No, I won't write you a liar letter

Two weeks ago I got a call from an employee. He said he had purchased tickets for a sporting event, and now he was unable to attend. He asked if HR would write a letter stating he had to work so he could get a refund for the tickets from insurance. I told him I'd never been asked that before, but I would check with the HR Director and let him know. I got the date of the event and the name of his supervisor before we ended the call.

I asked the HR Director if I could write a generic letter along the lines of "To Whom It May Concern, M. Ployee is scheduled to work on XYZ date" and have her sign it once I confirmed the employee's schedule with his supervisor. She said that would be fine.

I called the supervisor and asked "Is M.Ployee scheduled to work on XYZ date?" He checked and said he was not. Hmm, that's interesting. I called the employee back and said "You said you needed the letter for XYZ date correct?" He said yes. I said "I just talked to your supervisor, and you aren't scheduled to work that day." And that's when the conversation got blog-worthy. His response- "I know, but I need you to write a letter that says I am so I can get my money back." I told him "I can't write that letter because would be a lie." I was floored. I'm not sure if he thought I was an idiot who'd write the letter without checking with his supervisor, or if he thought I was ethically challenged like him and would write it even when I found out it wasn't the truth. Either way, he went away disappointed.

I told the HR Director and one of my HR colleagues about this situation. Both were incredulous. What's even crazier is that I am one of two recruiters for my organization. So the odds are at least 50-50 that I'll be a part of any interviews he has in future for positions within the company. I will definitely bring up this situation any time he's being interviewed as a reason not to award him the position.

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.

Conversation with a 5 year old

Friday night I watched my niece & nephew for a few hours so their parents could go out. Not long after both kids went to bed, my nephew, age 5, came out from his room to use the bathroom. After that objective was complete, he came to talk to me in the living room. Here is the conversation we had:

Nephew: "Aren't you lonely?"
Me: "Why would I be lonely?"
Nephew: "There's no one sitting out here with you."
Me: "(Nephew), I live by myself." (he knows this)
Nephew: "For real? Why?"
Me: "Because it's awesome. Go to bed."
Nephew: "There's something chirping in my room. I think it's an alligator."
Me: "You'll be fine. Go to bed."

And he did. I had to admire his creative stalling tactics.

The next day I asked him what happened to the alligator in his room. His response? "I punched it in the eyes."

Yes, he's a imaginative little chap.

The Deal of the Day

Recently I received an e-mail from PayPal offering $10 off an order at Papa John's Pizza when you pay with PayPal. I read the fine print, and the purchase only had to be an order of $10 or more, so I decided to give it a shot last night. I looked at the offerings of my local Papa John's online, and lo and behold there was a pizza on special for $10. I placed a carryout order for today after work. Perfect- dinner and several other meals as well. However, at checkout I ran into an issue. I was told I had to pay with credit card or cash. This would obviously negate the whole point of the exercise.

It occurred to me that maybe the issue was specific to the store in my town. I switched the location to one near the grocery store I would be visiting today. It went through with no problem. When I finished with my order, it showed I had paid $0.70. What a deal! I make my own pizza fairly often, and just the cheese costs more than that. I ran some errands after work, then swung by and picked up my pizza. It was delicious, and it was definitely the deal of the day.

Deal of the week

This week Meijer had quite a few health & beauty items on clearance. I got some good deals- but the best was on this item.

Regular price is $8.99. They were marked down to $2.24 and I had a $2 off coupon. With tax I paid $0.40. I had 2 coupons, so I bought 2 bottles. I was very pleased with my purchase.