No doubt. I once had a good job (the afformentioned tiny company) with a pretty good boss. but he wasn’t great. And then he went through a nasty divorce. I can’t speak to all fo the particulars but I am pretty confident it was partly his fault. And he changed from it.
One of the other devs in the office was the closest thing Iv’e ever had to a mentor. She’s still a friend and we speak occasionally ( no longer in the same state, alas, so our once more frequent dinners/lunchers are no longer possible). As things do, that job got more stressful and in some ways worse. She, and the excellent project manager we had (also female, yes relevant) were taking problems tothis manger. And his behavior to them was unprofessional and unacceptable. Like telling them to their faces “you are overreacting [they weren’t] to some problem, but it’s understandable because women are more emotional [pseudo science]”. I mean what the fuck. His first job is to be an empathetic and sympathetic ear, and he couldn’t even do that any more (and yes, I do believe his ugly divorce was partly the cause, projecting his attitudes towards his soon to be ex onto every woman he dealth with). It drove both of these people crazy, the dev used to confide in me about it. Abhorrent behavior, and there was worse than this (nothing in terms of sexual assault or anything like that).
He moved out of that position, to everyone’s relief frankly. But then the compaby was purchased (it had been, for awhile) and the integration proper with the parent company began, and it wasn’t a good or fun job anymore. So I moved on (that same developer recruited me to her next company, in fact).
I still talk to that guy on occasion. He’s not a bad guy. But I doubt I would ever work with him ever again. I know the dev doesn’t have any lingering bitterness towards him or anything like that, but I doubt she would ever work with him either. I myself have dealt with a lot of bullshit. I am fortunately that I don’t have to deal with that sort of bullshit, which women do.
There’s no reason Hr can’t be a force for good. It’s unfortunate that so many companies don’t understand though. And growing past a certain point makes everything a lot harder, for a lot of reasons.
I’ve really enjoyed your stories here, btw.