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Question for the HR people

casa_mugrienta

casa_mugrienta

Duke status
Apr 13, 2008
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How often do you find aggressors filing complaints claiming to be the victim of workplace hostility?

And how often are HR investigations rigged - as in per unwritten policy HR usually will always side with the person filing the complaint?

Asking because some other employees and myself had to talk to HR as a witness in a few incidents over the past months - both cases it was oddly the aggressor/accuser who filed the complaint claiming they faced verbal hostility from an individual - in one case an accused individual had even tried to de-escalate the situation - later we found out HR had ignored essential information we had given in defense of this individual - in both cases HR sided with the aggressor/accuser.
 
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afoaf

afoaf

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Jun 25, 2008
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casa_mugrienta said:
How often do you find aggressors filing complaints claiming to be the victim of workplace hostility?

And how often are HR investigations rigged - as in per unwritten policy HR usually will always side with the person filing the complaint?

Asking because some other employees and myself had to talk to HR as a witness in a few incidents over the past months - both cases it was oddly the aggressor/accuser who filed the complaint claiming they faced verbal hostility from an individual - in one case an accused individual had even tried to de-escalate the situation - later we found out HR had ignored essential information we had given in defense of this individual - in both cases HR sided with the aggressor/accuser.
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in my experience, when stuff like this happens, you have to turn to outside counsel

HR is not innately free from bias or undue influence within an organization
 
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afoaf

afoaf

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HR is supposed to have influence, what I said is that their machinations
are sometimes unduly influenced by leadership and/or personal biases
which they certainly SHOULD NOT be.

I think it was Thomas Jefferson that said:

the tree of Human Resources must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
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if HR does not fairly adjudicate personnel issues, then you bring in the
lawyers and extract your pound of flesh that way. unfortunately, this
typically also means you need to find a new place to work and good
referrals from co-workers to help overcome any negative sh!t your
previous employer may try to sow.
 
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?

_____

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Sep 17, 2012
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When I bartended at a super high end resort, one of the bussers ordered a shot of Patron, put it on the tray and went to the fancy dining room, repeat, repeat. Next day they pulled him into HR with 3 managers and interrogated him for like an hour. After the meeting he ran into the bar and was crying like little beaotch, "I said your name! They wouldn't let me go and asked who gave me shots, who gave me shots". So to not lose my own job, I went to HR lady and told her what happened, and said if a server orders a drink, it's not my job to watch where it goes and I wouldn't know where it goes anyway if they take it to the fancy room. I knew what he was doing after like the second one (drinking the shots) but phuk him for ratting me out. She took my point. He got canned and I stayed at the job for a few more years.
 
casa_mugrienta

casa_mugrienta

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Apr 13, 2008
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Ifallalot said:
And this, my friends, is why HR has undue influence
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That's what I'm guessing.

In these particular situations there's really no other explanation - we were pretty stunned.

I was once told all you have to do is use the words "hostile work environment" and HR will basically do your bidding.

That's some psycho sh!t on the part of the aggressor - protect oneself by playing the victim.

It's always interesting to psychopathy in action, unless you're on the receiving end. Where's Autoprax?
 
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afoaf

afoaf

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casa_mugrienta said:
That's some psycho sh!t on the part of the aggressor - protect oneself by playing the victim.

It's always interesting to psychopathy in action, unless you're on the receiving end. Where's Autoprax?
Click to expand...
straight up
 
crustBrother

crustBrother

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Apr 23, 2001
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Ifallalot said:
Anyone who contacts HR for any reason outside of initial hiring paperwork or benefits administration can be automatically classified as a worthless troublemaker
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This. In my entire 30 year career I can think of only two exceptions.
 
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silentbutdeadly

silentbutdeadly

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Funny. I've had the opposite experience. Our HR has protected us several times (siding with manager, not employee) and has made sure we check all the boxes so we don't get sued.

But I agree with some of the above, just haven't experienced it at my company
 
sizzld1

sizzld1

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Mar 31, 2009
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Good to always keep in mind that HR is not there to serve the employees. It is there to serve the employer and one of their primary tasks in doing so is to shield them from the potential for litigation. Combine that with California public policy that greatly favors worker rights and you usually wind up with policies and procedures that err deeply on the side of deescalation by any means and baby-splitting in an effort to do so. The outcomes from those policies and procedures typically don't please anyone and wind up protecting the squeaky wheel as opposed to the person in the right. So yeah, HR is essentially useless for normal human beings who are just trying to do their job.
 
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$kully

$kully

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GF is going through it now. She shares a small office with this total weirdo southern baptist who’s praying the gay away. They have the same title so it’s not an issue of authority. He’s constantly riding the line of being inappropriate with most of his offenses falling int that gray area of being weird and unprofessional but not being actionable. I’ve just been telling her to suck it up and deal with it, even bought her a set of AirPod pros to drown him out. Can’t file a complaint because someone is weird and lacks tact in the workplace. But recently he’s made a few racist comments directly to their supervisor who is asian and not his friend. She handled it right and talked to the supervisor who was the target of the comments and said it’s her issue to deal with but she’d be happy to back her up if she chose to report it. He got a talking to internally but nothing formal from HR and has since filed his own complaints about a hostile work environment because my gf doesn’t talk to him in their shared office any more than needed to do the job. His list of complaints is beyond petty. Her lunch and hand sanitizer smells bad, she doesn’t tell him when she’s going to be late, leave early or be out for the day, etc. She was never going to complain about him because the end of the job is in site and she’s going to be moving on. But if she gets called down because of his complaints, she’s got a laundry list of things she can bring up about him.
 
K

Kento

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The Bar
$kully said:
GF is going through it now. She shares a small office with this total weirdo southern baptist who’s praying the gay away. They have the same title so it’s not an issue of authority. He’s constantly riding the line of being inappropriate with most of his offenses falling int that gray area of being weird and unprofessional but not being actionable. I’ve just been telling her to suck it up and deal with it, even bought her a set of AirPod pros to drown him out. Can’t file a complaint because someone is weird and lacks tact in the workplace. But recently he’s made a few racist comments directly to their supervisor who is asian and not his friend. She handled it right and talked to the supervisor who was the target of the comments and said it’s her issue to deal with but she’d be happy to back her up if she chose to report it. He got a talking to internally but nothing formal from HR and has since filed his own complaints about a hostile work environment because my gf doesn’t talk to him in their shared office any more than needed to do the job. His list of complaints is beyond petty. Her lunch and hand sanitizer smells bad, she doesn’t tell him when she’s going to be late, leave early or be out for the day, etc. She was never going to complain about him because the end of the job is in site and she’s going to be moving on. But if she gets called down because of his complaints, she’s got a laundry list of things she can bring up about him.
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You should buy her a pentagram necklace for Christmas so she can wear it to work around him.
 
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L

Leaverite

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The new head of our HR dept at the organization where I work is a HR trained attorney. Basically you now have zero chance of getting any kind of a favorable outcome not in line with organizational policy.
 
L

Leaverite

Rabbitt Bartholomew status
Dec 19, 2017
7,924
1,092
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Central Cal
$kully said:
GF is going through it now. She shares a small office with this total weirdo southern baptist who’s praying the gay away. They have the same title so it’s not an issue of authority. He’s constantly riding the line of being inappropriate with most of his offenses falling int that gray area of being weird and unprofessional but not being actionable. I’ve just been telling her to suck it up and deal with it, even bought her a set of AirPod pros to drown him out. Can’t file a complaint because someone is weird and lacks tact in the workplace. But recently he’s made a few racist comments directly to their supervisor who is asian and not his friend. She handled it right and talked to the supervisor who was the target of the comments and said it’s her issue to deal with but she’d be happy to back her up if she chose to report it. He got a talking to internally but nothing formal from HR and has since filed his own complaints about a hostile work environment because my gf doesn’t talk to him in their shared office any more than needed to do the job. His list of complaints is beyond petty. Her lunch and hand sanitizer smells bad, she doesn’t tell him when she’s going to be late, leave early or be out for the day, etc. She was never going to complain about him because the end of the job is in site and she’s going to be moving on. But if she gets called down because of his complaints, she’s got a laundry list of things she can bring up about him.
Click to expand...

Working for State Ed an issue like this would fall under Title IX. Title IX may be expanded to encompass the private sector in the near future.
 
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