Meet Jenn, VP of HR at GridLoad

You were the first to say we were not okay.

— Life Starts Now by Three Days Grace

Tuesdays suck.

The relative merits of Tuesday domineered the mind of Jennifer Gottlieb as she looked through the back window of the Mercedes GLS in front of her in standstill traffic. Interstate 75 northwest of Atlanta proper had a growing reputation as a trap for commuters, intensified by the flight of the Atlanta Braves from downtown to the junction of I–75 and I–285 — and the construction that followed.

Tuesdays, thought Jenn (no one called her Jennifer except her mom and one of her HR coordinators who was as old as her mom), were sneaky in their level of suck. Everyone knows that Mondays are generally awful; Wednesdays have the reputation as hump day; and Thursdays and Fridays are close enough to the weekend to put you at ease. Tuesdays though? Sneaky in their level of despair.

Jenn muttered "wealthy old woman car" under her breath as she watched the redhead in front of her put on makeup as they creeped along at five mph. Her younger brother, now a senior at Georgia Tech, loved to typecast people by their cars. He used the phrase to describe their aunt who also drove the GLS. Jenn felt appropriately placed as a 34year old in her BMW.

The commute wasn't always this bad. She used to live inside the perimeter of Atlanta, but her husband convinced her to make the full outside the perimeter move to the suburbs five years ago when they had both been promoted. Woodstock is where they ended up, which Jenn's friends referred to as BFE. It seemed simple enough — time to start a family, and the commute down to the Windy Hill area of 75/285 wasn't bad. Then the Braves moved from the city and all hell broke loose. The family had been put on hold when a subsequent promotion for her husband put him on the road four days a week.

"Ed was here ten minutes ago looking for you."

Damn. Of course, he was. She thanked Denise, one of her HR coordinators who had been with her for the past five years and started walking down the hall to Ed's office. Ed was the CEO at GridLoad, brought in by the private equity firm that took control of the company eight months ago.

As she walked, Jenn thought about the current leadership team (LT). In the eight months Ed had been CEO, he had replaced three of eight LT members, a group in which Jenn served as the VP of HR. The "survivors" — as the remaining five liked to call themselves — served as a support group for each other. Most of them considered Ed to be a complete prick. Jenn was careful never to be heard framing Ed in such terms as the HR leader, but she couldn't disagree.

"Where are we with the openings in software development?" Ed never wasted time on pleasantries. As soon as Jenn was physically in his office, the questions usually started before she sat down. Today's topic was a familiar one — the lag time in recruiting the software developers who were the lifeblood of product development at GridLoad.

Jenn responded to Ed, citing new postings that had been purchased, contingency recruiters who were working on the openings, and a call for referrals her department had made across the company.

Ed seemed less than impressed and asked her to update Rich, the VP of software development, on the status. Sensing the meeting was over by Ed's body language, Jenn rose to walk back to her office and said, "See you at the leadership team update at 1 p.m." Ed mumbled "Yep" as he started to scan his email.

Jenn didn't realize it as she walked down the hall, but she was already dead.

Her career was over at GridLoad. She just didn't know it yet.

Absolutely No One Grows Up Dreaming of a Career in HR

Personnel? That's for a**holes!

— Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) upon discovering he was being reassigned in Dirty Harry (1976)

Did Jenn grow up dreaming of a career in HR? Probably not. Raise your hand if you grew up dreaming of a career in HR. It's okay, I'll wait.

No one? Of course not. The dirty little secret of HR is that most of us didn't have a master plan to end up managing people's functions and maximizing human capital return on investment (ROI) inside the modern workplace. We grew up with bigger dreams, which is cool because no one grows up dreaming of being a director of account management, a financial analyst, or a marketing manager, either.

Those dreams all suck when you're sixteen.

Instead, the teenage version of ourselves dreamed of being a movie star, a recording artist, or a professional athlete. The freaks among us were entrepreneurial from the time they were five and likely knew they'd own their own business. The rest of us float, usually until we pick a major in college, at which time our career paths and ambitions solidify.

But the choice...