She had interviewed and met both remotely and in person, this guy was merely an HR drone confirming her documentation. I was a little bent when she told me he had asked her to remove her blur filter “to have a look at her working environment, make sure it’s not cluttered” (something along those lines). No one else at this company requested such. Was he way out of line?
I should note, this is my PC in our living room and not where she will be working from. And this guy wants a look around our home?! Told my wife to bring this up once she’s settled in, ask HR if this is policy. She started today!
She thinks it’s a racism thing. I’m not so sure, but I don’t have any other explanation.
…cluttered? the fuck?
has this fucker seen a cubicle? why did she allow it?
My I-9 verification is birth certificate, so no photo. Not sure how unblurring would help? I’ve never done it remotely though. Wanting to see work environment isn’t so great. I set up for a video interview a while back by carefully positioning the camera so there was nothing interesting around or behind me. I had trouble getting the video working though, so we did a voice-only phone interview instead, which was much better anyway.
“Sorry, this is a shared office and my partner is working under NDA”
No such thing as an NDA that allows a spouse to work in the same room, and allows the spouse to actually be on video while blurred, but draws the line at not being able to unblur the video.
There is and unfortunately I cannot show you the NDA as the NDA won’t allow me to show you the NDA. The NDA does allow me talk about the conditions in general like this though.
It is it’s the NDA you made your partner sign.
You really shouldn’t hire a wife, that seems wrong
I mean I bet he got a really good deal for it otherwise he wouldn’t be bragging on the internet
It sure sounds like racism and poorphobia to me. HR trying to make sure her surroundings don’t look like what a “typical poor person” would have. It’s not super common, but it’s common enough that I hear about it every so often.
I can’t offer any kind of legal advice, but it sounds like this job will be potentially problematic and HR will definitely be one to watch out for.
This could be raised as discrimination. Not only regarding income, but could also be against disabilities. People with ADHD (hello it’s me!) are really bad at organizing, especially desks and work areas (I work in layers of papers like sedimentation). I would definitely take notes on this incident and if it continues or if he job gets changed following.
Definitely! However if your first experience with HR is being discriminated against, raising concerns about discrimination can be dangerous. Who do you go to when HR is causing the issues? HR is there to protect the company, not you. If the easiest way to protect the company is to fire someone, HR will probably do that.
I’m not trying to talk OP or anyone else out of going to HR, they aren’t always sharks waiting to fire someone. It’s just good to be careful here and OP and their wife should be aware of the risks before taking any action. Definitely document this incident. If this becomes a repeat issue, documentation can be the difference between getting fired and winning a wrongful termination lawsuit.
I would suggest unionizing and talking to a union rep
Agreed. Unfortunately a lot of people don’t have a union, and sometimes unionizing just isn’t possible.
That’s why I said keep notes. Recount the event with timestamp. If things continue or get worse you now have a file with all occurrences. And if you get fired for calling out HR, that’s an easy lawsuit.
HR can protect the company by reigning this guy in. I really feel it was a lone wolf thing, not policy.
I’d like to approach them anonymously, but it might be obvious who I was talking about.
HR can protect the company by reigning this guy in. I really feel it was a lone wolf thing, not policy.
Very true! Like I said, I’m not trying to convince you to not bring it up, just that it’s something to be careful about, and to make sure you have evidence or documentation.
Ah the sedimentary filing system. I can tell you exactly when I last touched each layer of each pile and what’s there but if I file it all away somewhere I can’t tell you shit.
My wife moves my personal piles around and royally jacks me up. As to work, I’m much more organized because of deadline and customer expectations.
If I hadn’t seen the blatant discrimination she’s faced job hunting, I’d be more skeptical. She’s Filipino, but that’s “Mexican” to many. When I say blatant, I mean to say heads would roll if we had some of this on camera. She’s mostly unhurt by these things, just figures that’s the way of the world. But damn. One lady asked if she was Asian and was visibly appalled. Another said she would have to attend their church, and barely stopped short of asking her to renounce Catholicism. There’s much more I’m not remembering ATM.
What’s shocking is that this employer is widely considered to be the best in the whole area. Solid pay and benefits, really cares about their people. My ex-wife worked there and loved them. I’m guessing their HR folks would have kittens if they knew this guy had pulled this.
Also, just read your edit, makes much more sense. Still, I would have said, “This is not where I will be working. If you want to pick this back up in 5, I can be in my home office.” (We hadn’t set up proper video cam or setup the laptop so I had her use my machine.)
Having said that, this is a hybrid position, so the laptop farm shouldn’t be an issue. She’ll be in 3 times a week.
I completely believe all of that, and I’m sorry she’s had to deal with so much crap. Lately a lot of employers seem to be showing their asses by being overtly racist, ableist, and transphobic. Everyone I know who isn’t a white straight cis man has had employment troubles in the last six months.
I hope this is just a strange interaction with one HR person and you have a better time with everyone else!
There was a big headline recently about a tech company accidentally hitting a North Korean “hacker” (I’m just going off the headline) so that might be fresh in memory with regards to your laptop farm reference.
Exactly what I was referencing! I’ve known a few people who were recently fired from remote jobs under very strange circumstances. I can’t prove anything of course, but I distinctly got the feeling that they were fired because the intersection of their marginalizations made them look like “evil North Korean spies” to management.
That was knowbe4, a fairly large player in the information technology security game, failing to vet its own employees and potentially exposing its customers to a foreign hacker.
I wouldn’t call that kosher, personally.
