5 Things I Learned From the Golden Globes

Sunday was the Golden Globes – one of the few chances for Hollywood's golden stars of film to rub elbows with the unwashed masses from television. But seriously, how great was it to see Amy Poehler hobnobbing – even canoodling – with George Clooney???

This year was one of the best yet. Tina Fey and Poehler were way more beautiful and witty than the host from the past few years, Ricky Gervais! On top of being entertained, I learned a lot! Here's the scoop:

1. I need to see Silver Linings Playbook. Like, NEED to.

I love Bradley Cooper. I love Jennifer Lawrence. Put them together and that's reason enough to go, in my book. But the Hollywood Foreign Press Association gave J.Law the award for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical over Meryl Streep, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench and Emily Blunt. Those are some serious names, y'all. And it's got me thinking she probably did a pretty good job. I gotta check it out!

2. Jodi Foster is cuckoo catchoo. Like, seriously. Not because she's a lesbian. Not because she thought it was witty to come out without really coming out. But because seems to be under the impression she can be an actress of her stature and still expect an amount of privacy. Jodi. you already have as much privacy as you're going to get. You want more? You may want to look into a new career.

3. The world needs to have more awards for Anne Hathaway. I love this woman. She is talented, she is beautiful and she can SING! I thought her speech was adorable and touching and I could watch her win shit all day long.

4. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner are adorable. I have loved Ben Affleck for years. I love that he's not afraid to make fun of himself. And he's a damn good director! I hate that he was not nominated for Best Director for the Oscars! If you ask me, both of them need to look good ol' Academy straight in the eyes and say, "Argo fuck yourselves!" 

See the movie. You'll get that one.

Seriously. See the movie. It's great!

5. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are the bomb.com! 

There were many highlights from the evening courtesy of these two, including Tina Fey asking Taylor Swift to stay away from Michael J. Fox's son because she needed some alone time to heal. As I saw on the Internet the other day, when is someone going to write a song about Taylor Swift titled, "Maybe it's Me"?

Here's some other winner from the duo:

"When it comes to torture, I trust the lady who spent three years married to James Cameron" -- Poehler referring to Kathryn Bigelow, the director of the movie "Zero Dark Thirty," a movie featuring the torture of terror detainees.

"I have not seen someone so totally alone and abandoned like that since you were on stage with James Franco at the Oscars," Fey to Anne Hathaway about the latter's performance in "Les Miserables."

The way they introduced George Clooney: "This next presenter is so handsome he makes young George Clooney look like garbage. Please welcome middle-aged George Clooney."

Great show ladies; hope to see you next year!

This year I resolve... to make more resolutions!

It's that time of year, kids. Time for all the boys and girls to share their plans for the upcoming year! It's trite I know. But I'm hoping by making my resolutions known, you all will keep me accountable. Maybe this will be the first year I keep all of my resolutions!

1. Hit the gym!

Everyone says this one, I know! So why should I be any different? Seriously though, I was member to our town's nicest gym, owned by the local hospital and I loved it. But I let laziness and illness get me kicked out of a great program where I got to go for free. This year I'm back in and I plan on staying in!

2. Be more organized!

I've never been a neat freak, though I'm not a slob either. But in 2012, I went back to grad school, joined the Junior League and decided to find a social life. This left me little time for the unimportant things like housework. So, what does any smart girl do in 2013 when she's looking for solutions to life's problems? I hit up Pinterest! There I found all kinds of great suggested schedules for dividing housework up throughout the week! Another quick visit to shabbyprincess.com for some cute scrapbooking downloads and now the following hangs on my refrigerator!

Somehow, having things broken up like this, makes housework seem like a less daunting task. I don't have to mop all my floors – I only have to do the bathroom today! It makes the whole thing seem much more approachable and doable. Three days in and my kitchen, bathroom and living room all look gorgeous! And I am much less stressed about the rest of it! Whew!

