HR Chicks and Competition

I wrote a blog post on HR women and competition and pulled it because it was (sorta) mean spirited.

My simple thesis? HR chicks are awful to one another and the future doesn’t look bright. They don’t know how to compete. They cut one another down because they don’t know how to make a dent in the organization and ‘cut’ the people who matter.  And I took the time to describe the level of crazy that HR women exact upon one another. In summary, it goes something like this.

1. You have the mentally ill,

2. that chick from Real Housewives,

3. and HR women.

Even your CEO knows this — and he is a nice guy and really wants to work with HR but can’t find talented HR professionals who aren’t focused on personnel administration and consumed with denigrating other HR chicks to make themselves look more important and strategic.

Sigh. Which is why I pulled the post. I don’t want to continue the cycle of piling up on HR women. Except that I’ve been on both sides of the HR/bitch equation. I know what it feels like to be ostracized and reminded of the HR pecking order. And I know what it’s like to get some power and exact (a mediocre amount of) revenge on a woman who humiliated me in front of the CFO.

I don’t have many solutions to offer, either. We can mentor one another. We can model good behaviors. We can try to hire based on different competencies. But until we have enough business-savvy and thoughtful women in the HR talent pipeline, my profession will continued to be ruled by women who feel that the biggest threat to HR is another HR chick and not institutional & professional mediocrity.

What a career. What a joy to work in HR, these days. This is why I blog.