• i wanted some (unregistered)

    Wow, has nobody here ever met a liar.

    What reason did she have in believing that he was the owner of the company he worked for.

    What she did wrong was believing the phone number was correct. She should have verified the phone number from an alternate source.

  • RJ (unregistered)

    My reply would have been: "So you are telling me this company actually creates processes to make people look dumb and stupid?"

    Too bad you can't tell us which company it is... wouldn't want to work with people like that, not even for a million (it will probably never end up in my account anyway, the finance department probably has its own remarkable process).

  • Andy (unregistered) in reply to TheRider
    TheRider:
    PoweRoy:
    Read this one a while back on this site already?
    Most probably. That's why it's in the category "Best of the Sidebar". And this may be a hint, too: "Originally posted to the sidebar by "snoofle"..."

    The green header is a clue. Green headers have been here before in the sidebar.

  • Bitter Like Quinine (unregistered)

    Of course, the real WTF is that his consulting company gave out his personal details just like that.

    Her: (into the phone) Could you please verify the dates of Snoofle's employment at VirtuDyne, Intelligenuity and Initech? Me: I'm sorry, we can't give out personal information on an employee without their permission. [...]

    I'd have insisted that I call myself and authorise me to give out my employment history. Mind you, I'd require some definite proof from myself that it was me calling.

    (I'd also call myself on my mobile the first few times and, having not got through, tell the secretary that I must be busy and I'll try myself again in a couple of minutes.)

  • BlueCollarAstronaut (unregistered) in reply to jk
    jk:
    jtl:
    Secretaries have it hard. My fiance' was fired for not picking up the phone before the 2nd ring.

    could have been worse, (s)he could have been fired for not picking up the phone before the 1st ring...

    My wife was fired from the psychic hotline for that.

  • (cs) in reply to RJ
    RJ:
    Too bad you can't tell us which company it is... wouldn't want to work with people like that, not even for a million (it will probably never end up in my account anyway, the finance department probably has its own remarkable process).

    Don't blame finance, that is called government!

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to i wanted some
    i wanted some:
    Wow, has nobody here ever met a liar.

    What reason did she have in believing that he was the owner of the company he worked for.

    What she did wrong was believing the phone number was correct. She should have verified the phone number from an alternate source.

    How exactly would you verify that? I can set up a S-corp for not much and put it on my resume; the only thing you could really try is calling the people I claim to have contracted to, but they aren't obligated to respond.

  • Enrique (unregistered)

    Wow that's the closest thing I've heard to that weird creepy scene in Lost Highway where the guy calls his home and the guy in front of him answers...

  • Foundit66 (unregistered)

    You think that's bad? I knew a guy who similarly stuck to this process without exception. There was a point in his life where he was thinking of going "self-employed", and when he tried to call himself to verify his own employment ...

    It was a very short experiment, as he had to reject himself as an employee...

  • Wendy (unregistered)

    Yes that sounds like Reality LOL

  • TJ (unregistered)

    you should have hung up halfway through the call and see if she called back, then start faking static and tell her you are going through a tunnel

  • Iris (unregistered)

    Remember, this was HR. They operate in their own time space continuum, by their own rules of operation and physics.

    Second, this is like receiving a phone call from someone who ways they are soliciting for a charity, and they want your credit card number. If you ask them to prove who they are, and they give you a phone number to call, are you going to trust they're legit? I don't give a cc number over the phone to anyone who phones me. If I call them, from another source for the phone number (catalog, snail mail) that's a different case. Don't tell me you haven't seen all those phishing e-mails telling you your PayPal/Citibank/IRS account is bad and you need to use the link below to fix it.

  • Sean (unregistered)

    What you should have done was, pick up the phone when she called you and said "I am sorry, I am in an interview at the moment, I'll have to call you back later with this information."

    hahahaha its still funny though.

  • one dude on the interweb (unregistered)

    TRWTF is that she was FLIRTING with you, and you didn't realize it.

  • Paul (unregistered) in reply to BlueCollarAstronaut
    BlueCollarAstronaut:
    jk:
    jtl:
    Secretaries have it hard. My fiance' was fired for not picking up the phone before the 2nd ring.

    could have been worse, (s)he could have been fired for not picking up the phone before the 1st ring...

    My wife was fired from the psychic hotline for that.

