From HRIS to Big Data leveraging Exit Interviews, aka Axe-it interviews

Cynthia does axe-it interviews

Ms Axe (Cynthia), in the framework of data migration from HRIS to Big Data, has been carrying out exit interviews, aka, axe-it interviews, in line with her role as Head of Involuntary Early Bird Retirement. 

Winston Wu, our IT consultant wants to get his hands on this data, because he says it is big. 

I told Axe that if I even see Axe and Wu on the same elevator, Axe will be axed.

(Wu is Canadian yet Wu's grandfather may have been born in Hong Kong, on Kowloon Side near 佐敦, so Hugh White from Diversity considers him Diverse.

Some of the data from exit interviews is admittedly not wow wow, and some of the data is a semi wow. One piece of big data from exit interviews is wow wow wow. (3 wows)

• 100% of the 45,000 people Cynthia has axed in the past decade appreciate the business partnership of the HR department.

• 0.01% of the 45,000 people Cynthia has axed look back at Immature Products as a "great company under sterling leadership". (This means we need a PR campaign with a cost effective vendor).

• 0.0000000001% would recommend to a friend getting a job in our company, but 77% would recommend to a non friend to get a job here at Immature Products.

 

Punishing success and rewarding failure

We plan to punish success

CEO Stan texted me after he spoke to Wifey over this weekend: "Glo-prepare a plan to reward failure; she read another article-Stan."

CEO Stan's wife (Wifey) had indeed read yet another article called "The Importance of Rewarding Failure". This magazine article praises the value of failure as a learning experience.

After I skimmed the article, I reached the conclusion that rewarding failure is in line with my core value of being Stan's valued business partner. That is almost erotic.

"What a pile of cr-p" my father Pierre Elliot Ramsbottom would say. I can almost hear him, "What does all these words mean, Gloria, for Heaven sakes?", Dad would have asked were he alive today.....

We certainly have had enough failure to reward! Mais oui! 

• none of our Russian staff speak English well
• the Indians speak 40-50 dialects, all at once
• HR is the most-hated function
• No one knows what a blockchain is and isn't
• Internet of things and bigdata nerds have overdosed on their smartphones and need digital detox
• Cynthia Axe will need to trim "several" hundred staff whilst boosting engagement
• key customer sends us hate mail "on a regular basis", whilst Comrade Carl thinks that our product is a pearl.

So, in the framework of my HR thought leadership, here is the "rewarding failure" plan, which makes lemonade out of lemons, as it were. I love the expression, "as it were".

1) All our engineering staff will have a weekend in Damascus. We have provide each with a T shirt with the American flag inscribed with "we love democracy-sometimes".

2) Our Sales Team will spend a week in Pyongyang, to get a knack about towing the party line.

3) We will take the lowest performers from all groups for a fun weekend in mid city Detroit. 
Miss Cynthia Axe will join them as project manager. Miss Axe has failed to garner the love of our staff in the framework of her role as Head of the Early Bird Retirement Plan. Stan calls her "your most dismal failure, Glo"

4) Software delivery time slips will be be celebrated in a pizza pie slinging match. 

Cynthia Axe will chain all engineers to their chairs, and Stan (and Miss Axe) will throw pizza pies. It will be wow wow wow wow time. That's four wows.

5) To the employee with the most failures, we will provide a coach, who also is faith healer and believes in appreciative inquiry.

GPS tracking of our trustful Service Team

Gloria plans, Axe monitors compliance

CEO Stan texted me to come to his room urgently, which I did, since I am his HR business partner. "The service engineers disappear for hours and no one knows there the hell they are. Not only does the service team lack discipline,  but only half the service engineers speak any English. Too many "mutter in accents and tribal dialects", our key customer claims. "-ranted Stan.  

"Gloria, track the  God damn service engineers  using GPS technology. Even when they go for a piss, I want YOU to know where they are. By YOU, I mean YOU and Ms Axe."

Here is the email/text I issued to our service team: 
"In the spirit of trust, globalism and sustainability, and in order to create a direct, humane and ongoing connection between all levels, HR will better align the Service Team with Management, using state of the art GPS technology, backed up by a Swiss blockchain. The Swiss are an accurate people."

