If I’ve gotten my chronology correct, it was The Orlando Sentinel that made such a splash last week with its report that employers are intentionally filtering unemployed applicants out of their potential hiring pools (the story having since been picked up by The Huffington Post and others). Sure, this sucks, but where’s the big surprise? Is this really that new? That’s what I don’t understand. Why are so many people (at least among those receiving mention online) so surprised? If that soulless entity known as Human Resources ever ceased to be shortsighted, it would also cease to be recognizable as Human Resources. Shortsightedness is one of the defining characteristics of Human Resources. (The others, so far as I can tell, are power-mongering, cronyism, discourteousness, and general imbecility).
I can sympathize with these monsters to the extent that I’m sure they must be inundated with applicants, including many unqualified ones. It’s just that HR is so terrible at everything it attempts to do. And the people who actually have careers in HR are just so damn laughable.
Here are my three most memorable moments of personal interaction with HR people:
1) The time when I showed up and proceeded to listen to an overweight HR woman talk about how enthralled she was with the pedometers in her shoes. That way I can keep track of how much walking I do around the office every day! If you have the pedometers already in your shoes then you’re more likely to force yourself to get up and walk over to someone you need to talk to instead of calling them on the phone! It’s such a good way to get exercise while at work!
Holy shit.
2) Talking to the woman who turned very cold towards me as soon as I told her that I thought that most internships were just another pointless piece of the puzzle that 21st century employers demand, causing college students to feel compelled to compete for them because no one wants to stand out in a negative light upon graduation, and that the employers themselves get some decent cheap/free labor out of the deal for whatever menial tasks they may have needing to be done. Okay, so it was stupid on my part—I should have known better than to answer her question honestly, but I couldn’t help myself. I have an uncontrollable gut reflex to tell it like it is when it comes to internships.
3) The time I unzipped and hosed down the carpet in the corner beside the HR dipshit’s file cabinet when he started getting smug with me. No wait, sorry, that was Björn Svensson. But the other two were me.
But that’s the great thing about Vikings. Or, I should say, one of the many great things about Vikings, because there are indeed very many great things about Vikings. But one of my personal favorites is their total disregard for the unspoken protocol of job hiring practices. If they couldn’t find work sowing the fields, hammering the blades, building the boats, casting the fishing nets, etc., then they got together amicably and without unnecessary paperwork or phony formalities, formed a crew, and sailed off into the watery horizon to completely devastate some far away coastal settlement and take whatever they wanted and with no need for a goddamned paycheck in exchange.
It was all very romantic.
Tags: Björn Svensson, job frustration, urination