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

rachelbythebay.com

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

#291

Post by Tuna-Fish »

d--b wrote: post #284

HR is neither your friend nor it is some evil secret police that’s here to root out the saboteurs in your company... HR is an agent between you and the company. It’s there to run the negotiations between what the company wants and what you want. If you don’t understand that, you won’t be able to use HR to your benefit. HR is there for you to ask stuff. You want a shower on your floor? Ask them. You want a course in R…

> HR is an agent between you and the company.

Just to be more specific, HR is an agent of your company. Their job is to make every interaction resolve in favor of the company. Often, this is a good thing for you, because when things are running smoothly, a lot of the stuff that is good for the employees is good for the company.

The important part to always remember is that when there is a clear conflict, a situation where something that is good for you is bad for the company and vice versa, their job is to make you lose. Their job is to be the negotiator that resolves the situation maximally in the favor of the company and against your interests. In those situations, it is important to remember that "your boss, hr and you" is not two parties and a neutral intermediary, it's two parties, one of which has two representatives. Bring either an union rep or a lawyer.

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

#292

Post by spicyramen »

_nrv9 wrote: post #90
firecall wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, Portuga…

Mmm if you plan to remain single the rest of your life and not have a wife and kids maybe

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

#293

Post by phibz »

HR's primary job is to protect the company from the employee.

I respect Rachel's honesty here but its delivered with a lot of negativity. I've tried to accept these ideas and protect myself as best as I can. Going in to work relationships with healthy boundaries will help avoid a lot of disappointment.

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

#294

Post by goatinaboat »

zanny wrote: post #193
baxtr wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I wonder: is a well run feudal system more successful business wise than a democracy? A democracy sounds nice but I have experienced that it slows down a business because everybody wants to participate and speak their mind. No decision is accepted but constantly challenged. Progress is slowed down. Maybe we just did “the wrong way”. But still. On the other hand the most successful company on this planet Apple is…

There's a wealth of statistical data that shows that cooperatives are more resilient and stable than classical owner run enterprise, here's a Stanford paper citing a lot of good sources on it[1]. Largely the reason so few businesses are cooperatives is because if you are an active participant in the founding of a business its in your own self interest to retain as much power over it as possible, which leads you to wa…

Largely the reason so few businesses are cooperatives is because if you are an active participant in the founding of a business its in your own self interest to retain as much power over it as possible

There is no reason a software company couldn’t operate like a law firm or architecture firm with “partners”. It just doesn’t because software developers are too focused to the technical aspects and ignore the bigger picture.

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

#295

Post by Dansvidania »

Faaak wrote: post #279
akmarinov wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about Thailand and it really depends on your lifestyle, but 100k will get you through 2-3 years at most in the other countries, if you live in an urban setting, not really pinching pennies.

Spain's minimum wage is 1000 EUR/month. 100k$ (82k€) will give you 6 years of living if you don't spend it all on useless things. Portugal is even "better" with a minimum wage of 750€/month

not many people live fully independently and comfortably on minimum wage though. Just saying

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

#296

Post by tomp »

roenxi wrote: post #147
MattGaiser wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike the serf, I can go find another Lord. I can pit the lords against each other for a better deal. I can try and become my own lord. HR has a lot fewer tools than the inquisition. Fear of lawsuits reduces their toolkit even further.

While gp is using slightly emotive language, they didn't at any point say that the feudal structure was bad . A feudal structure is pretty effective in a localised setting where most people know most other people and everyone is happy-enough with the person at the pinacle of the status tree. The major downsides of old-school feudalism were (1) Doesn't really scale to populations of 200k+ and (2) the We Cannot Get Out…

Indeed.

Really the only difference between feudalism and capitalism is the latter’s ability/freedom to fail. Shitty hierarchical structures are replaced by newly emerging better hierarchical structures. Serfs migrate easily.

All this is basically a consequence of companies & people not being defined by / tied to land (as serfdoms were - basically farms). Rising from agrarian to industrial society is what enabled this.

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

#297

Post by ageofwant »

_nrv9 wrote: post #90
firecall wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, Portuga…

Yes, Carlin said it best https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dY3GNt7sG8&ab_channel=Daily...

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

#298

Post by _nalply »

phibz wrote: post #293

HR's primary job is to protect the company from the employee. I respect Rachel's honesty here but its delivered with a lot of negativity. I've tried to accept these ideas and protect myself as best as I can. Going in to work relationships with healthy boundaries will help avoid a lot of disappointment.

> its delivered with a lot of negativity

Sometimes truth hurts. People cope with pain differently. A good way is to be direct and sincere with yourself and use a pinch of sardonic humor when telling the story to a friend. To your not-a-friend colleagues maintain a respectful distance, try to learn and understand what they think and feel, then with this knowledge search a path which feels okayish to you.

So looking at it this way I don't find the truth being delivered with a lot of negativity.

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

#299

Post by mcv »

spicyramen wrote: post #292
_nrv9 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, Portuga…

Mmm if you plan to remain single the rest of your life and not have a wife and kids maybe

Moving abroad is harder with a family, but other than that, it's sound advice. With a family, it's even more important to have some savings.

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

#300

Post by mcv »

pearjuice wrote: post #196
_nrv9 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, Portuga…

Though not a bad idea, $100k cash is slowly being chipped away at with inflation every day. Due to how our financial system works, you are probably ticking off days of that decade yearly by leaving it in cash.

Invest it in index funds. That's pretty safe, and gives pretty good returns. The only way that's going to disappear is if the entire economy dies, and then money won't be any good either. If you want to prepare for that, you need to buy land.
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