HR Has Feelings, Too, You Know!

First off, I hate talking or writing about work.  Work is boring.  No one wants to hear about someone else's work.  Why should I presume to think that MY work is any more interesting or valid than anyone else's?  That said, I'm about to launch into a story/rant about work.  So, you've been warned and can now choose your own adventure:  quit now and go do something else or keep reading knowing that I'm babbling about work.  Oh, and it's not a funny story.  I feel like I should also say that upfront.    It's not sad or anything, but it's not something you're going to think, "Oh, that Lainey!  What a character!"  That's probably not gonna' happen.  If it does, please feel free to let me know.

I spent over an hour in a meeting today to discuss what to do about an under-performing employee.  This is the third such meeting I've been in over the past 2 weeks.   All about different employees.  The focus of today's meeting was a middle-aged woman with some type of illness (maybe Parkinson's?) that she's not really willing to discuss with us and that she INSISTS is not affecting her productivity in any way.  It should be noted that this employee has either had this affliction since she started with us 5 years ago or she's just always been an under-performing employee.  Her problem is that she's slow.  Like sllllooooooowwwww slow.  Also, she doesn't really seem to grasp simple concepts and does not take any responsibility at all for her poor performance and insists that we are just out to get her.  By way of comparison, other employees enter/bill 100 trips a day; she enters/bills 30.  Her supervisor and manager have spent many, many, many hours coaching her and training her and trying to get her up to speed.  They've taken away extra tasks and assigned them to other employees and when she still wasn't able to hit the minimum requirement, they took another chunk of responsibility away from her and sent her through training again.  During all of this she has maintained that there's not a problem and that they're just picking on her.

The supervisor and manager don't want to fire her, my boss doesn't want to fire her, no one wants to get rid of her, but there's nowhere else for her to go within the organization.  I guess the reason I'm writing this is because I get SO tired of hearing people say things like, "HR is out to screw people", "Corporations only care about the bottom line", "Employees are just numbers", blah, blah, blah.  You know what?  SHUT THE FUCK UP.  Of course companies are concerned with the bottom line! If you work for a company that isn't,  I suggest you start looking for a new place of employment, because yours isn't going to be around for long.  HR is NOT out to screw people.  Holy crap, do you even know how much fucking paperwork is involved to write-up and/or fire someone?  How much extra documentation has to be done?  It's ridiculous.  HR doesn't want to screw you.  HR doesn't even want to deal with you, so there's no way in hell they're TRYING to get you in trouble.  As far as employees being "just numbers", that's just dumb.  It's a symbiotic relationship.  The company exists to make money.  That's its function.  In order to make money, the company must have employees and in order to pay the employees the company must make money, so the employees must perform in a satisfactory and productive manner in order for the company to make the money to pay the employee for the satisfactory and productive work.  SEE?  It's a cycle.  They depend on each other.

Are there incompetent, jackassy, unethical, supervisors, managers, and directors in companies?  Absolutely.  Does management sometimes hate one of their employees?  FOR sure.  But, overall, supervisors, managers, and HR are all there, the same as you, trying to do a good job.  Trying to balance the needs of the company with the needs of the many employees.  They're trying to get their work done, while they review yours and they don't want to discipline or fire people.  They will hold many meetings (and sometimes sweep things under the rug) and review policies and lose sleep over the decision to terminate someone's employment.  The COMPANY may be an entity, but the people making the decisions and doing the hard task of writing someone up or eventually firing them are PEOPLE.  These people really aren't rubbing their hands together and twirling their mustaches and cackling with glee over the prospect of screwing you over, they're trying to find ways to help you, so that you are a productive and satisfactory part of the work cycle.  Please stop believing that Corporate America is out to GET YOU.  That seriously doesn't even make sense if you really stop to think about it and every time you repeat that little motto, it helps to create an environment of distrust and resentment and takes away YOUR ownership of your own life and your own destiny.  It makes you a victim.  Stop it.

