Comment by joe_mamba | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joe_mamba | Hacker News Reader

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>Sometimes I get a feeling many HN-ers work in ultra toxic environments.

Many people in the world work in toxic environments, not just HNers. Especially when the jobs market is shit, people turn on each other like animals.

>HR is not your friend

Where did you work at that HR was your friends? Did they invite you for beers or visit you in hospital when you were sick?

HR everywhere protect the company from liability, that's it. They're your "friends" as long as you don't risk becoming a liability.

>your manager is there to screw you over and the firm will fire you for pennies.

Your manager maybe not, if you're lucky and cares about those below him more than his own corporate ascension, but managers levels above sure screw over the ones in the trenches when shit hits the fan, that's how they got to the top in the first place. The more unscrupulous one is the more likely they are to climb up.

> That’s just not my experience in working.

Good for you.

You are right. Toxic workplaces are abundant. But non toxic I hope as well. I am always interested in how we can or cannot transfer local cultural differences and things we hold as basic truths via a forum.

The second question: yes, in a time of need my manager and HR-consultant did indeed help me find appropriate psychological care. (And we also visit coworkers in the hospital.) This was part humanity, but also part of what ‘we’ (a firm is a collection of people) constitute as being part of what it entails to be an employer. It feels like a reductio ad absurdum to think that this was purely transactional on their part. It was deeply human, or at least I choose to see it as such.

>The second question: yes, in a time of need my manager and HR-consultant did indeed help me find appropriate psychological care. (And we also visit coworkers in the hospital.)

This is unfathomably rare. I hope you realize this just how lucky you are.

> But non toxic I hope as well.

This never happen to me and I live, on paper, in the most livable country in the world. All bosses only care about my performance, not my healthcare. The moment I got too many sick days, I got dismissed and sent off on welfare.

>This was part humanity,

But most employment relationships are exclusively transnational. You're only virtue is usefulness to the boss's bottom line, not your "humanity", as that can't be monetized, unless maybe you work in government, healthcare or NGOs.

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