How Evil is HR?

Patrick Erwin at Careerbuilder.com wrote a short article on 5 Job Blogs You Should be Reading.

Blahblahblah.

But wait. What is this? Punk Rock HR?!

So I look at her stuff. The writer, Laurie Ruettimann, worked in HR for a good stretch and is now writing about it. And consulting, it seems. I agree with much of what she says. And then.

I see her blogroll. And I click on EvilHRLady. I say this stuff all the time! I could be writing this! Except that I. Don’t. Dare.

“Not being friends with the boss is not a protected class. This, in my way of thinking, means that you don't have any claim of discrimination if the boss pays his BFF more than he is paying you, or rather the other entry level workers. You may see it as stupid, he may see it as being generous to an old friend.”

Declaring things that are “not a protected class” is something I do regularly. Another one is, “It’s not discrimination if he is a jerk to everyone.”

EvilHRLady gave sound advice after making that point, but she made the point, which I appreciate. Employees regularly instruct me on “their labor rights” and what is “illegal”. Generally, they don’t know what they are talking about.

Anyway. EvilHRLady is also an active HR practitioner at a Fortune 500 company. It doesn’t look like she is blogging about her employer or co-workers in particular, but she is giving advice. Again, I wouldn’t dare. The lawyers got to me when I was really young.

But now that I know that there are HR people like me..and they are writing…I might never get off the Internet.