Evil Skippy At Work

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The Santa Scandals: Part One

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An anonymous source sent evidence to Evil Skippy @ Work about one of the biggest cover-ups never to see the light of day – until now. This is the first in a series of posts about one of the biggest breaking news stories of 2019: “The Santa Scandals.” We start with this confidential email to Santa Claus from North Pole International’s Human Resources Director dated December 25, 2018.  It was recently leaked to [email protected] by an anonymous but reputable source.

Congratulations on your anniversary with North Pole Holidays, International Inc. Everyone here appreciates your many contributions. Thanks to your hard work, you have become a de facto symbol of all we do this time of year. 

The joy of this happy occasion makes it all the more difficult for me to inform you that NPH is looking into complaints about your conduct. We direct you to report to our offices on Monday morning at 9:30 to meet with the private investigator we have hired to determine the validity of the allegations against you.  We realize you just completed a very busy work cycle, so we will do all in our power to expedite this review. 

The investigator will be looking into the following:

  1. Elves at our North Pole Workshop report that you do not comply with applicable minimum wage and overtime regulations. They claim that you require excessive hours and then pay them only with a subsistence level of milk and cookies. The elves also report multiple safety violations, primarily involving emergency exits blocked by wrapped toys and exposure to glue fumes. 
  2. Several customers report that you encourage minors to sit on your lap and “tell how bad they’ve been.” 
  3. Many youngsters reported in tears that they saw you trying to kiss their mothers underneath the mistletoe last night.
  4. Hundreds of municipalities reported you for reckless driving and for dumping toxic waste (reindeer excrement) on residential neighborhoods and in public water supplies. One town says your reckless driving resulted in the Christmas Eve death of a grandma.
  5. The ASPCA reports that you are under investigation for animal cruelty (working animals nearly to death; medical experiments to make noses glow bright red; allowing reindeer to harass others by laughing and calling each other names).
  6. Several law enforcement agencies notified us that a warrant has been issued for your arrest due to Breaking and Entering at millions of residences.
  7. NPH received over 5,000 citations for your illegal and unsafe sleigh parking.
  8. We have multiple reports of disrespectful behavior towards women. There are assertions that you repeatedly shout “Ho!” at women, particularly those traveling in threes.  One elf complains that you kept asking if she wanted to “jingle” your “bells” and to look at your “bowl of jelly.”

We are concerned that this is just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, there is a letter from the FAA sitting on my desk right now that I am afraid to open.

Please be on time for your meeting with the investigator. We would like to resolve these issues as soon as possible, hopefully within twelve days.

                                                      Sincerely,

                                                      Human Resources

Jim is available to speak at your conferences and seminars! For information (or to send a question for Evil Skippy to answer), use the “Contact” link on the left sidebar. Please follow us on Twitter @JimWebberLOL.

Ten Reasons Why The Workplace Should Be More Like ‘Survivor’

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Dear Evil Skippy:

My supervisor is a T.V. addict and he constantly compares our workplace to different shows. One of his favorite “learning tools” is to compare what we do to what happened on a particular program to point out how we can do it better. He’s used “Game of Thrones” and even “The Walking Dead”. Most of his examples don’t make sense and waste a lot of meeting time. Do you think it is possible to make him stop?

— Minion

Dear Minion:

Why stop him when you can beat him at his own game? Tell him you want to model your workplace on Survivor. When he asks why, give him one or more of my top ten reasons, below.

