World of Turbo's Human

being cute

2010-06-26T19:54:00.001-05:00

being cute
Originally uploaded by odhusky

I like this photo I found on Flickr.

Mothballs Don't Cover Stink

2010-04-25T00:05:00.037-05:00

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)

2010-04-11T15:01:00.001-05:00

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

2010-04-10T15:27:00.001-05:00

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.

2010-04-03T14:53:00.002-05:00

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:

A bunch of people quit at once.
I had to hire a bunch of people.
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.
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.
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.

The Government Did Not Get Involved.

2010-03-23T19:07:00.003-05:00

I have a friend who opted out of health insurance in the spring of 2009. She felt that she couldn't afford the amount taken out of her pay check each pay day.

A couple months later she got bitten by a brown recluse spider. She ended up having to be admitted to a local private hospital for a couple weeks. She had to have surgery; three times I think.

When all her bills were tabulated, she owed more than $25,000.

But her social workers at the private hospital connected her with the billing department. The billing department looked at her finances. They were happy to get what she could afford each month, which was $40.

My friend paid each month the $40 she agreed to pay.

She got a letter from the private hospital last week telling her that she had paid them $280 by that point. The letter went on to say that they looked over her financial records and were deeming that she had now paid the bill in full.

She owed them no more money.

Her balance was $0.00.

And the government did not even get involved.

Let's Race

2010-02-03T19:15:00.004-06:00

United States businesses aren't supposed to ask their applicants or even employees to disclose their ethnic background. However, Equal Opportunity Employer regulations require companies to track that info. See my notes from a previous blog entry for more detail about this stupid stuff.

So, you can imagine my surprise today when I had a conference call with my corporate HR boss and he asked if the new employee (K) we were replacing an old employee (L) with was black. My Gruff Boss asked why. Corp HR boss said, "Well, I just wanted to see if we were replacing a black person with another black person.

I told HR Boss that the old employee was actually white. We think he assumed she was black due to her name.

I wish I had said to him that I hadn't determined what either employee's race was because that information couldn't be used to make HR decisions.

Site of a Lesson Learned

2010-01-10T15:50:00.005-06:00

Because it's been really cold here in Mid-Missouri (Mid-Misery), I have been playing around with the street view feature of Google Maps. I've been "driving" all over towns I used to live in or even ones that I just traveled through. I decided that I would do a screen capture of certain places so I could use them as an illustration for some blog postings.

The cool thing about blogs is that a person (me) can pretend that some minor event is really publish-worthy, rather than just a little boring story that no one but the blogger is interested in. With this in mind, I will try not to show a picture and only say something like "hey! that's where I got my gall bladder ultrasounded."

So here's the first story in this series:

Way back in the summer on 1990, I was heading south from Missouri to look over a couple of graduate schools I'd been accepted to. I was either going to go to the University of Georgia or the University of South Carolina. I'd also been accepted to the University of Hawaii, but had decided not to go there.

I'd packed up my little red Escort GT full of my stuff and was driving south to find a school and a place to live. I'd love to be able to do that sort of thing now--just pack everything up and move somewhere without much of a plan. But when you get older, you often lose this freedom.

Anyway, I was driving through a town called Fayetteville, Tennessee and wanted to stop for the night. I had supper at the Shoney's in the picture below. It was after I finished eating that I learned an important lesson:

If you are in a town you've never been in before and ask someone for directions, and that individual starts his directions by saying "You know where the old jail used to be," you should just answer in the affirmative. You probably won't understand the directions that follow.

What's That?

2010-01-03T11:06:00.003-06:00

I worked for 7 years in a nursing home. One day we had a nurse educator visit to teach the staff how to care for a new resident we would be getting. I was in the conference room with nurses and the educator was putting a tape in the VCR.

One of our residents, B, wheeled herself into the conference room. B always wanted to know what was going on. She asked the educator who said, "We're getting ready to watch a video tape on tracheostomy care."

B asked, "What's that?"

The educator began a lengthy description of what a tracheostomy was and was getting into describing special care it may need.

B interrupted the educator and said, "No. I meant 'what's a video tape?'"

(This is one of my favorite stories of the nursing home, but I realized that pretty soon people won't get the humor because VCR's and video tapes won't be commonplace.)

