Another update from the Jungle…
Patsy, named for Patsy Cline, has a pretty good singing voice. She moved to Nashville with visions of international fame dancing through the lyrics in her head. Once there, she took the first job she could find while seeking out a record deal.
She never landed that record deal, and her last three employment gigs were as abbreviated as her open mic gigs. But her luck is about to change. She just got a job with a regional company that is distantly connected to the music business. Sure, it involves doing boring stuff that she did at several of her previous jobs, but she enters the new employer’s offices with a smile on her face and a spring in her step!
After a day with HR, filling out paperwork and learning about all the things that can get her fired, Patsy’s enthusiasm wavers. But she arrives early the next day determined to do well. The HR rep shows her where the bathroom is located and guides to her a rabbit-hutch sized cubicle. Then the HR rep abandons her to go deal with a crisis.
Patsy leans around the cubicle corner to ask Doris for a little assistance. Doris is on the phone. Rebecca, on her other side, clues Patsy in to a few basic procedures, such as which database takes which customer information. Patsy realizes from prior experiences that she’s just gone through “orientation” and gets to work.
In the first week, almost all her work is rejected for a variety of reasons. Patsy tries to explain to co-workers this was the way things were done at her last job. Her supervisor says in front of co-workers that she doesn’t care how the company’s main competitor does business.
Before her first paycheck, Patsy is demoralized. As her probationary period ends, the HR rep tells Patsy that she’s being dropped because she “just doesn’t get it” and her co-workers think she’s whiny.
What should Patsy do next?
She can reach across the desk and slap the HR rep for not ensuring she received proper training.- She can leave quietly and bad-mouth the company on her Facebook page.
- She can find a friend like Merle Haggard’s “Leonard” to help her until her singing career takes off.
The above scenario is a composite of many employers who expect to find ideal employees without investing in training. It’s a doomed process, one similar to hoping you’ll meet your life’s soulmate in a 2nd Avenue bar on Saturday night.
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Cecily is a senior level executive at her company. Of course, she has paid a price while clawing her way to the top; her first husband left their marriage in exchange for a 
She reasoned that if men could have trophy wives, then she could have a trophy husband. Cecily was overjoyed that Rory accepted her marriage proposal. Of course, marriage to a much younger man comes with a price too. Cecily spends every spare minute at the gym trying to keep her girlish figure so that she remains physically attractive to Rory.
Cecily came out of her office to confirm she would be able to have a romantic dinner with Rory that evening. She saw Danielle oozing around Rory, white teeth flashing in a seductive smile. With a jealous shriek, Cecily leaped for Danielle’s throat. The women crashed against the wall and rolled into the elevator lobby, a writhing mass of biting, kicking and hair pulling.
What are Walter’s options? 
Gwen, the HR manager, arrives at work in a really bad mood. She’s running twenty minutes late after sitting in traffic on the giant parking lot otherwise laughingly referred to as an interstate highway.
Gwen mellows slightly after she has a cup of coffee. Back at her desk, she cranks up her laptop and begins reading her emails. The first one is from Laurie, whining again about needing a window view as an accommodation for her unspecified medical condition. Gwen sighs. The company works from a converted warehouse. No one has a window view, not even Tim. Gwen marks Laurie’s email for later in the day and opens the next email.
It involves the Case of the Traveling Trash Can. For weeks, every female employee has been fixated on the mystery of the moving bathroom trash can. The consensus is that the trashcan should be set close to the toilet. But someone is moving the can closer to the sink.
She can nail the trashcan to the floor with a 10-penny nail so that it never moves again.
Frank was brought out of retirement to fix the most troubled division of the company. He told Ella and his subordinates that he had six months to improve the bottom line. His grim expression inspired fear and loathing among his subordinates. Sure enough, within a week, Ella was processing termination paperwork so fast her laptop crashed from overuse.
Then Frank went gunning for Anna for incompetence even though her last performance review said she practically walked on water. He accused April of winking sarcastically during a staff meeting. When Ella pointed out the lack of documentation or witnesses to back up these reasons, Frank replied that HR managers can be fired for insubordination just like any other employee.
