Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER April 18, 2016 18 INSIGHT FLYING SKY HIGH LOS ANGELES — A fl ighty fl ight attendant made news recently when she apparently dumped a bag fi lled with cocaine at the air- port and took to the hills. Marsha Reynolds of JetBlue Airways — and a former college sprinter — was accused of dropping almost 70 pounds of the white stuff when she deboarded from a fl ight and was randomly selected for screening at the Los Angeles airport, according to Reuters. She then took off her shoes and dashed away, down an up escalator, but later turned her- self into authorities in New York. WAY TO IMPRESS NEW ORLEANS — One job applicant defi nitely made an im- pression recently when he helped stop a robbery while interviewing for a job at a Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen restaurant in New Or- leans. e suspect had come in and grabbed cash from the till before bolting for the door, only to be stopped by assistant man- ager Danyanna Metoyer, accord- ing to CNN. So interviewee Devin Washington, 18, sprung to action. " e interviewee took him off of me and held him with another employee until the police showed up," said Metoyer. "I was like ' is can't be real.' It was the fi rst time I had ever seen this." Not surpris- ingly, Washington was hired. TOO MUCH INFORMATION? REDMOND, WASH. — Micro- soft has been having a tough time of late when it comes to its artifi cial intelligence "chatbot" called Tay. e software company has cre- ated virtual agents to interact with people and learn from them, said Reuters. But in March, Tay was shut down for making racist, anti- Semitic and sexist comments on Twitter. A week later, she launched a spam attack on her followers by sending the same tweet to many users. e chatbot also tweeted about "smoking kush," a nickname for marijuana, in front of the po- lice. "Tay remains offl ine while we make adjustments," said Micro- soft. "As part of testing, she was inadvertently activated on Twitter for a brief period of time." 'NO, I MEAN YES… WAIT, WHAT WAS THE QUESTION?' VANCOUVER — What was meant as a joke to amuse a crowd soon developed into more of an albatross for RCMP commissioner Bob Paulson recently. When asked when he last wrote a traffi c ticket, Paulson instead talked about speeding down a highway in British Columbia last year and being pulled over by an RCMP offi cer. e quip got some laughs, according to the CBC, but later, talking to reporters, he seemed less comfortable. "Aw, it was just a story I made up," said Paulson: "I do not want to talk about that." e commissioner then admitted it did happen but said he had been given a warning. When asked whether he was given preferential treatment, Paulson said "no" and the news conference ended. e theme of his speech was about being a national police force that's fair, transparent and accountable. W EIRD ORKPLACE THE Vol. 29 No. 7 – April 18, 2016 PUBLISHED BY Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. One Corporate Plaza 2075 Kennedy Rd. Toronto, ON M1T 3V4 ©Copyright 2015 by Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. All rights reserved. CANADIAN HR REPORTER is published 21 times a year. Publications Mail – Agreement # 40065782 Registration # 9496 – ISSN 0838-228X Director, Carswell Media: Karen Lorimer - (416) 649-9411 karen.lorimer@thomsonreuters.com EDITORIAL Acting Publisher/Editor in Chief: Todd Humber - (416) 298-5196 todd.humber@thomsonreuters.com Editor/Supervisor: Sarah Dobson - (416) 649-7896 sarah.dobson@thomsonreuters.com Senior Editor: Liz Bernier - (416) 649-7837 liz.bernier@thomsonreuters.com Employment Law Editor: Jeffrey R. 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Address changes and returns: Send changes and undeliverable Canadian addresses to: SUBSCRIBER SERVICES Canadian HR Reporter One Corporate Plaza 2075 Kennedy Rd. Toronto, ON M1T 3V4 CUSTOMER SERVICE Call: (416) 609-3800 (Toronto) (800) 387-5164 (outside Toronto) Fax: (416) 298-5082 (Toronto) (877) 750-9041 (outside Toronto) Email: carswell.customerrelations@ thomsonreuters.com LETTERS TO THE EDITOR todd.humber@thomsonreuters.com CHRR reserves the right to edit for length and clarity. Todd Humber Editor's Notes 40 MINUTES OR FREE? NEW ZEALAND — e personal touch of pizza delivery may soon be lost in New Zealand with Domino's Pizza testing "the world's fi rst autono- mous pizza delivery vehicle." Named DRU (Domino's Robotic Unit), the four-wheeled machine can easily maneuver down roads, past obstacles, to deliver hot pizza and hot and cold drinks to customers. Domino's "newest recruit" has "sleek, refi ned forms combined with a friendly person and light- ing to help customers identify and interact with it" and "is a world fi rst in the space of commercial autonomous delivery," said the company. "He is cheeky and endearing and we are confi dent that one day soon he will be joining the Domino's family and delivery piping hot pizzas to your door." Credit: images.etc (Shutterstock) A life lived in countless words – and music S aying goodbye is never easy. Unexpected farewells are even harder. John Hobel, publisher and editor- in-chief of Canadian HR Reporter, passed away on March 26 follow- ing an illness. He fought the good fi ght, as they say. John had been a fixture and steady hand at this publication for nearly two decades. He taught me a lot about journalism, and the business behind it. He hired me in 1999 and I reported to him off and on for a good chunk of my 17-year career at omson Reuters. From 1998 to 2006, he was the manag- ing editor — his words fi lled this column nearly 200 times. John's work John was a talented writer so it seems fi tting to revisit his take on the world of HR. In the fi nal col- umn he wrote in 2006, he wrote about his fi rst column in 1998 looking at the recruitment and re- tention crisis: "Back then, I com- mented that off