Outdated fluff

 

After being asked a query about training needs, my AI powered assistant, Miss Axe  recommended a webinar for our team of software aficionados—something brief, impactful, and with that elusive "wow" factor. 

As expected, Miss Axe responded in nanoseconds with a suggestion: “Meeting and Yet Exceeding Customers' Expectations.”

The webinar, generously posted for free on YouTube by its facilitator, Julia Julio Delores Sanchez O’Conner, seemed promising. I messaged her on WhatsApp to see if she could adapt the content to suit our particular needs. She replied that she'd first need to speak with our Head of Development, Comrade Karl Marks.

We also touched on fees. I floated the idea that, should she tailor the webinar gratis, I’d give her a glowing plug. I sensed she might be operating on a tight budget, and she agreed.

However, Comrade Marks flatly refused even to entertain the idea of speaking with her. I’m attaching his response—judge for yourself:

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From: Karl Marks
To: Gloria
Subject: Re: Webinar Nonsense

Gloria,

Kibinimat, you've outdone yourself once again. Your over-reliance on AI and under-reliance on your brain have led you astray. "Meeting customer expectations" is as outdated as Methuselah—who, as you may recall, was extremely old. Ask any preacher.

That kind of fluff expired in the 1950s, around the same time Beria met his end courtesy of the NKVD.

Software, by its very nature, is half-baked. It takes years to mature—like a banana. Most clients, bless their hearts, lack the mindset or technical sophistication to appreciate our work. Let’s be honest: they’re often delusional about what to expect.

Pizdiets. The real challenge is not meeting expectations, but managing them—something you should know by now, silly girl.

In my long career across both Russia and the former USSR, we’ve perfected three key tactics for managing customer expectations:

1. Feigned listening

2. Promises of future functionality (on the other hand)

3. A weekend in Detroit

I’m currently cruising down the Volga, but we’ll speak when I return.

Karl

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After reading Karl’s charming email, I took the executive elevator down. When the doors opened—lo and behold—Comrade Karl was just pulling out of the car park.

How to dissolve your DEI team without throwing away the baby with the bathwater, if you get my drift

 

                                      

Bathwater 

In line with being aligned with major and minor trends in the HR profession, I have decided to restructure our DEI group, eliminating it entirely yet preserving its major value. I like contradicting goals all blended into one statement.

Ethel-William, our building superintendent, will alas be asked to use the mens' lavatory. 

Carmen Vega-Schwartz-McNabe-Hernandez-Korsakov will be terminated. True, she helped us achieve an award for being so diverse, but indeed her accrued value is caduc.  Caduc is a French word.

The staff restaurant will not be serving Ethiopian food on Monday nor Asian food on Tuesday. Nor Korean food on Wednesday. Nor Arabian food on Thursday. Nor French Canadian pea soup on Friday.

New staff will no longer need to apologize that they are white, even if they are male, or even straight.

We will insist that new hires speak excellent English, even in they are Thai, Scottish or Japanese. 

Danish passports for unhappy customer service reps will be replaced with Cipralex and Seroquel. Being a Dane may have equaled happiness, until Trump came to power.

Sick leave for infirm/sickly nerds (asthma, more than 2 colds a year, sniffling) will be limited to one day a year, after 5 years of service. 

Diversity training will be replaced by British accent training, or, watching old versions of Father Knows Best. Or watching Bonanza.

Prayer services will take place at 9 am. The Reverend Comrade Karl Marks is presiding.

Hugh White's name has been deleted from our records, like Nikolai Yezhov. Hugh was the straight white boy who ran DEI. He is gone gone. Ugandans often say a word twice for emphasis.

To make a long story short, diversity is still a value, so to speak, but not a core value. It's dispensable, like all values.

 

Recruiting strategies for the elderly

Hiring young nerds is fraught with problems. For those of my readers who don't speak English well, fraught describes a situation that "may be highly problematic". Younger nerds need higher salaries since they tend to proliferate; furthermore "work-life balance" (a term I detest) often has impacted their immune system.

Our CEO Stan recently asked me "why don't we hire a few old geezers? Gloria, prepare a plan asap."

So that's what I did, in line with my core value of being an obedient business partner.

I prepared a "flier" to be distributed in old age homes, in the lobbies of dentists, dermatologists and cardiologists which describes our company as " le lieu de travail en rose", which reminds me of a French song, by Edith Piaf.

In the flier, I skim over and de-focus the non-wow need for long hours, the non wow wow  interface with furious customers and DEI training-and focus on our new GWPO, our Geezer Work Package Offer".

