Internet of Things, Bring your own device and Privatization of HR-The world according to Comrade Carl Marks

Mon dieu

Comrade Carl Marks stood up on a table at lunch time and asked everyone to stop eating in order to pay attention.

Carl rambled on for 15 minutes about the Internet of Things, explaining how useful it would be "to mesh ourselves into other peoples' crappy technology".  Then Carl stated: "Big data is dead. Long live internet of things". The engineers clapped their hands, though few speak English.

Comrade Carl drank some 3 glasses of brandy, and started smoking a joint. Then he started talking again, this time with a Russian accent.Mon dieu! (That's French)

"Now let's look at BYOD, bring your own device. Until last year, our HR manager forced us all to use Blackberry devices just because its Canadian. Now, we are all free to use whatever we bloody device want to use. I use a device that has the Russian alphabet, the language of the oppressed people! 

And, the time has come  to use the BYOD principle for HR. Why do we all need to use the ladies of HR as business partners? What the fuck is HR business partnership, kibinimat? It's all a lie! It means screwing us all! We need a union! And we all need to be free to bring our own HR business partner from home".

The Comrade Carl looked at me and pronounced : "Gloria I love you but you are Stan's running dog. Christ, you have nice legs, but we need a union! And I insist on the privatization of HR business partnership."

Then Comrade Carl played a communist song in English, and we all got back to lunch.

Btw, running dog is 走狗 

BYO HR

Internet of things , a new HR slogan, and a new pin up girl

Eureka

Our chief nerd, Comrade Carl Marks, was sitting in my chair when I came into the office this morning. Carl was wearing a T shirt that says: Our product is a Pearl. (Our clients think differently, as it were)

My room smelled of alcohol and cigarettes. Comrade Carl appeared jovial and jocund; he kissed me on the cheek, looked at my legs like a filthy lecher, and said Dobreh Utro, which means Good Morning in Russian,

"Gloria baby", he said, "I know what needs to be done to promote massive acceptance of our technology on a wider scale. 

The focus needs to be the integration of our mighty technological into the internet of things. 

To support this effort, we need 4 engineers. So let's migrate all HR resources into IT and Legal, freeing up valuable horsepower."

Comrade Carl took out another joint. "I love you Gloria, but you chose the wrong profession. HR is useless as tits on a bull". Then Carl strolled out of my office, singing a Russian song. 

Dad (Pierre Elliot) used to tell me to "write things off Gloria, the world is full of weirdos". So I ignored Comrade Carl.

Within ten minutes however, five (cinq) meetings had been set in my calendar by Comrade Carl's secretary, Comrade Natalie Khmelnitski-McNab.

1000  Internet of things as platform for 2018

1100  How HR can support Internet of Things

1200  Replacing Big data slogan with Internet of Things

Company 

1300  Lunch-Comrade Carl will discuss Internet of Things; Gloria to present recruitment strategy

1400 Ensuring all our documentation can be in Russian 

My mother just called. She is loosing her memory, so she asks me questions again and again. "What is the internet of things Gloria? When are you getting married Gloria? What is the internet of things Gloria? Are you still in Manpower?"

And Cynthia Axe just told me that Comrade Carl has appointed her Miss Internet-of-things pin up girl.

Miss Internet of Things

HR opens In-house coaching academy

Saving money, honey

2018 is less than a wow wow wow year. We will all need to "tighten our belts", said CEO Stan, which is a term Dad used to use all the time after Mom went on a shopping spree. In those days, there was no big data, just a bill from Simpsons (La Baie).

So I decided to cut our coaching expenses.

In 2017, we have spent $600 on coaching. Ms Axe has a reputation coach and Comrade Carl Marks hired a Ukrainian coach to help him understand a Scottish accent. I signed on the invoices in a moment of weakness. 

In 2018, there shall be no coaching budget whatsoever. However, always resourceful, I have opened an in-house coaching academy. As a matter of fact, I opened it last week. The academy certified all our staff to become coaches. This was done in one day.

The academy offered 2 level of coaching certificates.

1-EC (expert coach)

2-CC (chief coach). I am CC and at this time, I have no deputies, as it were.

The certification process for both levels took 5 minutes, including zenga zenga expertise.

Everyone at EC level learnt to ask three questions:

1-What are your goals?

2-What do you plan to do?

3-How can I support you?

I know that this is tough, but it seems people pick it up easily.

Last week I handled one case myself. I had to be creative, as it were, because I was surprised.

Svetlana from Engineering answered the first question saying, "I want to be the Pope".

I replaced question 2 with "Are you Catholic"?

