Hey, dudes. Happy Sunday. Today is the Super Bowl. Normally that would mean a tremendous amount of fun and food in my belly. Unfortunately I will be running instead of binge eating because I have to haul my ass up the Empire State Building on Wednesday.

Have some disgusting food for me.

This week is lame. I have a ton of meetings and I’m way behind on separate writing projects. I booked a few more corporate sessions, though, and I’m gearing up for my webinar with Jobvite.

I’m kind of busy. It’s dumb.

What’s up with you? Anything new and exciting?

This week I’ll be blogging about Syria, Cairo, Susan G. Komen, and snow and bad weather at Heathrow.

Stay tuned!

Most of you know that I’m back from Rome. Lots of people keep saying, “Wow, that’s a bucket list item for me!”

Maybe I’m an asshole but I don’t have a bucket list.

I just keep my expectations low and pretty much do what I want to do.

Rome? Sure. Get another cat? Okay. Whatever. Then I’m going to die. It’s all good. This is why I can’t stick to diets and I’m not tremendously athletic. What are you running for? Slow down, eat some chocolate and let’s have some fun before we get hit by a bus.

What about you? What’s on your bucket list?

I don’t consider myself to be an uptight American HR lady — but as I write this, I realize that there are dozens of men out there who are saying to themselves, “Oh no. She’s super-uptight and weird.”

Fine. Okay. I am uptight and weird. Possibly frigid. And I’m a thirty-seven year old woman who has never used a bidet.

Until now.

Here’s the deal — bidets are so continental and gross. I barely know anything about them but I always picture a hairy European dude standing over the white pony and washing his junk.

Sick.

I always try to ignore ‘em whenever I see one in a hotel room. The only thing grosser than bidets are Japanese toilets that wash and dry your butt. I sat on one when I spoke at Google’s headquarters and almost passed out. No thanks. That’s too much splashing and someone might get hurt.

On my recent trip to Italy, I told my husband that I had never used a bidet. He laughed at me. Then he laughed even harder when I told him about my visions of Silvio Berlusconi washing the bunga bunga off his ass.

As I write this, I want to vomit.

But when in Rome, you gotta do new things…

…so I went on Google and took a crash course in how to use a bidet. Really. The HR lady in me needed research and data. (I didn’t need the pictures but I got those, too. Ugh.)

Then I used it. OMG. Some observations.

1. I felt like a French whore.
2. Squatting isn’t an effective way to go about life.
3. I won’t do it again.

Here’s the weird part — I know all of these soccer moms in the suburbs of America who have installed bidets in their McMansions. I have no idea why. I will never buy a home with a bidet. For real. In my mind, if you have a bidet it means that you run a sex palace. Sick.

Your remodeling decision just took hundreds of thousands of dollars off the value of your home.

Christ. I am an uptight HR lady.

But I’m proud of it. No more bidets for me.

I’m a pretty judgy woman but I don’t want to be judged. Isn’t that how it always is with HR ladies? So I’ve had to learn how to offer grace and forgiveness in my life.

It’s not easy because most of the time I want to punch someone in the face and say I AM FORGIVING YOU RIGHT NOW SO PLEASE SHOW A LITTLE MORE GRATITUDE ASSHOLE.

Doesn’t work that way.

It is especially hard for me to offer grace and forgiveness to people who ought to know better. Ugh. So frustrating. But if I didn’t afford grace and forgiveness to the people I know and have worked with over the years, I would never get anything done.

Years ago, I had to help shutter a family-business-turned-behemoth that was run into the ground by poor business decisions based on a religion. It was a cult-like environment. Poor choices based on faith & family impacted hundreds of people.

I was so disgusted by the behaviors that I told my boss that I could no longer help to unwind the book business. I objected to the religion and I couldn’t stand the remaining employees who still wanted to interject faith into the discussion. I couldn’t shut my mouth. I had to say something.

He said, “You can’t blame people for their faith.”

I said, “Yes I can. I can blame adults for their poor choices. They’re not victims.”

He said, “I’m not paying you for your religious insights. Get over it.”

Hm. Right. Okay. I needed the paycheck and took a breath. Then I offered a little grace and tried to do my job with integrity and poise. What else could I do?  If these people were right about faith, their god would judge ‘em for being such awful people. And maybe they would burn in hell. I dunno. Not for me to say. I had a job to do.

Grace and forgiveness are the only way to go even if the recipients are too stupid to appreciate it. This applies to family members, friends — and the cadre of birthers, truthers, and anti-vaccine advocates in the workforce. I’ve worked with plenty of adults who should know better but still act like morons.

“There is plenty of research out there to show that vaccinating your kids is dangerous and causes Autism.”

No there’s not. And just because research may exist doesn’t mean that it is valid or equal to the amazing amount of data out there that shows vaccines don’t cause Autism.

But if I hated every person in my life who engaged in arguments rooted in the fallacy of false equivalency — or any other logical fallacy — I’d never get anything done. I would just sit around and be pissed off.

That’s no way to live.

OH MY GOD I AM SO CHARITABLE.

Well, not really. I suck. But I do try to let things go and forgive. Silently. I may shake my head at that person and wonder what stupid genes they have passed on their kids, but I still try to see the good in most people — and get work done.

Oh you think vaccines are a tool of pharma companies to keep us sick? You haven’t seen Barack Obama’s birth certificate? You think Jews were told to stay home on 9/11? You didn’t see the plane hit the Pentagon?

Instead of giving these people the middle finger, I really do try to forgive ‘em. I try not to wear it on my sleeve, either. Grace and forgiveness worn around your neck isn’t really grace or forgiveness. It is martyrdom. And nobody likes a martyr.

