Employee's suit: Waterboarding used to motivate workers

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A supervisor at a motivational-coaching business in Provo, Utah, is accused of waterboarding an employee in front of his sales teammates to demonstrate that they should work as hard on sales as the employee had worked to breathe.In a lawsuit, 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."Prosper President Dave Ellis responded that the allegations amount to "sensationalized" versions of events that have gone uncorroborated by Hudgens' former co-workers."They just roll their eyes and say, 'This is ridiculous ... That's not how it went down,' " Ellis said.The suit claims that Hudgens' team leader, Joshua Christopherson, asked for volunteers in May for "a new motivational exercise," which he did not describe. Hudgens, 26 at the time, volunteered to "prove his loyalty and determination," the suit claims.Christopherson led the sales team to the top of a hill near the office and told Hudgens to lie down with his head downhill, the suit claims. Christopherson then told the rest of the team to hold Hudgens by the arms and legs.Christopherson poured water from a gallon jug over Hudgens' mouth and nostrils -- like the interrogation strategy known as "waterboarding" -- and told the team members to hold Hudgens down as he struggled, the suit alleges."At the conclusion of his abusive demonstration, Christopherson told the team that he wanted them to work as hard on making sales as Chad had worked to breathe while he was being waterboarded," the suit alleges. The suit was filed in a state court last month.Ellis said the exercise was a dramatization of a story in which a young man asks Socrates to become his teacher. Socrates responds by plunging the student's head underwater and telling him he will learn once his desire for knowledge is as great as his desire to breathe.However, Ellis said Christopherson explained the exercise before Hudgens volunteered, no one held Hudgens down and Hudgens was free to get up if he was uncomfortable."It was meant to be a team-building exercise," Ellis said. "Everybody was ... involved and enthusiastic."Hudgens claims he complained to Prosper managers about the exercise, but no action was taken against Christopherson until Hudgens left the company.Prosper attorney George Brunt said Hudgens lodged the complaint six weeks after the exercise; in the meantime, Hudgens joined his team on a water-skiing retreat and drove the boat, Brunt said. Ellis said Christopherson was suspended for two weeks while managers investigated Hudgens' complaint. Christopherson returned to work and remains the sales-team leader, Ellis said. "It's incredible to even suggest that he would put anyone under a level of discomfort," Ellis said. "He's a really nice, pleasant, polite young man. He's very dedicated and takes his job very seriously."However, the suit claims Christopherson "intentionally engaged in physically and emotionally abusive conduct" to punish workers who did not meet performance goals.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)