The Exit Interview

1:51pm

I have my exit interview coming up. They had sent me a survey to fill out. I wrote this on it:

There is widespread frustration with HR practices, at least at the lower and middle levels. Either the frustration or the practices should be addressed. However this could be difficult if voicing criticism of HR is perceived as likely to be damaging to an individual's reputation.

At their request, I sent a meeting invitation to our HR leader to "discuss my responses." See any conflicts of interest with an HR person conducting an exit interview in which I mention problems with HR? After 2 days, I got no response, so I sent another email yesterday. I still had no response, so I just went up to her office to see if the 2:30 meeting time worked for her. As I approach her door, I see her bent over trying to reach something underneath her desk. She started to reach down from sitting in the chair, but couldn't reach it, so she was half off the chair with her posterior sticking up directly toward the doorway, her shirt riding up so that half of her bare back is exposed. I tap on the door, and she awkwardly pops up and looks very embarrassed as she pulls her shirt back down. She mutters something about how she thought she had replied, and makes a show of confusedly checking her computer to see if she responded. She says 2:30 works fine, come back up in an hour. What a great start to this....

2:48pm

I just got out of it. It was very friendly, and pretty anticlimactic. I gave honest feedback about situations I've been in and things that I've seen and it was received in a polite and appreciative manner. She told me she wished she could do what I'm doing, and how a friend of hers did something similiar and it was very good for him.

People talk a lot of shit about her, but I've never had a problem with her personally. She's always been nice to me and I had a lot of fun at the golf outing where I shared a cart with her for 18 holes. I told her that there is widespread dissatisfaction with HR, and that I'm sure she knows of that at least somewhat. She said it always amuses her that people think she has more power than our Risk Leader, and I acknowledged that it might be better for risk managers to be able to use HR as a scapegoat. Its easier for a manager to say "HR won't let me promote you" than "I don't think you really deserve that."

I don't know what's really going on behind the scenes, and I really don't care. People working for huge corporations are always going to have issues with something, and they want to blame everyone other than themselves. Doesn't matter whose fault it is, what matters is what you do about it. You know the rules of the game, now put up or shut up.