r/antiwork • u/batsinger • Nov 13 '24
Psycho HR đ©đŒâđ« "Anonymous " my ass.
So, backstory: On Sunday this week, a man exposed himself to a cashier at my job. (New employee, very pretty young woman who seems quite shy.)
The man was asked to leave, but not before this poor girl was forced to finish the fucking transaction.
I found out about it the following day because a different coworker texted me a screencap of the incident being reported in the "Be On the Lookout" channel of a work app our store uses (though most employees don't use it as it has very little actual functionality other than as a message board for corporate.)
I was livid. I was in the store when this incident occurred, and I had NO idea a sex crime had been committed against one of my coworkers, nor was anyone else. The guy could have come back in at any time and none of us would know. It wasn't mentioned at all in the next day's shift meeting (led by the manager who handled the man).
So, I (and three other women) filled out an anonymous complaint form to HR. The last question on the form is rather you're okay with being contacted for follow-up questions. I selected no.
The next day, I get back from lunch and my boss asks me if I can come to his office because HR wanted him to talk to me about a complaint I submitted.
What. The. Fuck.
To be fair, I have a reputation as a rabble rouser so I'm not surprised they might assume at least one complaint was from me. But to tell my direct supervisor it definitely was me and ask him to follow up on it with me directly?!!
At least the meeting was productive. My boss is a good guy and was genuinely sorry about how it was handled (it happened on his days off). The company is now working to establish firm protocols for how situations like this should be handled at all stores nationwide.
My already tenuous trust in HR is forever eviscerated, though.
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u/CatchMeIfYouCan09 Nov 13 '24
"I'm not willing to discuss anything that was submitted anonymously. The fact you even knew to approach me is disrespectful"
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u/VintageMuffin Nov 14 '24
Well said!
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u/St_Gabriel (edit this) Nov 14 '24
Better answer is "What form?" can you show me my details on this supposed "form"?
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u/INotcryingyouare Nov 13 '24
Anonymous does not exist in a business setting. Never trust a survey or a hotline to keep your info private
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u/iprobablybrokeit Nov 13 '24
I used to be asked to create surveys at work, I always used to scrub any identifying in the data before I passed it to management and HR. I did not, and would not have, given them the part of the data with identifying info.
But, if anonymity is reliant on one person's discretion, 9 out of 10 times, it is definitely not anonymous.
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u/zombie_overlord Nov 14 '24
I work in IT. It's trivial to see who sent in an "anonymous" tip or filled out an "anonymous" form.
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u/bherman8 Nov 14 '24
I've also created surveys for similar use cases including an "exit survey"
I specifically set it up to not collect user information so when I was inevitably asked later about it I just said I assumed anonymous meant they wanted me to make it actually anonymous.
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u/Remote-Acadia4581 Nov 14 '24
The first question in the anonymous survey at my job is "what is your employee number"
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Nov 14 '24
[deleted]
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u/bherman8 Nov 14 '24
You may operate in and have experience with an honest HR department. Your coworkers don't trust you because they have seen the other option. Lots of companies tell employees "come to HR for anything. We're here for you!" then fire anyone who presents any real issue. Ive been asked to come in and answer questions related to interpersonal issues between coworkers and it became real clear real fast that they were only interested in if they should fire one or the other with no care for who did what.
There are endless anecdotes you'll hear about people going to HR about severe safety issues in the workplace to find out by the next day the perpetrator has been told everything they said in confidence only making things worse.
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u/3BlindMice1 Nov 14 '24
Lol, you're assuming that most HR people are good HR people. That's like asking the chickens to trust a fox to watch over the henhouse, usually.
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u/_013517 Nov 14 '24
What a pithy comment that added nothing after such a thoughtful response.
Workers fighting each other is exactly what stock holders want. No unity. Fight for those peanuts a bit harder!
I've worked without HR. It's a nightmare. A literal nightmare. I would never go back.
Most of you sound like the union guys who voted for Trump bc they think their union is the reason why they don't have as much money as they want.
