Is it MY problem?

ritaanz · June 2003

It's 6:00 am, did not have my coffee yet and I've got a Department Manager standing in my office. He is notifying me of a complaint he received this morning from one of his employees. The employee is upset because someone is spitting on her car. She is positive that it happened in our parking lot because this is the second incident. The Manager then proceeds in VERY graphic detail, to describe how this substance looks and where on the vehicle it is located. Now I ask you, is this a HR problem? I did not have the foresight to develop a sputum policy nor did I anticipate that an employee would feel violated because of this occurrence. We do have the usual verbiage posted in the parking lot about not being responsible for personal property etc.

Is it now part of my job description to be cough cop? Do I take DNA samples? Where's Pork when I need him?

Thanks folks, I needed that. xx(

Parabeagle · June 2003

You DON'T have a sputum policy???? x;-)

ray a · June 2003

Amazing the things I've learned on this forum. Sputum. Had to look it up.

Judith · June 2003

why are you in the office at 6:00 a.m. without coffee??!!

I would let the police handle it -- they wont do any thing about it either.

Moria · June 2003

If I was in my office at 6 a.m., with no coffee, I'd spit too! =P~

Whatever · June 2003

In the military don't they use "sputum" to polish boots. Maybe this a subtle hint about the car.

Leslie · June 2003

Tell the employee she's lucky they didn't choose to do it at 3 in the afternoon on a 115 degree day. Something like that would drastically change the description and likely remove some paint. x:-)

HRGirl · June 2003

Sounds like your ee has irked another female employee! Police can't do anything about it, you can't do anything about it. It will stop, unless she continues to irk the other female!

TALLEY · June 2003

Did I miss something? How do we know it is female sputum? I doubt it, women are notoriously spitting-impaired. You'll have to guess why I know this...

Rockie · June 2003

Tell the employee to be glad it's only sputum. It could be much worse!

lukkieseven · June 2003

Perhaps it was a very large bird with a cold!!

HRGirl · June 2003

Talley,

Not all females are spitting impaired and some use it as a weapon! Don't ask me how I know!

Don D · June 2003

I feel the same way about this as I did about the note left on the SUV in the parking lot. HR IS NOT ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE. We cannot and should not advocate the position that the HR office is the place to come or go for every pissy little ill or thing that occurs or smell that passes through or perception that lodges in a head or offensive sound that one emits or evil-eye that's given or toilet paper roll that is empty. I would have looked over the top of my reading glasses, paused a minute till the supervisor took a breath, waved my index finger in 7 circles and said, "Deal with it". The waving finger in 7 circles is an indication that he should do an about face and move out of your doorway.

An alternate course of action, Ritaanz, would have been for you to wait for the man to shut up, then say, "Get me a cup of coffee, will ya?"

Are we all becoming hall monitors in an elementary school or what?

ritaanz · June 2003

My sentiments exactly. I knew you would validate my question. Thanks Mr. Don.

njjel · June 2003

If I were in my office at 6:00 a.m. with or without coffee - I'd spit too! Don't ya all just love HR?

Kai · June 2003

>An alternate course of action, Ritaanz, would have been for you to
>wait for the man to shut up, then say, "Get me a cup of coffee, will
>ya?"

Thank you, kind sir. You have *just* made my day. :DD That's a brilliant retort and I wish I'd thought of it myself. Rest assured, I'll look for an opportunity to use it very soon!

jmssr · June 2003

Good one Don.
If it's bad and no one else will do it HR gets it.

gillian2 · June 2003

Hire a high school kid to come in and spit on all the cars, then the spitter (if he or she is at your place) will become the spittee as well. Make sure that you take a day off - no, that won't work - then everyone will think that you are the spitter. Oh, heck, I'm going to get a cup of tea.

ritaanz · June 2003

Gillian2: Have I told you recently that I'm glad you are back? Well, I am. Only you would come up with such a Californian solution.