Needles

2009-12-27T17:42:00.001-06:00

Spinnin'
Originally uploaded by timsamoff

Dealing with work comp claims is a part of my job duties. I had an employee who cleaned a medical office let me know that a week prior he had stuck his finger with a needle at the doctor's office. I had a lot of paperwork for him to do before I sent him to our work comp doctor. He grumbled about it and said that we should forget about it. I told him that we couldn't.

He came back over from the clinic with his paperwork. He was upset to have found out that he would have to have hepatitis tests.

His final words to me were, "All this for a little prick, huh?"

I just smiled and said "yes."

The New Hiring Pack

2009-12-20T19:02:00.005-06:00

We got our new corporate mandated hiring pack. We counted up how many total pages are in it. This number also includes the insurance info, the corporate values glossy pamphlet, the take home handbook, and the safety manual. There are 96 pages for each new employee to enjoy.

After the world's worst conference call (complete with stupid questions and idiots who didn't know how to mute their phones resulting in feedback), I called up my branches to make sure they understood what was going on.

They did understand. And then told me that they thought it was stupid and didn't make any sense. I reminded them of my HR mantra: "When you deal with HR, you need to leave common sense outside of the HR doorway."

Here's a smidgen of the new HR policy and hiring pack:

1. We cannot put anyone to work without ensuring that they have a clean criminal background

2. But we cannot have anyone sign the release to do the background check until after they have been offered employment

3. The release form states that they are only to give us their month and day of their birth, but not to give us their year of birth. (that reduces the chance of age discrimination)

4. We need the employee's complete birth date to do the background check and it won't be processed without the employee's year of birth

5. Our company is dedicated to being an Equal Opportunity Employer, and we have to track applicants' race

6. We can't ask an employee to disclose their race, but they can fill out an optional self-identification form

7. If they opt out of self-id, then we have to make a "best guess" as to what their race is

8. We may not actually see the applicant, but still have to determine their race.

9. We cannot use their last name when assigning them a race.

(By the way, according to the US government, a person can be considered to be Hispanic/Latino/Latina regardless of his or her ethnic background. You can be Hispanic/Latino/Latina if you culturally identify yourself with that group.

Also, if one of your parents is Hispanic/Latino/Latina, then you are that race. If your parents are a combination of other races, you are multi-racial in the eyes of the US government.)

Phone Conversation

2009-12-01T19:13:00.003-06:00

Today my assistant, Suzette, had the following conversation on the phone:

Suzette: How can I help you?

Caller: Who have I called?

S: "name of business"

C: I don't know if this even is what I want.

S: What can I do for you?

C: I'm looking for part time work.

S: Are you available for weekends?

C: I'm really only wanting 1 day a week for maybe an hour.

S: We don't have anything like that open.

C: I stay home with the kids. My husband works. But I'd just like to leave and work for about an hour. Do you have anything like that?

S: No, we don't.

C: I have a Masters degree in Psychology. And I just don't know if being a janitor is for me.

S: If you want to be considered for openings, you'll have to fill out an application.

C: Where did I call again?

S: "name of business." Thanks for calling!

Hints For Job Seekers - #8

2009-11-30T19:11:00.002-06:00

Pretty close to a year ago I woman in her 20's came into our office to fill out an application. After she finished, I talked to her a little bit. She noticed a picture I had of one of my dogs and she decided to tell me that she had dogs. Then she told me how she helped her 2 mixed breed dogs to mate. And she got on the floor to demonstrate what she did to help.

My gruff boss happened to stop by my office to give me something at the moment the woman was on my floor. He didn't say a word and left.

After she left, I told my gruff boss the whole story. He told me that he just thought she was some weird friend of mine.

Hints For Job Seekers - #7

2009-11-25T21:11:00.003-06:00

I'm not going to hire PopeJohnDillinger, either.

Under Where?

2009-11-24T18:47:00.003-06:00

We have been haunted by a pair of briefs at work for a few weeks. I first noticed them outside of our office one morning when I got to work. They were in our parking lot. I told my assistant "I've warned you about leaving your underpants in our parking lot!"

A few days later the wind picked up and the briefs blew up our street and disappeared.

Then they came back.

My gruff boss said that he'd thrown them away.

But then they came back.

They were originally white, but now they are greyish. They will soon be black.

