Would You Like Coffee, Tea or Milk . . . You Jerk.

I am probably betraying my age but I remember when airlines were concerned about your comfort. The friendly flight attendants really wanted to know what you preferred. Today, when the overhead luggage rack looks commodious and you find your knees in close proximity to your nose, those days seem long gone. Nowadays the flight crews, working under stress, have more important things to do.

But back in the day, airline executives were more concerned about service. I remember reading an article about an airline finding that most of their complaints were directed at 10% of their personnel and they actually wanted to know why. The reason I am relating this is that their solution was one of the inspirations that lead me to develop the Workplace Attitudes Test that screens for employees with bad attitudes.

Their pre-employment interviews clearly did not work and turkeys were getting through. If you’ve read the other parts of this blog, you know that I define a turkey as someone with bad workplace attitudes. For example, “Would you like coffee, tea or milk . . . you jerk.”

The airline needed a system to weed out the turkeys. Like the Workplace Attitudes Test, they wanted to identify bad attitudes in potential flight attendants. I think that their solution borders on genius.

They had each of the prospects go to the podium and tell about their hobbies, their pets, and their aspirations. Each candidate could go on for as long as they wanted and it oftentimes was up to twenty minutes. The presentations were not video taped, instead the camera was focused on the audience.

The goal was not to evaluate the presenters but to evaluate how tolerant or patient each member of the audience was. Some were doing their nails, frowning, or talking to colleagues. Others would show great patience and respect. Guess which ones got the job? And guess what happened to the number of complaints.

It was a happy ending for many years, at least until the airlines started to pack people into airplanes like sardines and the entire industry went into the crapper. Did I mention that I fly coach? For information on weeding out the turkeys see http://www.workplaceattitudes.com/

Enter the Worst-Employee-Story Contest and Win a Chocolate Turkey!

Yes, you can really win a chocolate turkey covered in tinfoil. You can eat it right away, display until it goes stale or freeze it and forget about it. The turkey will be sent to you by FedEx, UPS, or the US Post Office, whichever is cheaper. You can pose with your new little friend and I will post the picture on this blog.


First, the rules. To protect the guilty, I don't want the name of your company or the name of the employee. You may refer to them by nickname. For the company you probably shouldn't use something like Starbutts or MicroFluff. For the employee, smuck, schlemiel, jerk or turkey would be allright. Just send in a brief description of their behavior on the job. This doesn't need to be of the scope of Enron. I want ordinary, rude, boorish behavior. You know, self-centered crap that makes us want to strangle someone. I have to limit it because someone like Donald Trump would win in all categories.


Now, the categories:

• Most insulting to customers
• Most costly in terms of dollars and cents
• Most difficult to supervise
• Biggest PR disaster
• Worst lawsuit
• And . . . I can't believe this jerk.

That's it. Send in your entries as a posting to this blog and I'll try to figure out how to select a winner, or loser depending on your point of view. Learn more about turkeys on the job at http://www.workplaceattitudes.com/

How to Hire Really Bad Employees!

If you wanted, for some unknown reason, to hire the worst possible employee how would you proceed? I'm talking the worst, the absolute worst. The type of person with their own agenda, impossible to supervise, petty, quick to take offense, and on their best days hinting that they have a great lawyer and that they know their rights.

But how do you know that you've found a really bad employee? Much like jury consultants who ask prospective jurors about their attitudes related to our legal system, you should ask prospective employees about their work-related attitudes.

Some problematic work-related attitudes include the following: an over-developed sense of importance; a sense that they are special; and a belief that they don't have to do anything extra because they are already there. We see this in the former beauty queen who refuses to give up her tiara. It's called deservedness or a sense of entitlement.

As we continue our search for the bad employee, we look for a lack of empathy. The inability or disinclination to see things from the other person's perspective. Rhett Butler's famous comment, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" is humorous in movies but not so good on the job. "Do you have this in a size five?" "Frankly, my dear . . ."

We also need some pettiness and a good memory for remembering slights. If you can't hold a grudge, you don't qualify here. "Tower, this is Aardvark 551, requesting permission to proceed to runway one eight." "Aardvark 551, do you remember what you said to me the last time you were at this airport?"

There you have it, some contextual attitudes that identify bad employees. Remember, just because Ben Franklin wanted to make the turkey the national bird doesn't mean you have to hire one! Visit www.WorkplaceAttitudes.com to learn more.