When Compliance is Valued Over Common Sense

When I saw the headline for this article, I knew it had immediate promise. I was not disappointed. I work in HR, and yes, we value compliance. It is makes our little hearts happy. However, you also have to work in common sense too. Sometimes supervisors (and HR people too) forget this. Was it a huge deal to accommodate this guy? In case you had to think about it, the answer is no. As the Evil HR Lady put it "it's a sticker. And therefore it is not a big deal."

Some of you lawyerly/HR-y people are probably already thinking "They risked a religious accommodation lawsuit over this?" So it appears. HR people like to think of how things will play before a jury. I can imagine it now.

Plaintiff's lawyer: Sir, can you explain why you have been forced to sue your former employer?

Plaintiff: I've been a employee with good standing for X years. I worked hard to support my family (points to extremely photogenic family members in audience). All I wanted was to stay true to my religious beliefs. As you know, many people have fought and died for us to have freedom of religion.

Jury: Bad, EVIL corporation. They must pay lots and lots of money for this.

Now the Evil HR Lady also raises another good point- "things always come out in lawsuits and it's rare that there is truly a "good and holy" party and a "completely evil" party". Could it be that management didn't like him for some other reason and was looking for any excuse to get rid of him? I'd say that's definitely a possibility. They'd have been much better off, though, to stick to the HR mantra of "document, document, document" his problems properly. It would have taken more time, but it would have a been a lot cheaper in the end. 

A Thanksgiving Thought

Wednesday night as I was preparing items for Thanksgiving, I was reminded yet again what a pain it is to prepare anything very complicated in my kitchen. My apartment has almost no counter space, so anything involving more than a few ingredients or steps usually involves moving things around multiple times as I assemble it. As I was grumbling about this situation to myself in my head, a thought struck me- "If lack of counter space is your biggest problem, you are very blessed." Wow, talk about humbling. I didn't have to worry about where I'd sleep that night, if I'd have food to eat, or whether I'd have warm clothes to wear. It seemed a very appropriate thanksgiving thought to share.

I Love My Simple Life

One of the many, many things for which I am thankful is the fact that I have a simple life. I thought about this last week when I saw a picture of  Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher on the top of the USA Today with a blurb about their impending divorce. I can't imagine how traumatic it would be to have someone cheat on you, let alone to have the whole world watch your marriage implode. Though some people seek the spotlight at any cost (see "Kardashian, Any"), I much appreciate being able to go about my life without the drama that I see in people both famous and those I meet in my everyday life.

Lasts Can Be Fabulous

Two weeks ago I was reviewing my available paid time off balance, and I realized I need to take several days off between then and the end of the year. I could have been paid for them, but I'd much rather be off thank you very much. I coordinated with my coworker, and in a few minutes I had my strategy mapped out. It turns out that the week before had been my last 5 day work week of the year, though I didn't know it at the time. This Friday was my last Friday to work this year. Yes, lasts can be very good indeed.

Interesting Fact of the Week

You can get leprosy from armadillos

Woman Gets Cement Injections In Butt

Let's face it, an article with this title really needs no introduction.

Thoughts
1. REALLY?

2. As two different people told me "If I wanted to get my butt augmented, I wouldn't let her do it. Look at what she did to herself."

3. Cement, mineral oil, and flat-tire sealant. Wonder how she devised that formula?

4. The injectee is lucky she didn't have anaphylactic shock and die

5. How does one fit pants over a bottom filled with cement?

6. "`Oh don't worry, you'll be fine. We just keep injecting you with the stuff and it all works itself out.'" I don't think that would reassure me. Doesn't give the feel of sound medical advice does it?

7. That's one way to get a rock hard behind

It's That Octagonal Red Thing

Last night as I neared my apartment, I noticed a car pulled over with its flashers on. As I passed it, I realized it looked like my neighbor's car. I turned around to go back and see if it was her, and if so make sure she was ok. By the time I'd turned around, the car was driving away. Sure enough, it was my neighbor. When I got out of my car in the parking lot, she said "Did you see me get pulled over?" I said no, that I'd just seen what I thought was her car with the flashers on. She said she'd gotten pulled over for failing to stop at the railroad tracks which are located right on the turnoff from the highway leading to our street. There is a stop sign located right after the tracks that people constantly run (one of my other neighbors today said he runs it all the time). She was on her cell phone the entire time from the moment she stepped out of the car. I could hear her say "I didn't even know there was a stop sign there". I helpfully added "It's been there the entire time I've lived here". I also heard her say "I guess I should have went out tonight and gotten drunk. At least I wouldn't have gotten a ticket."