WOCO Frank · June 2003

Doesn't your employer offer a daily wash/wax as part of the benefit package? Do I have to call DOL about this?

BTW... You should also expect to pay the employee of the "violated" car for the time she spends cleaning her car of any sputum deposited while parked on company property.

POPEYE · June 2003

WOCO Frank - Could you please post a job description for this wash/was position? Sounds like something we all could use!!!!!!!

WOCO Frank · June 2003

Along these lines, I had a situation come up a week ago...

A regular customer of one of our stores came in and asked a cashier a favor. His garden tractor was about a mile away, at a repair shop, and he wanted to know if she would be willing to drive him to pick it up when she got off duty. He would then just ride the tractor through residential back streets to his home, which is across the street from the store. She agreed to do this (again, he's like the store's poster child... in there 2-3 times a day for 14 years, and nobody at the store saw anything odd about the favor).

According to the cashier, while on their way to the tractor, the customer tried to put his hand up her shorts and grabbed a breast. She doesn't want to press any charges, she wants me to take action. She's off duty, and it's off premises, but she now considers the store a hostile environment if the customer comes in.

Okay... this SOUNDS like a more difficult situation than it turned out to be. I called the customer to ask what happened, and I heard a long rambling tale of how my cashier comes on to him all the time and how she initiated the "groping", and how this happens to him all the time with girls. Oh, did I mention the cashier is 20 and the customer is 78?

The customer and I have a gentlemen's agreement now... he shops elsewhere.

But it was a great example of how I'm not always sure where the lines are? Should I have taken any action at all, including calling the guy? At what point am I responsible for the "hostile environment", given the fact that this was an alleged sexual assault and she did not want to go to the police? (BTW... her father is a cop, and he's the one who advised her to not pursue charges. Figure that one out.)

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Don D · June 2003

I'm puzzled as to how he "put his hand up her shorts and grabbed her breast". Is there something else about her we should know?

WOCO Frank · June 2003

I think this was a two-handed move, Don.

Leslie · June 2003

I had the ex-live in of one of our employees call and threaten me if I didn't get the ee to return some personal property he had left behind when she kicked him out because she discovered he was screwing around on her. And she's seven months pregnant.

Anyway, he works at a rival Indian gaming facility, and one of the items he left behind was his work badge. Then he has the woman he's presumably having the affair with call me posing as someone from the rival casino's regulatory agency. She said it was my responsibility to get my ee to return "their" property or there was going to be big trouble.

Sigh. (:| Sometimes they just wear me out.

WOCO Frank · June 2003

I hate getting caught in the middle of turf wars with rival Indian gaming facilities.

Moria · June 2003

Thanks Don D for the x:D of the day! You have quite the imagination. I love how these threads go, from spitting to Indian gaming turf wars. Maybe spitting could become a new casino challenge.

Leslie · June 2003

I'm sure there is a event somewhere called the longest spitting contest - and if there is people are betting on it.

Don D · June 2003

Fear not. It does indeed exist. In the form of Mississippi's annual watermelon seed spitting contest! No, I have never entered.

Margaret Morford · June 2003

I had a young man (mid twenties) show up at our facility demanding to see the head of HR. He brought a friend of his with him for "moral support." He then proceeds to tell me that his wife, who works for us, is having an affair with another one of our employees. He wanted the company to put a stop to it. I told him that if what he said was true, he needed to deal with his wife about this - that it simply wasn't a company matter. He then told me that if I didn't put a stop to it, he was going to sue the company for Alienation of Affections. I had to explain to him that companies could not be sued for that -only individuals. His cause of action would be a civil lawsuit against the other man.

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

WOCO Frank · June 2003

OMG! I've had three of those "stop my spouse from cheating on me" demands in three years! What are these people thinking?

I also had a mother (an ex-employee) tell me her daughter (a current employee) had been "recruited" into lesbianism by two other store employees. She was going to go to a TV station and get them to do a feature on our little den of iniquity if I didn't put a stop to it.

*sigh*

Is it MY problem?

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