Tales From The Crypt: Corporate and Consulting Life

True stories from 25+ years in corporate and consulting life…

1. The leader of an area openly bragging about her newly purchased vacation home while conducting a termination meeting.

2. A small cooperative (<300 employees) wanting to conduct a pay equity study. The objective job evaluation results clearly showed the the positions dominated by women were equal in job size and job content to the positions dominated by men, and hence should be paid on par. They said thanks we will take it from here. The head of HR then changed the data to maintain the status quo. Doubly sad and ironic was this study was undertaken to ensure gender pay equity under federal legislation and the Head of HR was female.

3. A male Manager had 16 women and 3 men apply for a job in his area. All 19 were internal candidates and had nearly identical educations and experience yet only the 3 men were shortlisted. When this was brought to his attention he was of course offended/defensive that anyone would suggest such a thing. It bothered him so much he even called all 16 women that same evening and told them the reason they weren’t being interviewed wasn’t because they were women. This prompted calls to HR from the women saying WTF is going on???

4. A 60s white male HR VP, a complete bully, very aggressive and obese…a meeting was held in a very narrow conference room and his chair collapsed under him, physically pinning himself between the wall and the table while he yelled at everyone to get him out…awkward for everyone.

5. VP advertised for the job of one of his Directors while the person was still in the job. Naturally this person saw the job posting and the VP tried to chalk it up to a typo but when pressed admitted he didn’t want him around anymore. Most ironically, is it was the VP of Human Resources who did this for a job that reported to him.

6. Vice-President A has an affair with one of his direct reports B. Company moves VPA to a make-work new VP role to remove the direct reporting relationship. The new person hired into VPA has major friction with direct report B (both women). VPA who was moved, intervenes, basically saying hey go easy on my gf. All 3 had to be fired.

7. Consultant asked to coach a manager (male engineer from another country) who is rough with people but the HR person says she thinks he is fine and everyone else is wrong (they weren’t - the guy was a complete idiot). Two coaching sessions later, it is discovered that the HR person is his wife. Truth!

8. Global consulting firm specializing in talent management appoints an extraverted, not-well-travelled, 50s American white male to be the leader of the South East Asia Region. At his first all-staff meeting in Indonesia, he says, “Cool that ya’ll wear Hawaii shirts to work,” not knowing that colourful motif garments are a core part of Indonesian religion

9. An industrial company with operations in Canada, USA, Mexico was standardizing their maintenance processes across all 3 countries. It was determined that Mexico was furthest along in the implementation of a new system (parts, workorders, inventories, job packages, etc.) so it was determined to replicate this approach. The accidental outcome was everything in the system in all 3 countries was overwritten with the Spanish version. It took 3 months to get things corrected. The North Americans said they actually learned some Spanish!

10. A mining company where a new Chief Operating Officer (COO) started work and aggressively declared the company will now use a certain piece of equipment because it’s the best and what he used where he used to work - no questions asked. Questions later got asked when the new equipment showed up on site and it was obvious it would not fit down into the mine shaft.

11. A talent management company, during covid, tweeting out that leaders should show empathy during these challenging times while simultaneously terminating 60% of their own workforce in one Zoom call and forcing the others to take a mandatory 25% salary reduction for the next 12 months.

12. Company in midst of covid, with 30% of their people on layoff, externally advertising the very same jobs of the people on layoff. When questioned by the some of the people on layoff, their response was, oh we didn’t realize that and its a different division.

13. Organization where CEO hired her unqualified son to be her CFO and centralized all decision making and approving to her office and began directing funds to their own bank accounts.

14. Guy who discloses to his supervisor that he might need some time off work but isn’t sure when or how long. When asked for details, he says well I have some drug trafficking charges pending and I might be going to jail but I’m just not sure when or how long.

15. The time 8 unionized employees on the nightshift were downloading so much porn they actually crashed the corporate IT network. An investigation clearly showed what sign-in credentials were used, who downloaded what and when, and video cameras in the control room recoded everything. The government appointed union-friendly VP HR decided the company wouldn’t be able to do anything because the company didn’t specifically have an anti-porn policy (the company had 5 other policies that covered it ex: time thief, personal use of corporate assets, etc.).

16. The employee with a visual and hearing impairment who was routinely downloading and listening to porn at work on full volume with his office door wide open. Took 5-6 complaints and documented examples of the behaviour for him to be terminated because the VP HR said he couldn’t fire a diversity hire.

17. The police show up at the office wanting to talk about corporate vehicles. They proceed to describe how 2 company trucks with corporate logos on fully display and their unit #’s clearly visible were observed on a 5 block stretch well-known for prostitution. They circled the area 15 times in a 60 minute period, with a woman getting into each vehicle. Nothing was done.

18. The employee on an attendance-management program who insisted he wasn’t well enough to return to work yet, but said he was well enough to put his name back on the overtime roster to take overtime shifts.

19. The vice president who was politically appointed, very assertive, and asked all 60 staff for their resumes on Day 3 on-the-job. When his 3 managers suggested this might be a bit unnerving for people, he called a mandatory meeting for the next day over the lunch hour (staff thought they were all going to get fired). At the meeting he said…I’ve been given feedback that I’ve come on a bit strong so I’ve reflected on that and I want to say: this it me, take-it-or-leave-it, you better get used to it because this is me and I can’t change. 0 self-awareness and 0 self-managing. He was a disaster of a leader who lasted less than 3 years.

