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My "You Have Got To Be Kidding!" Collection
It’s been more that twenty years since that first day when a CEO for a small electronics company said to me ”Well I guess that means you are in charge of personnel.” The word “personnel” was an early term for what is now called “Human Resources.” There are several evolutions of such titles and words.
Secretaries are now Administrative Assistants.
Garbage-men are now Sanitation Engineers.
Want ads asking for “females age 18-24 with spunky energy” are now…well…illegal.
So when I was told that I had just been promoted to a position which I had absolutely no experience and didn’t even know existed, my out loud response was, “You have got to be kidding!” Since then I have kept a collection of these “YHGTBK” moments. They are useful to remind me of all of the secrets to finding, getting, and keeping a job. They also remind me that regardless of the policies, practices, job descriptions, discipline actions, terminations, and well intentioned management choices, only one thing remains constant. We are all bound by our humanity and the only way our job will be normal, is when we work with robots. Disney had it right. The heck with hiring an actor to play Abraham Lincoln, let’s build a machine that will do it the way we want to every single time we tell it.
The truth, however, is that our humanity is what makes work for us both fun and awful. The people we interact with are the reason for our coming to work or the reason we hate to wake up on Monday. It is also the source for every “YHGTBK” moment. Try to find the logic or the lesson in these true mind frying moments.
“I am not going to hire him, he didn’t sweat enough.” This from a manager who felt that a candidate that didn’t crack under pressure was a candidate he could not control.
“I don’t know where O’Brien is. With that last name I guess over at the pub.”
“I am disabled so you can’t fire me” Said by an employee after breaking his bosses nose over a dispute involving cleaning the lunchroom refrigerator.
“I won’t hire her, she didn’t have the right rhythm” When I asked what kind of “rhythm” he was referring to the manager drummed it on the top of his desk followed by what can only be described as a “boom chicka wow wow” oratory.
“The company had no right to tell the police I was working today!” This employee was accused of shooting her spouse in the leg with a spear gun.
“You can’t fire me. I quit and now you have to hire me back because you rehire everyone that quits.” I actually didn’t say “You have got to be kidding!” but my laughter conveyed the same message.
“I just got the strip club down the street to offer any employee with an ID a free lap dance if I put their posters up in our break rooms. I think I should get an employee recognition award for this new benefit.” (There were 17 break rooms – 24 posters that needed removal)
“The law says you have to give me time to try to get pregnant. What room can I use?” Some people can read anything into FMLA I guess.
“You can’t make me do my job if I don’t want to.” Said by an employee during a termination for non-performance.
“I want him fired. He is better looking than me.”
“My boss just asked me if I would give him one of my kidneys.”
“If I want to make appointments with clients from my desk, its ok so long as it does not effect my work.” She was operating a call girl service from the reception desk.
“No I didn’t read the handbook so it doesn’t apply. So don’t try that legal stuff with me”
“She filed for Worker’s Compensation because she got pregnant on her desk at work.”
I would love to say that each of these were as funny at the time I heard them as they are today, but sadly that is not the case. The bottom line is that we are all faced with the human experience each day we come to work. Do people try to game the system, cheat the business, act in ways not acceptable in a civilized work environment? Of course they do. Shall we judge these people as idiots, morons, dolts, or sub-human….of course we will (but only on the inside). On the outside we act with the best face we can and treat each experience by asking the simple universal question “You have got to be kidding!”
Copyright © 2010 Mike Baumgartner | HR | Consulting | Coach | Human Resources | Search - CEO, Worklife Survival Center LLC
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