I'm extremely fortunate to have an HR department in my district that genuinely cares and wants to help. It wasn't always that way, but we have the right people in charge right now, so I'll appreciate the good times while I have them. I think it helps when your HR people were promoted internally from other positions. It's a little hard to look your favorite former co-worker in the eye if you are laying a paper trail to terminate his good friend.

I was pushed out of my position at Barnes & Noble, because of tenure and salary.  I got a raise to come over and support a brand new store manager and team, because they were all brand new.  It was a higher cost of living and my DM recruited me for it, but I negotiated a cost of living raise.  Jump ahead a few years and B&N is battling Amazon over e-readers and Wall Street "journalists" are writing their obituaries, despite posting profitable quarters.  Said "journalists," when they actually do disclose their investments, are revealed to be Amazon shareholders.  Doesn't matter, though, the headlines are that they are dying.

B&N cuts costs to the bone, to placate Wall Street analysts, who only care about the next quarterly return.  They eliminate certain historic full time positions.  They eliminate community relations positions.  They put wage caps on tenured employees.  Still earning money, though.  Suddenly, rumors started spreading around the company about tenured employees getting lots of scrutiny from above.  My own performance was always praised, in my annual review.  Then I get a review that says I need improvement, yet my boss hasn't said a word to me all year; no sit down conversations, no 30-60-90 day improvement plans, nothing.  I question why I am getting this in my annual review but no performance conversations over the entirety of the year.  A review should never be a surprise, it should feature a summary of conversations and actions through the year.  If you are doing poorly, you should hear about it immediately; certainly well before the end of the year.

Cut to the next year and I get the same thing.  Suddenly, the DM is nitpicking about every little inconsequential issue, seemingly for the sake of having something to criticize.  For example, they show up in the store, on a Sunday (they live in another city, over an hour away, but have family in town) and complain that the Nook accessory fixture is sold down.  I explain we have had a very busy day and showed them our Nook sales, which were great and said I would get the fixture filled back up, but we are getting thin on product (resupply on covers and certain accessories was stop and go).  She comes in another Sunday, and I am on the internet, googling for B&N stories, to find out why 3 customers have told me they heard we were going out of business.  She comes up to the desk, where I am at the terminal and I ask if she has heard something in the media and relate the 3 odd conversations.  She ignores me and says we need more product on the fixtures in the entry.  I said I already had someone gathering product in the back.  Come review time it says I am not aware of what is going on in the store, on my shifts.  My boss has never expressed such a thing to me and I have a better idea of what is going on, in the company and the store, than the other managers (all of whom I am mentoring).  It becomes clear that my review is not being written by my boss but the district manager.

Suddenly, I come back from vacation and get pulled into the office to be handed a final notice.  I look over the thing and it is pretty clear who wrote it.  I question things and my boss can't give me straight answers.  I question what will constitute showing marked improvement, in the 30 days, to maintain my job.  He says we just need to show the DM "this...this...and this."  I respond that I don't believe it, that I will not be given a fair chance to demonstrate improvement, in her eyes and will resign.  he asks me to hold off on doing that and he will talk with her about what we discussed.  I say fine, then, on my break, type up my letter of resignation, with a 30 day notice.  I deliver it the next day and he asks me if I am going through with it and I said that it is clear to me that this has nothing to do with my performance and everything to do with my salary and benefits, due to tenure and the raise I got, to come over.  I am paid too much money for my position, because I stuck around, out of loyalty, as upward movement was limited.  I demanded the same 30 days that the warning gave to locate a new position, turn over to a replacement, then I was done.  he then admitted that he thought I was correct, that I was not going to be treated fairly, as his conversation with the DM made it clear that what we discussed was only the tip of a very vague iceberg.  I told him I could walk in the door with $5 million in sales, an exclusive sales contract for the next Stephen King novel, and the key to Amazon's doom and it would not be enough.  I knew a kangaroo court when I saw one, especially after some of the things I saw in the Navy (Iowa Incident, Tailhook Incident, USS Nicholas in the Gulf War).

I could have gone the 30 days and make them fire me, then try to sue; but, they could drag it out in court and any settlement would be eaten up by lawyers; plus, they concocted the documentation they needed.  It was happening all over the company.  Anyone with more than 10 years at the company, who wasn't at the store manager level was targeted with poor performance reviews and similar nitpicking, when previously they had exemplary records.  A year or two later and they had let go everyone in a full time position who was not a manager and made them reapply for part time positions.  Then, they sold out to a British company.  I smelled a rat, just as I got the final warning, when I saw that the chief shareholder and CEO had sold a third of his shares, for "estate planning purposes."  In other words, he was eyeballing retirement and looking to sell and they were trimming everything off the books to attract a buyer and pocket the money.  F everybody who got them there.

I bounced around a bit before landing at my current job and things are stable and my reviews quite good and I don't give anyone anything they can use against me.  It helps that I am a veteran, in a company that prides itself on being favorable to veterans and, now, I am in my 50s and can sue for age discrimination  (I was shy of 50, when I left B&N).

