PROXITOL – developers of the popular Stand-In Parent – announced this week that its long-awaited ScareBoss will be mass marketed staring in January of 2022.
The mannequin-like figures, made of synthetic bylenol plastic, are customized to look just like the actual boss. They can be leaned against a file cabinet – or propped up between cubicles – so employees think they’re being watched.
During a month-long test at six US companies, productivity improved by an average of 93.3 percent, according to Geannie Willisin, PROXITOL’s Director of Projectivity. Unlike Stand-In Parents, which start at $15,000 each, ScareBosses cost just $225. That’s because while the parents move, talk, eat meals, and attend ballgames, the bosses are non-animated and possess permanent frowns.
“We discovered that if people think there’s even a chance the boss is watching they don’t want to risk being seen goofing off,” says Willisin. “Children, on the other hand, are much harder to fool.”
Says an accountant at one of the test companies: “You see her standing outside her office, not moving, with eyes that don’t blink. Logically you know it’s not really her, that it’s probably just a dummy. But then again, what if it really is the boss?” The mere possibility, he says, was enough to keep him working 12 hour days for the entire test period.
So far in 2019, over 200,000 Stand-in Parents have been sold. PROXITOL is hoping to quadruple that with the ScareBoss in 2020.
