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Great advice here. HR is NEVER your friend. They are not on your side. DO NOT TRUST HR. Anonymous feedback is never anonymous. DO NOT TRUST HR. Here's the de

Great advice here. HR is NEVER your friend. They are not on your side. DO NOT TRUST HR. Anonymous feedback is never anonymous. DO NOT TRUST HR. Here's the deal... Exit interviews, as a manager, were annoying because they could ding me on my annual reviews. And that's fine, except... people would complain about things I had no control over. "Oh, my manager made me do something stupid that I didn't like!" Yup, I get it. Only it wasn't ever me making them do that, it was my boss, or a client. And still, as the manager, I'd get blame. And you know what I did with that information? Every time someone trashed me, or the company, in an exit interview, I'd remember it. And 2-3 jobs from now, when you need a rec, or you need someone to say something nice about your time at my company, I'd be unavailable. Or if the new place you were applying called, and asked me, "Do you have any feedback about X candidate?" You better believe I had things to say about the people who were negative. The advice in the post are spot on. Keep your mouth shut. Odds are it's not your boss that's making the bad decisions. Odds are the culture is exactly how the people at the top want it to be. Anything you dislike, it's likely out of your manager's control. Trashing them is just a sign you don't see the big picture. And bosses are petty, they'll get revenge if they can. And odds are you'll need them to say something nice about you at some point.

carmen_sandiego 5y ago
> if the new place you were applying called, and asked me, "Do you have any feedback about X candidate?" You better believe I had things to say about the people who were negative. > And bosses are petty, they'll get revenge if they can. And odds are you'll need them to say something nice about you at some point. You're opening yourself and your company up to getting sued. An employee uses the exit interview for the purposes the company claims they're for and you take 'revenge' on them? That's pretty unprofessional. You should be trying to change the fact that the exit interview unfairly impacts your perf review, if anything.
CoastalCoder 5y ago
> And bosses are petty, they'll get revenge if they can. It sounds like you're including yourself in the group you call "petty". And in an earlier part of the post, you talked about behavior that I'd consider vindictive. Honest question: Are you happy that you behave that way, or do you wish you behaved differently? I'm not criticizing. I'm genuinely curious about the different ways people see the world.
nobodyandproud 5y ago
You're right that HR is never your friend and today's world is so small, but my take: Be cautious with your words while offering genuine, constructive, and non-personal feedback. It's possible that HR will never do anything--covering for a toxic middle manager--yet expecting to see action from a single exit interview is unrealistic. SO! While you're not obligated to give any honest feedback, but if you like your coworkers then it's worth a shot.

carmen_sandiego 5y ago

> if the new place you were applying called, and asked me, "Do you have any feedback about X candidate?" You better believe I had things to say about the people who were negative. > And bosses are petty, they'll get revenge if they can. And odds are you'll need them to say something nice about you at some point. You're opening yourself and your company up to getting sued. An employee uses the exit interview for the purposes the company claims they're for and you take 'revenge' on them? That's pretty unprofessional. You should be trying to change the fact that the exit interview unfairly impacts your perf review, if anything.

CoastalCoder 5y ago

> And bosses are petty, they'll get revenge if they can. It sounds like you're including yourself in the group you call "petty". And in an earlier part of the post, you talked about behavior that I'd consider vindictive. Honest question: Are you happy that you behave that way, or do you wish you behaved differently? I'm not criticizing. I'm genuinely curious about the different ways people see the world.

nobodyandproud 5y ago

You're right that HR is never your friend and today's world is so small, but my take: Be cautious with your words while offering genuine, constructive, and non-personal feedback. It's possible that HR will never do anything--covering for a toxic middle manager--yet expecting to see action from a single exit interview is unrealistic. SO! While you're not obligated to give any honest feedback, but if you like your coworkers then it's worth a shot.