3. Stop taking everything so personally.

This one is a hard one for me. I have a habit of thinking everything someone says is a dig at me in some way. Call it insecurity, call it being oversensitive, whatever. It's a problem I've had since I was a child and I need to get over it. So, in 2013, if you have a problem with me, you're going to have to tell me about it, because I am going to be over in my own space trying to assume that you don't! Did that make sense to anyone but me?

4. Get back on the horse, romantically speaking.

I've been knocked around a little emotionally the past few years. Because of that, I've been a little hesitant to put myself back out there. But this year, I'm going to do it! So friends, this is your invitation for setups. If you know someone, help a girl out. This is the year when Ginny starts to date again.

5. Take time for myself.

School, pets, Junior League and other community commitments has sometimes had me feeling a little spread thin. So this year, I'm taking time for myself. I vow to take time to stop and smell the wine, when needed. So friends, if I tell you I need to be alone one night, it's not because I don't love you and don't want to spend time with you. It's just because I need some quiet time for myself to rest and replenish. I hope you understand. In the end it will make me a much happier, relaxed person.

That's all, folks! My resolutions for 2013! I'll try and keep you updated on how well I'm doing at keeping them. Wish me luck and happy new year!

A Journey... Quest... Thing... to see The Hobbit!

It almost didn't happen. The one thing I'd been looking forward to for at least two years – going to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey with my brother, John, over Christmas weekend – almost didn't happen. Because of the flu! :-(

My brother is nine years older than me. And some of my precious memories as a girl are of him reading to me - especially Tolkien's The Hobbit. Teenage boys shouldn't be interested in spending time with their younger sisters! But my brother has always marched to his own beat and he wasn't afraid that spending time with his kid sister would make him uncool. Winning!

So of course when I heard Peter Jackson was making a prequel to his masterpiece Lord of the Rings trilogy, I wanted to see the movie with him more than anyone else! He lives three hours away from me, so the trip would have to wait until Christmas weekend when we would be together. But three days before I'm to leave for home, tragedy strikes. My brother has the flu. Of course I was worried about his health first! But I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed at the thought of having to skip out on our showing because he felt bad. But amidst the celebration of the miracle of Christ, our family got out own Christmas miracle. John was feeling a little better. Well enough to go to the movies! Whew! That was a close one! So we went and we even got to take my two oldest nephews.

What a beautiful film. Peter Jackson should just make all of the movies! Well, he could share with a handful of others (I'm looking at you Spielberg, Howard and Nolan!)... I mean, this movie was gorgeous and had my nephews and I ready to pack and head off to New Zealand!

What a treat to head back to the Shire! And I hadn't been reading too much about the film, so I was happily surprised to see Elijah Wood reprise his role as Frodo! But I was concerned... This movie is all about ugly old trolls! What am I going to do without visual treats like Orlando Bloom, Sean Bean and even (a little) Viggo Mortenson? But then came a little dwarf named Kili. Hello Aidan Turner!

Aidan Turner as Kili

Now we've got some eye candy! And the Dwarf King, Thorin Oakenshield was pretty worthy of all of his screen time too!

Richard Armitage plays Thorin Oakenshield

Both of these men have had success on the BBC. Turner plays a vampire in the British show, Being Human. And Armitage was Guy of Gisborne on the BBC's Robin Hood. But once again, Jackson has opted to go for actors that fit the roles well, instead of casting big name stars to bring in the crowds. I admire him for this. 

The movie was two and half hours long, but I didn't feel the time drag. I was caught up in the beauty! Trolls! Goblins! Stone Giants! This movie is just gorgeous!

Stone giants wage war in The Hobbit.

Rivendell is beautiful as always.

Some critics have argued that the movie is trying to hard to be Lord of the Rings and it fails. I disagree. I think Jackson created a living breathing Middle Earth in his first three films and The Hobbit feels true to that style. I thought that Ian McKellan as Gandalf brought just the right amount of authority and, when required, humor. Andy Serkis entertains as Gollum and each dwarf embodies their character to perfection. And Martin Freeman as Bilbo...

