HR is not your friend, and other things I think you should know

>the person who is paying the bill is the person who gets to decide.

Paying the bill with money made by who? Sure, in the case of independent contractors the money is coming out of someone's pocket, but in most structured companies (which is what GP is talking about), the money comes from the people making and pushing the product. In real terms, the employees are the ones paying the bill.

>Taken to its logical conclusion the alternative would mean that nobody is entitled to make a decision about anything without taking a referendum on the matter.

That's literally just an argument against democracy, which we have, as a society, come to the conclusion is a generally good thing. (Well, fascists disagree, but society also has opinions on them.)

>Reasonable people will be interested in informed input from the people they employ, but it should not be surprising that in the end the painter you hired doesn’t get a vote on the color you want your bathroom.

You're conflating the relationship as a client and the relationship as an employer. You get to tell them what color paint to use, but not what type of ladder or brushes to use, or whether they're allowed to use the bathroom, sit while working, or eat lunch.

I agree with you the lawyer is leaving out anecdotes and trying to generalize from them, but all you have to do is google for a second to find some incredibly embarrassing messups from HR see microsoft amazon google for examples.

I will challenge you on the part though about the unspoken expectations of what HR is. To be clear, HR always says come to them if I need anything. If I have any problems they are there to help me.

Like you said, this is a lie. They are there to follow the law, and if they see you as a liability and your complaint doesn't have enough evidence and they can get away with finding a way to get rid of you and claim it's not retaliation they will. This happens often.

So perhaps HR should take on some responsibility for actively misadvertising the purpose of their existence. They should say exactly that:

We are not here for you we are here to make sure the company doesn't get in trouble so if on the books we can be in the right and reduce liability we will, so keep your mouth shut and do not give us any reason to think you are a liability to us.

Alot of problems I agree could be solved if HR was honest about their role. And did not advertise themselves as therapists as a way to asses early on if you are a liability and come up with a way to get rid of you and get away with it.

>> What if we tried to make it so there were no lords? Just a thought.

> Any different group with a semi-competent lord will absolutely destroy you and take your resources. You'll soon send around resumes begging for a lord to take you.

Not really. IIRC, in the French Revolutionary Wars, French troops were more effective because they were better motivated than those who were fighting for some lord.

It's probably necessary to have leaders, but that doesn't mean lords are necessary.

I 100 percent empathise with this thinking pattern. I grew up in a poor family that struggled to find enough money. My endless fear is being unemployed, struggling to find a job, and sliding back to that dark place 15 years ago. Some would call that motivation for working harder, I still feel it as fear, and as a result, I do everything I can to acquire the resources to save me from that ever happening.

Great thoughts on alternative places to live as well.

My friend and I (both females) one the CEO of a tech company and me a Staff Engineer, have talked about how to do HR right and we came up with an idea but havnt done anything with it.

Since HR is clearly biased towards the companies and this has proven to cause a lot of problems, they will never side with you over the company if the company is indeed wrong.

HR should ideally be an independent third party and all issues treated the same way a legal audit would. An org comes in promises to keep things confidential. Objectively assesses the situation, inquires for more info (emails, convos etc) and determines the outcome. If someone needs to be fired and it's a male superior, then so be it.

HR is never going to tell their boss that they should be fired for mistreating another employee for example, if they do not also want to lose their jobs.

In reality it makes sense to have an internal HR for all things like hiring recruiting etc etc etc but when it comes to managing deteriorated relationships between employees it will never be done right unless an independent third party comes into asses.