Why it sucks to work in HR

HR can be a real shitty job. For two days now I have known that on Monday we are canning a guy who has worked here 14 years. His attendance is terrible, and in the long run for the company it is for the best, but on a personal level it sucks. His wife works here too and she is my friend. Of course I'd like to call her and warn them but I can't. Not only do I know about this but I also had to call the police dept this morning to arrange a police escort for him. I feel like vomiting.

A word of advise for people considering HR work - don't make friends with the people you work with, you may have to fire them tommorrow. I had to witness a good friend of mine get fired a couple years ago - it was one of the worst things I've had to experience. 10 minutes before the meeting, she is sitting in my office, asking me if she was getting fired. What am I suppose to do? Say No and I have lied to my friend, say Yes and I blantantly have disregarded the "sanctity" for lack of better word, of my position, I will have broken my vows as an HR employee by telling her this beforehand and open myself up to being fired too. Then I had to sit there and watch her boss coldly detail the reason she was being let go, i sat back stunned by the fact that this normally nice man had turned into a stone wall, no emotions no feeling, I watched the tears form in her eyes, witnessed the emotions of heartbreak and anger and all I could do was express my sorrow with sympathetic, pathetic, sad eyes, waiting until they left to burst into tears myself...this is not a job for the faint of heart. Everytime it happens I tell myself I won't make friends with people here anymore, I'll just go in and do my job and go home. Easy to say, hard to do.

That was the first and the worst for me, I have seen other friends given the axe here, and it is painful everytime. Sometimes i agree with the company's reasoning - sometimes I don't. Eitherway it is hard to see someone's life turned upside down in a matter of minutes. I had to fire a receptionist last year, it was terrible. I wanted her gone, I couldn't stand to look at her annoying ass, but actually having to say those words - to have to look her in the eye and hand her final check over, was nauseating. The whole morning before hand I was in the bathroom with dry heaves. I knew she had turned down another job to work here, and I knew she was struggling financially. After I did it, she looked at me and said "What am I going to do now?" and started bawling. I was actually happy and relieved she was gone, but sad and a bit remorseful too.

So, this weekend I will be thinking, what will happen to my friend and her husband on Monday. What will happen to their lives now? Will she even talk to me after that? Will they lose their home? Will he get a better job? Will he be unemployed for the next year? I hope it turns out ok.

may 2002 

In the Beginning....

Here I am, where all bloggers begin....their first blog. Actually this isn't my very 1st - i had a blog on rottentomatoes.com - the movie website - but I felt that i had to always right about movies - and I just dont' see as many as I like.

Why did I choose the name perpetual dieter...well I have sat here for about 20 minutes trying to come up with something - every name i typed in already existed. I wanted something that said something about me.... which was hard to come up with .... just a regular person living in suburbia, I shlep to my 8-5 every day, have a hubbie, no kids... couple cats and a dog... I love shopping for furniture, have a strange penguin obsession.... just your average yahoo.... hey now that's what i should have called it.... your average yahoo...oh well...... i am always on a diet, so perpetual dieter fits alright.

I could make a list of all the diets that I've tried...just about all of them..if you can name the diet...i have done it....and I've only gotten fatter. I have now resigned myself to just totally eating healthy and trying to exercise my ass off..... its truly the only real way to lose weight - unless i go in and get an Al Roker job done, but I'm scared as hell of doing that..and to me....I have to do it on my own.... I don't think I would be too proud of myself if the only way I could lose weight was to have my stomach virtually cut out of me.... I have faith in my self and I will do it.

But I don't intend to blog about being fat or losing weight...maybe sometimes.. but i really am here to voice my humble opinions and gripe about life in general....hopefully i will have something worthwhile to say on occasion.... I have seen some terrific blogs and i hope i will be read worthy someday too....