Conversation With A Former Employee

2009-11-23T20:24:00.002-06:00

A bit more than a 2 weeks ago, I hired a new employee. 4 hours into her second day, Ms. R decided to leave in the middle of her shift. Allegedly her daughter got sick and had to go to the hospital. An unfortunate side effect to working in Human Resources is that I have grown to doubt every story I'm given. You'd think that people wouldn't lie about their kid being in the hospital, but they do. They lie about lots of things.***

So, Ms. R asked if I would consider rehiring her. I asked her why she hadn't called or stopped by to tell us what had caused her to disappear and stay away from work. Here is a synopsis of here reasons for not contacting us:

I told her that under the circumstances that I would have a hard time justifying rehiring her. I asked her what she could do to reassure me that she wouldn't no call/no show again. Here's her response:

I ended our discussion after that and wished her a happy Thanksgiving. I told her she could reapply in 1 year. I wanted to give her this advice, though:

Or better yet, this advice:

***I once had an employee call in because his father had died. A week later, his dad called wanting to talk to his son.

Hints For Job Seekers - #6

2009-11-22T19:31:00.003-06:00

I know from personal experience that it is very stressful to not have a job. It is not fun looking for a job in that situation. It is understandable that job applicants may feel a certain amount of desperation. It is hard to know if you should call the place you had an interview with to check on their hiring decision. You don't want to be annoying, but you don't want to have false hope either.

A couple years ago I had someone I was considering hiring for a janitorial position. She was honest with me about her criminal record. She had a felony conviction that showed up as "theft." She and her daughter had committed welfare fraud against Missouri in a baby sitting scheme. I was willing to not exclude her immediately, but I told her that I needed to get her background check back so that I could see what was there. I was hoping that I would be able to persuade my boss to give her a chance.

I told the applicant (I'll call her Ms. A.) that it would take at least 2 days to get the background check back. Almost immediately, Ms. A started calling me to let me know she was interested in the job. And then she called me at least 5 times a day for the next 2 days.

Somewhere around the 12th or 15th call from her, I decided that I lost interested in hiring her.

Hints For Job Seekers - #5

2009-11-19T18:55:00.003-06:00

A few years ago and in a different job than the one I have now, we received an unsolicited resume in the mail. The woman put down her skills, one of which was remaining faithful to her husband. I still have the resume somewhere. I keep it so that if I ever teach a class on resumes I will have a good example of what not to do. She also stated that she had a bad back and that she'd had to have counseling for stress due to a work related incident. People are always advised that resumes should be no longer than 2 pages in length. Mrs. X's was 5 pages long.

Hints For Job Seekers - #4

2009-11-18T19:30:00.006-06:00

It is still a little surprising that people will argue with us when they are wanting to get a job. The #1 most popular thing to argue about is if we have job openings. We say "no." They say "yes."

Hints For Job Seekers - #3

2009-11-17T20:03:00.003-06:00

I don't think I need to give any more clarification to this other than to say that someone actually did turn in an application that smelled strongly of pot.

Hints For Job Seekers - #2

2009-11-16T19:15:00.002-06:00

Once upon a time, a man came to my office with his toddler (strike 1) wanting to apply for a janitorial position. Immediately after getting an application, he asked me if I'd watch his daughter while he went to the bathroom (strike 2). I declined his offer. He left his daughter unattended in my waiting area (strike 3). After he finished his application, I discovered that his daughter had peed on a chair in my waiting area (strike 4, yer out!).

He did clean up his daughter before leaving, but he didn't mention the pee stain to me.

Hints For Job Seekers - #1

2009-11-15T10:51:00.004-06:00

Anyone looking for a job should be aware that anything they do while applying for a job is being observed. When a person brings their children in while they fill out an application, it tells the hiring personnel that childcare will be an issue for that potential employee. If someone can't get a babysitter on the day he or she wants to fill out the application, it's best to delay it until the babysitter is available.

A related side note is that it's not a good idea to admit that you left a previous job due to not having someone to take care of the kids.

Standards of Hiring

2009-11-04T19:25:00.003-06:00

As you all know, I have unusual people applying to work for my company. I have gotten about 750 applications so far this year. Unfortunately I would not say that most of them would be ones that I'd consider. I processed 7 applicants today that I'd gotten in the last week:

* 2 that I'd terminated in a previous year for bogus SS #'s.
* 3 had felony convictions for forgery/robbery.
* 1 I had a bad feeling about.
* And the final one was acceptable.

