Bell Cheeses at work

[Cheshire Cat]

HR people or rather 'people people' must surely contain the highest proportion of bell-cheeses.

Today we had a massive email about how to fill in our annual appraisals.

This involves:

An in-depth self-evaluation of your performance - totally fantastic
Addressing last year's five goals and whether you achieved them. Yes
An assessment of what action you have taken to embody the company's four key values, each of which contains about ten bullet points you are meant to address (all the values have wanky names such as 'master of your craft'). Lots of actions and everything completely successfully
Providing candid feedback on all other members of your team, which they can see (a terrible idea). I'm way better than any of them will ever be. They are all shit without me.
Setting at least five goals for the forthcoming year. Staying awake while doing this job every working day (assuming you work 5 days a week
How you think you performed overall. Marvellously


A lot of people in our company have fairly menial jobs and we are all badly underpaid.

We are also extremely busy but are expected to find a couple of days to complete this utter nonsense.

Honestly, these people are stealing a living.

Completed for you

 

[Sirnormangall]

So glad that I work for myself, 11 years free from zzzzzzz internal meetings, politics, backstabbers, bootlickers who are actually sh1t at their profession but stay long hours to garner respect, bullying owner-managers with a Victorian master-slave mindset, unfairness and double standards, silly stuff like taking the creeps on long lunches.

Sounds like you had to make a tough decision 11 years ago! My decision was a bit more recent than than yours but for similar reasons plus I became fed up with corporate “bull” and increasingly unhappy at the largesse of the board / senior management team remuneration, of which I was part. The remuneration policies in certain sectors ( eg financial services, utilities) are a disgrace. Glad to be out of it.

 

[Weststander]

Sounds like you had to make a tough decision 11 years ago! My decision was a bit more recent than than yours but for similar reasons plus I became fed up with corporate “bull” and increasingly unhappy at the largesse of the board / senior management team remuneration, of which I was part. The remuneration policies in certain sectors ( eg financial services, utilities) are a disgrace. Glad to be out of it.

I wanted to escape for many, many years. The tw@t owner-boss was unhinged, every other day he came in looking to plot against sporadic staff or fellow ‘directors’ he had a bad nights sleep thinking about (all perceived in his head), he made folk cry with extreme passive-aggression, in essence an ex public school bully. I wasn’t afraid of him on any level and I made myself unpopular by defending good people he was hoping I’d slag off with him behind their backs. He built a tiny cabal of 4 people who were embarrassing fags to him, 3 of them were awful in their roles.

Finally the planets aligned perfectly for me. Life changing.

 

[Badger]

Or People & Culture

Yes, that's what my company has decided to call it too. No one is actually calling them that in conversation though. "You need to talk to People & Culture"

Apparently I'm a "people leader" too. Again, everyone just says manager.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

It's "People and Talent" where I work.

Definitely no talent though.

 

[kevo]

When you say HR people, I think you mean “Talent Retention “

Completed for you

Haha - thanks. I'll just copy and paste!

 

[thedonkeycentrehalf]

Yes, that's what my company has decided to call it too. No one is actually calling them that in conversation though. "You need to talk to People & Culture"

Apparently I'm a "people leader" too. Again, everyone just says manager.

You don’t work out of Mississauga do you?

 

[happypig]

HR people or rather 'people people' must surely contain the highest proportion of bell-cheeses.

Today we had a massive email about how to fill in our annual appraisals.

This involves:

An in-depth self-evaluation of your performance
Addressing last year's five goals and whether you achieved them.
An assessment of what action you have taken to embody the company's four key values, each of which contains about ten bullet points you are meant to address (all the values have wanky names such as 'master of your craft').
Providing candid feedback on all other members of your team, which they can see (a terrible idea).
Setting at least five goals for the forthcoming year.
How you think you performed overall.


A lot of people in our company have fairly menial jobs and we are all badly underpaid.

We are also extremely busy but are expected to find a couple of days to complete this utter nonsense.

Honestly, these people are stealing a living.

We used to have to complete monthly self reviews in which you had to give evidences of how you had shown/conformed to the company's values ("heart", "innovate", "leadership", "collaborate", "bollocks" etc). Our manager would get a report showing how many of his/her team had completed the review.
Some people got really stressed at having to come up with stuff every month; I used to make things up ("coached several colleagues on using rerouting techniques to reduce jitter/latency and improve customer experience"), thinking my bosses would never follow anything up; I was right, one of my colleagues used the same evidences every month for two years and no-one noticed.

 

[Badger]

You don’t work out of Mississauga do you?

No. My office is in North Toronto but the company is based in the US, after we got bought. All the bullshit comes from the US office.

 

[Bakero]

I wanted to escape for many, many years. The tw@t owner-boss was unhinged, every other day he came in looking to plot against sporadic staff or fellow ‘directors’ he had a bad nights sleep thinking about (all perceived in his head), he made folk cry with extreme passive-aggression, in essence an ex public school bully. I wasn’t afraid of him on any level and I made myself unpopular by defending good people he was hoping I’d slag off with him behind their backs. He built a tiny cabal of 4 people who were embarrassing fags to him, 3 of them were awful in their roles.

Finally the planets aligned perfectly for me. Life changing.

Almost identical to my situation, though my was more recent.