You didn't have "human resources" departments, in those days.  That is 1980s business-speak.  You had Personnel Departments, who hired people and did their admin paperwork and kept their files.  Managers/execs did everything else (firing, promoting. discipline, rewarding, etc...)  Then, the rise of conglomerates, in the 80s, with all of the MBA management and consultancies led to Personnel becoming "Human Resources," because when you destroy something, you name the mechanism after what you are destroying.  if you want to crush the souls of human workers, you get Human Resources to do it, to keep you from getting sued or getting the Department of Labor or OSHA on your backs (like they had any funding to actually investigate claims).  HR is like the kapo at a concentration camp; supposedly one of the prisoners, but working for the guards.

Orwell had nothing on modern conglomerates.  Communist dictatorships are pikers compared to Capitalist CEOs.  Dictators don't make their people write self-evaluations.

It's not like that in every organization; but, it is far too often, in the corporate world.

I think the writers were the ones who tried to have things like equality or nuanced descriptions. Carlin may have actually shot down more attempts, and Didio definitely did his share.

Ubisoft and even the Marvel Netflix writers had a problem where they wanted to do diversity but the bigwig upstairs blocked them (Nobu was supposed to be more fleshed out in the Daredevil show but Jeph Loeb didn’t let them because “no one cares about Asians.”)

Activision Blizzard had the problem, Pixar had it and so on. I still like superheroes but it is depressing

Superman #68 (June 1992)



"Sins of the Father"

Script: Dan Jurgens
Pencils: Dan Jurgens (layouts); Brett Breeding (finishes)
Inks: Brett Breeding
Colors: Glenn Whitmore
Letters: John Costanza

Grade: D+

I'm confused.

An entire issue of Superman wasted on promoting an upcoming issue of Deathstroke, The Terminator is obnoxious, but it would at least make sense if Jurgens were writing or penciling it. He's certainly given his creation, Agent Liberty, far too much free promotion in this book, after-all. But Jurgens isn't associated with the Deathstroke title at all, and (weirder still), the issue being set up (Deathstroke, The Terminator #12) is written by a fill-in team, with regular creators Marv Wolfman and Art Nichols returning a month later. So why in the world is the entire purpose of this story to get Slade Wilson here:




While Jurgens showed so much promise at first, I've been arguing since at least "Time and Time Again" that his work has felt more rushed and less carefully considered than it used to be. Fourteen months later, one would expect to see him back at his A game, but this issue felt especially sloppy. Even putting aside the inexplicable Deathstroke promotion, his art alternates between looking gorgeous



and absurd:



and his characterizations feel even less consistent than that. Superman is extremely quick to judge Slade before even talking with him after this extremely rushed moment at the hospital in which even Lois doesn't seem exactly right:



Granted, they've just experienced a tragedy, but they literally just arrived at the hospital and had just been told that Deathstroke was responsible.

Superman then goes on to insult Maggie Sawyer, somehow implying that good cops never ever let innocent people get hurt:



and did I mention that Clark and Lois somehow know almost nothing about each other all of a sudden?



They spend the night with each other constantly and wake up the next mornings together. We've seen them go to Dooley's for breakfast together. Lois has repeatedly commented on how she cannot/does not cook, so how is this news to Clark here?

And the most upsetting part of all was Jurgens' need to make Superman look helpless so that Deathstroke could look cool. This naturally means that Superman conveniently forgets to use his X-ray vision and super hearing:



and forgets he has super speed a moment after that:



It's...stupid.

As is Deathstroke's final confrontation with Sam Lane, which feels so thoroughly forced and inauthentic:



I suppose we're just going to forget the fact that Deathstroke was not responsible for Lucy Lane getting shot at the start of the story:



because DC wants this hot selling character to be a misunderstood and noble good guy now.

Gag me.


Important Details:

1. Lucy Lane is in serious condition after having been shot in the waist/abdomen area by an advanced energy weapon. Apparently, having been blind for much of her life wasn't enough. Give the poor girl a break!

2. Deathstroke/Slade Wilson and Sam Lane were lost in Vietnam together and have a close bond as a result. Sam does not know that Slade is Deathstroke.


Minor Details:

1. One thing Jurgens does immensely well here is continue to make me care about poor Sam Foswerth.



I really respect this office forcing us to feel compassion for someone we once perceived as a sort of villain.


2. And yet, even Jurgens can't make me care about this C plot:



Look, I'm a huge fan of classic Superboy, so Pete Ross is a character I'm used to actually caring about, but the writers have done nothing to make us care about Pete Ross in this continuity, and everything they and John Byrne did to make us care about Lana Lang absolutely did not work on me. Additionally, these two are totally disconnected from Metropolis and all that is happening there, so I have absolutely zero investment in this subplot.


3. Can we talk about Metropolis PD's Special Crimes Unit? It's a great idea, but I truly don't understand the point of having them around when someone could just signal Superman instead. Have we ever seen this team successfully do something without Superman's intervention?



I know the SCU will be getting its own title eventually, so hopefully the concept will make more sense there.


4. Speaking of the SCU, where was Dan Turpin?


I truly love every Superman story from this era that gives attention to its thoroughly rich supporting cast and the world of Metropolis as a whole, but making Superman impuslive and foolish, like it's John Byrne's Action comics teamups all over again, is truly disappointing, as is the weak depiction of Clark and Lois' relationship. Jurgens is better than this, and I hope to see him back to his old standard of excellence soon.

By the way, this is for me the best interaction between Superman and Deathstroke ever.

(Context: this is set before Clark donned the cape. He was mistaken for Bruce Wayne who Deathstroke had to assassinate. He's intoxicated because D. gave to him a incredible powerful neurotoxin to kill him)