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HR practiceRelationships at work

Filthy swab forced to walk the plank

by Personnel Today 21 Mar 2006
by Personnel Today 21 Mar 2006

Quite often Guru is accused of ‘taking the p*ss’. This apparently is a bad thing. However, if you follow this idea to its logical conclusion, surely it means that if you give the p*ss then that has to be a positive thing. Sadly, Guru’s over-elaborate thought processes don’t seem to hold water, especially for our expansionist cousins across the Atlantic.

A women’s hospital in Baton Rouge in the US is investigating who filled a workman’s toolbox with urine while he was away on holiday. So far no one has come forward so the hospital has taken the next obvious step and is to spend $25,000 on DNA testing its staff in a bid to discover the culprit.

Stan Shelton, vice-president of HR at the hospital, told a local news station: “We checked with our legal counsel first… and this is the next step in using technology to help solve a workplace incident.”

Now, 25 staff face the sack if they don’t accept the test, which will be performed through the “use of a cotton swab”. It doesn’t say where this swab will be used, but Guru wouldn’t fancy being the last in the queue.

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If this isn’t enough proof of how wrong practical jokes are wont to go in the workplace, Guru has discovered a brilliant case from back in 2002 involving a waitress at restaurant chain Hooters.

The staff were told that the person who sold the most beer would get a free Toyota. The winning waitress, one Jodee Berry, went to collect her prize and her manager handed her a cuddly toy in the shape of Star Wars character Yoda. That’s a ‘Toy Yoda’ for those of you who are confused.
Jodee clearly didn’t find this as funny as the manager did and sued Hooters. A year later she got her car after a protracted law suit.


Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

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