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I liked that. I was a manager for 25 years. I think I did OK with my decisions (for the most part).

One thing that I noticed at my company:

When I first got hired (in 1990), it was made clear that I was a desired and valued employee. They were a very picky company, and might well have rejected me, but I felt respected and valued, from my first interview (I was flown out to the West Coast, and interviewed by two managers at a trade show).

As the years have gone by, I noticed that our HR department started to have a very different posture. They had to be the ones in charge. Applicants were supplicants. The company was doing them a favor, by considering them for this position.

Also, the HR department started to project this attitude to current employees, to a visibly increasing degree, over the 27 years that I was at that company. By the time I left, the HR posture was that employees were little more than serfs. There was no illusion that employment was a two-way relationship. They started to impose some really draconian policies on employees, with "termination of employment" as the only choice, if the new policy was not acceptable. No negotiations.

I think that this is an attitude that has become a standard in HR, these days, and that part of the reason for this interview process, is to filter for people that won't talk back to HR, and are willing to abase themselves for the company.



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