Part of the job of a good boss is to (as best he can) insulate his subordinates from the stupidity of his superiors, because as we all know, the First Law of corporate physics is “Shit rolls down hill”.

But in the competition between good and bad bosses, the bad always has an advantage. After all, he doesn’t really care for his employees or the company. He just wants to further his career.

HR’s primary function is to act as a filter that can’t be challenged in court.

Part of the problem at Universities is the University mentality where higher education is prized above all, including performance.

HR not only makes it hard on the candidate, and the employee, but on the hiring manager, as well. I’ve worn all three hats.

One of the major roles of HR is to turn the hiring/firing/personnel aspects into a procedure that can be manipulated without it appearing to be directed at an individual (which is illegal).
The original justification for this was a good one, it kept personalities out of it and kept the process fair.

But the system has now calcified to the point where it operates with a mind of its own, primarily for the benefit of those who run it. And the clever executive familiar with its operation can use it as weapon to get what he wants, whether it is good for the company or not.

Except at the very lowest levels, its STILL a good ole boy club.

I remember my time at Foxjet. Tony Fox was eccentric as hell, but we got turkeys for Christmas and if you did your job right you were bulletproof in his eyes. The key seems to be working for a real boss, not a Grand Vizier.

I used to work extra hours and didn’t mind because my supervisor took care of me and the rest of her staff, treating us like salaried employees rather than hourly. So we worked our butts off for her. HR put a stop to all that and we had to keep times heets and were not allowed any overtime (which we had never requested payment for) so from that time on, our attitudes became, “fuck ‘em. It’s us vs. them.” So basically HR broke morale and made a less productive work place.

If you’re a professional “hiring person,” you don’t know the business like the people running it, and you have to go by “policies.” Hence the hiring formulas.

This is just a theory, but wouldn’t mind some input from those who have spent more time in the trenches than I have.

When I went to work for the Research Institute where we managed the financial end of clinical trials, no one cared, either. But after they changed directors, the emphasis became to hire people only with degrees, even receptionists for God’s sake. Because we had a medical school, you were supposed to be degreed.

The job I did for them, and did it damned well, knew more and accomplished more than most of their degreed people, found the screw-ups their Masters Degree Accountants made, and when I left, they wanted a degree only in my position. I wish them luck with it but I have a feeling the docs and nurses who are doing clinical studies are not getting the service they once were. But not my problem any more.

I come from a generation and family where you learned everything you could and became attuned to where you worked, what you did and what everyone else there did so you could work as an effective team. Now, it’s compartmentalized and I see little team work. Politics is in everything.

I’m glad I’m out of it. Of course, now that publishing is changing so radically, I don’t know yet where I’m going there.