    I bet she saw it coming.

    Dignissim--70's era social disease of thinking you, and only you, look cool. Can you dig?

  • joey (unregistered) in reply to Tuomas

    I think the secretary was pulling your leg. You missed it.

  • Paul (unregistered)

    I work for a large small business (just under 1000 employees). The corporated HQ has 6 people. The hr/personnel department has 1 person. So when she filled out a loan application, and the bank called to verify she worked here, we had to tell them the only person who could answer the question was out of the office--at the bank.

    validus--authorized to work in the US

  • (cs) in reply to C. F. Martin
    C. F. Martin:
    Recently, at a local drug store, A woman went into diabetic shock. A nurse, further back in line made the clerk-monkey get an emergency kit and a container of OJ which she used to save the diabetic's life. The clerk-monkey threatened to call the police if nobody paid for the items right there on the spot.

    It made the news and the drugstore reimbursed the nurse for the 25$ worth of stuff the clerk-monkey thought she had "stolen."

    Less and less speeple are capable of thought to the point where common sense is becoming a rarity.

    It's a shame really.

    I hope that bozo was summarily fired for being an idiot. If he had refused to get the kit and OJ, I would have tried his ass for murder.

  • (cs) in reply to real_aardvark
    real_aardvark:
    srdaniel:
    This is fake, it can not be real.
    You've picked one too many letters out of the Scrabble bag again, haven't you?

    If you're referring to "can not", last I checked, space isn't a letter. It is cannot or can't. So, if we correct this, it becomes:

    This is fake; it cannot be real.

    Wasn't that fun? .....Sarcasm for, get a life......

  • AC (unregistered) in reply to JimM
    JimM:
    Anyone know if agilesecretary.com has been taken yet?

    I do:

    No match for "AGILESECRETARY.COM".

    Last update of whois database: Fri, 30 May 2008 15:18:44 EDT <<<

  • Alfonso Rabbit (unregistered)

    He could have really played with her head:

    Snoofle (answering cell phone): Hello, ___________ Consulting.

    Secretary: May I speak to Mr. Snoofle, please?

    Snoofle: I'm sorry, Mr. Snoofle died last week. This is Mr. Jones, the new president. May I help you?

    Secretary: Yes, this is Paula from Initrode Global, calling in reference to Mr. Snoofle's employment.

    Snoofle: I'll have to transfer you to Mr. Smith in Human Resources. Can you hold a minute? (holds phone away from ear for 30 seconds).

    Snoofle (in a different lower-pitched voice): This is Smith, can I help you.

    Secretary: Yes, this is Paula from Initrode Global, calling in reference to Mr. Snoofle's employment.

    Snoofle: Hold on a minute, I'll have to check my files. (holds phone away from ear for 1 minute).

    Snoofle: Yes, I can confirm that Mr. Snoofle was our chief consultant from April 2002 through March 2008.

    Secretary: Thank you very much.

    (They both hang up.)

    Snoofle (directly to secretary): What did they say?

    Secretary: They confirmed your employment. Thank you.

  • XTemp (unregistered)

    Eh, having done my share in the trenches, I can see myself doing something stupid merely because thinking through the consequences of not following the Almighty Process would be more trouble than just doing it. Of course I would have thrown in a joke like asking on the phone "is there any reason he wouldn't want you to talk about his employment there? Because just a minute ago he was acting kind of reluctant to give us your contact information."

  • TomatoQueen (unregistered)

    Now I know which ones of you lot I'd never want to work for.

    CAPTCHA: ludus, the Latin word for work, as well as for play.

  • (cs) in reply to ObiWayneKenobi
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    C. F. Martin:
    Recently, at a local drug store, A woman went into diabetic shock. A nurse, further back in line made the clerk-monkey get an emergency kit and a container of OJ which she used to save the diabetic's life. The clerk-monkey threatened to call the police if nobody paid for the items right there on the spot.

    It made the news and the drugstore reimbursed the nurse for the 25$ worth of stuff the clerk-monkey thought she had "stolen."

    Less and less speeple are capable of thought to the point where common sense is becoming a rarity.

    It's a shame really.

    I hope that bozo was summarily fired for being an idiot. If he had refused to get the kit and OJ, I would have tried his ass for murder.

