{"id":5567,"date":"2014-10-23T09:08:13","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T16:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/recruitloop.wpengine.com\/?p=5567"},"modified":"2023-05-09T19:15:07","modified_gmt":"2023-05-10T02:15:07","slug":"witches-wizards-and-warlocks-in-the-workplace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/witches-wizards-and-warlocks-in-the-workplace\/","title":{"rendered":"Witches, Wizards And Warlocks In The Workplace"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just can\u2019t seem to get into the whole Halloween thing.<\/p>\n

Perhaps all those years of door-to-door sales during university put me off walking up to strange houses just to beg for candy. After all, I\u2019d met plenty of goblins and ghouls behind many doors as I tried to flog (sorry \u2026 \u2018sell<\/em>\u2019) discounted movie passes and timeshare holiday offers to unsuspecting Sydney residents.<\/p>\n

But the American tradition has clearly made its way across the Pacific with Aussie families getting right into the spirit of it.<\/p>\n

Halloween is still a week away and yet at least four houses in my street already have giant cobwebs draped across their balconies; two of them have skeletons hanging on their front fences; and you\u2019ll love this \u2026 the people directly across the road have installed a special Halloween doorbell that emits a bellowing evil muahahahaha<\/em> sound whenever someone visits the house!
\nTrick or treat anyone?!?<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s one night of the year<\/em>! The pumpkins; the masks; the costumes \u2026 that<\/em> doorbell!<\/p>\n

But what about all those witches, wizards, and warlocks that arrive at your workplace every single day<\/em> with their incantations and potions? Don\u2019t you sometimes wish you could just cast your own spell and make them all disappear?<\/p>\n

Too bad you can\u2019t just send them on their merry way with a bag of candy \u2026 or laxative infused cookies \u2013 something a very bitter high school English teacher of mine confessed to doing one Halloween. \u201cGentlemen<\/em>\u201d, he said. \u201cIt\u2019s the only way to make them run \u2026 and never come back<\/em>\u201d!<\/p>\n

Despite having never actually worked at Hogwarts, believe me I\u2019ve still worked alongside my fair share of sorcerers and sorceresses. Sometimes I just didn\u2019t realise it \u2026 until they\u2019d cast their spell!<\/p>\n

“Abracadabra Alacazam \u2026 make those files disappear as fast as you can!”<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

This is going back a long<\/em> time \u2026 to an era when most recruiters were typically surrounded by 2 piles of files \u2013 for clients and candidates. And we all had our own way of colour coding our best candidates and our most active clients.<\/p>\n

Devin had recently joined the team and was very keen to get some runs on the board.<\/p>\n

Every couple of weeks, someone in the team would complain about some of their files disappearing. But there were so many files in the office that nobody really noticed.<\/p>\n

Then it became quite a regular occurrence.<\/p>\n

I was in the office one Saturday afternoon (we\u2019re talking about an era before laptops, home internet connections, and cloud based databases). I was sorting out some stuff in the filing room (who even has a filing room anymore?) when I heard a noise in the main office area.<\/p>\n

I peeked out to see Devin snooping around a few of the desks.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s just say a few more files were about to disappear!<\/p>\n

Devin also disappeared shortly afterwards.<\/p>\n

Building security CCTV revealed Devin coming in almost every weekend and walking out with a few files.<\/p>\n

Evanesco!<\/em> [The vanishing spell from Harry Potter<\/em>!]\n

\u201cDouble, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble \u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

Forget about Macbeth \u2026 I\u2019m talking about a real office pot stirrer.<\/p>\n

Gretta was a bit of a strange character. Sometimes she\u2019d be delightful to work with; but at other times she became what many of her colleagues would call \u2018the pesticide farmer<\/em>\u2019! She liked to plant \u2018toxic seeds\u2019 in different teams or during meetings, and then just sit back (or walk away) and let the sh*t storm grow.<\/p>\n

One year for a Kris Kringle someone anonymously bought her a giant wooden spoon and the card read \u201cFillet of a fenny snake, in the cauldron boil and bake, eye of newt, and toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog<\/em>\u201d \u2026 yes another reference to one of Macbeth\u2019s witches.<\/p>\n

Confession: Gretta \u2013 if you\u2019re reading this \u2026 Your 1995 Kris Kringle was from me!<\/p>\n

“Maybe she did come back to work, but was wearing an Invisibility Cloak!”<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

I know I\u2019ve shared this story<\/a> before, but I once had a new person start in my team who went out for lunch on her first day and never came back!<\/p>\n

I happened to see her a few months later in the street \u2013 so I knew nothing untoward had happened to her. She hadn\u2019t completely<\/em> disappeared!<\/p>\n

But I did have a few Harry Potter fans in my team at the time, and I remember one of them suggesting that she may have come back from lunch wearing an Invisibility Cloak!<\/p>\n

Each to his own!<\/p>\n

Some might call it Truth Serum. I just call it alcohol!<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

I love office Christmas parties \u2013 usually because I get to remember everything!<\/p>\n

At a Christmas party many years ago Benny (not Ben; not Benjamin; just Benny) had a lot to drink.<\/p>\n

Maybe he forgot I was his manager, or perhaps it\u2019s more likely that he didn\u2019t realise who he was sitting next to since he was too paralytic. But half way through\u00a0the night he leaned over and whispered \u201cI\u2019m actually resigning as soon as I get my bonus. I\u2019m out of here!<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t react. I said nothing. I think I just poured him a glass of water and smiled awkwardly.<\/p>\n

On the Monday morning I took Benny into a meeting room and asked him if there was anything he wanted to share with me.<\/p>\n

He literally couldn\u2019t remember a thing.<\/p>\n

I told him what he\u2019d said to me and he went white.<\/p>\n

Poor Benny.<\/p>\n

Do you believe in\u00a0voodoo magic?<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

Confession #2: There\u2019s a 6-week period in my career that has never appeared (and will never appear) on my r\u00e9sum\u00e9.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d accepted a job with an organisation because I had been lured by the company name but my manager was an absolutely horrible man.<\/p>\n

He treated people like dirt, belittling everyone publicly at every possible opportunity. I was too na\u00efve to even know about workplace bullying at the time, but looking back now, this was a classic case.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d been so horrible to a few of us, that one day Derek (one of the guys in my team) asked those\u00a0of us in the lunch room if we\u00a0would be up for a bit of voodoo magic!<\/p>\n

Voodoo magic? All I could think of was that\u00a0James Bond movie (I think it\u2019s Live and Let Die<\/em>) but I kept listening.<\/p>\n

Derek showed us\u00a0a \u2018doll\u2019 that he\u2019d made that supposedly represented our manager. He then put the doll face down on the lunch and stuck 4 pins (quite aggressively) into the doll\u2019s back.<\/p>\n

The next morning\u00a0we were told that our manager had done his back in and would be off for a week!<\/p>\n

I resigned the day he returned to work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite having never actually worked at Hogwarts, I\u2019ve still worked alongside my fair share of sorcerers and sorceresses. Sometimes I just didn\u2019t know it \u2026 until they\u2019d cast their spell!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nWitches, Wizards And Warlocks In The Workplace<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I've never actually worked at Hogwarts, but I\u2019ve still worked alongside my fair share of sorcerers and sorceresses.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.zippia.com\/employer\/witches-wizards-and-warlocks-in-the-workplace\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Witches, Wizards And Warlocks In The Workplace\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I've never 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