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HR practiceGuruRelationships 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.

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.


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