BY HARRY RING
Hey Dilbert! - Buell Motorcycle of Milwaukee scrapped a
program giving "underperforming" employees a day off to
write an "action plan" on how they could improve. Declared
Human Resources director Bruce Champion: "Most of us didn't
favor that touchy-feely stuff. Now, you just get fired."
`Trust us' - At a seminar of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents, Thomas Busey, a supervisor, discussed the agency's database on firearm registration. He said that in court, "we testify that the database is 100 percent accurate... As you probably well know, that may not be 100 percent true." He added that a review showed the error rate was about 50 percent. Later the agency said Busey recognized that his comments were incorrect and requested reassignment.
Isn't that un-American? -Russia's security service opened a hot line so folks working as spies for other countries could become double agents, permitting them to continue pocketing payments from abroad. And at the same time avoiding the risk of being caught and executed.
A pious bank - Employees at Chase Manhattan Bank's British headquarters sign an agreement requiring such things as "tonal respect for each other." Like, perhaps, Yvette Davis, a compensation expert who took a stress-related leave and returned under threat of being fired. She was then required to inform her supervisor each time she left her desk, be it for the copy machine or the toilet. An industrial tribunal is considering her case.
Robert's Rules of Law `n Order - We reported the increased used of film surveillance by British cops. This drew a note from a German reader who adds, "I was reminded that the famous Speakers Corner in London's Hyde Park is also under continuous video surveillance. The newspaper reporting this quoted a cop that this helped to drastically reduce heckling."
Reversing the empire's decline - A major consulting firm says the UK needs to sharpen its tired image. Like getting rid of the overlapping crosses of St. George, St. Andrew, and St. Patrick on the Union Jack and putting the word "Britain" on it. (Forget the "Great," they suggest.) Also, stop asking God to save the Queen and sing an anthem about green fields and sea shores.
And don't leave home without it - The Agriculture Dept. says use a thermometer when cooking hamburgers because, they find, color is not a reliable gauge of doneness. To ensure destruction of dangerous bacteria, cook to 160 degrees F. In 1993 hundreds were sickened and, four children killed by E. coli bacteria in fast-food burgers.
Check if the jail food's as bad - A food fight occurred the last day of classes at a junior high school in Lowell, North Carolina. Seven students were busted. Six will be dealt with in juvenile court. The seventh, age 16, faces a possible jail term. Commented a reader who sent us the item: "At the school I thought the food itself was at least a misdemeanor - possibly a felony."
The last fools? - London producer-director Lord Lloyd Webber sold 8,000 bottles from his wine collection at auction for $6 million plus. Are these vintage bottles drinkable? Not necessarily, says one wine writer. Then why do people shell out for them? To resell them at the next rise in the market which, he suggests, may not be on the horizon.