Mind you, this is the same neighbor who recently had her car towed for driving with tags expired for a very long time. She's also the one who had the washcloth zip tied on as a windshield wiper. Her car antics definitely provide great blog fodder.

A record

Every year I have a goal to not turn on my heat until November 1. This was something one of my sisters started, and I've chosen to emulate it. It melds very well with my innate cheapness. Some years I make it and eagerly crank up the heat on that day. Others it's simply too cold and I have to turn it on before then. This year was a record. I didn't turn the heat on until Friday, the 18th. We've had some cold snaps, but they've been brief and followed by wonderfully abnormally warm weather.

I technically didn't have heat until yesterday though. When I turned my heat on Friday night (it was 58 in my apartment), it made a buzz but never kicked on. I tried a couple of times, but no success. Now mind you, my landlord had asked me about a month ago to turn it on to make sure it was running ok. Did I do that? Of course not. And yes, a similar thing happened with my air conditioner several years ago. I cranked up my heated mattress pad (one of the best inventions EVER) and slept well. I called my landlord before I left yesterday and let him know about the problem. When I got home last night, it was working fine. I talked to him today, and he said the motor had seized. Later this afternoon I talked to my neighbor (the landlord's son), and he said his did the exact same thing.

I'm very pleased to have made it this far in the year without running the furnace. That's just more money for me to spend on something fun.

Like a Picture in a Magazine

Last weekend I made my first from scratch cake ever. I saw this cake in the current issue of Better Homes & Gardens.



I love coconut, cranberries, and walnuts, so I thought this would be great for Thanksgiving. I'm wise enough to know that a big event is usually not the ideal time to try an elaborate recipe for the first time. Thus, I gave it a whirl this Saturday. As you can see, I think it turned out well. My mom said it looked just like the picture. 

And how did it taste? It was amazing even if I did bake it myself. It will definitely be attending my family's Thanksgiving.

People Who Think Differently

Although I know in a theoretical sense that there are people who think differently than I do, I am still sometimes flabbergasted when I encounter some of this thinking directly. Two recent illustrations:

Illustration #1
My neighbor is the young (22) mom of a 4 year old. The child's father died last year in a motorcyle wreck. Recently she was talking about how upset she was about how little government support she gets. She said her daughter only gets a little Social Security because the father was also young and hadn't paid much into the system. She said that just because he was young doesn't mean her daughter should get less. I'm always shocked when I hear people say the government should take care of them. I truly don't get that. Of course, I couldn't tell her that. As I thought about it later, I wish I could have told her "That's why parents should have life insurance". Of course, it's too late for that now, and it's not my place.

Illustration #2
I was telling a coworker how excited my 2 year old niece was to get candy for Halloween. She doesn't get it often, and I was saying how happy I was that my sister and brother-in-law feed her good healthy food. He said he thought kids should get to eat whatever they want when they are young as they have the whole rest of their lives to eat according to rules. And he was SERIOUS. I was stunned. This is the only time you can completely control what your kids eat. You are also setting their eating patterns for life, whether for good or bad.

Both of these situations floored me. I think it is good to have such experiences occasionally so we are reminded that there are people out there whose mindsets are very different from our own.

Underpaid is relative

Recently I overheard one of our VP's complaining that she doesn't make enough money. I thought "surely I didn't hear that right". I asked my coworker about it later, and she heard it too. Mind you, this person is one of our highest paid employees and is FAR from impoverished. She also had the gall to tell my coworker and I earlier this year that we are overpaid (um no) and don't have enough to do (after we've spent months working like dogs). As she obviously makes way more money than my coworker and I PUT TOGETHER, we weren't very sympathetic. My coworker also said this just goes to show that underpaid is relative.