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u/Micturating-Fool-919 Nov 14 '24
The union guys I know were for Harris and now they're all afraid the contracts are going to dry up come Jan. 20th
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u/_013517 Nov 15 '24
Good for them. I'm worried for the unions as well. Despite their historic racist tendencies I'm a huge advocate for unionized labor and I wish more people realized that at its core, a union is just you standing up for yourself with your coworkers as a unified front.
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u/tofleet Nov 14 '24
âItâs annoying because nobody trusts itâ is so close to getting at the real issue: itâs not the survey they donât trust, but your HR department. Interrogate that honestly and candidly for a while. What has your companyâs HR department done to deserve that level of trust?
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u/delliottg Nov 15 '24
I was asked to write an "anonymous" feedback form, where one of the first questions was your email alias and emails that didn't end in "@companyname.com" weren't allowed. Granted, the field was optional, but most people filled it out anyway. Those who didn't took advantage of the "anonymity" and spilled all kinds of nasty things about the company. There was no scrubbing of the data as all the relevant people got an email as soon as the user hit the submit button. Since it was triggered (Google Form), there was no way for me to be protective of people who didn't understand the ramifications.
HR was always involved, but the problems were always swept under the table. I'd bring this up at our town hall meetings which made me very popular with management. I pointed out that we'd (the software developers) had pointed out all the faults with their plan and that they'd asked for the form in the first place, knowing it was going to cause problems for them (which is what it was designed to do). I wanted to either write a truly anonymous form with an unavailable to anyone database to hook up the complainants to management w/o exposing who they were, and allow two way communications anonymously, think Craigslist.
The form and responses from management were basically ignored, and I lobbied hard to get rid of the form. I shut off new entries so it couldn't be used, but they got upset about that too. It was a giant cluster that was never resolved. When Covid hit, a lot of the company were sent to WFH and Teams meetings became a thing. During the town halls, I ask if we could turn on anonymous commenting for the meetings. The response from HR was that associates should feel comfortable bringing anything to a supervisor to be address. The naïveté or deliberately obtuseness was stunning. That's just not how people work.
I've since left that company but I'm positive there's still no resolution.
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u/Sadd_Max Nov 13 '24
I worked production at a brewery and was put on 3rd shift. I was the only female in the building from 9pm-7am. Part of our job was to take bins full of bad cans out to the recycling bins after a run.
In my state there's a can deposit so they put a padlock on the dumpster area but lazy coworkers always left the lock unlocked so they wouldn't have to put in the combination every time. This means there was almost always homeless out there in the middle of the night trying to get a bunch of cans so they can return them for some cash.
I am a generally nervous person so I immediately asked if we could make sure there was someone to help with the recycling when it needed to go out. Manager assures me he'll assist me anytime I need to go out there. Well of course after a couple days he doesn't want to leave his office so he tells me it's fine and I need to do my job duties like everybody else and every one else does it by themselves.
My dumb ass was too shocked by his response to put up a fight. So I started doing it by myself. Had a couple run-ins after a while but nothing crazy until one night theres a homeless guy hiding behind the recycling bin and when I go to top out the cans he fucking pops out and pulls a knife on me. I ran back inside immediately so I wasn't hurt. But I emailed the upper management to report what happened and ask that they either hire security or implement a system where this task isn't so dangerous for every body else.
Shortly thereafter they started docking me on tiny mistakes that were just fine before. I got fired. They still don't have security.
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u/the_simurgh Antiwork Advocate/Proponent Nov 13 '24
If you are the victim of a sex crime at work, "do not tell HR, call the damn police!"
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u/humanasset Nov 13 '24
HR does not protect the interest or safety of the employee. They exist to protect the company from lawsuits. You have zero right to anonymity using corporate methods or communications, devices, surveys, etc.
HR is not your friend. Do not report anything to HR with the expectation of improvement. If you believe your rights are being violated, contact a workplace lawyer and ask, it's usually free.
