Sallie had to fill out her "We're giving you the boot, please don't sue us" paperwork today. I, the loving and supporting husband I am, sat outside the HR department offices in a fairly comfy leather chair, playing Nintendo DS. I'm fairly sure to all those adults who passed by, I must've appeared to be 13 and waiting for my mom to feed me peanut butter sandwiches with the crust cut off.
Anyway I had the pleasure of briefly meeting the HR rep. She asked if I was Dan, and how the job search was going, and for some reason I thought answering her with the hurt puppy dog face saying, "I was laid off too, and can't find work" would somehow make this irritating situation disappear and the Storys would wake up on a bed of $500,000 in $1 bills.
After she left me to my touch screen gaming I started thinking about how awful of a job being the HR person would be. I don't know about the rest of you, but I kind of feel like its that part of church where you're supposed to shake hands with the people around you and introduce yourself or say "peace be with you." Its a great idea, and wishing someone peace is about the greatest thing you could wish for someone, but I always felt like it was forced. I was always more concerned with "Did that old man sneeze into his hand?" or "What if this person is a criminal?" The only reason I stuck my hand out to strangers I would more than likely never talk to again was because everyone else was doing it and I didn't want to be that jerk with my arms crossed, looking straight ahead, pretending like the priest was still saying something.
I actually always felt that church communities always felt really artificial and temporary. I don't really know why, but as soon as church was done, my main concern was getting home, not making friends. I never wanted to stay behind for the donut socials for the social part, gimme a snack cake with sprinkles on it in a to-go bag and let me be on my way. And I sure as heck didn't go to the carnivals for the friendly conversations, I wanted on the ferris wheel... not the normal one... the one that spins the cage upside down. The only reason I felt any community with my church was because of the organized sports leagues the Catholics had. Yes, us Catholics have at least that one thing on the rest of you. While you were organizing your third pot luck dinner of the month, I was tearing up the field in the Mayor's Cup final, screaming obscenities at those rival heathen churches.
Anyway, back to my original point. Being an HR person, to me, seems like one long church forced handshake. Keep that smile on your face and hope that you can wash your hands soon. I felt bad for her...
Until Sallie came out and said not only were we denied any sort of moving allowance from corporate, but the HR lady cut Sallie off, seemed to take offense that she was even being asked, and bluntly said, "You're getting no money." Then when Sallie told her how much it was going to cost to break our lease, the honorable HR rep said "Why don't you just leave without telling them?" Oh, that's smart. Might've worked forty years ago before the age of computers. Let's just ruin our credit score by scamming out of our apartment complex who has been extremely accommodating thus far. I'm sure they won't come after us... they only have our social security numbers, phone numbers, and credit card numbers. I'm sure that won't bite us in the butt.
So, my empathetic feelings toward the HR rep were soon erased by shortness and stupidity. Perhaps by tomorrow I will have calmed down enough to chalk it up to her having a bad day, but as of right now, HR stands for Humanity Retarded, because she obvious has a humanity handicap.
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