In What Universe

Here's the gist of a phone call I got at work today

M= Me
C= Caller
(thoughts in my head)

M: Hello, this is M
C: Hi M, can you have a personal call at work?
M (already getting a sense of foreboding): Who is this?
C: I'm not going to tell you yet
M: (Foreboding confirmed, should have hung up at this point): Uh, ok
C: I know you're single. Are you dating anyone?
M: (I REALLY should have hung up earlier). Correct and no

At this point the person tells me who he is. He's the ex-relative of a current employee (who he said he never liked him and would lie about him) and also a former employee (who he said would tell them honest truth about him). He just got divorced  (I'm not so sure it's final) and I'm pretty sure has kids my age. AND HE HAS THE NERVE TO ASK ME OUT.

In what universe did he even think that I would say yes? I was mad and insulted. I turned him down obviously. I was even pretty polite about it, but I owe that to my state of shock rather than conscious good manners.

This is not the first time someone WAY age inappropriate has hit on me. One day this summer I was minding my own business reading a book on my front porch when this guy parks his car (after driving past at least once), comes up to me, and asks me out. He was old enough to have GRANDKIDS my age. DUDE, you have NO chance. This story does, however, bring great entertainment to others when I tell it.

Again, in what universe did he think that would happen? People, call reality. You're obviously not in touch at the present time.

It All Makes Sense Now

Last Monday my coworker and I had a conversation that went like this:

Coworker: "What's up with X?"
Me: "Huh?"
Coworker: "He gave notice"
Me: "Huh?"

X of is one of our warehouse associates, a nephew of one of our employees, and the cousin of yet another. He's only been with us a little over a year. That day he had turned in a handwritten resignation note saying he was resigning for personal reasons and his last day would be this Friday. We were completely shocked.

I went back to try to get some scoop from him, but he just said it was time to do something different. I then jokingly asked one of his coworkers "What did you do to X?". The coworker let it spill. He said X said his plan was to quit this (full time with benefits) job to work part time at Best Buy and then maybe go into the Army. Apparently X has some outstanding student loans, and he'll be able to defer them while he's in the Army (of course, you still have to pay them when you get out. There are two ways to get rid of student loans- pay them off or die).

This seemed like a questionable plan to me, but as my coworker said, X is young and factory work isn't for him. I get that. X can also be spacey at times, so I chalked it up to that.

Well, now the situation suddenly makes a great deal more sense. My coworker said today that she heard that X had apparently gone out a few times with Y, one of our young female employees. It seems that Y is now going out with Z, another young male employee, and X saw them together Friday night which put him over the edge I guess. He then called his supervisor at midnight that night to resign. While perhaps not the best reason to make what appears to be a rash occupational decision, this seems like a better explanation to me.

The Truth Can Be Hard To Determine When Butt Covering Is On the Agenda

A couple Saturdays ago my company made the local evening news. As you may deduce from the title of this post, it was not for some warm, fuzzy reason. We had a tank of raw material overheat, leaking horrible smelling fumes into the air. The fire department was there, and eventually the HazMat team from the large city nearby. The public was in no danger, but one of our associates came in contact with toxic vapors and briefly lost consciousness. Thankfully he is fine with no ill effects.

When I came to work on Monday and heard about this, I thought to myself "the butt covering has already begun". Did I have any evidence of this? No, but I could just tell. This was later confirmed by things people told me or wouldn't tell me.

Today it was confirmed again. I heard a detail that I consider very important but that I have not seen in either of the "official" reports I read. I don't think necessarily that anyone did anything maliciously wrong. As I told someone, you never have a 20/20 view during the event. It's easy after the fact to question people's actions, but during a crisis you simply do the best you can. However, when things start not appearing in official reports or people are reluctant to talk, the truth can be sacrificed. This is very dangerous if you are truly trying to understand what happened and implement appropriate countermeasures.

100K

Yesterday my car hit 100,000 miles. I took pictures to commemorate the event.

As I've mentioned in a previous post, I've had this car for over 9 years now. When I bought it, my goal was to drive for it 6 years. Later it became 8, and now I'm hoping for at least 12. I've heard that years ago a car was shot at 50,000 miles. My car has been so good. I just put the first battery in it this summer, and I've only had one repair of around $150 the entire time I've owned it. I am very blessed.