I find it odd that you have so many bad experiences with HR at so many different companies, largely because I don't see why you're interacting so much with HR. I've rarely interacted with HR except when I've needed something from them. Why are you, as a dev, crossing paths with HR so often? A bad interaction with HR for me would be someone being rude, or unhelpful, or at worst incompetent. I don't understand why your interactions with HR seem to involve risk to your job. e.g. Why was an HR person even talking to you on your break?

I fall into the bucket that hasn't had bad experiences with HR. They've been helpful when I've needed stuff, which has been minimal. They've been irrelevant the rest of the time. This has been the case at every company I've worked for.

> Coming from multiple sources, I'd say that's pretty damning to HR.

I'd say that a thread full of people griping about HR is not very damning at all. People like to gripe. People who have normal interactions with HR generally don't have much to say in this kind of thread. People who have had a bad experience with HR are happy to vent. If multiple sources complaining is damning, then just about every mid to large-size company must be terrible, because just about every company of size has at least a handful of people (consumers or employees, really) who are delighted to tell you about how horrible their experience with the company was.

I agree that HR is not your friend, and their job is to protect the company. That's logically pretty reasonable since they are employed by the company. Likewise, the sales team is there for the company. And so is the customer service team. And so is the executive team. And so is everyone else, because that's who pays them. That doesn't make them evil or rotten, though. Nor are they evil or rotten just because a few bad people are employed there. Some devs are petty assholes, too.