Agree with the original post.
This is a well known phenomena, mainly attributed to the the peter principal, which occurs frequently in tech companies. This is how it works... say you are good at something, and the company wants to reward you, by making you a manager, you may find yourself "promoted to a point of incompetence", often forced to do something you are not so good at. As you all know, this is a very common when technologists become people managers, or when people get promoted due to friendships and influencers. As you may guess, it is especially true at Juniper. At large, this is a recipe for disaster.
As for HR incompetence, some big companies used to address this type of situation head on by avoiding it altogether and not promoting engineers to manage people, or by hiring HR managers to work hand in hand with technical managers on a daily basis. This is not true anymore due to cost (and youtube). It is definitely not true at Juniper, as attracting enough HR talent appears to be huge problem and by the looks of it, keeping them is an even bigger one. The handful of 'HR reps', sprinkled around to spread their pixie dust just doesn't cut it. It just doesn't scale and the quality of the HR reps is just not adequate for this job.
The Peter principal also applies to issues outside HR. For example, if you take an excellent product manager, let's say someone who came up with the idea to build the MX, and expect him to successfully run a multi national company, you could very well end up with a disaster. It's not impossible, but rarely would we be seeing a successfull outcome. We now know and feel the outcome of this with these rolling layoffs. The risk of failure is very high. We are living just that nightmare right now. Another example is in engineering ... Take a look at AA. Ever wonder why we lose so many good engineer? Is it because AA is so unpopular? Is it because he is overwhelmed with dealing with people and chosing to be condescending and an a-hole. He might be hiding behind a cloak of helpless pitty. There are weak 'people managers' who make very poor decisions, out of ignorance and helplessness. Here are some signs... If you find someone in a position if authority to be obnoxious, loud, rude, flirty or generally distracted from work, there is a pretty good likelihood that person is reacting to some weakness. They are reaching for a temporary thrill, to bail themselves out from the turmoil within. The bullying behavior is as much a sign of immaturity as it is a cry for help . Similarly, speaking with a fake accent, or being overly flirty are little psychological distractions to ease the pain. The pain brought about by the shear ignorance and incompence that person has to face, in that situation.
So, the next time you see AA in his little temper tantrums, you know why. #stopcorporatebullying