Alive HR

April Fool’s Day has me thinking about snafus and shenanigans at work. One of my first jobs was a case manager at a nonprofit I’ll call Habilitative Support Services (HSS). We rented space in an old elementary school building and served adults with mental disabilities, such as autism, schizophrenia, Down syndrome, etc.

We worked hard and also had a lot of fun. For example, staff often jumped out the side windows for quick access to the parking lot rather than walking *ALLLLLL* the way around to the front or back exit. After the clients left in the late afternoon, we were known to have water balloon fights in the corridors, which was not a big deal given the concrete block walls and tile floors. Often on Fridays, we’d pool our money and a co-worker J.T. would do a beer run. We’d spend the last hour of the workweek chatting and laughing outside the back door over beers and wine coolers. To their credit, our bosses encouraged the down-time and camaraderie. Yep, I have lots of fond memories of HSS!

A couple of other stories stand out in my mind:

1. Housed in an old school building, we had no air conditioning. Summers in the DC metro area can be brutally hot and swampy, so two guys asked if the dress code could be amended to include shorts. The Director declined their request. The guys said, wait a minute, that’s not fair; the women can wear skirts which are not as hot as dress pants. The Director shrugged and answered: sorry guys; no can do.

In a stroke of genius, on the next sweltering day, the guys came to work wearing–you guessed it–skirts.

It was amazing how quickly that dress code changed.

All these years later, I still think that’s one of the more creative problem-solving approaches I’ve heard of in the workplace.

2. The second story is about my co-worker J.T.*  We appreciated his Friday beer runs and he actually was a nice guy in so many ways, but he was over-the-top flirtatious with leering eyes, wandering hands and suggestive comments. This was in the early nineties not long after the Clarence Thomas hearings, some years before sexual harassment complaints really became mainstream. At any rate, we had no HR department to report to, and honestly,  the predominately female staff  didn’t even understand that we had the right to complain. Each of the women  ignored or rebuffed his advances in her own way, to no avail.

Finally, another case manager and I had a brainwave. We wrote him a behavior plan. What is a behavior plan? Well, it was a written program we’d typically create using behavior modification principles to influence unacceptable or dangerous conduct on the part of our clients. Tongue-in-cheek, we wrote up a short social history, we theorized the function of J.T.’S  behavior, we captured the antecedent (“any time a female is in the immediate vicinity”), we defined the unacceptable behavior; and most importantly, we outlined the consequence: a mallet applied swiftly and with precision directly between his legs.

With good spirits and an attitude of humor, we intrepidly offered him a copy of his program.

And the incidents went way down.

That’s not how I would advocate my employees handling sexual harassment issues in 2011, but I’ll have to say it worked pretty well way back in the day!

I’m still  thankful for the fun we had at HSS, and I’m still in awe of the creativity we exercised to solve problems of every day work life.

photo by Sanne van der Beek

*not his real name or initials