Now May Be a Good Time to Panic

Human Resources:

"Hey, you don’t look happy with your job yet, how about a lollipop?"

Human Resources is loosely defined as the department of a company that is meant to keep all the employees happy since their job certainly isn’t doing it. Whether it’s helping you figure out your 401k plan²³, discussing your health care options, or organizing a company raffle where you can win a lifetime supply of pantyhose and motor oil, human resources is there to help the common employee.

To find out where the beginnings of the human resources phenomenon originated, we move to a bit of history:

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On the Origin of Species Human Resources

By Charles Darwin Jon Burgart

Back in the days of cavemen, Neanderthals thought that entirely too much was getting done during any given day. With all the scouring for food, killing woolly things that bite, and scratching one’s rear, when would people get time to really think about their place in the universe? It was around this time of contemplation that the great tribe of Comeoniwannalayya came up with a methodology to combat this oppressive work regime. It turns out that they had a great hunter named Hemor Rhoid²⁴ who was wounded during a hunt and could only sit on his butt all day since his legs were too mangled to move in any given amount of time. This worked in his favor when the great tribe put him in charge of telling people when and where to work. If a hunter was getting burnt out from all the climbing trees and "mistaken" encounters with female mountain goats²⁵, Hemor Rhoid would grant these people "The Big Lazy", which at the time translated to "vacation".

Over time, the tribe gave this great warrior several important jobs beyond giving people vacation time. Hemor Rhoid was also in charge of telling men to go out and grab other tribe’s women to bring back and do "work" for the tribe. This was known as "recruitment", which was just a nice word for kidnapping someone with better "genes" than you. In that period "genes" meant "breasts", but lets not get lost in semantics. Also, if the warriors of one hunting group started squabbling about whose turn it was to hunt, Hemor Rhoid was quick to take action. Knowing how much warriors of this period liked to bitch, he quickly moved them to separate parts of the tribe so that they could pass their annoyances on to other warriors who were just fine with the way things were.

Over the years, the traditions were passed down among the tribes, and now, nearly 55 years later, we have the current version of it known only as "HR" after the great warrior²⁶ Hemor Rhoid. Who knows where this wonderful tradition will go? What we do know for sure is that it will forever waste the time of people that could otherwise have their nose on some kind of grinding stone.

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Of course not all HR people come from a lazy wounded warrior background. Generally they come from majors such as sociology, psychology, englishology, entomology, peoplology, or any other college major that ends in "ology". This is solely because they weren’t able to land a better job, which leads directly to one of the "Johnson/Burgart School of Immutable Laws": Never allow yourself to get stuck in a major that ends in "ology", you’ll either end up in human resources or doing yard work for the rest of your life²⁷.

So, even though they all may come from a different background, human resources people are all generally good at taking care of jobs like solving interpersonal problems²⁸, setting up company teambuilding exercises, company parties, medical/dental benefits, providing information on profit sharing programs, and gossiping. They also fire people, which is why they should be feared, never mocked, and kept on your good side.

HR is a good job to be involved in if you enjoy talking to everybody in the company on a constant basis, while making sure that they know you hold their job under the knife of unemployment. Trust us, the more power you lord over people, the better the Christmas presents.