Simple fact: HR is hired and paid by the company, not by you. Company's interests will always come before your interests.
HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know
81–90 of 471 posts
Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know
#82Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know
#83Many people think that they live in a free democracy. In reality, something like 50% of all working people are employed in a strict hierarchical organisation that is essentially feudal in its nature. Most employees are the equivalent of serfs, overseen by lords, with a king in charge. The common employees don't get a vote. Their managers are not elected. They don't get a say in policy. The managers in turn form a str…
A serf cannot 'quit' his lord. An employee can. Everybody can say 'NO' to the CEO. What you cannot do is agree to exchange your work for his money, and then when he asks you to work, say 'NO'. If you do not wish to work, simply cancel this arrangement. And the inquisition could BURN YOU ALIVE. HR cannot even physically touch you for fear of the lawsuit. This comparison is such an insult to the people who had laid the…
Oh, give it a rest. You're not actually outraged, you're just jumping on an opportunity to call him a hypocrite. The guy fumbled an analogy. I don't buy that you're that apoplectic about serfs from the 1500s. You get it, I get it, he gets it. It's fine.
Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know
#84Seems like OP observed something unsettling at the office, wanted HR to fire the perpetrator, and HR did not do that. Then OP generalizes and says that HR is not effective and not your friend. However, there are many gray areas where it's hard to justify firing someone. For example, let's say this person was acting passively aggressively and ignoring/avoiding someone. Is that a fireable offense? I am not sure it is.…
Good example. My boss pretty much ignores me and avoids me. I don't see myself winning at all so I just figure at least I'm not being micromanaged. Flipped a negative into a positive.
Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know
#85Agreed with one small correction, HR is your friend before you join the company simply because internal recruiters fall under HR and recruiters are your friends. Literally paid to try and place you into the company. Back to topic - HR is a tool. Their job is to keep the company from getting sued by employees, the government and sometimes unions over bad practices. If the company is large enough they also report to th…
A recruiter can be an ally. A friend would tell you things the company didn't want you to know.
Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know
#86Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if we tried to make it so there were no lords? Just a thought.
Is someone really your "lord" if you can just choose for them not to be your "lord" and freely choose for them to be your "lord" if they compensate you well enough for your liking? I'd suggest we already don't have lords and the analogy doesn't really hold.
This is always a matter of degrees, and most jobholders have much less freedom to choose than your line of questioning assumes. In general, and especially for those people, maybe this is a good mental model for how to operate in a workplace. Power imbalances may actually be so unequal.
Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know
#88HR is definitely not your friend. I’ve had exactly one good “real” HR person in my career, and she was forced out after our company was acquired, and we didn’t even get a replacement for months on end, despite our acquirer being a multi-billion dollar company. There are some people in HR that I know and like, but I’m acutely aware that I am merely a cog in the system and that HR works for the company, not for me. As…
In the end, I think it really depends on your expectations what the role and responsibilities of a HR actually are.
Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know
#89I always love a good HR rant :-). At Google the "people person" was called your "business partner." I like the notion that they are the inquisition though, that metaphor includes the adherence to dogma at the expense of common good.
There are also people who enjoy "the game." That being the corporate politics of "gotcha" and "praise". When I got to the place at Sun where I had some "influence" and people started trying to cultivate me as an ally, it really annoyed some of them that I didn't play the game.
Re: HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know
#90HR is not your friend and your company is not your family. Regardless of intent there are commercial realities that exist within the context of a company that may never be present in a non-work relationship. This has varying degrees of impact on the nature of the relationship itself and may not present itself until you are at your most vulnerable. I find that a collegial environment with shared goals and responsibili…
Exactly. And nor does anyone have a 'career'. You have a job. When you lose that job, you may not get another one. It's an illusion. One minute you think you are a high profile manager with budgets and power. The next you are packing your desk up into a box and rethinking your entire life. We are not our careers!
I am always terrified of losing my job. It's a fear I've had even though I've been a top performer the entire five years I've been professionally working.
Maybe it's because I grew up poor or because I think things are too good in tech and about to crash any day.
My antidote? $100k in liquidity. Preferably not invested in the NASDAQ.
If tech crashes, you can take your liquid $100k and move to Thailand, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, etc. In these countries, you can live well for a decade, sometimes even thirteen years off just $100,000 USD.
I know $100k isn't much and it certainly isn't the $1M - $3M people want for retirement in the US. But it's enough to have peace of mind.