HR Depts Suck

What happened Jon?

I remember this one time I applied for some shitty porter position at a kitchen and the HR broad literally asks me things like "what are your hobbies?" As if those kind of questions were going to be a good indicator of how I would do cleaning mats and fucking steam tables.

That's unfair but a common diatribe - HR often acts as the scapegoat or fuse in companies. You have to understand that HR needs to be extremely pragmatic and fact-oriented when it comes to many decisions and processes - they cannot get emotional about things or they would go nuts. Also, they often rely on information provided by the business(es) and execute on them.

HR has a bad rap - mostly undeserved

Do you work in HR? I have been avoiding HR like the plague during my current job search and focusing on connecting with the potential hiring manager.

This is truth

You're wrong. You should get HR on your side - be pleasant and polite, recognize when they're helpful. This is a false dichotomy - you can connect with the business person making the hiring decision, while making a good impression on HR.

I don't work in HR, no, but I work with HR a lot for all our recruiting efforts.

I've seen your posts you are an HR rat [/butter

HR is not all bad, but it deserves most of its bad rap, IMO.

I really don't see any reason for HR. After years of seeing what they do, I think most companies would be better off just hiring temps to file the paperwork and do the hiring.

They're useless when dealing with employee issues and I've had them make things much worse after they got involved.

HR has fucked me over so many times and I've got no love for them whatsoever...

Being an HR person is hard because the system is set up to make everyone hate you. Their job is to enforce stupid bureaucratic policies they had no hand in creating, and to make absolutely sure that when there's a labor problem, the company doesn't get sued. I've worked with good HR people, they are saints.

Who's gonna do payroll? I know for a fact GM's, controllers, and managers hate doing that shit.

No, the rules exist because some employee before you did something that was against the law or that lowered the company's productivity and profitability. Then, upper management or legal told HR to make sure it doesn't happen again.