Which emails is it cool to ignore?

Foremost, I am the HR VP of a" people" company.
Readers of this blog all over the world know - people is my middle name on Tuesdays, every second month.

This having been said, even in a people company, I see no reason to answer most emails. We got real and put together a process for answering emails based on big data, not some silly "people" slogan. 

I asked Ms Cynthia Axe (Early Bird Retirement) and Hugh White (the white heterosexual who runs diversity)  to do some data mining to figure out which emails need and don't need an answer from someone of my rank and station. 

I did some rework on their shabby recommendations and I am proud to present my new email policy policy, in line with my core values of "updated policies".

Emails to be answered:

• From CEO Stan and the narcissistic Marxist, Comrade Carl Marks, our chief nerd
• Compliance issues
• Any email that relates to my career
• Messages  from dateacharminghrmanagerfromcanada.com
• Any message with the words bigdata or internetofthings

Emails to be ignored:

• Inquiries from job seekers
• Wailing emails from rejected candidates who want to know why we have not yet contacted them with an answer.
• Nasty HR managers who challenge my thought leadership.
• OD vendors who send me useless crap with empty slogans. OD is dead.

PS This is not the last time I will use the term data mining.

Crafting an end of year message for our nerds

Put a spin on this, Ramsbottom

I had planned to go home early when CEO Stan texted me to come to his office "to craft my messages for the God damn 2019 new years' party".  During our short meeting, his crafty wife (Wifey) had called in to hear my advice. 

Stan said: "Gloria, we have falling revenues, our investors are pissing in their pants and Comrade Carl's vision about blending our product's deficiencies into a blockchain is a crock of shit. The main asset of our company is my leadership and the confiscated passports of the foreign engineers.It is HR's role to put a spin and deliver this message positively." 

Readers, this challenge is easier than periodic updating of our ethics code to be more flexible, as it were. And equipped with my spiffy new English accent, I feel that I know how to communicate. It's my forté , which is a French word.

So I told Stan that we need to talk about the 2019 growth plan, and thank the staff for their patience.  Furthermore, the silver bullet capabilities of blockchains, augmented by big data and cloud computing, provide us with a platform to be a wow wow wow company. Then, reassure the engineers that their confiscated passports are in safekeeping in our Moscow office, and dusted off each day.

I also told Stan that few of the staff speak English or even celebrate new years, so in general, all he just needs to exude joy. Exude is such a posh word. 

Stan started to cry and he hugged me, in a paternal way. Wifey (who thought that I had left the room)  was heard saying: "I told you Stanley, your greatest asset is that Canadian HR manager of yours. She is a street fighter if I ever saw one. Did you notice her English accent? So impressive.

Specialite de la maison

HR Recruitment Bypassed as Comrade Carl Marks hires Marsha Zhukov

Who needs a recruitment function?

Hugh White from Diversity came into my room at 905 am. He had a black eye and swollen lip. Apparently, heterosexual (white) Hugh and his wife Comrade Ludmilla had had a minor misunderstanding and Ludmilla (nee Khrushchev) had the upper hand, as it were.

Hugh blurted out: "Gloria, Comrade Carl hired a PMO without our involvement. The new recruit is Marsha Zhukov, and apparently her great grandfather was a big shot over there in Europe. Apparently, he helped the Americans defeat the Germans in Stalingrad in World War 2."

I am always startled by the intelligence of the people who report into me. Even I know that it was the British who defeated Germany and I was weak in history, as it were.

I am also startled that our ERP (HR module) did not block that weirdo Carl from hiring someone and not abiding by process, as it were.

I looked at my inbox (whilst I was reading a text from my sister Claire who is going thru her 5th divorce) and I saw the following email:

To: all

From: Marsha Zhukov-O'Brian

“After a few hours in the company, I understand why leadership allows Comrade Carl Marks to directs every move and decision... Carl is the greatest and wisest R&D manager who ever lived; he is cooler than big data.

I promise to purge R&D from negative input, promulgated by subversive elements in Sales, as well as marginalize the HR "free-lunchers" who live off the sweat of our people."

Marsha Zhukov-O'Brien, Comrade

Project Management Office, aka, PMO

                                                                             Big shot in Europe

Crisis intervention in our R&D department as shit hits the fan

Union on the way?