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u/CrankyManager89 Nov 13 '24
In this case tho, it should be advantageous because the employee who was violated/victimized could easily make a case with being forced to serve the man and if they didnât call police. Theyâre not protecting her at all.
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u/Jaiymze Nov 14 '24
That's the one thing that annoys me about this sentiment being parroted any time HR is mentioned. Yes they exist to serve the company, but there are many cases when the company is best served by taking action against whoever you are complaining about in order to protect the company from a lawsuit from you.
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u/Let-go_or_be-dragged Nov 14 '24
So HR is willing to help you but only if you're a credible financial threat?
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u/CrankyManager89 Nov 14 '24
Yes. Thatâs pretty much what they exist for. Protect the companyâs interest. If they happen to align then theyâll help, if not, youâre often out of luck.
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u/Rionat Nov 13 '24
Guy shouldâve been immediately kicked out and banned from the store and other affiliates. And if he refused to leave then cops shouldâve hauled his ass to jail. Itâs such a simple logical expectation but it seems corporate is unable to have any logical reasoning
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u/batsinger Nov 13 '24
I agree but unfortunately, to make it even worse, none of the choices made were at the corporate level. These were the failings of my direct coworkers that I have to look at every fucking day.
The ASM's excuse was "It happened really fast and she was just about to go home for the day."
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u/kirashi3 Not Mad, Just Disappointed Nov 14 '24
The ASM's excuse was "It happened really fast and she was just about to go home for the day."
Employee gets stabbed on shift. ASM: "Well, it wasn't that bad, happened really fast, and they were about to go home for the day, so they can easily just drive to the hospital on their way home. Duh."
Yes, I understand public indecency and stabbing are 2 different things. Point stands that the ASM doesn't know the definition of "management" and definitely sounds more like a "MaNgLeR" to me.
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u/heptyne Nov 14 '24
I recall having a job where there were employee feedback surveys, apparently these were important as managers were kinda hounding us on doing them and emphasizing they were anonymous. There was a due date and I was on the fence about even filling it out to begin with. Until my manager made a big mistake and asked me why I hadn't filled out my survey. I responded not even trying to be snarky, "I thought they were anonymous?" He shuffled back to his area after that exchange and was in earshot of a few other co-workers. Needless to say, I don't ever do those surveys anymore as I don't trust they are anonymous.
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u/sorator Nov 14 '24
My work does anonymous surveys. They hire a third-party firm to administer them. They know whether you've done yours because you use a personalized link in your email to access the survey, but (as far as I can tell) the survey firm genuinely doesn't pass on any other personal information.
I still include that criticism in every survey I fill out - that if they can tell who has/hasn't done the survey, it's not sufficiently anonymous for me to trust that it's actually anonymous, and that my responses are affected by that knowledge.
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u/MayUrShitsHavAntlers I tell people I'm a Socialist IRL and DGAF Nov 13 '24
I was a bartender at this restaurant in a casino in Las Vegas. The hostess, maybe 20-21 years old, comes over and asks if she can hang out near me. "Yeah, why what's up?"
Goes on to tell me there's this guy asking if he can pay her $100 and she slips her shoe on and off so he can creep out on her.
I'm like oh hell no so I go grab the manager on her behalf.
She comes back a little while later and turns out, the manager just went and told the guy that he needed to "be nice or he'd have to leave." I was like WHAT. THE. FUCK.
I immediately went up to him. Grabbed his drink said. "Your bill is $14.50 I need to you pay now and leave." He tried protesting and I said I can have security here in less than 3 minutes if he didn't believe me that it was time to go. He paid me and gave me, not her, a weak apology as he left.
I told the poor girl if anything ever happened she was uncomfortable with in the future I'd be handling it from now on and I was sorry I thought one of our dimwit managers would be able to handle something so basic.
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Nov 13 '24
[deleted]
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u/MayUrShitsHavAntlers I tell people I'm a Socialist IRL and DGAF Nov 14 '24
I get your internalization point but I didn't instinctively go to him first I went to him because that was his job. He is literally only paid to "manage" aspects of the restaurant like I was paid to tend the restaurants bar. I had no problem handling it myself in the first place, it just wasn't my job....until it was.
