Ignore The Rotten Tomatoes

This article originally saw the light of day via Ben Eubanks' How To Be An HR Ninja course, but has never been published here.  Due to circumstances completely within my control, I decided to pull this out of the archives and share with you all.  This one's for all the brave folks starting their HR careers.
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According to the cartoons, when theater goers disapproved of an act, they threw rotten fruit and vegetables. Even though booing would have been sufficient.  Or even just walking out.  It seemed necessary to resort to battery with food.

I have experienced general acts of rudeness and hostility in my life; people have cut in line in front of me at the store, I had a bottle thrown at me from a passing car, and I have been called every name in the book. But never once rotten food.

Still the imagery is embedded in our culture.  We picture ourselves as vaudevillian actors portraying the melodrama, singing the song or trying to make them laugh only for it to fall flat, and consequently suffer for it.
All the world is a stage, and we are merely players.  And there are no better players than HR pros.
More than any other profession, HR are on stage everyday all day.

We work through the melodrama, sing the praises and try to keep the audience in their seats. This can be a glamorous feeling when it all goes right.  But when it doesn't, prepare your self for tabloid covers, paparazzi photos and the inevitable rotten tomato.

Surely I exaggerate.  But it can feel that way at times.  Imagine saving your organization hundreds of thousands of dollars in health care cost.  Great, right?  Feel like a million bucks? Sure.  But what happens next week when a new hire has "an accident" and sets the building on fire? You did the background check. So how were you supposed to know you just hired an arsonist. Too bad. It's your fault. Even though you didn't forget your lines to the script, your performance is still falling flat.

As one starts a career in HR, my advice is to look at the great performing artists.  No matter who you study, they have all made bad movies or plays, forgot their lines, and taken their lumps for it.  But what makes them great is their ability to bounce back, get back on track and blow your socks off with the performance of a lifetime.  Remember if they had let every rotten tomato hurled at them keep them getting back on that stage, they would have never proved how great they were.

Same goes for the rest of us.