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I do generally try and assume the best out of people. Most people aren't assholes, they're perfectly nice, and they probably aren't out to rob you or ruin your day.

Corporations are not people. A corporation is basically a superorganism made up of people, but functions differently. The HR person is probably a genuinely decent human, but fundamentally they still have to do their job, which is (like basically all of us) dictated by their higher-ups. Their job isn't to be your best friend, it's to make the company more money.

Ideally, it is by resolving the problem. Sometimes they need to fire someone, and in order to fire someone without the risk of a lawsuit (in a lot of jurisdictions) they kind of have to substantiate the case. Usually they and the manager will put you into some kind of "performance improvement plan" or some kind of "attitude coaching" so that they can pretend that they tried to work with you, but they will also just try and look for you to slip up and mention when you did something unkosher.

Generally by the time HR is called, it's too late, they've already decided to fire you and they're just going through the motions.

I'm sure most of the HR people are lovely humans, but that's just orthogonal to the point.




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