Egg-freezing as the mother of all perks

Ever since the egg-freezing perk that several of my peers decided to introduce, as it were, I have been busier than a one armed paper hanger. This perk appears to provide longer active duty for productive female employees, to the mutual benefit of the management and the employee. 

My Dad, Pierre Elliot would have said, "Glo, this appears to be the mother of all perks". But Dad died, so he never got to say it.

CEO Stan asked me if we have any talented female engineers. "If so, freeze their eggs, Gloria, after you speak to a lawyer and my wife."  

According to the big data in my hands generated by  at the moment, we could get 4 more productive years per egg frozen. If you add to this inflation and subtract income tax then add VAT, another figure may pop up.

My mother called me today. Mom has issues on memory loss. She asked me: "Gloria are you involved in that manpower egg freezing scandal, girl? If you are, forget your inheritance". 

Then she asked me if I had found a husband. Then she asked me again if I had heard about egg freezing.

Hugh White from Diversity asked me if we can freeze the eggs of men as well, "were men to have eggs". Hugh agitates me even more after a call with my mother.

Downsizer czar Cynthia Axe's father, the Reverend Oliver Axe, called me and preached to me about God's will for an hour, mentioning in passing that he sees me as Cynthia's big sister. I am always polite to the clergy, although my Dad said "there are all a bunch of crooks and deviants". The Reverend Axe told me that if Cynthia wanted her eggs frozen, he would like to be notified.

AI and big data chief nerd Comrade Carl Marks came into my office with a glass of vodka and asked me what my own plans are. "Gloria, do it, kibinimat-your kid will also have nice legs - if it's a girl".

My own thoughts on this issue is  that every high performing female engineer can have 3 eggs frozen for the price of two, if she is willing to work till 9pm and on the weekends.

Teaching our staff about Korean culture

When I arrived at work this morning, I happened to pass by the office of our CEO Stan and I heard some yelling and screaming.

Since I am Stan's HR business partner, my office is right next to his!  As I entered my room, I glued my ear to the wall, in line with my core value of "gathering big data".

CEO Stan told Comrade Carl Marks, head of Emerging Technologies, that that he had received a call from a Korean client's CEO who described our new product was a "piece of pure shit"; only 5 out of 40,888 features were operative. 

A very enraged Stan bellowed, "Comrade Carl, go to the customer site and solve the problem, and don't come back without a solution. Now get out of my office and get on a plane, Comrade Carl."

Comrade Carl came into my room, smiling as if he had just smoked a joint in our parking lot. `Gloria, I am sending 4 engineers to a customer site tonight. They need training about Korean culture, some added engineering skills in Internet of Things,communication skills, etiquette and a piece on managing customer expectations. They will leave to Seoul in 6 hours, so kindly have this training delivered to them in a webinar directly to their cellphone on the way to the airport. Spasiba``.

Comrade Carl has a sexual fetish for the Russian language and I have learnt that ``spasiba`` means thank you.

Immediately, I texted a training vendor in Lesotho, who had asked me for an ``opportunity to prove myself`` and I ordered the webinar. I charged the vendor $1000. 

I asked Hugh White (from Diversity) to do some `quality control` on the webinar, because the vendor is from Ebola stricken Africa.

Then I opened my Blackberry Passport and read the following text.

• To all our staff and management! We cannot be successful as long as HR does not understand the working class and promote their well being. Our product is a pearl yet our engineers are sent abroad to deal with every client whimper and whinge. HR does not advocate for the rights of engineers, kibinimat. We need a union. I am leading a 3 day strike. Starting now.

Comrade Carl

I texted the Lesotho vendor, and cancelled the webinar. 

10 things I expect from a perfect resume

b brief

I got a letter from a (male) fan in New Zealand, who wrote me: 

• "Dearest Gloria, The HR managers in NZ tend to be quite clerical, so I need some global input from you. Can you give us your vision about how to write proper resume? By the way, I love your use of the term "as it were", as well as your shapely legs. Fondly, Bernard. " 

Here is my answer.

Dear Bernard,

There are 10 basic components that I look for in a resume, which is a French word.