AHRAB
All HR Are Bastards?
That’s a bingo
I initially read it as someone saying ‘Arab’ in a stereotypical Southern drawl, and I was confused.
I don’t know if they’re all bastards, but HR is absolutely not your friend. Human Resources <> protections for employees. Instead, Human Resources = protection for the company
Technically anything that is a “resource” for a company is something that is meant to be exploited for profit.
I don’t know if they’re all bastards
As it’s not likely that all people who work in HR have unmarried parents, it’s probably less literal language that labels them as belonging to a group of people who would harm you if it suited their interests.
All the HR people I’ve known who were not like that eventually left their job, because what they were asked to do went beyond their moral boundaries. Leaving HR to be the ones who were, indeed, those who didn’t feel such qualms.
Post pandemic, this kind of ID “verification” is SUPER bogus, but it’s quite common unfortunately, and, tbh, I can’t think of a better way to handle it that isn’t either in person or via snail mail.
Not great for sure, but most likely not racist, or at least not purposefully so (not that that matters).
I was a little bent when she told me he had asked her to remove her blur filter “to have a look at her working environment, make sure it’s not cluttered” (something along those lines).
Creepy.
Not a racism thing. Happened to me at my last two companies (white guy, both remote jobs).
Same here. It’s company policy to review remote workers space to make sure it’s not in a place where client information can be overhead/people can see the screen. My boss is really lax about it and just requires me to unblur for a minute, tops.
For me it was strictly during onboarding for verifying I-9 documents. I assume it’s just to ensure any documents you present aren’t getting software blurred.
I’m inclined to agree, and was surprised my wife though it might be a racist thing. She’s not one to pull the race card, quite the opposite in fact.
What was the reasoning for the company’s request and at what part of the onboarding process was it?
This is common for i9 verifications.
Common =/= acceptable
A large percentage of people in Human Resources are absolute idiots. They often use their own perspective as what the company should be doing.
Ask them politely where that rule is because you want to understand. If they cannot provide it, immediately share all the conversation with your manager.
It may lead to nothing. Or discovery that this HR guy seems to always ask women to unblur their cameras and now they got a sexism case on their hands.
Ok, I have some.corporate insight here. One reason some of our clients have started to do this is because they have had instances where Indian talent companies have been interviewing with highly qualified candidates impersonating someone else. It’s a cool strategy because not everyone interviews well, even if they know their stuff. Unfortunately the bait and switch involves some “workers” that can barely work a mouse, much less do the job they were hired to do. So, because of this short sighted greed, now every candidate has to be visually verified, sometimes at random.
Some assholes ruined it for eveyone.
She had already met them in person and will be working in the office 3 days a week. I understand the concern, but this is not that.
The post was about being asked to disable background blurring specifically.
Oops. Thanks for the heads up. I completely misread. That’s what I get for multi-tasking.
Long before Covid, the company I worked for started trialing work from home for some call center agents. They had a whole list of requirements for an acceptable work from home space: dedicated work area with a desk, locking file drawer (why??? I don’t know), first aid kit, fire extinguisher, etc. Someone would actually go out to physically inspect the space to make sure every box was checked.
My guess is someone from legal wrote up the requirements from a workplace safety standpoint. They probably could have just had the employee sign a statement agreeing that they met all of the requirements, but someone in the middle got overzealous about their role. During Covid, everyone got sent home permanently without any regard to any of those rules, so clearly they weren’t that important in the first place.
We need to provide a photo of our home work area as part of our application for work from home. It’s needed as part of the employer’s duty of care - managers are supposed to examine the photo and determine its a safe work area
Really all that happens is a photo is attached to the application and never looked at
I doubt American employers have any duty of care towards work from home employees.
I bet the unblurring was about being able to see the documents. AI blur is pretty aggressive at blurring anything that isn’t a face
It seems like you are getting more knee jerk than actual answers here. There is no evidence of any discrimination in asking to deblur the camera by itself. It also has nothing to do with an I9 validation. The I9 validation is checking for employment eligibility and citizenship status and that’s it. See below for the remote procedures. The employer’s obligation is to be consistent in the procedure and not discriminatory with the procedure based on race, gender, etc. I just think that HR drone is a dumbass.
Lastly, I think based on your other response to another poster she should take the job and just be keenly aware if anyone else in HR asks other funny stuff. There can always be dumbasses in every department and that’s not a reflection of their ability to be lawful or a bad company. I also think it’s worth reporting the person if they keep doing funny stuff.
From USCIS: Remote Examination of Documents Procedures: Examine copies (front and back, if the document is two-sided) of Form I-9 documents or an acceptable receipt to ensure that the documentation presented reasonably appears to be genuine and relates to the employee; Conduct a live video interaction with the individual presenting the document(s) to ensure that the documentation reasonably appears to be genuine and relates to the individual. The employee must first transmit a copy of the document(s) to the employer (per Step 1 above) and then present the same document(s) during the live video interaction; and Retain a clear and legible copy of the documentation (front and back if the documentation is two-sided).
Link https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/remote-examination-of-documents
that HR drone is a dumbass
My take as well, and thanks for taking the time for a real answer.
the HR drone could’ve probably explained it better, but it’s possible for the background blur effect to distort a close up img on camera of a document, such as for I9. I recently went through a verification of my documents and had to do the same thing, except I made the call to unblur and immediately my docs were verifiable via camera.
Likely policy is to ask for blur effects to be disabled to remove the possibility of interference in be able to actually see/verify docs.
