Since early on in my career, I’ve had a general distrust of people who work in Human Resources. That sounds judgmental, you’re thinking. But think about it this way: trust is something that should be earned and should never be a given, regardless of who it is. Whether you are aware of this or not, you feel the same way, too. Are you just going to trust the guy who’s standing next to you at a red light with your baby?

When something goes wrong at a company — say, some bullies you, slaps your behind, or tries multiple times to ask you out on a date that you absolutely do not want to accept, what you will initially be told is, “You should talk to HR.” But I am here to say…. well, think about it for a second. What are the positions of power here? What is the social standing or level of hierarchy of the person you want to “report”? What is your social standing? These are all things you should consider before “going to HR.”

At every single company I’ve ever worked at, HR has been known to have loose lips, and having worked for over 12 years and spoken with people across industries, this is not unique to places I’ve worked; this is a universal fact. People who work in HR, contrary to their titles, are gossips, and they are more than happy to share confidential conversations when they feel like it. They are only human, after all.

I once worked at a company where our HR director would go out for drinks with different colleagues and just spill the beans on all the C-level execs and managers she couldn’t stand, sharing very colorful details around specific incidents she had witnessed or conversations she’d participated in. Once, I went into her office to discuss some questions I had about our health plan, and with the door closed, she went off for about 10 minutes about our company’s CEO and how childish and unprofessional he could be. At that point, I had only been at the company for a few months, but I definitely did not think this reflected well on the company overall that our head of HR was so willing to badmouth its leadership with a new employee.

In another meeting with an HR professional at another company, perhaps in an attempt to gain my trust and reveal something that was particularly vulnerable (and controversial), an HR rep told me that many people I would never expect to be struggling at their jobs actually are: she then divulged that my manager had sought her counsel and was “under review” (oh, hello, performance improvement plan!), that another manager was also on plan (she actually named names). Oh, and someone on our CXO team? He doesn’t believe that race is an issue in our society anymore; he thinks we all need to be focused on the gender divide!

These conversations were supposed to be… confidential. Yet, this HR professional shared these tidbits with me completely on her own, without my asking or even wondering about these individuals. Sadly, I’ve experienced so many of these breeches with HR professionals that now, I have to assume by default that nothing I ever share with an HR person at any company will be kept 100 percent confidential. It’s supposed to be HR’s job: to act discreetly and in confidence. Yet somehow, they can’t even get this basic piece right. If they are willing to divulge even what our C-level execs say, what do you think they will do with your or my information?