Bittersweet

Posted Ms Shallot

There is nothing worse as a Human Resources person than to hear that a staff member has gone missing. This unfortunately does happen from time to time and the really sad thing is that it often ends in tragedy.

Earlier this week I was meeting for dinner with The Fab Four (naturally I am one of those) and all but one of us was running late due to work. I’d been on a conference call, another was sorting out a resignation and Board papers while another had actually left on time and was outside the restaurant on her mobile phone when I arrived.

As I walked passed her, I waved and overheard two snippets, something about a purse and something about missing.

Joining the other two at the table (how one still beat me when he had further to travel is a mystery I still haven’t figured out. Admittedly, I’ve only just started thinking about that now), I mentioned that I’d seen the last of our four outside and that something has happened and either a purse or a person is missing.

This particular friend also works in Human Resources.

She sat down and her story began.

Something along the lines of, “you wouldn’t believe what has just happened”. I said either a person or a purse is missing (my next career could be as a detective since HR does involve quite a few investigations too), to which my American HR friend replied “a person has gone missing. She has’t been with the company for very long. She’s left her purse at her desk (for all those from pretty well any other country, this translates to ‘handbag’), doesn’t have her phone with her and hasn’t been seen for a few hours.” Just as a reminder, this was dinner time, and a late one at that, so this person should have actually left the office by now.

After finding out what actions had already been taken, the two non-HR people at the table fired off a quick few suggestions and then focused on sorting out the rest of the food menu. It was tapas so they could order for all of us.

Sangria was quickly requested and then we brainstormed further actions.

  • has the building management checked the roof?
  • have you accessed her emails to see the last ones she sent?
  • what time was she last seen and by whom?
  • have you contacted her next of kin (her husband had been called twice already)?
  • has all the Risk function been notified and following their actions (it’s a US company so some of those people were involved)?
  • how did she seem when she was last seen? Turns out this was by her manager and all was good from his point of view.
  • has her security access card been used recently and her accessed checked?
You get the idea. Sangria helps me brainstorm…
A few more phone calls and text messages later interspersed with some eating and chatting since it had been a while since we’d seen this particular friend given all her travels of late and another text comes through.
This is roughly five hours since anyone has seen her.
She has been found, alive, safe and well. 
Not satisfied with a text, a phone call was made to her manager who had been waiting in the office and thinking about what else he could do. 
Not only is she alive, safe and well, she is now incredibly embarrassed.
She had returned to the office after leaving her phone and handbag behind; after her work had called her husband at least twice to keep him updated and to see if he knew where she may be; she had finally returned and initially didn’t realise what had happened in her absence.
When asked to explain why she had gone out without her handbag and phone, she replied something along the lines of, “I’d popped next door to the handbag sale (it’s a flashy brand) and I didn’t expect to have to queue for so long.” She’d spent three hours in the queue and returned with two discounted handbags.
My current thinking on all of this is:
  • phew, she’s safe
  • thank goodness that’s all it was
  • poor thing must be horribly embarrassed since she had some very senior people looking into this, activating their Risk processes from HK to the US
  • great opportunity to review processes (there’s always an analysis of what worked and didn’t after this kind of thing)
  • it’s going to be tough going into the office the next day. Better take the new handbag in and make some sort of a joke about it
  • guess she won’t be able to hide this purchase from her husband
  • I wonder what the bags are like and how much of a discount did she manage?
  • what kind of friend leaves their phone when they’re going to a sale? What happens if she was to have seen a great handbag or some other accessory for one of her friends, she wouldn’t be able to call them to see if they wanted it and then they would have to queue? 
  • she must be new to HK and not understand the whole queue at sale thing for high end brands – this turned out to not be the case which has left me even more puzzled and going back to my former point and deciding that she and I can obviously never be friends.



* Thanks to Hoodoo Gurus for the title to this post.

This post was nearly called ‘Check Yo Self‘ since I’ve been listening to a bit of Ice Cube this evening and The Predator album still makes me smile. Flashback to uni days so I’ll take this chance to say hi to all my Flat 6 flatmates and those that were there more often than not – yo better check yo self! Microphone check, one, two, one, two….

And to top it all off, I’ve just heard that he and Dr Dre have been working on a NWA movie – happy days! It has his son playing him in it. They’ve even called it Straight Outta Compton. Looking forward to this particularly given all the things he was rapping about still seeming to come about again now with the riots in Ferguson etc.