Adjusting per diems to account for Cost of Living Allowance

                                        Garnering Input

Our German-born CFO , Mister Herr Krebbs, suggested that we lower the per diem allowance for our customer service engineers who travel to client sites to repair our product. 

Looking very lugubrious, which is a word that many people don't know, Krebbs said, "ve neat to vake up unt smell ze Koffee-ve haf cash flow prrrroblems." 

Krebbs suggested that the per diem be cut from $70 a day to $50. "Zat vill safe uz a million dollars. Das is gut!"

CEO Stan, a democrat when feeling cornered, expressed that he wished to "garner" input from others. Garner is also not a word in common use, even less so than lugubrious. "Gloria, what's your cut on this?"

The gates of hell had been open for Mister Herr Krebbs as I delivered my homily.

"I think that Mister Herr Krebbs needs to learn a thing or two about cost savings from HR. It's my take that we can choppy chop chop the per diem down to far less. At the breakfast buffet, nerds can make themselves a sandwich for lunch. Furthermore and all the more so, they can adapt a business-friendly mindset  by taking very early morning flights where breakfast is served. I know that Air Canada, for example, serves breakfast on all flights that leave between 4 and 5 AM."

Catching my breath from excitement, I continued.

"Laundry expenses are personal expenses, not to be footed by the company. I know for a fact that some of our nerds don't change their socks every day. Just walk around the analog group on the 6th floor, or QA. And, I must say, taking a greyhound bus to and from the airport never hurt anyone; bus travel puts one in touch with the common man. One last point. I think Ryanair and Wizz Air are far more daily that Swiss, Singapore or Emirates."

This was followed by my coup de grace.

 "If we put and one and one together, we can bring down our per diem to $12 a day."

CFO Mister Herr Krebbs, always with the German love of detail said, "Fraulein Gloria. Vun and vun is 2"

CEO Stan asked me why I had used the term "daily", wondering if this was "a Canadian thing".

Changing the seating arranagements in our R&D department due to Russian Ukraine War

                                             H 

Our not so firm firm employs 21 Ukrainians nerds and 600 Russian nerds, all named Vlad, Svetlana or Stas. With the prolonged war, it is only natural that there is some tension, despite our mission statement which emphasizes "leave your troubles outside,Ya; life is beautiful".

Sadly, incidents have occured which eventually surfaced thanks to both our GPS tags attached to the ankles of our illegal nerds, and our VMS, Vocal Monitoring Services, which have been deployed generously. The VMS has Slavic languages to English translations provided in an almost seamless manner. "Almost seamless" because when Vlad and Svet were caught in the midst of an amourous affair in the back seat of Svet's car, some of the pronouncements were mis-translated.

Comrade Carl Marks, our chief nerd and senior EVP of Customer Experience, told me that he has moved all Ukrainian nerds to the east wing and all the Ukrainians to the right wing. Diversity, Inclusion and Power to the People uncommisioned officer, Hugh White, suggested that the Ukrainians should move west and the Russians move east. Comrade Carl suggested to Hugh that he engage in sexual relations with his mother (youb tvai mat), and to butt out.

If HR has any value beyond policing, process compliance, downsizing and sycophany, it is in the area of creativity. So I put on my thinking cap, which generally speeds up my creativity, expecially if I am not looking at my smartphone. I use my smartphone all the time, it has been said.

Nevertheless, in a short interlude from my cell phone and with the thinking cap firming on my head, I came up with some value added to Comrade Carl's suggestions to calm down the tension between the warring factions. Our Israeli nerds will sell weapons to both sides to create a balance of power. Our European nerds will be tasked with coming up with a solution which could solve the issue, if both parties were Scandinavian; our American nerds can pray for peace. Old de Villiers, our South  African nerd, will mind his own business. "We have enough problems of our own," quipped old de Villiers.

During our management meeting, all idea were presented to CEO Stan, who remained standing due to a flare up in his ubiquitous hemorrhoids. When we finished presenting the problem cum solutions, Stan asked, "has anyone seen my preparation H?"