Thoreau offered the advice to “beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.” That is wise counsel, particularly when one takes “enterprises” to mean organizations for which one might work. Using that definition I offer this additional advice:
Beware of all enterprises that
- You have to ride an elevator to reach
- You cannot open the windows of
- Require a resume to get hired at
- Have a personnel manual
- Have a human resources manager
These recommendations might sound impractical and idealistic, but on reflection they make sense. Organizations reachable only by elevator and having unopenable windows are hermetic, bureaucratic formicaria filled with interchangeable workers.
Resumes are ritualistic devices that impersonalize and objectify those required to use them. In fact, some large organizations employ computers to read and evaluate resumes. That is the quintessence of objectification: a damned computer screening all potential workers according to degrees, job titles, and nouns written in an MS Word file of a resume. What about personality, character, values, the traits that represent our common humanity?
Personnel manuals carry the objectification process further. They are formalized means of impersonalizing the workplace and eliminating the possibility of intimacy with one’s work. This situation is exacerbated by organizations that have a human resources manager. The term “resources” captures the idea of something valuable that is exploited for monetary gain merely. For example, mineral resources are dug up, processed, and the best part sold, with what’s left ending up in tailing piles. Similarly timber resources are clear cut, sawed up, and sold, with what’s left ending up in slash piles. Human resources are treated the same way.
I want to work and associate with human beings, with people, not with faceless personnel.