Can confirm. Went to HR to tell how my boss was requiring one of my team members to clean parts with an acid but not providing PPE even after the employee was complaining of headaches from vapors. The HR person went to my boss to talk about it and told him how I had come to them about it. Immediately I was made "the safety guy" and given extra work to do to write safety docs and procure PPE. I fought back about how this extra work was retaliating against me. And I was fired within a month as a "layoff" despite being the only project engineer to finish a profitable project that year. This was a fortune 500 company and I was told I would never find another job in that industry if I lawyered up. At the time I fell for it. Biggest regret of my career.
Sorry to hear that, pede. That is pretty typical of my experiences with HR as well. People need to realize that anything you say to them will go directly back to your boss, and will usually lead to retaliation. They don’t keep anything confidential and they never operate as your advocate despite what they may claim.
My advice to anyone who has an issue with their boss is to try to work it out with them directly. If that fails, you should probably start looking for another job, because you aren’t likely to win a pissing contest with your boss no matter how incompetent they are. If you really want to escalate the issue, going up the chain of command to your boss’s boss is a better option than going to HR.
Can confirm. Went to HR to tell how my boss was requiring one of my team members to clean parts with an acid but not providing PPE even after the employee was complaining of headaches from vapors. The HR person went to my boss to talk about it and told him how I had come to them about it. Immediately I was made "the safety guy" and given extra work to do to write safety docs and procure PPE. I fought back about how this extra work was retaliating against me. And I was fired within a month as a "layoff" despite being the only project engineer to finish a profitable project that year. This was a fortune 500 company and I was told I would never find another job in that industry if I lawyered up. At the time I fell for it. Biggest regret of my career.
Sorry to hear that, pede. That is pretty typical of my experiences with HR as well. People need to realize that anything you say to them will go directly back to your boss, and will usually lead to retaliation. They don’t keep anything confidential and they never operate as your advocate despite what they may claim.
My advice to anyone who has an issue with their boss is to try to work it out with them directly. If that fails, you should probably start looking for another job, because you aren’t likely to win a pissing contest with your boss no matter how incompetent they are. If you really want to escalate the issue, going up the chain of command to your boss’s boss is a better option than going to HR.
Because it's the law... whether I agree with it or not it's the law.
I don't think a court would look kindly on that rationale.