Ms Cynthia Axe will be compliance officer for this project". Ms Axe heads our Early Bird Retirement Plan.

A list of characters in this blog

Gloria Ramsbottom-Lemieux; EVP HR of Immature Products; born in Moose Jaw; her father was Pierre Elliot Ramsbottom; the name Lemieux was taken on to be more global. Gloria is single. Gloria has a Blackberry Q 10.

Cynthia Axe, often referred to as "a certain Cynthia Axe"; Head of the Early Bird Retirement Plan, American, White, Unilingual, sent to Bay Ruth (Lebanon) to reach Damascus to open a new office.
Axe had a short affair with Stan, the CEO. She has had several life time partners, the last of which was K Ray Beauregard-Goldstein. See below.

Stan; CEO of Immature Products. Stan's family name is unknown.

K Ray Beauregard-Goldstein; Stan's cost-effective chef. He has mixed ethnicity.He was as of late a life partner of a certain Cynthia Axe until they split because he feared getting axed one day. Stan loves his lasagna.

Wifey; Stan's powerful, brainy, magazine reading wife. The managerial articles she reads inspires Stan to give marching orders to Gloria.

Sybil Civil; Wifey's sister who pushed Gloria out of a job but when it came time to fire people, she turned out to be a socialist. Sybil's career ended at Mt Nebo. At one time, she was in charge of a drama free environment.

Winston Wu;  former HR-IT Lead and Gloria's representative to Diversity Team. Born in Canada, his grandfather was born (perhaps) in Hong Kong on the Kowloon side in Sha Tin. Winston was a peer of Gloria's and  then "reported into her". Now he is an Executive Vice President (IT) while Gloria is a Senior VP HR, one level below Wu. Winston makes more money than Gloria as well. Winston heads the Big Data campaign, and has usurped HRIS as of late.

KPI's for globalizing our dining hall

Speak English please!

Stan has demanded a "global, uni-lingual English speaking, and highly diverse work force to leverage on differences and bring out the best in all of our employees", ie, those employees who have not been resized by a certain Ms Cynthia Axe, Head of our Early Bird Retirement Plan.

"The dining room is the place to mold people into one global, uni-lingual and motivated team", bellowed Stan as he read the very negative talk backs in a local newspaper. (Stan may have forgotten to take his meds today).

"Gloria, come here immediately", texted Stan. Stan then gave me my KPI's for the dining hall.

• The dining room will be our "melting pot".
• Ethnic and tribal foods are to be eaten at home.
• English is to be the only global language of the dining room. 
• Meals are to be very global. (What the hell does that mean? I wanted to ask Stan; Ms Axe DID ask me and I scolded her.)
• Prayers before, after, and during meals "make no sense". We are a global firm. Prayers may be "muttered in silence".
• Vegetarians, special interest groups and members of ethnic groups with unique demands are a very welcome part of our global and sustainable company, and need to abide by our global melting pot guidelines.
• Mais oui!

Proper English Only

Those uni-lingual Americans

Our  company has lots of people who do not speak proper global English: Russians, Chinese, Indians and Scots. After CEO Stan tried to understand a few con-calls,  he demanded we become a unilingual company, speaking "proper English." Proper English is the accent spoken in the USA, in the Mid West.

Why not other accent or tongues?

1-The Scots speak so strangely that they do not even understand one another.
We have one "Scotch", at the switchboard. 

2-The 2 staff we have from New Zealand  switch an E for an I, causing pandemonium. 

3-The Russians used to have an empire, so they think Russian is a global language. It is not. Not a single soul speaks Russian, except the Russians. We have a mere  900 Russians in our company, all in Engineering.

4-The Chinese language is spoken by "a few" people but it is neither global or sustainable. It takes too long to learn, ie, 70 years. CEO Stan is 56 years old. I am 29. 


HR will give a spot bonus to each "foreign" worker who undergoes accent training. (one trillion Zimbabwian dollars)
Each time a foreign worker speaks in a tribal language (not English), 2 trillion Zimbabwean dollars will be deducted.

