this post was submitted on 09 May 2025
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[–] [email protected] 111 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (29 children)

HR is employed by the company to protect the company/capital.

A regulatory watchdog (so not on company's payroll) would be the one to protect the workers. Even a union could to a certain degree.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 days ago (1 children)

This can't get said enough. HR is not there to help you. HR is there to keep you from being able to sue the company if something happens.

If you have, or someone gives you a cause to sue the company, before hiring a lawyer and possibly (likely) losing your job because you're suing your employer, you can instead take the complaint up with HR. They should recognize the liability for the company in your situation and take steps to minimize or eliminate any possibly perception of blame that could be cast upon the company.

Here, I'll give you an example of something that actually happened to me. I used to work at a grocery store and to say the "left hand doesn't know what the right is doing" .... Would be an understatement. It was a fairly large place in a national chain of stores. I was working in the produce department at the time.... So, the supplier for grapes informed us that the location where the grapes are grown has black widow spiders in the habitat. Though every effort is made to prevent it, there is still the possibility that the grapes may contain traces of venomous spiders.

Corporate HR appeared, like a fart you didn't hear, but you can definitely smell. They tasked my manager to get everyone in the department to sign a paper that said, and I shit you not: we've been made aware of the possibility of black widow spiders in the grapes, and that we understand that we should use specialty gloves that are bite resistant/bite proof when handling the grapes.... As soon as I read that I turned to my manager and said what fucking gloves? Where are these gloves?

We, of course, didn't have any such thing. I asked the manager if they could get some for us and they didn't even know how to do that.

Simply: after everyone has signed the statement, and if anyone is bitten by a black widow, the HR dickwads that work at the company can hold up the form you signed saying "we tooky them to use the gloves for safety, and they were not using those gloves at the time of the incident" .... Because nobody ever got the gloves. Regardless, it lets the company throw you under the bus for getting injured, while management won't help you in staying safe on the job, often encouraging the behaviour that HR says you should not be doing.

HR is not your friend, they're actively protecting the enemy (the business owners) from you, the worker.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 days ago (5 children)

Why did anyone even touch the grapes after signing the paper? Seems like a good excuse to say "I can't do that. No gloves. I signed a thing, remember?"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

That's essentially what I did. As far as I could tell, I was the only one who took issue with it.

I looked my manager square in the face and told them I would not, under any circumstances, be stocking grapes unless the proper safety equipment was available.

That's a job I never had to do again. Because they never got the safety equipment.

Right to refuse unsafe working conditions is a right where I live. If they tried to retaliate against me it would become a very short lawsuit.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

Yeah but then you get bullied about being reasonable

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Did boss' daughter have an eating disorder, because that's a pretty savage callout.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Either way it's a goddamn amazing comeback.

If boss' daughter did have an eating disorder and the boss is still calling out employees eating habits rudely and unprompted, then maybe a firm dose of reality is overdue.

[–] [email protected] 161 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (5 children)

Who would have imagined that a department called "human resources" wouldn't have your best interests in mind?

[–] [email protected] 37 points 6 days ago (5 children)

If you think about the phrasing of the title “Human Resources”, it makes sense that they are not your friends.

Let’s look at the definition of the word resource:

resource /rē′sôrs″, -zôrs″, rĭ-sôrs′, -zôrs′/

noun

  1. Something that is available for use or that can be used for support or help. “The local library is a valuable resource.”
  2. An available supply, especially of money, that can be drawn on when needed.

Those definitions describe disposable commodities; easily replaceable. The adjective “human” simply refines what type of disposable and replaceable commodities that the department deals with.

If you want someone to be your advocate your best interests at a job, you’ll need to hire a lawyer. In the meantime, make sure you take notes, and follow everything up with an email (bcc your personal email a copy of each correspondence).

If your state allows one-party consent, you can even record conversations; be very aware that despite being legal, it will likely get you fired with prejudice if anybody finds out you’ve been recording them without their knowledge.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It could also be interpreted as "resources for humans", but you're spot on

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Where I'm working they rebranded HR to ✨"People & Culture"✨ so I don't know what you mean. With that name, they simply must have our best interests in mind instead of always siding with the higher ranking individual.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Weird, at my company they changed it to "flesh asset repair and removal."

