4 ms·

Yep. And Engineers often have pet projects. Marketing often has a slightly odd artistic vision for something. People are gonna be people.

epicureanideal 4y ago
Pet projects by any department that aren't in the interests of the company should be discouraged. Especially by HR, because unlike an engineering pet project that may waste some time, pet projects by HR can significantly impact the quality of life of every employee at the company, cause people not to join the company or quit the company, and so on. Dysfunctional HR (which is almost all HR) is just about as bad as having a thieving dishonest CFO or a clueless visionless CEO, in terms of its impact on company prospects. In comparison, a designer who does their work ever so slightly better than is actually going to have business value, or an engineer who puts 10% of their time into some project that they incorrectly think will help the company, or who chooses the 2nd best tool instead of the 1st best tool because the 2nd best one will look better on their resume, these are all much less significant to the company or to their coworkers.
- Macha 4y ago
  Developer pet projects in the wrong places at tech companies can often negatively impact a very wide portion of the company too. See e.g. companies with internal tooling or security teams can very often force their projects onto others in the company. Needing executive support of course, but so too your your HR newspeak manual if it's actually going to have that kind of impact.
- nullsense 4y ago
  >pet projects by HR can significantly impact the quality of life of every employee at the company, cause people not to join the company or quit the company, and so on Reminds me of the time I almost rage quit when HR's pet project was to implement a "baking roster" for the purposes of "team building". Like... No effing way am I spending time baking shit just because you want a supply of freshly baked goods to eat? I'm a software engineer damnit. Made my blood boil for sure.
  - pooper 4y ago
    At one place, we had a potluck where clearly some people went way above and beyond so we decided that if you don't want to cook, you can just pay USD 20 instead. Those who cooked and baked were clearly spending way over twenty dollars each anyway. That's not a potluck! Anyway, nobody complained anymore after this one change.
incongruity 4y ago
A very astute and true point -- however, their unique position and role make HR employees fall into a category I'd argue should be held to a higher standard, precisely because of their outsized potential for impact on the organization.
poszlem 4y ago
Pretty true. But that kind of like saying "politicians are going to take bribes, they are just people". There is the reason why some jobs are treated uniquely, and HR should be one of those jobs, as they have a disproportional amount of power and influence over other people's ability to find employment. In some countries those special professions are even marked as such in law, for example in Poland there exist a notion of a "public trust profession": "a profession that is a profession of high social importance, requiring appropriate qualifications not only professional and health, but also characterological, i.e. moral and ethical" I am not particularly keen to enshrine that notion in law, but we should not treat HR so flippantly.

epicureanideal 4y ago

Pet projects by any department that aren't in the interests of the company should be discouraged. Especially by HR, because unlike an engineering pet project that may waste some time, pet projects by HR can significantly impact the quality of life of every employee at the company, cause people not to join the company or quit the company, and so on. Dysfunctional HR (which is almost all HR) is just about as bad as having a thieving dishonest CFO or a clueless visionless CEO, in terms of its impact on company prospects. In comparison, a designer who does their work ever so slightly better than is actually going to have business value, or an engineer who puts 10% of their time into some project that they incorrectly think will help the company, or who chooses the 2nd best tool instead of the 1st best tool because the 2nd best one will look better on their resume, these are all much less significant to the company or to their coworkers.

Macha 4y ago
Developer pet projects in the wrong places at tech companies can often negatively impact a very wide portion of the company too. See e.g. companies with internal tooling or security teams can very often force their projects onto others in the company. Needing executive support of course, but so too your your HR newspeak manual if it's actually going to have that kind of impact.
nullsense 4y ago
>pet projects by HR can significantly impact the quality of life of every employee at the company, cause people not to join the company or quit the company, and so on Reminds me of the time I almost rage quit when HR's pet project was to implement a "baking roster" for the purposes of "team building". Like... No effing way am I spending time baking shit just because you want a supply of freshly baked goods to eat? I'm a software engineer damnit. Made my blood boil for sure.
- pooper 4y ago
  At one place, we had a potluck where clearly some people went way above and beyond so we decided that if you don't want to cook, you can just pay USD 20 instead. Those who cooked and baked were clearly spending way over twenty dollars each anyway. That's not a potluck! Anyway, nobody complained anymore after this one change.

incongruity 4y ago

A very astute and true point -- however, their unique position and role make HR employees fall into a category I'd argue should be held to a higher standard, precisely because of their outsized potential for impact on the organization.

poszlem 4y ago

Pretty true. But that kind of like saying "politicians are going to take bribes, they are just people". There is the reason why some jobs are treated uniquely, and HR should be one of those jobs, as they have a disproportional amount of power and influence over other people's ability to find employment. In some countries those special professions are even marked as such in law, for example in Poland there exist a notion of a "public trust profession": "a profession that is a profession of high social importance, requiring appropriate qualifications not only professional and health, but also characterological, i.e. moral and ethical" I am not particularly keen to enshrine that notion in law, but we should not treat HR so flippantly.