# HR training: pathetically lame scenarios **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 17, 2010, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399 "2010-10-17T02:51:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2010, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399/21 "2010-10-18T20:33:24Z")
My first thought on that is: _Fool! People can see you in the parking lot!_ ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2010, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399/22 "2010-10-18T21:13:46Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > My first thought on that is: _Fool! People can see you in the parking lot!_ Or ‘Be careful with exchange rate speculation, people! Company policy is that all bribes must be paid in US Dollars or Euros only.’ ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2010, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399/23 "2010-10-18T22:03:44Z")
When I got a job at a movie theater, our training consisted of watching a couple of corporate training videos. One of them was typical “the customer is always right” crap. Why is the customer always right? Well, because when customers are right, they’re happy. And when the customers are happy, the shareholders are happy! All of us, who’d just been hired at a rate of maybe a buck over minimum wage, were real impressed. ---
**Author:** ![araminty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5e925/32.png) [@araminty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/araminty)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2010, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399/24 "2010-10-18T22:41:46Z")
One of my training sessions upon starting my new job in January consisted almost entirely of clips from _The Office_, with the completely uncharismatic HR guy saying, “don’t do this!” after each one of them. I wonder if they had permission to show the clips? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2010, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399/25 "2010-10-18T23:20:20Z")
You guys get training? We get 5 weeks of training on the very basics of our job, then we’re thrown to the wolves. You learn how to deal with people by experience, if only because our place is full of assholes (both co-workers and supervisors) who consider it annoying and “complaining” if you dare to talk about your on-the-job experiences. Me being a ‘complainer’, I talk freely about my calls, because I learn better ways of handling things through other people’s suggestions, and I know from this summer’s ramp-up experience, that many of our new people learned a lot from me. But you know, just shut up and do your job, and figure it out on your own. That’s the way we do business. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399/26 "2010-10-19T00:41:19Z")
> [@robert\_andrews](#): > > I remember a safety video that we had to watch in high school (or was it college? I can’t remember) chemistry class. There was a section on pranks that showed, iirc, a girl snapping the safety goggles of a boy (lesson - no pranks in the lab), and a warning that the laboratory thermometers we would be using were not medical thermometers and did not have to be, and should not be, shaken before use (this was back in the day when people used mercury medical thermometers at home and in the clinic). The film showed a student shaking a long lab thermometer and accidentally whacking their desk with it. There was also another scene that was fairly gory in terms of how you could seriously injure yourself with lab equipment. I remember the whole thing as being incredibly funny, and maybe that’s why I remember it even now, and so one could say it was effective in its goal. Is this the video with the shower scene and the glass rod stabbed through the hand? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399/27 "2010-10-19T01:18:58Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > About thirty years ago a training session in which I participated included a test at the end of it, upon which our continued employment depended. The two items I recall from the test were that we had to identify a picture of a hammer (as in “that’s a hammer”), and that we had to know how many pounds of pressure per square inch it takes from an air hose inserted up your rectum to blow your intestines out your mouth (the required answer was thirty-five, but how they came up with that number I have no idea – perhaps that happened to be the pressure in a hose involved in such an incident). Um…what is it you do again?:eek: ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399/28 "2010-10-19T01:23:55Z")
When I became a manager, one of the training films helped me address the all important issue of how to deal with a smelly employee. ---
**Author:** ![hougaswd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@hougaswd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hougaswd)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399/29 "2010-10-19T01:57:57Z")
This isn’t really HR training, please excuse the somewhat off-topic post. I took a safety class to become a certified chain saw operator. In order to emphasize that they weren’t kidding, we were shown a stack of photos of chain saw accident victims. The ones that stayed with me were the guy who cut into a power line (it took a few seconds to figure out that the little black sticks were what was left of his fingers) and the guy who tripped backing away from his cut and apparently hugged the still running saw to his upper torso as he fell down. Not pretty, and most definitely not how I want to go. Walt ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399/30 "2010-10-19T14:52:56Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Is this the video with the shower scene and the glass rod stabbed through the hand? I think it may be. I distinctly remember there being a glass rod shoved through a hand, resulting in copious amounts of “blood”, and I assume there was a shower scene to illustrate the safety shower, but don’t remember anything distinctive about that scene. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399/31 "2010-10-19T15:13:59Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > When I became a manager, one of the training films helped me address the all important issue of how to deal with a smelly employee. That’s actually a scenario I would find useful. ---
