HR Employees Reveal the Most Bizarre Moments from Their Careers

21. Two Companies

I was an HR manager for a small company that shared an office with a mid-sized business. Their HR manager really disliked us, mainly because our company cultures really clashed. It wasn’t a big deal for a long time, maybe just a little tense, until one day they decided to terminate one of the shared administrative staff members. I wasn’t part of this decision, though I agreed with it, and technically that was their employee. The other HR Manager (let’s call her Cheryl) calls me into her office to inform me the next morning that this admin had been let go. Cheryl made it clear, I was not to e-mail our company’s employees and inform them of the change in employment status. As she put it “They’ll find out when they get in and she isn’t here, and if they don’t, well that’s not my problem.” Lovely. That is not how handle communication matters in my company, and I was completely uncomfortable with it.

So I go to a VP and discuss what we should do. He says to hold off for a day, let everything settle, and then go back and work out a strategy with Cheryl on how to redirect employees who used the old admin until we can hire a new one. Most of our employees, unlike theirs, work out in the field, so it would be important to communicate with those individuals specifically, but it could hold a day. We knew that the old e-mail for the admin was being forwarded to Cheryl, so at least someone was watching the e-mails in case something critical came through. Ok, cool.

Not two hours later Cheryl comes barreling into the cubical area of our office screaming about how our employees are idiots. They clearly are too dumb to understand that the employee who was terminated the night before was no longer with the company. She was sick of getting our stupid e-mails and didn’t want to have to deal with our incompetent employees e-mailing her non-stop. I was a horrible HR manager, I didn’t know how to control my people. I clearly wasn’t able to handle my job. Just insulted me, our employees, and the entire company at the top of her psychotic lungs.

I was clearly to blame, and she was going to get me in so much trouble. She goes running into the CEO’s office and starts flipping out about me. It was a complete clusterf*ck. She had friggin set me up as a scapegoat in case her lovely approach to HR went wrong, and when it did immediately, tried to throw me under the bus for something she did! I believe that someone had sent the admin a time-critical e-mail the night before, and Cheryl hadn’t caught it, and the deadline had passed for the item maybe 15 minutes before she actually opened the request.

Thankfully I’d already talked to the VP, who was a lifesaver. Cheryl was reminded that whatever had happened was her fault, and she was told behind closed doors that if she ever did that again, our company would be logging major complaints with her company, and the CEOs of the two companies were close friends.

She told every new hire they had that our company was full of lazy, entitled *sshol*s, and actively encouraged hostility between people in each company. She forbid our company from going into their part of the office, despite the shared (and partially paid for by us) soda fridge being over there. Would host “office lunches” for her company, and bring the leftovers across the hall to other companies so that our employees couldn’t get some. It was the pettiest, childish reaction to her attempt to slander me and get me in trouble.

We moved offices in under 6 months.

22. Fighting Chance

We had a cashier who refused to work at a certain register because it was enclosed while all the others were open.

Her reason was that one of the sales clerks in the hardware department was waiting for the right moment to murder her, and she wanted to be able to have an escape route when it happened. How did she know the clerk–who she never really interacted with–was planning on killing her? “You can just see it in his eyes.”

She didn’t want us to solve her problem with the murderous clerk, mind you. She just wanted a fighting chance to escape when the inevitable happened.

That employee’s doctor soon took her off work for quite some time to get her meds straight.

23. Together With a Bug

A friend of mine was hiring. A gal walks into the interview with a bug that she found outside. My friend said during the entire interview, she was watching it crawl around on her hands. She would talk to the bug when she answered his questions, never once making eye contact with him.

24. She Just Wept

Law Firm. We hired a legal secretary who was much older than most (60s), returning for a second or reinstated career. She had retired and needed to return to work. Her husband remained retired. She worked as a secretary and he’d drive her to work each day, and pick her up each day. Week 1, he started waiting for her in the parking lot, in his car. Week 2, he began waiting in the lobby of the building. Week 3, he came up to our floor and waited in our own reception area lobby. It started a few minutes before 5, then 10 minutes, then 15 minutes, and pretty soon as much as 30 minutes. We asked him NOT to come so early as it made her “rush” through end-of-day tasks. She was too distracted, knowing he was there. Week 4, he came inside the “bullpen area” to get a cup of coffee, and sat down in the employee lounge area, at 4:45 pm. We did not take kindly to this. We asked him to back into the outer reception area, and he did. However, he once again, by Week 5, started arriving earlier and earlier and would poke his head through the door to the secretarial desks, and offices, asking if she was nearing time to go — well before 5:00 p.m. She was always so rushed and flummoxed the minute she saw him. Didn’t want to make him wait. I sensed some domestic problems here — was he a bully? Was he angry with her hours? Anything wrong? Need help? No, she said, he’s just really bored. Just had NOTHING to do, she said, and couldn’t wait for her to get off work. We told him he had to go back downstairs to the ground floor, or wait in his car, period. He was crushed. He did it, but then within days, he’d call her from the lobby pay phone to see “if you’re ready to go.” She didn’t make it past Week 6 for other reasons, but her husband was a big one. I told her “your husband is costing you this job, Etta — you’ve got to get some control over this.” She just wept and said, “I can’t hurt his feelings, he’s so embarrassed we even need the money.” I was then and remain worried that he may have been a source of great pressure and bullying, even though she denied it. Hope she is collecting social security somewhere, not having to work at her age.

