“I personally could not care less about the plight of these HR ditzes. They proved nothing more than a huge impediment to the labor force, the advancement of the economy, and the advancement of millions of people’s careers. They were predominantly spoiled rotten brats from the suburbs, given undeserved and uncalled for power which they abused and went power-tripping with. And while I certainly know and appreciate some REAL HR professionals (benefits and compensation and employment law ARE real fields), the extinction of “Barbie the Know Nothing HR Ditz” and the idiot employers that used them will not be mourned.”
I was an R&D manager for a dozen years. Both my goal and the goal of candidates was to make sure HR had as little to do with the hiring process as possible. In fact, I viewed hiring as something the department — not just the manager — did.
I’ve only known one HR person who ever came up with real solutions to real issues.
The rest were “C Suite” mouthpieces, or hired for obvious up-front “talents”.
HR is the department that progressives use to introduce all their idiotic beliefs directly into a corporation’s culture.
You know; diversity is our strength, tolerance is a virtue.
I once had a discussion with a bright young woman who espoused these values. I say bright because she claimed she was headed to Oxford on a full academic scholarship to pursue a post-graduate degree in I forget what.
Regardless, in an effort to show how vacuous such phrases are I asked her if she would “tolerate” people slapping her in the face.
Her eyes crossed in confusion as she thought about that one but it still had no impact on her beliefs.
I’ve worked for enough firms to know that this won’t last long. Get rid of the bozos in personnel (I refuse to call that department “human resouces”!), and they’ll be replaced by some other sort of bureaucratic jackass, likely someone worse.
At my last place of “corporate” employment … one of the managing ownership partners LOVED subjecting every employee to Myers-Briggs “personality” testing … speaking of HR nonsense (it was administered by the HR Dept.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator
… what a load of crap. So I carefully answered the questions to arrive at my PLANNED “personality-type” ENTP. I wanted the results to indicate this personality type so I wouldn’t become pigeonholed in some shit-job … which is how the partner “used” these results. He was a “true-believer” in this crap. So I wanted a personality type that bridged personality-types … the key word in describing this personality type is … “versatile”. It wasn’t hard to tweak the results to achieve my planned personality type … which suggests just how BOGUS this sort of “testing” actually is. As a result … I was able to CHOOSE whatever projects I wanted to work, for as long as I was at this crap job.
I was HR military version. No vision statements except for if you can’t see what you’re supposed to do, go back to civie street.
Lost a $5000 contract because some pointy head HR type decided I couldn’t legally work in Canada, only having lived here my whole life but having the temerity to be born in England where my dad was serving in the RCAF.
Dirty Harry once said personnel “is for idiots/a**holes.” His bureaucratic boss then spits out “I was in personnel for 10 years.”
That and the rest of the movie about sums it up imho.
My first HR interaction was with Mr. P.R. Soles
Spin doctors are masters at pimping the decline. They are like many Conservatives and Republicans in that they can be depended on to orchestrate “losing” graciously. Moral cowardice is their mantra. Rent seeking is their bible. Principles are their nemesis. They are the ultimate corporate carpetbaggers.
I’ve got my share of stories to tell about that sort of bilge.
I remember one interview several years ago in which I was tested to see where I was on the “wheel of success”, whatever that was. Of course I didn’t get the job.
Earlier than that, I went through something similar and I gave the answers that I thought the employer wanted. Again, I didn’t get the job, but I don’t think the interview was serious. From what I later gathered, the position didn’t actually exist but, if the actual project was approved, then the company would have known who to bring in.
A lot of such sessions I had in the last 15 years were like that one.
Right after I started my post-secondary teaching position, I, and my fellow rookies, had to go through 3 weeks of “how to teach” training. Towards the end of the last week, the newly-hired wellness co-ordinator got us to fill out a survey. Since I thought she was a crap artist (and, in the following months, I was proven right), I simply gave random answers.
For all I know, the personality type from those results indicated that I was an elderly mixed-race, one-legged, lesbian sumo wrestler.
Around my workplace that department was always referred to as Human Remains.
My poor elementary-school teacher wife (and I DO mean POOR) … is subjected to a constant barrage of “continuing education” seminars, lectures, training, etc. All of which seem to conspire to completely WRECK every EFFECTIVE teaching technique.
Or … take WEEKS to “learn” how to properly administrate “Common Core” instruction and grading. The Common Core math is unbelievably counterintuitive and IDIOTIC. The whole Common Core is just an excuse to EMPLOY a bunch of leftist education “experts” who have never actually seen the interior of a classroom … who have never actually ENGAGED with a child struggling to learn basic concepts. I thought that … “a mind was a terrible thing to waste” as lectured by the United Negro College Fund. Seems as though the Obama Administration was determined to WASTE every single mind of every single child in America … but give them “partial credit” for remaining upright in their chairs.
Human Remains
An appropriate name. At most of the places where I worked, a lot of people in personnel departments had a grim reaper mentality. I’m sure that many of them also knew where a few figurative bodies were buried.
Speaking of such people, I once had an interview, if one could call it that, with a certain software firm.
The ditz I met with (and the term, in this case, was completely appropriate) was young enough to be my daughter. She saw my qualifications and noted that I had several degrees in engineering and that I was professionally registered in more than one province.
She then made the audacious claim that she, too, was in the “engineering” field. Later, when I looked at her business card, I saw that she had what appeared to be some sort of Microsoft certification and that was it. Credentials like that, plus her age and associated inexperience, would hardly make her an expert on assessing whether I was suited for the job.
As it turned out, I was turned down because, as she put it in the “get lost” e-mail message she sent me a few days later, “the focus of the job had changed”.
