“Things I Will Never Do After Being In HR For 10 Years” (11 Mistakes)

I just admit it was my mistake and fix it. I always say sorry, though, and my super. will be like, "stop saying sorry. It's okay." But I can't help it lol. I've never gotten in really big s**t over mistakes. They happen all the time. Just fix it, get it done and move on to the next because quotas are getting backed up.

Don't point out your own mistakes there are plenty of people that will point them out for you!

(1) Apologize for your mistakes if you mean it. Don't apologize if (2) they aren't yours or (3) you don't mean it. Otherwise people with realise you (1) don't care, (2) can't be trusted, or (3) are insincere.

I think it's not the reason but the outcome. people that "overshare" are proly people who are more open, friendly, even naive , and therefore are less "manager material".

Coworkers are not your friends. They may be friends for a time, but that can turn on a dime.

I know, I'm not friends with colleagues anymore.

Yup, learned the hard way that coworkers will totally throw you under the bus the second they think it will benefit from it. Every job I've worked at has been like that. Plus they'll gossip about you. I tried to warn the newest hire about this but she's 21 & thinks she knows everything. Now she's super upset that people are not only gossiping about her sex life & making fun of her, the office karen ran to HR to complain (she'll take any personal info about you that she thinks is "ungodly" & will run crying to HR about hostile work environment 🙄). Now she's mad at everyone & is paranoid because she doesn't know who the karen is & no one will tell her because no one wants to be written up for talking about her. She'll figure it out eventually. I'm just keeping my head down until I can get another job, I'll tell her who it is when I quit lol.

This is so true. At you Job in life. Do not word vomit to people you shouldn't be word vomiting to.

My old boss taught me to get a Coke in small glass and throw in a lime and tiny straw. No alcohol. Yes I do drink but pretend drink at work functions.

You won't find me at a company anything unless it's on my time card. You ain't paying, I ain't staying.

"Don't get drunk at the Office Christmas Doo" is the most American thing ever. I've seen senior managers dancing on the tables after a good scoop - As we sing at the footie "No Scotland, No Party"

I won't stay longer than 45 minutes, an hour at most.

Probably depends if you like drama xd

No venting to office people. Keep work and life apart.

Unless I'm being asked a specific question I don't give a specific answer. If you ask a generic question like "how's it going?" You get a generic answer like "just working, boss" or "another day, boss". And yes, I say boss (or sir or mam) like a character in Cool Hand Luke asking to put on a shirt, because I want to remind them that, while I respect their position of authority, I do not want to be familiar with them.

You can rent the wrong thing to the wrong person. You can even accidentally get somebody fired

Our management loved to fish. They would go up to the person who knew the most about their co-workers. We are going to promote you to a management position but first we need to know all of the dirt on your co-workers. They give it up & then told they were never considered for a promotion.

Venting cost me a job once. Was in grief over loss of son and said something I shouldn't have and got fired.

"Michael!!"

This person is my proff. twin! My life is a lot more simpler and wonderful because of this.

Pranking work colleagues seems awfully childish. I'd be very annoyed if staff had wasted time building red solo cup walls, or covered my office items in aluminium foil.

The higher positions are for leaders. Leaders are go-getters, loud, sociable, and emote enthusiasm and orders well. It's not for the introvert or the socially anxious people. I've been coming to terms I'm more like the latter and I'm okay with that.

Being humble doesn’t mean you can’t be assertive. Humility is underrated. Pride gets people in trouble. Remember Lucifer.

Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office - a little dated at times, but worth the read. However, How to Say it for Women is invaluable for women in the workforce. All about how our upbringing has shaped how we talk to undermine our intelligence and competence. For example: (maybe its different in other cultures/countries) but in the US I see it all the time on the news when a woman expert is being interviewed - ending every statement on an up note like it is a question. So is it a question? Are you asking me for permission to have an opinion? Are you unsure of your statement? No, you are not, knock it off.