1) Does the candidate see HR as a strategic business partner?  Nothing is more critical than this. Look for signs of deference.

2) Does the candidate accept the fact that we "retire" people by text, in line with our core values of digital dominance.

3) Does the candidate speak perfect English preferably with a posh British accent (especially for HR and Sales roles)?

4) Can the candidate feign understanding of big data?

5) Is the candidate desperate enough that salary negotiations will be short?

6) Does the candidate whinge about flying night flights in economy class and taking buses from the airport?

7) How dominant is the candidates` spouse about work work life balance?

8) Does the candidate resist digital detox, even if the vendor is French?

9) Does the candidate have a passport to give me for safe holding? Does he have a return ticket to his tribal homeland? Does he eat normal food?Is the candidate mildly diverse, without special needs? (like having an Italian or Jewish name)

10) Does the candidate have any talent that we need to manage?

Bernard, I appreciate your recognition of my talent. Please spread the word about my site to your regional neighbours. My Dad, Pierre Elliot, said that New Zealand is "way off the map".

Gloria

Do accents impact a career?

French makes me exotic; Proper English makes me posh

My coach (who used to sell anti injury insurance to people who text whist driving) confronted me with an uncomfortable truth. "You are not posh enough", Gloria. 

My Dad (Pierre Elliot) never used the term posh, when I was growing up in Saskatchewan, My mom may have used it, but I was Daddy's girl.

There was some truth to what my coach said. When I gave my lecture last week at our Management Academy, I did notice that CEO Stan had closed his eyes. And I did notice that some our engineers, including old de Villiers, were looking at my legs and not focusing on the content, as it were. 

Talent Management, Sloganeering, HR Business Partnership leveraging Big Data are all more interesting than 2 Canadian legs, for heaven sake.

To rectify the problem, my coach told me to listen to tapes of Brits (not Scots) speaking English  and try to "emulate" their accent when pronouncing key words. For example:

In line with our core values...core should be cohr.

or

HR is a business partner....R should be Ahr.

or

As it were...were should be wahhr.

I tried this feigned British accent today when speaking to Comrade Carl Marks. He looked at me, and started speaking in Russian. I did not understand a word.(I have never of heard of a famous Russian HR manager. HR is a profession for the more developed, English speaking world, as it were).

And let's be frank and earnest. The British say the worst things the right way, whilst other more tribal languages sound so brutish. 

HR and English go hand in hand, like big data, engagement and sloganeering.

On Leadership and Followership

On leadership and follower-ship

Our CEO Stan is back at work, full of piss and vinegar, after a short hospitalization for an affliction that I do not wish to discuss.  (Stan keeps some Preparation H on his desk, which is small but big data.) 

Today was the first management meeting held since Stan returned, and we members of the management team thought the meeting would be jovial, as it were.

Stan, on the other hand, wanted to deliver a message about leadership and follower-ship.

I taped Stan's speech so that I could provide a "verbatim" version, as it were. Is verbatim French? Non! It's Roman.

"There is both a leadership and follower-ship issue in our firm. Issue, not problem, as Gloria aptly points out. The follower-ship problem is mainly between me and, you all, my management team. For Christ's sake, why are you not making your numbers?"

Then Stan got specific.

• Juliette Caesar, I am sick and tired of hearing about the deficiencies  in Comrade Carl's product, make you numbers, sell the product and stop whimpering. Since when is product quality an issue to Sales people?
• Comrade Carl, the product is a piece of shit, if I may say so myself. Fix the product Carl, kibinimat.
• Gloria, what is all this diversity crap? And upgrade the IT HR systems. Why can't HR be fully mechanized? The IT HR system is worse than our product. Wake up Gloria.

Then Stan ate a dark chocolate bar, drank some some root beer and continued:

"We also have a leadership problem in our company. And Comrade Carl Marks, the problem is you. 

Look at Gloria. Look how far she gets with just her raw ambition; her people work like slaves and she lives the Life of Riley, texting all day. Juliette Caesar managed to sell just 3 of your systems to Albania. 3 fucking systems Comrade Carl-that's a lot! Especially since these systems don't fucking work. And what you DO do Carl, teach you staff to swear in Russian and Arabic? Jesus. Are you out of your mind, Carl?"