20. Consultant who, while running a workshop, and attempting to provide an example of ‘accountability,’ said to the group, “When I travel for work I tell my wife and 2 kids that this house better be perfectly clean when I get home or there will be hell to pay, because I like things neat and tidy.” Total silence from the group.

21. I’m co-facilitating a workshop with another Canadian consultant in San Francisco in Nov 2016 only a few weeks after Trump was first elected. Our consulting firm had sent out communications saying: politics in the US is highly charged/polarized so best to avoid political discussions with clients (something that should be obvious to a professional with 30 years of workforce experience). The workshop participants are from across the US. Much to my surprise, before 10:00 am my co-facilitator goes on a highly inappropriate anti-Trump rant to the group for a full 2 min. No one responds. I quickly move the session to a 15 min morning coffee break. I say to him WTF dude! He says I can’t believe he was elected, etc. I tell him to “can it, and focus on the workshop content.” Of course, 15 minutes after resuming the workshop he does it again! This time one woman in the workshop speaks up and loudly says…well Bob (name changed), I guess you’ll just have to accept the simple fact that people voted and he won. Total silence. Very awkward. He finally shut up. I loved it.

22. A science-based health organization interviewing for an Occupational Health & Safety Manager. An interview candidate openly states covid was a hoax, all vaccinations are forms of micro-chipping and de-population, the government can’t be trusted, all part of 15 min cities, and on and on and on. He did not get the job!

23. A male engineer (John) with about 10 years of service had given his resignation notice to go work for an engineer consulting firm. This was his first and only job since graduating from university. His manager scheduled a farewell event for him with a cake that was attended by about 35 people. His manager gave compliments, wished him well, and then asked him to say a few words before the cutting of the cake. John said he will miss the people…and he should have left it at that but noooo…then a pause (some close to him were thinking…don’t do it John, don’t do it)…then he went ALL the way there, saying, “sometimes people and companies grow apart…” proceeding to then trash the company, the executive and management, recent decisions, the strategic plan, and on and on. When he finally stopped, there was only stunned silence until his manager said…ok well let’s cut the cake! Awkward!

24. The company has a mix of field people and office people. It is common for field people to do a stint in an office role to round them out in different areas of the business. They usually have to acclimatized to appropriate workplace language and conduct. It was a windy day when a female staff member entered the building and she said her hair was a bit windswept when he male colleague said, “yeah you kinda have the JBF look.” This lead to a 1-1 conversation with him about things you can’t say in a workplace.

25. CEO of a non-profit pension fund hired a Vice President (Actuary specialization) from a global consulting firm and matched their salary despite it being wayyy higher than all internal salaries, including even her own CEO salary. The thinking here was “well that’s what needed to pay to get this person, without giving enough thought to the internal salary structure, or the fact that consulting jobs sometimes pay a premium to account for extensive travel or the fact consulting jobs are often paid in direct correlation to revenue they generate for the firm which is much different than how corporate jobs are valued.) The CEO then went to the Board and attempted to use this as leverage for why she herself as CEO needed a salary increase (I can’t have my staff make more than me). The kicker…this external hire was a flop: had never lead people, had never worked in an organization, had never sat at an executive table, and had 0 people skills.

26. I worked for a management consulting company called HayGroup for 10 years. Being located in a geography heavy in agriculture, I’d get 2 calls per year from farmers wanting to know what we charge for a bale of hay. One highly irritated woman left a 3 min voicemail rant…swearing…all because a truck driver dumped their load of hay right in the middle of her driveway and she’s not having it so someone better get the f$uck back out now and move it and she left her number. I didn’t call back :)

27. Some clients are strategic and many aren’t. An agriculture company I hadn’t dealt with before called me asking if companies generally pay for work boots because they are losing people and are wondering if they should pay for work boots. They were 1,000+ employees in size so I told them that the single biggest cause of turnover is relationship with your boss and if leaders are too old-school, that could be the true cause of turnover. They seemed interested in this so we booked a meeting. The day of the meeting, I go to their office, 5 of them attend, and we begin to chat about their company, how they’ve grown, they tell me how great they are, and the high turnover they are experiencing. I ask what they’ve done to develop leaders, and they say nothing because people either get it or they don’t…then they say, so what can you tell us about payments for work boots? I said most companies who require work boots have a boot allowance of ~$200 per year. They flipped out…$200?? every year??? for each person??? I said yes. They couldn’t get past it whatsoever…they thought it was soooo extravagant. Need less to say they did no leadership development, and I have no idea what they did about the boot allowance.

28. A leader in charge of international sales (an agriculture commodity sold in large quantities) was contacted by phone by a new potential customer located in another country halfway across the world. The new customer was fairly demanding/assertive and wanted volume X of product Y delivered by date Z. The leader jokingly said, “maybe if you showed up with $1m in a briefcase,” (all calls are recorded) and proceeded to educate the new customer on how the process actually works, pricing, payment terms, a realistic delivery schedule, etc. Imagine his surprise when 48 hours later, the front desk of his downtown office building called saying, “Mr. ABC is here for you at the front desk.” Yes he had brought a briefcase with $1m cash. No it wasn’t accepted.

29. The time I was invited into a healthcare organization whose mandate was to create and tracks metrics that improve the quality of healthcare outcomes. They wanted a performance management system (setting objectives, modelling values, training plans, and ratings that link pay-to-performance via modest annual salary increases), but ironically, the more we got into the details, the more it turned out they were completely allergic to any metrics that might track their own performance. Good for thee, but not for me! :)