<story><title>Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend</title><url>https://cdoyle.me/2023/01/05/having-friends-in-hr-is-fine-but-hr-is-not-your-friend/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>frellus</author><text>I get the whole &amp;quot;HR can be evil&amp;quot; point, but this article could have also been, &amp;quot;Having friends in management is fine, but management is not your friend&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I&amp;#x27;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?&lt;p&gt;As a manager in a company, I&amp;#x27;ve both had friends in HR and also had HR been my friend. Need to fire that horrible employee who is demoralizing the team and not being productive? HR is your friend. Need to hire the next best engineer? HR is my friend.&lt;p&gt;Have I seen horrible, Catbert-like HR managers and people? Of course. In all levels of an organization, people can be horrible. Why round everything up to the cynical points just to get clicks?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>OnlineGladiator</author><text>&amp;gt; Personally, I&amp;#x27;m so sick of the cynicism in general.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I&amp;#x27;m so sick of there not being nearly enough cynicism in general.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve met cops that aren&amp;#x27;t total pieces of shit (who all ended up quitting in less than 5 years), but that doesn&amp;#x27;t mean cops aren&amp;#x27;t total pieces of shit.  If the nature of the job is unethical, you should rightly call it out as such.  HR&amp;#x27;s job is to pretend to be your friend while doing whatever the CEO and the lawyers tell them to do.  They&amp;#x27;re the kind of people who are your friends until suddenly they aren&amp;#x27;t, and then you realize it was all bullshit to begin with.&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;re welcome to disagree.  But from my perspective you&amp;#x27;re naive, and from your perspective I&amp;#x27;m cynical.</text></comment>
<story><title>Having friends in HR is fine, but HR is not your friend</title><url>https://cdoyle.me/2023/01/05/having-friends-in-hr-is-fine-but-hr-is-not-your-friend/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>frellus</author><text>I get the whole &amp;quot;HR can be evil&amp;quot; point, but this article could have also been, &amp;quot;Having friends in management is fine, but management is not your friend&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I&amp;#x27;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?&lt;p&gt;As a manager in a company, I&amp;#x27;ve both had friends in HR and also had HR been my friend. Need to fire that horrible employee who is demoralizing the team and not being productive? HR is your friend. Need to hire the next best engineer? HR is my friend.&lt;p&gt;Have I seen horrible, Catbert-like HR managers and people? Of course. In all levels of an organization, people can be horrible. Why round everything up to the cynical points just to get clicks?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>crmd</author><text>I get what you’re saying but don’t think the Catbert analogy is apropos here.&lt;p&gt;What I have seen as a senior tech executive and old person is that young people entering the workforce after around 2015-6 often rely on HR to be a neutral arbiter in workplace conflicts, analogous to parental chaperones or university administrators.&lt;p&gt;What I believe the author is trying to convey is that this misunderstanding can have disastrous consequences on a young person’s career. HR is not a neutral arbiter between you and the business. They are the business.</text></comment>