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.

Let's Race

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.

The New Hiring Pack

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

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

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

I'm not going to hire PopeJohnDillinger, either.

Conversation With A Former Employee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.