condimentia

25. The Old Man

Warehouse Building. I was handling legal work for business owners who had numerous buildings on a “campus” including a fuel station and a warehouse and a few pumps and industrial equipment, wells, etc. Fairly rural area, so not much in the way of vehicular traffic, and virtually no pedestrian traffic unless you were a hobo following the railroad tracks, which happened. A man kept coming onto the campus at wee hours, had been spotted many times, and he’d steal. Whatever little things he could recycle. Nothing to the level of stripping copper wire or breaking glass, but a dumpster diver as well, and would eat any food or snacks and take anything not nailed down, just to survive apparently. Owners asked him many times to move along, move along. He’d return. Finally, the “Old Man” who started the company came upon him and asked what the heck was his deal, why would you risk jail for this petty stuff? Well, it would be a cot and a meal, at least, he said. The owner set up a cot in the warehouse. Gave him a job. Minimum wage. Plus a food box. Said this: You steal from me one more time, you’re out, and you’re going to jail. Or, you can have this cot, live here until you’re on your feet, watch over my place, make sure no one like you comes around, make sure no one steals from me and get a paycheck. Your choice. He took the job. He’s been there, in his little warehouse bunk, for about 6-7 years now. Very very loyal employee. Does all the “Charlie Work” for the team, collects his paycheck, and is very kind. Brilliant solution, I thought.

26. Her Business

I was recruiting for an entry-level job — think an administrator at a call center — and I gave a candidate a call to request an in-person interview. The call went to voicemail and her greeting was her rapping about her lingerie business. Several team members gave her a call that day to hear the greeting.

27. 30-minute Mark

I’m not sure if this is weird but it sure as heck was disrespectful and was quite a wtf moment for me. I was supposed to conduct an interview with an applicant and I make it a habit to drop them a text 2 hours before the interview to remind them about the interview.

This applicant came 30 minutes past his interview slot and in that 30 minutes I was calling him and texting him to check his ETA and all he said was he was on the way.

At the 30-minute mark, I called him again while standing outside of the office building and there he was smoking a cigarette, he turned to me, gestured at his cigarette, scowled at me and gestured for me to wait. He didn’t get the job and when we sent him the rejection email he got upset and sent me a rude email then proceeded to block my number. Joys of being in HR I guess.

28. Nighttime Shifts

One of our contractors on a help desk project worked was on call for overnight shifts. He had a knack for getting to the office and addressing tickets super quickly.

Someone noticed the printer ran out of ink at a ridiculous rate. They followed a (literal) paper trail into a closet where they found his sleeping bag and about 5,000 flyers advertising his DJ gig. My man was literally living in a government facility and moonlighting as a DJ.

29. Skin Flakes

A weird employee who used to scratch his head so often that there would be flakes of skin all over his workstation and all of his co-workers that sat around him complained to me and I had to address it. Turns out it was a compulsion and he couldn’t stop. The part that bothered everyone about him the most was that he would scrape the dead skin flakes into piles and leave them on his desk. His black keyboard was almost white. He never put the piles on the floor or in the trash can that every employee was issued at their cubicle. You could literally see a white haze above his cubicle. Other people were freaking out because it was getting on their desks.

gtfohbitchass

30. Too Proud

An employee who claimed to be friends with cardi B before she moved to our area from New York City. This girl told me that she and her ex-boyfriend had worked at a call center and had taken credit card info from hundreds of people and made good money doing it. Obviously, we fired her and she was shocked. She was still in training when she told me this. I was an HR member training her and she said this in front of four other employees in training. Like seriously dumb*ss?

gtfohbitchass

31. Each Letter

In college, I worked as a filing clerk for the facilities department (groundskeepers, janitors, maintenance, etc). I had to file notices and letters from the school to the employees along with their time cards and such.

