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".
