Idk. Personally, you even said it yourself above, that just seems like it was honest/genuine “small talk.” It could have totally been just that and nothing more. I wouldn’t jump right to “invasion of privacy” if someone asked me that. To me, those don’t seem like invasive questions. Same thing I’d imagine to hear from any random stranger at a work event, for example. Pretty basic boilerplate “get to know ya/small talk” questions, besides the ol’ “so, this weather huh?!” Haha Maybe I’m just being optimistic that not everyone in tech is evil, with an agenda? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s incredibly stupid for HR to ask that. We had training from HR so we didn’t even unintentionally ask questions during small talk they could indirectly force them to reveal sensitive information. How on earth could a HR rep make that mistake astounds me.
People are human. No mistakes astound me anymore. They simply fall on the range between "they haven't had their coffee yet" to "you're going to need corrective surgery for that not to be permanently debilitating" to "you might need a great attorney to get you out of this".