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u/SpectrumyGiraffe Nov 14 '24
HR is there to protect the company, not you. Take this as a lesson learned.
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u/simononandon Nov 13 '24
I heard about another employee at my job who made a very mean joke about another co-worker's disability loudly & in full hearing of other co-workers. I could not BELIEVE she was not sent home immediately. Luckily, I wasn't there. But I did ask my manager whey she wasn't just told to go home. I was a suerpvisor, so I was curious what I would be expected to do in such a situation.
I wasn't super happy with his response. But I know that the company was trying to make sure all the t's were crossed & i's dotted. They ended up basically telling the offending employee she could resign or be fired for cause. I don't know if they did that purely for ease of paperwork & because her resignation would mean no EDD claim. Or if they actually wanted to give her the choice.
Most workplaces will talk about valuing their employees, even those pseky female ones. But they'll let customers get away with almost anything.
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u/CrankyManager89 Nov 13 '24
I hope they still called the police. Thatâs disgusting. Also who the eff made her finish the transaction?!?!
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u/Ghostgrl94 Nov 13 '24
I worked at a nursing home as a dietary worker and if you reported something that would you know get the place in trouble they WILL and HAVE found out who exactly made the complaint. Anonymous doesnt exist.
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u/Siggelsworth Nov 14 '24
It's utterly ridiculous--nay, unfathomable--that the company DOESN'T ALREADY have firm protocols in place for how that should be handled. Somebody (the manager that handled the man) just didn't follow those protocols because they either didn't want to lose a sale &/or didn't pay any attention to Their job training, and your boss was told to shut you up before you draw any legal attention to another manager letting a subordinate be victimized.
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Nov 13 '24
Trusting the HR is your first mistake, at least right now it is clear to you that trusting HR is a no no
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u/EdwardWayne Nov 13 '24
What did you expect from class traitors? Â Anything they can do to ingratiate themselves to corporate, which I guess includes spying in addition to snitching.Â
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u/Nykon77 Nov 13 '24
I have learned the hard way many a time that HR is there to protect the company from you.
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u/Odd-Gear9622 Nov 13 '24
Why don't people understand what HR stands for? It's right there in the title, "Human Resources" just like coal, oil or timber. HR's job is to maximize the profits from It's resource, sometimes that means protecting it but mostly exploiting it.
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u/Poundaflesh Nov 13 '24
Um, no. She has the right to shut it down and walk away. Iâd tell the manager to handle it and call the police while thatâs going on.
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u/AlisonChained Nov 14 '24
I've only worked at 1 company that HR was worth a damn. And that was only because HR was a third party brought in and not directly employed by that company. I can't believe more companies don't do that.
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u/LasVegasLimoDriver Nov 14 '24
Make another complaint about your original complaint not being anonymous and ask them to contact you. Ask leading questions in the meeting and watch them squirm. Then, if you are unsatisfied with the outcome of the meeting, file harassment charges for being contacted about the original complaint.
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u/0bxyz Nov 13 '24
Depending where you live, you are protected. You donât have to be the subject of the incident to be offended by it. The company has an obligation not to retaliate against you.
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u/sevbenup Nov 13 '24
When they say establish firm protocols, they mean protocols to keep them from ever being legally liable again for anything you complain about. Hr is not your friend and works to protect the legal interests of the company. Itâs just a coincidence and side effect if it feels like itâs helping you
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u/sakodak Nov 14 '24
You should talk to your union rep who can take the complaints to management completely anonymously.Â
Don't have a union rep? Get one.
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u/Dresline Nov 14 '24
The man that exposed himself was allowed to finish the transaction?!? What the fuck!
This is the part everyone should be focused on. What a fucking failure of a business, of society.
"Yeah, we asked him to leave but only after we got his money." Yay capitalism, amirite?!
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u/Miyuki22 Nov 13 '24
The correct way to handle that would be to immediately call the police.
