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Welcome to life in practically any large US corporation. Most employees will never complain to HR, they may need some routine services that HR provides and that

Welcome to life in practically any large US corporation. Most employees will never complain to HR, they may need some routine services that HR provides and that’s the extent of their interaction. But there are a few who do complain. If these are peer-related complaints, HR will work with the employees managers to resolve the issue. But let’s say someone has a problem with their manager. Maybe no one else has complained about him before, or if so the complaints appear to be isolated incidents. Let’s say he has a lot of positive feedback from his peers, manager, and other subordinates. Now you, the complainant, are the problem. And oh boy you have some special life circumstances - yikes, you are like a loaded bomb dropped in the lap of HR. They are not in any position of power, they can’t set the policy for your department (rightfully - they are not in the know), so your boss holds all the cards. HR won’t dig to the bottom of anything, and a manager is more important that a developer. At best it’s he-said-she-said and ignored, at worst you are shown the door after some minimal make nice by the company to avoid future liability. I think it takes a strong top-down initiative to avoid cultural issues like this at an organization. At some place as large as Amazon there are bound to be isolated incidents but to all indications this behavior is, if not encouraged (in some cases it appears to be), not actively discouraged and is hence tacitly approved of at Amazon. I’ve seen what it takes to get a bad manager moved or fired by their subordinates - it requires an outright coup. Rarely does such a thing happen and it’s not guaranteed to succeed. Whereas, a conscientious and capable manager can walk in and straighten something like this out in fairly short order, with minimal drama.

JohnFen 8y ago
> Welcome to life in practically any large US corporation. This. Which is why I do my best to avoid working for (or doing business with) large corporations. They're simply toxic.
- i_am_new_here 8y ago
  Only: Small ones are even worse (see other comments). With big ones you have at least "something": Colleagues and "a lot of money blowing in at the front". HR is not your friend. OP makes a lot of mistakes. Life is hard. Big companies are a good / reasonable choice: The money. With smaller companies there is less money and more problems, usually, EXCEPT they are directly dealing with big corps (e.g.), which puts you back into big-corp-exposure. You have to go where the money is.
  - JohnFen 8y ago
    > Small ones are even worse This has not been my personal experience at all. I've worked for huge companies and tiny ones, and the only real difference I've seen is that the working conditions tend to be far superior in the tiny ones. Compensation between the two tends to be comparable as well (ignoring startups -- I'm not talking about them here, as they're a unique beast). I don't think that large companies have an edge on that score (actually, I think the opposite is true, but not by a enough to matter much). As an example, I left a megacorporation to work at my current job, a truly tiny company. My total compensation at my current job is about $5,000/yr less than at the megacorp -- not nearly enough of a difference to matter.
halbritt 8y ago
I mentioned further up thread, there's a book about this topic written by an HR person called "Corporate Confidential" which basically reinforces all this. It's a fascinating read.
nicoburns 8y ago
If you have a problem with your manager, wouldn't the person to speak to be their manager rather than HR?
- opportune 8y ago
  Might work, but that's a very high-stakes maneuver that could backfire possibly even worse than through HR because now you have two people with the power to make your life hell and potentially no record in HR about the situation (potentially losing first strike opportunities - now your manager or manager's manager can begin to record problems caused by you before you can record problems by them). And also IME it is basically impossible to read how your manager's manager feels about your manager Realistically if you have a bad manager your only 100% safe option is to switch companies. Switching teams internally can work depending on the place, but it does carry risk, especially if you're on a visa
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
freddie_mercury 8y ago
> Welcome to life in practically any large US corporation This is a common refrain, especially on HN. But it is a bit misplaced: Small companies are just as bad and often worse. All you have to do is look around at the average small company where nepotism is the default (doesn't matter how good you are, the owner's son will be the next CEO) and where many owners see staff as personal servants. Some of the things I've seen in the past year with friends & acquaintances who work at small companies: - An office admin being told to arrange the owner's wedding (without pay). - A nail salon worker being told to go pick up the owner's dry cleaning since there weren't any customers in at the moment. - The owner of a small hotel telling staff they were all working on Saturday to cater a party at her house. (If you say no, you are fired.) - A company owner taking $40,000 out of the company bank account to pay for his family vacation to Croatia and then missing payroll that month. It ended up being two weeks late. Many small business owners treat their business (and by extension their staff) as their personal fief and property. Plus, the people who own and run small businesses aren't going to listen to ideas for feedback and improvement any more than big company managers. They always fall back on -- well, I've succeeded so far doing it my way.
- r00fus 8y ago
  > They always fall back on -- well, I've succeeded so far doing it my way. Put more simply: "My way or the highway". I wonder if there are probing questions you can subtly ask to ferret out these kinds of managers/workplaces so you can avoid during interviews or early on the job?