— Evil Skippy

Evil Skippy’s Top Ten Ways Work Should Be Like ‘Survivor’

  1. All sensitive conversations would be conducted while soaking in the clear water of a blue lagoon. #businesscasual
  2. The majority can vote the most irritating member of the team off the island. #blindside
  3. Immunity Idols, especially during layoff season. #ohnoyoudon’t
  4. Instead of meetings, councils are held by firelight in the pouring rain and accompanied by hungry, blood-sucking insects. That should keep them short. (I mean actual insects and not middle managers). “meetingssuck
  5. It’s O.K. to take naps while someone else does all the work because you are saving your strength for important projects. #slacker
  6. Lax dress codes. (This could have a huge downside, of course, depending on what your co-workers look like). #ewwww
  7. It’s not harassment to carry a torch. Whoops. Maybe not this one. #notyourgrandmastiki
  8. Easy documentation, thanks to all the cameras. #footinmouth
  9. Never again being annoyed because someone left wet paper towels all over the bathroom. #noplumbing
  10. No more awkward hygiene talks — because everyonestinks. #superfund

Jim is available to speak at your conferences and seminars! For information (or to send a question for Evil Skippy to answer), use the “Contact” link on the left sidebar. Please follow us on Twitter @JimWebberLOL.

Ten Top Interview Mistakes

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Dear Evil Skippy:

I am about to start looking for a new job.  What is the biggest mistake you have seen a candidate make during an interview?

Planning

Dear Planning:

Being old.

Sincerely,

Evil Skippy

P.S. People usually ask for tips about doing well, but not you. What are you planning? To make mistakes? If so, here’s a bucket list.

Ten Top Interview Mistakes

(As seen by Evil Skippy and/or Jim)

1.  Attempted to strangle the interviewer.  (See The Day Evil Skippy Nearly Died) 

2.  Offered the interviewer a $10 bribe (when the going rate was around $25).

3.  Announced while listing accomplishments that he had never been cautioned about touching people other than that “one time”.

4.  Asked the interviewer if it is true that Seattle is a gay city because he did not want to live near a bunch of queers.  (The interviewer who happened to be gay had not announced this information to the applicant for some reason).

5.  Came to the interview estimating she could make it through the process while knowing that she had started to have labor pains.   She estimated incorrectly.

6.  When asked where he thought he would be in two years, replied “Jail.”

7.  Promised that if he was hired he would not file a lawsuit “no matter what”.

8.  Confessed mid-interview that she was nervous because she had forgotten to wear underwear.

9.  Told the interviewer that interviewing any other applicants would not be necessary because God had revealed he would be getting an offer.

10. Answered his cell phone and said, “Sure, I can talk now. What’s up?”

Jim is available to speak at your conferences and seminars! For information (or to send a question for Evil Skippy to answer), use the “Contact” link on the left sidebar. Please follow us on Twitter @JimWebberLOL.

“OK Boomer” and the N-Word

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Dear Evil Skippy:

A radio host said boomer is the “n-word of ageism.”  He tweeted that “[b]eing hip and flip does not make bigotry ok, nor is a derisive epithet acceptable because it is new.”

What do you say?

— Not A Boomer

Dear NAB:

I say amen and hallelujah. If this is true, then I can finally do rap without leaving a lot of dead air when I don’t say that other word.

Love and hipness,

Evil Skippy

As an actual Boomer, some of my Boomer peers are starting to tell me how much they hate it when a younger person replies “OK Boomer” if they do something – well, Boomerish. They have asked me for a “cool, Evil Skippy retort” to use if they face the “rude insult”. 

Sorry. Can’t. My advice to my peers is to stop saying and doing dumb stuff.  There is one exception and that is if you are at work and someone is using “OK Boomer” (or other words) in a pervasive manner that offends you and would cause a reasonable Boomer to be offended (not merely annoyed). Age is a protected class under U.S. discrimination laws and harassing a co-worker based on a protected classe is illegal. Period.

The question of course is whether the offended Boomer is being “reasonable”. Therein lies the problem. It is a wide spectrum and overall context will be critical. The one thing I predict with confidence is that “OK Boomer” is not the N-word by a wide margin and saying it at work won’t set off the same kind of alarm bells. The words simply are not in the same league.

You do not have to take my word for it despite my decades of experience working to prevent discrimination and harassment. Word historians and experts say so. Dictionary.com tweeted in response to the radio host: 

“Boomer is an informal noun referring to a person born during a baby boom, especially one born in the U.S. between 1946 and 1965. The n-word is one of the most offensive words in the English language.” 