    It's not clear to me why the store is just expected to take the loss on something like that - for PR purposes it may be a good idea, but have we really, as a society gotten to a point where it's immoral to expect payment for use of a product?

    I mean, if he just said "I'm going to call the cops" out of the blue, that's one thing, but if he's already asked, what right does the victim have to refuse to pay? Seems similar to hospitals sending a bill for emergency room/ambulance, see how far you get refusing to pay those.

    (I get the impression from your story that the immediate danger had in fact already passed before he demanded payment - if he'd made them ring it up before opening the kit or OJ, I'd agree that's horrible. But without that, he's not endangering someone's life, and there's nothing morally wrong with a policy of "you use it, you buy it")

  • God Bless You Process-Following Secretary (unregistered)

    Leave the secretary alone! She was probably just doing her job which is to follow the process.

    She probably had tried before to use her own judgement about when to follow the process. She had probably been threatened by her boss that she would lose her job if she didn't follow the process.

    She probably had a husband that wasn't very imagninative and encouraged her to only follow processes. She probably thought about having an affair on her husband but couldn't imagine how to find a boyfriend. She probably was thinking about having an affair with a woman instead, because she was TOTALLY flirting with this clueless geek by saying she had to call his own phone to check his self-employment.

    She had probably been brainwashed by the creators of the process so she couldn't imagine thinking for herself. And the brainwashing was probably totally efective because it used alien technology which is who probably created the process the secretary had to follow.

    Probably she wasn't really brainwashed but was just playing along and buying time, because if she didn't follow the process the alien invaders would have realized the brainwashing wasn't effective on humans and probably would have had to move up their invasion schedule.

    So leave her alone! She probably just saved the entire world and humanity by following that process!

    At least that's what I read in the article... probably.

  • (cs) in reply to Iris
    Iris:
    Remember, this was HR. They operate in their own time space continuum, by their own rules of operation and physics.

    Second, this is like receiving a phone call from someone who ways they are soliciting for a charity, and they want your credit card number. If you ask them to prove who they are, and they give you a phone number to call, are you going to trust they're legit? I don't give a cc number over the phone to anyone who phones me. If I call them, from another source for the phone number (catalog, snail mail) that's a different case. Don't tell me you haven't seen all those phishing e-mails telling you your PayPal/Citibank/IRS account is bad and you need to use the link below to fix it.

    Interesting you should make the comparison with a different space time continuum.

    Apparently, Alan Sugar on the "The Apprentice" once "fired" a candidate who had a degree in physics with the words "This isn't about protons and neutrons, mate: this is the real world."

    To which I would have answered, "I think they've mis-spelled it on the auto-cue, Sir Alan. This is the retail world."

  • (cs) in reply to Pecos Bill
    Pecos Bill:
    real_aardvark:
    srdaniel:
    This is fake, it can not be real.
    You've picked one too many letters out of the Scrabble bag again, haven't you?

    If you're referring to "can not", last I checked, space isn't a letter. It is cannot or can't. So, if we correct this, it becomes:

    This is fake; it cannot be real.

    Wasn't that fun? .....Sarcasm for, get a life......

    No, it was referring to the choice of srdaniel as a moniker.

    It was a barrel of laughs ... get a Scrabble set.

    I'm sure I don't need to explain this to you, but srdaniel is an anonymous poster. There's been a plague of anonymous posters on this site whose sole response to any OP is "This is bollocks." (I paraphrase.)

    I'm rather hoping that ridicule will drive them away. Failing that, I'm going to try mace next.

  • Bill Lumbergh (unregistered) in reply to Pecos Bill
    Pecos Bill:
    real_aardvark:
    srdaniel:
    This is fake, it can not be real.
    You've picked one too many letters out of the Scrabble bag again, haven't you?

    If you're referring to "can not", last I checked, space isn't a letter. It is cannot or can't. So, if we correct this, it becomes:

    This is fake; it cannot be real.

    Wasn't that fun? .....Sarcasm for, get a life......

    'can not' is as valid 'cannot'.

  • Vulcan (unregistered)

    Your call was being recorded. Didn't you realize?

  • moz (unregistered) in reply to Alfonso Rabbit
    Alfonso Rabbit:
    He could have really played with her head:
    He could have. It may not have sounded quite so amusing when the call was played back in a meeting with her, her boss and your new boss because the company couldn't rely on a call like that as evidence of anything and she didn't have the authority to remove it from the records.
  • Watching the Watchers (unregistered)

    I like the idea that she has to make every call, because someone in another department might be reviewing the recordings of all her calls to make sure she's following the process.

