Human Workplace

I remember when Brave New World was fantasy

Meta employees now have an opt out button for the company's controversial workplace tracking software. But the relief is temporary. The feature, called "Focus Mode," pauses the collection of mouse movements, click locations, and periodic screenshots for exactly 30 minutes. Then the tracking automatically resumes. Workers must click the button again to pause it for another half hour.

The Model Capability Initiative (MCI) software was installed on employee computers to train AI agents. There was no opt out. Employees protested with angry emojis and flyers taped to bathroom stalls. Now Meta has responded not by removing the surveillance but by offering a "privacy break" that feels like a compromise designed to frustrate. You can stop the tracking, but only if you remember to keep clicking every 30 minutes. Miss the window. The tracking continues.

A pause button is not privacy. It is a permission slip with an expiration date.

Granny has a few things to say about the way things are now, and the way they used to be – in this week‘s newsletter!

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/grandmas-hr-story-time-liz-ryan-9ovte?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&utm_campaign=share_via

Too many people involved in the recruiting process, both hiring managers and recruiters, have the mistaken idea that recruiting means weeding people out & finding excuses not to hire them.

Recruiting is selling. Every sales process involves an element of qualification – making sure the customer is a good fit for your product or service – but it’s still selling.

If you think recruiting is all about making candidates prove they’re worthy to work in your amazing, perfect company you are missing the boat.

You will never attract the team you want by using fear to keep candidates off guard and desperate to please you.

Anyone with normal self-esteem will simply drop out of your process and go work for an organization that deserves their talents more than you do.

P.S. I didn’t buy these geraniums at the farm stand this morning but now I think I should have. Suggestions welcome!

AI-generated comments on LinkedIn have that distinctive “I’m using words to say nothing” vibe

Performance reviews are time-wasting, insulting nonsense

(link to story in comments)

One evening in the nineteen-seventies, my dad hosted a fancy business event on behalf of his company at one of the university clubs in Manhattan.

He was a magazine publisher. The event was an annual bash for his team and their most important advertisers and clients.

The event was going wonderfully when my dad got an urgent call from the lobby imploring him to come down and deal with a situation right away.

He took the elevator down to learn that the ground floor staff had prohibited a guest bearing an invitation (a client) from entering the elevator to join the party.

Why did they do that?

Because she was a woman, and she arrived alone.

At that time, the club did not allow women beyond the lobby unless they were accompanied by a man.

The club concierge and ground floor staff had told the woman she could not enter, so she laid on the floor on her back and waited for something to happen.

What a badass!

My dad came downstairs, told the club staff they were being ridiculous, his company had not agreed to the no-unaccompanied-women rule, and my dad and his client went upstairs.

He came home very embarrassed.

He said, this nonsense will be over by the time you grow up.

But it isn’t over.

All-male panels make decisions about women’s health.

When my dad threw that party where a woman had to lie on the floor in protest, we had control over our bodies.

Now, we don’t.

Around the same time my dad threw that party, a constitutional amendment was drafted to give women in the US the same rights as men.

That amendment is not in force today.

My rights and every woman’s rights begin and end at each state line.

Can you imagine?

Can we call ourselves a civilized country?

We should be moving ahead but instead, we are hurtling backwards.

I talk with frustrated job candidates every day.

99% of them have the same problem:

They are smart and talented.

They have a solid or even wonderful career history.

However, one massive roadblock is keeping them from getting the job they deserve.

They are following - through no fault of their own – an outdated and useless playbook.

They are doing what they were taught to do.

They have a standard, boring, jargon-heavy résumé that doesn’t allow them to stand out.

Their job search strategy is to apply for as many jobs as possible and hope someone responds.

Their interviewing approach is the traditional one – sit in the chair, wait for the next question, answer the question succinctly and fall silent, waiting for the next question.

These techniques worked in the 80s and 90s, but they can only hurt you now.

My course Get Your Dream Job 2026 is open for registration from today through Monday, May 25.

I’ll show you a totally different way – a modern, empowered and dramatically more effective way – to get your next job.

The link for more information is in the comments!

Here’s a new puzzle.

Your goal is to arrange the 16 words into four groups of four words that are somehow connected to one another. They might be the four seasons, or four words that commonly precede the word “mother.”

It might take a little while to see how the words are connected. When you solve the puzzle, leave a comment, but don’t give away the answer.

 Have fun and don’t forget, you are amazing!

One job ad on LinkedIn got 16,000 applications. (Why did the job ad stay up so long? Did the employer forget about it)? Recruiting is 100% broken.

When you're sick of trying to navigate a broken recruiting process, you can step out of the traditional box and take charge of your job search. Here's how:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-you-get-mad-enough-youll-do-liz-ryan-lqjke/?trackingId=wQfDyUTekfe%2FLWKtZarn5g%3D%3D