Bristol Round-Trip (Human Capital)

Drivingto Bristol, PA this morning, hopefully for a meeting, I heard a “guest host” on CNBC  adding His two cents to the Falling (then Crashed) souffléof opinions regarding the US and world economies’ future direction.

As youmight expect, the conversation/gaggle was basically Worthless.  


It was  like watching a Chorusof compasses loosed and swinging crazily in a magnetic storm.

However,this fellow did say One interesting thing.

When Igraduated college and initially visited corporations’ hiring halls in New YorkCity looking for work, the sign on the door always Read: “Personnel.”

Ithought that was a Perfectly good description of the job the people behind thedesks there performed.  I was anunaffiliated “person” who wanted to become one of their affiliated “personnel.” 

Quasi-Match.   I wasin the Right place.

Then,some years later, “Personnel” was supplanted and replaced by “HumanResources.” 

Horrible, despicableswitch That, conveying the Unmistakeable view thatthose beings formerly considered "persons" had been transformed into Food for Night OfThe Living Dead corporate feeders.

Worse followed, i.e., the recent shift to “Human Capital” – people now described as simple Corporate Currency.

 

Thenfinally this morning, the aforesaid guest host made a clear, articulated distinction between a company's “Intellectual Capital” staff vs. the other Human Detritus wandering the premises. 

 

Whathath God wrought?

On thedrive home, I listened for a while to the moronic Alex Wagner on her NOW showon MSNBC.

Ms.Wagner was discussing the crazy, excessive remarks of Rep. Maxine 

Waters yesterday, who said about her congressional colleagues, Rep. JohnBoehner and Rep. Eric Cantor:

“I sawpictures of Boehner and Cantor on our screens. Don't ever let me see again, inlife, those Republicans in our hall, on our screens, talking about anything.These are demons.”

Dumbawful Alex remarked that while she “disagreed” with the “semiotics” of Rep. Waters’statement and could not endorse the “descriptors” used, she was basically okwith the conclusion.

Dopey isas dopey speaks.  I extend my heartfeltapology as an American to Roland Barthes, who really does deserve better.   

It hadalready gotten bad enough.  Now This.

NOTE:   I had never been to Bristol, Pennsylvania before this morning.  I didn’t see much of it, except for theimpressive Canal Works building, a repurposed 19^th century former mill wheremy client’s production studio and offices were located.  The building pictured on the postcard showingthe Lehigh Canal is located at the other end of town.  The postcard paints a muchmore bucolic picture than the one currently on view in Bristol.  I love the way the boat on the river seems tofloat in mid-air, far above the pedestrian-strollers on the right-hand bank.  Naturalism dictatesthat it shouldn’t, obviously, but I guess the artist had other things in mind.  If you'd ever like to visit, take the eastermost offramp on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, a road that it's always a distinct pleasure to EXIT.