human resources: VALHALLA or GEHENNA

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Madchen's Big Brother ref flipped this front centre of my ILE head: I have never worked anywhere where the phrase "human resources" does not instantly flash up the thought "12-foot tall lizard people feeding off pure evil energy"

Who will defend modern management theory? (Besides Tarden, obviously...)

― mark s, Friday, 20 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(Head of HR where I work is not 12 foot tall, but girth = at least that. Not that THIS makes for evil in itself — as I am no slender wand myself...)

― mark s, Friday, 20 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I know that if I am working in a firm large enough to *have* an HR department, then I am working in the wrong place. Large corporations and me do not get along. I mean, if I'm not interviewed by the person for whom I am ultimately going to be working, I don't take the job. This has proved a very GOOD rule of thumb for me. Anywhere I was interviewed by an HR department, I left within a few months. Anywhere that was a small enough place that I was interviewed directly by the boss, I stayed for a few years.

― Kate the Saint, Friday, 20 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I used to hate HR, but I fairly recently went through a work crisis where the only really supportive people were actually in HR. They're not trained in the same way as everyone else here, so they have a different perspective. And as a result they rock.

― Paul Strange, Friday, 20 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Actually I can't keep a straight face trying to defend HR (the very terminology makes me think of human farms like in 'V' [TV show not book]), considering the outfit I work for (probably the world's only 'cowboy multinational'). So far their HR department has been good at a)doing an excellent impression of the Stasi ('this is strictly in confidence' belongs on the Whoppers thread), and b) repeatedly telling me "This company isn't your personal charity/bank/etc", whenever I commit some heinous crime, like asking where my overtime pay went. Fuck them!

― tarden, Friday, 20 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'Modern Management Theory' - can't be that well-theorized if you can reduce it to ruins by merely asking managers the same question over and over Paxman style until you get an answer, and demanding they stick to the topic.

― tarden, Friday, 20 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Never really had a prob. with HR per se, but current officer manager = company assassin. Has been with the firm since dawn of time and deeply resents editorial staff - treats us like big babies who cannot wipe own arses (which is sort've true, but still teeth-grindingly patronising) - and spends all day long firing off unpleasant memos abt state of our desks, 'excessive' photocopying etc. etc. Is accompanied on her travels round the building by small yapping, biting dog.

― Andrew L, Friday, 20 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

HR's a weird thing in that to be good at it, you have to be a real all-rounder, with a solid knowledge of law, accounting and be good at the 'social' side of things, as well as being extremely careful with confidentiality issues. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that I've never met anyone who works in HR who's really good at their job.

― Madchen, Friday, 20 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

so my other half is a twelve foot lizard alien is she? you'd think i would have noticed.

― kevan, Friday, 20 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My wife bounced from bad HR department to worse HR department before deciding to give up and become an opera singer.

― Dan Perry, Friday, 20 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I did HR as my major in my degree, after studying aspects of it for a year I just knew that I could never work in that department. No one really trusts the HR person, well they haven't trusted the ones we've had here while I've been here anyway.

― cabbage, Friday, 20 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I've had no dealings with current HR people at all. In my old job we had an HR guy who'd been working there 30 years, predating probably the very concept of HR, and he was great, like a kindly old teacher or something. He also alas got the boot when a new chairman came in with theorymania, and we got an absolute fuckwit who didnt understand the business at all and who judged everything on rank: if you had an issue with someone senior, they were right and you were wrong, end of story. He was also a groper. Eventually he got the boot and there was open to-his-face rejoicing across five floors.

Even so I feel slightly sorry for HR people - it's a no-win job as far as making friends goes. All the non-management HR types I've come across were lovely, but once they start determining 'strategies' etc. something seems to go wrong.

― Tom, Friday, 20 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Our small HR crew in the library is actually more payroll if anything else, though they theoretically handle the other issues -- some people have problems with them, but I get along with the four key folks just fine. HR campuswide is a different matter, they lurk on a corner of the campus and just put up job listings. By their resume requests ye shall know them.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 20 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

HR people are not trained, they breed or grow them. Somewhere in the fields of Iowa or somewhere useless like that. Some government agency conducts the work, probably next to those fields that Mulder and Scully always seem to find themselves.

― tOM p, Friday, 20 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yo, we only grow shit like corn and beans and the occasional building full of secret government bees out here, biatch.

― Josh, Friday, 20 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, that's the spelling for BIATCH sorted, then. No Iowa slurs. Iowa jokes, yes please, but ne pas de slur, you'll put a Minnesotan out of work.

HR people terrify me. As usual Kate is right: never deal with those not signing the paychecks in interview situaton. My own dealings with the HR squad leave me wanting things to punch and wishing it could be * them*.

― suzy, Friday, 20 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

eight years pass...

these chix are always hott

― wilter, Tuesday, 25 August 2009 06:37 (sixteen years ago)

i must have met the wrong ones

― internetkonnektivität (electricsound), Tuesday, 25 August 2009 06:40 (sixteen years ago)

ha rly?

oh and I think they're scum of the earth too obv

― wilter, Tuesday, 25 August 2009 06:44 (sixteen years ago)

in my experience = occasionally attractive but ALWAYS EVIL.

― mmmm, Tuesday, 25 August 2009 16:38 (sixteen years ago)

six years pass...

stupid devil in HR just lied her ass off to my supervisor about what she told me about having to make up my cancer treatment hours. Cut to the chase, i now have to work extra hours or lose all my sick time by next month.

asswipes

― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 4 May 2016 18:14 (ten years ago)

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