No employee appreciation for you!

[kingsrings]

Many years back, I worked as an office temp at a large manufacturing plant.  At Halloween, the Powers-that-Be put out ginger cookies and apple cider in the break rooms and sent out a memo that temps were not to partake; the snack was for permanent employees only.

And what would they do if you had taken one? I can see it now - calling up your temp company and ending your assignment because you took a cookie and apple cider. Put that one in your file.

[Minmom3]

<<Wow, I never thought of it that way. If that was the reason, then how sad that it has gotten to the point where that has to happen nowadays. >>

It IS sad, no doubt about it.  I've seen it up close and personal in Silicon Valley in California, since it is very much a part of the computer industry.  There are rules about how long a temp can work at a particular job without becoming a permanent employee with full benefits.  Some companies get around it by having the temp work someplace else for 6 months, and then re-hiring them, still on a temp basis, for another 12-18 months.  The thing is, when the line blurs, people tend to get massivly PO'd that they're doing all the work of the perm employees, with none of the bennies, and yet not 'worthy' of permanent hire.  In some cases, the temp pay is higher, but because the benefits are so much fewer, the overall pay rate is lower.  I think Microsoft lost a massive lawsuit regarding that a few years ago.
Companies are not supposed to keep contractors around for years on end, denying them permanent hire due to lack of permanent jobs, and yet hiring others for permanet jobs...  It can get very ugly, and do lousy things to morale.

[willow08]

I used to work at a newspaper where the company would throw a nice buffet dinner at a pretty hall every Christmas. There were the usual door prizes and a end-of-the-year wrap up by the publisher. It was an hour-long speech about how great the retail and advertising departments were, how we couldn't publish the newspaper without them, etc. All of this is true, we couldn't put out the paper without ads, but he didn't mention the news department ONCE in this hourlong speech. Not a hello, Merry Christmas, acknowledgement of our being in the room, nothing. We were never mentioned in the two years I attended the party. It was embarrassing and insulting.

I simply stopped going to the party. I didn't pout or make a big deal out of it. I just stopped going. I would ask the reporters every year if we were mentioned this year, they'd say no, and I would decline from going the next year.