    But do they have a process for which calls from which departments to review?

    And who is making sure that that department is reviewing all the calls that other departments are making?

  • (cs) in reply to TomatoQueen
    TomatoQueen:
    Now I know which ones of you lot I'd never want to work for.

    CAPTCHA: ludus, the Latin word for work, as well as for play.

    Like, for example, people who are so stupid that they obsessive-compulsively post their captchas?

  • Dude (unregistered) in reply to Winslow Theramin
    Winslow Theramin:
    Another made up story. How stupid do you think we are? This simply never happened.

    Actually, we think that YOU are quite incredibly stupid.

  • Troublemaker (unregistered)

    I'd have wasted her time by telling her I had to go look that up and then putting her on hold for a couple minutes. Maybe popped off for a cup of coffee or something.

  • (cs) in reply to Random832
    Random832:
    C. F. Martin:
    It made the news and the drugstore reimbursed the nurse for the 25$ worth of stuff the clerk-monkey thought she had "stolen."
    It's not clear to me why the store is just expected to take the loss on something like that - for PR purposes it may be a good idea, but have we really, as a society gotten to a point where it's immoral to expect payment for use of a product?
    In certain circumstances, yes. Or, on second thought, maybe we should charge China and Myanmar for the aid being sent...
    Random832:
    ...what right does the victim have to refuse to pay?
    Read again. She didn't refuse. She paid and left. When the matter went public, the drugstore decided it was in their best interest (a financial decision, not an altruistic one) to refund her the money she had paid.
  • Freddy (unregistered)

    This sounds like a Dr. Katz episode.

  • (cs) in reply to Bitter Like Quinine
    Bitter Like Quinine:
    Of course, the real WTF is that his consulting company gave out his personal details just like that.

    Her: (into the phone) Could you please verify the dates of Snoofle's employment at VirtuDyne, Intelligenuity and Initech? Me: I'm sorry, we can't give out personal information on an employee without their permission. [...]

    An employer can confirm employment and dates of employment.

  • eric76 (unregistered)

    I used to wonder about a form I had to sign every year saying that I hadn't bribed any foreign officials during the year.

    They got real upset one year when I signed it with a pencil instead of a pen.

    If you actually read the form, all you were really signed was a form saying that you were or were not describing any bribing of foreign officials in the previous 12 months on that form.

    In other words, instead of something like "I haven't bribed any foreign officials ...", it was something like "I'm not diclosing any information about bribing foreign officials ...". Of course, the actual wording took up at least one whole page.

    The closest I came to a foreign border the entire time I worked there was to a regional DECUS in San Antonio, so I never really had any opportunity had I wanted to bribe any foreign officials.

  • Emhodew (unregistered) in reply to real_aardvark

    My current employer wouldn't take my work that I was self employed before working for them. (they had called me on the phone to verify)They made me put my wife on the phone and asked her if I had been self employed.

  • Enjoy My Current Job A Whole Lot (unregistered) in reply to Jared
    Jared:
    I actually think she did the correct thing. If you have a company policy then you are obligated to follow that policy even when it makes sense (so long as it is within the laws, not immoral, etc.). For example, another article was about someone who got fired on the spot after handing a child a 15 cent candy in order to stop the kid from screaming and disrupting other customers. Doesn’t make sense, but the rule was that no “freebies” were to be given. Period. If a company has a rule, and your boss is a dick and wants to fire you, then you follow the rule even though it’s completely stupid and counter productive.

    In America, at-will employment is the norm. If your boss wants to fire you, he/she can for any reason or no reason at all. Likewise, you are free to quit for any reason or no reason at all.

    Stop worrying about your job like a rat scurrying in the darkness. If you "need" the particular job you work (as opposed to the many equivalent positions at equivalent employers all around the country), then there is something wrong with your spending/credit habits.

    After you fix this, always do the right/sensible thing. If the boss yells at you for fixing a bad customer experience with a free candy, then take off the smock, hand it to him, and walk out the door. Believe it or not, there are great employers out there who are desperately searching for people with common sense. Finding you, they'll empower you and not double-guess your judgment at every turn.

