Terri Moorenovich

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Something New - Goodbye

Hi Folks, It has become entirely evident, that my writing is not very HR related and that I haven't had much time. I have decided to end this fun blog experiment and get serious opining about the world. My new blot with a proposed name of Rant, Ranty, Rant, Rant, Rant will be ready soon. If you were here to see what might come next, you'll like the rants. Thanks for following me and I hope to see you Rantsville.

Auditor = Law Breaker = WOMBAT

Ghost Writer sounds off on a new trend and its stupidity.

So there's this new trend in industry called "Social Responsibility" or "Ethical Trading" or any other form of buzzword bingo for "covering corporate ass against any hint of bad sourcing practices". It's a set of practices intended to ensure laborers in factories are properly paid, trained, compensated and protected against workplace hazards. And the hilarious assumption in this is that only factory workers can be poorly treated, erroneously paid and ill-trained, but alas, that's a blog of another sort altogether. Not to mention the assumption that there aren't a host of government agencies already supposedly doing just that thing. Yet another blog for another day.

Along with a set of practices comes the inevitable audit, and even worse the Auditor. This person is ostensibly, to use a Marti word even though I'm sober blogging, an expert at both the standard and applicable local laws. Well, not the case.

For the past two days I have heard an auditor make sexist statements. Great example -- "What if a lady needed to access this fire extinguisher? It's hung to high for her." Oh, yes. He did say that. I'm not a tall Ghost, and I could have done that extinguisher in a heart beat. Women don't have the market cornered on being vertically challenged last I checked. Further, mounting it lower could turn it into a different hazard, so pick your poison sexist pig.

Then this auditor had to do employee interviews to validate management isn't evil. They do this interview from an unpublished list of questions, and apparently with no regard to labor law. In the country I worked in this week, asking someone's date of birth or age violates the worker's civil rights. This expert did a grand job violating civil rights all over the place trying to determine if our very senior workforce contained any child laborers. When we found out about the issue, he was utterly unapologetic. "How else am I supposed to know if you have child laborers if I don't know someone's age or date of birth?"

So my very law-abiding company submits to this audit at a customer's behest to validate we treat our employees with dignity and in compliance with appropriate rules, standards and guidelines to have the Auditor act in a manner violating all of those things.

Welcome to being Socially Responsible. I hope your audit goes better than mine. At least I know my company's practices are better than the Auditor's.

Winter Blahs

The indescribable absence of interest in the stuff I normally dig into. It is the most uncomfortable feeling, when your head isn't in the game. I can power through a lot, but I fear what happens when my edge has the same consistency as Twinkie. The cream filling is nice, however, not a lot moves forward propelled by sponge cake. Oddly, things I normally avoid have become the height of interest. I painted sets of Christmas ornaments to give as gifts for Christmas. I baked chocolate cupcakes at 9:30 at night, so I could have my special low calorie treat. I'm looking for the magic bullet to drag me out of these duldrums. I made fingerless mittens and made my own flap pattern to cover the fingers. I made a matching head band ear warmer. Maybe the general feeling of futility isn't about a smooshy feeling in my head. It might be related to actual w-o-r-k, as opposed to fun stuff. I can't even find any more pithy reparte' to complete this blog. Please don't waste time on any psychological assessments. This is not SAD or some depression thing. It's just life and time to find some more variety to keep it spicy. I'll keep you posted.

Recess Appointments revisited

Well, so much for checks and balances. Once again our leader "chickens out" on creating unity and working out approvals for his appointees. Instead, he waits for everyone to leave and puts more people on our payroll. Want to know his reason for doing it? The Republicans wouldn't approve the appointee, and getting them on his side was just too hard. Like the "Barbie Doll" and math. Again, if an executive in a major corporation did this repeatedly, as America's chief executive has done, the board would have him removed. His lack of experience in politics and business becomes increasingly evident every day, as evidenced in his ineptitude in bringing both sides together to actually decide something within the usual process. We have hired a rookie idealist to run a super power. When each of you has time, look up the new law that overrides habeas corpus that our chief executive officer signed recently. He is bypassing our directly elected representatives and then fails to protect us from them, when the need arises. Remember, our President is not directly elected by us, the President is chosen by the electoral college. Does this guy realize he won't always be Pres and these rules will apply to him? We are already on the verge of falling into protectionism on a scale not seen since the 30's and the friends we have need us to be the grown ups in the group. While you are blaming the Republicans for not hiring your appointees, please remember that the burden for their success or failure falls squarely and exclusively on your shoulders. These folks are all your fault and no amount of verbal dodging will save you from it. More effort and persuasion up front would have spread out that burden amongst our legislators, when the appointee was approved. Oh well, they are ours now, because we almost forgot that all of us taxpayers (not the voters that don't pay their share) are the ones bank rolling these folks. I guess it is easiest to spend someone else's money, so we need to get much more careful who we elect!!!!!

Happy New Year I pulled out my old journals to work on a project and realized that I never finish using those books before moving on to the next one. The only journal I've filled is packed with notes from business books that I have skimmed. In those partial tomes of emotional rubbish, it is apparent that for many years I have been seeking peace. Looking for ways to get my head straight and begin the new year enthusiastically on board with the goals and expectations of the keepers of my terms of endenture. Those journals cover at least 4 employers, so this is not a reflection on my keepers. I should pity them for having to manage me. We all have a beast inside our heads harboring maverick thoughts and periodically enacting them. One of my sisters calls that the inner B$#*&. Either way, mine is particularly powerful and will drag it's feet behind my personal bicycle requiring a lot of effort to keep up with the day-to-day. It really hates being told what to do and prefers to be allowed to operate without supervision. Good luck being the boss of that thing, because I'm not. If you have stuck with me so far, you are wondering where we are going on this tangent. It is obvious that trying to reset myself every year to play some else's tune has been the error. This year, I'm looking for a way to sing slightly off key and mess up the tempo my own way. I have no resolutions, because being resolved seems very stressful. Maybe I'll go back and use up those partial journals. There will be plenty of ways to improvise, so why bother putting those obstacles/goals in the way. If you are wondering whether or not I bothered to reflect on last year, be assured that I did. That is a colossal mess for another time.

Never Blog Drunk

Ostensibly, one really couldn't blog totally drunk, because you would be passed out somewhere. Part way to drunk, I use words like ostensibly. I'm enjoying an unusual Tuesday off work, due to the weekends that I have to work for the joy of retail. One day off isn't enough and I have become jealous for those in European countries where long days and longer weeks are illegal. My "day off" included doing laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, running errands, catching up Christmas cards and looking for stuff to put in Taz's shadow box. Oh, I forgot to tell you that one of my cats, who we had with us for 15 years, died on Sunday night. Oh yeah, last night while I was getting part way to drunk on the other half of tonight's bottle of wine, I printed about 250 pictures to the local drug store to give myself yet more to do today. The eventual result... pictures are on the table, shadow box still wrapped, can't find Taz's tags, and determined that getting up at 6am on your day off sucks! Why am I blogging under the influence, because I missed you guys. Watching my Siberian puppy play soccer with a tennis ball, doesn't compare with an impromptu poll on the impact of work on holiday cheer. How are you overcoming the demands of your job to find holiday cheer? Please understand, the first vote (mine) is for wine by the bottle. Merry Christmas!