This week’s guru
BA bites off more than it can chew in sausage row
Staff at British Airways threatened to walk out in a row over a sausage.
The incident started when a member of cabin crew offered a leftover sausage
to one of BA’s drivers. The driver was subsequently suspended because,
according to BA, under its policies removing the offending sausage constituted
"theft".
A spokeswoman said that the company’s policy was that it had a zero
tolerance approach to anyone caught taking any items from an aircraft.
The driver’s colleagues refused to work following his suspension. He was
eventually reinstated and given a written warning.
Coincidentally, Guru has just been banned from the bedroom by Mrs Guru over
a remarkably similar disagreement.
Jobseekers need to get a life
Guru is disappointed to learn that most jobseekers waste the opportunity to
impress a potential employer by putting dull, vague or meaningless hobbies on
their CV.
A survey of 500 HR managers by Fish4Jobs claims that 72 per cent of
jobseekers waste their chance to differentiate themselves from other candidates
by using the hobby section of their CV to list unspecific pastimes like
‘travelling’ or ‘keeping fit’.
Other popular hobbies in the research included ‘reading’, ‘socialising’ and
‘music’.
One in five jobseekers claim to be interested in ‘cinema’, 17 per cent say
they like ‘travel’ and 9 per cent list an interest in ‘theatre’ on their CV.
Guru’s current CV highlights his interests as underwater exploration, the
occult, the history of the Chieftain tank and flower arranging – revealing the
full breadth of his personality.
Dutch cops have to fight for jobs
Dutch police are being given new lessons in how to fight because of fears
they are not hard enough on the job. The lessons have been introduced after
repeated criticisms of police officers for backing down from violent criminals.
Previously, officers had to prove only that they were competent with firearms
to show they were up to standard. But now they are being given special
additional training in hand-to-hand combat and at arresting violent offenders.
Guru is not surprised Dutch officers are not used to arresting hardened
criminals – the country has mostly reacted to law breaking by simply
decriminalising anything illegal. Haven’t got the resources to deal with drugs
and prostitution? Easy, just legalise it. Guru suggests Dutch police simply go
with the flow, sample an exotic cheroot and instead of arresting suspects just
give them a big group hug.
Guru unveils the naked truth
Despite his reservations, Guru enjoyed meeting the readers on the Personnel
Today stand at the CIPD conference.
And while, most people were complimentary about our controversial Naked
Truth issue (22 October), which aimed to challenge the profession, he did talk
to a few anxious disciples.
Angry from Andover felt that showing naked bottoms on the front cover was a cheap,
tabloid device. The response: there was nothing cheap about it at all – Mr and
Mrs Guru charged a lot of money to take their clothes off, wear wigs and walk
down that desolate train track.
Worried from Wendover pointed out that it is very dangerous to walk down
train tracks. This is true. Guru pointed out that every endeavour was made to
ensure their safety (there were plenty of leaves on the line), and he’d like to
take the opportunity to warn readers to not try this at home.
More positive comments, included "well done, for not letting HR get
complacent", "tackling the productivity gap has to be the
priority", and "nice arse".
This made Guru’s head swell and he lavished fabulous gifts on these people –
well, mouse mats and bags. Get in touch with something funny at guru@personneltoday.com and you too
could receive a ‘fabulous gift’.
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