Member-only story
“I Am So Busy That I Must Hire Someone. Alas, I Am Too Busy To Train Them.”
The above screenshot is from my man Ed Bowers, I believe in response to this post of mine:
That post was apparently surprisingly popular (ha) and got mentioned at a local country club-hosted meeting of HR professionals (lol). Anyway.
A rational person would look at Ed’s comment and say, “Wow, that’s really stupid. Someone felt busy, so they got headcount approved, hired someone, and then when the person started, they didn’t have time to actually talk to them? What?”
The thing is: rational people don’t always exist in companies. Some do, but it’s a lot less normative than your parents might have taught you.
I’ve been in almost the exact same situation as Ed probably six to seven times. I’ve started jobs and by Week 3, I’m just surfing the Internet all day because whatever I was supposed to be doing — “Believe me, we have so much work!” they coo in the interview — no one had really explained to me.
