HR Undercover

I was a lifeguard on the beach. I managed the Junior lifeguard program. We had 300 participants, ages 12 – 17. For two weeks I ran an overnight camp for these kids on a surf beach adjacent to a marina. The surf beach on the south was separated from the marina by a breakwater that extended at least 800 yards out into the water.

After two weeks of sleeping in a pup tent on the sand with a new group of kids each night it was finally time to break camp. A high surf warning was raised on Saturday causing the guards to close down the area of the beach that we were camping at. Sunday morning we awoke to a southwest swell pounding the breakwater with waves cresting at 14 feet. My boss had made the trip the night before to observe the operation and help with breaking camp.

We were loading the last of the canoes on the trailer in the parking lot when we heard faint cries for help. I scanned the water and near the end of the breakwater a man was being hammered by the waves and being pushed into the rocks. There were no local lifeguards on duty so it was up to me and my boss to respond. Joe tossed me a rescue tube and said lets go. I quickly shed by denim jeans, tossed the rescue tube shoulder harness on and sprinted across the parking lot, across the sand, past Joe and scrambled onto the rocks of the breakwater. Joe yelled after me “Be very careful”. I finally took my eyes off of the victim to look down to insure my footing on the giant breakwater rocks. It was then that I realized I was stark ass naked. Yup after two weeks of camping I had gone “commando”.

At this point I was committed. I continued out to the end of the breakwater where the bloody, 1/2 conscience victim was clinging to an outcropping of rock. As per my training I prepared to launch myself onto the crest of the next wave so as to avoid injury. I assured the drowning man that I was coming for him. I am not sure what he was thinking but he looked up at me and said “I think I will be all right”. I knew different. The fellow would have been done in seconds. Perhaps he was trying to avoid any ultimate humiliation or violation prior to his demise………..I don’t know. The rescue was completed and after a 1,000 yard swim around the breakwater and to the non-surf beach we arrived to waiting rescue vehicles, a towel and a round of applause…….I still wonder what that poor man was thinking.

We were a US based company in the middle of a (as you can imagine) complicated startup in India. People in the group working on the new company were exhausted - we had to remind people to work from home to at least remember what their families looked like…and just about everyone took us up on the offer. Except for “Bill” – Bill was a contractor who was really devoted to our project. Unusually so, as a matter of fact.

His enthusiasm and willingness to work “round the clock” was incredible. I was impressed. At first, my cynical side said it was just the overtime he wanted to make but we had so much work to do, everyone could take advantage of the extra overtime $$$ available. Bill was different. He was at his cube every single night, sometimes past midnight. And this went on and on and on.

Finally, someone got suspicious. Just what was going on that late at night each and every night? A quick check of the internet logs revealed all…really, it revealed WAY too much. “Bill” was surfing some of the more , how do you say, “risque” sex sites and well, enjoying himself just a little too much.

After firing “Bill”, we had the carpet cleaned and tried to forget the whole incident…but this was 10 years ago and obviously, I haven’t forgotten it yet. Y I K E S!!!

True story. Just life in the HR lane…

There once was an executive team that always asked “why can’t the employees just stop complaining and do what they should do”. This is a tale of why the employees wouldn’t.

The company was moving to a new building 35 miles away. Although the employees were excited about moving into a new building, many were going to have a much longer commute. In spite of this, a group of employees worked tirelessly to make the move a success giving up much of their own time to make it happen.

The executive team wanted to thank the group for all of their hard work. A special lunch was planned by the HR Director away from the office – this would be a great chance for the executives to say THANK YOU! The HR Director was sure the lunch was on each executive’s calendar and all accepted. The day of the party came and the employees started arriving. The HR Director anxiously awaited the arrival of the executives. Thirty minutes after the lunch was supposed to start the HR Director went ahead with the lunch – without the executives. Not one of the executives showed accept the CEO who showed up just as people were leaving.

The HR Director thought long and hard. How did she make the executives understand why it was so important for them to show respect for the employees and follow through on their promises. She came up with a grand idea.

At the next weekly executive meeting, the HR Director brought in hats – all kinds of hats, fire fighter hat, police hat, baseball hat, jockey hat, sailor hat and many others. When the executives came into the room they started trying them on and laughing. “What was this about?” they asked. The HR Director said “We all wear different hats depending on who we are dealing with”. She picked up the fire fighter’s hat and said “we wear this hat when we talk to investors” then she picked up another hat and said “we wear this hat when we deal with the Board of Directors”. A third hat was picked up “this is the hat we wear when we work with the employees – it is as important as any other hat we wear”. The HR Director looked directly at the CEO – he was red in the face. Oh no, this was not going to end well… and so it didn’t. He jumped up and starting yelling at the HR Director – “how dare you try to tell us how to do our jobs”. He continued to rant and rave and the HR Director left in tears.

The next day, the HR Director went to see the CEO. He greeted her warmly and said “well, I guess you really told them yesterday, it is a lesson that THEY should learn. The HR Director was stunned – the CEO had completely talked himself into believing that he wasn’t the problem but the HR Director knew he was the biggest problem of all.

Lesson Learned: Even a grand communication idea only works if the person is not delusional.

Let me tell you about the time I was working for a high-tech start-up company that employed a married couple, both in senior positions but not reporting to one another. The husband thought he was “Rico Suave” and made it a regular habit to wear gold chains, too much cologne, snake-skin boots and his graying hair slicked back (sometimes in a small ponytail). He evoked images of Dennis Hopper in the David Lynch film, Blue Velvet. He was a living example of a time when a book absolutely matched its cover and he proved it with a colossal screw up that will live in infamy at this company. He was on a business trip in Italy where he was supposed to be meeting with a key supplier on parts for the company’s product. The supplier called the US headquarters office (where “Rico” was based) and lodged a complaint saying that “Rico” had shown up several hours late for the scheduled meeting and had had a woman in tow that exhibited very amorous behavior towards “Rico” during the entire meeting. The whole scene was incredibly awkward and disconcerting for the supplier. Once we unraveled the whole story it turned out that “Rico” was carrying on an illicit, international love affair with a married female employee based in the company’s London office and had taken this married female employee with him to Italy on the business trip at the company’s expense. Meanwhile, Rico’s poor wife had no idea of what he had been up to. We had the very unpleasant task of giving her a heads up (as diplomatically as possible) while she was on her own business trip the reasons for our firing her husband while she was away. We also fired the London employee. Their terminations were quickly followed by divorces in both cases.

shame

I was working for a high-tech start-up company and a recently terminated, disgruntled employee found a back-door entry into the company’s email system and managed to send a shocking email to every worldwide employee. I came to work one morning and was immediately confronted with, “Have you seen the email?” by several employees and executives. Once I did log on I was astounded to find a lengthy diatribe from the disgruntled former employee explaining the “real” reasons for his termination. He was not terminated for poor performance as his supervisor had outlined for him on several occasions. No! He was actually terminated because his girlfriend (who also worked for the company in a different department) was having a lesbian affair with his supervisor and his supervisor had wanted to be rid of him because he was competition!! As I was burying my head in my hands and trying to sort out what we were going to do next with this mess, I received an email from one of the London employees that made me smile. She wrote, “I came in this morning and was feeling very down about England having lost in the play offs to go to the World Cup and then I opened up this email from ______ and it absolutely made my day! What a wonderful piece of juicy gossip!” There is always a silver lining….I guess.