Dr. Laurence J. Peter, creator of the Peter Principle, said:
Competence, like truth, beauty and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder.
(Peter L.J. & Hull R., The Peter Principle - Why things always go wrong, 1969)
This quote isn’t helpful if you’re looking for a definition of “competence”. If you’ve been looking for your contact lenses, however, maybe they were in your eyes the whole time and you’ve just experienced a classic “duh” moment.
No, I’m not depressed and I’m not borderline suicidal either.
Yes, I’m a big fan of Heroes. Although lots of people say that it’s lost its edge, I still luh-huve it. Very much, very deeply and very fondly.
At the beginning of ep 3×10 (for the die-hard fans: at 9 min 4 secs) Brea Grant playing the character Daphne Millbrook says
It’s not an HR Challenge. It’s just a fun little contest… for the ugliest tie.
Send me a picture of your ugliest tie. There’s a few rules, and a very tough jury, but you might win a book!
Ze Rules
Send me a picture of your ugliest tie.
Condition: you must have been wearing this tie at least once in a professional setting. Srsly!
I need to see it!
Post it anywhere you like on the Interwebs. But make sure I know about it. I’ll then add it to my Picasa account for everybody to see.
The jury
Ties are mostly part of a man’s, man’s world. This is why I asked 5 wonderful ladies to perform some jury duty:
- Meg Bear from Talentad Apps
- Cali from Cali & Jody, the wonderful ladies who brought you ROWE. And although you’ll never realize it, also the ones who made sure Skynet will never conquer the world!
- HR Minion from The Awesome & Geeky HR Minion Blog
- HR Maven from the Incredibly Cool HR Maven Blog
- JT from Careerealism, because every job really is just temporary!
The book
The winner will get a book. If you win, I’ll ask you to send me a link to your Amazon wishlist and you’ll get a book sent to you by snail mail.
Here’s my ugliest tie. I’ve got way uglier ties, but this is the blarghiest one I’ve ever been wearing at work.
Now it’s up to you. Do your worst!
There are things most HR professionals would love to say from time to time. I know I do. But insulting people is (un)fortunately not in our job description 
Dr. House doesn’t care. He’s rude, insensitive and he speaks his mind. I’m only halfway through episode 1 of the 5th season, but he already inspired me. Someday, maybe, I’ll tell a line manager:
You’re being an idiot!
The pizza delivery guy really impressed me. I met him the other day in the elevator and immediately commented on his huge delivery bag.
“It’s for family pizzas,” he explained. I grunted something to indicate that I understood.
“They’re really convenient.” And without missing a beat, he added “The prize is very good, and they even come with a free drink.”
That’s when we reached the ground floor. If he had handed me a 4-color leaflet with a list of available toppings and a big fat phone number printed on top, I would have asked for his CV and given it to the sales director first thing the next morning. Okay, we don’t have a sales director, but you get my drift.
Afterwards I wondered how our employees respond when asked where they work. Do they just mention the name of their employer or do they add two or three positive things about our company or products?
It’s almost scary how much I love the Interwebs. And sometimes I can even go a bit overboard with my enthusiasm.
Jenn Barnes published a post on HRM Today called 10 Reasons Why HR Professionals Should Blog (hint to recruiters: she’s currently looking for a job!).
This is my public commitment:
It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of ROWE (Results-Only Work Environment). And although I won’t actively promote it at work, I will start making adjustments to my attitudes and work habits.From now on I will stop bragging or complaining about the hours I spend at work.
Therefore “ROWE-y”. Not quite ROWE, but getting closer. Baby step after baby step.
The 7th ROWE Guidepost is:
Nobody talks about how many hours they work.
If I work too many hours, it’s my problem.
True, if I’m on sick leave because of burn-out, then it becomes my manager’s problem too. But at the end of the day, it’s still my responsibility.
Whenever somebody tells me how tough their job is and how many hours they put in I feel the urge to prove that I’m a hard worker too.
At the same time saying that I worked over 50 hours last week is lame. 60 or 70 hours would sound much tougher.
But I’m sick of this. It’s a senseless pissing contest which you can only loose because you’ll end up either frustrated or in a coma.
