5548: Serendipity
I have more interesting things to post, but they seem much less date-sensitive, whereas this happened TODAY and I *might* forget it otherwise...? (no idea with my brain)
So there's this thing called "E-Verify" (you may have heard of it) that our US government uses as a redundant way (see "Form I-9") to verify a person's authorization to work in America. The difference is where it's almost always possible to forge/backdate an I-9 to comply with the "new hire signs on or before joining date, approver signs before or within three business days of new hire's joining date" standard, E-Verify absolutely CANNOT be done in keeping with compliance outside of the "three business day" rule (except if the new hire has applied for and is awaiting a Social Security Number... or the E-Verify website happened to be down).
I don't specifically know the incentive to enroll in the program, except that it will cut down on the *likelihood* of hiring an illegal alien much the way drug testing will cut down on the *likelihood* of giving welfare money to a drug abuser, because we get (a risk of being) fined for not running E-Verify on new hires in a compliant manner. I also don't know the reasoning for why our company was allowed to only run on selective new hires before we decided to open it up to ALL new hires--something I need to ask one day when I'm not SWAMPED with work.
Anyway, the point of my post: There's a rule that E-Verify must be run on all RE-HIRES as well, unless [something about three years from a prior termination date, in which case re-verification is enough].
We have not been doing that... more like, "You passed E-Verification once, no need to do it again ever."
This is significant, because today I think my supervisor ("Pointy-Haired Boss") finally learned we're supposed to be doing it for ALL re-hires, which are, like, LOTS. We're separated by a cubicle wall, and I pretend not to hear anything (because otherwise I'm potentially held liable for snippets of things I hear), but from the sound of it, she was extremely put out by the realization, as though it's going to royally fuck us over.
I mean, it WILL, since we've been so cavalier as to dismiss having to do extra work, but to be honest, it will be EASIER to run all new- and re-hire candidates than to go through the effort she (FINALLY) showed me how to determine which people need to have E-Verify done.
That seems bizarre to say, but consider: When I started, PHB had mentioned having to split in two the spreadsheet we use to record E-Verify results, because it was getting "huger" and impossible to use.
That spreadsheet is now FIVE TIMES that, at LEAST, and I've been running into problems trying to manage it to do the selections she trained me to do, because my *brand new* laptop can't handle the size of the spreadsheet. Or, more accurately, it can't handle TWO such spreadsheets PLUS the formulas to copy information between the two (the somewhere-aforementioned VLOOKUP, for Excel nerds).
Thing is, now we have the infrastructure in place that we don't NEED a separate offline spreadsheet. It's as backwards and clumsy as the old database we used before creating an online "offline"* database. Pretty much the only reason we still use it is to add to it... or, as mentioned, selectively decide for whom to ignore redoing E-Verify.
It's so much extra work, but it's also LESS, because we just run the cases, enter the results in the online database, and... that's it! We can only have to manage the "To Do" spreadsheet for new hires who don't yet have employee numbers (which is SIGNIFICANTLY fewer than ALL COMPLETED CASES, even reduced to "one authorization per employee").
Ahh, the timing is just so perfect... I want PHB to realize the pointlessness of the extra spreadsheet, because I'm super sick of having to stop work because Excel crashed.
AGAIN.
...unrelated to that, I had to make myself call somebody (and I hate calling even to order food), and *as soon as* the call went to voicemail... the fire alarm went off. Hooray???
((Also, when we exited the building, EVERYONE STOOD NEXT TO IT. I get the likelihood of actual fire being low, but if there had been, THAT IS NOT THE BEST PLACE TO BE.))
*We have two types of I-9 forms: electronic and paper (offline). Electronic is for re-hires and "ex-patriot" employees... or new hires who ignore the I-9 guidelines and initiate late to result in non-compliance.
Edit: Well, since I'm AWAKE now, thank you nightmare-filled nap...
PHB made me listen to the webinar, and it's a little less clear-cut than that. There is not a specific rule I've found (YET) that states to always run re-hires (only that it's an option we have not been utilizing to its fullest non-compliance-avoidance potential); it is a proposal in the works to cut down on the likelihood that an authorized worker whose documents expire is suddenly NO LONGER authorized. I think. I really don't like having sound on at work, so I need to bring in headphones (or listen at home, which I don't think I'll do given my poor history of getting paid for overtime).