I would like to find new janitors who have a steady work history, no criminal convictions, and have experience in the janitorial world. This is what I was looking for at the start of my day.

By noon, my qualifications were they should have a clean criminal background and good work history.

By 3pm, my qualifications were that they had no felonies and neither my assistant nor I could remember anything bad about the impression they made on us when they applied.

I was able to set up 5 interviews for 2 full time positions.

H.R. Stories: How Not To Get Hired

2009-07-26T13:46:00.002-05:00

This cartoon is almost the exact conversation I had with someone who stopped by my office. Unfortunately, Xtranormal limits the number of people who can be in a cartoon to 1 or 2. My assistant was in the office with me at the time. At the end of the real conversation, the visitor asked my assistant a nosy question about what she was doing. We aren't hiring the guy.

H.R. Stories: Hiring Pack

2009-07-15T20:32:00.003-05:00

This Xtranormal cartoon I made was based on 3 real conversations I had with 3 of my field HR assistants.

(Jenny prides herself on being an overachiever.)

Use of Photos

2009-07-05T18:05:00.001-05:00

I allow others to use my Flickr photos. But I frequently google my user name to see how they are being used. A year ago, a website called LAist Political Notebook used one of my creations more than once. At the time, I was having my dog Turbo run for President on his blog. The photo was created for that blog. I took a picture of a bunch of old campaign buttons and stuck my dog's button in the mix. I doubt the LAist paid close attention to the picture:

Conversation with a Doc

2009-05-14T07:24:00.002-05:00

About 5 years ago I sent a someone I knew years before an email that basically said "hi, how have you been all these years?" The following cartoon is what she emailed me back. I interjected a me-character in it.

2009-05-12T22:20:00.001-05:00

Cartoons Of My Life

2009-05-11T18:23:00.003-05:00

I found this really cool website called Xtranormal. You can type stuff in and make cartoons. You can do cartoons for free, but I opted to pay the $9.99 to get more options.

I am going to create little cartoons of funny things that I have experienced in my life. My first cartoon is of a conversation I had with a woman when I was a senior at Mizzou. I was getting a degree in English. Jean, the woman, was working on a graduate degree in Education.

Gate Cartoon

2008-10-02T10:59:00.004-05:00

Meeshka's Penny immortalized me with this cartoon:

The Gate

2008-08-01T19:24:00.004-05:00

My gate is falling apart. I have ordered a new gate, and it will be delivered in a couple days. When I got home from work (and purchasing a new gate) yesterday, my gate was no longer husky proof. So I strengthened it with what I had available: Sides of a metal crate, a key lanyard, yellow industrial electrical cord, a bungee cord, and cable ties.

Here's a close up of the latch:

Here's a close up of the bottom of the gate. You'll notice that on the lower right side of the picture has a rusted broken hinge. Dog pee caused the original hinge to disintegrate.

And finally, before letting the dogs out, I scooted a trashcan and a lawn chair in front of the gate as a half-hearted barricade.

Aldi's

2008-01-09T11:19:00.000-06:00

I love Aldi's. I used to denigrate it as being for "poor people" and lacking in quality. But I don't like spending a lot of money. I'm closer to being poor than rich. Many of their store brand products are excellent. I like the European products they have.

Tamale Update

2008-01-09T11:18:00.001-06:00

First of all, the tamales were really good. Second of all, I don't want to make them again.

2.5 hours to cook the meat
2 hours to soak the corn husks
~2 hours to prepare the tamales
2 hours to cook the tamales

Coming Soon!

2007-12-29T20:18:00.000-06:00

I will be spending the first day of 2008 at a friend's house making lots of tamales. I've never made tamales...other than opening a can and cooking up the greasy pseudo-tamales. But we will be cooking them from scratch. We purchased all the ingredients today. The nice woman at the Mexican grocery store thought we were crazy not buying the premade masa concoction.

Sadness...

2007-01-01T08:20:00.000-06:00

Hmmm?
Originally uploaded by Elfrieda.

My dear friend Tara has left us. Fairwell Tara and her human, Connie. We will miss you.

