I don't know what they do so maybe I don't understand why they don't do it

I think... I need to talk about HR.

I try not to think about HR. I try to meet and recognise nice people in HR. The friends I have in HR who I like and respect and trust I watch really carefully trying to understand how they think.

Because mostly how the hell did what happened to me happen if HR exists? Seriously.

I should probably also mention that last Thursday week while trying to set on ways to manage the work that I'm now doing I was looking again at Outlook tasks thinking that this might be the most appropriate tool. And in amongst a similar experiment from a couple of years back, I found a few tasks from many years back, and one specific task from 2008.

It was a task  where I had detailed the day to day  things that had happened to me over a period of months - along with attached emails - that were about the bullying and what the section was like ... and I just read it over again as I was about to include things from it here thinking I had got my equilibrium back ... but I haven't. Finding it was like a bomb. Even talking about it makes me cry. Reading it again just then I feel the helpless, the angry (which I turn in on myself as it's safest) and uselessness of it all that made me want to do what I had starting acting on. At one point I was going to try to write a book on this. I have all my emails and books somewhere around. But I don't think I can. It is just too much.

But reading this stuff, I just think *how* did HR not step in and act? At that time there was 1 HR person for our 2500 employees in our branch nationally. I know this because when I first rang him I was my usual friendly and chatty self and he told me. But by the pinnacle of this whole debacle was a meeting with me, my manager, my manager's manager, the HR person, the HR person's manager on the phone. I had spent 1.5 hours with a friend who was an industrial relations lawyer preparing for this meeting and writing out a statement that I was going to make. When I showed another lawyer friend afterwards she said something about giving myself away. But I always fight fair and take ownership of my own issues. I don't remember the points of it but I remember her comments so I suspect whatever I did wasn't wise in the ways of the world. Ah well. When I tell people about that meeting they say that that would never happen with HR at their work and shake their head in horror.

My managers' manager retired last year. Before he did I rang him up and asked if he remembered. He implied that he remembered I had some problems and was quite unpleasant about it. People think he's a nice guy. I just don't know what to think. My manager at that time people thought and still do think he's a nice guy. I think he's a nice guy but too weak a person for the situation he was in. He had been working with HR before my stuff seriously started happening to get rid of someone (who did need to go - wasn't up to the work and was hassling female employees). HR seemed to have decided he should take the same approach with me that he had used with this other person. Which just didn't work as they were not the same issues. Anyway various things happened which when I tell people about them they're horrified and I'm still there.

I do indeed have a ripper work story to tell. When I won't fall apart telling it.

But HR. Seriously. I know that they work for the company and not for the employee. But when they don't truly bring out the company's supposed ethics and step in to do something about it is that truly working for the company?

Recently someone started a women in tech group on the corporate forum thing. So hey I joined - it was private too which is something I asked for over 2 years ago and nothing happened. Sounds like someone in the IT groups had also realised there was a need for a private women's support section.

However HR are commenting into this group's threads. I quote this particular HR person's response to another friend of mine's comments on failing to retain women:
"
Yes I agree it is an issue about retention as well as recruitment. I would encourage any female (wherever they work in the business) to raise any issues impacting their health and wellbeing with either their 1 up manager, HR or [the corporate sponsored counselling service]. Given the nature of [how our offices work] and [our policy of making all roles flexible to work in], it can sometimes be hard to provide a convenient, physical space for people to go to - which is why groups and discussion like this are so important.
"

This just sounds like paper-our-ass talk. Let's break it down practically shall we?

Talking about health issues with work is almost always a bad idea. Seriously just get real. Unless it's obvious physical something then just don't. It just becomes a handle on which they can cause you issues - they don't really want to have the hassle and you don't want to be in that position.

Impacting wellbeing - right. So the little 'microaggressions' (new pet term someone's come up with) you reckon mention those? To your 1-up? Ok... well... if you have a good relationship with your 1-up they will a)already know and have acted on them or b) you'll already be telling them. So the benefit of telling people to tell them is what actually? Obviously if you're *not* telling your 1-up manager there is a *reason*.  And telling HR? Well you tell me what they actually do and I might. Ask anyone these days and the first thing they'll tell you is HR is there for the company not you. The *only* reason you tell HR is to fill out a tickbox. It's a tickbox for yourself and a tickbox for them. Process followed so that when it is all useless you can say you followed it while then solving your own issues for yourself in another way. Processes themselves are totally for the company's protection. So, telling HR sure, but it does not assist with your health or wellbeing - just with a tickbox. Choose your time and do the minimum with the minimum fuss.

And the corporate counselling service - this confuses me. Almost sounds like they care ... but it's totally toothless. As an external organisation which mostly operates confidentially you can tell them what you like but what's that going to do? Nothing. Anyone sensible already has their own network of friends, families and counsellors totally external. I've proved this too - I've used them a couple of times just for alternate points of view - when yes they acknowledged I was bullied - in fact in the 2008 task has a reference to that. Supposedly they are trained and the corporate part of them suggests they know stuff about office relations. But toothless. Gums smiling in an absent way.

The stuff about the "hard to provide a convenient, physical space for people to go" confuses me - excepting the later context of "groups ... like this".  Which suggests to me that HR are *all over* this private women in tech group. Maybe they're like trying to make a mark here? Like a territorial cat?

Fortunately when it comes to HR I have no sense of smell. I kind of don't really know what they do except recruit, supposedly write policies to protect the company, and manage time-sheet data feeding into costs. They don't do anything that helps our day to day work. I guess I'll keep reading that group and posting if I think I can add to the conversation. The total cluelessness, and contextually emotional ineptness of that comment though, suggests we are going to get more HR input from time to time that might put a lot of people off.

Did I mention that during the worst times of my being bullied, I spoke to the diversity person of my company? He answered the phone and listened and said 'oh really' and sounded like he was laughing. I would email him afterwards giving points on what we discussed. I am fairly sure we talked twice in such a way. It's in those emails I will go through one day. He's head of diversity now. So with IWD etc he's posting up the corporate messages and posting the diversity report. Diversity means all types of diversity of course. But um, I see his name and his position, and well... I then read this territorial HR person's comment and it's all of the same.

In other news I danced at the wedding of some of the most beautiful people I know and he is HR. And one of my best friend's sisters is the most gorgeous person and she is HR. Not at my company. So I watch, and listen, and pay attention to what they tell me and what their values are. I do understand what they do as people because they are good people.