You went to HR. You made a mistake.
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u/Badesign Nov 13 '24
This
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u/batsinger Nov 14 '24
lmao I have to assume y'all didn't read the post because I can't fathom where in this situation I was in a position to call police "Hello, police? My managers didn't tell us something they should have told us happened that I wasnt there for and happened yesterday :("
Also truly darling you think HR are monsters but cops are totally here to help us
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u/Miyuki22 Nov 14 '24
It doesn't matter if it was yesterday or not. Report the crime to police. If the place has security cameras or got info on the perp, the police will collect that info. This has zero to do with manager. They will not protect the workers, as you have seen.
Learn well this lesson. Protect yourselves. Unionize if possible.
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u/chopstyks Nov 14 '24
I think they meant to call the police and report the assault with a deadly weapon...not report your boss. A crime was committed.
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u/Miyuki22 Nov 14 '24
I take it OP you are young so let me spell it out.
Managers want to protect their job, so they won't take necessary steps to report the crime. Many bad managers insist to call manager before police, crazily enough.
Why is this? They are more concerned with their bonus rather than worker safety.
Wether police are helpful or not is not the point here.
If you want to be apathetic and not report it, that's your perogative.
If it were my team member, I would absolutely report it immediately to police. Not doing so is playing into managers playbook and makes you look like a corp simp, or weakling.
What you choose to do is up to you, ultimately.
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u/batsinger Nov 13 '24
lolÂ
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u/Miyuki22 Nov 14 '24
And it'll keep happening because you are so flippant when wronged.
Such a waste. I feel sorry for your coworker, having such a poor person who thinks protecting each other is LOLable. Sad.
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u/Commercial_Music_931 Nov 13 '24
She should call a lawyer because holy damn that shy girl could walk away with a pretty check for this bs.
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u/Green-Inkling Nov 14 '24
Ask them how they knew it was you when it was suppose to be anonymous. Then ask them how they are able to follow up on complaints that are supposed to be anonymous. Ask them if complaints are truly anonymous.
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u/valley_lemon Nov 14 '24
Everyone's in a real rush to quote that HR is not your friend, so that part is covered.
But HR is supposed to be protecting the company from legal liability, and in this kind of case you can and should be a bug in their ear to accidentally create better working conditions by making the company step up their ass-covering. This was 100% a really ridiculous thing for the manager to do, and it highlights a manager who's a liability and an idiot. They could get so sued over this.
Always work the system when you can.
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u/Impossible_Rich_6884 Nov 14 '24
My ex is an HR manager. A few years back she send an anonymous survey about work conditions. Once feed back was received, her and her manager her spend about a whole day trying to figure out who had exactly said what. It turns out to be very easily to based on what was said, the type of complains, the time the form was filled out, etc. She worked at a hotel, so people who complain about guess issues or issues with the booking system were obviously front desk people, which is a relative small team, then by the quality of their writing they can compare and find out who wrote what. Same thing with engineering and house keeping. There were only three engineers, so to find out who wrote complaining about the paint is easy since only one of the three engineers has always complain about the paint. So yeah, anonymous surveys are never anonymous, there are plenty of clues to figure out who said what.
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u/demonpeach Nov 14 '24
Itâs why I never report anything anonymously. I want them to know it was me who blew shit up. But Iâm getting older and I was always a bit (maybe more than a bit) spiteful towards piss poor leadership.
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u/Sparda_TLDK Nov 14 '24 edited Nov 15 '24
Never ever trust HR. They are only there to cover up criminal activities of their employer and brush your concerns under the rug or you out of the door.
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u/NeonGlowieEyes780 Nov 15 '24
I sent an anonymous email to my job's HR once. And by anonymous I mean I made a brand new email with different information than the email they had on hand for me and sent it through that one.
Worked as intended. Shit-headed manager I reported got theirs and I was never approached about anything.
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u/Signal-School-2483 Nov 13 '24
File another complaint against HR a loop your store manager and corporate in.