"No", she replied, "My mother is Russian Orthodox but atheist and my father is Jewish".

Then I told young Svetlana that we have no budget to help her convert.

This is called "alignment of expectations coaching." Only CC level coach can do that.

One  final comment:

1. I am hiring coaches to coach my coaches. The price is $150 an hour. Just to be clear-you pay me! There are so many coaches that I am "leveraging" market conditions, as it were.

My mother and Holacracy

Smarten up, Girl, my Dad used to say

Ever since I have crowned as the First Lady of HR, I have a moral obligation to spread the key elements of basic HR tenets, as it were. Today I will discuss the "5 basic  principles of HR". 

Each and every morning, when I wake and before I open my Blackberry Passport, I ask myself 5 questions in a 20 second HR mindfulness session:

These are the  questions that I ask myself, daily. I suggest you do the same.

1) Do people trust me as HR manager and love me? 

2) Is our health plan fair? 

3) Do I lobby for the people, to ensure that “people” are factored into the decision making of the business leaders?

4) Am I willing to confront my boss and "speak truth to power ?"

5) Am I an advocate of compliance based business ethics? 

6) Is it worth placing a bet on holacracy?

If the answer to any of these questions is YES, then there are several courses of corrective action:

• Gather some big data about what life would be like with no salary. (I cannot ever fathom this; I want to buy a new Prius next year.)

• Hire a cost effective coach to “rewire” you with success, i.e., transactional HR. Please email me directly for a link.

• Consider self-help. Gather big data about why you always position yourself as a loser. Then as my Dad used to say, “Smarten up, Girl".

Sorry for the short post, but my Mother who is losing her memory just called. She keeps asking me "are you still working in Manpower down there in the States? Come home Gloria, and do something more creative". And "Gloria, why are you still single? You need to find someone Gloria. What is this holacracy all about? "

Who's who in the Gloria Blog

Immature Products is the name of the company where the stories on blog take place. No one (except the author) knows what their product is, except that it has plenty of bugs which impact their clients’ revenue negatively. Slimy agents are needed to sell the product in the third world.

The first lady of HR

Gloria Ramsbottom-Lemieux is VP HR of Immature Products.  Gloria studied to be a secretary, then a buyer, and then “naturally,” she moved into the HR space. 
No one really knew about Gloria until five years ago, yet today it is widely recognized that she is the First Lady of HR. She is also a coach and change manager. She earns $150,000 net, yet "money can almost never buy my loyalty".
Gloria admits however that pregnancy interferes with stretch goals and she has busted unionization "in line with my core value of survival".
Gloria grew up in Canada, the daughter of the late Pierre Elliot and Constance Ramsbottom.  She has two brothers (Frank and Earnest) as well as a sister Claire Ramsbottom de la Montagne. .
Constance is a ballet teacher. She is 144 years old. She believes that Gloria "works in Manpower down in the States and needs to do something more creative".
Gloria speaks English and French; she is acquiring a British accent to be more posh. She owns 3 blockchains, one of them is made in Germany.
Gloria's style is not overly cerebral; she is practical, brief, responsive, and sprinkles her conversation with French, in line with her core value of "global". Gloria is learning German grammar from a Viennese tutor.
Nothing is known of Gloria's intimate life except that she gets one  "mental orgasm" from the term "big data", and several from "internetofthings". 
As of late, Gloria uses the term “as it were”. 
Gloria reads text messages only.

Lose morals

Cynthia Axe is the Head of Involuntary Early Bird Retirement. She has fired 45,000 people in her 5 years at Immature Products. She has had 15 life partners in the past 3 years. Her father is the Reverend Oliver Axe. Cynthia speaks English only. One sad fact needs to be added: Ms Axe has been chosen the least popular staff member for 12 straight quarters. She presently has a reputation coach. Ms Axe tried to read the Land of Green Plums, but threw it away after 2 pages.

Soft on my gut

Stan the CEO has no family name. He is white, privileged , travels business class, has a high level view of the firm, loses his temper, and sleeps with Ms Axe on very rare occasions. He resents Gloria forcing him to use a Blackberry, which he calls “a piece of Canadian crap”. Stan sees HR as proof positive that if you pay someone enough and give them a seat at the table, they will tow the party line. Stan thinks that Kim Jong Un has a few leadership traits which need to be emulated. Stan wants HR to ensure everyone is nice.

Wifey is Stan’s brainy wife. She reads management articles and forwards them to Gloria, demanding action. Wifey believes that these articles can save Stan, whom she sees as a failure. Wifey’s real name is unknown, although Selma may be a possibility.  Wifey is currently reading The Land of the Green Plums, and does not understand one word, but has recommended the book to all her cronies.