Cynthia Axe will enforce.

Unbundling HR services as a driving major component of HR Business Partnership

I have unbundled HR services-mais oui!

CEO Stan gave me a seat at the table because of my business partnership. I use the word "business partnership" daily  more frequently than I send text messages via Whatsapp....which is quite something.

In order for HR to maintain a seat at the table, we need to constantly augment our business partnership.  
As such, I have put together a plan to become vendor of choice and un-bundle our HR services, which emphasizes our understanding of the business.

From now until 2018, HR will be a compulsory and forced "vendor of choice", yet our product suite is to be un-bundled. I love that word, you may notice.

Here is our virtual price list as we un-bundle these wow HR services to achieve full business partnership.

• Firing people by text: $3
• Firing people in a group: $2 per group of five
• Firing people in a one on one with the venerable Ms Cynthia Axe: $4
• Firing people in a one on one with Cynthia Axe and an anti stress massage: $61
• Putting people on Corrective Ax-tion Plan:  $5
• Plan to raise morale whilst cutting benefits: $20
• A one on one with Gloria Ramsbottom-Lemieux:  $909 and tax
• A yearly subscription to the HR weekly rag "The Rams' Bottom": $222 yearly for English speakers; $500 for our nerd version in Hindi, Urdu, Danish, Hebrew, Ukrainian, Chinese or Russian.

I need vendors to develop 3 new webinars

We understand poor English

CEO Stan, who is heavily influenced by his omniscient Wifey, now has a  sexual fetish about "on line learning". 

Wifey has read 2 articles this week on the very subject of on-line learning. She has hammered the importance of on line learning into Stan's head, especially when he wakes up.

We all know how useless it is, but it is cheap. In my experience, people text and do Facebook whilst learning. (I have an attention deficit issue, my Dad used to say).

Stan does not like paying for on line learning, so I have an ok to purchase only cost effective webinars from Russia, Uzbekistan, Quebec or Scotland, as long as the presenters have "a reasonable English accent".

Here are the 3 webinars I am commissioning.

(BTW, I love the word "commissioning" because my father, Pierre Elliot Ramsbottom from Moose Jaw, was a commissioned officer in the RCAF).

1) The Death of the Russian and Chinese Languages in Global Business

In this webinar, people who speak in Chinese or Russian will not be understood, and then they need to start speaking English.

2)  Work work work -life Balance

In this webinar, a worker named Ivan Stachanovitch eats lunch next to his PC whilst texting.

3) HR as Business Partner

In this webinar, Stan and Gloria sit at a mahogany table and make business decisions, and in the background is Cynthia, sharpening her axe.

Vendors who are "learning" English can apply.
Payment by barter.
 

Before my TV interview, I need some input

My coach (who flips burgers and does some faith healing for semi-agnostics) is helping me brand myself as an HR thought leader. I will be interviewed next week on the "Le Morning Show-Bonjour Ottawa". The tv program is all about "Early Bird Retirement" ; this is all part of my coach's plan to brand me big time.

Here are my talking point, and I would appreciate discrete input.

1) The very fact that Ms Cynthia Axe is an anti stress coach makes the resizing process more humane and wowish.

2)  After moving out of our company, one can read all articles on this wow wow wow website. I used wow three times, and this is rare.

3)  Family life is very rewarding for the first 2 or 3 hours.

4) Ax-posure to Stan's leadership and ax-posure to our HR business partnership makes your cv very attractive.

5) If you have an accent when you speak English, our dining room has upgraded your English and "you hardly speak your mother non global tongue".

Pillow talk-Cynthia Axe and K Ray Beauregard-Goldstein

Pillow talk

Cynthia Axe (f) heads our Early Bird Retirement Plan. Because of her loyalty to me, she is proof positive that slavery exists in 2016- I reward her with an I-Phone 6, and I provide her with  liberal talent management software.

K Ray Beauregard-Goldstein is Stan (our CEO's) private and cost effective chef.  K Ray is of mixed ethnicity. K Ray's specialty is cost effective lasagna.