Two weeks before product release, there is a non wow situation in IoT - Big Data. 50 engineers (30 of them named Svetlana) have all resigned tentatively, unless they get raises. 

In another development, product managers also refuse to visit clients in nearby Japan unless they fly business class. This is big data.

And R&D Chief Comrade Carl Marks' only comment to this is: blacha mucha, which is an evil word in Russian. 

In a management meeting Comrade Carl said this morning, "now that we need our employees, we are going to be fucked big time, thanks to Gloria's myopia as HR manager". Then Carl added, "I hope we get unionized!" 

Immediately, I set up a response team consisting of Cynthia Axe, Head of our Involuntary Early Bird Retirement Team, and that white heterosexual boy Hugh White, who runs Diversity.

Hugh will seize the workers passports for clerical review whenever possible; Ms Axe will provide a notarized promise that no one will be fired by text.

I will need to become involved-so I plan to "transform" my relationship with Comrade Carl into a business partnership, based on some appreciative inquiry, agility and a portion of big data, with some vodka.

I am also looking for a more challenging company. This role is starting to bore me. 
I  have heard that there are opportunities in the Faroe Islands.

HR's mission critical function can be replaced with a voice enabled help desk service

I need some HR creativity

Comrade Carl Marks, our chief nerd, has had a stormy relationship with HR. Carl seems to feel that HR's mission critical function can be replaced with a voice enabled help desk service.

Strangely, Comrade Carl sees HR as the "guardian of the status quo!"  To be frank and earnest, Comrade Carl strikes me as a weirdo. He was born and bred in the USA; indeed he got his PhD at some unknown Russian polytechnic university, yet he thinks, behaves and drinks like a Russian; he also swears like a Russian! 

Yet today our relationship underwent a change.

Comrade Carl meandered into my office (after having smoked a joint in the parking lot) with a huge smile on his face. "Hi Glo, you look better than ever today! Pizdets, we have an issue-let's talk, sweety".

Comrade Carl told me that 2 weeks before the new product release, 5 engineers, Igor, Igor, Svetlana, Svetlana and Svetlana all have asked for a raise, immediately. Since "sufficient documentation" of the product is not available, WE need to think twice before we say no. After all, WE do not want this failure on OUR shoulders, do we, Gloria?"

Then Comrade Carl said a few words to me in French. Comrade Carl speaks very good French, and he even swore using a few choice Quebec expressions, which I shan't repeat because readers won't know what this is all about. He went on-

"So Gloria, in the spirit of transparency and cooperation, I wanted to tell you that CEO Stan has oked a 30 K ``stay bonus`` for all five employees and he has asked me to make sure that WE stay within the budget for total cost of headcount. Please handle this`professionally, and update Stan before you go home. By the way, Glo, you are a great business partner.`

Trusted or busted

I wish Wifey would read gossip

I received 3 texts messages from our CEO's (Stan) hyperactive and "bossy" wife today, aka Wifey. (My Dad, Pierre Elliot,  constantly used to tell me "don't be bossy, Gloria")

The first text message was: "Gloria, there is no asset more valuable to HR than the trust of the staff. Do you know that? Wifey". 

Wifey had just read a magazine article titled "Trusted or Busted" at her hairdresser. 

One hour later, I received yet another text from an over zealous Wifey, "Why is Ms Cynthia Axe so untrustworthy? Are you providing her with appropriate mentoring? Wifey"

Finally I received a third text. "Gloria, gaining the trust of the staff is more important than gaining Stanley's trust. I am coming over for coffee at 1500 to chat. Wifey"

In preparation for this fireside chat, I did a focus-group-by-text survey to see how much trust HR really enjoys.

The results were non-wow and I have already taken corrective action. Here are the highlights:

1) Cynthia Axe (Early Bird Retirement Recruiter)  is the least trusted employee in HR. 

Thus, I have rehired her Reputation Coach, who is both a positive thinker, and works on a barter arrangement.

2) Hugh White from Diversity pries people to open up about their sex lives; no one trusts him, especially since he hired a Scot for the switchboard!

Therefore, I have refocused Hugh on ensuring that  staff speak proper American English, especially the Russians, Scots, Israelis and Punjabi staff.(It is very easy to understand American English).

3) Not one single soul trusts me. Except of course for my business partner, CEO Stan. I live or die due to my business partnership with Stan our great leader. Therefore, I live.

