As every mainstream media outlet has informed us, President Trump is responsible for all the bad things going on in the world, but cannot take credit for any of the good. No matter what the problem, or how big or small it may be, there is always one culprit, and he lives in the White House.
Now, according to NBC, the president is even responsible for a decline in workplace morale. NBC reports (with exactly zero bias, of course):
HR and leadership experts say a “Trump effect” has made a new norm of bad behavior, from dropping f-bombs to fudging details on resumes to spreading false rumors about co-workers, all of which stifles teamwork, dampens morale, and hurts productivity.
NBC doesn't stop there. Thanks to Trump, the author claims, there's been a growing level of animosity between coworkers, and an escalation of bad behavior that employees have apparently picked up from the president. NBC claims:
This is an outgrowth of, but distinctly different from, the partisan rancor that simmered just below the surface and divided once-amicable offices along party lines during the run-up to the presidential election last year. While that split remains as strong as ever — roughly half of respondents in a February survey conducted by BetterWorks said they’d seen a political discussion escalate to an argument at work — today many say an overarching layer of boorish, bullying and borderline abusive behavior is becoming more accepted in professional situations.
Seth Spain, an assistant professor of organizational behavior and human resources at the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University, argues this new level of "abusive behavior" is the president's fault.
“Trump is serving as a negative kind of role model. They see his behavior, they see that it worked, it was effective, and use that as a model,” he said. This mirroring might not even be conscious, he added.
This supposed "journalistic" article raises two points: the first of which is the ridiculous idea that professional adult employees are somehow simultaneously children who don't know any better than to behave like the president. It shouldn't take much to explain why this is preposterous -- then again, we're all just little idiots who can't behave, so what do we know?
The second issue is this: if coworkers are, in fact, becoming more aggressive toward one another, was there a poll taken on who, exactly, is being abusive? Did the author of this article check to see which side of the political aisle these alleged bullies are on? Are they all Trump supporters? Are they conservatives? Alt-right? Or are they, perhaps, disgruntled Hillary supporters still upset at not winning an election?
Fighting about politics at work is unprofessional and silly, but to directly blame co-workers are being obnoxious to each other on the president is the height of lunacy. But, if that's the new standard, I suppose we should start blaming Bill Clinton for workplace sexual harassment.
(Photo credit: Gage Skidmore)