K Ray and Cynthia are life partners, together for 6 weeks, after Axe (Cynthia) separated from her life long partner of 2 months, Louis Archambault-Turner.  Axe is attracted to people with hyphenated names. 

Axe and K Ray were having a discussion last night, let's call it pillow talk. Axe (Cynthia) described her work to K Ray as follows:

"Actually K Ray, all I do is fire people. We give it a fancy name, but I just take tens of people and fire them each week. Stan does not know his ass from his elbow as CEO, and Gloria is an inflated fart, out to keep her f--king seat at the table by selling out".

K Ray looked at his beloved Cynthia Axe and said: "Those people you fire....it could be me one day."

All this is none of my business, if you ask me. HR needs to be very discrete, because one day, someone can discuss my intimate life, as it were.

Уважаемые Глория, I received another email that I do not understand

Уважаемые Глория,
Я предлагаю вам учить русский язык. В противном случае, вы будете без работы.
Влад

Working lunches creative work work work life balance

Bon apetite -that's French

Policy Statement: 

Our CEO Stan has come out in favour of working lunches.  

Stan understands the need to eat!

HR supports Stan, in the framework of social responsibility and our work work work life balance program!

Status and Changes:

1-Stan has working lunches at his global and sustainable mahogany desk. 

His personal chef, K Ray Beauregard-Goldstein, prepares cost effective lasagna, which allow him to stay focused and drive our success. 

K. Ray Beauregard-Goldstein has mixed ethnicity.

2-Our entire HR department uses lunchtimes to work and play, creating this work work work life balance. 

4 times a week, we watch cost effective webinars on creative ways to reengage our employees and re-size, whilst keeping morale sky high.

3-The rest of the company smokes in the parking lots, or dithers in the dining room, speaking tribal languages and eating food from ethnic restaurants. This will now change as follows:

a-Lunches are now called global working-lunches.

b-Please feel free to eat yet send work related sms-text related messages and emails.

c-Eat at the work station and elevator, unless Stan is in the elevator. Stan does like appreciate tribal foods.

d-Our cafeteria will be undergoing agile renovations with a vendor yet to be chosen and never to be paid. 

e-Please avoid dropping crumbs on  your keyboard.

f-Avoid spilling coffee on your company owned Blackberry.

g-Idle chatter and socializing are encouraged on weekends.

h Each employee is encouraged to watch an HR webinar once a week, whilst having a working lunch.

i-VIRTUAL PARENTING IS ALLOWED DURING WORKING LUNCHES, for the first ten minutes of lunch break.

English ONLY in the dining room-Russian banned

Tovarish-speak English

K Ray Beauregard-Goldstein, our CEO Stan's cost-effective & private chef is in France on a private vacation, so Stan ate in the 3rd floor cafeteria. 

Stan called me to his room after lunch. He summoned me by text, using his Blackberry Q10, which he dislikes intensely. Stan calls his BB "Canadian crap".

"Glo, at lunch I noticed that the Chinese all sit together and speak Chinese and the Russians all  sit at the same table and speak Russian and the Israelis sit at the same table and speak Jewish, arguing with one another."

Stan did not notice that, even worse, the Indians all sit at a the same table and speak 40 languages.

Stan was born in Minnesota whereas I am from Moose Jaw in Canada. I have a more global outlook, as it were.

Stan concluded: "Gloria, we are not acting like a global company. We need an English ambience; we need an English only police-Y. No one except the Russians speak Russian any more."

Stan guided me:"Gloria, use lunch as an opportunity to mix the populations and get everyone on the same page, speaking the same, God damn language-and I don't mean Russian, Jewish or Chinese."

I shall delegated this linguistic task to Cynthia Axe, who handles delicate issues like our Early Bird Retirement Plan. 

Stan sent a text directed to Ms Axe, telling her to "stand her ground" in the dining hall. 

Sick Days and Health Days

I have updated my direct report, a certain Mr. Winston Wu (who is an IT lead as well as  HR rep on our "Diversity Task Force" since his grandfather was born in Hong Kong) about police-Y changes.