Trust is a critical success factor for me, but not a major one, or even a minor one. I want to keep my place at the management table. 

My corrective action will be "to reshape" expectations of the staff from me, leveraging  the fear of a certain Ms Cynthia Axe.

Guidelines to Being Brief

1-All communication should include one semi elaborate idea, like a Tweet.

2-Texts, Whats-app, BBM and Line are IN. Email is OUT.

3 Americans are asked not to rah rah, Indians are asked not to theorize. Israelis are asked not to argue; French need not intellectualize-just get to the f-cking point asap.

4-Nine approved abbreviations are:

1.    TLTR for Too Long to Read
2.    MIS     for Make it short
3.    CCM   for Comrade Carl Marks
4.    GBP   for Gloria our Business Partner
5.    DCA    for Downsizer Ms Cynthia Axe
6.    OGLS  for Our great leader Stan
7.    MO      for Mais Oui!
8.    WWE  for wow wow environment     
9.    J          for Ja, meaning yes           

                                     
5- Germans are asked to write short sentences, and put the verb in the right place. For Heaven sake!

6-In line with our core value of Diversity and Timeliness, people with shitty English are asked to run their communications thru someone in Sales or HR, where all people spell English "well".

You can follow me @GRamsbottom
Mais Oui!

b brief

Keep it brief

After our 4 hour management weekly, Stan texted me to come to his room.

When I arrived, he was sweating like a pig and shaking like a leaf. "Gloria, our senior executives need to keep things brief. These goddamned filibusters need to end. Brevity is a people issue, Rambottom", fix it."

Stan was reacting to an "event" from the management meeting.

Comrade Carl Marks gave a 2 hour presentation about the "opportunities of internet-of-things", as a platform to bury our product's shortcomings. 

Here is one illustrative comment Comrade Carl made: "as we see convergence between shifting customer expectations into a coherent market-driven need, the crystallization of our feature set into a coherent solution must be both stychic and sophisticated, and an integral part of the internet of things". 

Then Carl spoke for another  90 minutes ending his ppt with "what is the true value of HR?"

I also may have contributed for Stan's "push for brevity". Hugh White (the white heterosexual who runs Diversity) hired a lad named Lek who speaks "limited" English, to drive ERP HR implementation. 

Lek is Thai and studied IT/HRIS in Japan, so his accent is "unique".  I asked Lek to present at the senior management meeting. Lek detailed the 40,000,932 outstanding issues in ERP HR implementation. Let's agree that Lek was "less than coherent" in a positive way. 

I made the point-ERP issues do not belong in the senior management meeting. When Lek finished, Stan (who was white as a sheet) asked to "shift down the priority of ERP HR; this does not need to come the senior management team, for Christ sake".

The brevity guidelines I am developing will appear in the next post. Mais oui!

Lek gave us the details.

Succession Planning--My leadership "pipeline"

An I am in hot water?

There have been better days than today. The implementation of ERP (HR module) has been nearly wow. At present, there are 6,767,523,875 outstanding issues, most of them have been "rien de tout", which is a French term.

We have 2 "semi minor" problems.

• the re-deployment of pay day
• there is still a "missing" component, ie, the names of all our employees, who were all fired when "someone" in HR pressed "delete" instead of "enter", which can happen to anyone.

I keep wondering if my career is near an end.  I was about to head home when I received a text this evening asking me "to detail organizational succession plans and leadership pipeline for all of our firm, including HR."

My answer:

My dear Stan,

You appear to be irreplaceable. No one can give the type of leadership that you provide. There is almost no one who cannot replace R&D Chief Comrade Carl Marks. Few of Comrade Carl's potential replacements can speak English.

As far as HR is concerned, my plan is to promote both Ms Cynthia Axe (Early Bird Retirement) and that heterosexual white boy Hugh White (who runs Diversity)  to be my deputies.

Ms Axe needs to work on her popularity, intelligence and moral fibre. Hugh White needs to develop his skills with more normative people, and stop looking into people's sex life. 

Once Axe and White show progress, a major obstacle will have been removed for a leadership pipeline in HR. By 2032, I will have a replacement.

As far as succession for the Head of Sales in concerned, our present Head of Sales is hiding in the Faroe Islands, so I do not have an accurate assessment who can replace him. (His Blackberry Passport  battery has totally drained).

