They, the HR and bean counters of the world, don't see the big picture. It's optimize optimize optimize, but then they don't consider what they're actually trying to achieve.

Typically if you squeeze every penny, you end up with shit. You can do it, but those costs don't just - poof - disappear. They might, and often do, become more difficult to measure. So if you're the measuring guy, it might look great to you.

Humans are fungible, typically -- or at least that's the thought process of management. Sometimes management are literally removing an unnecessary department or need to merge departments because of market conditions -- and they really don't have time to get into the nitty gritty about how that's going to affect your job.

But also humans are messy apparently, so rather than try to introspect about what went wrong to make themselves a better manager, or improve their hiring process, or figure out how to remove bad managers, they punt: "Humans are messy. Metrics are actionable. Humans aren't metrics. shrug."

Humans can be replaced, sure, but you can't replace a surgeon with a landscaper -- but that's not going to stop some managers from trying!

its hard to provide the best customer experience when i have to sell stock in order to pay rent in the GSA, and have to pay out the ass for prescriptions because our garbage health insurance doesnt cover anything.