Everyone knows that Liz Ryan’s July 17 online “Business Week” column, titled “6 Signs You Don’t Care About Workers” mentions a much over-looked concept. The column tries to halt corporate CEO’s from spouting that old cliché, “Our people are our greatest asset,” while treating their employees like a disdainful liability.

But that wasn’t the overlooked concept. The catchy phrase in her last sentence is the “To-Don’t list.” How about that? — the opposite of the To-Do list. In Ms. Ryan’s case, the don’ts include: Don’t allow the Human Resource people to disinherit valuable talent (a.k.a. fire good people to help the bottom line) rather than concentrating on developing it. Don’t outsource those jobs that require close-up and personal interaction.

And so it goes. My mind wandered to the self-employed with no employees, like me. Where do we go with information like this? A one-individual show has to be CEO, VP of HR for no good reason, and everything else. Hey, we can go pretty far with this, can’t we?

Unlike the multi-tiered mega-company, we self-employed’s can put on different hats for different functions and work our way to the top of the heap every single day. Early in the morning, it’s down and dirty clean-up duty, then we’re promoted to the mail room, fetch said mail and sort it. We’re next in the Finance Department, paying the bills.

Moving on up, we put on our VP of Procurement hat, and it’s off to the grocery store. After demonstrating our unique talents in the purchasing arena, we don our Sr. VP of Transportation hat and take the goodies home.

Since nurturing is part of the job description for my profession, we break out our Executive VP of Nutritional Development duds and turn those purchases into a meal that is healthy, nutritious, delicious and everything else that Good HouseSpousing Magazine suggests. We treat the CEO as royalty.

Now where does the HR function fit in here? — wherever we want it to, I guess. After all, we’re the boss. We can call ourselves in and give ourselves a pep talk about productivity, a pat on the back, or a big fat raise. Fat chance on that last one. One thing’s for sure, we probably won’t fire ourselves to help the bottom line, because that would erase the whole corporation and there’d be no bottom line. We must draw the line somewhere.

About now, if we were to withdraw to the Board Room and browse through Ms. Ryan’s web column in “Business Week,” we’d come to a startling conclusion.

We generally don’t do the don’ts that she’s talking about. We appreciate our many talents. We develop them on a regular basis, even if it means taking time off from work to improve that golf swing, fly tying, or photography talent.

We allow the HR person to give only positive feedback. We demand that the top employee (only one choice there) take frequent, revitalizing breaks. We would never outsource our choicest jobs. Who would want them? OOPS! I mean, how can we develop talent if we don’t continually challenge ourselves?

So alas, Ms. Ryan’s To-Don’t list is okay for those who have a colossal company, but the little, intimate, one-individual organization pretty much has things buttoned up, and she’s too late. We care about our worker.

n Jerry Westbrook is a writer living in Winfield with his wife who helps nuture his household staff.