Pennsylvania Employment Lawyer & Attorney : Russell Krafft & Gruber Law Firm : Lancaster, York, Harrisburg

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We are honored to post an interview with the author of the widely popular blog the Evil HR Lady. She chooses to be anonymous but we know, according to her blog profile, that she is an HR professional in a Fortune 500 Company. She has hired, fired, managed pay and analyzed the numbers. She has even tried to cooperate with Finance, but, well you can guess how that turned out.

Her blog is one of the best in the HR area. Since its inception on August 23, 2006, it has had over 70,000 page views by more than 47,000 unique visitors (that’s a lot). The blog is a combination of responses to reader questions and HR commentary. She was recently recognized in Bootstrapper’s “Top 100 HR Bloggers.”  Anyone considering entering the blogosphere would benefit from following her blog.

What motivated you to begin your on-line commentary from the perspective of a HR professional in a fortune 500 company?

I love to write and (contrary to what my readers might think) I love HR.  It's a misunderstood side of business.  In fact, I think a great Human Resources department can make a world of difference in a business, while a really lousy HR department can slowly eat away and destroy a business.  Most companies, in my humble opinion, have mediocre HR.  Not to be cliché, but really, at the end of the day, your people are what matters the most in modern businesses.  Without good people management, you don't have much of a business. 

I hope to be able to give an outsider a brief glimpse into the mind of HR--and try to make people laugh along the way.  I'd also like to bring to managers' attention the incredible problems they create when they choose to ignore bad workers.

How has blogging enhanced your career as an HR professional?

It has definitely made me more aware of the HR world around me.  By starting the Carnival of HR, I've "met" numerous brilliant bloggers from all over the "people" side of the planet.  It has also made me keenly aware of how limited my knowledge is--how limited any one person's knowledge is.  The nice thing about blogging is that I can feel confident that if I write anything ridiculous I'll get called on it rather quickly by my brilliant readers.  You don't get rapid feedback like that in the real world--everyone is too worried about politics and what your title is.  In the blogosphere we're all pretty equal.  I think it's great.

How does your employer feel about your blogging activities?

My employer has no idea about my blogging. My direct manager would probably think it's pretty funny.  Others in the company would get their knickers in a such a twist that I'm not sure they would ever recover.

Why keep it anonymous?

Well, to be honest, when I started the thought of blogging under my real name never even crossed my mind.  Since then, I've noticed that I'm one of the few HR bloggers that doesn't blog under my real name.  Of course, I'm not trying to sell any services (like many out there are).  I also like the freedom that anonymity gives me. 

Do you ever worry that you may be Dooced*?

No.  Not that I never think I may get exposed--several of my co-workers know that I blog.  My friends and family all know it's me, and I even sent Deb at 8 hours & a lunch an e-mail from my work e-mail address, so she knows my first name, last name and company.  I've been extremely careful not to mention my company by name or industry.  I rarely mention experiences that can be tied directly to work--and when I do I make sure they are positive towards my colleagues.  (Well, mostly positive...)

If I got "exposed" I have nothing to hide.  I'm not making fun of my company or pointing out its faults.  I haven't expressed opinions that I would be ashamed to admit in public.  I just work for a very conservative company with no blogging policy, other than you need authorization to speak for the company. Some day, I'll probably come out of the blogging closet, but right now it's so much more fun being the Evil HR Lady than it is being [real name].

*Heather Armstrong, who writes under the nickname “Dooce” at http://www.dooce.com/favicon.ico, is famous for being fired from her job for things she wrote about her job and coworkers on her blog. The incident fired up the blogging community and earned her a celebrity blogger status … and creating a coinage that is all her own (to be “dooced” is to be fired for something you write online).