CEDAR RAPIDS, IA—Employees at the accounting firm Griffin & Lowell were taken off guard as they went into work on Thursday morning and checked their inboxes. Among the announcements and office exchanges that are typical in the setting was an urgent memo from the human resources department.
Junior accountant Madeline Fitzgerald, 28, explains that the message stuck out to her because the subject line was typed in all capital letters. "That's not typical, especially from Greg," she shares.
Gregory "Greg" Yamamoto, 38, is the head of the human resources department of the firm, which employs 83 people. "He's usually a really level-headed, calm guy," says Fitzgerald, who has been with the company for 18 months. "So I was even more confused by what it said."
The subject line of the unusual email reads, "FOR GODS [sic] SAKE PLEASE NOTICE JENNIFERS [sic] HAIR!!!!" The email was apparently sent to all office employees except for one Jennifer Updike, 30, at 7:57 a.m. on Thursday.
Sources within the company state that Ms. Updike is also in human resources, with an office reportedly next to Yamamoto.
"It's a little odd to make announcements so early on a Thursday," explains one employee who wished to remain anonymous. "We have a staff meeting at 1:30 anyway, so usually if anyone has something to share, they just do it at the meeting."
Fitzgerald described the body of the email as appearing hastily written, as it was very brief and there were several typographical errors and misspellings. "Greg is not the type to do that."
The body of the email simply stated, "Everybody please you haveto [sic] tell [J]ennifer that her haircut looks great[. I] know it doesn't look any different[,] but she expects everyone to say something. [S]he will make the rest of this week a liv[i]ng hell if people don[']t make a big deal of it so PLEASE!"
Updike, a graduate of the University of Colorado, has a reputation around the firm for being preoccupied with her appearance. "Like this one time," the anonymous source said, "I ran into her in the ladies' room. She was in there using the mirror like she was a teenager about to go to prom or something."
The Colon reached out to the author of the email, Yamamoto, who holds a master's degree from the University of Chicago. Although he initially declined to comment, he muttered almost in a whisper, "Just compliment her on her hair, okay?"
The Colon invited Ms. Updike to comment on the matter regarding her hair, but she appeared to misunderstand the aim of the interview. "Oh, I'm surprised you noticed!" she said, making no attempt to hide her delight. "I think it just has so much more 'bounce' to it, don't you?" She then proceeded to tilt her head back and forth to demonstrate the allegedly new hairstyle's extra "bounce."
The reporter then spent the next 12 minutes attempting to redirect the conversation, but Updike managed to spend all of that time talking about and demonstrating her haircut, while simultaneously insisting that it's not really a "big deal."
"It's not like I'm obsessed with my looks or anything," she shared at one point. "I mean, there was this phase I went through a few months ago where I experimented with bangs, but I just got this sense that they hide my forehead too much. Do you think my forehead should be behind all that hair? No, right? I have a very display-able forehead..."
After several more minutes, the interview was abruptly ended when the reporter took off running for his car.