While management is very pleased with the results of our Employee Suggestion Box, we’d like to clarify a small guideline. Suggestions should be related to improvements in employee benefits or office culture, and never should mention the Mothman currently inhabiting our break room.

No office is perfect. Whether it’s a cramped parking lot or an unpredictable flying humanoid, a workplace thrives on compromise. If we have Summer Fridays, maybe we lose our monthly Happy Hour. If our new office park was built on the nesting grounds of the Mothman, maybe he helps himself to some donuts and Marketing interns on Monday morning. When life gives lemons, make sure to offer those to the Mothman in hopes the tart treat will placate his impulsive desires.

We do want to make this office as perfect as possible, which is where you come in! Here are some helpful examples for using the suggestion box:

GOOD:
More varieties of coffee in the break room.

BAD:
Fewer varieties of the Mothman the break room.

Remember the great upgrades the suggestion box brought about, like our hybrid work model, a more flexible sick time policy, and let’s not forget Waffle Wednesdays! Also remember the suggestion box has not helped rid ourselves of the Mothman (even when used as a projectile).

You need the right tools for the right solution. You wouldn't use a hammer to screw in a lightbulb; you’d use the hammer to defend yourself against the Mothman.

Please don’t try to slip suggestions about the Mothman into regular requests. I know what you mean when you ask for a “less hostile, less bat-like” environment, and I don’t honestly believe our Q3 earnings report will be helped by giving every employee a flamethrower. However, I assume the notes about micromanagement are directed to the Mothman.

We ask you to keep your suggestions short and professional. Much like how marking every email URGENT negates the urgency, superfluous additions to your suggestion notes (tears, blood, human viscera) only desensitize management further to the threat of the Mothman.

The suggestion box is also not a place for questions. I don’t know why your HSA doesn’t cover a specific provider or how the Mothman chooses which of our temps he’ll fly away with in the night. Those are questions above my paygrade and above my knowledge of the supernatural realm from which he derives.

Some of these suggestion notes don’t even take a position on the Mothman. For example: “MOTHMAN!” What am I supposed to do with that? You’re lucky I didn’t assume you wanted a second Mothman (I know, I know, only one Mothman can lay claim to a nesting ground; the presence of a second Mothman shall trigger a Mothmen Tribunal, the Night of 1000 Moth Challenges, we went through all this last quarter, the Mothpocolypse, but you get my point).

I believe in looking forward to a new tomorrow. Looking back does no good. I can’t stress that enough: DO NOT look back and make eye contact with the Mothman. If you want to look backward, say goodbye to catered lunches and say hello to, you guessed it, the Mothman.

I can only do so much. They pay me $57,000 a year and I barely have dental. I might be able to swing a new copy machine but I can’t work magic, not that it would matter (charms and spells affect not the Mothman).

Moral of the story: offices are darn tricky. If something isn’t perfect, take a moment to think about what you can do as an employee to fix it. And if something seems too perfect, run! It’s obviously the manufactured calm before the terrifying chaos of the Mothman’s hunt. Because at the end of the day, it’s just work, folks. Pick and choose your battles, or the Mothman will choose for you.