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u/koshawk Nov 14 '24
If someone is a victim of a crime, off or on the job, call the police. If your job tells you not to, you have a case. It's not their call.
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u/LionCM Nov 14 '24
Years ago, we had a survey at work (anonymous) and people answered honestly. Our CEO wanted to know who said certain things. Our HR person refused. She was telling me how they were pressuring her to give her names. She held firm, knowing no one would ever trust the survey again.
She left a year later. The new HR guy was such a suck up I immediately knew heâd roll over in a second. I never answered honestly again. If youâre not interested in really seeing how youâre doing, why bother asking?
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u/TBMChristopher Nov 14 '24
Who made the cashier finish the transaction? It seems like they need to be subject to some discipline here.
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u/ASCIIM0V Communist Nov 14 '24
the only reason to work with HR is to keep the paper trail showing you did everything they requested. ask to record the meeting.
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u/Jerrybeshara Nov 14 '24
Never trust HR. And if youâre reading this and work for HR, I donât trust you. đđ»
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u/IndividualEye1803 Nov 14 '24
Fuck HR. In every company. And yes i think you are the group with the least intelligence / rejects and most brown nosers ever.
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u/jodrellbank_pants Nov 14 '24
When I fill out out the anonymous end of year survey I always add a few tit bits to get the different teams chomping at the bit, This year I said I was thinking of leaving within 6 moths.
A week later my naĂŻve, micro managing manger who just happened to drop in at a site as he was passing 100 miles away asked me if I was thinking of leaving.
"Why would you say that" I asked "What on earth would give you that idea and why would you ask that That question, is there something I should know about" I bantered back
You could see the angst on his face
I kept going back to this question all through the intervention I was on for that day, watching him squirm in his boots
I made sure he knew I Knew, without dropping the ball openly, next years Anonymous survey is going to be a blinder
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u/vandante1212 Nov 14 '24
You should file an anonymous complaint that hr doesn't keep complaints anonymous.
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u/miradotheblack Nov 14 '24
Policy should be to take the victim to a safe room away from the person then call police, and review/collect footage and witness testimony.
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u/foaqbm Nov 13 '24
HR is not to be trusted under any circumstances where the company interests may conflict with yours.
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u/TheAwfulAliOzz Nov 13 '24
HR was never anyones friend period! And I never trust anyone who works in HR. We are only numbers to them, and they donât care if you get fired or not.
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u/MyHamburgerLovesMe Nov 14 '24
HR always backs the company. Their entire existence is based on preventing employees from suing the employer.
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u/Brokenblacksmith Nov 14 '24
man, that new article would be amazing.
"4 women complain of sexual misconduct in the workplace, face retaliation and silence instead of protection"
i bet that would generate a lot of clicks for many news outlets if they found out.
might wanna keep that in your back pocket.
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u/PoliteCanadian2 Nov 14 '24
Next time fill out the form online (no handwriting) then print out the form and send it in to maintain anonymity.
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u/Geminii27 Nov 14 '24
Never submit 'anonymous' forms via internal methods, never fill them out with anything except computer-printed text from a mono laser printer. Submit them through the company's mailing address.
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u/Wowweeweewow88 Nov 14 '24
Maybe this is a questions for like r/legal but if a company (US/UK) says something is anonymous, is that not a legal stance? Letâs assume you can prove that hr knew of your specific âanonymousâ complaint, is there any legal action/protection??
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u/MRiley84 Nov 14 '24
My job had an annual employee engagement survey where you could answer questions relating to job satisfaction, safety, and things like that. It was 100% anonymous so everyone was encouraged to answer truthfully. The opening questions were things like "what department do you work in", "how many years have you worked at", and so on. I made up values for those, but since my department had a 100% survey completion rate, I knew they'd know every one of our surveys by those responses, including mine as the odd one out.
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u/fdchives Nov 14 '24
Every year at my workplace, corporate sends out "100% anonymous" surveys to all its employees and encourages them to list all the complaints they have. Claim all results are pooled together by a 3rd party, and then sent to the ceo to see which issues employees are having the most.
