HR Wench
I'm just a wee HR Wench! I've worked in HR since 2001 and I love to hate it. Visit me at http://hrwench.blogspot.com. You know you want to!
And then we came to the end
As many of you already know, I have decided to go back to school this fall. I am going to study to be a paralegal. The program should take about a year or so, and when I’m done, hopefully I will find myself with a new job in a new field.
I havent had much to say about HR in the past few months. Looking for a job in HR for a year and a half can really put one off the subject. Sorry about that. At the same time, Im not sorry – after eight years I feel more than ready to move on.
Benefits are kind of scary
Many of you know that I passed my second CEBS exam a few weeks ago.
I am so relieved I passed, as the second course made the first one look like a cake walk. Here is what we covered in a mere 12 weeks, no joke:
Individual and group life insurance
Disability management
Vacations and other time-off benefits
Channeling Lady Gaga at work
Like many street corners in America, one in my neighborhood is occupied by someone paid to hold a sign.
I generally don’t like sign-holders or the companies that employ them. They are purposely trying to distract drivers, which is not a good idea in my book.
However, one sign holder has gotten my attention. She wears headphones and dances throughout her entire shift.
This job is kind of like not having a job
Having a job in this economy is not always what it’s cracked up to be, yo. Take a gander at the latest Ask HR Wench:
In January my brother’s job was out-sourced. He managed to stay employed at the same company by taking on a different role (part-time, at an hourly rate roughly half of what he had been making).
He was classified as an independent contractor the first two months he was employed with this company, from Feb – Apr, 2008. After that, he was hired as an exempt employee. He has received his W2 for the time he was an employee, but not his 1099 for the time he was a contractor, which means he has yet to file his 2008 tax return.
Laurie Ruettimann, sexual harassment and the apocalypse
Laurie Ruettimann ushered in the apocalypse earlier this week by posting an article about sexual harassment on AOL owned Lemondrop.
You and I both know that
- Laurie is awesome
- Laurie doesn’t need me to defend her
Must get away from evil boss
Reader question time again:
After being laid off of a contract position, I was lucky enough to land a full-time job immediately. This job is in my field and is what I thought I wanted to do, but it isn’t working out.
The problem is my boss (the owner of the company). He is rude, unprofessional, and has extremely unrealistic expectations. He regularly implies that we are unintelligent and lazy. He expects us to work early mornings, evenings, weekends, and lunch breaks (we are exempt) and tells us that if we start meeting his requirements, maybe we can “only work 40 hour weeks”. We haven’t received any training and are all entry level workers. We are expected not to have outside commitments, and when we do, he tells us to go late and tell the person we have an appointment with that work is more important.
Fear and loathing, pretty much everywhere
Yes, the economy sucks.
Besides that, what is the deal with everyone I know having anxiety issues? I was emailing a friend just now and realized even the most well-adjusted, stable, happy friend I have has at least minor to medium sized Anxiety Issues.
Dear Blog: it’s not you, it’s me.
Yes, I am avoiding you (kinda).
When I’m feeling fine (or righteous indignation), it’s easy to blog. When I feel like this, it’s not.
So, what to do? Not much but hang in there.
Staying positive (and sane) while job searching
I hate to tell you this, but February 28, 2009 will mark my one year anneversary of being an unemployed chump. Sure, I had a temp gig for 4 (excruciating) months, but that doesn’t count.
Staying positive (and sane) during a year-long-plus job search is not for the faint of heart. Here are some things I have found helpful:
Keep a schedule
Honestly, keeping a semi-normal schedule does a lot for the anxiety riddled job seeker. It makes you feel like you’re in control of something while your life is actually somewhat spinning out of control. I wake up 8am-ish and go to bed 930pm-ish. I go to the gym every other morning. I check my mail box at 5pm. I brush and then floss. You get the idea.
Read, or something
I love to read books, so I’m biased. If you don’t like to read, insert another relatively low cost hobby here. Knit, make bathtub gin, garden, draw, do crossword puzzles, yell at kids to get off your lawn. Do something that doesn’t involve the computer (since I know you are on it all day….aren’t you?). Do something to occupy yourself and get your mind off your joblessness.
Laugh, everyday
Laughing keeps your mood up, is infectious and is a mini-workout for your lungs. I recommend several doses of the ETrade Baby, daily.
Exercise
I know you hate hearing this (as I did after 10 years of being gym-free) but exercise really does make you feel better physically and mentally. I go to the gym every other day, crank up Rage Against the Machine on the iPod and go nuts on the eliptical. Then I do some treadmillin’ and some stretching. I feel like a (schweaty) million bucks afterward. Plus it helps me sleep better, makes me crave healthy (well, healthier) food and decreases my feelings of OH MY GOD I’M BROKE AND UNEMPLOYED GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Repeat after me
You will find another job. You will not die because you are unemployed (hopefully). Eventually, somewhere, some way, somehow, you WILL find another job. It may not be the perfect job. The perfect job probably doesn’t even exist. But you will find something, and you will be just fine.
Say it, don’t spray it
Dudes, there are some Bloggers out there that are DOIN IT RIGHT. They are laying it down and people are picking it up.
