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Antiwork

I hate being smarter than HR

I am a division manager in federal government who was blessed to get funding approval for hosting an internship position – the first approved since COVID happened. HR held the mentor orientation, and shoved a ton of information down our throats very fast. One sentence caught my attention: “candidate interns cannot share pay information with other candidates.” Uh, what? You’re federal government HR and you’re violating the NLRA in writing? In front of a bunch of senior managers and executives? Who have had this beaten into us because we’d be found liable as well if anyone filed a complaint?!? So I spoke up. “Um, excuse me. That’s illegal.” Crickets for close to 10 seconds. “What’s illegal?” “Denying people from talking pay. You can’t do that. It’s illegal, especially for federal government.” More crickets. “Who is the program director who approved this slideshow, because I’m betting this sentence wasn’t in it…


I am a division manager in federal government who was blessed to get funding approval for hosting an internship position – the first approved since COVID happened. HR held the mentor orientation, and shoved a ton of information down our throats very fast. One sentence caught my attention: “candidate interns cannot share pay information with other candidates.”

Uh, what? You’re federal government HR and you’re violating the NLRA in writing? In front of a bunch of senior managers and executives? Who have had this beaten into us because we’d be found liable as well if anyone filed a complaint?!?

So I spoke up. “Um, excuse me. That’s illegal.”

Crickets for close to 10 seconds. “What’s illegal?”

“Denying people from talking pay. You can’t do that. It’s illegal, especially for federal government.”

More crickets.

“Who is the program director who approved this slideshow, because I’m betting this sentence wasn’t in it when it was approved.”

Wow, that’s a lot of crickets.

“Uh, actually, that’s a provision from the contract vendor hiring the interns.”

Which I figured. “Doesn’t matter – it’s illegal for them to do it too. I’ll be addressing this with my executive leadership because we will not be part of any program that exposes us to illegal activity.” It was a bluff, but now I know that they’re googling the provisions on the NLRA.

“Sir, we’ll get back to you on that.”

Idiots.

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