Mothballs Don't Cover Stink

A couple weeks ago I started a new blog where I'm going to put all of my H.R. stories. I'm going to make this blog be just a holding cell for my random thoughts. My new blog is called Mothballs Don't Cover Stink. It was named by someone I went to high school with who I've gotten acquainted with on Facebook®. I didn't know this person, M., in high school very well at all, which was my loss because she makes me laugh a lot when she posts comments on my status. So, I was telling a story about a guy who had come into my office to drop off an application. He had a distinctive aroma of mothballs covering up body odor with underlying notes of marijuana. M. thought that a good title of my non-existent book on Human Resources would be Mothballs Don't Cover Stink. It made me laugh so hard for the rest of my day that I created the new blog as soon as I got home.

Anyway, this particular man was someone I'd interviewed for an opening I had 3 years ago. I decided back then not to hire him in part because of the wacky dance he did outside of my office after he finished his interview.

He comes back every couple of months to "check on the status of his application" and to hit on my administrative assistant. My assistant, by the way, has nicknamed him Bushwick Bill. I converted his name to Bushstink Bill. I guess a helpful suggestion to "Bill" would be that if my assistant disappears as soon as you pull up to our office, it's not a good sign for your romantic future with her.

More Winnipeg (Mid Century Modern)

I really like Mid Century Modern architecture and design. There is a Winnipeg neighborhood ("neighbourhood" in Canadian) near my apartment that was chock full of MCM houses. Here's a few of them from my Google Maps Streetview travels...

(The tall building in the background was where I lived.)









Here's the first view of a blue house:


And the second:



I like the window placement on the second floor:



The windowless front of this one is interesting. I'd like to see the other sides:



And finally a corner house two-fer. First the front:


And a view from the side:

Been Missing Winnipeg

Higgins and Main
Originally uploaded by Alana Elliott

Lately I have been missing Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada. I enjoyed living there back in the early 1990's. Ironically it was back in my pre-husky having days.

I love this picture which I found on Flickr. It calls of up Winnipeg of my memories. I had snow from November 1 until late April, I think.

The World of H.R.

I had to spend a few days over the last couple weeks with my H.R. boss. Someone in one of my offices had filed a complaint with the State Human Rights Commission about an incident she alleged had happened. Of course I cannot divulge anything about the complaint or our investigation. But I will say that this was not an entry level Human Resources investigation. This was a post-graduate thesis level Human Resources investigation.

It has been a strange couple of weeks at my H.R. office, and the above mentioned complaint was just the icing on the cake. I also had to deal with the following:

1. A bunch of people quit at once.
2. I had to hire a bunch of people.
3. One person I hired didn't show for her orientation. My Gruff Boss had be call her to have her come in the next day. It was not a surprise that she only lasted about 2 days before her attendance was a problem. In the one week surrounding her employment, she presented a bunch of reasons she had to delay her start date and/or had to leave work early and/or had to miss work. She had an uncle who was going to have his leg amputated and she needed to be there. She had a toothache that required her to be at the Emergency Room for 2 solid days. And some others I've forgotten already.
4. We had people from our American Headquarters come and train us on the new software we would be using. I had been in our Regional Headquarters at the end of February to train on the software. However, the computer network had issues and the 2 days of training were a complete waste of time.
5. IT people from our American HQ invaded our office to install new stuff that would make it possible for our European Corporate Corporate HQ to upload all payroll and billing information faster and more frequently.