Unless you're an asshole.  Then maybe your HR department is out to get you.  (I'm kidding.  Mostly.)

Things That Are Bothering Me TODAY

• Having to clean ALL of the things when I feel like I JUST cleaned ALL of the things when I MOVED ALL of the things.  There should be a free pass for 90 days after that.
• Dropping my toast on my new couch - butter-side down.
• Anyone who says I shouldn't be eating toast on my new couch.
• Emails from people telling me they miss me, but those same people never being particularly engaged in talking to me when I'm around.
• Blogger REFUSING to go to the next line when I hit "enter" and making me MANUALLY drop to the next line.  
• Lying down too quickly and smooshing my boobs.
• Cat hair.
• Guys who send me emails from the personals thing that just say, "Hey - how you doing?"  I'm fine.  REALLY, that's what you came up with as an opening?  Go sit down.  Oh and part two of this?  You don't have to be a good speller anymore, that's why Al Gore invented Spellchecker.  Use it for fuck's sake.
• The cat who REFUSES to sit on the window perch that I bought and installed for her and instead lays on the bathroom floor.  Jerk.
• Amazing sex dreams in the morning that won't get out of your head for the rest of the day.
• Humidity making my hair look like Roseanne Rosannadanna.
• Having to look up how to spell Roseanne Rosannadanna.
• People who are too young to know who Roseanne Rosannadanna is.
• Hot guys who are too young for me.
• Hot guys who are too married for me.
• Hot weather that is too hot for me.
• LeBron James.

Special Little Snowflakes

This may be rambling and incoherent - I'll do my best to stay on topic and to self-edit.

Usually around Christmas everyone wants to take vacation time, but the office still needs to be staffed, so they limit the number of people who can be off at the same time.  A couple of years ago our senior management team made the decision to let employees who worked on Christmas Eve day leave 2 hours earlier than the end of their scheduled shift and get paid for those 2 hours.  It was a perk for the employees who had to come in that day.  If you took a vacation day on Christmas Eve, however, you had to use 8 hours of PTO.

This year, our senior management team made the decision to close the office at 12:00 on Christmas Eve.  They also decided it was dumb to limit the amount of people who could have the day off, since most of the companies or agencies we do business with are closed or are short-staffed also.  Additionally, for reasons I still don't understand, they've also decided to pay everyone for 4 hours, whether they work or not.  So, basically, if you choose to take the day off, you can and you only have to use 4 hours of PTO and the Company will pay for the other 4 hours to give you a full day's pay.  If you don't have any PTO and you choose to work that day, you only have to work 4 hours and the company will pay you for a full 8-hour day.  Sounds great, right?  Yeah, not to everyone, apparently...

One of our Special Little Snowflakes has decided that this is somehow unfair.  In the past, the extra 2 hours of pay was a REWARD for coming in and working, but NOW the Company is going to pay EVERYONE 4 hours whether they work or not and to her, that's not fair!  It's not fair that if she comes in to work, someone who chooses to take off that day still gets the same benefit she gets.  She's, in her words, "being PENALIZED" for coming in and working. 

Wait, what?  Seriously?  Yeah, she's in a snit because everyone gets 4 hours paid and she's evidently pissed because she gets paid for an additional 2 hours and has to work 2 hours LESS than in previous years...let that sink in.  She's mad and thinks it's unfair because why should EVERYONE get this "perk"?  What the fuck is wrong with you?   I don't understand this logic.  Can someone please explain this to me?   Also, can someone explain the word "penalize" to her, because I don't think it means what she thinks it means.

OK, fine, so she's just some random malcontent - EXCEPT, no, she's posted this all over her Facebook page and because she's a goddamned genius, she's "friended" her supervisor, who then brings it to HR, because now it's a "morale issue".  Wait, back up.  The Company is paying employees to not  work or to be at work for half a day and somehow we have a morale problem because of this?  I swear don't understand.  Am I being dense?  Can someone PLEASE explain this to me?