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 days ago

Found the meatbag Amazon warehouse employee

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[–] [email protected] 97 points 5 days ago (8 children)

I'm surprised so many people still don't realize that HR exists to protect the company, not the employee. Yes, since a bad or reckless manager can put the company at significant risk, sometimes they will take the side of the employee, but not because it's their charter.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Also if someone says something fucked up and you clap back and they report it. YES HR WILL SPEAK TO YOU!

If you want to nail someone with the rulebook you cant respond like two people talking shit on twitter. You have to call them out on what they said respectfully and professionally, preferably with witnesses or go straight to HR.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Everyone uses this cliche. Nobody seems to understand it.

a bad or reckless manager can put the company at significant risk

Yes. In this circumstance, the manager opened the company up to a lawsuit with his comments. It would have protected the company to punish him or have him take some sort of class.

You can just say that HR is usually bad at their jobs. "Protecting the company not the employee" is completely meaningless here.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago

No, there's more to it than that. Immediately taking the manager to task gives more credence to an employee lawsuit. Their "best" first approach is to talk to the employee, even scold them. What they want is for the issue to go away without the company getting bad press or a legal issue. It's not that they're bad at their job, it's that their job has zero to do with being an employee advocate.

They might also scold the manager, but that will happen off the record and behind closed doors.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

The fact that it's called human resources instead of something less dystopian should be a hint. If you want an actual ally as an employee you gotta unionize.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago

Humans are the resource.

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[–] [email protected] 111 points 6 days ago (2 children)

"If you're going to start a meeting with fat shaming me, then yes; I am going to fire back. Don't dish it out if you can't take it yourself.

If you have a problem with that, we can get the lawyers involved and discuss it further."

But I also live somewhere that actually has labour laws and where 'at-will' employment is a ridiculous concept. If you want to fire someone (after their three months probation), you've gotta have a good reason and you better document it throughly.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 days ago (7 children)

"At will" isn't as magical as people think.

If you terminate an employee without documented cause, you still have to pay them unemployment.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 6 days ago (1 children)

In practice this just means that your documented cause will be fabricated.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 5 days ago (2 children)

It doesn't really need to be fabricated. It's stupid easy to build a case to legitimately fire anyone.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Sounds like a good reason to unionise.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

"Bbb bb but that's communism!"

  • the USA, probably
[–] [email protected] 67 points 5 days ago (2 children)

A coworker drunkenly made out with my face at a work event and HR tried to send me to a sexually harassment seminar so I could "learn what sexually assault really is"

Another great quote from that meeting: "if you knew she was a sloppy drunk, why were you hanging out with her?"

HR is there to protect the company - not you

[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It was crazy. What made it worse was that I didn't even report it...my friend was so upset about it, he told his boss.

When the HR director asked me what I wanted to happen to the girl, I told her NOTHING. I don't want her fired or anything, I don't even work directly with her. Then she asked why, if I didn't want anything to happen, I reported it? BITCH I DIDN'T I was going to find a new job and move the fuck on with my life

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 days ago

"I wanted it documented so if she is involved in another incident, this one can be referenced"

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 days ago (2 children)

That last line is the key take-away for dealing with ANY HR.

Never forget who signs their paychecks.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 5 days ago (11 children)

one time i had to interrupt an hr sensitivity seminar because the trainer casually threw down an ethnic slur for me

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 days ago

What the fuck?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

So the other day at a metting we had some cupcakes laid out. One worker took three of them (there was 16 cupcakes and 8 of us). I tried to politely call it out. But she freaks out and starts accusing me of giving my daughter an eating disorder (I don't have a daughter). The HR lady was in the room too.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I used to feel bad for Toby that Michael was constantly shitting on him. That is, until I encountered corporate HR. And now I too hate so much about the things that Toby chooses to be.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 days ago

True lore: in one episode, Toby says that he was actually training to be a priest, but he gave it up to hook up with a woman. (who later left him and is now his ex.) Then he just took the first job that he saw. ...almost as if he was guided to it by a higher power?

So canonically Toby is in a living hell because he rejected his god to indulge his fornicatory lust.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Why are you the way you are?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 days ago

Toby's from HR, which means he's not a part of our family. Also he's divorced so he's not really a part of his family either.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 days ago

I had an elected official chuck pens at the HR lady and reference her recent weight loss during a training about professional behavior in the workplace. Unironically. But the HR lady laughed it off and then kind of flirted with the elected official and a program manager.

He was already on the way out but it did provide a good orientation for the workplace culture.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago (1 children)

"Tina, there are six of us. Learn to share"

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