Saturday 21 April 2007

And another .....

And whilst in ranting mode - why not another!

What is it about HR 'Professionals' that makes them want to treat everyone like children?
If they want to control children with silly rules, why did they choose the HR profession rather than the far more suitable one of teaching?!

I have recently been engaged in discussions about a plan to introduce to my place of work a 'Drug and Alcohol Policy' - whoopee!! I thought - free samples!!

But sadly not - the intention of said 'policy' is not to give us all a chance to sample these delights but rather to ensure that we don't sample them, at all - or certainly not within 240 hours of working, being at work, going to go to work or anything else to do with work.

Unless, of course, you are in a senior position - in which case you can get as blathered as you like, any time at all.

Now, as a clown, I realise that there are time when a little (and certainly a lot) of alcohol is not appropriate - there is nothing worse than a drunken clown in a custard pie fight: they keep missing and that can be dangerous for the lovely audience.

But once one hits a certain age (and I think I hit it all too long ago) one realises this without having to have the helpful advice of an HR Professional to point it out!! And one controls ones behaviour. If not, there are already a battery of 'helpful' policies and procedures that can be brought to bear.

But this, it seems, is not enough for the HR Professional - if it's drugs and alcohol that we want to control, it must be a drug and alcohol policy.

I am looking forward immensely to further discussions on this lovely topic.

2 comments:

Lily said...

Thank you for agreeing with my comment re Lady Bracknell's spooky kitten. It brought me to your blog, which I am enjoying enormously - keep it up!

Anonymous said...

Oh foolish clown. Surely you must know that we have to have detailed policies about everything in order to preserve the employer's carefully fostered illusion of caring and professionalism – and, of course - to justify the existence of HR professionals.

Anyway, without a policy how can you possibly hope to have a good witch hunt and thus identify your scapegoat?

By law, all HR policies must have at their core the denial of pleasure, amusement or individuality (preferably all three).

Childish? Moi??