Let’s have a show and tell:
Lance Haun of Your HR Guy wants you to SHUT UP ALREADY about the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Sweet Mary Molasses, this is one post about talking about the EFCA that you have to read (ignore all others).
I don’t need to tell you that times are tough. There are layoffs and rumors of layoffs and schmucks on Craigslist wanting to hire HR generalists with 5+ years experience for a craptastic $16 an hour. It’s almost impossible to make a layoff painless, but Jay Sheperd of Gruntled Employees points his readers to a company that got creative and earned some karma.
Mark Stelzner of Inflexion Point got a wild hair up his rear end and decided since everyone is on Twitter all day anyway, we should use it to start helping people find jobs. Job Angels was born on January 29th and already has 414 followers. If you want to help someone find a job, or if you need help finding a job, follow Job Angels. It’s that simple and that brilliant.
Generation Xpert Suzanne Kart reminds us of a very simple tenet that cannot be embraced often enough, no matter where we work. Stop acting like a monkey and start acting like a cheetah – even if the only thing you can control is your reaction to the (irksome) people you work with.
Laurie Ruettimann of Punk Rock HR pointed me to a fantastic shut-up-and-listen type post by Carmen Hudson of PeopleShark. There is a lot of advice out there for job seekers, but Carmen cuts the crap and tells you what is real, what is garbage, and why. It’s very refreshing.
And last but certainlly not least, I bring you Kerry Sandberg Scott of Clue Wagon. Kerry is new to the HR blogging world and I must say she has taken it by storm with her post, Meet the Blow it Out Your Ass Guy. With a title like that, you know you’re going to read it and love it.
Temp days are over
When I started my temp job back in October, working again was a bit of a shock to my system.
Now it’s the end of January and the gig is over. Time to reflect again? Oh yes, I think so.
I bring you: Things I Will Not Miss About Working (this job in particular and jobs in general, just for giggles).
Dude, where’s my benefits?
Where were we? Oh, yes talking about how great it is to work in HR. A poor waif writes:
I am wondering how you recommend approaching my supervisor about adding benefits to my position and a job description.
Currently I am working full time. When I started 3 months ago, I was only part time, three days a week. At the 2 month point or so they added another day, making 4 days a week. First of this year, they asked me to go full time. However, I still do not have a set schedule of when to come in. I am just coming in when I feel I should each day.
My position is HR on site coordinator. I do everything from recruiting, orientation, managing personnel files, any HR related questions, to payroll for over 100 employees. I really like what I do, it’s a great position. In this economy I am glad to have a job. But I also don’t want to be a doormat.
The downside, is that the out of state home office is so messed up and poorly managed that there are always errors and repeated mistakes on final pay roll and other important items. There seems to be a lack of final authority, they all think the other one doesn’t know what they are doing and acting like the boss. It is a very small company, essentially trying to play with the big boys.
My supervisor has not given me any authority, I just get all the complaints about how poorly payroll is done. I have been here over 3 months and there are always several, if not a dozen mistakes on paychecks. All I do is enter the info on a spreadsheet and the home office does the rest.
Since I started I haven’t received a job description, HR manual, or anything that would in any way define what I do or am expected to do. Not because I have not asked, they just do a lot of “oh yeah, we will get that to you soon” kind of stuff.
Do you have any suggestions on how to approach this with my supervisor? I feel that I deserve benefits, I am sure that my supervisor at the home office and everyone else there has some sort of benefit package.
If I were in your shoes, I would call up the boss and tell him/her that you need to know:
1. Who you can contact about getting signed up for benefits.
2. If there is a daily schedule he/she wants you to follow or if you can set your own hours.
3. If there is a job description for your position or if he/she would like you to write one.
4. If there is a standard operating procedure type manual for HR stuffs laying around or if he/she would like you to write one.
5. Who actually runs the payroll so you can discuss employee concerns with him/her.
Then you don’t get off the phone until you have a definitive answer for each question or a follow up date as to when you will have a definitive answer (depending on how important these questions are to you).
Notice that in each question above, you are offering a solution instead of a problem. If all your boss hears from you is problems, he or she will avoid you. If he or she hears solutions from you, he or she will seek you out for solutions when they are needed AND he or she is more apt to let you run your own show – because you have shown you’re capable of it.
It’s like asking a 4 year old what they want to wear to pre-school. You don’t ask, “What do you want to wear today?” you ask, “Do you want to wear this outfit or that outfit?” Narrow down the choices and you’re more likely to get an answer – and faster.
HR people hardly ever have any authority – and even then it is usually just over their own crew. Get used to having to produce results by persuasion, negotiation, sales skills and a pinch of savvy (and on special occasions, blood and tears).
There is no such thing as talent. Mostly.
I hate the word TALENT.
Whenever I hear or read the word TALENT, I think of a pink and white striped circus tent with a bunch of acrobats inside.
Those people are talented. Your operations manager? Not so much.
Countdown to unemployment
Folks, the countdown is on.
As of January 30th, I will be unemployed. Again. Yep, the temp job I started in early October is winding down.
So who wants an HR generalist trying to turn into a benefits specialist to work for them in the Portland, Oregon area? Let’s see a show of hands!
You can check me out on LinkedIn. You can friend me on The Facebooks. You can offer me copious amounts of money. It’s ok. I’ll take it.