ering employees training and development oppor- tunities was a strategy for winning the recruitment war. Many of my early columns focused on areas where HR could improve the em- ployment proposition, help har- ried managers, and/or improve organizational eff ectiveness and design… As I became more at- tuned to the work of the human resources department, I started writing columns about how an- noying employees and the senior management team can be." About those annoyances… John had a lot of pet peeves, and little patience for wrongdoing. A random sampling: Poorly handled terminations: When Radio Shack fi red 400 em- ployees in 2006 by email, he wrote "I'd rather be fi red by a parrot" — a reference to the 1983 movie e Survivors, where Robin Williams is turfed by a fi ne-feathered friend. "Employers put on their best face when they hire staff," he wrote. " e same attitude should exist when they are let go." Remembrance Day : John rolled his eyes every year when, inevitably, some retailer would kick out veterans selling poppies, citing some corporate policy. " en the head offi ce steps in to apologize, correct the situa- tion and save the organization from gaining a reputation as a mean-spirited place that picks on elderly people and callously demeans the sacrifi ce given by those who served in the military. (It's generally agreed that sort of thing doesn't look good on the corporate mission statement.)" Coff ee: You didn't want to mess with the publisher until he had his morning cup — one that would then turn into three, four or fi ve. "Beware the employer that ig- nores workers' coff ee needs," he wrote. "No one should be forced to toil in a coff eeless environment. It's inconceivable that legislators haven't already written this into labour codes." And at fi rms without coff ee, "Expeditions are launched on a regular basis, with employees bringing back as many coffees as they can carry to aid eagerly awaiting co-workers. All this adds up to a lot of time away from work running coff ee errands." That Fast Company article: John didn't take kindly to the infa- mous 2005 article titled "Why we hate HR." He argued senior man- agement teams that don't value people strategies are to blame, not HR itself. "It's a lot like handing a worker a spoon to dig a trench with, com- plaining about the lack of progress and then fi ring the person for be- ing an incompetent idiot." e commute: John commuted 50 kilometres to work across some of the busiest sections of highway in North America. So traffi c was a common gripe for him — along with the lack of good transit. "To get to work from my west- ern corner of the Greater Toronto Area to Canadian HR Reporter's offices in the northeast sector means two buses, two subway lines, one GO Train and three diff erent transit systems. Or I can drive. And that, in a nutshell, is what's clogging Canada's high- ways, day in, day out." Writing skills: As an editor, ty- pos drove John crazy. e prolif- eration of short forms, texting and whatnot among millenials led him to describe a letter his daughter received from a pen pal: "'Wots nu? Eye em sendin a foto of mi cellf.' After that, it got a bit hard to make out, but we think there was some mention of the writer's name near the end. Not to judge an entire global genera- tion of young communicators by one garbled note from abroad, but trouble seems on the horizon." February holiday: Saddened by the length of time between New Year's Day and Easter, John creat- ed the bandwagon for a February holiday. He mused about St. Pat- rick's Day being a national holiday — but it was too late on the calen- dar. John A. MacDonald seemed worthy, but his birthday fell on Jan. 11. So he found his muse in a lesser-known prime minister. "Canada's post-Second World War leader Louis Saint-Laurent deserves to be honoured with a national day off . In addition to his key role in the development of the St. Lawrence Seaway (isn't that something we can all get behind), he has that rare quality we're look- ing for in a fi gurehead — a Feb. 1 birth date," he wrote. "But while eff orts to lobby for recognition of Saint-Laurent's achievements (OK, his mom's achievement) are underway, Canadians still need that fl oater day." John was thrilled when Family Day, the third Monday in Febru- ary, became a thing in Ontario. He also loved animals, Terry Pratchett, the Beatles, Alice Coo- per and playing the guitar. We used to play together in his base- ment, me on piano and him pick- ing up one of his 13-odd guitars. We had nothing in common mu- sically, and he was a far better mu- sician than I, but it was fun to belt out the tunes. He'd do the odd De- peche Mode tune to placate me. But most of all, John loved his family. He is survived by his wife and two children. John's last column in 2006 car- ried the title "So long and thanks for reading." It was a nod to the "So long and thanks for all the fi sh" line from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a series he made me read and for which I am thankful. Farewell, old friend. I'll miss the countless hours we spent chatting about journalism, HR and life in general. I'm glad you fi nally know what 42 means. e personal touch of pizza delivery may soon be lost in New Zealand with Domino's Pizza testing "the world's fi rst autono- mous pizza delivery vehicle." Named DRU (Domino's Robotic Unit), the four-wheeled machine can easily maneuver down roads, past obstacles, to deliver hot pizza and hot and cold drinks to customers. Domino's "newest recruit" has "sleek, refi ned forms combined with a friendly person and light- ing to help customers identify and interact with it" and "is a world fi rst in the space of commercial autonomous delivery," said the company. "He is cheeky and endearing and we are confi dent that one day soon he will be joining the Domino's

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