Stan, whilst checking his email,  told me "I hate that fucking Canadian Blackberry Gloria; get me an I-phone 6".

Then Stan wrapped up the meeting."Gloria, I am oking 4 hours of coaching for all of us. Fix these problems in a week."

Shaming lesser colleagues is not wow wow, or even wow

Coming to a theatre near you

I received an text today from a girlfriend I went to school with back in Canada, Francine Fawn. Two F's . 

She is following my career and she told me she is so proud to know me. That makes sense!

Francine also suggested that I make a movie, to spread the word about how to do HR properly, globally and in a sustainable fashion. (Francine also told me that I look great. She told me that "all the girls in public school agreed that you had the nicest legs in Saskatchewan").

Her suggestion has its pros and cons. 

My Dad, Pierre Elliot, always used to tell me "Gloria be careful. Look at the pros and the cons." My mother always told my Dad, "Pierre Elliot, she'll never get married that way!"

The pros of this suggestion is that if I am frank and earnest, no one knows how to do HR better than I do. When I look in the mirror every morning, I see a thought leader, and big data master.

The cons are that I am surrounded by the wrong people, who will not go over well in a movie.

• Comrade Carl Marks speaks with a thick Leningrad accent, although he was born and bred in the US. 
• CEO Stan takes credit for everything, and I will look like side-show Bob, or Barbara, as it were.
• Straight Hugh White from Diversity is bizarre, and his obsession with sexual preferences will make all the movie into pornography. He is also so white that he cannot be filmed.
• Cynthia Axe carries "the mark of Cain" and makes the HR profession look shameful. She lacks compassion, and suffers from a downsizing obsession which makes me ill, as it were.

I discussed this with Francine and she made it clear that I should make the film anyway. Francine is one of my most sane friends.

She also suggested that I say a few words in French in the movie, to illustrate that HR business partnership can be exotic, as it were.

I love the term "as it were."

Here is the major challenge: I do not want to embarrass my HR colleagues who would be exposed to our state-of-the-art way of doing things.

I need the input and comments. Should I move ahead, in a timely fashion?

Key note speaker: The Future of HR Business Partnership

My keynote address

Dear readers,

Last week I told you about our new and spiffy cost effective Leadership Academy, where all the lectures are given by our staff.

This week, I gave a the key note lecture of The future of HR business partnership.

Attendance was full. I had mentioned to Cynthia Axe that if I see one empty seat in the auditorium, it may influence her compensation road map, as it were.

When my lecture started, I was in a semi wow mood. I had just finished a call with my mother who is losing her memory. Mama asked my the same question 5 times. "Gloria, have you read Anna Caltabiano's new book The Seventh Miss Hatfield?" Then Mama added, "Gloria you should read more and text me less. Please stop using Whatsapp; just pick your phone and call me like you used to call Papa". She said that 7 times. Anyway, let's put that aside.

In the first row sat Ms Cynthia Axe and Hugh White (the white heterosexual who runs Diversity). My staff applauded me like I was Kim Jong-un (one), and I did not even encourage them to do so.

In row two sat Comrade Carl Marks who leads R&D and Juliette Caesar, the b-tch whom CEO Stan hired to run Sales. 

Stan introduced me as: "our lovely and energetic HR manager Gloria, who we all know and love will give a talk today." Then Stan sat down, and perhaps closed his eyes.

I had 3 talking points, in line with my key value of brevity.

1) HR's business acumen brings to the table transactional excellence. Don't make one move without an HR business partner. (I said that in a British accent).

Wow! Did that ever go over well! Even Stan opened his eyes.

2) While not erotic in nature, HR loves people. This is the essence of the world of HR reputation management.

3) There is no HR without big data, rumours, gossip and AI. This is the new frontier. And then I read a slide with a lot of technical terms from the internet of things domain , and all the engineers were aghast, although none of them really speak English.

During the lecture, an engineer named Helmut from Germany looked at my legs, as it were. However Hugh White informed me that Helmut is gay, as it were. I love the term, "as it were".

