Another update from the Jungle…..
Louise strolled into the office on Thursday morning humming quietly to herself. She was looking forward to seeing the Halloween costumes that her team would wear. She tried to imagine how some of them would top their everyday attire.
Jake dresses in black and changes his hair color each month. His current orange mop makes him look like a black post with a pumpkin stuck on top. Bill wears ratty old clothes that even Goodwill would throw in the rag pile.
Her new sales manager, Emma, is a self-identified witch who dresses in gauzy flowing outfits. Since taking over sales, revenue is up, customer complaints are down, and there are no past due accounts. Louise has heard rumors that the owners of slow paying clients develop extremely painful rashes, but she’s not asking any questions.
The office was quiet when Louise arrived. As she walked past Jake’s work area, a sticky note caught her eye. The note said, “Pay up by Friday or the pig gets it!” Louise stared at the note, aghast. Was one of her employee’s being blackmailed?
She needed to fortify herself with a double espresso from the coffee shop next door. As she waited to be served she remembered that she hadn’t locked the office door. So she hurried back to the office.
As she walked through the door, she heard Emma sobbing noisily and saw her cradling a box. Emma thrust the box at Louise, tearfully babbling about a murder with poison. Louise looked in the box. It was a dead rat. “Eek”, squealed Louise falling back a pace.
Louise inched away from Emma until she could turn and dash to her office. She needed more than a double espresso. She needed a slug of the single malt whiskey left over from a client event while she thought about what she had seen. Had one of Emma’s potions gone hideously wrong? Was another witch using dark arts against Emma? Would company sales nosedive while Emma mourned a dead rat?
That was the start of an internal investigation which left Louise dazed at how much happened in her company without her knowing about it. Jake and Bill had a lucrative side business playing poker. At a recent poker night hosted by Jake, Bill stole a stuffed pig sitting next to Jake’s computer. After a series of Instagram posts showing the stuffed pig suspended over a Crockpot of steaming liquids, Bill left the ransom note at Jake’s desk.
The investigation also revealed that the dead rat was Emma’s beloved Patches. Emma had brought her dead rat to work while she waited for her vet’s office to open. The necropsy (animal autopsy) revealed that Patches died due to a weak heart; he hadn’t been murdered with poison.
Sometimes HR isn’t as scary as it seems at first glance. Happy Halloween!
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Leeann is a controller.
As they finally headed out the door, Leeann offered to drive because she needed to run an errand on the way back from lunch.
Every office has a Leeann.
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 and wished she had never left her old job 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. 
Most new business owners want to avoid written rules because they dislike bureaucratic boondoggles. They quickly learn that there is a huge difference between bogging down in bureaucratic rules and creating a framework of HR rules to allow the business to grow effectively.
Recovering her composure, Janice explains that until the big break arrives, Millie may want to learn a few things about her current job.
Once upon a time, an inexperienced HR Manager named Katie suggested to the company owner Phil that they have a Halloween party. Phil remembered past office parties and hesitated to risk the company’s liability insurance premiums on another such event. It’ll boost morale, assured Katie, and so, Phil said yes.
Katie says she’ll think about it and shoos Misty away. Katie slumps at her desk wondering whether the EEOC considers white witches a protected religious group. While she’s cogitating on religious freedom in the workplace, Wade shows up. He says office parties are stupid and he won’t participate. If the company wants to boost his morale, he’d prefer cash.
Ray shows up at the party dressed as an Aztec sacrificial victim with a fake heart poking out of his chest, dripping fake blood. Ray doesn’t understand why Moises, a Mexican-American, thinks the costume is culturally insensitive. Katie dashes toward them intent on preventing a fight but rocks to a halt when she catches sight of Alan. Alan had arrived wrapped in a blanket, wearing an Indian war bonnet with psychedelic pink feathers.
Before Katie can indulge in hysterics, she discovers that AJ, the scary guy from IT, has a fetish for knives and marijuana-laced brownies. Since marijuana is now legal in some states, “What’s the big deal?” says AJ, snatching the tray from Katie before she can dispose of the brownies.
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.
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 