Great quote about procrastination

When I came across the following quote, I was struck by how true it is:

"... the price of procrastination can be concealed for a long time; but covering up the problems is likely to make the eventual cost of dealing with them even worse." Gillian Tett, Saving the Rising Sun

While the author is referring to a specific set of circumstances in the book, I find it is applicable to life in general.

Because (my supervisor) is the only one who calls me

Last week I was part of project to help our union staff sign into our new performance appraisal system. One of the steps was for them to sign into their work e-mail, then click on the activation link. Some of our union staff who are in charge of crews have company-provided work phones, and the process for them is really simple. Thus, we asked all the employees with work phones to bring the phones with them when it was time to sign in.

When one of them came in without it, we asked him where it was. He said "I never carry it. I don't like having to carry two phones." (We are government, and employees aren't allowed to use personal devices for company business.) We then asked "How do people get ahold of you when you are in the field?" His answer was priceless- "(Supervisor) is the only one who calls me." Members of his crew were in the room, and they cracked up along with the rest of us. He did clarify that his supervisor gets in contact with him via his personal cell phone, but this situation was just too funny (and frustrating at the same time since the company pays for this phone.). When I told my supervisor the story, she said "that needs to go on your blog". I concurred.

I'm not alone in this

Those who know me well know I am far from touchy-feely. As in more like in another solar system. One of my coworkers knows this, and he said he immediately thought of me when he saw this. I loved it. I wanted to immediately start using it at work.

A few days later I saw this article by Alison Green (aka Ask A Manager). She so gets me. Definitely read the comments here as well.

I am not alone in my belief that hugging is not appropriate for the workplace.

Item I Need To Add To My Wardrobe

I attended at an HR conference this week. One of the vendor tables in the trade show had a shirt with the following verbiage: "No, you can't take your drug test next week- HR". I need that shirt. Unfortunately, they weren't for sale. You could only get one if you had a "meaningful conversation" (their words, not mine) with the vendor. Said conversation would last at least 15 minutes, and they were lamenting the fact that they'd only had 5 people have such an interaction with them the whole day. Oh really, you think? Their loss. They'd have gotten a lot of free advertising by giving me the shirt because I would have worn it often.

Drama with drug screens

My company, like many others, does pre-employment drug screens. I'm very fortunate that in my nearly 3 years there, I've never had a candidate test positive. My coworker has not been so fortunate. She's gotten to break the news to several candidates that their job offers are being rescinded. Candidates typically respond in one of three ways.

1. They own it
They ask what substance, and after they are told, they accept their fate.

2. They blame others
One candidate had a positive test for marijuana. She said she hadn't personally used it, but she'd been at a party the weekend before her drug test where others had. Yeah, not buying that. Sadly for her, her poor life choice cost her not one job but two. She lost the job we'd offered her, of course, but she'd been working at our company as a temp before the offer. She was apparently walked out the door the day we got her drug test results.

3. They make up crazy stuff
My favorite is the guy who blamed a poppy seed muffin for his positive marijuana test. He even said his doctor told him that could cause it. This guy either needs to stop lying, he needs a new doctor, or both. Some of you already see where this is going. For those of you who don't, poppy seeds can indeed cause a positive drug screen, but not for marijuana. It's a totally different plant. If the test was positive for opioids, it might be a bit more plausible. My coworker knew that, but she still had to contact a doctor at our occupational health provider so that we could officially rule out this story. He, obviously, told us we were correct. He even managed to not laugh, which was impressive I thought.

Drug screens- yet another reason that HR is seldom boring

Putting our problems in perspective

My family is currently dealing with a situation that has us very stressed. We had a meeting scheduled for Wednesday of this week to discuss the issues at hand. Obviously this had been on my mind quite a lot on Tuesday. However, Tuesday night our problem was put in perspective for me. I was having dinner with my friend, and he mentioned that on Wednesday he was having a removal of and biopsy on a spot on his liver that is likely cancerous. Wow. It hit me that while what we are dealing with as a family is very important to us, it could be so much worse.

After the meeting on Wednesday I called my mom to give her a debrief of the meeting. I then told her of the perspective my friend's situation gave me. She said she had a similar thing happen to her on Wednesday. A friend of the family is potentially facing a very grave health issue. Life sometimes has  way of putting our difficulties in perspective for us.

Got him good

Sunday night we had an extended family dinner. Several of the kids were using their parents' phones to occupy themselves. My cousin's son (age 8) had this discussion with his dad about the dad's phone:

Cousin's son: "What kind of dad doesn't have Snapchat on his phone?"
Dad: "The kind that puts a roof over your head."
Cousin's son: "I thought Mom did that."

The other adults, including his mom, cracked up.