HR can not and is not doing its job.
“Experts” aren’t.
Nobody should be using social media.
Don't hire external companies to do your job
No HR!
...what kind of Human Resources organization do we have to ensure this shared awareness of and commitment to the common purpose? None.
Most of us have observed the damage caused by addictive HR organizations. In the beginning, they relieve stress. Soon, they insinuate themselves into every aspect of corporate life and withdrawal pain becomes impossible to bear. Not unlike some welfare programs, HR becomes an end unto itself, a means of existence for a group of individuals whose sustenance depends upon their clients' problems. Decisions are laden with their intervention. Straight-forward processes are gummed up with their arbitration.
In a way, HR is a protection racket. A process must be put in place, a study must be made, a task force must be set up; thus management is protected and absolved of political responsibility, and HR gains power.
One of the benefits we offer at Be is that there's no HR and there won't be any. Personnel, yes. Forms, benefits, insurance, 401k -- these are all healthy and regular paperwork movements. If we ever need HR work, we'll bring consultants to help. And then they'll leave. Just as we want our employees to own their work, so do we want an unobfuscated (and minimal) management to be fully responsible for its actions.
Jean-Louis Gasse, "Working at Be", Be Newsletter, Issue 25, May 29, 1996
On Job Hunting 1
Who I look for when hiring:
The industry is made up of either gifted techies or smart generalists -- The people who were bored with high school -- the sort of people the teacher was always telling, "Now, ...you could get A's if you really wanted to. Why don't you apply yourself?" Look for these people -- the talented generalists They're good as project and product managers.
--Douglas Copeland, Microserfs
Good enough for the morning is not good enough for the afternoon
The scholar was pointing at the shadowy figure of a peasant leading a donkey homeward at twilight. The man's feet were wrapped in sackcloth, and the mud had caked about them so that he seemed scarcely able to lift them. But he trudged ahead one slogging step after another, resting half a second between footfalls. He seemed too weary to scrape off the mud.
"He doesn't ride the donkey," Thon Taddeo stated, "because this morning the donkey was loaded down with corn. It doesn't occur to him that the packs are empty now. A what is good enough for the morning is also good enough for the afternoon." - A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
