Netflix’s new dramedy Wednesday provides a fun and exciting new addition to the Addams Family catalogue, as well as some chilling workplace scenarios. The series begins with our macabre heroine, Wednesday Addams (played by Jenna Ortega), getting kicked out of school for attempting to murder some school bullies via piranhas in the school pool. Naturally, she’s only concerned about an attempted murder rap looking terrible on her record because it shows her mission was unsuccessful.
That seems to be her only concern (aside from having uncontrollable visions and witnessing her parents’ embarrassing public displays of affection) until she arrives at her new school, Nevermore Academy for outcasts. Surrounded by teen werewolves, vampires, sirens, and all sorts of supernatural beings, Wednesday remains unimpressed until she is nearly murdered and slowly begins to uncover a mystery dating back to her parents’ time at Nevermore.
Leading the school through a developing storm of increasingly violent conflicts with the outside world is Principal Larissa Weems (played by Gwendoline Christie of Game of Thrones fame), a shapeshifter and Morticia’s former roommate. Even Principal Weems’s superpowers are no guarantee of getting through the day unscathed in this workplace that no Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) investigator could anticipate.
With fanged students, dark school passages full of untold danger, and a murderous mystery monster roaming the area, I would love to see Nevermore’s employee handbook policies on workplace safety, not to mention its internal procedures for reporting employee concerns and handling background checks for applicants. I doubt the Fair Credit Reporting Act or legal obligations in general are given much consideration at Nevermore.
Meanwhile, “normie” (i.e., non-outcast) teacher Marilyn Thornhill (played by Christina Ricci in a clever Addams Family throwback) tries to bond with her students through her love of plants. Her sunny disposition seems to almost endear her even to Wednesday at times, though you have to wonder how on earth she found an application for Nevermore (much less made it through its atypical hiring process). And can you imagine what a parent-teacher conference must look like at this school?!
Let us know in the comments what you thought of this new series and what employer takeaways you saw in this frightening fictional workplace. I’m dying to see what the breakroom looks like in this school, and I’m confident that required postings are an afterthought at best.
