Don't Want to Work? Work in HR.

The Human Resources department has a problem deciding what its name is.

Recently, it has become the "People Operations Department," or the "Employee Experience Department," or the "Culture and Talent Department," or the "Employee Management & Care Department," or the "Human Capital Department."

Despite what name is on your business card this month, what HR actually does does not change. So you can still expect to be surrounded by horror-movie faces when your co-workers learn you have accepted a position in the "Employee Never-Ending Fun and All-Around Happiness Department" (ENEFAAHD to its friends).

For everyone whose business card does include not a groovy department name fresh from the COO's last shroom sesh, don't jump ship. Your current job may be boring, but least you know where you work.

Drawback No. 2: Helping Others

The new breed of HR people "have that passion for being able to help people grow professionally." In other words, you have to be willing to help your co-workers rise up in the company to positions where they can fire you.

Unless you are prepared to spend your career helping others succeed in their career, stick to what you do best -- giving your work friends terrible advice so they will be fired long before attaining a position where they can fire you.

Drawback No. 3: Being Nice

Employees in the "Hidden Daggers & Well-Sharpened Sabers Department" are required to do a lot of dirty work for the company. Yet, their demeanor must be nonthreatening at all times, even before and after eviscerating a co-worker for hoarding paper clips.

If you can embrace this level of two-faced behavior, don't waste it on a career in HR.

Anyone this cruel and unfeeling should be CEO.

If a career in HR still calls to you, despite the drawbacks, don't worry about getting hired. New HR people are hired by old HR people, and since no one ever hires anyone better than themselves, the HR team is on an irreversible downward spiral toward total mediocrity.

Eventually, standards will drop so low that they will even hire you.

And you can hire me.

That'll teach the sharp-pencil gang in accounting, no doubt about it.

========

Bob Goldman was an advertising executive at a Fortune 500 company. He offers a virtual shoulder to cry on at bob@bgplanning.com. To find out more about Bob Goldman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.