New post-corona hiring practices

Yes it's true. We are indeed hiring. Our customer service centre is being beefed up as our clients return to work only to discover that Comrade Carl's latest software release is not "fully functional" for the less sophisticated client. 

98% percent of our clients are not sophisticated and the other 4% are "total idiots", as per Comrade Carl's unbiased judgement. "Our product is a pearl; we don't  need service agents-we need clients with half a brain", claimed Carl.

All in all, we are hiring 4 customer service nerds. Each nerd must speak English and three other tribal languages, be willing to provide his or her passport for safekeeping in the HR vault, be motivated by non-financial parameters and willing to deposit a urine and stool sample monthly to alleviate all suspicion of substance abuse.

Each nerd goes thru the following screening process:

A Zoom interview, during which we examine if we can understand his or her broken English.

A medical exam conducted by Teams, including a deep cavity search, to establish willingness of the nerd to accept the arbitrary nature of authority.

Sign on a document that states allegiance to core values of "people first, task later, but not necessarily in that order".

Interview of wife/spouse/husband/whatever to examine alignment with our non-Scandinavian expectations of work/life balance.

A sexual-drive test to determine willing of the nerd to sacrifice lusts for the good of client satisfaction.

Then the nerd is transferred to Ms Cynthia Axe, who signs them on an a priori severance agreement; finally it's over to Hugh White (the white boy who runs our Inclusion Project)  who checks the colour/creed/sexual preference for our Diversity data base, located in our Swiss blockchain.

Finally, the nerd starts her, or his, internship which is compensation-free but includes a hot meal each week as well as pizza with extra cheese after 3 am.

What is my role, one may ask? One may ask, but I may not necessarily answer. 

“No one will get a product fix until everyone gets a product fix. It’s as simple as that. It’s all about managing peoples’ expectations. When our clients know that they are all treated in the same way, criticism of our company will be replaced by adoration”.

 

                                   CEO Stan

During the so-called pandemic, it appears that customer satisfaction plummeted, meaning that it went down. I am fully aware that most of my readers don’t know English all that good.

From the survey which I commissioned at a ghastly low price using abilities I mustered when working in Supply Chain, we learnt that 80.8% of our clients want to uninstall our product; another 40% are willing to shoot CEO Stan if they spot him in a dark alley, and an amazing 97% percent think that “HR is the only good thing about your company”.

Before confronting our chief nerd Comrade Carl Marks about these findings, I had a one on one with CEO Stan. “The Board will be all over me Gloria”. I suggested that we table these findings as per our core value of functional transparency. CEO Stan told me that “you are the cat’s pyjamas!”

But it was too late. Cynthia Axe, my hatchet women, had already wandered into Carl’s office and told him that “CEO Stan will make you into minced meat, Comrade Carl”, and handed him the survey results. But to our surprise, Comrade Carl was as cool as a cucumber.

The comrade has just spent a week in Europe, where “I have been inculcated with humanitarian values. Our clients are dissatisfied not only because they are perhaps ignorant, but because they are all on edge asking “when do we get a product fix”. The Comrade’s eyes filled with charity and kindness. Then he proclaimed, “No one will get a product fix until everyone gets a product fix. It’s as simple as that. It’s all about managing peoples’ expectations. When our clients know that they are all treated in the same way, criticism of our company will be replaced by adoration”.

CEO Stan texted me that “either Comrade Carl is hallucinating or he “might be on to something”. Stan added, “Gloria, let’s align our values to be more egalitarian. Let’s brand ourselves as globalists and humanitarian for the next few weeks”.

I booked an educational trip to Belgium but when I read the travel warning, I suggested sending Ms Axe, who in an anti-vaccine advocate.

Our new management credo

                                         

                                                              Danke

It’s obvious that people need principles and credos (a Latin word) by which to manage. In our firm, our staff comes from far-off places, often without airports, runways, triple cheeseburgers or a firm grasp of English.

True, there are books published in Danish (such as “Organisationer I En Overgangstif-Handbog for Ledere) which making managing people easier, but two issues arise: 1) who speaks Danish and 2) are Scandinavian ways scalable in the real world, where most people are not Scandinavian?

In light of the above, and in line with my core value of leading the pack and garnering brownie points, I formulated a new credo, to be introduced immediately.

1)      In the beginning, the organization was null and void. People spoke all sorts of languages and ate with their feet and hands. There were no processes. Then Stan said, “Let there be HR”. Then there was light.

2)      We all own everything, and blame is assigned on a need-for-victim basis. This is not a good thing or a bad thing, just a global and sustainable thing.

3)      Albeit holistic assumptions, delivery dates and product readiness are not aligned. Delivery dates are linked to revenue flow whilst product readiness is linked to the Chinese stock market, or Blue Bonnets Horse Track in Montreal.  

4)      There is no HR lady other than Gloria, and Cynthia Axe is her messenger.

