personnel dept.

I know what bothered me about the end of class meeting we had yesterday. At the end of Thursday's class, we worked as groups to prepare a presentation on a real personnel problem from work. We presented them yesterday with what happened and what we might have done differently, trying to use what we've learned from the past week. There were a couple personnel people there to ask questions and then we got to have a little Q&A session with them to wrap up the class.

What bothered me was that I've been to that meeting before. I've been to it in a formal setting once before and countless informal ones at work nearly every day. The principal issue was once again staffing. We are busy. We are short-handed. Blah blah blah. It was the exact same thing. But the really galling part was to hear them talk about training people and how managers need to cultivate their own people and learn to improve communication and listening retention and so forth. And then to see one of their cell phones ring and have him step outside to answer it. We had five minutes left! Was there anything so important that it couldn't wait five minutes? Especially for a personnel manager. We were right in front of you and you walked out on us. You want to hear what employees have to say? Apparently not.

I ached to call him out right there, but I knew that anything I said would sound more than overtly hostile. I took a moment to cool off inside and realized that I would be best off saying nothing. Oh well, there will be other times for a blaze of glory.