Monday, December 21, 2015

rewrite

I tried to write a blog post - it turned out to be too personal. I'm lacking in practice. Maybe it is because I haven't talked to my friends for a while and feel that I want to share thoughts with someone who might read (and maybe comment). Maybe the blog isn't the place and maybe I know this which is why the post took a turn on its own and swirled into the "too private, too personal" space.

I'll look over it and see if I can salvage something. Maybe it is like with a lot of things I write - kill your darlings. Focus the message. One story, one text. Oh, I know it so well. And "don't try and fool yourself".

The general thought in the post was "Holiday - the time of year when feelings run high". All in the time of the season of course.


Friday, December 11, 2015

lessons learned part 2 - termination

Part of my job have turned out to be a participant in HR issues. Being part of corrective actions on employees who need a little help. And then, when/if the corrective action doesn't work - I get to be a part of the termination. It's not as easy as saying "you're fired" as a certain presidential candidate is known for. At least not the ones I've been involved in lately. no, they are more or a discussion - uncomfortable if anything - where you discuss with the employee what's going on and maybe they are better off looking for a new place of work.

I am still quite baffled at certain behaviour I've encountered in this "corrective action". I guess it's partly because I'm a rules gal. I haven't thought of watching netflix at work during work hours. Nor not clocking out for lunch or other longer breaks (like going off onto town and shopping while being clocked in). Nor have I thought that an option is outright lying about "what I've been doing during an experiment"*. I thought I was pretty hard core when it comes to a lot of these things (people on twitter might have seen a tweet I did a few weeks ago stating "I care about people's emotions since I need that to manipulate them into doing what I want them to do" - it was a short, crude way of stating that a lot of my work consists of figuring out a win-win for people since I don't have power to force them to do what I want, only trying to make them see the good in doing what I suggest. It's not that I like manipulating people. It's a pretty bad word to throw around, even if it might be useful more than one would like. Anyhooooo, I digress.) I still end up a bit baffled at some of the behaviour I've seen lately though. I'm trying not to make a prejudice assumption but there seems to be a little bit of an issue with certain positions, and certain ages of people.... I'm hoping I am wrong here though, so I am working on not having that prethought.

After these last couple of months I will say one thing. It's not how you start a job that's crucial for your future - it's what you do in the end. And burning bridges is never a good option. Regardless on how much you hate the job, the manager or what have you. It's not worth it. You still need some sort of reference and even if you are being terminated (or what you would call it, "encouraged to find new job"), the way you behave in the end will determine what kind of reference and new job you can get.

I had another more personal story to get into here but as I'm trying to be more personal, not private, here I've moved more into the work stories. I think however, that the next post will be more about dreams and hopes since a special anniversary is coming up and regardless on how much I would like to forget the date, it's pretty solidly ingrained in me.



*I will say as much as this. I trust you to document all you do. I try to teach while training that "mistakes happens, we don't want mistakes, we try as much as we can to avoid them ,but they are inevitable. The important thing though, is to be honest about what you did and then we can probably salvage a little of the data anyway. What we can't do, is try and trust you if you are dishonest about the data. It takes so little time to ruin something that has taken a very long time to build. And once the trust is gone.... well.... there isn't much to do there.