The owner-boss was a narcissistic bully with all manner of personal issues. It was always bad but COVID seemed to exacerbate it. A couple of years back we unionised in an attempt to rein in his behaviour but to no avail. I was staff rep and had no issue standing up to him but in the end it just wasn't worth the hassle. In the end about 80% of staff left including me and the other 2 reps. The remaining staff are all planning their exit strategies.

 

[Weststander]

Almost identical to my situation, though my was more recent.

The owner-boss was a narcissistic bully with all manner of personal issues. It was always bad but COVID seemed to exacerbate it. A couple of years back we unionised in an attempt to rein in his behaviour but to no avail. I was staff rep and had no issue standing up to him but in the end it just wasn't worth the hassle. In the end about 80% of staff left including me and the other 2 reps. The remaining staff are all planning their exit strategies.

My ex-boss was an untrusting control freak, for example he had extreme views on WFH or any flexibility. I was long gone, but it would’ve been amusing to see the effect on him of Covid, WFH. He needed to physically check on colleagues daily with the “bums on seats” theory.

I met an ex-colleague last week, they said there’d been a further trickle of departures since. A fragile ego, he lies about resignations with a “we had to get rid of xxxxxx”. Often he wouldn’t say goodbye or see people on their leaving day.

 

[Bakero]

My ex-boss was an untrusting control freak, for example he had extreme views on WFH or any flexibility. I was long gone, but it would’ve been amusing to see the effect on him of Covid, WFH. He needed to physically check on colleagues daily with the “bums on seats” theory.

I met an ex-colleague last week, they said there’d been a further trickle of departures since. A fragile ego, he lies about resignations with a “we had to get rid of xxxxxx”. Often he wouldn’t say goodbye or see people on their leaving day.

Again that sounds familiar. The guy I worked for would blank people after they handed in their notice. I didn't even get a response but I knew it had been acknowledged as he immediately closed my work email.

 

[Weststander]

Again that sounds familiar. The guy I worked for would blank people after they handed in their notice. I didn't even get a response but I knew it had been acknowledged as he immediately closed my work email.

Are you happily settled in Almeria, off the work treadmill altogether?

 

[Bakero]

Are you happily settled in Almeria, off the work treadmill altogether?

My partner and I are both self-employed and working from home now. Much better life-work balance, more enjoyable work and better off financially.

 

[FamilyGuy]

HR people or rather 'people people' must surely contain the highest proportion of bell-cheeses.

Today we had a massive email about how to fill in our annual appraisals.

This involves:

An in-depth self-evaluation of your performance
Addressing last year's five goals and whether you achieved them.
An assessment of what action you have taken to embody the company's four key values, each of which contains about ten bullet points you are meant to address (all the values have wanky names such as 'master of your craft').
Providing candid feedback on all other members of your team, which they can see (a terrible idea).
Setting at least five goals for the forthcoming year.
How you think you performed overall.


A lot of people in our company have fairly menial jobs and we are all badly underpaid.

We are also extremely busy but are expected to find a couple of days to complete this utter nonsense.

Honestly, these people are stealing a living.

In the 1990's I worked for a "global supplier of complex IT systems and solutions" who were soooo successful that they were making literally tens of thousands of people redundant around the world - obviously a closely guarded secret (only known by Senior Managers and HR).

Overnight the HR guys appeared in offices around the world and delivered the bad news (although in those days lots of people walked away with nice 6 figure payments to ease the pain) - as subsequent redundancy programmes were introduced so the level of payments reduced!

Said HR guys then went on to the next office and repeated the (now not so secret) no doubt painful and difficult process.

After a week or so said HR guys had completed their initial redundancy programme and settled back into Head Office - whereapon 90% of them were made redundant.

Suffice to say the empathy and sympathy levels from those of us that had escaped the purge (and from our erstwhile colleagues) was not enormous.

 

[Stat Brother]

Every company has someone who talks to much, yes?


I have to go to a meeting at 11am, a daily catch up with the owner.
Not a problem thinks I, they're only 5-10mins, I'll have a break straight after and it'll line up perfectly for 'Flight Frenzy Friday'.

I walk into the office and for the first time ever Mr Chatterbox is sat there - my heart sank.

At 11:25 I don't know who we've drawn, I do know there are now no direct flights from Gatwick, Mr Chatterbox said 'oh let me tell you something about that's and my dam burst.

"For crying out loud Mike, it was the Euros draw and I've got bloody travel to book".

Stunned silence.
Finally the owner pissed themselves laughing.
Meeting adjourned.

 

[Whitechapel]

Our boss flew to America for work yesterday and somebody in the office spent the entire day giving updates on the flight.

“Oooh, he’s 3 hours from JFK currently”
“Oh his plane still hasn’t got to a gate, it’s late now”
“Still not at a gate”

Today we’re getting weather updates.


Who. F*cking. Cares?

 

[Badger]

I gave some anonymous feedback after our Company "All Hands" meeting last week

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

Our boss flew to America for work yesterday and somebody in the office spent the entire day giving updates on the flight.

“Oooh, he’s 3 hours from JFK currently”
“Oh his plane still hasn’t got to a gate, it’s late now”
“Still not at a gate”

Today we’re getting weather updates.


Who. F*cking. Cares?

Is it bad that since reading this I've developed an irrational urge to look up the current weather in New York?

 

[Louis MacNeice]

It's "People and Talent" where I work.

Definitely no talent though.

I think ours is lead by 'head of people' which is weird, but then again we are described as 'occupational athletes'! I'm a postman.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice