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.
Did boss’ daughter have an eating disorder, because that’s a pretty savage callout.
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.
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.
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.
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?”
Because then they fire you.
Yeah but then you get bullied about being reasonable
This is just a tawdry /r/antiwork meme borne of McDonalds burger flipper level reasoning.
Sure, companies maximise profits and hire HR to assist them in that objective.
However, your own interests are often aligned with theirs.
If you want to sue your employer, then obviously HR is not there to help you do that.
However, if your supervisor is an ass who makes witty comments about how many cup cakes you ate, your interests are aligned with HR’s - he needs to stop creating fodder for your bullying claim.
She literally just told you HR didn’t help her in her situation and your answer is to tell her that actually, she was helped and her silly little girl brain just didn’t realize it?
I know that you didn’t do it on purpose, but I implore you to do some self-reflection and start believing women when they speak of their struggles instead of dismissing them.
Seriously?
She said HR wanted to talk to her.
Maybe it didn’t go well because she was labouring under the misconception that HR only protects the company and didn’t understand that in this case it would be trivial to have their interests align with hers.
My comment has nothing to do with ignoring women. Your comment says a lot more about the plight of women than mine. Honestly, one of us really does need to engage in some self reflection.
You might be surprised to find out who the “one of you” is!
That’s the implication of my remark, but it’s not as witty when you spell it out.
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I don’t presume you’ve checked the accumulated downvotes but
Mcdonalds burger flipper level reasoning
stinks pretty badly of classist ideology. Paired with a comment that seems more in-tune with the needs of the company than the employee, it does not paint you in a good light.
I understand the comment is speaking from the capitalist’s side but you don’t have to wear the suit so naturally. Historians won’t be putting on red belly shirts and sticking their heads in honey jars to give talks about Xi Jinpeng in the future.
I don’t care about downvotes. Imagine posting something and looking at the downvotes and thinking “oh golly gosh people don’t like my opinion”.
I also don’t care whether you think my comment “paints me in a good light”, or that I sound like a capitalist.
Lemmy users skew pretty hard towards young progressive anti-everything users that pick up these little factoids like “HR is there to protect the company” and rely on them as a prism through which to interpret the world.
No one who has ever interacted with HR thinks that they are fairy god-mother types you can snitch to and they’ll fire your boss, but they’re part of the context in which most people will spend their entire working lives, and people who understand how to navigate them will do better than those who do not.
I’ll admit that the “burger flipper level reasoning” is gratuitous. I flipped burgers (but not for macdonalds) 20 years ago. I guess it is classist, but younger me absolutely falls into the “class” that I’m making fun of.
You’re also welcome to frame me as capitalist because we all are and sadly it’s naive to think you can be anything else. I voted for our socialist party in the recent Australian election. They won the election in a landslide, and while they have some “socialist” policies I suffer no illusions that I continue to reside in a capitalist reality.
Please spare me your strongman, “sticks and stones may break my bones” schtick. I’m not talking about soft shit like that.
I was addressing you from the standpoint of workshopping potential reasons why your attempt at persuasion was facing pushback (in the form of downvotes). My expectation was that, if you wanted to persuade people to adopt your method of HR interaction, you should package it in a palatable way. You seem to subscribe to the “shit yourself in public, stomp around aggressively, and then try convince people by saying
do ya get it yet? you smellin' what I'm steppin' in?” school of communication.One thing I will agree with you about is that I was imprecise with my words. I’ve used money, so I am a capitalist. Guess I’ll die. I meant, and should have said, you seem pro-capitalist. But, as we’ve already established, you’re uninterested in looking good.
I’m not trying to persuade anyone, I’m just calling out idiocy as I see it.
That said, I notice my comments have provoked some discussion about what HR does.
Bruh stfu lmao dork
It’s rare I see someone I can block so readily. But even a cursory glance at your profile says we don’t get along.
That doesn’t mean HR is staffed with intelligent people who will back up the smaller paycheck.
I work with a lot of HR staff and it amazes me at their lack of ability. Like don’t know how to do incredibly basic things in excel, my job is to help with using our products, not very basic data manipulation from exported data.
If you wanted a very obscure one off data extract I might write a SQL script for that, but some requests are met by existing export tools and hiding a column or two in excel.
Are you saying HR will side with the guy making cup cake comments?
That’s antithetical to the comment I replied to. It can’t be both.
They literally did. Why are you disregarding her account and acting like this is some kind of hypothetical?
That’s not what her account said at all. You’re making up a narrative that doesn’t exist.
No, that’s literally what she said. Get some reading comprehension ffs. HR talked to her instead of the boss who made the rude comment. Read it as many times as you need…
Sorry mate all the comments in this thread are asserting different things.
The screen cap says HR spoke to her.
You’re saying that means that they’ve taken the supervisors side.
That would expose the company to a legal claim, which is the antithesis of what every other comment here says HR is supposed to do.
No, I’m saying a dumb HR worker won’t rattle the cage in which they sit.
How can they protect the company they work for if they can’t stave off a cup cake law suit?
Sounds like a good reason to unionise.