History sheds a bright light here. There is simply no record of removing Boomers from their homelands and enslaving them. There is no past and present of incarcerating Boomers in proportions that can’t be explained. There was no curse of elderly lynching. There are no “Central Park Boomers” who were framed for rape because of their age.

I am not saying ageism does not exist. It does and can be terrible. I am saying that we should focus on what matters and not on a trending response used when a person my age does something that younger people don’t like. Complaining about the generation before and after you is nothing new, so let’s save our angst for things that matter. 

If you are at work and someone says “OK Boomer” to you and it bugs you – talk to your boss or Human Resources (and maybe act your age and talk in a calm way with the person who bugged you if you feel comfortable doing so). If you are not at work and someone says “OK Boomer” to you, act like you didn’t hear and thank them for seeing things your way. It confuses them every time. (Also, try reflecting to see if you can tell why the other person said it. Perhaps there is some personal growth of your own that needs attention).

Now please excuse me. I am going to go work on my big rap number: “Boomer Got Back (Pain)”.

Jim is available to speak at your conferences and seminars! For information (or to send a question for Evil Skippy to answer), use the “Contact” link on the left sidebar. Please be sure to follow Jim’s com on Twitter @JimWebberLOL

How Do I Convince Management To Include Harassment Training At Orientation?

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Dear Evil Skippy:

I manage Human Resources for a mid-sized organization. Our employees all work in our office or in the field doing consumer-related research. I am trying to convince the company president that we should we should incorporate formal anti-harassment training in the session. She has been resistant to include the training during orientation and thinks our handbook does enough. You’ve worked in this field for so long, I think she might be swayed if you gave me two thumbs up.

Signed,

L.T. (not my real initials)

Dear L.T.:

How careful you are – fake initials. Between you and me, it would have met a higher level of privacy and safety if you hadn’t told us all that the initials are not really you.

It is a good thing you hid your identity because I want to slap you. “For so long”? Are you calling me elderly? I am going to get some fiber and take a nap to deal with this offense.  Answer your own damn question.

Love,

Evil Skippy

Please accept my most sincere apology for ES’s terrible attitude today. He took too long of a break and forgot to maintain his usual level of barely-minimal civility.

I commend you for your desire to include harassment training at an early stage of your employees’ employment. I also sympathize with the company president who is looking at a much bigger picture. She may be concerned that with so many things the new employees need to learn, spending a lot of time on the harassment rules is not justifiable.

So here is where semantics comes in. Stop calling it harassment “training”. Instead, call it Communicating Expectations and tell the company president that you will include a “brief explanation” of the company’s expectations regarding employee behavior at work – which will include the harassment policy. Brief can be ten minutes and that should me more than enough time.

I recently saw this in action when I had the opportunity to sit in on an interview and hiring session conducted by a performing arts organization. A company executive interviewed and auditioned a group of candidates.  After the hiring decision was made, the executive met with everyone who received an offer and explained what would happen during the next few days. She also communicated in no uncertain terms the company’s expectation that no one engage in harassing behavior and that anyone who experienced such behavior should report it immediately to her or any other company leader. It was strong, it was clear, it was brief and it did not sound like it had been drafted by an attorney.

Companies do need to conduct formal harassment training in order to maintain certain defenses in case a harassment case ends up in court. However, they also need to show that they are truly committed to creating and maintaining a work environment that is not tainted by harassing behavior.  Making a strong statement about the company’s harassment policy during recruitment and the hiring process is a great part of doing that.

Evil Skippy and/or Jim are available to speak at your conferences and seminars. For information or to send a question for Evil Skippy to answer, use the “Contact” link on the left sidebar.  Follow Jim’s comedy career on Twitter @JimWebberLOL

A Top Ten Birthday Wish

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Thanks for your patience as I lived some life without posting here. Yes, Jim is still training and investigating. Yes, Skippy is still zinging. There will even be news soon of an Evil Skippy Road Show — workplace ridiculousness in all its forms brought to the stage at your keynote conferences and retreats. Maybe even a podcast. (“WHAT?! That’s so unique”. — Evil Skippy)

Today really is my birthday. That’s me in the photo turning 62 at midnight last night — onstage doing stand up. I’ve been 62 for over seven and a half hours and I already feel more wise, more sage, more opinionated. Go ahead and ask for my advice — never mind that my main achievement yesterday was picking up a pen with my bare toes and surviving off day-old maple bars.

