Motivational Coaching Company Accused of Waterboarding an Employee

Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone at 10:58 AM on March 1, 2008.

A motivational coaching company in Utah is being sued by a former employee for using waterboarding as a performance improvement technique. No word yet on whether snarling dogs, loud music, or pictures of Dick Cheney were also being used to properly inspire the employees.

So, you think you have a crappy job?

This is what happens when torture becomes acceptable in the mainstream. It's also quite a stark commentary on the state of corporate employee / employer relationships:

A supervisor at a motivational coaching business in Provo is accused of waterboarding an employee in front of his sales team to demonstrate that they should work as hard on sales as the employee had worked to breathe. In a lawsuit filed last month, former Prosper, Inc. salesman Chad Hudgens alleges his managers also allowed the supervisor to draw mustaches on employees' faces, take away their chairs and beat on their desks with a wooden paddle "because it resulted in increased revenues for the company." ...

I've heard of some extreme motivational techniques in the workplace, but this just seems a bit over the top to me. No word yet whether or not the company endorses electrodes clamped to employee's genitalia as an additional incentive not to slack off on the job.

Is this how Prosper, Inc. won the E&Y Utah Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2005?

There's a Dick Cheney joke in here someplace, but I'm too tired from traveling today to develop it right now.

Tagged as: waterboarding, torture, utah

Richard Blair is the blogmaster of All Spin Zone.