A votre service, (that's French)

Gloria Ramsbottom-Lemieux

PS Please do not pronounce Lemieux as LE-MYUUU. Listen to the file I sent you on Skype for the correct pronunciation.

A working lunch that resolved nothing

After Emerging Technologies Chief Nerd Comrade Carl Marks lashed out at HR in our senior leadership team yesterday, I invited Carl to "break bread" with me at Au Beau Pain.  That is a restaurant with a French name, if you did not notice. 

Comrade Carl, always the contrarian, said "Glo, let's go to a Russian restaurant; you'll love it". He feigned a Russian accent, as he does quite often!

 Did I ever tell you all that Comrade Carl Marks is an American, for heaven sake? He was born in  the USA, and his family sent him to Russia to study Internet of Things and Big Data. 

His parents were socialists! Now, I am a Canadian so that is not so shocking. As a matter of fact, my father Pierre Elliot Ramsbottom, used to tell me "Glo, the commies are not wrong about everything".

Personally, politics do not interest me, but since I am an HR manager, organizational politics interests me almost as much as people!

At lunch, Carl talked for two hours, rambling endlessly about CEO Stan's erratic nature, the oppression of the working class, the beauty of Cynthia Axe's cleavage, and his negative and non-wow view of HR. Comrade Carl used the term "non value adding free lunchers" twice.

Comrade Carl drank 3 glasses of vodka and two beers. I did not put in a word, almost. 

To end the conversation, Comrade Carl told me, "you are a great gal, Ramsbottom, and you have great stems. Too bad you're not "aligned" with the working class; you need to be a socialist, Gloria; after all, you are a Canadian". Then he mumbled a few words as he looked at the bill. "Yop tvoyu mat, I drank too much!" 

I wish I knew what that explicative means!

You can follow me @GRamsbottom

I have 30,000 unread texts on my Blackberry Priv

Non wow

Following the non non non wowish "roll out" of the ERP HR module, and the failure of my HR team to "rise to the occasion" and manage this "issue" on their own, I now have 30,000 unread texts on my Blackberry Priv. I will need 2 hours to answer all of them.

I will share a few of these texts, just to prove how stupid people can be. 

(My Dad, Pierre Elliot Ramsbottom, tried never to deal with change people for this very reason. Dad sold insurance. I used to ask him what he did for a living, and he said, "Glo baby, I have a license to steal".)

Look at these 5 stupid and distracting texts which catch my skilled and devious eye.

1) From Cynthia Axe (downsizing) to Comrade Carl Marks (R&D):-

Is Georges one person or two?

2) From Cynthia to me.

Do Scots speak American English or British English?

3) From Comrade Carl Mark to me.

Why are my people not getting paid, you incompetent twirp? Is this due to your failure with ERP, girl?

4) From Hugh White (Diversity) to me.

When I enter "Ukraine", entry is denied and I get a Russian flag. And when I enter Sweden, I get a map of the Gaza Strip.

5) From Comrade Carl Marks (R&D) to CEO Stan and Chairman Ed

That Canadian farm girl Gloria is way over her head with ERP HR. Now you see that she is an elevated secretary at best, who happens to know a few words in French, which is no big f---ing deal. Why not replace her with a pro?

Carl

Kol kelb biji yomo

New variant causes CEO to panic about coughing at work

Panic 

The emotional stress due to pressure of the banks, Mister Herr Krebb's  non wow revenue projection along with the brand new South African variant of the so-called  corona-virus has led to a bout of coughing in our organization.

In today's management meeting, CEO Stan texted me that Comrade Carl Marks' smokers' cough as well as  my clearing of my throat are "appalling". I understood the clue. Stan is a visionary leader who has an idealized version on how to cough.

However, I took the comment seriously, in line with my core value of maintaining my job in tough times. The white heterosexual whom I hired to run Diversity, Hugh White, was instructed to prepare a white paper on coughing in the work place as well as some concrete recommendations.

For a start, Hugh White read the book by Kaufman and Tousser "Coughing at Work". White also did some research about coughing in our firm. I instructed young white Hugh to distinguish between coughing due to post nasal drip, and pure coughing. Hugh, as always, was semi-obedient.