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.
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.
Yeah, that’s a good point.
Its also a big contributor as to why a lot of people think HR are useless. Once you respond in any way that could be considered unprofessional you just made it messy and increased the risk to the company of doing anything other than issuing slap on the wrist warnings.
Take the meme for example, now the company has to make a morality decision on whats worse, an unprompted and inappropriate but not deliberately hurtful comment from a manager vs a deliberate and highly personal barb from an employee to a manager… I can see the warning letters for both of them from here.
I’m kind of surprised (yes, naively) that some people aren’t even aware enough of the wider culture to think twice about saying things like that.
Humans are the resource.
Exactly. They’re not there for you.
That’s right. Just imagine that you start a business and you start hiring employees and at some point you have so many employees that it becomes difficult to manage and sometimes the employees start fighting or doing other inappropriate things. So, you hire some other employees to to create an HR department to make sure that your employees don’t become a liability for your company. See?
Who would have imagined that a department called “human resources” wouldn’t have your best interests in mind?
Nah, HR is the employers support. The Union is the employees support.
Check this out, it works: https://www.sverigesingenjorer.se/kollektivavtal/the-swedish-model/
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
- Something that is available for use or that can be used for support or help. “The local library is a valuable resource.”
- 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.
If you want someone to be your advocate your best interests at a job, you’ll need to hire a lawyer.
You can also join a union.
You’re right. But it’s not feasible for everyone. e.g. As a North Carolina state employee, I am legally not allowed to join a union.
It could also be interpreted as “resources for humans”, but you’re spot on
tbh I think that’s kinda the point, it’s corporate doublespeak.
Most functional HR departments actually do have the workers best interests at heart, because protecting the company and not screwing over workers usually has a ton of overlap. But HR does a lot more than handle workplace disputes.
"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.
“At will” isn’t as magical as people think.
If you terminate an employee without documented cause, you still have to pay them unemployment.
In practice this just means that your documented cause will be fabricated.
It doesn’t really need to be fabricated. It’s stupid easy to build a case to legitimately fire anyone.
Not really. I used to work in management for a major outdoors retail chain and we had employees we desperately wanted to fire because they were lazy and toxic rowards other staff and customers, but since they showed up on time and in uniform corporate wouldn’t let us do it because they didn’t want to pay unemployment.
Being toxic to customers is probably counter indicated in the employee handbook, especially for a retail chain.
Your management could have written them up for it 3 times then fired them, but they couldn’t be bothered to do the paperwork.
they can just say they’re downsizing, or the employee hasn’t been performing well, or any other lie. as long as they don’t specifically mention that you’re being terminated for something illegal you’ll never stand a chance in court.
that being said. record every meeting with hr, they slip up more than you think
That’s simply not true.
If you’re laid off they have to pay unemployment. If you aren’t performing well they have to show records proving it when you file unemployment and they try to deny the claim.
Please don’t talk about topics on which you’re clearly uninformed, because the belief that someon3 can be fired for anything with no recourse keeps people from filing for unemployment when they’re 100% eligible.
All “at will” means is that they can fire you for any reason or no reason. They may still be required to pay unemployment, but they don’t have to keep you on staff.
I’m in PA, so yeah unfortunately this is how it goes. hats off to y’all in states with slightly better laws, but this is how it goes in my state. I speak from personal experience as well as the experience of my friends.
and all that documentation can be easily fabricated or cherry picked to try to make a point that isn’t there.
it doesn’t matter how the system is supposed to work, the laws in this country and PA especially are so fucked that it very rarely works out in the employees favor. you can potentially get unemployment, but wrongful termination suits very rarely go anywhere.
No, that’s not how it works in PA or any state.
You’re incorrect regarding unemployment eligibility as it relates to at-will employment status, and since you don’t know what you’re talking about you need to shut the fuck up before you discourage people from even attempting to pursue their rights when they lose their job.
lol. you sound like someone who has never tried to file for any of that shit. from another one of your comments, sounds like you had some corporate experience in firing people.
your experience in the corporate world firing people is not what people on the other side of the axe experience.
people should absolutely file for unemployment and pursue wrongful termination suits if possible. but your expectation that things will fall into their lap is unrealistic and will cost people money if they lose an appeal and are required to pay their benefits back.
Once again, you’re wrong about many, many things.
Filing for unemployment costs nothing. When the company tries to deny the claim, you can appeal that for free, the company is required to provide evidence, and they frequently lose.
Wrongful termination is an entirely different thing than termination without cause and it’s clear that you don’t know that. This is why you need to shut the fuck up and stop telling people to give up when you don’t know what you’re talking about at all.
Saying someone has had quite a few cupcakes isn’t necessarily fatshaming. It can just be calling out someone hogging the cupcakes.
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
Ayyyy~ what the fuck?
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
“I wanted it documented so if she is involved in another incident, this one can be referenced”
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.
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.
Why are you the way you are?
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.
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.
“Tina, there are six of us. Learn to share”
That’s what I imagined the situation to be at first, her reaction does seem in that situation to be pretty wild
