Norman Williston, a file clerk at Palmeri Marketing in Columbus Ohio, asks the same question every time he passes someone in the hallway: “Working hard…or hardly working?” He’s been asking it ever since he was hired in 2016 – numerous times every day to dozens of the company’s 350 employees.
On March 1, seven of those employees filed a complaint with Human Resources, writing, “The constant fear of encountering him in the hallways is detrimental to morale and thus to the company’s goals and mission.”
After securing legal advice, HR Director Thelma Strand sent Williston a letter asking him to stop. Williston responded that he was under no obligation to do so. Company attorneys issued a “cease and desist” order on March 3. Wiliston then hired an attorney and continues to use the expression.
“There’s a little item in the US Constitution called free speech,” says his lawyer, Laura Jolmer.
The company’s research department has calculated that Williston has been asking the question an average of 178 times a day, or over 100,000 times since he joined the company. Since being ordered to stop, he has increased this to over 250 times per day.
“People take longer routes to meetings just to avoid him,” says Strand. “That’s making them late and impacting our bottom line.”
In addition, she says, the annual employee survey in September showed that, on average, staffers are 15.2 percent “more nervous” and 23.4 percent “less happy” since Williston was hired.