I say "good job" to you sir! He is timid when he needs to be scared, he is brave when bravery is called for, and you believe every minute of it.

As for Peter Jackson, I think he's hit it out of the park again. I can't wait until next Christmas when, barring any illnesses or other calamities, my brother and I head off once again to see The Hobbit. This time, The Desolation of Smaug! Can we say dragons, people? I can't wait!

MHRM 6120 • Blog Data Management and Ethics

Ethics and data management are the topics of conversation this week in grad school. We’re asked to think about what we would do if someone with whom we worked asked us to manipulate data for the “benefit of the organization” and whether our response would differ if a superior asked us to do it.

Working in Marketing, the opportunity to present manipulated data is always available. We print annual reports for our health system as well as our cancer treatment center. It’s tempting to tweak the data to paint the organization in a better light, isn’t it? Fortunately, my manager doesn’t believe in doing anything unethical like this. We present the data – both good and bad – as it is.

Sure, we might try and powder the pig, Accentuate the positive and not draw attention to the negative. But at the end of the day, the information, she’s still a pig, and it’s a pig the public will see.

It’s so hard to say no when it’s a manager asking you, though. I had a co-worker call me a few years ago. She was upset because it was time to do the employee survey and her manager had taken her survey forms from her so that the staff could not write anything bad about the department. Talk about skewing the data! This manager would rather have no data for their department than have something bad out there.

The employee was too intimidated to do anything about it and I wanted to help her, so I called human resources and explained the problem. The next day the department had a visit from the Human Resources Director. She came over for a “friendly visit” to remind everyone that the employee survey had begun and she expected 100% participation! Now the manager had no choice but to pass the forms out.

But how dare she put my friend in such an awkward position? I wondered how I would’ve reacted in the same situation. I like to think I would’ve stood up to my manager and passed out the forms, but I can’t really say. I do know I believe that misrepresenting data doesn’t really help the organization, or anyone for that matter, at all. 

Lies, they always catch up with you and dealing with an ethics scandal is a lot harder than any other controversy. It’s like I said last week, trust is one of the hardest things to win back once you’ve lost it. That’s why it’s always better to be honest in the first place.

MHRM 6120

Building Trust

 …if developed and leveraged, the one thing has potential to create unparalleled success and prosperity in every dimension of life. 

Yet, it is the least understood, most neglected, and most underestimated possibility of our time. That one thing is trust. —Stephen Covey

In class this week, we're talking about trust. How HR can create trust, challenges to building trust and how to maintain stakeholder trust. 

Trust is a tricky thing... It can be so difficult to build, so easy to destroy and next to impossible to regain once lost. 

I think it is very important for staff members to trust their HR department. And equally important that HR earn that trust by always being honest with staff.

I feel that developing a relationship with staff is important. At the hospital where I work, nurse recruiters almost act as docents to new nurses. They tour them around the medical center, make introductions, I've even see them counsel new nurses months after they are hired. I think this kind of relationship is important in building trust among employees. 

Listening is another skill HR can use to build and maintain trust. Conduct employee surveys, not just to measure, but improve. After one of our employee surveys, departments met with management to discuss results and improvements that could be made to improve morale. Our representative looked us in the eye, told us all of our ideas were good and good be accomplished and then followed through with none of them. This is not a successful means to maintain trust with your employees. Do you think the next year we offered any ideas to improve things in our office? Why would we bother when we didn't believe anything would change?

Proper communication, I believe, is the key to both earning and maintaining stakeholder trust. People by nature resist change, but if HR properly communicate the reason behind the change, staff may be more likely to accept the change. As the relationship between staff members and HR continues, staff will learn to trust HR. But HR must also continue to earn it by communicating effectively and honestly at all times.



References:
Covey, S. R. (2006). The SPEED of trust: The one thing that changes everything (p. 1). New York, NY: Free Press.

Joy to the World! Joy to ME!

