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Comment by varelse | Hacker News Reader

HR is driven by data. To kill open floor plans, start citing the floor plan as the primary reason for leaving. If that becomes a theme, IMO open floor plans will become cancer. It just takes time.

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That violates rule number one of dealing with HR: Don't talk to HR.

It doesn't matter how innocuous the comment is. It can come back to bite you. Example:

You: "I don't like open floor plans."

HR: "Add a note to his file that he's anti-social. If he ever comes back here it'll be recorded already."

Yeah, I've got one of those "non-regretted depature" notes on my record at Google. So what? Google lost out, not me.

Jobs aren't scarce, but talent is. I've never gone for want of employment and Google blind-allocated me into a boring gig I hated. And yes, I'm very anti-social when I'm coding. I wouldn't want to work for a company that considered that a negative trait.

non-regretted departure?

Is that something like "Quit my job at Google, middle fingers in the air," or what?

Disagreed (reasonably politely but persistently with lots of data) with upper management about what became a key technology to Google a year after I left. Got told to shut up about that technology or leave. Chose the latter and made a successful career out of being an expert in that technology. Found out later through my contacts that HR slammed the door behind me.

>HR is driven by data.

This is not my experience.

Maybe you've worked with better companies than I have.

I would agree.

HR is driven by perceptions

I would argue that HR is largely driven by legal obligation.

Yeah, but by then you, and all the others, have already left. Plus, the costs of a re-remodel can be quite persuasive. Time is on the side of the folks who made the original decision to commit to the open floorplan concept in the first place.

Growing companies are adding new space all the time. That's when to schedule a transition like this.

If talent has to quit to get HR to grok anything, the cancer in the company is HR. And good luck citing that as the reason for quitting, and good luck expecting HR to grant permission for your manager to give you a good recommendation.

I find it's best to work as though HR is driven by one thing: their mission is to protect the company from adverse employee action. They are agents of the company, not of employees, and it's best to assume they view employees almost as adversaries. Not necessarily enemies, per see, but definitely not 100% aligned with the best interests of the company.

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