Gamlem / Mitchell They Did What?

Unbelievable Tales from the Workplace

ISBN: 978-1-0983-2828-3
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet/DL/kein Kopierschutz

E-Book, Englisch, 260 Seiten

People have been misbehaving at work since work began. If you've ever been curious about exactly what takes place and how the culprits are dealt with, They Did What? just might hold some answers. A compilation of stories collected from HR and other business leaders have been woven into a narrative that showcases the challenges HR professionals face daily in dealing with employees. They Did What is funny, sad, and most definitely unbelievable-except it is all based on actual situations. We couldn't make this stuff up!

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gamlem, Cornelia

Mitchell, Barbara

Leseproben

Chapter 1 The Conference Room Table Suddenly, I heard Kyle’s voice and it brought me back to the present problem. He was trying to explain to a frustrated Tom that these home-grown stars of ours couldn’t be automatically terminated, today. Tom turned to me. “Maryanne, um, why would we have to investigate? I don’t understand. I mean, they were caught on video. Shouldn’t they just be fired?” “Tom, as Kyle was explaining, we need more information.” “More than we already have? I mean we’ve got them on video—what more do we need?” “Well I, for one, haven’t seen the video.” That made Tom wince. “Seriously, Tom,” I said. “I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable, but we need to know exactly how much, if any, of this escapade was captured on the video, and who else may have had access to it.” *** Why did he seem so anxious and edgy on the phone? I thought as I waited for him to arrive. He knows by now we muck around amid shades of grey in this profession. Nothing is ever black and white—straightforward. A sharp knock on the door interrupted my thoughts. “Please come in.” The door burst open and in walked Kyle Greene. Then I realized he wasn’t alone. Trailing behind was Tom Horn. They were both carrying large mugs filled, I was certain, with strong coffee. This was going to take longer than I expected. “Kyle, Tom, please sit down,” I said motioning to the chairs and table across the room. My full attention was on Kyle, my Employee Relations Manager, and Tom, our Facilities Director as I joined them. Tom seems way too nervous for this to be about an accident or safety incident. Why? He’s so easy going and takes things in stride. And Kyle, who is usually so calm, is still so agitated. “Tom,” I said, “what’s wrong?” noticing he kept smoothing his tie as if he expected it to take flight. This gave me a clue that he was wanting to get down to whatever brought them here. And Tom usually likes to make small talk. Obviously, this was something out of the ordinary. Finally, he cleared his throat. “Maryanne, I just told Kyle about something that happened yesterday, and he insisted we bring it right to you so here goes.” He stopped and took a sip of coffee. “Yesterday, the Food and Beverage staff had a training session on the new credit card processing procedures in light of all the fraud out there.” What on Earth had happened during a training class that would bring Tom and Kyle to me? As Facilities Director, Tom would not be directly involved with training sessions, except if…. I’ve been working in human resources long enough to know not to get ahead of the story. Still, I was curious. “Well, um, when I came in at my usual crack-of-dawn arrival time this morning,” Tom said, “the lead IT tech was pacing in front of my door looking about as uncomfortable as I must look right now. Apparently, yesterday’s session was live streamed to all the Kings restaurants around the country, and he was monitoring it. He stepped out of the conference room to take a call. When he returned the session was over and people were leaving, so he went back in to turn off the two-way feeds. That’s when he noticed two people still in a training room at another site. This isn’t unusual—sometimes people stay behind to have a private conversation. But this, well it appeared to be different.” I was confused. Why would IT bring this issue to Tom? Did Brian Chang, our Chief Technology Officer know about it? With that, Kyle jumped in. “Maryanne, Brian Chang and the IT manager are at a conference and won’t be back till tomorrow. The lead tech was concerned there might have been a security breach, and since Security reports to Tom, he told him about the issue this morning.” As he was speaking, I noticed Kyle was moving his neck from side to side as if to relieve some tension. Now I was even more confused. “Okay, but Tom, what was different about these folks