What is “The Friday Pizza Party Mentality”

 

 

I coined the “Friday pizza party” theory from the negligence and mishandling of a former employer. This theory took shape after dealing with various workplace discrepancies, unsafe working conditions, lack of maintenance and upkeeping, and horrible accounting. Not to mention, having to work extra hard to complete the work because the employer would never order supplies or fix machinery.

 

All of the employees felt like a raise was not only necessary but economically doable. The employer was making plenty of money. We saw the numbers. With that being said, morale took a deep plunge.  Management realized that they had to enact some sort of solution.  Instead of having a team meeting and reaching some sort of middle ground with employees, the employer addressed our grievances… differently.

 

Instead of giving us a raise, calculating our paychecks correctly, or giving us actual health benefits,  guess what these folks gave us?  A 👏🏽 MUTHA’👏🏽 FUKKIN’ 👏🏽PIZZA👏🏽 PARTY. Cold pizza from the Domino’s across the street, at that! This is much like the reparations situation pre-Biden. We made our demands and even set a place at our own table for a conversation. If not reparations, negotiations… The Biden administration saw it fit to give us crack pipes and a reason to take a break and celebrate false freedom on Juneteenth… Do you see the correlation here?

 

 

 

The employer did not want to address the root cause behind the upset and lack of morale. Instead of sticking by the people that worked so hard to make the company look good, management did the opposite. They decided to “reward” all of the employees by giving us a pizza party… On a Friday… before we started working that day… How tacky…

 

The sad part is, an actual meeting would have been effective. This felt like abuse. Imagine being physically assaulted by your significant other. Instead of apologizing, agreeing to therapy, or doing anything to correct the behavior; your spouse brings your a gift. Keep in mind that you did not ask for any gifts or special accolades. You just want to abuse to be recognized and stopped. Next, imagine your significant-other proceeding to act as if everything was “all good.” Meanwhile, the abuse is still ongoing. The only thing that changed was the day of the week. 

I remember hearing management say that this was an “employee appreciation” party and that they appreciated us for working as hard as we did. The vibe was honestly like,

 

 

Instead, they felt it was best to pacify the situation with false gratitude. Like,  “We are going to buy you a nasty lukewarm Pizza from Domino’s and write this off on our taxes., b!tch” On Monday, the employers seemed to think that the issue was handled via that “pizza party”. We ain’t ask for that sh!t though. We still worked in the same conditions thereafter. Like a bad relationship, I did eventually quit.