Before all of you swamp me with requests like every other year for what to give me (besides training and/or stand up bookings — go ahead and send those), please sit down and take a calming breath. Read my list of wishes. Accept that you can’t give me most of what I want. Go for my Wish No. 10 even if you don’t manage any of the others. You’re the best.

My Top Ten Birthday Wishes for 2019

  1. My perfect grandson Tristan, now 2 years old, never stops flashing his biggest smile when he sees me.
  2. A CEO somewhere hires an H.R. Manager who is not and has never been named “Pam”. (Pams — you are awesome but I have so much trouble keeping track of you.)
  3. No one says, “Is it really a good idea for an old white guy to teach Harassment Prevention?” (I’m gay so at least I have that going for me).
  4. People stop blaming the Baby Boomers for everything and look at the real culprits — that “Greatest” Generation. They could have stopped Hitler a lot sooner.
  5. A chance to thank Greta Thurnberg personally for setting an example for the world.
  6. Being able to tell my 20-year old self to listen to all types of music. I almost missed Kid Cudi and Mac Miller. (Oh yeah — buy Microsoft stock too).
  7. An EGOT. For me. Billy Porter is doing just fine on his own.
  8. More people follow my comedy on Twitter and Instagram (@JimWebberLOL).
  9. No offense birthday cake — I want pumpkin pie like Nana Webber used to make for me.
  10. You do something to be kind to a stranger and also something kind for yourself daily. (Yeah, that was two but I’m an old birthday boy so let it go).

My Employee Is Offended By A Devil Tattoo

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Dear Evil Skippy:

One of my employees has a devil tattoo on his lower arm. Another employee complained that this is a display of “Satanism” and it offends her. She is demanding that the employee be required to cover the tattoo at all times. She also says she will file a religious harassment lawsuit if we continue to “force her to be exposed to the devil”. I told her that I was sorry she felt bad but the other employee is within the workplace rules because the tattoo does not violate our dress code. She still says she is going to sue. What would you tell her?

— Supervisor

Dear Supervisor:

I’d tell her to go ahead and sue if she wants to pay for some lawyer’s vacation to Bora Bora. I’d also tell her that if she can’t stop staring at her male co-worker’s bare arm, she should see a therapist and be prepared to be disciplined for sexually harassing him with her unwanted attention. When she says she can’t imagine why you would accuse her of harassment, tell her the devil made you do it.

— Evil Skippy

Evil Skippy and/or Jim are available to speak at your conferences and seminars! For information or to send a question for Evil Skippy to answer, use the “Contact” link on the left sidebar.  You can also follow Jim’s comedy career on Twitter @JimWebberLOL.

How To Solve Your Problems (Or At Least One Of Them)

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Dear, Dear Readers:

Evil Skippy is branching out. Now, not only can you seek his wisdom about your workplace traumas — you can ask for advice about anything that life throws at you. Daddy issues? Bring ’em. Your sister stole your boyfriend? We can help. Don’t know how to handle Uncle Burt at the next reunion? You’re covered.

Better yet, for the first time ever you can get the wisdom of Two Webbers at the same time. My daughter Claire will be joining me dispensing advice + comedy in “Family Affairs.” It’s a live show in the works; it’s a future podcast — and you can get in on the ground floor.

Send your question(s) to “Dear Claire and Her Dad”, [email protected] and why not follow me on Twitter (@JimWebberLOL) while you’re at it?

