A salesman at a Chevy Dealership in suburban Chicago was fired Monday for refusing to take off his Green Bay Packers tie, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. The manager thought it might offend loyal Bears fans after the loss to Green Bay. Maybe. Then again, it may give the salesman and prospect something to talk about thereby establishing rapport which is important in the sales cycle. The guy was warned several times but refused to comply so I guess he deserved it but what message does the manager send?

Now let’s look at a major US airline. One of the gate agents I have come to know often wears his name tag hanging from a Pittsburgh Steelers lanyard. It is subtle and again, it gives passengers something to chat about with him. The other day he wasn’t wearing it. I asked why? They had just won a playoff game. He rolled his eyes as if to say, “I can’t talk about it.” To which I replied, ‘Noooooooo, they made you take it off?” Yup, corporate had issued another one of those personality stifling decrees that nothing of that nature was permissible as it might offend passengers. Perhaps…

What makes the airline scenario particularly hypocritical is that this airline actually paints some of its airplanes with the colors and logo of teams for NFL cities if flies to. SO, while it is OK for the airline to have an entire airplane painted in Pittsburgh black and gold it is NOT OK for an employee to wear a lanyard.

What impact does this have on employee morale? Let’s hear it from my gate agent. “That’s alright. Contract time is coming up and guess who isn’t going to approve most anything they put in front of us?”

Hmm, maybe there is something to be said for NOT stifling employees….

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 26th, 2011 at 2:43 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.