A health day is a day in which staff works a full day (starting 0700 on con calls on the way to work, all day till 1900, then at home as needed, in accordance with our work work work life balance policy.

A global and sustainable sick day is a day in which the infirm staff member works a full day (0700 on con calls, all day till 1900 on con calls and skype calls, and into the evening as needed, in accordance with our work work work life balance policy and caring for the infirm.

Drama free environment needed to keep IoT Nerds productive

Drama free-svp

Following a pizza slinging match between Sales and the "futuristic" Internet of Things team , as well as a non-wow breakdown of the Plan of Record Meeting which ended in 3 non-wow black eyes  and a car bombing, CEO Stan has demanded that a webinar be commissioned  to develop and foster a drama free environment.  (The word foster reminds me of Cousin Fester from the Adams Family, Los locos Adams)

The term drama free environment comes, no doubt, from Wifey, Stan's HR blog-reading wife.

Drama free environment sound pretty much to me like "internet of things", or big data. But it isn't. Internet of things is a mega slogan, here for a long time....like HR business partnership.

"What a pile of crap all these word are", my father (Pierre Elliot Ramsbottom, RIP) would have said. 

So getting back to the point, I am issuing an RFP for the Drama Free Environment webinar. 

• The vendor must plan and deliver a compact, cost-effective session on the creation, maintenance, and fostering of a drama free work environment. The word "foster" must be used 45 times.
• The vendor should have a British  accent. 
• The vendor should also be hungry and highly deferential to HR. Grovelling is accepted.
• The vendor must must sign a vow never ever ever to meet CEO Stan.  I manage Stan, and no one else.
• The training must explain the value of being civil, the art of leveraging hard work to manage anger, the role of HR business partnership, the enmeshment of HR and Internet of things, and the link between being civil and a meeting with a certain Cynthia Axe, who heads our Early Bird Retirement Program.

I am also looking for a vendor to remove a tattoo from my shoulder in a timely and painless fashion. 
Ever since I have started to immerse myself in Internet of Things, I have decided to become more of a data driven nerd.

Text message from Gloria Ramsbottom to Cynthia Axe & an answer

Gloria:
Axe-when you passed border crossing, read this.

Axe:
I am returning to Bay Ruth.
Then back home.I quit.

Measuring wellness

Mais oui-I solved this on my own!

CEO Stan texted and asked to develop measurement tools for measuring wellness. 

I believe that Stan may be influenced by North Korean journals, which speak of the happy masses.

I texted Ms Axe (Cynthia) who is spending a weekend with a new life partner for the first time, asking for her input; Axe texted me back, "not now, Gloria!"

I texted my coach (who is also a faith healer and flips burgers) and s/he told me that "wellness is all in the mind".

My Dad Pierre Elliot would have said, "what a stupid and impractical attitude! For Christ sake, how did s/he ever get a PhD in coaching?"

I googled "measuring wellness" but got distracted reading about new applications for the Blackberry Passport.

Finally, I took 2 minutes and thought this out on my own. Here is what I managed to churn out in terms of wellness criteria:

1-How well do our needy nerds appreciate the business partnership of HR?

2-How well are our big data geeks appreciative of the fact that Ms Axe has aggressive stretch goals to re-size our firm, which is not so firm?

3-How well do the Engineers avoid speaking their tribal languages like Russian and Chinese. (Russia is spoken ONLY by Russians and it takes 40 years to learn Chinese.)

4-And how well can HR and Finance feign understanding terms like "internet of things" and agile.

5-How well do the masses of foreign nerds in Engineering trust that HR/RH will return their passports?

We won a huge deal-now hiring! Cynthia Axe off to Damascus.

Stan has finally pulled it off!

Immature Products, our beloved company, has just sold our next (yet to be developed embroynic concept) release to a company in Syria, with its  headquarters in Damascus.That is in the Middle East, east of Babe Ruth. Finally we are hiring!


To be frank and earnest with my readers, we have not hired a soul since 2008 and this presents a huge opportunity both for HR and Ms Axe (Cynthia) in particular to re invent herself.

Ms Axe heads our Early Retirement Plan.

By the way, I have two cousins called Frank and Ernest.

