HR Undercover

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…

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.

Let me tell you about the time I was working for a company and a female employee in the IT department lodged a sexual harassment complaint citing that her male co-workers were a “boy’s club” that treated her as an outsider and excluded her from their activities. Her prime example of how they didn’t “include” her was they didn’t invite her to go to the strip club with them during lunch. Go figure!

I’ve been an RN for over years and believe me I’ve seen heard and smelled a lot! Visually and mentally. Working in a high economic area, we have many women who truly do NOT want childbirth to be truly one of “Labor” let alone pain or anything else that might mess their hair or create unfeminine noises, smells etc. Recently a slightly “over done” woman was on the verge of getting uncomfortable and requested an epidural to ward off the pain. Fortunately that was accomplished and soon after she requested an exam to be able to evaluate how “much longer.” Upon examining the mother to be, a very loud noise was produced “down there” (as one not only loses sensation, but also “control”). She sat up as much as she could, looked at me and said “Did YOU do that”?.. I looked up towards her face and thought “Are you kidding me?” But to continue to keep the peace and have her feel “pretty” came back with “Sure, I’ll take the heat, of course it was me farting”. Please….

One of our most competent and well-liked employees was killed in a car accident. His two hundred co-workers contributed over $15,000 and gave it to the employee’s fiancé. A week after his death, she delivered his baby son. It was the saddest work experience of my life, but I was so proud of everyone’s generosity.