**Author:** ![Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carol_the_Impaler)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399/32 "2010-10-19T17:18:52Z")
I’ve had to deal with a smelly employee. It is not fun. I’ve also had to tell employees that they did, in fact, need to wear a bra to work. ---
**Author:** ![trupa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aeb1de/32.png) [@trupa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trupa)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399/33 "2010-10-19T17:58:23Z")
> [@Waffle\_Decider](#): > > Then there was something along the line of how it’s not ok to refuse to hire Canadians because you believe that Canadians “lack the attention to details needed for the job”. (WTF? 😕 How the hell did they dream that one up?!) My former neighbors were a chinese couple who owned a number of convenience stores, including the Mac’s at the Calgary airport. The lady flat out told me that she never hires “Canadians” (meaning caucasians) as they were “too lazy”, always refusing to come in to work when there were sick and all that. And she was proud of it, too. She was sharing some of her entrepeneurial experience with me, and told me to always hire Indian or Asian workers, because they work the hardest and never call in sick. I was totally incredulous, because, as a “pure laine” French Canadian, I’m as white as they come, yet she was telling me this to my face. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399/34 "2010-10-19T18:54:22Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > About thirty years ago a training session in which I participated included a test at the end of it, upon which our continued employment depended. The two items I recall from the test were that we had to identify a picture of a hammer (as in “that’s a hammer”), and that we had to know how many pounds of pressure per square inch it takes from an air hose inserted up your rectum to blow your intestines out your mouth (the required answer was thirty-five, but how they came up with that number I have no idea – perhaps that happened to be the pressure in a hose involved in such an incident). > > At first I thought having to recognize a hammer was so basic that it was a stupid question. Then when I came to the air up the anus question, I wondered who in hell would be stupid enough to try to inflate themself. That’s when I realized that the hammer question might help weed out those who would play proctologist with the air hose. This is the single most bizarre post I’ve ever seen on the SDMB. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399/35 "2010-10-19T19:00:33Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > For starters, any case where materials designed in one country are then used to teach in a country with different laws. > > This includes several cases I’ve seen where the actions described as legal in the materials were illegal in the country where the stuff was being taught. Not “a bit illegal”, not “may get you fired”, not “may get you fined”: “may get you taken out of the factory by two extremely-polite fellows in green uniforms and shiny tricorn hats and driven directly to see a judge at Criminal Court”. Would you mind some examples? Esp. if they are funny or groan-worthy? Pretty please? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399/36 "2010-10-20T05:26:16Z")
[Greatest Safety Video Ever!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkMDGC2d5mg) Starts kind of slow but keep at it. ---
**Author:** ![user\_hostile](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/user_hostile/32/474_2.png) [@user\_hostile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/user_hostile)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399/37 "2010-10-20T06:00:35Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > [Greatest Safety Video Ever!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkMDGC2d5mg) > > Starts kind of slow but keep at it. Did you see the producers in the end credits? “_Der Dri Stooges_” ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399/38 "2010-10-20T06:46:42Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Would you mind some examples? Esp. if they are funny or groan-worthy? Pretty please? 🙂 Eh, not particularly funny, but - training materials designed in the US, explaining that choosing to hire one person over another because this second candidate is “too old”, in a case where age is completely irrelevant to the work at hand (i.e., we’re not talking “60yo candidate for pole-dancer in an Ibiza nightclub”, more “50yo candidate for accountant”), is OK because there are no provisions for age in anti-discrimination laws. In Spain yes there are. - same for choosing a national over a foreigner, because “national origin is protected, but nationality isn’t”. This one also made reference to ADA. Only, I was working in the company’s Home Office. In Switzerland 😕 Except for the Swiss, the cases I’ve run into were US laws being explained elsewhere (and not necessarily explained well); the immense majority had originated in Head Office in the USA and then been translated (or not, as the case would be for India, South Africa or the UK). I imagine there have to be similar cases, where whatever has been generated for Head Office just gets slammed on everybody else but that office is not in the US; in any case, it’s sloppy as all get-go no matter who’s doing it. ---
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399/39 "2010-10-20T06:48:15Z")
All of the mandatory sexual harassment training I’ve ever attended has happened when working in some sort of capacity of mitigating internet-based abuses. When you deal with child pornography, endless erection-based spam, porn, porn, porn, porn and people bitching about necrobestial oral sex posts in the necrobestial butt sex newsgroup…you tend to develop a sense of humor that is by definition an HR violation. ETA: That makes it sound like we joked about CP, which was not the case. But dealing with CP cases made for the occasional need to blow off steam by cracking jokes about the rest of it, which would have made the HR coordinator’s toes curl. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399/40 "2010-10-20T12:59:18Z")
I hope that forklift eventually ran out of fuel. Those poor people! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hr-training-pathetically-lame-scenarios/557399.md?page=3)