Recently, our department was working extremely long hours to produce a proposal before a looming deadline. We were issued a memo saying that the department was instituting "mandatory" seven-day workweeks until the proposal went out the door. After working several long days (7 a.m. one day until 8 a.m. the next day, non-stop) a co-worker was taking a fifteen-minute break outside, and using the time to unwind by reading a book. The newly-appointed president of our large, multi-national company, who apparently had nothing better to do, happened to walk by my friend as he was reading - on his break. The next day we received an emailed memo from the president stating that there was to be "no reading of personal matter while on breaks." He also berated another hardworking colleague for "keeping her desk too clean." He reasoned that if her desk was clean, then she wasn't working hard enough, because his desk was never clean, and he worked hard (or so he thought). This is a classic case of someone letting power go to his head.

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