You're Fired. . .

As you may or may not know, I am in HR. Not only am I in HR, but I work for a rather large and popular technology company. In fact, it is highly likely that you are using one of its products RIGHT NOW. . .

When I was first hired, I would wonder why people seemed so attached to the entity that is the technology company that I work for that's name starts with an I and ends with a ntel. I would listen to employees complain about the "old I . . . . ntel" and how upset they would be when it was time to move on. I was impressed by my peers' emphatic use of the word "WE" and "OUR" when discussing the company and its strategies. Why do WE care so damn much? Its just a heartless entity that cuts a check every 15 and 30th of the month . . . Who REALLY cares? Not me, dammit. . .

But lately, I HAVE been caring. Its performance review time, and as a result, I've been firing a lot of people. While it is not my decision to terminate an employee, it is my job to ensure that the process of working someone out of a company is appropriately followed, and sometimes, I have to pull the trigger. I used to dread these conversations. I would not look a person in the eye as I explained to them that their benefits end at the end of the month, and that I will need to confiscate their badge as they can no longer have unchecked access to the building. I felt sorry for them . . . Now? Not so much.

Yesterday I assisted in the termination of an employee who had been playing the company for months. She sat in a conference room in Oregon and cried as I told her that she needs to take responsibility for her own actions, and that I don't care if she is out sunning on the beach or in the bed, writhing in agony, she has to do her work. She wanted sympathy. I wanted her to quit. As I spoke to her, i used words like "WE support" and "OUR assets" and when i hung up the phone, satisfied that she had decided to leave the company, I was high fived by a peer who told me "Yeah, WE don't need her kind working at I. . . . . ntel."

When did I become a corporate tool?

When did i stop feeling the dread of an employee termination and instead associate it with the same kind of anxiety one may feel when picking out salad dressings. (bleu cheese or ranch? I can't decide!) It has become as routine and lifeless as any other one of my tasks, even though it means so much more. I used to wonder if there was anything MORE i could have done to help this person be successful or ease their transition out of the workplace, and now i think, is there anything MORE i could do to make sure this person gets canned as soon as possible.

When I come home, all I have to talk about is work. My husband nods and asks clarification questions and since he speaks the language, he hears:
"Oh MY GOD?! Do you know Bob has this problem employee right? Well she went to the face to face and during their one on ones she totally didn't deliver on her ARs and she's going to get a BE or worse and IR/CAP. Poor Bob."
If i took a second to hear what I sound like to him, I'd kill myself. But I don't. I keep prattling away, speaking aconymese (the language of acronyms) and when he leaves, I boot up and answer email in submerge myself in the culture that I thought I would always despise. When I was a clinician, I would pray that my patients would get better and one day find jobs that would accept them for all their craziness. I was there to HELP them. . . That seems to have gone out of the window as I have dealt with employees who were quirky and weird and even certified crazy and the first thing I thought was "well how are we going to get rid of THIS guy?"

At I....ntel, they show us pictures on a daily basis as to how the product we produce has revolutionized and changed the world, and it true. It is is an indisputable fact that we make products that have and will continue to change the waythe world works, thinks, plays, lives. I work for a company full of relatively good and decent people who, individually and in small teams, can conjure up brilliance. But like Lord of the Flies, when left unchecked and desperate to survive, the "team" becomes the mob, and the group think boils down to one thing: Make money or else. . . And I'm the "or else."

Yes, I will get a little of that money . . . VERY little considering that its a billion dollar company. And if I were the head of a very large company that made a lot of money, i cannot say that I would be preoccupied by the peons who work for me. I can't say I wouldn't be happy to see naysayers and poor performers forced out (we call that "desired turnover") and I couldn't even promise that I wouldn't make the half ass efforts at recruiting diverse candidates. I really couldn't say what I'd do in those shoes.

But Im not in those shoes. I am in the peons shoes, and every day, I tell another peon that they are one step closer to having to find another job, another way to pay their mortgage, another way to finance their kids education. I add value by supporting beaurocracy, policing grown people, and inflating false egos and I can't say I'm very happy with myself. . . But the pay is good. . .

Welcome to Corporate America, right?