Not too long ago, I was involved in a place where I worked in Human Resources. It was a lot different than I thought (since the word "human" wasn't used much). In short, I told the lady she wants to hire a monkey to do this job, not me. Now if you know me, you would know that it would've had to have been a pretty bad work environment to say that to someone in an office setting.

A few days later, the temp agency called me at 5:30pm to tell me "your assignment ended." In short, they were going through a mass layoff, and all I did was file (far from what I thought I could do - which is why I told her she needed a "monkey" not me).

A few weeks later, after a massive layoff, this same company called some of the people back pleading to stay for a bit longer because even the people that were NOT laid off, left. Why? The writing was on the wall, why would anyone want to stick around at a company who laid off about 75% of their work force?

A few months after that debacle, this company was forced to close their office. Was it "the economy?" Nope. The fact of the matter is that they had too many monkeys running the show. And when the bananas run out, so do the humans.

Whats the point of this article? It's to raise awareness that employees/temps/consultants want to be treated like humans, not monkeys and that Human Resources needs to figure out a way to put the "human" back into it's resources. Do it and thrive. Don't and perish (as your company should).