Searching for job in 2021

5.0.02

a dystopian science-fiction

Human Resources - what an odd oxymoron. A word suggesting some human dimension merged with an expression used for the machines and the emotionally-austere business. But who are then the mystical tribe of HR professionals, what is the content of their expertise, what added value these specialists bring on the table actually?

Outsourcing the unpleasant activities of "talking to people" and "sieving the potential employees"? Something that a person in the target company - if deserving to be called a "manager" - should be capable of ... and what should be in his best interest anyway? So instead, we have wrong people, the intermediaries, with no insight into the job in question (its history, significant peculiarities, nuances in personal capabilities) - trying to figure out who might be the suitable candidate for it? Using the dictionary-like keywords scan.

Did you have that same experience at school - you the person who attended all the lessons, your notes being over-xeroxed in the copy shop, you being the one who actually tried to Understand the subject instead of memorizing the possible test answers, you excelling at the exams ... while your peers constantly swindled, copied yours or others labs, hid the cheat-sheets in the most impossible crevices and orifices of their bodies and garments, memorized pages "just to pass". And then, a decade or two later - you feel like a fraud, an under-skilled idiot, in the world of heavy "professionals". And all those "authorities", who write papers on whatever topics, who give "expertly" statements in the media, who argue with the other "specialists" about this or that nuance, so fluffy knowing the jargon of their field, who are super-important and respected ... are your former classmates. :)

And even if the narrative of this particular times is "trust the experts versus alt-facts and conspiracies" ... and you really want to be on the right, scientific side ... there is a little control light blinking. "Well, I know some of those Experts in person, even their egos and flexibly practical morals.

I am not here to defend conspiracies or support delusions ... I try to stay on the sane side ... but still, I do allow myself a little sneer, particularly when facing the specialists like those from HR, or even the irredeemably savvy "geeks".

Passion fashion

Isn't it comical, in the 21st century, to ask the candidates ("well, we might allow you to work for our wonderful company") for a "great passion for" ... adding and subtracting numbers? coding or resuscitating machines? navigating the dry nuances of the inhuman language of law? cleaning toilets? beeping the bar codes over the counter? loading the trucks? honking in the traffic jam? being nice to arrogant customers inadequate to the product they use?

It feels like the passion imperative is often coming from the folks who are lucky enough to have the creative job, somewhere up in the management who's daily occupation is giving impressive ruminations at conferences, drafting ideas on the boards, reinventing the wheel (and having no accountability for the results) ... expecting the same "passion" from their manufacturing employees.

It's a detachment or a lack of perspective comparable to the "imaginary" over-motivated over-excited over-agitated artists, who think that the whole world can be (or even is) doing something they passionately love. But even those artists like to eat, with cutlery, from plates, under the light, in a warm room, furnished with tables and chairs, a food - that needs to be produced, picked, packaged, transported, served in the shops - they like to network and communicate and get inspired over these wonderful screens - that must be constructed, delivered, sold in the template gadgets shops, someone must watch over the servers, code the software, catch bugs, troubleshoot with the headsets in call-centers, do the company accounting, lay the cables. And no, those jobs are not creative and lovely and amazing and fabulous - while absolutely necessary. Not everyone has the privilege (nor the talent of course) to be a shaman, a pet counselor or a conceptual performer, living of the excess wealth of the industrial society, living of the possibility of the extra spending by the winners of the economic competition.

Let's face the reality, the majority of the jobs existing on this planet - those really needed by everyone - are not that exciting. Euphemism. The complex tasks broken down to the narrowly defined roles, detached, repetitive, debilitating. You might "like" nature - but whether working in the agriculture, or in forestry or for the zoo, you might end up driving their cars, doing their accounting, or managing their IT infrastructure or printing out and filling in the contracts with customers. You might like "cars" or "planes" or "spaceships" or "music" or "TV" or "fashion" or "traveling" - but you still might do the drone buzz like everyone anywhere else.

Can we finally come to admitting, that there is a lot of certain jobs that need to be done - and the people who are qualified to do them, or those who still might do them exceptionally well - but who will not wake up with "hooray, let's code some new software routines" nor will fall asleep with server models on their mind? Can we skip offending them with this "passion talk", asking them to act, pretend, lie, submitting them to a self-humiliation ritual before they start actually serving the company and the customers who need their service? Can our politically correct oversensitive society find this basic human decency? Can I just get hired, do it super well, be reasonably productive and responsible, without faking the enthusiast smile, pretending I'd not choose more interesting job if there was any and were I qualified for it?

Work/life balancing act

Contemporary HR world seems unashamed to generate thousands of quasi-identical offers: "young dynamic collective" "possibility of career growth" "interesting social benefits" - in a stunningly dead language. Speak of added value. One of these generic templates venerated in the HR temple vernacular seem to be the "work/life balance". The same catchphrase as the "environmental responsibility" or "valuing diversity". Shouldn't that be such a business-as-usual practice that you would not need to boast about it? Imagine companies honoring the equal intelligence of women or human value of the people of color? Absurd, a bit?

In the same breath, as they melt over the family values, they ask you to be flexible to work weekends, overtimes or night shifts. Well, ask the neurologist, the biologist, the somnologist - about the disastrous effects of nightlife, irregular sleep schedule, or even improper color of the light - on the immune system or the general quality of life. We have quiet hours, we have apps turning our screens orange after the sunset ... and we have the on-calls. Well, humans, do you really need all those services - e-commerce, paywalls, groceries, taxis, phones - 24/7?

