Steven Savage reviews the second year of www.fantopro.com, the blog for professional geeks, fans, and otaku. It's a trip back to second-yester-year with the best (at least in his opinion) of his columns from 2009 to 2010. From the meaning of backlog in today's modern media to treating resumes as writing experiences, it's full-bore professional geekery for careerists!

When Alain Delambre lost his job four years ago, he lost everything. Now he's breaking all the rules for one last shot at the life he thinks he deserves. "you won't see the final twist coming" The New York Times "A really excellent suspense novelist." Stephen King Alain Delambre is a fifty-seven-year-old former HR executive, drained by four years of hopeless unemployment. The only job offers he gets are for low-level, demoralizing positions. He has reached rock bottom and can see no way out. So when a major company finally invites him in for an interview, Alain is ready to do anything--borrow money, shame his wife and his daughters, and even participate in the ultimate recruitment test: a role-playing game that involves taking hostages. Alain vows to commit body and soul in this struggle to regain his dignity. But if he had realized that the odds were stacked against him from the beginning, he never would have tried to land the position. Now, his fury is limitless. And what began as a role-playing game could quickly become a bloodbath.

When a powerful necromancer is killed, Occult Special Investigator Tess Corday must handle the heavy politics in the occult community as carefully as she handles the scant evidence. But with her sometime lover Lucian Agrado representing the necromancers in the grisly matter, things are about to get out of control...fast.

You think YOU’VE got problems? You’re RIGHT! Your new dentist seems friendly enough…until he turns on the DRILL… It’s 2069 and you’re the best damned Actress in Known Space. You’d better be, ‘cause the competition at THIS audition is really ‘cut-throat’… You’re hooked up to a life-support machine. Too bad it isn’t YOUR life it’s supporting… Your cozy new apartment in Orlando comes complete with 9, 541 assorted voices. But cheer up! At least they’re not INSIDE your head… Your beautiful teenaged daughter’s been possessed by a horde of sadistic demons. Luckily, you’ve found the only Exorcist who charges by the minute… It sure is nice and quiet in the Constitution State, now that all your neighbors have run for their lives. But take a good look at who…or WHAT…is moving in… God has always been your co-pilot every night you’ve driven home drunk. But tonight you’re having a blackout. And God’s sent you His ‘designated driver’… Your new weight room puts a new TWIST on the phrase “Getting RIPPED”… You’re not going to back out NOW, are you? You CAN’T, anyway… Ride a Chilling New Wave Of Terror With K.K.’s INHUMAN RESOURCES.

You've just won a month's stay at the world's most futuristic hotel. Everything's included, except for exits...and food. Well, there's always your fellow guests... You've been locked up in a madhouse for murdering your wife. Only you know that your 'fantasy girls' killed her, and they're only real when they want to be... You're too old to live, too scared to die? No problem! The Recyclers will make you a new body. Just make sure you read the fine print on the warranty... And over THIRTY new worlds of MAYHEM await you! A collection of bizarre thrillers (and sick poems) from the author of CLOWNWHITE & INHUMAN RESOURCES! "K.K.: the sickest of the sick!" ---Jeff Strand (author of "Pressure") "A mind-twisting collection!" --Steven Shrewsbury, author of Tormentor and Within "I've never read better stories!" --John Paul Allen, author of Gifted Trust and Monkey Love "K.K. is the new master of terrifying fiction..." --artofhorror.com

Human Resources for the Non-HR Manager appeals to anyone interested in management issues. The book explains why human resource issues are increasing the responsibilities of front-line managers rather than the HR department. Chapters present the basics of HR including the fundamentals of hiring, performance appraisal, reward systems, and disciplinary systems, so that any manager--regardless of his or her background or functional area--can approach these parts of the job with confidence. The book also covers the latest developments in equal opportunity law and describes the manager's responsibilities in controlling sexual harassment and managing diverse employees, including older workers and employees with disabilities. Each chapter's material is firmly grounded in the current HR academic literature, but the book's friendly, conversational tone conveys basic principles of good practice without technical jargon. Designed to make the material more accessible and personally relevant, the book includes the following special features: *Manager's Checkpoints--a series of questions that help the reader apply the material to his or her own organizational context; *Boxes that describe real-life examples of how companies respond to HR challenges; *For Further Reading--references to articles published in outlets that bridge the academic-practitioner divide; *Manager's Knots--presented in a question-and-answer format, these describe typical managerial problems, take the reader into some of the gray, ambiguous areas of HR, and suggest ways to apply the chapter material to real-life managerial dilemmas.

A dead body on the beach turns out to be a live demon on the run from some of the nastiest bounty hunters in this dimension-or the next. Protecting one demon from another, Tess gets wrapped up in a case that's as dangerous as it is mind-boggling, especially when it begins to involve her own past.

The design, development, and use of suitable enterprise resource planning systems continue play a significant role in ever-evolving business needs and environments. Enterprise Resource Planning: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications presents research on the progress of ERP systems and their impact on changing business needs and evolving technology. This collection of research highlights a simple framework for identifying the critical factors of ERP implementation and statistical analysis to adopt its various concepts. Useful for industry leaders, practitioners, and researchers in the field.

An invaluable (and laugh-out-loud funny) reference for anyone who works in an office, Inhuman Resources turns the spotlight on the toxic individuals in today's workplace, providing insights into their childhood, character traits, their future demise/success, and most importantly how they spread.

Human resource management (HRM) is the predominant apparatus for people management across the world. Since its inception, HRM has nevertheless been subjected to critical scrutiny. This work has produced a corpus of literature now referred to as ‘Critical HRM’. This book on Critical HRM traces the development of the critical scholarly tradition in people management. It analyzes, organizes and synthesizes the various perspectives, ideas and arguments that constitute this critical tradition. The book identifies the current status and future trends of Critical HRM, and explores its ethico-political role in contemporary organizations, especially in the context of widespread public concern about making business more ethical. Incorporating under-researched and emerging issues of people management, such as the Global South and Critical HRM, with more established themes of Critical HRM, this book introduces Critical HRM’s critique of mainstream HRM and its underpinning assumptions. It illustrates how interventions have the potential to transform organizational policies and practices of managing people at work. The book will be of interest to professionals, researchers, and academics focusing on critical issues in people management across the Global South and North.