It Happened One Night
I was at a retreat on Saturday and received a copy of this poem from my poet-friend, Nancy Thomas. She doesn’t like the phrase "human resources"…wonder how she’d feel about "human capital"? Anyway, here’s the poem:
IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT
I was asleep in my room
the night the Department of Human Resources
Management lost control.
I woke to a riot of sounds.
Out in the street hundreds
of human resources ran amok,
tripping over unleashed
goal statements and reassessment plans.
Outcomes clashed with means,
and although no blood was shed
–human resources not having any–
the stench of unrealized potential
filled the land.
By morning, the beeping
of a single cell phone
was all that broke the silence.
The human resources, I suppose,
were back under control,
leaving only us people
to find our way home
through the maze
as best we can.©Nancy Thomas
July 1999
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2 opinions for It Happened One Night
Ian McKenzie
Jan 23, 2005 at 5:55 pm
I’m with Nancy, I don’t like Human Resources (Human Capital even less). We go with Employee Relations.
Of course, if you treat your employees like crap, it doesn’t matter what you call it, the employees aren’t going to like it.
Bren
Jan 23, 2005 at 9:15 pm
I’m a recovering HR person and I don’t like the ‘human capital’ phrase either, Ian. Employee Relations is good and I kinda like the organizations that reference their employees as “people” too.
The referencing of people as “resources” or “capital” just bugs me, even though I fully understand the convenience of the words. Not really sure how to resolve that in my own mind, though, so I just quietly live with it.