Today, for your reading displeasure, I present an actual email conversation with HR at one of my former employers. Although I’ve edited the conversation slightly for clarity and wording, this is effectively the gist of the exchange. And before anyone asks, I’m sure that there are good people who work in HR. But like honest politicians, I’ve never met any of them.
Me: Hi, I’m having a problem with the health insurance that I had through you. My son was seen by our doctor for his regular annual checkup the day after my employment ended, and the insurance is denying the claim and stating that we were no longer covered.
Useless HR Drone (UHRD): Yes, that’s correct. Your coverage ended the same day as your employment. Did you receive your COBRA paperwork yet?
Me: Yes, but a month of COBRA costs the same as my mortgage payment. You’re telling me that my coverage wasn’t carried at least through the end of the pay period?
UHRD: Yes, that’s company policy. You were informed of this when you received your separation paperwork.
Me: Okay, but everywhere else I’ve worked extended insurance coverage through the end of the pay period, if not through the end of the month. Also, I still had the full premium deductions taken out of my final check.
UHRD: Well again, that’s policy. Your premiums are deducted for the pay period that has just completed. We don’t prorate those just because your employment ended during a pay cycle.
Me: So let me get this straight: I wasn’t paid for the last three days of the pay period, because I was no longer working for the company, and I couldn’t access my insurance benefits for those three days because they’d already been terminated, but I was still required to pay the premium for those three days of benefits that I no longer had? I understand that’s legal, but I am simultaneously impressed and repulsed by the callous disregard embodied in such a policy.
URHD: That’s correct. Is there any further information you need from me?
Me: (Not sent) – Is being soulless a requirement to work in HR, or is that component removed during the onboarding process?
ME: (Actually sent) – No, you’ve answered my question and explained the corporate policy quite clearly.
Now I want to be clear here, I’m not whining. I understand that corporate policy is what it is, and that none of the excellent people that I formerly worked with have anything to do with policies set by the drones at the corporate mothership. Furthermore, since I was able to land a new gig very quickly, this doesn’t rate beyond a minor inconvenience for us.
But still, this is a level of casual indifference to people that I’ve never seen before, and I used to work for the fly-by-night staffing agencies that Microsoft uses to keep their full-time employee headcount artificially low. So while I’m not usually a vindictive person, it’s my sincere hope that the architect of this policy one day finds himself on the other end of it, preferably the day before he decides that he should really get that rash he got after visiting a Thai whorehouse checked out.