K Ray Beauregard-Goldstein is Stan’s private chef. He has mixed ethnicity, French and Hebrew. He cooks “cost effective lasagna”  for Stan. However, recently Stan has suffered from hemorrhoids and Stan has asked for food which is “softer on my gut”. K Ray has slept with Ms Axe on more than one occasion. K Ray reads La Presse.

Almost semi irrelevant

Hugh White is the Head of Diversity. Like Ms Axe, he reports into Gloria. Hugh annoys everyone because of his irrelevant comments about diversity. Hugh is White as a lily and heterosexual. He is married to Comrade Ludmilla White (nee Khrushchev) and their marriage has “room for improvement”. Hugh gets beaten up from time to time.  Hugh is currently reading The Land of the Green Plums, and does not understand one word yet believes that books which make no sense have a dimension of diversity.

CCM

R&D chief, Comrade Carl Marks, was born and bred in the USA. No one knows where Carl got his PhD in Engineering. His parents were communists and sent him to USSR where he studied for 4 years. Carl speaks English with a Russian accent, although this is feigned. Carl sprinkles his speech with Russian swear words, rambles, lacks focus and believes that his new product is a “pearl”, although sales are weak and customers curse him. Comrade Carl believes that HR and Sales are the source of all evil. Comrade Carl reads books only about the Battle of Stalingrad.

Juliette Caesar was the Head of Sales. She quit. She had a stellar record until she came to Immature Products. She even sold books on secular liberalism in Teheran, Jerusalem and Jeddah.

Old de Villiers is an engineer  who hails from Bloemfontein and speaks some English. He sleeps during round tables. He is the cloud computing czar. Old de Villiers has been asleep for 4 years.

Mister Herr Krebbs is the CFO. He is German and he loves details. He often ends each sentence with "Ja". As well, when he finishes speaking, he says, "I have finished speaking". Herr Krebbs does not like the fact that Stan calls him Mister Herr Krebbs. Stan thinks that Herr is Krebb's first name.

This blog is read world wide by about 800 people a day, daily.The author claims that the blog is not all that removed from reality, although this may be a stretch of the imagination. 

The author’s grandparents on his mother’s side were British, as it were.

Flexible business ethics enable sales, corruption and compliance

Comrade Carl called me "First Lady of HR"

Comrade Carl Marks (R&D chief) addressed the leadership team today about “what needs to be done to flood the market with our technology”.

I could have sworn that I saw Comrade Carl smoking a joint in the parking lot before the leadership meeting started, but the moment that I took out my state of the art mobile phone, Samsung 98-T-Extra Large and tried to take a photo, I received a text that distracted me.

Comrade Carl said that “ethics and compliance are two-faced concepts of the rich aristocracy and the western world ruling elite. Kibinimat, our product is a pearl! All you need is to give each salesman few envelopes each with a thousand dollars (he said rubles) and you can get deals in Indonesia, China, Mother Russia, Mexico, Israel, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Qatar and many another banana republics and remote Pacific islands, where the value of our technology is appreciated. All we need to do is find the slimy agents and corrupt government officials."

Then Comrade Carl continued, “all we need to do is two things: appoint me as Head of Sales and ask the ladies of HR to rewrite our business code of ethics to be more flexible.”

CEO Stan asked Comrade Carl to stop using the word kibinimat all the time. 
Herr Krebbs was quiet, reading his German newspaper about the welcome influx  of 4 million refugees into what he hoped would be Sweden. Herr Krebbs was not a Merkel fan.

Stan asked me what I thought.

“HR business partnership entails removing the people obstacles, as it were, that prevent work from getting done, in line with our core values. As you know, one of our core values is compliance, but I can issue "service pack" to these values within one nanosecond. HR will do everything to support the business.” 

I took out my state of the art Samsung, issued an update to our sacred core value of compliance by SMS, Whatsapp, Facebook, Telegram and Yahoo messenger, and said "voila". That's French. The new sacred ethics code enables blockchain based sales, corruption and compliance!

Comrade Carl looked at me and I became very worried. He looked lusty, and he said, "Spasiba, first lady of HR". 

Spasiba means thank you. That's Russian.

Updating core values

Performance appraisal, Gungnam Style

Our CEO Stan invited me and Comrade Carl Marks to a meeting at 0900 am.  We sat around the beloved management mahogany table and Stan`s private chef served bagels and cream cheese. My Lord, I live for moments like this. Neither of us is Jewish, but I did enjoy the food. (I did have a Jewish classmate, Sharon Bernstein).