If I can’t brag about long hours, I will have to validate my value to the company in a different way.
The alternative is to figure out what I’m actually doing all day, deciding what is really useful and necessary and then, of course, remember all these great things that I’m doing for my employer. Because seriously, of the several dozen things I did today, I could hardly remember 10 right now.
Whether I work many or few hours, I’ll start concentrating on my achievements. This is me getting ROWE-y!
Are there still people who pretend that the Interwebs aren’t any good for generating and sharing ideas?
Mark’s article at HC3 Take Control Of Your Job And Your Success reminded me of an idea I had for a t-shirt. I also mentioned his article as an inspiration for my post Give Them What They Want. Mark then shared in the comments one of the reasons why he’s in charge of HR for a multinational corporation:
The newest Carnival of HR is up at Guerilla HR and this time I finally contributed something. Patrick Williams even gave Employees Are A Necessary Evil the award for most shocking post title
Short commercial break:
Jon Ingham from the Strategic HCM blog and another Carnival of HR participant, will hold a webinar on 11 September 2008 about The Evolution Continues: Trends in Digital HR (free registration here).
Now this is just too cool: While reviewing Dan Pink’s book Johnny Bunko I mentioned the red stapler. Believe it or not, it seems that I was the first one to pick up on this Office Space reference and Dan mentioned it on his blog!
He also called me “a blogging HR Guru”.
This man’s got a great sense of humor
I’m in a great mood today (see previous post), but I really need to get this off my chest:
HR people need to stop whining all the time.
Instead, we need to start listening to our customers and provide them with what they really need.
I suck at marketing. Or call it self-promotion if you like.
And my memory is terrible. There’s something I wanted to announce for the last couple of weeks, but I just can’t put my finger on it…
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THE HAPPY EMPLOYEE
For immediate release
The “The Happy Employee” blog has found a new home at
www.TheHappyEmployee.comAbout the THE blog
“The Happy Employee” is a blog about Human Resources and combines wisdom with weirdness. It’s not yet a mainstream success but does enjoy the much appreciated patronage of a small but extremely loyal, intelligent, beautiful and competent circle of regular readers.
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Oh yes, now that I think of it, did I tell you that I bought myself a domain name for my birthday?
I’m featured on Alltop HR! And I’m allowed to display their badge on my blog! This is awesome!
Employees are human, but at the end of the day they’re just a resource.
Don’t get me wrong, I love working in HR and since I don’t want to start my own company, I’m happy being an employee. Of course, I don’t mind the monthly paycheck either. But sometimes a cold shower of tough reality can’t hurt.
I talked about this before, but punctuality is extremely important. For some it’s natural while others will always struggle with it. And of course, the perception of punctuality varies depending on the company, country or culture.
Daniel Pink could have written a classic business book about choosing a career, but he took a risk, tried something new and wrote a manga!
The ad for The Adventures Of Johnny Bunko (The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need) says that it’s “Americas first business book as manga”. It contains very nice and expressive art in the style of Japanese comics as well as fun dialogues. But it’s also full of valuable advice presented in a very engaging way.
In Daniel Pink’s own words:
Today the question at the center of work is: WTF?!
The book explores this question resulting in the “six lessons of a satisfying, successful career”. You probably heard them before in one form or another. But believe me, never like this. Or has any career counselor ever said to you that
when it comes to work, you’re as clueless as a cucumber.
I really liked how Pink introduces Johnny Bunko as a hardworking but disillusioned and somewhat clueless knowledge worker and then walks him (and the reader) through the six lessons.
I also enjoyed seeing the name of Martin Seligman (Learned Helplessness) and the face of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Flow) in a manga.
But the absolutely coolest was of course the red stapler! Okay, it’s in black & white, but it was so obvious, it had to be a red stapler.
The only bad thing about the book is that it’s too short. But I always say that after reading a great manga.
Better to write for yourself and have no public,
than to write for the public and have no self.
-Cyril Connolly
I truly love this quote, even though it’s probably the most hypocritical thing a blogger could say. But lets analyze it from a career point of view.
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