Office draws scrutiny over controversial decision to charge employees $8 if they forget their badge at home: 'The fee is meant to “encourage personal responsibility."'

Handing out kindergarten-level lessons like candy.

A professional workplace shouldn't represent a kindergarten classroom. Sure, you still have to embarrassingly ask your teacher (boss) for permission to use the bathroom in front of the class (your coworkers. You also might get gold stars on your chart (performance evaluation) for everyone to see based on arbitrary thoughts and feelings the teacher has about your work. But the similarities should probably end somewhere before getting to the behavior-shaping lessons and reprimands. The problem with any relationship 

I don't know about you, but being taught an eight-dollar lesson in responsibility probably ranks somewhere down being infantilized, like being told you have to turn on your camera in a company meeting. What's next? Are CEOs going to start asking us whether we have our “listening ears” in?

Accountability only travels downward

The real problem is that this accountability and lesson-learning only goes one direction. In adult relationships, there is a two-way give-and-take; accountability is, as a result, supposed to go both ways too. It doesn't work when only one party has accountability, and the other somehow gets off scot-free. In order for this “$8 lesson” to work in an adult relationship, employees should make $8 a day for every day that the employer fails to follow through on something they said they were going to do, or for every day that coffee maker in the break room remains broken. 

The tipping-point

In every job, there will be a point where you reach your tipping point and start looking for a new job. For this employee, this was probably it. Though, they claim that their streaming career is taking off enough that they won't have to worry about it for much this job for much longer.

What would you do in this situation? Take a look at their original account of events and some of the key responses below and then let us know your thoughts in the comments.

My company started charging us $8 if we forget our badge

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Not even joking.

They installed new turnstiles at our office a few months ago. If you forget your badge, security prints you a temporary one and payroll deducts an $8 “replacement access fee” from your next check.

The temporary badge is literally a piece of paper in a plastic holder that gets returned at the end of the day.

Story/Loose_Television_986

One guy questioned it because he forgot his badge twice in the same pay period and got charged $16. HR apparently told him the fee is meant to “encourage personal responsibility.”

Meanwhile our office coffee machine has been broken since May because replacing it “isn't in the current budget.” Thankful my […] streaming career is taking off so I won't have to deal with this stuff for much longer.