For the last three years, our beloved CEO Stan has told me I am not perky enough and I do not delegate authority.

So Ms Cynthia Axe is off to Damascus all by her lonesome.
This will be my first test case in "wash-my-white-hands" and "hands-off" delegation, as my vibrant coach calls it.
By the way, my coach also flips burgers and is a faith healer.

In Cynthia Axe's  absense, the Early Bird Retirement Plan will operate under my auspices.

I have booked Ms Axe a cost effective ticket on a flight from Ottawa to Montreal, Montreal to Toronto, Toronto to Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv to London, London to Babe Ruth and Babe Ruth to Damascus by truck, to instill a sense of globalism to the American born, lily White, English speaking Ms Cynthia Axe.

A note from the author of this blog

From a modest start of 15 visitors a day less than 6 months ago, 800 people a day now visit the blog daily. Readership is based in Canada and the US, Israel and Egypt, Russia and China, Australia, Germany, Indonesia, Thailand, India, the UK and Brazil. Which says a lot about the widespread prevalence of the issue that this blog deals with. Each week the blog gets about 50 new daily readers.

I get many private emails which ask the same questions, so I will answer them publically:

a-My inspiration comes from situations I encounter in my work as a consultant; I also get many ideas from reading HR blogs.

b-Gloria is not based on one person, but is an aggragate of many folks-texters, geographically challenged, keep it short freaks , and mass executioners, as well as buyers etc who have found themselves in an HR role.

c-I work with many top notch HR people who themselves give me ideas for this blog. Some of the wildest ideas have come from HR people. This blog has in no way negatively impacted my excellent working relationship with senior HR people. Quite the opposite.


Finally, a word of thanks. Thank you for reading the blog, thank you for posting it on twitter and fb, thank you for encouraging me. And keep spreading the word.

Merci,
AS

Search for a "Reputation Management" vendor for Cynthia Axe

Axe Cynthia leads our Early Bird Retirement Plan, aka "Life begins at 38".
In her brief lifetime, Axe has fired 700 people with her bare hands, and gone thru 2 Iphones which broke down due to too much texting.

During recent "industrial action" by the useless, ungrateful bums in Engineering, urged on by a bitter Winston Wu from IT, Ms Axe has become the source of abuse.

Ms Axe rendered her resignation today, based on input from her life partner (of a week), K. Ray Beauregard-Goldstein, who has a hyphenated name as well as a mixed ethnic background. He is from Ottawa, which is the capital of Canada. (not Toronto)

I immediately refused to ax-cept her resignation (given the grisly tasks that await her in Q3) and I gave her a new Samsung Galaxy tablet, as well as a new Blackberry Z10.

I offered her "reputation coaching" to change "the percerptions of her work by staff". She grabbed it with both of her white hands.

Being American, Axe speaks only English; she used to work in technical presales. The coach needs reasonable English, although Axe has lots of inter-axe-tion with many people whom she hardly understands.

You can apply for the coaching role by leaving a message. Deferred payment by barter.

That idiot Stan and Cynthia Axe ruined my July 4th weekend

July 4th is a very global holiday, and therefore, I left Ottawa in order to reach lac des écorces, Quebec for their well known July 4th celebrations. 
July 4th is very popular in Quebec. Quebec is sort of in Canada... like Hong Kong is part of China or like Scotland is part of the UK....or like India is part of Pakistan. 

Before I left for the long weekend, I delegated almost all my responsibility to a certain Ms Cynthia Axe, who heads our Early Bird Retirement Plan. 
Ms  Axe was named Acting People Officer, and Stan signed off on the appointment.

On Thursday July 4th, when Cynthia Axe entered the dining room, someone (from Engineering) had hung up a sign "Tahrir Square Dining Hall". For Heaven Sake! No one knows how to pronounce this word and now our dining hall is called Tahrir Square Dining Hall!!!

Is this global? Is this sustainable? Is this the role of HR? Is Ms Axe such a stupid idiot that she needs to text me as I enter my holiday cabin, and don't ask me with whom?! Stan was fuming; there were protests in the dining hall, and Ms Axe was being kept captive. Morsi on her.

