My job

I recently read a blog by Kris Dunn entitled “The Five Worst Jobs in HR” below is an couple of excerpts


“The real issue is the level of challenge and the perception of your career path once you’ve landed in one of them. The five worst jobs include career killers and work components that would crush the soul of most HR pros. Here’s a primer on the elements common to the five worst jobs in HR to get you in the mood to explore:
· The worst jobs are so niche-oriented your mom can’t explain what you do. I understand a rotation through a specialty is a good thing, but these roles are generally subcategories of a specialty, making it tougher to bounce out to a generalist role when you are ready.
· The worst jobs often involve heavy administrative work. If the work product you can point to at the end of the day is a report or a file, run like crazy. The problem with many of the worst jobs is that once you are done outlining your role for future employers, the person interviewing you envisions you filing papers four hours a day. Not exactly a momentum builder for your future.
· The worst jobs involve tasks that are soul-crushing work for most HR pros. Every job has components you don’t like doing. That’s life, and you’ve experienced it before. Now take the soul crushers in your current job and multiply them by 50. That’s the strategic opportunity many of these jobs provide. “

I won’t bore you with the whole article, as is geared toward an HR geek. But I wanted to share the #1 worst job in HR with you.
“LOA/FMLA administrator: Oh, the humanity. This administrator is a centralized control point for leave of absence and FMLA applications in your enterprise. That means this job sees all the trials and tribulations that employees (and their families) go through. You name it—disease, death, dismemberment— this person sees it. To be sure, there’s good that can come from it, in that an empathetic person in this role can calm employees moving through the leave process.
That’s negated by the reality: This person has to make a call on whether to challenge a suspect application, and that is one of the most confrontational situations you can find in the HR world. As part of this, you also get to question multiple FMLA applications that are 100 percent legit, meaning you’ll be seen as evil. It’s also one of the most administrative positions available. Stay away! “
That’s what I do for the University. 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year (thank God for vacations!). Soul-crushing barely begins to describe it.
I try not to get emotionally involved with the employees I am responsible for. It makes it so much harder for me to deal with the bad things that happen. And in this job, it happens a lot. The only soul saving part is when I am actually able to help an employee who has a supervisor from hell, take the time off they need to care for themselves, their kids or their parents.

If I didn’t work with three great women I wouldn’t have made it this long.