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

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

#281

Post by Ekaros »

anticristi wrote: post #255
keiferski wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overwhelming majority of people have whatever job they can get. They don't get to be selective, because they have bills, and kids, and rent to pay.

The overwhelming majority of people don't live in the US. In Europe, you have access to free healthcare, unemployment and education. It's not a silver bullet, but it significantly reduced your vulnerability to eating shit from your current employer. Why the US doesn't value safety nets and collective action is beyond me.

Unemployment benefits are bit tough sell when you don't have enough savings and you don't get it for quite a while when you leave on your own... And educations isn't always that simple matter either.

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

#282

Post by praptak »

hirundo wrote: post #100
stretchcat wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be a valid use of the word resource, but it's still dehumanizing to think of people as resources.

It isn't dehumanizing to consider someone "a source of information or expertise". It's humanizing in that those are predominantly human things. And that's one of the primary senses of the word. It seems uncharitable to assume someone must mean some other sense.

The meaning of a word is much more than its definition in a dictionary. Context matters. Humans are animals, yet saying that someone is an animal might mean anything from praise (You're killing it, you animal!) to contempt (Stop behaving like an animal!).

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

#283

Post by digitaltrees »

klodolph wrote: post #248
digitaltrees wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone can have a voice in the outcome of their life and society around them. When you give up on this belief, you relinquish power and control to others. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Stop focusing on the power of others, and obtain your own power and influence, and then govern with empathy for others.

Are you saying that people without power do not exist? Or are you saying that when someone does not have power, it is their fault? I am not sure you are saying either of these things, but I am finding it difficult to make any kind of charitable reading of this comment. Positive thinking only gets you so far. When taken TOO FAR, positive thinking becomes a delusion. We with loving families can thoughtlessly & brutishl…

I am saying that assuming or accepting you have no power or less power than others is a sure way to create that reality. Are there limits. Sure. But there are countless examples of people that created more than society would have “allowed”.

Put another way. Ignore inequality as it effects you, assume you can overcome it. But acknowledge its existence with respect to others and do everything in your power to create equality.

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

#284

Post by d--b »

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 React? Ask them. You can get plenty of things for you to work well if you know how to play HR.

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

#285

Post by hedberg10 »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #213
koonsolo wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you want to view the world like this? This kind of mindset puts you in a very weak position. I look at it like this: I work for a company because it's a win-win. They need some work done, and I need money. In fact, as a coder, the company is the one in the weak position. If I leave for another company, I can get paid the exact same amount instantly. They will have to get a new person, pay them the same, but fi…

IMO this is why it is so critical to get to a position of having fuck you money as quickly as possible. This includes something having a side hustle that's ramen profitable so you won't starve to death when you get the boot for not working on weekends.

Make it much easier on yourself: Micro fuck you money. 6 months of living expenses saved up, ready to go in an emergency or to say fuck you. Even if you were to get assistance from the state where you live, you want to be able to say fuck you to the state as well.

Along with being able to minimize the lifestyle your probably accustomed to when getting a decent wage (this is another hurdle even if you have micro fuck you money), mondays will never feel dreadful again.

You're constructing a giant mountain to climb if you require a side hustle or actual fuck you money (1 mio.+). 99,999% of people will not achieve that, look at how much people save for retirement. Micro fuck you money is very achievable though.

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

#286

Post by goatinaboat »

sam1r wrote: post #280
koonsolo wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you want to view the world like this? This kind of mindset puts you in a very weak position. I look at it like this: I work for a company because it's a win-win. They need some work done, and I need money. In fact, as a coder, the company is the one in the weak position. If I leave for another company, I can get paid the exact same amount instantly. They will have to get a new person, pay them the same, but fi…

>> now the problem is in your lap. I agree with your point but ultimately, why not have the engineer document how long the last cycle took to get into production. So when the manager asks, hey do this in 70% of the time, you have reference to live recent data that it’s impossible. Or even simpler. Manager asks to finish something and have it live in Y days. You will finish it in Y days because the last project needed…

So when the manager asks, hey do this in 70% of the time, you have reference to live recent data that it’s impossible.

All the data in the world won’t sway a manager - and his manager, and his manager - if they need a scapegoat. This is something engineers only figure out when it’s too late.

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

#287

Post by dan-robertson »

juanbyrge wrote: post #54

Seems 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.…

Surely the first example in the OP is one of these clearcut situations (I don’t think there’s any law in California obliging people to report passive aggression) and the point is that HR ignored the allegations until they came from the accused’s manager.

Surely there are grey areas but to consider them on their moral merits, HR would need to be in an impartial position which this article claims they are not.

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

#288

Post by ageofwant »

gonehome wrote: post #244
ageofwant wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be for Capitalism, but that's not what we have today. We have Corporate Feudalism. Capitalism makes a bunch of assumptions about the freedom of the market, freedom of information, freedom of capital and labor and so on - most of which Corporate Feudalism has undermined. Capitalism and Communism has suffered the same fate from the same source, and this will remain true until we move into the age of plenty fro…

I'm being heavily downvoted in my other comments, but I don't agree. Today we have more people starting more billion dollar companies more easily than any other time in human history. We have more freedom of movement, more wealth, etc. There's a staggering amount of growth, a staggering amount of capital investment. No system is its perfect ideal (and there are obvious issues today), but things are a lot better than…

Sure, but that growth and investment did not and will not benefit you, or most anyone else. That 'value' gets aggregated into a vanishingly small group of hyper valuable individuals. In fact, at this stage the meaning of GDP for example is fundamentally decoupled from the actual wealth of the people.

I encourage you to research Mark Blyth's work on generational wealth and check out 'Angrynomics'

https://www.gq.com/story/mark-blyth-economics-interview http://cup.columbia.edu/book/angrynomics/9781788212793

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

#289

Post by goatinaboat »

hypervisorxxx wrote: post #139
jiggawatts wrote: post #14

Many 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…

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 issu…

HR should ideally be an independent third party and all issues treated the same way a legal audit would

This exists, it’s called “binding arbitration” and it is heavily biased towards the company because they pay its bills.

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