Or How the Junior League (and a few other things) Saved My Life

So, for the last two years, I've been a complete Scrooge over the holidays. I haven't put up a tree, I haven't really wanted to celebrate at all. 

Those that know me well – and have known me a while – can tell you that the last few years have been so difficult for me. I lost my dad and a close friend to cancer, fell hard for someone and lost him, then immediately lost a dear friend in a horrendous one-two punch. I've been sullen and depressed and I didn't even want to be around myself, let alone anyone else. I'd be lying if I said there weren't days I considered ending it all....

What a difference a year can make! 

In January, I took things into my own hands and decided I would make some friends. So, I joined the local chapter of the Junior League. I was worried it might be a group of stuffy, snobby well-to-do ladies (you know, like the girls in The Help), but I couldn't have been more wrong! The group is very diverse, with all ethnicities, income levels and ages. They are very active in the community, giving to agencies to improve child mental health, and I'm so proud to be a part of it. I've had the opportunity to make some new friendships for which I am so very grateful!

I've also gone back to school. The reasons for going back were numerous, but mostly it was to keep my brain stimulated and to keep me interested in something besides just sitting around watching TV (don't worry, TV fans, I'm still a couch potato, just not as bad as before!). It's sometimes stressful, but I am so glad to have the opportunity to continue my education and to keep learning and growing. 

Now I've gone from sitting home alone feeling sorry for myself to running around wishing I had time to sit down! It seems like there's always something going on.

BUT I'M HAPPY! :-)

I didn't even realize the change was occurring until this past month. And now with Christmas approaching? Forget about it! I can't stop smiling. I can't stop humming Christmas carols! I can't stop buying decorations! Last night, I ran into Hobby Lobby to get some magnets for a craft project, and I left with a mini-tree for my desk, yet another stocking and a little sprig of holly to place in the bud vase of my car! 

I'm in a completely different frame of mind this December than months before and I wish to thank everyone who helped me get here, but there just isn't enough time or web space! But I'm especially grateful to my mom, my brother, my sister-in-law and their beautiful family, the girls in the Junior League and my dear friend Rachael, who always manages to make me feel sane even when I feel everything around me is insane!

This holiday season, take time to appreciate those that are there for you when times are tough. For all those who have loved me, know you are appreciated and loved in return. Merry Christmas, everyone!

MHRM 6120 – HR Getting a "Seat at the Table"

Some HR professionals believe the profession has continued to be challenged at getting a "seat at the table." Do I agree with this statement? Most definitely.

I myself never really understood the importance in linking HR functions with strategic planning before beginning this degree program. But now, I agree that they should be offered that seat at the table.

Historically, Human Resources has been considered the department that handles benefits and makes sure employees get their paychecks, but today companies are getting farther and farther away from that.  However, studies show that most firms only offer HR input on strategic decisions, rather than making them full strategic partners (Lawler, E. & Boudrea, J., 209, p.15).

HR should definitely have input on strategic decisions. How are they supposed to hire the employees that will help achieve the organizations strategic goals if they are not completely aware of what those goals are?

I agree with Becker, Huselid and Ulrich when they say that an effective HR system should “maximize the overall quality of human capital” by: linking selection and promotion decisions with competency models, developing strategies that provide timely and effective support for the skills demanded by the firm’s strategic implementation and enacting compensation and performance management policies that attract, retain and motivate high performance employees (Becker, B., Huselid, M. & Ulrich, D., 2001, p. 13).

I can see the hospital I work for trying to move toward including HR at the table, and I think it’s great! We have a VP of Human Resources who is considered a member of the senior management team and we focus on hiring employees that will improve our patient experience. HR was involved in the creation of our new mission statement and vision. But even we have room for improvement.

References


Becker, B., Huselid, M., & Ulrich, D. (2001). The HR scorecard: Linking people, strategy, and performance. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.


Lawler, E., & Boudreau, J. (2009). What makes HR a strategic partner? People & Strategy, 32(1), 14-22.