((that's not 100% true--I might be getting paid, but it's not matching up because I can't find the pay sheet that shows what money's been taken out for benefits that I SWEAR I saw I could look at UNTIL I actually had a direct deposit go through))
(((this is an intranet thing, pretty much the worst, cobbled-togetherest thing I've ever seen for such an apparently HUGE multinational company)))
So I still have to put up with all the shit I have to put up with for a bit, but that's a pretty familiar scenario such that, even if I should complain, I know I won't =/
So there's this thing called "E-Verify" (you may have heard of it) that our US government uses as a redundant way (see "Form I-9") to verify a person's authorization to work in America. The difference is where it's almost always possible to forge/backdate an I-9 to comply with the "new hire signs on or before joining date, approver signs before or within three business days of new hire's joining date" standard, E-Verify absolutely CANNOT be done in keeping with compliance outside of the "three business day" rule (except if the new hire has applied for and is awaiting a Social Security Number... or the E-Verify website happened to be down).
I don't specifically know the incentive to enroll in the program, except that it will cut down on the *likelihood* of hiring an illegal alien much the way drug testing will cut down on the *likelihood* of giving welfare money to a drug abuser, because we get (a risk of being) fined for not running E-Verify on new hires in a compliant manner. I also don't know the reasoning for why our company was allowed to only run on selective new hires before we decided to open it up to ALL new hires--something I need to ask one day when I'm not SWAMPED with work.
Anyway, the point of my post: There's a rule that E-Verify must be run on all RE-HIRES as well, unless [something about three years from a prior termination date, in which case re-verification is enough].
We have not been doing that... more like, "You passed E-Verification once, no need to do it again ever."
This is significant, because today I think my supervisor ("Pointy-Haired Boss") finally learned we're supposed to be doing it for ALL re-hires, which are, like, LOTS. We're separated by a cubicle wall, and I pretend not to hear anything (because otherwise I'm potentially held liable for snippets of things I hear), but from the sound of it, she was extremely put out by the realization, as though it's going to royally fuck us over.
I mean, it WILL, since we've been so cavalier as to dismiss having to do extra work, but to be honest, it will be EASIER to run all new- and re-hire candidates than to go through the effort she (FINALLY) showed me how to determine which people need to have E-Verify done.
That seems bizarre to say, but consider: When I started, PHB had mentioned having to split in two the spreadsheet we use to record E-Verify results, because it was getting "huger" and impossible to use.
That spreadsheet is now FIVE TIMES that, at LEAST, and I've been running into problems trying to manage it to do the selections she trained me to do, because my *brand new* laptop can't handle the size of the spreadsheet. Or, more accurately, it can't handle TWO such spreadsheets PLUS the formulas to copy information between the two (the somewhere-aforementioned VLOOKUP, for Excel nerds).
Thing is, now we have the infrastructure in place that we don't NEED a separate offline spreadsheet. It's as backwards and clumsy as the old database we used before creating an online "offline"* database. Pretty much the only reason we still use it is to add to it... or, as mentioned, selectively decide for whom to ignore redoing E-Verify.
It's so much extra work, but it's also LESS, because we just run the cases, enter the results in the online database, and... that's it! We can only have to manage the "To Do" spreadsheet for new hires who don't yet have employee numbers (which is SIGNIFICANTLY fewer than ALL COMPLETED CASES, even reduced to "one authorization per employee").
Ahh, the timing is just so perfect... I want PHB to realize the pointlessness of the extra spreadsheet, because I'm super sick of having to stop work because Excel crashed.
AGAIN.
...unrelated to that, I had to make myself call somebody (and I hate calling even to order food), and *as soon as* the call went to voicemail... the fire alarm went off. Hooray???
((Also, when we exited the building, EVERYONE STOOD NEXT TO IT. I get the likelihood of actual fire being low, but if there had been, THAT IS NOT THE BEST PLACE TO BE.))
*We have two types of I-9 forms: electronic and paper (offline). Electronic is for re-hires and "ex-patriot" employees... or new hires who ignore the I-9 guidelines and initiate late to result in non-compliance.
Edit: Well, since I'm AWAKE now, thank you nightmare-filled nap...
PHB made me listen to the webinar, and it's a little less clear-cut than that. There is not a specific rule I've found (YET) that states to always run re-hires (only that it's an option we have not been utilizing to its fullest non-compliance-avoidance potential); it is a proposal in the works to cut down on the likelihood that an authorized worker whose documents expire is suddenly NO LONGER authorized. I think. I really don't like having sound on at work, so I need to bring in headphones (or listen at home, which I don't think I'll do given my poor history of getting paid for overtime).
((that's not 100% true--I might be getting paid, but it's not matching up because I can't find the pay sheet that shows what money's been taken out for benefits that I SWEAR I saw I could look at UNTIL I actually had a direct deposit go through))
(((this is an intranet thing, pretty much the worst, cobbled-togetherest thing I've ever seen for such an apparently HUGE multinational company)))
So I still have to put up with all the shit I have to put up with for a bit, but that's a pretty familiar scenario such that, even if I should complain, I know I won't =/