"Not everything needs to be discussed" - Pierre Elliot Ramsbottom

                                                     

                                            Miss Axe reads about HR thought leaders

The entire HR department (Ms Cynthia Axe from Early Bird Retirement; Hugh White from Diversity and yours truly) went to the hospital to visit CEO Stan, who is recuperating from an illness that there is no need to discuss.

When we entered Stan’s room, Comrade Carl Marks, our acting CEO, was chatting with Stan’s wife Wifey, who was positioned at an angle that allowed her to control the goings on in the room. Carl did not used his feigned Russian accent.

Wifey had prepared chairs and we all sat around Stan’s bed, avoiding asking him how he feels. My dad always told me "there are some questions you don't ask, mon choux."

Wifey stopped all conversations and asked, “Who is reading what”?  Then she answered her own question. “I am reading Anna Caltabiano’s book on Eternity,  The Seventh Miss Hatfield. I read everything that young Ms Caltabiano writes, as should you all. Gloria, please buy this book for all the staff.”

I took out my Blackberry (Passport) and jotted down an action item. An HR manager without action items is like a fish without water, as it were.

Comrade Carl Marks told us that he reading “my 3004th book about the Battle for Stalingrad, and the heroism of the Red Army”. 

Hugh White from Diversity informed us all that he was reading about “Coughing at Work”, from a Diversity perspective. 

Hugh asked Wifey if Caltabiano's book is "diversity-friendly". (Hugh White is a source of deep embarrassment). 

Cynthia Axe informed all of us that she was reading a great biography of an HR thought leader. I was so proud of her.

I told the crowd that being an HR thought leader demands my whole attention, and I only read text messages, 22 hours a day.

Wifey looked at me without compassion, and said, “Gloria, we have such a good relationship. Read Caltabiano’ s book about Eternity. You too, Comrade Carl, enough of this world war two nonsense of yours”.

Stan had closed his eyes, and dozed off. But he looked uncomfortable.

As we left the room, Wifey turned to Ms Axe- "the heroine of the Caltabiano book is named Cynthia, Miss Axe."

Little does Ms Axe know that the next book Wifey has asked us all to read is The Land of the Green Plums, which no one understands, although (because) the author got le prix Nobel de littérature, which is French or Danish, I believe.

                                    

                                                              Stan looked uncomfortable.