Canadian Personal Finance Blog

A Questionnaire For Everything

In August as part of the entire severance process that I lived through with my now former employer a few odd things happened and this incident really was the most odd.

Given the nature of this post I make the following opening comments:

1. I post this mostly as humor because in hindsight it is quite funny
2. My former employer out sourced a lot of their HR duties and I think this whole incident was actually done by an external firm, so keep that in mind as well.
3. I have not altered the post, but remember it was written in August, when I still had a fair amount of venom in my system about getting laid off.

Questionnaires for Everything

I have noticed that pretty much every time I interact with anyone via a phone or a computer, I am sent a questionnaire asking me to please evaluate the person and how well they did their job. I find these questionnaires annoying at times, but most of the time I fill them in, and am fairly honest, because I know that a lot of the time, folks job ratings are somewhat connected to these questionnaires, however in this case I made an exception.

The Most Obtuse Questionnaire Ever

Monday morning, I received an e-mail from the HR department at my soon to be former employer (I am still in their employ until the end of September). I wondered what this e-mail was about, but I had asked a few questions about returning equipment and important dates about things, so I opened it expecting to find responses to my queries.

I was morbidly amused to see that this was actually a questionnaire asking me how I enjoyed my lay off. I am not completely sure that is what the questionnaire was about, but given the topic of the questionnaire is “Involuntary Employment Termination – Workforce Reduction” I am assuming that is what the questionnaire was about.

I read the e-mail 3 times wondering, what in the name of Abraham Maslow would cause anyone to think that they should ask folks that have gone through a severance process “how it all went”? It was so bizarre all I could think of was the scene in the Princess Bride where the six fingered man is questioning Wesley on how he enjoyed his Machine of Pain, in the Pit of Despair!

But Wait There is More

After walking away from the e-mail for about 2 hours, I decided, maybe I should fill it in to see what questions they might ask me. The e-mail had a “click here” on it, so I clicked, and nothing happened! I was not transported to a web site, nor was I sent to the Pit of Despair, my cursor simply sat there.

Another 1/2 hour passed, and I decided to send an e-mail to the folks who sent me this correspondence about how their e-mail didn’t work. They replied a while later with another link apologizing for their mistake.

I looked at the questionnaire, and filled it in dutifully, pressed the “SUBMIT” button, and it didn’t work, it gave me an error. The words that exploded from my mouth I will not print, as they were out of frustration.

I sent one final e-mail to my contact outlining the steps I had taken, and I finally was frustrated enough that I included the following question:

“Are you actually asking me how I enjoyed my lay off?”

I never got a return e-mail or more instructions on how to fill in the questionnaire.

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