That’s when Ella conceived her fiendishly clever plan. She began meeting surreptitiously with selected employees in Frank’s division to confirm their suspicions that Frank was out to get them. She promised to help them by editing their resumes and coaching them on their interviewing skills. (She keeps up with the latest HR industry trends by attending lots of SHRM seminars.)
Of course, there is a downside to being the only millennial in the office. The first time she mentioned Instagram, an absolutely ancient co-worker, Clay, reminisced about his Kodak Instamatic camera. They stared blankly at each other across a technical gap much wider than the difference in their ages.
Arlene, in the next-door cubicle, confided that she is addicted to Facebook. Robyn bottled up her giggles, almost bursting an eardrum, because her mother taught her to be polite to her elders. Robyn rarely checks Facebook anymore; it’s so yesterday.
Robyn has technical challenges too. She is embarrassed by the company’s outdated website and is desperate to upgrade it before her friends notice. She’s also volunteered to do daily social media posts after realizing the company does zero internet-based marketing. The HR manager knows that Robyn is getting frustrated and is desperate to keep her with the company.
SAS recruits were trained as paratroopers. They did most of their training on the ground due to a lack of aircraft for training missions. How do you train a paratrooper without jumping out of an airplane? Paddy Mayne is credited with the solution: recruits jumped out of a jeep or truck moving at 30 mph while wearing full-kit (120 pounds).
Kate doesn’t want the job. She has years of supervisory experience, but she’s no longer interested in riding herd on a bunch of people who are used to doing whatever they want. She still intends to enjoy the show as others compete to replace Steve; corporate succession fights are as ferocious as mixed martial arts fights, only with fewer rules. 
Meanwhile, Kim bustles around clutching her iPad with a thoughtful frown. She’s trying to look authoritative, which isn’t easy to pull off when you’re barely five feet tall and weigh less than a fully-grown German shepherd. She proclaims to everyone that it’s time a woman was given the job. 
Every morning, Kate braces for the stream of excited co-workers who stop by to tell her their theories on who should replace Steve. Their gossip updates Kate on the shifting alliances among her co-workers.
In the actual situation, an outsider was hired to replace “Steve” leading to an exodus of disappointed internal applicants, and a new round of alliances to win favor with the new guy. Office politics will remain a standard workplace feature as long as human nature remains the same. 
Linda opened her business one year ago when she was fed up with all the petty rules and employee bickering at her last job. Her friends Julie and Rhonda joined her. They agreed that their new business would be a happy place where workers were free to be creative and enjoy coming to work. That was the last time they agreed on anything.
Two hours later, Rhonda galloped into the office. She screamed at Linda that she had been working non-stop for months and couldn’t take it anymore. She continued, saying she wished she had never left her old job just to work with such an ungrateful witch. Julie bounced out of the workshop to say that Linda’s rotten inability to set priorities was the cause of their problems.
Vicky is the HR person for her company because her business partners are guys who would rather face a starving lion bare-handed than deal with employees. Lately, she’s been seesawing between the urge to kill one of the younger workers or to knock his block off.
work habits now.
Vicky stares at him through a red haze. The last time a young male addressed her in such a surly tone, he got whapped up-side the head and lost his driving privileges for a month. But her son was sixteen at the time, not a 30-something! With superhuman strength, Vicky restrains herself.
What options are available to Vicky?
Fran is a passionate woman who supports many worthy causes. Every day she arrives at work, gets a cup of herbal tea and begins looking for an audience to unburden herself.
Mike points out that pet shelters are full and often have no choice but to euthanize animals. She tears up at the thought of dead puppies. Will is a “manly man” who enjoys fishing and hunting. He also believes in conservation but detests Fran’s moralizing. So he retaliates with a story of deer hunting which ends with him killing Bambi’s mother.
Fran’s supervisor, Mindy, is also exhausted from frustration. She’s taking heat for low productivity caused by Fran’s lousy work habits and the interruptions to other employees’ work. She’s tried performance improvement plans without success. She’s thinking of skipping the initial steps in the progressive discipline policy and going straight to justifiable homicide in a bid to save her own career.
HR Compliance Jungle 