But listen, truthers and anti-vaccine advocates…

…don’t push it.

My personal secret is that I’m not very cynical. I am an optimist. I believe in freedom, John Cougar Mellencamp and apple pie.

I even like Human Resources professionals…

…until someone tells me, “I’m going to start a new LinkedIn group.”

Yeah, great. I barely have time to see the dentist, pay attention to my cats, and get to the gym on a regular basis. You know what I need more of in my life? LinkedIn Groups. Please. Start another one so I can get a bunch of spammy email messages from people I don’t know.

LAURIE SOME PEOPLE FIND GREAT VALUE IN LINKEDIN GROUPS AND YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR SETTINGS, YO.

Ohhhhhh… hey… wait a second. I can change my settings and opt-out of a really boring LinkedIn group? Yeah, thanks for that. You’re a social media maven. And like that’s the point.

As we’ve noted in the past, everyone needs to start somewhere. Baby steps. But please slow down and take a pill before you start a LinkedIn group and send me an invitation. There are 1,000 other HR LinkedIn groups out there that are automatically better than yours.

You suck before you get started. Doesn’t mean you can’t compete but you’re late to the game. And PS that shit is hard to maintain. My good friend, Bill Kutik, just got married. Before that, he toiled away as a miserable LinkedIn group administrator. He tries to keep his group interesting by keeping out idiots and spammers. This is no ordinary task. No matter what automatic settings you use, the jerks will find a way into the group.

I know for a fact that Bill barely has time to be married — let alone smoke a few cigarettes and take an afternoon nap. Running a LinkedIn group is Sisyphean at best. Why do you want to do that?

Listen, I’m not cynical. Here are some alternative ideas so you can be awesome.

• Be a champ and get involved in a thriving community.
• Post some comments on a blog. How about this one?
• Write an op-ed piece and post a link via your personal LinkedIn status update.
• Find another LinkedIn group and get to know those members. Hijack some discussion threads with your brilliance.

And advertise on the best LinkedIn groups out there.

That’s what I would do.

Doesn’t take a sales or marketing genius to tell you to ‘fish where the fishes are’ instead of wasting time and energy on creating a marketplace that needs energy and momentum to sustain itself.

But no, go ahead, start that HR LinkedIn group.

FYI I’m over here. Being cynical about your strategy.

I think about HR blogging quite a bit because I am lame.

I like HR blogs that allow me to hear the author’s voice even if I don’t know him/her. That’s how I feel when I read Fistful of Talent. I don’t know most of those writers IRL but I can hear them in my head. Most decent and respectable HR blogs are written by former practitioners who observe the market and are allowed to show some personality. There are some good analyst blogs out there, too. I always read the stuff written by Madeline Tarquinio, Josh Bersin, Mark Stelzner and Bill Kutik. There are more…

…sometimes I read the Knowledge Infusion blog but I run hot/cold on it. They end every post with the words, “Another infusion of knowledge…”

I hate that. A lot.

I rarely read HR vendor blogs. Some companies get it right. When they do, it is gold. I learn something about the industry and the marketplace. When they get it wrong, it’s a train wreck. I am not interested in people who are trying to sell me services/solutions while pretending to educate me as a consumer.

I know everyone is trying to sell me something, but I want it done with subtlety and respect. Don’t push a fugly infographic down my throat and pretend you’re doing me a favor.

So what makes a great HR blog? Well, if you are Human Resources vendor who wants to start a blog, I would ask yo’self a few questions before you get started.

• Do you need a blog or do you just need a good content strategy? Would a robust schedule of white papers and webinars be just fine? (Probably.)
• Can you deliver great content on a regular basis? You don’t need to write a book on a daily basis but you do need to be interesting, compelling and witty. And you need to remove that stick out of your ass. You’re not HBR.
• Can you create a marketplace? If you write a blog post and nobody reads it, is it really a blog? (Note: you must be stoned to answer that.) Most blogs can get thousands of page views/day through a solid SEO and advertising strategy. That’s not good enough. Do you have the time it takes to create a dedicated group of readers who appreciate what you’re trying to accomplish?
• Are you strong enough to let a few employees shine? There’s nothing worse than a blog post written by someone named ADMIN. (PS — that guy sucks.)

For most HR vendors, I personally recommend a multifaceted approach that does not include blogging. There are awesome and engaged communities out there. Go write a guest post, get involved in a LinkedIn community, advertise, or speak at a conference.

Don’t drop a ton of money on a blog that will never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever reach an audience of buyers.

But if you really want to create a blog, do it right. Do it big. Do it with integrity. But first — talk to some experts and get a serious strategy before you publish anything.

It’s the same thing you would recommend for your clients, right?

Mine is Abercombie the Banana-Eating Llama.

Hey dudes. I’m back from Roma and ready to blog about Human Resources and work and stuff.

Just kidding. FML. I’m still a Human Resources blogger. Sheesh.

But I had a great trip. More pictures and stories to follow but I am totes jet-lagged and way behind on my email and messages. If I owe you something, it’s on the way.

And I have to continue to train for my MMRF run. Starting tomorrow, it’s 2-a-days until race day.

Did you donate? You rock. Did you forget to donate? There is still time. Did you decline to donate? Well,  yeah, I don’t blame you. It’s girl scout cookie time. That’s a much better cause.

Okay, I’m going back to bed to dream about what I’ll blog about, next week. I will probably cover bidets, Roman ruins, gatti, pancakes, and my feelings about the first couple of episodes of 30Rock.

What’s up with you?!