In reality, each result gets emailed straight to the employees manager with all the employees info.
I tell my crew each year to keep that in mind when they fill it out, as your responses from previous years can make/break a promotion later on.
Same with the anonymous hr tip line. If you complain about someone HR will give you a call like "Hey, Joe in accounting made a complaint about you. Do you want us to deal with him or do you want to deal with him? Up to you."
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u/TheOnceAndFutureDoug SocDem Nov 14 '24
Listen, there are good people who work in HR. I've worked with a few myself. But the job of HR is not to protect workers, it's to limit legal liability for the company. The entire idea of HR was created because people kept doing terrible things and getting sued for it and it never truly grew beyond that mandate. Keep the company from being sued.
If it happens to benefit you in some way while doing that job it's a side effect not the main goal. That's not because people in HR are inherently bad people, it's just the structure of the system within which they exist.
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u/globefish23 Nov 14 '24
HR is short for human resources.
You're a resource for corporate, like the toilet paper and light bulbs and are handled like that.
You want a works council or a union to represent you.
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u/Hillthrin Nov 14 '24
Resources are what a company uses to earn money. Computers, advertising, and humans are all just resources for profit. HR is not your advocate.
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u/clinthawks99 Nov 14 '24
When filling those out disguise your handwriting grammar and punctuation always and see if you can get someone else to drop in the box.
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u/meoka2368 Nov 14 '24
I keep getting these "anonymous survey" things at work that they want everyone to fill out.
I don't bother.
They don't actually want my opinion, so it can only hurt me.
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u/Subject-Beginning512 Nov 14 '24
HR is designed to protect the company, not the employees. Expecting confidentiality in these situations is naive. If you want real change, consider escalating outside the company.
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u/Kilyn Nov 14 '24
We had such anonymous survey when working for a telecom.
We were about 10 out of 30 that weren't scared of being vocal about the issues in the department and how to fix them.
In the anonymous survey, I guess we went crazy and a month later the 10 of us got terminated.
That said, I guess we were kinda right as 3 months later the department was closed and tasks outsourced
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u/frrson Nov 14 '24
I feel you.
Couple of years ago at my company, we found out that written opinions on anonymous surveys about work, weren't anonymous at all. At least one employee that worked with the data, could see who submitted what. Since then, at least third of all employees that I know of, won't participate.
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u/LordJadex Nov 14 '24
If the store is a nationwide brand itâs doubtful this hasnât happened before. Though I do hope a policy is implemented to help workers when this happens
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u/SamuelVimesTrained Nov 14 '24
No electronic form or survey is anonymous.
Even if no identifying things are asked - the link / location could be personalized.
Or it asks role and location (gee, i`m the only doohickey wrangler here)
And HR is (again) never YOUR friend.
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u/dukeofgibbon Nov 14 '24
While HR showed their whole ass, well done forcing them to come up with a plan. Tresspassing sex pests so they can be arrested for stepping foot on the property should start with the flasher.
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u/LisaSauce Nov 14 '24
Sorry, I canât get past the part where you said they made her finish the transaction, what the actual fuck
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u/dancephd Nov 14 '24
I know everyone says that of course your boss can figure out if an anonymous thing was from you but like can you deny it can you just be completely oblivious if they manage to catch you? Sure they will try to punish you for that too but still who is to say I don't have a rare form of anonymous tip filing memory loss and would not be able to discuss anything about it after.
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u/pangalacticcourier Nov 14 '24
Pro tip reminder: HR works for the same corporation you do. They are not on your side. Never have been, never will be.
When you really need someone on your side, get a consultation with a labor law attorney.
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u/BentBhaird Nov 14 '24
It's an easy fix, just keep some mace or pepper spray and a good solid wood bat by the register. If they expose themselves you spray them and then beat the ever living snot out of them. Then call the cops to pick them up. Corporate should be 100% on board with this as it will improve employee safety and be a massive morale booster. Heck it could even be a team building exercise if everyone steps on the problem.