staying behind?” “Well, um, in this case it was a man and woman who were still in the room. And they, um, weren’t having a business conversation. The IT tech overhead her say something about liking it being dangerous and the man, um, said she was being awfully naughty. That’s when the IT tech noticed they’d moved to the far end of the table, away from the door, and were standing very close to each other—in what appeared to be an embrace. He wasn’t very concerned, yet. He bent over to pick something up and was about to tell them they needed to shut off the computer at their end, when...” He was silent for a moment, turning his gaze to Kyle, as if looking for reassurance. Kyle took a deep breath, held if for a moment, then blew it out. His first experience with this issue, I thought, since I had a sense of what might be coming. He ran his fingers through his slightly long hair—longer than his mother likes—brushing it away from his face and off his collar, before nodding to Tom to continue. “So, um, when he looked back up, she was sitting on the conference room table with her, um, skirt hiked up around her…. Well, that’s when he, um, saw her toss her head back and heard her laugh and, um, say she dared him. Next thing he, um, saw was the man unzipping his pants and reaching in, and, um…well he stopped looking.” “Did he pause the camera or just stop watching?” Kyle said cautiously. “Kyle, I’m ashamed of you,” I laughed to relieve some of the tension. I sensed that both men were uncomfortable talking about sex to me—Tom more so having to describe the particulars—and suspected I might be hearing an abridged version. “And what would your mother think? She did raise you to be a southern gentleman.” Single and 25 years old, Kyle is tall, good looking and has an easy way with people. He can usually find common ground with whomever he meets and is a natural for employee relations. Recently promoted to the position of Employee Relations Manager, I was grooming him to take on more of the issues I’d been dealing with myself. In my role as Chief Human Resources Officer, I needed to spend more time on strategic issues—like workforce planning and employee integration—as Kings Family Restaurant continues to expand and acquire new restaurants. Just like me, Kyle had worked at Kings—a restaurant chain headquartered in Chicago—as a server during college. Unlike me, who’d explored other industries first, Kyle knew he wanted to work in hospitality and applied for a job at the corporate office as soon as he graduated. “But seriously,” I said, “that’s a good question if we have to investigate. Just how much did the tech see, and how much activity was captured?” Tom told us the technician proceeded to turn off the feed and shut things down. Embarrassed by what he saw, he was fumbling with the equipment. He wasn’t sure how much more got recorded, but they needed to preserve the recording for any on-going training needs—folks on vacation, etc. He assured Tom they could edit the last part out. “Tom, you said this happened yesterday. What time? I’m concerned that he didn’t bring this to you or someone until early this morning.” Tom explained that the training session was over at 5:15 pm yesterday. The technician needed to leave right at 5:30 to pick up his kids. He’d secured the camera in the IT safe and no one else except Brian and his manager had access to it. As Tom was talking, my mind drifted to my first encounter with a similar situation. *** Jeri was sitting in the back seat chatting away. “Maryanne, I love that blouse. The color brings out your green eyes, and a great contrast with your dark hair. By the way, Jason, does this stuff really happen at work—people doing the nasty in conference rooms?” “Uh-huh,” Jason had replied. Our first job out of college was with a large consulting firm, and we were on our way to a client. Jason Edison was the head of HR and accompanied us to provide subject matter expertise for the training our client was rolling out. Jason had a laser focus approach to everything. You could see it in his dark brown eyes, always seemingly fixed in a serious, penetrating gaze—as they were now while he was driving. But if you looked closely, you’d detect a devilish spark in them that revealed his more playful side. “No joking, how do you deal with this stuff being in HR?” I was stunned that people would actually do this at work. “Very carefully.” In response, Jeri swept her right hand up in a theatrical gesture and blurted out, “If they were having sex on the table in the conference room, I’ll bet the woman was on the bottom. I don’t know about you, Maryanne, but I want to be comfortable when I’m having sex. A hard table can’t be that...