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[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 10-03-02 AT 05:33PM (CST)[/font][p]Here's a bit of humor to get us started ... I'm not sure whether to laugh or groan at the similarities between places I've worked before!

Remember "Whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed?" A magazine recently ran a "Dilbert Quotes" contest. They were looking for people to submit quotes from their real life Dilbert-type managers. Here are the finalists.

1. "As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday, and employees will receive their cards in two weeks."
(Microsoft Corp, Redmond, WA.)

2. "What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter."
(Lykes Lines Shipping)

3. "E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business."
(Accounting manager, Electric Boat Company)

4. "This project is so important, we can't let things that are more important interfere with it."
(Advertising/Marketing manager, United Parcel Service)

5. "Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule."
(?????)

6. "No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We've been working on it for months. Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you know when it's time to tell them."
(R&D supervisor, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing/3M Corp.)

7. "My Boss spent the entire weekend retyping a 25-page proposal that only needed corrections. She claims the disk I gave her was damaged, and she couldn't edit it. The disk I gave her was write-protected."
(CIO of Dell Computers)

8. Quote from the Boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say."
(Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)

9. My sister passed away, and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told my Boss, he said she died on purpose so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, "That would be better for me."
(Shipping executive, FTD Florists)

10. "We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees."
(Switching supervisor, AT&T Long Lines Division)

11. We recently received a memo from senior management saying: "This is to inform you that a memo will be issued today regarding the memo mentioned above."
(Microsoft, Legal Affairs Division)

12. One day my Boss asked me to submit a status report to him concerning a project I was working on. I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough. He said, "If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it!"
(New business manager, Hallmark Greeting Cards)

13. And the winner . . . As director of communications, I was asked to prepare a memo reviewing our company's training programs and materials. In the body of the memo in one of the sentences I mentioned the "pedagogical approach" used by one of the training manuals. The day after I routed the memo to the executive committee, I was called into the HR director's office, and told that the executive vice president wanted me out of the building by lunch. When I asked why, I was told that she wouldn't stand for perverts (pedophiles?) working in her company. Finally, he showed me her copy of the memo, with her demand that I be fired-and the word "pedagogical" circled in red. The HR manager was fairly reasonable, and once he looked the word up in his dictionary and made a copy of the definition to send back to her, he told me not to worry. He would take care of it. Two days later, a memo to the entire staff came out directing us that no words, which could not be found in the local Sunday newspaper could be used in company memos. A month later, I resigned. In accordance with company policy, I created my resignation memo by pasting words together from the Sunday paper. xclap
(Taco Bell Corporation)

Paul in Cannon Beach

I am just in here checking out the new Hardeharr section. Ahhh... that "new forum" smell. Its great!

Thanks Christy!

Margaret Morford

Okay. I'll start.

One of my clients called to say that he had a problem with Debbie, one of his quietest and best employees. Debbie always wore long dresses to work, never pants, no make-up, very conservative, spoke very little, stayed in her cubicle and turned out a ton of work. However, about twice a month Debbie would come into the office in mini skirts, cowboy boots and tops cut way down and very revealing. She would sing loudly in her cubicle and the day before had gotten up on the cubicle desk top and tap danced in her cowboy boots. She also didn't wish to be called Debbie on those days but wanted everybody to call her "Bucky." It was so bad that the other employees would duck her in the hallway telling each other, "Look out, Debbie is having a Bucky day!"

When I asked the client if he had any concerns whether Debbie might possibally have a multiple personality, he said that's what he thought as well. However, based on a seminar I'd taught about legal issues in the workplace where I said you can't ask employees to reveal a disability if they don't want to, he didn't ask her about it.

I told him to issue corrective action for disruptive behavior in the workplace, citing the singing and tap dancing, but told him to wait until Debbie had another "Bucky Day" to talk to her. That way if she did have a multiple personality, he would be dealing with Bucky, who was the disruptive one. I also suggested that he tell Bucky that she seemed to be under some stress as evidenced by her behavior and that perhaps she would benefit from some "stress counseling" with the EAP. It was my hope that if she went to a professional, she might get some help in recognizing her condition if she wasn't aware of it. The manager called me back a few weeks later to say that Debbie had come in as Bucky and he's talked to her. Bucky said she would try to do better and had been relatively quiet the rest of the day.

Epilogue: Several months later, the manager called me because it was annual review time and wanted to know if he needed to do a separate review for Bucky because Debbie's performance had been stellar over the past year, but Bucky's had been marginal.

It's one of my favorite stories to tell when I teach legal issues. What a profession we've choosen!

Margaret Morford
theHRedge
615-371-8200
[email]mmorford@mleesmith.com[/email]
[url]http://www.thehredge.net[/url]

Gillian

Here's mine. Some years ago when I was consulting, I had a manufacturing company as a client in an area which was not a real enticing area to work. I was advised one day that the receptionist had quit and that they wanted me to find another one, not an easy chore given the area and, at that time, a tough labor market from the employer perspective. There was a trailer park across the street that was full of retired people so I said to the VP of Sales, the spervisor - why not do a job share, I think we could find two part timers across the street. His response - No, we aren't going to do anything like that around here. If you want to be innovative, go somewhere else to do it.