Saturday, October 14, 2023

As a 6' 4" person alot of people would ask "wow! You're tall! Do you play basketball?" At some point I started to reply "wow... your short, do you play miniature golf?"

This kind of thing happens in IT all the time.  Names can be a bit tough, and trying to force everyone into a one size fits all can lead to "hilarious" results.

 
A middle manager was called into HR for a harmless ice breaker.

"Do you know why you've been sent here? One of your new employees, Gina, has levied sexual harassment allegations against you". The stern HR rep asserted.

"What!? Gina!? Oh god, no this must be a mistake! I've only known her for a few days!" The manager replied perplexed and shocked.

"Well, I have her complaint right here. She says that you had her and your other new employees engage in an ice breaker that she said was inappropriate and that you made her feel uncomfortable by pressuring her to partake in it." The rep coldly continued.

"I've done this ice breaker with all my new employees for over 15 years!" The manager proclaimed.

"Why don't you tell me how this ice breaker works." The rep suggested.

"Gladly! I want all my new hires to get an idea where everyone came from. So, I have people make little nicknames for themselves; they say the abbreviation of the state they grew up in followed by their name. So, for example, I grew up in from Connecticut, so I started us off as CT-Bob!" The manager stammers as he explains to the unsatisfied HR rep.

"There was NY-Adam, NJ-Rosa, CA-Devon; you get the idea. We went around the room until we got to Gina. She said she didn't want to play and I thought she was just being shy, so I kept insisting she did. I eventually let her skip after she kept refusing, but I had no idea Gina felt uncomfortable let alone sexually harassed!" The manager desperately plead.

The HR rep looked down at the complaint again, cracked a smile, and said "Well, Bob, maybe it's because Gina grew up in Virginia."

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