“He was poisoning me? It was all there in the job title. The head of Human Resources. This time, it’s personnel.” – Dr. Who
Umm, I can’t top this.
I’ve posted before about how government is a jobs program (LINK), but increasingly government has made businesses hire more and more people that produce nothing in order simply to meet government regulations or to fend off lawsuits. It’s like welfare, but with the whole, “you mean I have to be there at eight . . . am?”
Think I’m kidding?
Let’s start with Human Resources. I love the title. HR. Every company has someone who does this, right? The title makes me think they go to a mine and take a pickaxe and look for bits of people that they can assemble into Frankenployee.
I’m wondering where I go to complain about the other employees and their “made from living tissue in a normal manner that doesn’t insult God” privilege?
Well, what’s the problem with HR? They’re there for their workers, right? (Notice the They’re, there, their trifecta!)
Let me tell you a story that I’ve seen unfold several times during my career.
Person A, unhappy about employee favoritism, to John Wilder: “I’m so angry, this isn’t right! I’m going to tell Human Resources!”
John Wilder: “Umm, dude, Human Resources reports up to the President. They are not on the employee side, they’re on the company side.”
Person A, after talking to HR: “They asked me if it was sexual harassment. I said “no.” Then they said they didn’t care – quit whining.”
If your boss treats you poorly, and fires you, and is wrong in every way possible from being rude to being born as ugly as a cross between a turkey and a cat, Human Resources is . . . on their side. As long as he doesn’t take a fire axe and try to kill you at your desk – they’ve got him covered. “Unconventional leadership! Attempts to motivate by leaving a dead rodent in their tea! Didn’t actually kill employee!”
The only way to get Human Resources on your side? Own the company.
Sure, HR helps with finding and hiring people, but that’s primarily so the hiring manager doesn’t screw up and create legal liability by asking the person being interviewed if they’re fat or pregnant, then telling them they must be fat, because they’re too old to be pregnant. HR tells them not to do that. But if they do it? HR will defend you (if you own the company).
HR also helps with setting up employee benefits. Yup. Employee benefits still exist in some places – they’ve not vanished, but they are as rare as a coelacanths. (pronounced see-lo-can-thhhhhhhhhhh)
Yeah, coelacanths are almost as old as your mother. And what would Mom say? Don’t be a coela-canth, be a coela-can!
Let’s pretend that businesses didn’t have to pay taxes. What then?
Well, your accounting department would shrivel – and not the individual employees shriveling so all seventy could fit into a filing cabinet (though that is amusing). You’d only need the accountants that sent the bills, paid the bills, and then do whatever reports you wanted and maybe a couple to make sure employees aren’t stealing too much from you. Sure, it’s important to know why your company makes money (don’t laugh – there are some companies, profitable ones – that have no idea how they make money) and the accountants can be sent out to find which parts of the company cost more than they make, but the current sea of accountants that are devoted to taxation and special treatment of the way the company spends money so it can conform to what the government wants? Yeah, they could go away.
Thankfully, Big Brother Government will never let this happen, though, due to public safety concerns. Nobody wants that many introverts walking around the streets staring at their own shoes. The poor dears would get run down right and left. And how would we pay for cleaning up all the accountant blood off of our cars?
Next victim? Investor Relations folks work with the company lawyers to help the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) pretend that they know what a business is when Congress calls them and invites them to come and talk. Congress then kicks them a few times to show them who is boss, and then sends them back to do exactly what they previously did before they got yelled at.
In reality Investor Relations fills out forms and does annual reports. The purpose of the annual report is so that the CEO can show off how much he cares and about the new charity hospital the company set up in Belgium. Why Belgium? Your CEO thought Belgium was in Africa.
Don’t let the Legal Department reproduce, or your company will have three lawyers for every person engaged in productive activity. It’s like that movie with the aliens with the seed pods. But in this case the seed pods just turn into more lawyers.
Every industry in the United States has “Industry Regulation Experts.” Things that a farmer can throw on a trash-heap in his north 40 are (sometimes) things that a chemical company would get fined for even thinking about purchasing since hazardous waste is the in the eye of the beholder.
(True Aside: There are two kinds of hazardous wastes under Federal law: listed and characteristic. Listed is just because an unelected regulator put it . . . on a list. Many of these items make no sense. But characteristic is funny. Originally EPA was gooing going to set characteristic hazardous wastes as those with a pH less than 3 (that means it’s an acid). OOOPS! Coca-Cola™ has a pH of 2.5. So they set the pH of a characteristic hazardous waste at . . . 2.
Let’s go to bases/caustics. These can still burn you. So, the EPA decided that we’d set a limit of 12. Again . . . OOOPS! Wet concrete has a pH of 12 to 13. So, they set the pH for a hazardous caustic waste as . . . 12.5.
Government is stupid, but not stupid enough to outlaw Coke® and concrete.)
Food production people in California have vastly different regulations than a similar company in Utah might have. And as government finally comes around? Tech companies will soon require hundreds of extra personnel just to sit in your office to tell you why you’re not allowed to do.
Thankfully, there are companies you can hire to do everything we’ve talked about. You can outsource accounting, payroll, HR, and even legal. Groups of consultants know your business better than you.
Rob Halford knows HR and Legal says you’re not supposed to mix Judas Priest® and Babymetal™. But Rob doesn’t care . . .
It’s my theory that our country could be as productive as a boxcar filled with kindergarteners that just had sugar cookies after trick-or-treating. We just need to get everybody rowing and we’d be on Mars in two years.
If not rowing? At least tell them about our new colony on Venus! We’re shipping out new colonists starting every Tuesday!
Found at (LINK). Story “Marching Morons” can be found at (LINK).
