Thursday, July 03, 2008

Tales from the Corner office

One of my field staff lost her father last week. I always send flowers or a plant. Before the grand corporate merger, I would get an employee's address from a local HR rep. She directed me to corporate. After explaining the circumstances, twice, I get this e-mail a week later:

"I was asked by HR to clarify the process of requesting employee gifts / get well flowers / bereavement, ect. that require the use of employee addresses. In the past there may have been less controls on responding to manager requests for employee personal information, however, with recent changes on the legal landscape regarding employee privacy we would like protect our managers by keeping this info secure in HR. That way there is no question if an employee feels their info was mismanaged. We can gladly respond to any requests to send flowers on your behalf and use our corporate account. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Thank you for your understanding."


Of course I took out the names, before I shared. I almost fell off my chair. I wonder if this trio who prepared this e-mail really read what they wrote.

I'm not sure what world they live in, but I have never heard of an employee suing an employer for expressing their condolences.

The long weekend could not come soon enough.

Ugh

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