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Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend

cdoyle.me

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Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend

#11

Post by thekiptxt »

darth_avocado wrote: post #4

> Your employer definitely got legal advice on anything they put in front of you, why shouldn’t you do the same before signing? Because it costs $700/hour

Thank you!

Honestly this is one of my biggest pet peeves with any “consult a $SPECIALIST” advice. Yes, if my money and time were endless, this is sound advice.

Tangentially, when I express frustration at police incompetence in knowing the law (I live in the US, and many law enforcement officers are under-trained), a common response is “this shouldn’t be an issue as you can follow up in court and get the charges dismissed, or even sue the city”. Again, fair suggestion if I have dozens of hours of time on my hand and thousands in lawyer fees to burn.

Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend

#12

Post by Simplicitas »

msla wrote: post #7

Companies in general aren't anyone's friend, in that, ideally, a company is a machine designed to make money within the constraints of law and the ethical rules the leadership decides to follow. Companies, like nations, have no friends, only interests.

Some have even compared them to psychopaths .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation_(2003_film) .. which seems fair.

Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend

#16

Post by draw_down »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #2

As CTO it always was mine and I invested lots of time for good relationships - E.g. visited them everyday for some minutes. But I might have experienced only good and helpful HR departments which were highly interested in people development. The only time I got real trouble was when the head of HR suggested I lay off half of the department (but even then I could change the number way down with cancelling all freelanc…

[dead]

Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend

#19

Post by OnlineGladiator »

frellus wrote: post #10

I get the whole "HR can be evil" point, but this article could have also been, "Having friends in management is fine, but management is not your friend". Personally, I'm so sick of the cynicism in general. Can we make points and articles about protecting yourself, as an employee, without resorting to such things? As a manager in a company, I've both had friends in HR and also had HR been my friend. Need to fire that…

> Personally, I'm so sick of the cynicism in general.

Personally, I'm so sick of there not being nearly enough cynicism in general.

I've met cops that aren't total pieces of shit (who all ended up quitting in less than 5 years), but that doesn't mean cops aren't total pieces of shit. If the nature of the job is unethical, you should rightly call it out as such. HR's job is to pretend to be your friend while doing whatever the CEO and the lawyers tell them to do. They're the kind of people who are your friends until suddenly they aren't, and then you realize it was all bullshit to begin with.

You're welcome to disagree. But from my perspective you're naive, and from your perspective I'm cynical.

Re: Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend

#20

Post by elil17 »

msla wrote: post #7

Companies in general aren't anyone's friend, in that, ideally, a company is a machine designed to make money within the constraints of law and the ethical rules the leadership decides to follow. Companies, like nations, have no friends, only interests.

I'm not sure what you mean by ideally there. Do you mean that the platonic company is a money making machine? If so, that's certainly the case.

In practice, though, isn't it better if companies have non-monetary goals? Think Newman's Own, B-corps, etc.

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