5)      If asked to represent an idea or opinion with which you may agree or may not agree, think about being deported to your homeland, or life without a salary, as lonely as a gig worker during a Corona plague.

6)      Team work is important, but so is eating beans. Never disobey your boss, cloaking your action in team work. This is the real world, not some classroom in Spain.

7)      Often, one needs to swear. Hungarian and Greek provide the best platforms for the aforementioned activity. So does Russian.

8)      There is no HR lady other than Gloria, and Hugh White is her towel boy.

9)      Webinars are ok, as long as they are free and are in alignment with our credo. This having been said, our credo is binding, yet the context of obedience is liberal pluralism tainted with an inside-outside dynamic.

10)   If per chance your colleague is dithering, ill, incompetent or sexting, pick up the fucking ball and run. You own everything.

Resuming Business Travel as the so-called Covid Pandemic Fizzles Out

Travel is like gun ownership in the USA

 Our CEO Stan convened a meeting of the senior management team this morning; on the agenda was the need to resume business travel. “We need to grease some palms, smooth out some rough edges and take a few of our clients to get drunk-otherwise I don’t see any way that we can convince anyone to purchase our new software, which, if you ask me, is as useless as tits on a bull”.

I texted Stan that some of the words he chooses are passe, but he ignored me. An HR lady who has been ignored better fix her antennas, or her goose is cooked. So I aligned myself and became less woke for the time being.

CEO Stan asked the team what are the major barriers facing renewed business travel; Stan asked me to write down the comments on the white board. When I was tasked with writing on the white-board, I was pretty sure than Stan was still taking revenge on the “bull issue”.

The list of difficulties was formidable: many borders are closed, plane schedules are erratic; some airports are closed; some hotels have closed down; daily covid tests are needed; some countries don’t recognize certain vaccines, buses and trains are petri dishes of infections and there is no health insurance for travellers. Comrade Carl told the story of a Bangalore based friend of his who went to the USA for a wedding and had to stay there for 9 months. Mister Herr Krebbs said that the cost of keeping a nerd abroad due to emergency regulation preventing travel “vud be enormous”.

I commented that “virtual travelling” is now in style, mentioning in passing that many Australians who  served in the Navy and speak French as well as  Greek have made this type of non-travel travel very popular. Stan told me that “Australia is so bloody remote that all that they think about is getting back to civilization”. Then Stan added, “Gloria, I want a travel policy out by tomorrow morning which encourages business travel”.

To say that I was shocked is incorrect. I am never shocked. Hoping to find an answer, I ran out to a bookstore to pickup the newest state-of-art HR cook book, “Organisationer I En Overgangstif-Handbog for Ledere”, which was written surprisingly in a foreign language. I was told that the English translation was forthcoming, as soon as business travel resumes.

Despondent but positive, I issued the following email:- “Business travel is akin to gun ownership or health care in the USA. It’s a private matter which needs to remain unregulated; nerds must align their travel needs with the interests of the client and the corporate. HR will set up a portal within 6 months to provide morale support. Shake a leg”.

Compulsory Vaccination Policy and the HR Lady

                                                                Prof Gloria

The tension in the senior management meeting was palpable, which is a very exciting word. In attendance were CEO Stan, Chief Nerd Comrade Karl Marks, CFO Herr Mister Krebbs, and yours truly the first lady of HR. On the agenda was but one item, "should we enforce vaccination on the recalcitrant nerds who refuse to undergo such a procedure"?

CEO Stan, who chaired the meeting (by Zoom), was standing up, since his hemorrhoids are inflamed, which often happens when he is under stress. And believe me, he in under stress; the Board revoked his first class travel "in order to give personal example to the rank and file".

Stan asked each of us to "briefly state your opinions because I have more important things to do than get your input on this question. For fu-k sake, what type of ignoramuses have you all recruited"?

Chief Nerd Comrade Karl said that in Russia, "during Stalin's time, people who refuse to take a vaccine would have been shot, by Lavrentiy Beria or Lazar Kaganovitz who were compliance officers of the highest order". CEO Stan cut Comrade Karl short- "shut up, you moron; we are not in Russia. Take your meds".

                                          Kaganovitch

Our German CFO Mister Herr Krebbs gave a detailed financial report of 236 slides cost accounting all the alternatives. After his three hour presentation, Krebbs said that "I hope to haf all ze details by next veek". Stan texted me asking if Herr Krebbs work-visa in about to expire. I answered in a timely fashion, since I am always available.

Then came my turn.

I weaved in three factors: wellness, teletrabajo, and our core values. Stan asked me why I was using a Spanish word for working from home. "Gloria, are you eating too much paella at night? Speak in English, or I'll send you back to Canada on a one way ticket by American Eagle".

Always in compliance, I reverted to English and gave a fuzzy opinion, gravitating between business partnership, people and my own long term survival.

In the end, Stan told me to give our downsizer, Ms Axe, a hundred syringes to stab refuseniks in the bum inadvertently when they enter the building.