Minds Made Up.

I once worked for a company that laid off a third of its staff in a morning. HR told some staff to go into Room 1, and the others to go into Room 2. Room 2 staff were given letters summarily dismissing them.

One woman from Room 2 chased the retreating HR person and pointed out the envelope with her termination letter wrongly described her position. The decision stood - and she still lost her job.

HR routinely operates by stealth. Secretly searching and gathering and reporting.

Summarily executing. While the bosses look away.

‘We can’t risk the punter finding out and getting upset/taking stress leave/upsetting other staff/sabotaging the business,’ they say to justify this behaviour to their bosses. The bosses readily - too much so - agree.

Nonsense. The truth is almost always the twin sins of incompetence and laziness. Best not alert the punter (who was ‘our most important asset’ at our last offsite team building day, remember?) lest they complicate things by giving us a better argument. Or worse - embarrassing us (and our cowardly bosses) by proving we (and our bosses) are wrong.

Minds that are made up don’t care to be confused by facts.