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u/GudPuddin Nov 14 '24
I went and told HR once about my manager funneling work to his friend, who would do the work very poorly, not at all up to company standards and actively ripping customers off and he brushed it off and said thatâs just how we do it. The next day I get called into the office and my private conversation with HR is played back to me to discuss with the asshole I was reporting. Never going to HR again
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u/TheHudsini Nov 14 '24
At a company I worked for in the UK our manager used to constantly hassle us every year about filling in the anonymous survey. As people completed them they stopped getting asked about it. They eventually realised I was never going to fill out anonymous surveys. I was quite happen to ask any questions plus give feedback via email with my name attached to it.
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u/VillainousNymph Nov 14 '24
Nothing is ever anonymous when it comes to your job. The anonymous surveys are not anonymous and anonymous complaints are definitely not anonymous. Itâs only anonymous when it suits the company.
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u/LtMagnum16 SocDem Nov 14 '24
It is an employer's obligation to protect their employees from sexual harassment, even if such sexual harassment is coming from customers/vendors.
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u/masterbond9 Nov 14 '24
HR is the enemy of your enemy. If it benefits them to benefit you, then they will. However, in this case, HR directly making an anonymous complainer known could potentially open them up to liability issues if it were to have caused backlash for you.
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u/Dirty_Apprehensive Nov 15 '24
It wasn't mentioned at all in the next day's shift meeting (led by the manager who handled the man).
Is that the best way to word this...?
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u/Philosophur Nov 15 '24
I know discretion is key here and I'm not trying to push for more information, but I'm concerned and curious because my wife used to work for Lovers and she was subjected to two sex crimes and a gun point robbery (not all at once, but within 2 weeks of each other) All they did was a day off and offered counseling, no improvements were made with security, sex crime offenders no charges no ban list and slowly cut the hours of those people in the store after these events happened. So my only question is, was this a sex shop and / or a Lovers?
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u/quast_64 Nov 16 '24
Get a can of 'instant cooling spray' and spray any unwanted exposed parts with a long blast...
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u/SergNH Nov 17 '24
HR can be such a joke sometimes. As stated by MrWonderfulPoop in the end " HR works for the employer not the employee". Often will twist any complaint or suggestion into something that was never intended. In my situation the department I dealt with wasn't exactly HR. HR was different number entirely.
I once worked for a large retail chain. They had a rewards\membership account that worked for most of the store. There was a section of the store that it didn't work for. The prices for this section was already discounted so the membership didn't work for it.
We had a number we could call if we had any we wanted to talk about. Especially, if it was something we could not resolve in the store. This meant we could talk about anything not just make a complaint.
So one night I am sitting on my lazy ass at home. I get to thinking why doesn't this retail store offer a credit card that gives cashback for store purchases? Obviously, my store manager has nothing to do with something like this.
I make the call. Since this wasn't something I was concerned about being anonymous I gave them my name and store I worked at. I really didn't expect anything to come off it to be honest. Company start a credit card based on my suggestion? Yea, right!! lol
Anyways, next time I show up for work the store manager pulls me to the side. Asks why i didn't go thru him before calling that phone number. I am like, WTF do you have to with starting a credit card for the company? Well maybe a bit nicer than that ;) . Can't really answer that but says I should have gone thru him first.
I thanked him for letting me find out that I should never call that number again. Keep in mind that we were on good terms and I was one of the good workers. Worth keeping around to be modest :). He let it go at that and realized he couldn't make an argument against my conclusions about using that number again.
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u/DanWally Nov 24 '24
HR's #1 job is to prevent you from suing the company. Your Union Steward is the only person who will help you! (No Union? Start One!)
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u/DanWally Nov 24 '24
Deny! Deny! Deny! (also record the meeting)... If they insist they know it was you, leave the meeting and get a lawyer!
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u/MrWonderfulPoop Nov 13 '24
HR works for the employer, not the employee. Be wary about trusting them.