At the the end of the lecture, Juliette Caesar raised her dainty hand and thanked me for a "wonderful informative lecture". She wore a smirk on her disingenuous face. (nice word)

Comrade Carl Marks, our chief nerd, raised his hand and said, "Yob tvoyy mat, Gloria. Why don't you fire all your staff and give all HR to IT and Legal? Get aligned with the future, kibinimat". 

Anti HR

What my mom thinks of the HR management role

Je me souviens-I remember

"Gloria, you have the memory of an elephant; that won't help you when you are married", cautioned my late Dad, Pierre Elliot. 

My memory has served me well, like a big data warehouse, hosted on a cloud, whatever that means.

My boss Stan sends me about 200 actionable texts a day, and I delegate these tasks to the empowered Cynthia Axe (Early Bird Retirement) and to the white heterosexual Hugh White (Diversity). 

I follow up on each task every fifteen minutes, by text, Whatsapp, Viber, BBM, and a phone call when absolutely necessary. 

I learnt these advanced HR management techniques from a 60 second webinar, and my people management skills are augmented by my memory. Mais oui-that's French.

I never let anything slip. Jamais. That means never, also in French.

However memory issues are causing me concern, as it were.

My mother, a certain Constance Ramsbottom, has started to lose her memory. She is 82. Mama closed her dancing studio 14 years ago and since then, she has been reading (magazines) and gardening. 

(Now to be frank and earnest, Mama and I have had a non wow relationship. I was always what she called "Pierre Elliot's favourite".)

Mama has started calling me daily for the few months and asks the same questions, over and over and over. That's 3 overs.

"Gloria, how long do think you have to find a husband"?

"Gloria, did you know I just closed my dance studio?"

"Gloria, are you still a Manpower Manager down in the States? Don't you want to do something creative?"

I must have told Mama 20 times that Human Resources Management is not Manpower Management, for heaven sake.

And now she's lost her memory, so I will need keep reminding her....and Stan and Comrade Carl Marks. Ostie!

Follow me @GRamsbottom 

2021 Focus of Our Leadership Academy

Leadership

In my 2021 goals, I committed to setting up a Leadership Academy for middle management.

I also committed to 0 costs for consultants, trainers, coaches and other snake oil vendors.

In order to meet these two goals, I will launch our new Leadership Academy! Mais oui! 

The academy's mission statement is: If we meet the bottom line, we'll all be fine.

Our lecturers are our own senior managers, who provide weekly lectures during lunch, in our conference room and piped in by loudspeaker to the toilets as a public service.

Today, the first lecture was given by Comrade Carl Marks, our Chief Nerd.

Attending the lecture were all our middle managers, policed by Cynthia Axe who made sure people were not texting or engaged in subversive activity. Comrade Carl spoke in English with a Russian accent, making the lecture even more challenging to understand. Most middle managers speak little to no English. (I hold these employees' passports for safekeeping). 

One of our middle managers, old Wilhelm de Villiers from South Africa, does speak English, but he was dozing off, dreaming of the velt.

Comrade Carl's lecture focused on:

1) Reinforcing the fact that our present product is a "pearl", despite plunging sales.

2) The Sales force are incompetent twats, yet "I encourage teamwork between the comrades in Sales and Engineering".

3) HR is useless, "although Gloria is a great gal, with great legs. I am against sexism of most kinds, but boys will be boys". Comrade Carl added that "HR is like a circumcision ceremony-they screw the little guy while fat guests eat more and more, kibinimat".

4) "A union is not a bad thing. Unions take care of proletariat better than the ladies of HR". 

5) Finally Comrade Carl mentioned, "I am not sure we all like to work here, but life is a bitch". Carl stated that "motivation is of the essence."

The audience applauded Comrade Carl and hissed at Cynthia Axe. 

Before he got off the stage, Comrade Carl handed out to all staff a photo of "General Zhukov, the greatest leader in history."

Greatest leader in history

.

Miss Axe

Ever since Axe listened to a 90 second webinar on 'self-empowerment", she has been hallucinating.

