No Felonies Here

Place of work has recently been acquired. Actually, the company that acquired us a couple of years ago was acquired by a bigger company which is owned by a BIG HONKING company with more than 85,000 employees. Being acquired by such a large company, that is actually quite good at acquisitions, is new for me. Now that I think of it, I've been through five acquisitions now. Huh. But that's not what this is about.

The new company has processes. And a lot of them. I suppose that's important when you've got so many people. One of them is that new employees get a background check. For felonies. Since we're newly acquired employees, that means us.

I'm not sure how the Human Capital director referred to it, but it wasn't clear what would happen if you DO have a felony on your record. I mean, we're already working here. So, in the meeting of 100 of my closest co-workers, I asked. This is suprising, I know. I'm not typically so inquisitive or outspoken? I'm not sure that this question had ever been asked because I was then told, uncertainly, that it would be handled on a case-by-case basis. Ok.

A coworker told me a couple of weeks later that I've raised a lot of eyebrows. Lots of people are speculating about my criminal background. Which is just hysterical. It's not like you can't COME TO ME AND ASK. The only thing I've ever been CAUGHT for is speeding. And the last time that happened was early 1996. Parking tickets (all 2 or 3 of them) don't even count, because they're not moving violations. I'm not saying I haven't done other things. That ugly plant Dana and I stole in the 8th grade comes to mind. But I think we did the nursery a favor, really. And there are a number of photos which document the enormous amount of underage drinking I did at a certain fraternity in Atlanta. But none of those are felonies. And like I said...it's been a while.

Mostly, I asked because it came to our attention several months ago that not only was one of our coworkers a convicted felon, but he was working at our company on work release. Huh. He's gone now. But not because of a background check.

And really, Human Capital? I guess that's supposed to be friendlier than Human Resources, but it kinda makes me feel a little like property. Of course, I'm easy. Pay me enough and you can call me anything you want. Easy, but not cheap. Feel free to file away that useful piece of information.