Attention kettle: the pot is calling you black

Earlier this week a group of people from work went out for lunch to celebrate one of their birthdays. When my coworker asked one of the attendees how it went, she got an unhappy response. My coworker asked if it was the food. The attendee (we'll call her associate A) said no, it was watching coworkers B and C (both married, to other people of course) flirt and otherwise interact with one another.

I said "She's really one to talk". Two weeks ago I had to suffer through a business dinner watching her (unmarried) flirt and otherwise interact with coworker D (married). In addition, she wore a totally cleaveage-inappropriate dress. Let's just say the girls were for sure on display. Now, I'm not a hater. There's a time and a place for the amount of cleavage she had on display. But that place is a club, not a white tablecloth business dinner.

The pot was certainly calling the kettle black in this instance. Or perhaps as the saying goes "it takes one to know one".

Happy Birthday

Please join me in a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday.

Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to my car!
Happy birthday to you!

Yes, today is my car's birthday. And not just any birthday. It is now ten years old. It's hard for me to believe that 10 years ago today I drove it new off the dealer lot. I had always wanted a sports car, and now I finally had it. I'd wanted a convertible too, but my budget only allowed for a convertible or the bigger engine. My dad always said choose the biggest engine available, and I did. It was the right choice. Thanks dad!

I've been very blessed with this car. I've only had one nonroutine repair in a decade, and it was only about $150. It's completely reliable, and I love driving it. I still get compliments on it, and I've had people tell me that if I ever sell it, they want to buy it. Happy birthday to one sweet ride.

It shouldn't come to this

Imagine yourself in this scenario:

You are a sales manager. Your boss comes to you and says you are not keeping your company car clean enough.

What do you do? Apologize profusely, run out at lunch/after work that day (whichever is sooner) and get it cleaned, then make a appointment on your calendar to get it cleaned say every week or two? That seems logical to me. After all, you get reimbursed for having it cleaned, so you're just out a bit of time, and your boss has made it clear that this is important to him.

Not one of our managers. Apparently his boss has had this conversatiom with him more than once to no avail. Now the guy's car is nearing 100K miles, the normal trade in point for our company. It was determined last week that the guy is getting a formal letter stating that if his car isn't kept up to snuff, his company car will be taken away. Instead he will get a car allowance and have to furnish his own wheels.

I can't imagine not getting this. Your boss tell you to clean it up, DO IT. It wasn't an idle suggestion. We'll see how this works out.

That's just stupid

This morning I did a contractor safety orientation. I normally don't do these anymore, but the person who normally does was busy, so I stepped in. The guys were really nice. They asked after viewing the video if they need to tie off in a scissor lift. I told them yes as it's our facility rule (this is not an OSHA requirement. Anyone who tells you that is WRONG.) At the end they asked if they'd see me again. I said if they need me to ask and someone would find me. I also told them that if they saw me involuntarily it wouldn't be pleasant.

Later in the morning, I took some cardboard out into the plant for recycling. While I was out there I felt like I needed to do a safety walk through. I've learned to trust these feelings. I got back to where the contractors were working, and what do I see? One of the guys has his lanyard hooked to his harness. Yeah, that does NO good. I asked him what he was hooked to. He grabbed his lanyard and followed it to the end where it was connected to his harness. Let me tell you, he knew good and well it wasn't hooked to anything. I did not hatch out of my egg last night. His buddy in the lift starts laughing because he knows the guy's in trouble.

I told guy #1 he had to tie off. What's he do? Ties the lanyard back on itself around the railing of the lift. No and no. You can only tie specially made lanyards back on themselves. This wasn't one of them. You can't tie off to the railing as they aren't rated to take the kind of force a fall would generate. I told him to look on the floor for tie offs. They are marked as such. He found one but the hook on his lanyard wouldn't fit. That's because it wasn't a tie off point. Grr. I told them to lower the lift so I could look at it and point out the proper anchor points. When they do, I notice that guy #2 (who'd been laughing at his friend for getting busted) wasn't tied off either. Double grr. At this point I was majorly not happy. I said "Didn't we just discuss this?". I then said "If I see this again, you're ejected from the job site". I also included "I told you if I saw you involuntarily it wouldn't be pleasant." I of course then e-mailed a summary of this incident to the appropriate internal people. The person whose contractor this is will also be contacting the company to tell them about it.

I went back and told my coworker (and backup safety person) about this. I told her how dumb this was. She said it wasn't dumb. "Dumb is like ignorant. You can fix it. This is just stupid." I have to concur.

This is a set up

I want you to put on your HR hat for a moment. What does it look like? Well, it's a crown as any HR practitioner would tell you. The specific design is up to you.

Why would you hire a candidate with the following characteristics?

1. Brings his girlfriend to the interview
2. One of his degrees is from a known diploma mill (per our background screening firm)
3. Called back to tell us the phone number on his resume is out of date

I'd also like to add, this guy is an HR person. And yes, we are hiring him. In normal circumstances, any one of these should be an enormous red flag. Taken together, the klaxons are blaring.

The answer came to me. The hiring manager (the company HR manager) WANTS this guy to fail. He didn't want to hire someone for this position.  He was made to by senior management. His go-to strategy is being passive aggressive. In fact, he recently told us that it's HR's job to be passive aggressive. It dawned on me (I'm claiming divine guidance) that the guy is being set up to fail so that the manager (my boss) can say "I told you so". The candidate starts tomorrow, and my boss has conveniently arranged to be out of town for 3 days. He's left us no instructions on what to tell the new guy when he's not undergoing company orientation. This should be fun. 

Sound like a set up to you?

Interview garb

A recent post on Ask A Manager's website featured an awesome graphic from Get Hired about interview garb. We had a lady yesterday who should have read this. She came to an interview in a tank top. No, not a nice sleeveless blouse, a ribbed cotton tank top. Oh my. Several people not in the interview noticed it, and let me assure you the hiring supervisor did too and mentioned that he was not impressed. Yes, it was a warehouse job, but this is still not have you show up to interview. My goodness.

This link will take you to the rest of the Get Hired list. It's very good reading for anyone who's interviewing. It's also quite entertaining.

You aren't that good

Recently we received a 13 page resume from a candidate. Yes, 13. If you didn't already know, there is no one, I repeat no one, whose career warrants a resume that long. Most people's should be not more than 2 pages, 3 at the max. This guy's was nothing special, so 1.5 pages would have been plenty.