Nerds over 65 will receive, upon signing up, the following goodies:

• stool softeners
• 3 toilet breaks an hour
• one free operation a year, in any bodily part from the knees down
• enlarged fonts on their PC
• hearing aids for those in service roles++
• back support for their chairs and rocking chairs
• one week (free of charge) holiday near a Danish lake, in a tent

I distributed the fliers last week, and we have already had 50 calls, which went to our voicemail hiring bot. Malheureusement*, the bot erased all the calls, since our  outsourced IT department had configured the bot only accept the CVs of refugees under the age of 30, with no children. 

As on Monday, this will be sorted out-or else I will be "sorted out", as our CEO Stan explained to me. 

++BTW, nerds in service roles who are hard of hearing but do not want a hearing aid, that's fine. We promote feigned listening to our clients' beefs.

*Unfortunately- in French

Decolonizing the client: Comrade Karl goes on a rant

Comrade Karl Marx, our VP of Software Development and User Experience Czar asked me in a Whatsapp message 'when is Martin Luther King Day?"

I am on sabbatical in Denmark, living the life of Riley, pro bono-near a lake and thus, I did not answer him.

Rumor has it that Comrade Karl convened all his nerds during today's lunch in his meeting room, Lavrentiy Beria Hall.  On the screen was a picture of MLK, Kim Jong-un and Lester Pearson. Comrade Karl has always had a eclectic streak in him.

When the clock struck 12.30, the Comrade spoke. "Friends, countrymen and nerds with a green card working for a halfpenny: a client should be judged not by the money he pays, but by the degree of tolerance he displays for the bugs in our product and our ever maturing documentation. I have come not to praise our CFO Herr Krebbs, but to bury him. From on this stage, Herr Krebbs, I demand, ask not what we can do to our clients, but what our clients can do to bolster our image".

Herr Krebbs, who hails from Bonn unt speaks vita German accent, muttered to himself (rumor has it), er hat Verstand verloren. Our CEO, Stan, who was sitting next to Karl, said, "For Christ's sake, Herr Krebbs, speak English".

Comrade Karl rambled on until 15.00 (3pm) quoting the Bible, the Communist Manifesto and weaved in a unique idea. Apparently he is said to have claimed-"I am white boy, but this is no matter". He quoted from TS Eliot's Prufrock:  

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall..

Continuing his reason the Comrade claimed that "we need to decolonize the clients' sense of privilege, even if he isn't white. Who cares about a few bugs here and there; does anyone know what the role of service is: they clean up the mess? Jesus Christ-when did people start asking questions instead of focusing on knowledge acquisition. Our clients, down the last of them, lack a sense of fairness."

Our CEO, Stan was standing due to 1) his irritation with Karl and 2) his bum was itching because of his hemorrhoids. "Tovarish Comrade Karl, enough is enough. People have an attention deficit from looking at their fucking cell phones all day. Come into my office, without the joint you are smoking. I want to have a word with you. I sure wish Gloria was here, and not living on someone's property over there in Denmark."

 

2025's challenges for the HR manager: and how to handle all 4 of them

 I have been on a sabbatical recently, getting a PhD in AI and German grammar. The AI stuff was easy. 

I won't talk about the German grammar part.

Anyway 2025 is upon is, and from what I understand,  Australia,  New Zealand, Samoa and the Canary Islands are already well into 2025-if I am not mistaken. So I'd better hustle and set forth my four part blueprint for 2025's HR thought leaders.

1-The implementation of transgender toilets has been "pushed out" to a later date. This is not because transgender toilets are unimportant, but because our plan to hire transgender employees was frozen by our head of R&D, Comrade Karl Marks, who just returned from the mid east. Here is what Karl blurted out at an all hands meeting:

 "The woke crowd have been caught with their pants down. The whole map of interests is shifting. We need to hire better engineers, without any PC criteria. HR Diversity is a thing of the past, just like OD and the slogan that "people matter".  Long live Otto Van Bismarck."

Thus, I plan to reintroduce transgender toilets when the Dems are back in power. In other words, don't hold your (m) or your (f) breath.

2) I cannot emphasize how important AI is to the future of HR. It's as important as flossing your teeth or washing your hands after a stay in the toilet. I have set up an AI committee, we will celebrate "AI Monday" weekly and ....get this....we will hire 5 nerds names AI-leen, male or female. Sorry, female.

3) Working from Home is now a crime against humanity. Unlike scurvy, it it is not lethal to the employee, but rather to the firm. Yes- there are mitigating circumstances due to which working from home will be permitted-for example earthquakes near HQ, civil war or an outbreak of leprosy. But don't bet the farm that WFH will be tolerated. Thank you for your understanding.

4) HR strives for gender equality-especially in hiring, downsizing and medical care for various intimate diseases. We hire pregnant staff, whether male or female, as long as the candidate verify their ten-month plan, which can be downloaded almost anonymously on line.