September is the dark horse of the Month family—dark, even when it’s not raining.

It's 8am, and poor me with the poor eyesight, having to do the day’s Copywork 365 with the lights off—so Noé doesn’t wake up and I can keep working—and the iPad’s decision to reduce its own brightness in dim surroundings.

And so, I keep writing through the darkness, just in case sparks ⚡️ fly off the tip of the nib 🖊 and I, at last, see The Light. 🤩

That’s how I’d  divided my attention as head of HR: 

Blue collar workers came first—top priority;

Next, the support staff;

Last, the managers.

How did I do it? Simple—I just inverted the pyramidal organisation chart to make it look like India’s family planning symbol—it was that easy! 

Repercussions? The usual motley crew of disgruntled mid-level oldies at HO, which I could count off on the knuckles of my left fist, and safely dismiss with just a chuckle.🤭

My secret: When it came to the welfare of blue collar workers, I had the support of my director—always! 👍

If you said, “Yes!” just because you’re fluent in HR jargon, then, you are not!

Jargon-infested HR lingo is nothing but creole—buzzwords borrowed from mainstream business language; buzzwords that have lost their fizz, like ‘empowering’…

As HR head of an organization with around 90% of the workforce drawn entirely from the Hindi-speaking states of India, I should have been an ineffective communicator, given that my native language is Portuguese and my first language English—and with the disgraceful record of having scored 3 out of 100 in Hindi at the SSC exam. Not surprisingly, the workers referred to me as “Angrej”😂

But here’s the thing: despite quitting my job 10 years ago, I’m still remembered and missed.

Because I’ve always been a native speaker of HR—plain HR-speak without the BS.

My most cherished memory of those 30 years is that day when our special needs gardener came straight to my desk with a problem and my team mate politely asked him to explain it to him so he’d convey it to me.

His reply, in classic Bollywood-style Hindi (which I understand), was: “If there’s anyone in this company who understands Radhey, it’s Gama sab.” ❤️