Comment by rhacker | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rhacker | Hacker News Reader

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It makes sense that the HR IT industry would have some of the worst software developers. It seems obvious to me at least that you can't rely on first name + last name to make a match, and if you do, you have to write code that fails if there are multiple users with such a combination, as well as falling back on soundex or double or triple metaphone as well as nickname support. Second, the screens involved in termination should display warnings if multiple employees have similar names and departments, etc...

I've been in health IT for the last 15ish years so I know a lot about patient matching (wrote at least 4 patient matching MPIs in my time at different companies).. so maybe it's just my perspective..

However, that all being said, almost all processes like this are NOT automated, but instead handled by automated emails telling people to do operations. You're basically then subject to the lowest common denominator logic of people in IT that are in charge of disabling accounts- with no regard or care about who the person is.

Anyway to the person that got fired like this - just be happy you are out of the environment - it is not for you. There are signs in life.

I think you misread the article.

The author assumed that the recruiter accidentally thought that he had been fired after reading the list of fired employees, as there were other employees with the same name.

In reality, he had been fired as his contract had not been renewed. He wasn't actively fired, but rather his contract expired because someone failed to renew it.

A big part of the problem here seems to be rather that there were no warnings of his impending "departure" to the correct people. There were no emails to his manager reminding them that his contract was ending, or to the author himself. Even if it was intended for his contract to end, it would still be a good idea to have that email sent out, just to remind them. I can totally foresee somebody forgetting that their contract is finished.

I think you misread the article.

The author's contract hadn't even ACTUALLY expired. The end date was wrong on the system. That doesn't actually affect his contract.

The article says that his former boss, who left the company, neglected to file the paperwork on extending his contract. There was intent to extend, and everyone thought that’s what happened, except for the fact that it didn’t actually happen.

There's the contract that was signed, and then there's the HR documentation as it appears in the system. The contract was signed, but the HR documentation wasn't.

Why would HR IT have worse software developers than other industries?

Because HR in general has worse employees than other disciplines?

Seriously, in my 20+ year career, I've run across very few legitimately talented people in HR. The department seems to attract the kind of people who have little to offer intrinsically; who happen to be willing to facilitate the necessary protocols, as minimally effective as possible, while claiming "people skills" that end up being little more than office politics.

It’s true in my experience. HR IT, IAM, etc. are dominated by fakes and low skilled workers. Corporate IT is often the same but for some reason HR IT is distilled mediocrity. Definitely some exceptions and exceptional people but they are used and abused by the frauds and leaned heavily on by the unskilled.

I’ve had the joy of being in meetings with folks from every discipline that don’t know their field but HR IT takes the cake. Somehow they find a way to absolve themselves of responsibility by leaning on more technical teams while simultaneously touting their unique technical expertise and importance they use as a club to ignore those very same teams.

Having known a couple of founders who built their companies to a greater than 5000 person company, this is actively done. Founders need control over who they employ, promote, fire, etc. While it doesn't matter much at the entry level stage, as you move up the seniority chain, there is a lot more politics. HRs major purpose is to make sure that things that are done to employees are done in a legally justifiable way. If management wants to see someone gone, they make sure there is a paper trail. If someone needs to be moved up faster, they facilitate that. Essentially, they are there to do upper management's bidding, not to employ their own thoughts. Headstrong people don't survive there.

In my experience HR isn't filled with "bad" employees per say, it's filled just with bureaucrats. They care more about following policy to the letter just to do it rather than actually thoughtfully applying policy which generally involves following the spirit of the law by bending rules rather than the letter of the law.

Two reasons really. HR is not a profit center, and no one who picks the software will actually have to use it. Zed Shaw takes this up to 11 in a presentation he did in Montreal https://vimeo.com/2723800

I had to do a back transaction once in Greece and they did ask for my mother's and my father's name. Strange for a German but it seems to work for them.

Isn’t that a matter of public record in most places?

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