You are lucky if you get to pick and choose your bosses. In most cases management moves someone into a vacant position and you just have to deal with that person's incompetence. Moving to another role away from them is not always that simple, especially in government public service, with all the rigmarole about positions and budgets

And don't make yourself indispensable or irreplaceable to a particular line manager or department head. If there's no one else who do what you do, you'll struggle to move onwards or upwards.

It's good when you can pick and choose, but it's not always an option, especially in larger organisations. Sometimes you have to suck it up for a while, and remember "this too will pass". I've worked for a guy that we as a team had to reverse-manage, mainly by going through his in-tray when he wasn't around and estimating which self- inflicted disasters he was likely to lead us into next. He'd been a techie once but his skills had aged out, and he wasn't able to accept it - so when asked a tech question he would bluff and guess So we learned to drop breadcrumbs for him to follow, so that he had a prepared answer for the sort of "can your team...?" questions that might come up. I'm not sure if he ever caught on, and it was still occasionally a wild ride when he missed a clue.

Ideally, I want to find a manager who is good at being a manager. They don't necessarily have to have any skills I'm interested in learning as long as they can do their job as a manager well. I expect them to be a better manager than me. I hope they'd still hire me if they thought I was better at what I do than them and not feel threatened by it. Because then we are both performing better because of each other without trying to compete with each other. Unfortunately it's rare than managers are actually good at managing, rare that managers will employ subordinates who are better at their job than the manager, and rare that managers don't feel threatened by good subordinates and have to "beat them down" in fear of their own job. So to get the full package is unusual. Irrespective of whether you can learn anything else from them, these are the managers you end up working for longer than others.

Exactly

I had a lady I used to work with who was over-the-top fake friendly and cheery with everyone. She would claim nothing would bother her but she would also go off on me, lie, sabotage my work to make it look like I didn't do something right. At times she acted nice towards me but then super mean. Her mood switches were jarring and the air felt volatile at times.

I'm chatty and (somewhat sociable) with people I know well. In my line of work, I don't have any reason to interact in person with the majority of the people at my workplace. So I am not inclined to be sociable with them. I do not go to any company social events and spend as little time as possible in communal areas in the office (kitchen/breakout area etc.) so I don't have to interact with others. I have autism, so don't terrorize me into having to do these things which have no impact on my efficiency as an employee and just increase my anxiety and destroy my productivity.

Don’t agree with this all the time, I know lots of happy work couples, and all my long time friends, all of them, are people I’ve met at work.

I met my spouse at work.

I worked in a government agency that seemed to be a cesspit for adultery, real soap opera stuff

In my 35 years of working, It has been proven time and again that no-one is your friend at work. No one.

I didn't really have much of a choice at my job. Turns out there's a lady I work with who lives in my area and has for a long time, as I have, too. She was telling everyone this and how she would see me with my daughter at the store or walking in the neighbourhood, on the bus, etc. She wasn't being mean, just sounded excited. Then people asked how old my daughter is, one asked where she is when I'm at work (eyeroll). I told her my daughter is an adult now. Shocked she said I look so young and how old I am. Yeah, I'm a young mom, but I had to tell her my age because everyone thought I was 25 and not 39. I wasn't comfortable talking about it at work. People tend to think if you're a young mom then you're not capable of making good life decisions. I don't want that kind of reputation.

My last workplace was rather large (about 80 staff), and there were never ending collections for birthdays, engagements etc. These were technically voluntary, but the small group of people who generally organised the collections (and who I suspect used that to never actually contribute themselves) would send out departmental wide emails saying 'the following staff haven't contributed, please do so by 5pm Thursday.' They also hassled those members of staff that they thought earned more to contribute more, so there was a suggested minimum of £5, but higher earners were told £10. Entirely complicit managers (he was one of the organisers) so even though some staff complained, it never stopped until he retired and the new manager listened to complaints. Horrible place to work.

I can't stand celebrating my own birthday, and companies seem to love doing this to employees. So I learnt when starting a few job to write a letter to HR, reminding them that whilst they have my date of birth out of operational necessity, they are bound by GDPR rules and must not divulge my birthday to other employees. It seems over the top but it's the only way I've found to successfully avoid any unwanted attention.