“Being competent and well-intentioned inside a broken system doesn’t protect you from being complicit in it.”
Jennifer Houle | Author of Uncompliant
1. Tell us about you.
I feel like I’m the last person you would expect to find in Human Resources. I’m very dark, a little angry, and have a highly inappropriate sense of humour, so working in a role that is historically serious and unfunny feels wildly out of character.
But I think this juxtaposition works, because I’m not the kind of person to just sit there and say, “Hey! This system is unfair, and we should do something about it.”
I mean, I do that via Substack, but you have to be smarter about it. If you want to enable real systems change, you have to undercover agent your way into the system. Figure out how it works, infiltrate it.
That’s when you can make real change.
And it’s hard… it’s exhausting. And it sometimes feels counterproductive and it definitely can feel confusing, but that’s the work. It’s life work, and it’s work you might not see the results of during your tenure, or maybe even in your lifetime, but it’s there.
I want readers to know that I envision Uncompliant as a movement, not a personal brand or some kind of weak-ass armchair activism.
If there’s a throughline in my work, it’s that real change is rarely obvious, or clean, or even rewarded. It’s cumulative, and if enough of us are doing it, it will happen.
2. How does the cover photo capture who you are?
In a poor attempt at self-deprecation, I once told a photographer that I’m not photogenic. He immediately agreed, and I’ve been traumatized ever since.
As a result, I looked through my photos and selected what I felt was the least heinous picture of the bunch.
3. In one sentence, what are you trying to change?
I’m trying to change what we’ve been conditioned to accept as “normal” at work.
4. What did you notice was broken that made you start writing?
HR is a very “behind-the-curtain” role. Pretty early on in my career, I noticed that all of the typical issues that came up at work were blamed on individuals, even though they were clearly systemic issues.
Companies couldn’t get rid of “problem people” fast enough, and yet, when they did, the same issues kept resurfacing.
I wanted to shout, “Are you seeing this?” to my peers in the field, but no one was saying anything, and I actually started to feel like Jim Carrey in The Truman Show. I played along for a while, but that’s never really been who I am.
So I decided to put my thoughts on paper, and Uncompliant was born.
I love writing, and have always focused on fiction. But the truth about work is so much more fucked up than anything I could make up. I hate that.
5. If you could manifest a brighter tomorrow, what would be different by 2030?
I would love to see the 5-day/40 hour/week thing abolished.
Can we just collectively agree on how fucked up that is?
That we spend so much of our lives dedicated to work, only to be treated like shit by our employer?
I’m completely overwhelmed by that thought right now. It feels like a sick joke. And because I work in HR, I have a front-row seat to how little employers care about employees.
Like, y’all! They don’t care about you. At all. It’s hard to hear, but I’d rather people know this than be oblivious to it.
Knowledge is power.
6. How would your closest friends describe you?
Questions like this make me deeply uncomfortable. So instead, I asked my two closest pals for their thoughts, and I’m just going to copy and paste what they shared, even though it reads like an obituary:
- Honestly, one of the funniest people I know. Her wit comes from this endless well of information, observations, and connections she’s always making. She sees things other people miss, and she’s so quick with it. She never shies away from trying to get a laugh- even if it’s at her own expense.
- Deeply passionate and all-in once something catches her interest. She doesn’t do things halfway. She shows up with energy, curiosity, and real commitment.
- Generous with her time, her love, her thoughts, her knowledge. Wants others to thrive.
- Invests in her friends in every aspect of the word. Makes people feel seen, empowered and uplifted selflessly without seeking anything in return
- Curious and always in pursuit of knowledge, good food, and new adventures.
- An incredible mom, partner, sister, aunt, daughter who intentionally weaves her bio family and chosen family together.
And now I’m crying. RIP to me.
7. What’s a challenge that changed how you see the world?
Understanding that being competent and well-intentioned inside a broken system doesn’t protect you from being complicit in it. That’s a very uncomfortable realization.
8. What are you most proud of right now?
My son, Sébastien. Oh my God, he is so funny and self-aware and sharp and emotionally regulated, and I just can’t get over it.
My partner and I both had traumatic childhoods, and it would be so easy to just keep that generational trauma going, but we refuse. We’ve both done a lot of work on ourselves, and it shows up in our son.
He’s eight, so of course, he gets upset and loses his shit sometimes. But do you know what he does? He comes back to us, and he apologizes. He’ll say, “I don’t like the way I spoke to you because it’s not actually how I feel about you.”
I mean…can you even? He is spectacular. And we did that. We are showing up for him, and it’s working
And now I’m crying. Again.
I’m so proud. I’m proud of myself, and of my partner, and of our son. For someone who isn’t really spiritual, I will say this: in every single lifetime, I hope that I’m lucky enough to know both of them.
9. On hard days, what kind of signal from your readers keeps you going?
Honestly, it’s the fact that they read my work at all. That someone chose to spend a few minutes of their limited time on this planet with something I wrote is astonishing. I’m so grateful.
10. For people who haven’t seen your work yet, what article would you want them to read first and why?
This was the toughest question to answer. It forced me to revisit every post I’ve written since I joined Substack, and now I want to go back and rewrite everything!
That being said, I think the post that gives the most insight into who I am and what I am trying to do here is best reflected in “Your Next Hire Should Make You Uncomfortable.“
In this piece, I introduce the idea of Collaborative Range, which reframes hiring as a way to expand a team’s adaptive capacity rather than preserve comfort or familiarity.
It captures the core of what I’m trying to do with Uncompliant: challenge the habits we’ve normalized in HR and org design, especially the obsession with “fit.”
BONUS Q: If you could recommend another writer to be featured on Not Rising, who would it be and why?
When you choose to engage in something you know is going to be dark, you usually expect a moment where the story becomes dark…some kind of escalation, a pivot, or a reveal.
But with Machine Poet stories, that moment never really comes. You’re already inside it the second you start reading.
The first lines envelope you in darkness, and by the time you realize what’s happening, you’re fully in it, and the only way out is through. Machine Poet isn’t designing the exit for you; you have to extract yourself on your own.
It’s harsh storytelling at its best. It’s uncompromising, immersive and unsettling. Yes, please.
