the time to properly evaluate the incompetents. If these managers ever screw up the courage to do their jobs, they’re usually stopped in their tracks by human resources or legal because there are so many satisfactory or good performance reviews in the incompentents’ personnel files. (Sound familiar in your workplace?)

The employees in the middle aren’t in a protected class but derive a false sense of security by saying: “I could be a star, too, but I’m too proud to suck up to the bosses. And I’m a lot better than that doofus, so I must be safe.” (Hmmm. I wonder if I’ve ever thought or said that.)

Nope, these classes of employees aren’t the sole property of newsrooms. They’re everywhere.