Stan texted me, I returned and fired 4 people randomly and personally I took down the sign.

Stan texted me "Good work, Glo".

From EVP HR to Chief People Officer

Wifey, that irritating lady who is our CEO Stan's wife, read an article in magazine that it is very "au courant" to use the title Chief People Officer instead of HR Manager. Au courant is a French word meaning "in" or "cool". Although I am from Saskatchean, I speak French.

Stan sent me a text: "Glo, from next week, you are Chief People Officer, Congrats! Stan. PS No raise".

For heaven sake, this change is very upsetting; I am wondering if this change is threatening my seat at the table. Stan does not give a "hoot" about people yet he is very protective and even cunning in matters of "resource management". What does this change do to my power base? To my status? To my ability to maintain my Vendorless OD program?  Will I be able to keep my Samsung Note 10?  Or will I be given a hated I-Phone?

The politically ass-tute and cunning Ms Axe (Cynthia) , who is the Head of our Early Bird Retirement Plan, has warned me that the "Early Bird Retirement Plan" fits in very well with Human Resources, but not so well or wow with "Chief People Officer." Ms Axe has told me to "push back" on Stan's decision. Axe believes the name change is a non wow wow wow wow. She rarely uses 4 negative wows.

Winston Wu, who reports to me as "IT Lead" and serves as my representative on the "Diversity Team" because his grand dad was born in Hong Kong, told me that the new name of Chief People Officer is wow wow wow. Ms Axe (Cynthia) believes that Wu is trying to woo his way out of reporting to me. 

Hong Kong is sort of in China, but not really. It is very hot there in the summer; I went shopping in Causeway Bay  銅鑼灣 -prices were very axe-pensive.  I often wonder is Hong Kong is to China like Scotland is to the UK. I have a VERY close crony I can ask.

Work work work life balance for Thanksgiving

I am working on Thanksgiving

To: all 
From: Gloria Ramsbottom-Lemieux

Thanksgiving is upon us. This holiday is celebrated almost universally.

Stan, our CEO, wishes you all a happy holiday.

Stan supports work work work work life balance and has asked me to issue the following guidelines for this holiday.

• Work work work work work -"life" balance is important, and we almost strive to maintain it.
• Cellphones "can" be put on mute during sleeping hours. You also "can" have an un"axe"pected meeting with Ms Axe. Ms Axe heads our Early Bird Retirement Plan. She works non stop.
• CEO Stan may call, and we will pay for the 40% of fine you may incur whilst speaking to Stan while driving.
• Please do not text anyone except Stan whilst driving.
• Please check your emails constantly if you feel a sense of belonging, and/or, you wish to avoid a meeting with a certain  Ms Axe (Cynthia). She heads our Early Bird Retirement Plan.
• Many concalls will be postponed until after the holiday. "Some"concalls will not be cancelled. Please do not feel obliged to attend; just cc Ms Axe on "declines". Ms Axe heads our Early Bird Retirement Plan.
• Those with a company car would be advised that due to re-negotiation of our insurance premium, axe-ident insurance may be "spotty".

这是很难学好英语-how am I supposed to know what this means-for Heaven Sake

As we move to a more global and sustainable world, the Chinese and Russians in our company need to do their part and learn proper English, for heaven sake. After all, English is the one and ONLY language of business. 

In India, everyone speaks English! In Singapore as well!
Even in Quebec (which is "up" in Canada) people have started to speak English.

Stan pointed out that it takes 40 years to learn Chinese; Stan told me that "no one uses Russian any more, except the Russians". So neither the Russian or Chinese language are either global, or sustainable.

How did the lanaguage issue come up?-one may ask. Well, Stan and I were  in a concall on Friday and Stan understood 3% of what was said.....3% before tax! (I understood much more, because I am a linguist, having mastered French.)

Stan texted me on Saturday:"I want a unilingual company in a year, Gloria. Even the Scots try and have an English accent. Just get this company linguistically global by Q2 2014".

Is this HR's domain? I believe it is. I will do anything to keep my seat at the table in our global company.