I know I'm like a broken record concerning HR.

To those who know me, they are well-aware that mentioning HR (Human Resources) to me is the equivalent of holding a red rag in front of a bull.

I don't just dislike HR. I detest it. With a vengeance. Had I the money, I would have it proscribed and banned. It is the business equivalent of ISIS or Hamas. Terrorism, just without the violence.

I appreciate not everyone can get everything right all the time, and while HR people allegedly should have some sort of commitment to their employees, not just kowtowing to cowardly directors, it's not exactly life-threatening (although certainly nearly always job-threatening) should they mess things up, which they always seem to do with absolutely no effort.

Now, the unfortunate thing is, I am not wrong. And I find this disturbing. And it's all based on my own experience of HR.

I had a particular experience that I would rather forget. I can't go into detail, because it was so illegal, hurtful and downright dishonest that just before it went to employment tribunal they settled out of court, setting aside £100 of the settlement, as companies who are embarrassingly in the wrong always do, to put a gagging order in place.

I am only sorry I didn't have some money in the bank as I would have loved to let it go to tribunal and taken them for all I could, more so to have each and every rotten and complicit one them splashed all over the media.

They engaged the services of a clueless, evil, witless woman as a consultant who was so dysfunctional and dishonest that she doesn't mention the episode on her LinkedIn profile, where she continues to this day to to fool all of the people all of the time. I really pity any company who uses her services!

But it goes further than this. My wife works in the financial services industry where customer service is the key. The particular company she works for does a good job for their customers, but all their internal HR systems are total and utter crap, if not non-existent. Long and good service is not recognised, advancement promises are broken all the time, and if she's on an extended shift, she can end up being sent for lunch 2 hours after she arrives at the office (laughingly called "capacity planning") with no other break for the remaining 8 hours of her shift!

My daughter works part time for a multinational grocer to subsidise her University. They sell quality goods, but the HR management of the food-only store where she works is a huge joke bordering on non-existent.

And my son has just completed a nine-month stint on paid work-experience for a large international IT firm. He was paid well and had a good and useful time, but the HR input he received was minimal when it came to turning it into the apprenticeship that he wanted. They delayed and messed around right up to the day he had to otherwise accept his University place.

So, here we have a family of four witnessing a 100% track record of bad HR practice.

Can any other profession boast getting things 100% wrong? I doubt it.

Pirate Bay threatened with closure - doesn't affect me

Swedish file sharing website The Pirate Bay is now under threat following legal action by the British Phonographic Industry last December. They alleged that the website "infringes copyright on a massive scale” regarding the sharing of computer games, software, films and music. Point taken, and one can't for one minute deny that copyright is being infringed on quite a massive scale, not just on Pirate Bay, but all around the internet. However, with due respect to the originators of the shared files, I have never used Pirate Bay myself, except perhaps on very odd occasions for software, films and music. I never use Pirate Bay for software, because I prefer to pay an outlandish price for another seemingly pointless update to Microsoft Office that neither improves my speed nor productivity. And I am quite happy to part with hard earned cash to a company that has already earned a fortune from me - and others - with their updates over the years. And as for the recent update of Pho...

Airport amusement

There is no doubt that airports can be quite amusing places. That is apart from being told by a burly security supervisor at the x-ray gate that thanks to the only contribution Yasser Arafat ever made to society, I had to remove my belt, shoes, watch and place my AK-47 in the tray provided. Watching people going around their travel ‘business’ in airports and on board the aircraft is hilarious. There are those who are plainly not very good at it, continually checking all manner of minutiae with the other members of the party. “Do we go to the gate?”, “Have we time for a beer?”, “I MUST get a pizza”. There are those who have plainly not done it much before and like their fellow travellers to be made fully aware of the exact opposite, as they point and gesture to the monitor shouting out their destination and boarding gate at every passing opportunity to one and all around them. There are those who think they are something special – despite the fact they are travelling via bu...

Are Camelot dim, dysfunctional, liars or just plain greedy?

There can be no denying that UK lottery operators Camelot are on to a good thing. Especially the overpaid management. They have been reaping the benefits of the franchise for years now - a franchise that in essence, has been licenced by the government to print money. However, I can't quite make up my mind whether the management of the Lotto are dim, dysfunctional, liars or just plain greedy, although the cynic in me answers the question when I consider the chief Executive of Camelot was complaining last year that the annual bonus on her not inconsiderable 7-figure salary had been reduced (conveniently forgetting her 18 year sojourn to date at Camelot has produced a pension we mere mortals can only dream about. How about the poor soldiers, CEO Dianne Thompson, who come back from the far-east minus a leg and have to legally fight for compensation that doesn't even touch what you earn less than a month? And they don't receive CBE's for their troubles either !). Irres...

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