Episode 84: Back to...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

So yesterday was May 26, which means that it was the first day of my 6-week seminar on human resource management at the North Shore Community College Institute for Corporate Training. As you can imagine from the pizazz of that sentence, it was not an exciting two-and-a-half hours. When I signed up for the class a few months ago I started to think about how weird it was going to be going back to school. It has been four full years since I graduated college- a lifetime ago- and aside from the two years I spent covering school committee meetings for the Lynn Item I haven't so much as set foot in a classroom since.

I figured I would probably start freaking out a few weeks before the class, get real nervous driving there and all that good stuff. Not the case. In fact, I was so burnt out from working five straight closing shifts at the bar, and from the 100 degree temperatures, that I hardly knew what day it was yesterday and barely thought about going to the class until it was time for me to leave. The one thing that I did keep telling myself, though, was that I had to make sure to pay attention while I was there. So much of college was spent doodling and day dreaming, staring at the clock, checking out girls in my class, getting high during my breaks and generally not giving a damn. Somehow, though, I managed to stay on track, finish on time and with a decent GPA, all despite changing my major half way through my sophomore year. I do not think, though, I will be quite as successful if I do those things this time around, so I have to make sure to be attentive and try not to doze off while thinking about jamming dry erase markers in to my eyes.

I wasn't really sure what to expect from the course. I knew it wouldn't be a traditional classroom setting, and I expected the student body to be mostly adults, but knowing nothing of human resources other than what I have learned from Toby Flenderson, I was otherwise going in blind. I was pretty much right about both of those things. The classroom, which is located in a gigantic business park in Beverly, looked like a corporate meeting room, and aside from one girl who was still in college everyone in the class was an employed, professional adult. Except for me, of course. One thing that made me feel a bit more comfortable was that of the 10 students in the class, only about half of them were actually working in HR already, meaning that I wasn't going to be the only moron there who was completely lost.

As I have admitted here in the past, my desire to pursue human resources does not stem from any deep, burning desire to punch in payroll numbers or recruit and hire people to work at a large corporation. Instead, I chose it because it appears to be a steady field that provides fair pay, benefits, and an opportunity to wear a suit to work every day. I love putting on a suit. Most of all, it appears that I can enter in to said field with little more than a certificate from a $400, 6-week community college course as opposed to having to go back to school for an associates or masters degree. This posed a problem right off the bat when, during the traditional 'introduce yourself to the class' session I answered the question 'why are you here' with 'because I need a steady job and HR seems like an easy field to get in to.' This sparked a lecture from the instructor, who we will get to in a moment, essentially lambasting me, in a polite way, for not recognizing all of the important things that HR professionals do blah blah blah. That was the last time I spoke for the entire class.

On to the instructor, a 50-something blond woman who made it very apparent right from the start that she takes HR VERY seriously. One of the many things that I did not like about college the first time around was the 'know it all, look at me and what I have done in my life' braggy attitudes that many of the professors had. I remember one journalism teacher I had came in on the first day of class and handed us 10 different articles that he had written for the Boston Globe. He then spent the next hour going over every reason that they were great and telling us all of the amazing issues that he was able to address by writing them, essentially saving the world with his editorials. Yeah. That was the last time I took one of that asshole's classes.

The HR course instructor last night was no different. Along with bragging about all of the companies she was the first woman to do this or that at and all of the reasons that she should be teaching the course, she decided that the text book we were given was too generic, so she printed out all of these little charts and diagrams that she made all by herself to give a more personal feel to the material. Don't get me wrong, if I knew what the hell she was talking about I would probably appreciate the more human information. What I didn't appreciate was her saying 'This is called wisdom,' or 'These are the types of things that made me the #1 HR representative in the region,' or 'You won't find information like this from your current HR bosses, your welcome' when she handed them to us. Get over yourself, lady. Cool, your really good at HR, that is why your teaching the class. A little less bragging, a little more explaining, thanks.

This full-of-herself attitude was made even more infuriating by the fact that this woman made no sense. She spoke in riddles, cliches and analogies, comparing business to sports, parenting and marriage. The worst part, though, was the 45 minutes she spent talking about how candy bars are a great motivational tool.

"When an employee does well, give them a.. (long pause, no one answers because it makes no sense) TAKE 5 BAR! Tell them to take 5 because they did a great job."

"And what do you give an employee that made a mistake? (another long pause) A Butterfinger! and then they will know that the mistake was made, but your reinforcing that you have confidence in them by giving them the candy bar."

Her point was that money isn't what it takes to make an employee happy (which I totally disagree with). It is recognition. I still don't know if the candy bar was a metaphor or if she actually handed them out to her employees. I hope it is the former because if I worked at that place I would have quit in about 10 seconds.

Equally as annoying as the professor is the kiss ass. In every college course I have ever taken there has always been that one kid who doesn't shut up. The kiss ass. The hand raiser. He or she is the one who asks that last question three minutes before class ends and keeps you there late. Or the person who on the first day, when everyone is minding their own business, walks in, asks if he or she is in the right room (knowing full well that they are) and then cracks jokes while everyone uncomfortably waits for the professor to get there. This time around is no different. Her name is Susan. She is about my age, approximately 650 pounds and way, WAY too in love with her lame job in the HR department at Tufts University. How do I know this? Because she spoke about it at every chance. Always chiming in with something to add. Always asking questions at the wrong time. Always annoying. Some questions are rhetorical. Keep them that way.

I'm not going to say that I hate the class after one week, just that it is overwhelmingly annoying and I didn't get a whole lot out of those candy bar analogies. What I did take out of the night is this. HR is simple. It is a lot of work, but it is essentially just making sure that employees behave themselves and get paid, with a little hiring and recruiting mixed in. If this lady keeps talking about it like she is the f-ing President for the next five weeks I don't know if I am going to make it. She doesn't like me because I can see through her bullshit and she knows it. She also doesn't like me because I got irritated that the class ran until 9:10. Maybe she should shorten that candy bar speech.