Stan appeared in a jocund mood and he asked us both, ``let`s have an open and candid talk about the performance of your colleague,Juliette Caesar, the Head of Sales.`` This is Stan`s version of performance appraisal.

Comrade Carl Marks spoke up first: ``That bitch Juliette could not sell cold lemonade on a hot beach in August, kibinimat. The product is a pearl, and I know how much popular demand there for our technology. Yet that useless and self serving `suka`` is always pursuing the wrong leads. Stan, you should have checked a big data base before you hired her.``

(I have learnt the meaning of that  word ``suka``.)

Comrade Carl continued: ``Why do we have an HR function in our organization, kibinimat? Why….Gloria has instincts like an alley cat! Her instincts are better than big data.  So why don`t we get input from the first lady of HR, Ms Gloria Ramsbottom, who I have come to adore, and not because of her legs``.

I have two brothers, Frank and Earnest. To be frank and earnest, I did like the title Carl gave me. 

Quoting myself verbatim, as it were, here is what I told Stan and Comrade Carl. Italics show where I used my new British accent.

`Now look heyah (here). We have three choices, as it wehr (were). 

1) I can have Juliette write a mission statement with my coach;

2)  I can have a one on one with her to `sohrt (sort) her out` ;

3) I can arrange a meeting between Ms Cynthia Axe and Juliette within 2 seconds, and she will vanish from the face of the earth in one fell swoop. After which I assume Juliette will sell "internet-of-things".

Stan and Carl ask me what I ``recommend``.I remember what my Dad Pierre Elliot Ramsbottom used to tell me, `Gloria but careful what you cook because sometimes you need to eat it`.

This week I have a ``one on one`` with Juliette.

I love the term ``one on one``. 

Our clients could be as happy as pigs in shit, claims Comrade Carl Marks

Ladies of HR

To: Gloria, HR; Juliette; Sales, Stan, CEO

From: Comrade Carl Marks

Bcc: Big data cloud

Gloria and Juliette,

Lay off critiquing out great product.You two ladies simply don't get it. And believe me, I respect women in business. Enough is enough and poshel na hui!

We have just done 50 hours of testing on our new product. The results show that most of the so called bugs often disappear after a fairly simple reboot. However, our clients lack sophistication and the level of customer service we supply is a disaster.

Now, let’s cope with this as a team to get to the two root cause of our issues.

1) Juliette’s sales team cannot sell lemonade on a hot beach. The sales folks wine, dine and womanize and the results are 0, zilch, nada. Our product is a pearl yet the sales folks don’t know how to explain the added value of our technology.

2) The ladies of HR cannot recruit a loyal Russian to the Red Army. HR dilly dallies with procedures, nickel and dimes the staff, and tries to prevent unionization, which would serve us all well. If HR were to hire and train 4 service engineers who speak Albanian, Thai and Russian, our clients would be as happy as pigs in shit. Instead, HR floats slogans, farts (pardon me) and tap dances on the stage.

Based on this finding, I demand that our engineers get better proper support from Sales and HR.

FYI, the R&D team is going on a team outing to London, to see how a civilized people treat one another under pressure. Ramsbottom, please text me the budget code.

Comrade Carl Marks

R&D Chief

All recruiters have the same arrogant attitude, because they themselves have the shittiest job that there is

Dear Gloria

To: Gloria Ramsbottom HR

CC: CEO Stan, Cynthia Axe

BCC: Vlad, Vlad, Vlad, Vlad, Svetlana, Svetlana

My dear Comrade Gloria, (VP of the so-called HR function)

You look great today. No one has legs like yours, Gloria. And don't think I do not notice your new posh British accent. Together with your mastery of big data, you are the cats' pyjamas, my dear Canadian comrade.

Nevertheless, in a spirit of comradeship, here are my supportive comments on level of substandard recruitment support that my heroic R&D department engineers get from the ladies of HR.

My beloved engineers say that too many worthy candidates are turned down, for no reason, kibinimat. That explains all of our schedule slips. I can back this up with 2 truckloads of big data.

I spoke to 7 engineers to get input-Vlad, Vlad, Vlad, Vlad, Natalie, Svetlana and Svetlana, all of whom expressed disgust at the need to impress the young and brainless HR clerk, Ms Cynthia Axe who, "could not get a job even in the Moscow subway as a homeless beggar," to quote one of the Vlads. 

One of the two Svetlanas claimed that "all the recruiters have the same arrogant attitude, because they themselves have the shittiest  job that there is, and thus they are so vindictive."

I want to inform you that we do not need recruitment services any longer. I have empowered my team to use social media, cronyism and friendships to beef up our engine power.