Ms Axe caused me to pop an Advil

Ms Cynthia Axe heads our Early Bird Retirement Plan. Axe has fired 3000 staff in 4 years, whilst increasing morale.
Yet, Ms Axe is also the least popular employee for 14 consecutive quarters.

I have "issues" with the generally compliant Ms Axe. This started when our CEO's wife, Wifey, had asked all of us to read The Land of the Green Plums, and Ms Axe put down the book after 2 pages, claiming she cannot understand a word. 
Ever since then, Cynthia has not been the same Axe that I have known for years. 
Today things came to a head, as it were. I like the term "as it were".

Into my office strutted Ms Axe, at 2 pm, without knocking on the door. I was busy texting Comrade Carl Marks  on an HR business partnership issue, and I asked Ms Axe to wait patiently outside my office. Ms Axe blurted out "Gloria, I just signed up for an MA in the university and I wanted you to know that I will leaving work early on Mondays and Wednesdays at 3 pm."

In line with my core values of thought-leadership, people-come-first, and anger management, I asked Axe if this is a request or a fact.

"It is what it is, Gloria. Take it any way you want. If you wish, I can tender my resignation". 

I like the term "tender". To be honest, Ms Axe has her value, as she allows me to focus on the "people" side of things, supported up by big data, whatever that means.

I asked Axe what she was planning to study, in line with my core value of people-come-first. Axe told me that she is going to study Big Data and Senior  HR Management.
 "One day, Gloria, I want a job like yours. hopefully with a better boss than Stan and his nagging Wifey who drives us all crazy."

I have 2 brother, Frank and Ernest. 
And I want to be frank and earnest with my readers. Ever since Axe listened to a 90 second webinar on 'self-empowerment", she has been hallucinating. I plan to give her some positive and constructive feedback at the appropriate time.

In the meantime, I oked her studies, gave her a new Blackberry Passport, and I plan to enrich the role of her peer, Mr Hugh White, so that Ms Axe feels that studying has its wow rewards, and non-wow downside, as it were.

Motivating Ms Axe

My Spineless Staff

I never used the Disney Land metaphor

Comrade Carl Marks, acting CEO, mailed out a link to all our staff about a CEO who has just "resigned "because she wanted to create a Disneyland type culture, at the same time as her organization was going "belly up", as my late Dad Pierre Elliot used to say.

Comrade Carl noted that the aforementioned CEO has an HR background: 

"Isn't this pattern all too familiar to us", wrote Comrade Carl, "HR fiddles and fuddles with sloganeering, hiding its impotence behind grotesque verbiage? What value does Gloria and her mediocre crew bring us? Should we not smash the HR organization into smithereens, kibinimat? Our new product is a pearl and HR has not drummed up enough support of our innovation at the client base."

Ms Cynthia Axe rushed into my room with the email: 

"Gloria, Comrade Carl may have alluded to HR in a non wow manner". 

Ms Axe is a drama queen, with no stomach for politics. 

Almost at the very same moment, the white heterosexual Diversity Chief, Hugh White,

forwarded me Comrade Carl's email, with his comments: "Gloria, what does this email of CCM mean from a Diversity perspective? Should we panic? Hugh

CCM stands for Comrade Carl Marks (GR)

Unlike my spineless staff, I stayed cool under fire. Comrade Carl is a non-person, in my book. And my book is not written by Herta Muller.

Since Carl is acting CEO only till October 8th, my reply to him was crisp and clear.

My dear and precious Comrade Carl, 

Thank you for contacting me. I appreciate your email and I will make it a top priority to get back to you with an answer based on big data and intuition.

I am presently in an intensive program to learn to understand English with a  Russian accent, so I will be answering you around Oct 8th.

By the way, have you read the tedious and punishing book The Land of the Green Plums by a certain Herta Muller, that Wifey asked that we all read it in order to become more esoteric and obtuse. 

I do not understand one word of that "maudit" book, nor does Ms Axe or Hugh White, who is quite the intellectual.

Give me your mission-critical and wise input on this Nobel winning author, which appears to be harder to grasp than our struggling yet highly innovative product.

You are my man, Comrade Carl. (Valid till Oct 8th, 6pm)

Gloria