Apparently I'm a cautionary tale, a walking and talking lawsuit waiting to happen. I accept that.

My No HR comments went viral. Then, as if to prove my point, an HR lady wrote an oped about why I'm wrong and why I'm going to get sued.

Someone who goes by The Evil HR Lady on X got mad about my no HR comments.

Reminder: At Freedom Fest a little over a week ago I said I want to be the first company with no HR and it went viral on Instagram with over 7M views at the moment plus another 2M over on X. I wrote about the whole thing here and here and then wrote an oped for the NY Post.

Evil HR Lady got so irked by my calling her profession not only useless but detrimental to businesses across America that she wrote her own oped on the subject in Inc, Magazine. She says I’m a legal nightmare in the making. Maybe. Oh well.

Evil HR Lady’s chief complaint about my comments seems to be that I’ll get sued. She writes:

And for those of us who tell people like Sey what they can and cannot say, the reason I do it is not because I want to quash creativity. It’s because I don’t want her to get sued.

I mean, was she trying to prove my point? As I wrote in the NY Post:

Critics of my viral comment pushed back at me: “You need HR to avoid unnecessary risk!”

Right. That’s the fear HR leverages to maintain its unearned influence.

Risk avoidance means hiring mediocre people with no opinions who never offend anyone.

First of all, every company gets sued by employees. Clearly HR is no guard against that. And if you say that’s a cop out you’re wrong. It’s just true. I’m a realist. Eventually it will happen to me at my own company. But what HR often does is coddle bad employees, demanding the manager not fire them so that the company doesn’t get sued. Um . . . no thanks.

OR even worse, HR will campaign to oust really good employees who are productive and creative and contribute to the top line but maybe don’t walk the line and say the right words. You know, they get a little spicy. They have personalities. I’m not talking about sexual harassers. I don’t want those in my company either. I’m talking about people who maybe have opinions which aren’t in line with the orthodoxies of the day. I’m talking about people who think for themselves!

GREAT! Bring ‘em on! (HR hates these people.)

Plus whatever happened to the idea that HR is there to support employees vs police our words to avoid lawsuits? Once upon a time, HR was there to ensure that companies have the right employees in the right jobs and they’re (relatively) happy so that they can continue to do good work in the right job and make money for the company? Now HR is just risk avoidance? There to protect the company? What’s Legal for then?

And is all the DEI stuff to protect the company? Or to create an “inclusive environment that IS good for productivity” (as they like to say) or is it to simply further their own ideology which has nothing to do with the core goal of any business — profitable revenue growth?

DEI headcount in corporate environments grew significantly from 2020 to 2023, with estimates suggesting a 50–100% increase in dedicated DEI staff across large U.S. companies. This was entirely driven by social pressures, not business need (which is why they are all getting laid off now). These employees — “DEI practitioners” — don’t contribute to the top line and they are a drain on the bottom line. A very expensive cost center.

What HR also does is make employees do non-revenue generating trainings all day about what they can and cannot say. Remember when we all had to do trainings disavowing our white privilege? I had the unique thrill of getting to do one with Robin DiAngelo of White Fragility fame herself! That one lasted a whole day!

Evil HR Lady seems to think I don’t know what I’m doing and that I’ve never worked in corporate America and so I’m just misinformed. But it is precisely because I’ve worked in corporate America — at the highest levels for nearly 20 years — and served on boards that I say with total confidence: HR is bad for business.

I've also interviewed with mid-wit HR ladies who wouldn't know a qualified candidate if she hit her in the face with a 2x4. I've also been brought the most useless candidates by HR ladies who don't understand the qualifications for a front of house job. They bring candidates who are inoffensive but pedigreed. Or they mistake insane grandiose do-nothing people for “highly creative and disruptive!” Insane and ineffective does not equal qualified.

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Just this year I got kicked out of an HR conference because the minute it was announced I’d be there the attendees complained. I was supposed to be on a panel about “diversity of thought in the corporate environment” with an audience of HR leaders from Fortune 500 companies. These so-called “leaders” are apparently so fragile that they couldn’t handle being in a room with someone who thinks men can’t magically become women.

How can these people hire to create an environment where diversity of thought leads to big ideas?

They can’t. They apparently only hire people who think men are women if they say they are.

These are not smart people. These are mid-wits of the highest order.

No thanks, HR lady. I’ll go it alone without Tracy Flick wagging her finger in my face telling me what I can and cannot say. But I wish you all the best with your improv and consulting business in Switzerland.