Later on, I managed to speak with some other people in that organization, including the founder and president. All of them were similarly fatuous and bogus.
Heh..Myers Briggs…
https://www.xeromag.com/fun/personality.html
So Kenji was manipulating test results…that’s the trait of a budding psychopath! I’m shocked 😉
Oh, I know all about that sort of thing.
After the end of term in the spring, we had a few weeks before we all went away for the summer. We were expected to attend in-service courses during that time, the number and topics varying from year to year.
Most of those I went to were a complete waste of time, consisting of little more than edu-babble and bureaucratic balderdash. The only one that was worth my time was an introduction to C programming.
Eventually, I got fed up and stopped going altogether, using that time, instead, to work on other things, such as my course materials.
I’m not about to scoff at the MBTI. According to certain test results, I’m INTJ, which confirmed what I already knew about myself.
We had an HR ditz at one of the companies I used to work for that couldn’t spell let alone do her f’ing job. Didn’t keep track of vacation time taken even though there was a system in place. Messed up payroll constantly. The list goes on and on.
Hahahaha … you are so SPOT ON … I am definitely the “Mad Scientist” … moving toward full blown psychopath. Like Dr. Frannk en Steen … I would like to sever a Muslim head and sew it onto the metrosexual body of the average American hipster … and turn it loose in a gay bath house. Just to see if the body (muscle-memory) would take advantage of the glory holes … or if the Muslim brain (abbeynormal) would sever every appendage thrust at him … bwaahahahaha ha ha … ha … ha … cough … cough.
Hey … it’s SCIENCE … don’t you “believe” in science ?
The wellness co-ordinator I mentioned earlier was a winner as well.
She didn’t do much except drink coffee and put stickers on vending machines, pointing out with them which was “bad” junk food. (As if one could buy celery sticks from them.) Her newsletter consisted of photocopying articles from various self-help magazines and passing it off as her own work.
After 6 months, she disappeared. I found out much later that she went on stress leave at that time and stayed there for about 2 years. Eventually, someone at the institution figured out that she was bilking the place and she was given the boot.
To paraphrase the line from I’ve Got A Little List from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, she surely wasn’t missed.
The Soviets always had a “political officer” on every submarine. They served the same purpose as these Red Queens of HR.
28 years working for the union and I had to deal with a parade of useless HR newbies. thankfully toward the end they had mostly disappeared.
Many years ago, I was promoted from the ranks to management in a large railway hotel that most would know. After a few months, I was called in for the HR interview. This was still kinda new in those days. I mean we still smoked in our offices! So I went. My office was on the top floor of the hotel and hers was way down in a back corner on the ground floor. I got there and we sat down. She asked, where would you like to be in five years? I looked around smiled, and said, well not here.
When I first got hired at that hotel, I was interviewed by the Assistant Manager as it was a front line position. They liked to see the cut of your jib. He hired me but said there is one more person we need to talk to. So he sent me sent me down to see the head Porter. It was way at the back of the hotel (kinda near the personnel office BTW). He was leaning over a piece of luggage marking it with chalk with a room number. He looked at me. You the bloke Ted sent down? Uh, I guess so sir. He looked me up and down. Be here tomorrow at 7 sharp. Pretty sure I have something that will fit you.
I’ve had similar experiences.
I remember some interviews I had with companies about a dozen years ago. Each of them were group sessions, so, in order to get the jobs in question, I had to keep everyone in attendance happy.
I was subjected to the usual irritating questions, which were more concerned about whether I knew how to play nice with the other kiddies rather than if I knew how to do the job. (That’s quite a change from when I was interviewed for jobs during my senior undergraduate year.)
For each of them, I put on a jacket and tie. In one of those interviews, though, the personnel manager (a ditz like what’s described in the heading) was dressed like she was going to a Saturday night beach party. That hardly left a good impression on me.
When each of them was over, I was told that I would be contacted about the final decision within a week. Yeah, right. I remember calling Ms. Beach Party who promptly told me that she would call me back in a few days. That was over a dozen years ago. I’m still waiting to hear from her.
But time sometimes has a way of being a great avenger. I didn’t get any of the jobs I was interviewed. However, in 2 cases, the people who interviewed me became my employees, in a way. I eventually bought shares in one company and I held stock in the firm that bought the other one.
Interesting, isn’t it?
She then made the audacious claim that she, too, was in the “engineering” field. Later, when I looked at her business card, I saw that she had what appeared to be some sort of Microsoft certification and that was it.
I’d bet money that was an MCSE, the old Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer credential. Infamous for being the kind of thing you could get by going to a weekend boot camp and learning the test answers, which is why no one in the industry took them seriously.
Incidentally, the PEO had a little chat with Microsoft in the 90’s, and you are not allowed to say what ‘MCSE’ stands for in Ontario. If you’re going to call yourself an engineer, you need to actually be one.
I’d bet money that was an MCSE, the old Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer credential.
Bingo.
I’ve been registered with PEO for nearly 30 years. I remember reading all about that in Engineering Dimensions.
I’m also registered in Alberta and Saskatchewan and I believe that APEGA and APEGS have similar policies.
Alberta does for sure, and I remember the MCSE became Microsoft Certified Systems Expert due to the inability for them to use the term engineer. Only two types of people can call themselves Engineers in Alberta, those with APEGA(or temp outside) credentials and those that drive trains! lol
Although a lot more are getting away with using Engineering Technologist titles.
The sad thing about these HR ditzes is that many companies use them for the initial interview with the applicants. If she approves them then they finally get to interview with the line manager.
But those ditzes are so stupid they likely reject many people who would be excellent for the job and both the company and the rejected employee miss out.