JohnFen 8y ago

> Welcome to life in practically any large US corporation. This. Which is why I do my best to avoid working for (or doing business with) large corporations. They're simply toxic.

i_am_new_here 8y ago
Only: Small ones are even worse (see other comments). With big ones you have at least "something": Colleagues and "a lot of money blowing in at the front". HR is not your friend. OP makes a lot of mistakes. Life is hard. Big companies are a good / reasonable choice: The money. With smaller companies there is less money and more problems, usually, EXCEPT they are directly dealing with big corps (e.g.), which puts you back into big-corp-exposure. You have to go where the money is.
- JohnFen 8y ago
  > Small ones are even worse This has not been my personal experience at all. I've worked for huge companies and tiny ones, and the only real difference I've seen is that the working conditions tend to be far superior in the tiny ones. Compensation between the two tends to be comparable as well (ignoring startups -- I'm not talking about them here, as they're a unique beast). I don't think that large companies have an edge on that score (actually, I think the opposite is true, but not by a enough to matter much). As an example, I left a megacorporation to work at my current job, a truly tiny company. My total compensation at my current job is about $5,000/yr less than at the megacorp -- not nearly enough of a difference to matter.

halbritt 8y ago

I mentioned further up thread, there's a book about this topic written by an HR person called "Corporate Confidential" which basically reinforces all this. It's a fascinating read.

nicoburns 8y ago

If you have a problem with your manager, wouldn't the person to speak to be their manager rather than HR?

opportune 8y ago
Might work, but that's a very high-stakes maneuver that could backfire possibly even worse than through HR because now you have two people with the power to make your life hell and potentially no record in HR about the situation (potentially losing first strike opportunities - now your manager or manager's manager can begin to record problems caused by you before you can record problems by them). And also IME it is basically impossible to read how your manager's manager feels about your manager Realistically if you have a bad manager your only 100% safe option is to switch companies. Switching teams internally can work depending on the place, but it does carry risk, especially if you're on a visa

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

freddie_mercury 8y ago

> Welcome to life in practically any large US corporation This is a common refrain, especially on HN. But it is a bit misplaced: Small companies are just as bad and often worse. All you have to do is look around at the average small company where nepotism is the default (doesn't matter how good you are, the owner's son will be the next CEO) and where many owners see staff as personal servants. Some of the things I've seen in the past year with friends & acquaintances who work at small companies: - An office admin being told to arrange the owner's wedding (without pay). - A nail salon worker being told to go pick up the owner's dry cleaning since there weren't any customers in at the moment. - The owner of a small hotel telling staff they were all working on Saturday to cater a party at her house. (If you say no, you are fired.) - A company owner taking $40,000 out of the company bank account to pay for his family vacation to Croatia and then missing payroll that month. It ended up being two weeks late. Many small business owners treat their business (and by extension their staff) as their personal fief and property. Plus, the people who own and run small businesses aren't going to listen to ideas for feedback and improvement any more than big company managers. They always fall back on -- well, I've succeeded so far doing it my way.

r00fus 8y ago
> They always fall back on -- well, I've succeeded so far doing it my way. Put more simply: "My way or the highway". I wonder if there are probing questions you can subtly ask to ferret out these kinds of managers/workplaces so you can avoid during interviews or early on the job?