Having finished his white paper, White asked for a meeting with me to discuss the findings, but I asked him to first text me the his findings.

From reading White's detailed text of 300 words:

• I discovered that straight and gay, white and non-white, are equally impacted by the present coughing bug. 
• One senior lady has a minor cough due to post nasal drip.
• Mr Herr Krebbs coughs in an orderly fashion.
• The French nerds cough sounds intellectual, the British cough "properly", the Americans think they cough the right way while the Hebrews complain the most about coughing. The Australian cough sounds remote whilst the Japanese all cough together. The Danes enjoy coughing and the Spaniards don't cough during their prolonged afternoon nap.

I found Hugh White's report to be totally trite and nonsense; I was about to call White to a meeting when I heard that White had gone home, ill. He was suffering from anxiety.

I need to cut this post short because Chairman Ed just texted me that his son-in-law, Samuel Snake, is about to do an internship in HRIS; the young Mr Snake wants to work on our ERP HR implementation, which is going non non wow.

תפסיקו להשתעל

Follow me @GRamsbottom

Weird job description

Nerds should manage recruitment

To: Stan, CEO; 

From: Comrade Carl Marks, Chief Nerd

Stan,

Recruitment is slow, overly administrative and unprofessional. + they have an attitude problem. We can't continue this way. I need Recruitment to "report into" me. Please fix this with Gloria.

Comrade Carl

                    .....                    .....                    .....

To: Gloria (HR)

From: Stan CEO

CC: Comrade Carl Marks

Gloria,

Fix it. Meet with Carl and end this fiasco.

Stan

                        .....                         .....                     .....

With Stan having set the context, Comrade Carl Marks, the chief nerd, and I met this morning to discuss recruitment issues.

Carl had some Russian music blasting from his I-phone 5.

I took my earphone out so I could be fully attuned to Comrade Carl's needs. Comrade Carl, it appeared, felt a need to stare at my legs as if he was in heat.

Carl rambled on in an unfocused semi associative manner about the job description. 

Carl explained that "on one hand we have rich feature suite and yet, we need a level of account-savvy system architects who can drive clients' expectations in the right direction whilst driving even more coherency in our feature set towards a robust product."

In Pearson High School (in Moose Jaw) and in the "Académie pour l'administration" (Administration Academy) in Montreal, I did not come in at the top of my class. Yet, my teachers always described me as an "street-smart alley cat". Nevertheless, I did not fully understand the requirements that Comrade Carl Marks was describing.

If my Dad were alive, he would tell me to say: "Carl, what the f--k are you talking about"? But I am in HR now, which is a very dignified role, so I cannot talk like that.

I put on my thinking cap and solved Carl's problem. Here is what I said:

" Carl, can you turn down the foreign music for a second? Merci. My dear Comrade Carl, I think you need a dedicated HR project manager for to recruit this position for you. I will take Hugh White off Diversity until you get what you want. You are my client. I want to please you, Comrade Carl. Hugh will manage your account in my name".

As I finished appeasing Carl, Moshe, Sanjay, Igor and Svetlana burst into the room. Igor and Svetlana were talking in Russian, Sanjay was reading the Joseph George Daily Newspaper, and Moshe was texting on 4 phones.

Carl said, "OK Gloria, whatever. Just don't micromanage him. You do not trust anyone, kibinimat. But let's give it try! Spasiba."

I took out my earphone

Not of interest to our employees

Minor adjustments

This is a compensation-related text message sent to all managers today at 12.00 Boston/Ottawa time. However, there is no need to bring the details of this text to the attention of our employees, since the issues are minor and there is no need to distract anyone from achieving our wow stretch goals.

"As we all focus on achieving our stretch goals for Q1, please note:

1- The location of our new parking facilities have been adjusted to enable more axe-rcise.

2-Lunch menus have been adjusted to allow for all tribal tastes to be satisfied, and the new $2 a portion "Diversity Tax" is automatically deducted for all tribal meals, eaten or not. Bon apetit. (That's French)

3-Cynthia Axe announces a new Alumni Club for folks who have been downsized in her Early Bird Retirement Plan. 

The name of the Club is "Ancien élève: Jang Song-thaek" or The Uncle Jang Alumnus Club.

All employees and axed-employees to get a membership card at $4 a card, deducted from salary/pension fund.