HR – working hard to underwhelm you!
I was ‘put before the beak’ a few weeks ago by an HR zealot that didn’t like the fact that I had challenged some weasel words spoken by a senior member of staff at an ‘all-programme’ meeting.
The zealot’s recollection of the event was intriguing as, when I challenged it, she had then to acknowledge she hadn’t even been there, but was simply parroting the words of a ‘leader’ that couldn’t, it appears, accept challenge!
It seems that in her little world it is an HR violation for scientists to be questioning; that is, of course, the antithesis of the way that science works in the real world (and if it operated according to her rules then we would still be living in the Dark Ages).
As an aside, I work in an organisation whose management culture across the piece seems to “overemphasize control, as opposed to fostering creativity, to meet their goals”. Neither our HR zealot nor the organisation’s leadership recognise this despite the motherhood and apple pie vision they propound to the world.
More recently, my domestic ‘Management’ had an exchange with the HR bods at her place of work (not the same as mine) when she questioned a decision about staffing levels in her department.
Their HR team’s response to her enquiry demonstrated a risible grasp of the facts coupled to an heroic level of condescension.
So, is it any wonder that folk who carry out the real business of an organisation have simultaneously to suspend both belief and disbelief at the inept administration of their organisation by idiots in HR and out-of-touch management from senior leadership teams?
I’m sure that many of my colleagues would agree with Peter Drucker’s view that:
“So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.”
Oh well, at least it has inspired this..
It’s a pity, and truly bizarre,
That the most vacuous people by far
In our places of work
Are the pillocks that lurk
In the ‘abode of the damned’ that’s HR!