Many thanks,

Jim

Open Door Policies + Bathrooms: Part Two

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Dear Evil Skippy –

Your advice to “Reaching Wit’s End” this week gave great advice for supervisors, but what about when it’s your boss who is invading your bathroom privacy?  Almost every time I go into the bathroom, she calls.  It drives me nuts.  What can I do?

–  Going Crazy

Dear Going Crazy –

Don’t answer.  Duh.

–  Evil Skippy

I can’t add much to Evil Skippy’s advice, although I might have kept the “duh” to myself.  Maybe.

Unless your supervisor is watching for you to go into the restroom and then dialing, the calls may simply be a matter of awkward coincidence.  Return the messages promptly and you will probably never have to talk about bathroom time with her.  You want some of her calls to go to voicemail anyway.  If you always answer, she will soon start thinking that you must not be very busy and there go your future raises and promotions.

If your supervisor does challenge your failure to answer calls while in the restroom, inform her that Good Housekeeping and the International Center for Bathroom Etiquette are on your side.

Then start looking for another job.  Life is too short to work for a wing nut like that.

Evil Skippy and/or Jim are available to speak at your conferences and seminars! For information or to send a question for Evil Skippy to answer, use the “Contact” link on the left sidebar.  You can also follow Jim’s comedy career on Twitter @JimWebberLOL.

Open Door Policies + Bathrooms: Yikes

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Dear Evil Skippy –

My management team and I are having a heck of a time weaning our employees off of being overly dependent on us.  They need help for every little thing they do. It has got to the point where they will hunt me down while I’m using the bathroom to ask me a question! As you can imagine it makes it quite awkward to explain a process that takes about a couple of minutes while I am indisposed and trying to take care of my own business. I acknowledge the fact that since I work retail I will always have younger employees but I don’t remember being THAT dependent for help when I was starting out! How do I wean them off of always asking for help with even simple tasks and while not putting off the vibe that I’m unwilling to assist them when they truly need it?

-Reaching Wit’s End

Evil Skippy’s Five Suggestions for “Reaching Wit’s End”

  1. Revise your open door policy to clarify that it does not apply to the restroom.   Be specific.  Bold, all caps, extra large font saying “THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO THE BATHROOM” might suffice.
  2. Pretend you can’t hear.  Once you return to the work area (the employee may be following and jabbering the whole way), miraculously regain your hearing and say, “Due to a rare genetic condition, I become deaf whenever I am in a restroom.  Were you saying something?”
  3. If you are in a stall with the door closed when the intruder strikes, manufacture bodily function noises.  Loud ones.  Ask any ten year old boy how to do so, or you can buy noise machines on-line.
  4. Wait for the employee to go into the restroom.  Count to ten, slowly, then go in and say, “Is now a good time to give you your evaluation?” 
  5. Avoid the restroom when at work.  How?  Two words:  Stadium Pal.

Once again, Evil Skippy’s ideas are tempting.

Here’s a better plan.  Talk to the intrusive employees one by one in private (but not in the restroom.  That would be confusing due to the message you will impart).  You’ll say something like this:

It’s been great that you haven’t hesitated to ask for my opinion or advice about things as you’ve been learning the job. However, you are now at the point where you should no longer need to ask about routine things or questions that can easily be answered with our resources such as [insert your operations’ examples here].  I don’t want to discourage questions, but the questions should just be about things that you are not able to resolve on your own.

While we are on the topic of questions, I know that I told you when you first started that I am always available for them.  I’ve realized that I went too far when I said that.   I don’t want to take questions when I am in the restroom, OK?   Great.  I’m glad you understand.

After these conversations, include the employees’ progress toward more independence in their evaluations.  Also, after the employees’ successes (or failures), make use of the coaching and documentation techniques described in Evil Skippy at Work’s article “Daily Performance Management – ‘I.T.S.’ Fundamental”, here.

I hope this helps and that all your future bathroom breaks are private ones.Evil Skippy and/or Jim are available to speak at your conferences and seminars! For information or to send a question for Evil Skippy to answer, use the “Contact” link on the left sidebar.  You can also follow Jim’s comedy career on Twitter @JimWebberLOL.