I carry this blasphemous idea. There is no justification for any night service except the medical emergency (the same people could hand out emergency medicines), the fire brigade and the police. Everything else can wait until you wake up. Particularly when you should be sleeping and not consuming. There is no justification for a concept of night-life. It's an oxymoron too! True, 24/7 phone lines do save lives. But, I worked in a tech company with the so-called Follow The Sun model. Despite the inter-cultural squabbles, there is no problem, in this heavily cabled world, that you get serviced by 3 different geographical locations. Remote access to the equipment, remote access to the customers. Everyone working in their day-time. Spending the evening with their families or hobbies. Sleeping in the night. Living healthy. Period. There is no IT-related job that cannot be maintained 24/7 in this fashion. Have a decent redundancy - one more virtual instance in that monstrous data-center - the dead disk or motherboard can be replaced even tomorrow. Moreover, F.T.S. interconnects the world, the economies, the cultures - it forces us to cooperate and to get along.

Speaking of night-trains and night-buses ... well, they say there is a certain part of population historically developing as the night owls. The "guardians of the fire", the night-watch of the cave. Just call upon them and pay them. Forcing people into the hated night-shifts and on-calls because of the profession instead of the proclivity - is quite inadequate for the century we live in.

It's just a rotten cherry on the putrefying cake that in the time we discuss and even implement the shorter working weeks, dare to switch to the part-time jobs, cut jobs because of the automation - that the overtimes and the weekend sprints for the spoiled customers - mind you, in the development of new products, not saving lives! - is becoming more and more common norm.

Ressist! (the stress, the pressure, the multi-tasking)

How do you behave in the stressful situations? How do you manage your stress? as if the stress was "mine" to be responsible for. Let me tell you some primary school biology basics. Animals avoid stressful situations. Human beings love pleasant atmosphere. Stress is not good, the very presence of stress is a failure. The failure of the management of the company. Poor workload distribution, insufficient workforce - perhaps the usual cost-cutting greed. Asking the potential employee regarding the stress handling, or even about his capabilities of multi-tasking ("here you are, 3 fresh new different things to do, everything is a critical urgent priority, due yesterday!") should be a clear warning signal of the mismanagement.

We should not be able to "work under pressure". We should be able to organize the tasks, to plan, to delegate - in order to minimize the pressure. And if someone fancies the testosterone moments, we can tailor those specific occupations to these bored individuals, but not to force this new "standard" to the most of the population.

The ideal candidate will thrive in this job if ... he is the ideal candidate.

If he had 5+ years experience as the attested oncologist, the equal experience as the neurosurgeon, also the anesthesiologist, the intern, the orthopedist, the pulmonologist, the immunologist, the psychologist, the toilet cleaner and smile at the grumpy anti-vax patients at 2AM. Absurd? Would you even trust such "multi-skilled" doctor? Would you allow him to cut into your flesh?

It seems you would, if he was an average IT professional, as it appears looking at the ordinary tech job posts. "You must want to and successfully manage to keep up with the pace of the extremely fast-developing field.".

No, I am not sneering at the "multipotentialite opportunities". These ads actually call upon experts ... but they want you to be an expert in so many specializations, that even ten people would not master them in their whole life. Ideally be twenty-one and have several years of experience. Sometimes you actually have to do one thing throughout your whole life to become particularly good in it. And there are experts to fit into those roles. And there are people who feel comfortable being just those experts.

But what happened to the good old training on job? What happened to the "make the employees you wish to have"? Delegating the responsibility for self-training and paying for ones own certificates - to the unemployed or the overloaded candidates? When - after you put your kids to sleep, wash the dishes, the laundry, prepare the lunchboxes?

What if the money was not involved? Would you still clean the toilet?

I will borrow the best answer to this arrogant non-sense from the other writer: A job, an employment, is a type of work where we take money, because if the money was not involved, we would not be willing to do it. Period.

No, I would not be querying some databases, I would be reading books, watching movies, embroidering, painting or dancing. Dear over-agitated lady of the HR company. When you come home, in between the shower and bed activities, do you research new HR trends, out of passion? Seriously?

I know there are "those people". The geeks and nerds, who just fancy tweaking the machines. Building the robots. Coding the crypto-currency algorithms. They stay late at work because they can't leave the riddles for tomorrow. This is their hobby, their life. But not everyone is like that. There is a disproportionate number of coding, accounting, project-managing, quality-assurance and other specific high-in-demand positions - to the number of people who might actually enjoy those. It's the nature of the world. Accept it. Some people just can do it, can do it very well, but will not love it. No hard feelings. They have their real lives, aside of the white-collar carnival.

There are people who stay late at work because they "are bored". I have one simple phrase for those: Just die! Make room. The planet is overcrowded. How can someone be bored in 21st century? Climate burns, ecosystems collapse, animals die out, wars rage, humans die of hunger, the streets are dirty, Chinese hobby toys are cheap as f**k, streaming is unwatchably abundant ... You can't possibly be a vegetable.

There are people who stay late at work because they don't want to go home. They disconnected from their families, or partners, perhaps they continue the cohabitation or lifestyle model that does not suit them. Fix your own life! Just don't force other to stay at work with you, assuming they have nowhere better to go or nothing better to do.

Why should we hire you? How will you contribute to our company?

Because I pretend more convincingly than the next candidate? Maybe I will just do my job the best as I can? How will you contribute to my own personal life? Will you give me more time to dedicate to my family, my hobbies, my other passions?

So ...

We all know this is a professional theater.

We all act - and we advise the others to "shut up, swallow and lie too".

We hate this model and we participate in it and we perpetuate it. What for? What is the added value?