2007 Goals

2006-12-31T07:38:00.000-06:00

1. Wear pink more often.

2. Eat brussel sprouts more often.

Arbor Day

2006-12-03T07:24:00.000-06:00

When I lived in Canada, a friend of mine was under the assumption that Arbor Day was a much bigger deal in the United States than I thought it was. Caroline thought that it was a Day that everyone in the States had as a no-work holiday.

Snow in MO!

2006-12-01T09:30:00.000-06:00

Cell Phone Messages

2006-09-24T09:35:00.000-05:00

Just where do cell phone messages "go?" Last night my job's answering service called three times and left three messages. My cell phone did not ring at all. The messages arrived about 12 hours later!

Technology is great.

Signs of God

2006-08-29T20:31:00.000-05:00

I had to spend today in the small town of Versailles, Missouri. (Note that they pronounce it VER-sales.) I didn't have anything to do for 8 hours, so I drove around. I spotted this sign as I was approaching the town:

Now the American Standard version of this quote (Rev. 3:11) is

I come quickly: hold fast that which thou hast, that no one take thy crown.

The King James version is

Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.

I think that whoever paid for this sign should have sprung for a few extra words.

The Vacuums Are Following Me

2006-08-16T19:08:00.000-05:00

I noticed in my rear view mirror as I was driving home today this Missouri license plate:

.
.
I think my Dyson's friend Vrooomy is following me!
.
.

Mr America 1945

2006-08-02T20:53:00.000-05:00

My paternal grandparents owned a lodge/resort in Nevada in the 1940's. In the collection of photographs I found these pictures of Clarence Ross, who was Mr American in 1945. I think that he lived at my grandparents place while he was living in Nevada. Unfortunately my paternal grandparents are no longer with us.

Mr America 1945
Originally uploaded by JSF539.

Clarence-Ross-&-Family
Originally uploaded by JSF539.

Bad Boss, March 2004

2006-07-29T13:44:00.000-05:00

Lots of rain caused lots of water on the ground.

My driveway should have been in the front of this picture.

My driveway washed away and I was trapped at home. My manager told me that I had to come in to work because she needed a vacation day. She had worked 2 weeks with out a day off (other than the weekends). I built a bridge to drive across, but it collapsed. I had to get towed out of my driveway. I made it to work at 4pm (we closed our office at 5:30pm). My manager left at 11am, so our office was closed for 5 1/2 hours. All wasn't lost, however. She did get her vacation day.

Update & Bad Evening

2006-07-20T06:42:00.000-05:00

I got my new manager on Monday. So far I'm glad he's there.

----

I didn't have the best of evenings last night.

First, I discovered that my laptop won't power up. Fortunately it's under waranty, so I won't have to pay to have it fixed.

Second, I slipped on the wet kitchen floor. My back hurts!

Third, I dropped my cell phone into the dogs' waterbowl. But it's hot enough out there that it dried out and seems to be fully functional again.

Most Frequently Viewed Photo

2006-07-19T22:41:00.000-05:00

Pioneer School-Chadron, NE
Originally uploaded by JSF539.

This is the most frequently viewed photo on my Flickr account.

My text reads, "From the collection of my paternal grandmother. Unknown person labeled the photo 'Pioneer School Chadron, Nebr. Mother the girl in white.' "

I don't get it.

Who Cares?

2006-07-15T07:12:00.000-05:00

Why is this even an article?

BREITBART.COM - Pitt Still Shocked by Katrina Devastation

Work

2006-07-14T07:08:00.000-05:00

For the record, I don't think that it is stupid that I'll be having a new manager starting Monday. I've had lots and lots of different managers in my life and I'm used to it. Blah blah blah...

Overslept!

2006-07-13T06:32:00.000-05:00

This week I have to be at my office at 5:30am. I've set the alarm to go off at 4:15am. Today I slept through the alarm and didn't wake up until 5:22am. You would think that in a house with 6 huskies that one of them would have gotten tired of the beeping and woken me sooner. I guess it's a good thing they aren't assistance dogs!

Thank you, Fargo, for waking me.

Pie Eater Explanation

2006-07-09T15:48:00.000-05:00

My nephew came up with this joke when he was around 5 years old. It proves that he's related to my brother and me.

What is George Washington's favorite type of pie?

None. 'Cause he's dead.

My brother refers to dead people as "former pie eaters of the world."