Spasiba for reading this missive.

Comrade Carl Marks

Evidence-based Learning and Development Goals 2019

L&D-mais oui

Ever since I graduated from Secretaries Academy (L'Académie des secrétaires, in Montreal), I have underlined my belief in Learning and Development goals, especially given the diversity in the work force and our business needs as it were. 

(HR business partnership cares for business needs in the same way that a CFO makes sure that the numbers look good, as it were.) 

I have put together our six leading Learning and Development Goals for 2019. I used big data, cloud computing, a Swiss blockchain and the common sense of an alley cat.

• For Engineers: Learn English and eat less tribal food in cubicles and  evidence based learning

• For Diverse Populations: Be more productive than the average normal employee  and evidence based learning

• For HR: Further enhance the feeling of respect, trust and camaraderie that staff feel towards HR business partnership and evidence based learning

• For Sales: Focus on positives of our emerging technology and whimper less and evidence based learning

• For Supply Chain: Drive 30% of suppliers into receivership or abject poverty using evidence based learning

• For all: More respect of our dedicated senior management team, based on fear and deference as well as and evidence based learning

My own personal L&D goal is to improve my understanding of organizational politics, position myself for a Fortune 500 HR role, and acquire a slight British accent.

I love the term "as it were". It adds to my senior positioning.

When do managers need a coach

HR as platform for creativity

Our Friday management meeting was semi wow. 

Comrade Carl Marks, R&D chief had been asked to make a presentation vis a vis (French) the "road map to product stability".Our new product has 400,087 known bugs, most of them impact client revenue. As a result, even though we have big data, we have insufficient sales.

Comrade Carl started with his presentation with the claim: "Youb tvou mat, the product is pearl, Stan. The question is why are we not selling it, kibinimat." 

I have picked up some Russian and that expression means that Comrade Carl and Stan's late mother engaged, as it were, in some hanky panky.

Then Comrade Carl lashed out at Sales Chief Juliette Caesar: "Suka, you cannot sell an iced lemonade on the beach during a hot day".

The word "suka" refers to a female dog, as it were. I have no background Russian, but Comrade Carl's insistence in swearing on Russian has me adapting, as it were. (I am Canadian, 3/4 English and 1/4 French)

Then Comrade Carl took at a 23 slide power point slide show about "How HR blocks creativity". He mentioned that "I love Gloria as a person and she has great legs, but nevertheless..."

Comrade Carl, obviously inebriated, said that "HR has done everything it can to block creativity. All the wrong people are in the wrong roles, except in R&D."

Comrade Carl ended his speech with, "We need a union to protect our staff from more senseless downsizing; we need IT to take over HR and mechanize HR on a cloud-and we need to be a people company".

His final slide was: Vote Comrade Carl Marks. There was a picture on the slide of Comrade Carl shaking hands with some people in Bangalore.

"Comrade Carl is heading downhill, "said CEO Stan. "Get him a coach".

Useless hearsay vrs bigdata-what impacts Sales performance

Paltry?

Chief nerd Comrade Carl Marks lurched into my office today, huffing, puffing and cursing in Russian. "Kibinimat, did you read the email from Juliette Caesar"?

Juliette is the Head of Sales. Her "numbers" this quarter are "as poor as a church mouse", as my dad Pierre Elliot Ramsbottom used to say.

I opened my PC and read her email, which was far too long (over 100 words);  it violated our b brief policy.

"The major factors impacting the poor sales results are 

• 307,989 revenue impacting software bugs, 
• poor documentation, 
• products lack perceived added value, 
• poor reviews in domain literature, 
• attitude problems of the R&D manager Comrade Carl Marks who insists on feigning a Russian accent, 
• lack of linguistic skills of the customer service staff, 
• constantly changing specs for the next release." 

Juliette added: "The paltry sum our sales team receives is the cherry on top of the cake. The HR EVP, Gloria Ramsbottom, appears to be a mindless clerk focused on her own power."

I never knew that Juliette had such observation skills. 

Imho, Juliette will be "down for the count" before our Christmas party, which the Chinese, Jews and Muslims will attend, as per our global company diversity policy.

Dad used to watch Friday Night Boxing, piped in by cable TV from the States. I would always hear him yell, "Christ, he's down for the count, tabernac".

What is clear to me is that Ms Caesar did use some big data to make her argument, but she also used some useless hear say, as it were.

My suggestion to Ms Caesar and her mainly white and perfect English speaking team sales team will be to listen to a webinar on the power of positive attitude and spread some positive vibes around. 

That`s what my coach says to me all the time.

He used to pump gas.