Another update from the Jungle….
It’s Monday morning and Christine knows that sitting in rush hour traffic will be the high point of her day. After that, she’ll suffer a fate almost like death as she sits through the monthly staff meeting. Ms. Piggy will be holding court as usual.
Ms. Piggy is a co-worker who pretends to be a team player. Beneath the friendly smiles lurks a self-centered prima donna. She knows her life is so much more interesting than others. For the past six months, she’s been monopolizing the staff meetings with the same tale of a product vendor who can’t deliver the quality of work she demands.
Initially, Christine and several other managers suggested ways for Ms. Piggy to solve her vendor problem. Ms. Piggy made it clear that their solutions would work fine for idiots like them, but not for her since her work is much more technically sensitive.
Edward, the division head, doesn’t know how to handle Ms. Piggy. He wasn’t promoted based on his people skills and he doesn’t want to get stuck in sticky people problems. He would rather walk across hot coals barefoot or participate again in the pie eating contest at the company picnic.
Christine arrives at work and grabs a giant mug of coffee on her way to the conference room. Edward 
slides into the chair at the head of the table and begins asking for updates. Everyone tenses as he reaches Ms. Piggy. Ms. Piggy begins her usual quick update with the usual digressions.
Within a minute the energy level in the room plummets deeper than the Grand Canyon. The guy sitting next to Christine begins playing a game on his phone. Two managers begin reading their emails on their iPads. Edward opens his mouth to cut off Ms. Piggy but she raises her voice and continues. Christine slurps her coffee and tries to keep her head from exploding.
What options are available to Christine?
- She can fall to the floor pretending to have a seizure so that the meeting ends.
- She can leap to her feet shrieking “I can’t take it anymore. Shut up!”
- She can suggest that they imitate business networking groups by timing responses so that the staff meetings finish on time and they avoid Ms. Piggy moments.
The above scenario is a composite of too many meetings at too many companies. HR can help managers avoid these ghastly events by training them how to give effective feedback to their subordinates on appropriate office behavior and by urging senior management to pay for coaching for managers who lack people skills.
If your company is struggling with HR issues, Corporate Compliance Risk Advisor can help you create HR policies that are appropriate for your company’s size and then serve as a resource to your staff as the policies are implemented.
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But fairy tales aren’t the only places with evil beings. A wicked witch named Wanda also works in the office. Wanda’s not qualified to do the job Alanis was hired for but that doesn’t stop her from trying to take over. Wanda smiles in Alanis’ face even as she secretly sharpens her talons.
incompetent. 
while slurping gallons of coffee, but they’re happy. As long as the work is done and clients are happy, Stan is happy. 
Then he hears about the new overtime rules that are effective on December 1
t week, only two employees actually record their time each day. Ashley complains that she can’t remember to “clock in” when an idea strikes her at 2 in the morning. Ryan and Carson think they’re too valuable to the company to be penalized and they ignore the software completely. After a few weeks, Stan is furious. 
Meanwhile, Audrey discovers she’s pregnant. She hauls out her copy of the handbook, which is propping up a corner of her desk, and unfolds it to read the section on the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). She tells Jane she wants to take FMLA leave to have her baby and asks for the leave request form. 
Corrie is bored with her job. It hasn’t challenged her skills in years or put her in line for a promotion. She’s tried to find other jobs but the truth is that she’s unlikely to get a big enough salary increase to offset the loss of her current benefits package.
To pass the time and alleviate her boredom, she creates imaginary scenarios for her job. When her boss gives her a new assignment, she pretends its part of a great military plan, like Operation Overlord. She imagines herself working in a small office in London, helping plan the D-Day invasion.
When she takes a business trip, she pretends she’s an agent dropped into occupied France to support the French Resistance. As she drives, she thinks of the highway patrol as roving bands of collaborators looking for Resistance workers they can arrest and interrogate. When she checks in to a hotel, she scouts the lobby for exits in case she needs to beat a quick retreat from a Gestapo raid.
But Corrie stopped caring after the management team downsized the workforce. She’s survived several staff reductions since the first big cull of the herd by keeping her head down and her opinions to herself. She no longer volunteers for special projects but her past volunteerism means her boss considers her a “team player” and Corrie thinks that’s helped her keep her job.
Mae owns several coffee shops and has plans to add several more locations over the next year or two. She paid her way through college working in chain coffee shops. After graduation, she decided to stay in the city where she went to college rather than returning to her po-dunk hometown.
HR Compliance Jungle 