    Or, keep scurrying like a rat.

  • (cs) in reply to Enjoy My Current Job A Whole Lot
    Enjoy My Current Job A Whole Lot:
    In America, at-will employment is the norm. If your boss wants to fire you, he/she can for any reason or no reason at all.

    What america are you living in? Do that and you open yourself up to a lawsuit. Ever hear of "wrongful termination?"

  • Anonymous coward (unregistered) in reply to John

    Captcha: facilisi

  • (cs) in reply to Mel

    This person reminds me of the computer labs in high school. In theory, if you needed a computer to finish homework, you just go in and use one. Good luck finding one, though, because girls would come in, sit at two computers right next to eachother, and spend the entire time talking over MSN Messenger. Despite being about 18 inches apart. I bet she was one of these people. (And yes, talking was allowed, as long as you weren't being loud and distracting. Or they could have just talked somewhere else, as they never did any actual work anyway.)

    Peter Gibbins:
    This story would be great if it were real. Do you recognize my name? You should if you worked at Initech, which you didn't because it is a fictional company. Next time you make up a story try some original material.
    Anonymization.
    Befuddled:
    The process is always to blame, not the people, and when things go wrong everything is fixed by changing the process to include a step to check for that specific thing going wrong.
    Sadly, I know someone who does web security this way. Every time the site gets hacked or someone points out a hole, he adds a filter to block the exact, specific string used in the exploit. But any of the tens of thousands of equivalent variations will still get through.
  • Wyle_E (unregistered) in reply to Tuomas

    There are few things as infuriating as dealing with a human who insists on acting like a bot. I once actually told a cable company phone monkey (after the third time she told me to "Push the 'program' button on your cable box" and I told her that I had only a basic subscription, and had no box)

    BREAK! BREAK! BREAK! Script HALT! Resume human consciousness NOW! Are you awake now?

    It didn't work. I had to chant "Call your supervisor" until she switched my call to someone with authority to act human.

  • sure (unregistered)

    If anyone actually believes this story, please send your life savings to [email protected]

  • jeez (unregistered)

    she was flirting with you, dumbass.

    you should have told her that you think she'd like your old boss, and offer to set her up with him.

  • fragbot (unregistered)

    bot!

  • (cs) in reply to NCBloodhound
    NCBloodhound:
    Enjoy My Current Job A Whole Lot:
    In America, at-will employment is the norm. If your boss wants to fire you, he/she can for any reason or no reason at all.

    What america are you living in? Do that and you open yourself up to a lawsuit. Ever hear of "wrongful termination?"

    In a "right to work" state there is no such thing a wrongful termination. An employer can fire you for anything they damn well please, so long a they don't make it seem like blatant racism or sexism. So, they can fire you because you're black, but they have to make it look like it's NOT because you're black, and you can't do shit about it unless you have proof that they fired you because you're black but made it look like it wasn't because you were black.

    Wrongful termination is very hard to prove - you basically need hardcore evidence that some charges were being trumped up to get rid of you, and most of the time the state will believe the employer over a "bitter" employee

  • rexxi12 (unregistered)

    oookay..eventhough my english aren't so good, i understand that conversation...sigh...what's in her head anywayy?

  • K von M (unregistered)

    what's really sad is that as an executive assistant, i totally understand the procedures thing. i also understand that idiots like that one are what give those in my profession a bad name.

    if she'd had half a brain, it wouldn't have just been "i have to call to confirm", it would be "dude, i know this sounds ridiculous, but these calls get tracked and recorded... so please, bear with me."

    but wait, that's giving her too much credit. i have never, in my life (both as an admin and as a recruiter) heard of anyone confirming job history WHILE THE CANDIDATE/EMPLOYEE IS SITTING THERE. that's just insanely unprofessional. i won't even go into the ethical problems of calling the candidate themselves as the reference for the job history. you never, EVER do that. if it turned out to be fraudulent, a blithe "i followed procedure and called the company" wouldn't save her ass from being booted out the door.

    to be a good admin, you have to know when to follow procedure and when not to. you have to be able to say "this isn't going to apply to this situation, no matter how set in stone it may be." and you have to have the balls to tell your boss "following procedure X would have caused a conflict of ethics." if he still fires you, it's his own damn fault.

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