Apparently, one guy got arrested and the letters went from the span of “we’ve put you on vacation” to “you’re fired and if you come back we will have you arrested (again)” in about 4 hours.

I don’t know what he did but I could see the higher-ups getting more and more pissed with each letter.

32. Free For Me

My best friend works for this pretty big company and one day he gets approached by one of his bosses, who is in his late 40s. He asks my friend where he got his jeans because he liked them a lot and my friend tells him that they are just Levi’s he got at the store in Wicker Park here in Chicago. He says cool and then my friend doesn’t think about it.

That weekend he actually ends up at Levi’s store looking for a denim jacket. He spots his superior there shopping and they say hi. He told him that he came down to check out the jeans because he liked my friend’s so much. They chat a little and my friend introduced his girlfriend and then they left the store leaving his boss to shop.

That Monday his boss approaches him and hands him a bag full of jeans. He bought a bunch of them at Levi’s store for my friend when he was there and wanted to give them to him. Keep in mind this is at the store itself so these jeans are at the full price of about $60 each. My friend said he couldn’t accept but he insisted, so he reluctantly took them.

He gets back to the desk and his coworker sees the jeans and asks what was the deal. He tells him about what happened, not saying who it was, and his coworker was like, “Was it_____?” My friend confirmed and his coworker said, “Oh yeah HR has a whole file on him. He’s done this before with other guys. He bought me a bunch of jerseys last year.”

So apparently this guy liked to buy gifts for his coworkers, all male and made most of them feel uncomfortable enough that they went to HR about it, but he was big enough in the company and he never really did anything totally inappropriate, so nothing was ever done about it.

My friend didn’t know what to do with the jeans, because he didn’t feel okay with wearing them himself, plus only a couple of them sorta fit him, so I said I would take them. As you can see they are various sizes because the guy wasn’t sure of his exact size and just guessed around, but hey they were free for me.

33. Attention to Detail

An employee applying for a promotion accused me of racism for not selecting her. Our conversation “Not that it matters but I didn’t know you weren’t white.” (to then be told she was white but had a small amount of Native American ancestry). Followed by the very uncomfortable; “The reason I didn’t interview you is because you spelled the company name wrong in 6 different places on your resume and we are looking for someone with a greater attention to detail.”

34. Catch Up

Hi. I’m not in HR but my mom has been for quite a while. A few years ago when my mom worked at an automotive plant, my mom had an issue with an employee who would clock in on time and then disappear. She asked another of the floor employees if they had seen him and was told “he’s in the parking lot.” So, my mom and one of her co-workers went out to the parking lot and found the employee asleep in his car. Apparently, he’d been clocking in and immediately going out to his car for another hour or so of sleep for two weeks (I can’t remember why it took this long for HR to find out). He didn’t see a problem with it if he was clocked in and still on company grounds. Needless to say, they fired him but I’m sure he was fine with it since he could catch up on sleep now that he didn’t have a pesky job getting in the way.

reddituser

35. This is America

Former HR here. A woman once complained that someone in her department kept meowing and it was getting on her nerves. I asked the meowing woman to come to my office. I said, “you’re not in trouble but apparently you keep meowing and an employee asked us to address it with you”. Her response: “This is America, I have freedom of speech” and “what happens if she sees a cat in a commercial and the cat meows, does she get mad at the cat?!” To which I replied, “well no because it’s a cat. It’s expected to meow”. This went on for some time until she agreed to stop meowing. There was no reason for the meowing. She was just meowing.

36. Frozen on Demand

I worked as an intern in HR and we found out that a president of a small bank had been stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars and making fake “loans” to clients.

It only came to light after his wife and kids ordered Frozen on demand (charged to the bank) so many times that it was flagged in the system as potential fraud.. where we found the actual fraud.

37. Inappropriate Calendar

One of the more recent ones and the one I personally found to be the weirdest:

I had taken a contract job in between jobs, still in my primary field of employee/labor relations. The only difference–and it is a huge one–is that this job was in an office atmosphere rather than a factory atmosphere.

During my 2nd week on the job, I am approached by one of the women ( “Kate”) from another department. She is coming to me because there is a ‘very inappropriate’ calendar down in the lower level break room and since I’m HR she thought that I should address it.

I thank Kate for bringing it to my attention and head down to the break room to find the inappropriate calendar. When I get into the break room I see two calendars: one of those large write-on ones with just the days and another one with scenes of the Great Lakes. No bikini calendars, no calendars with anything that remotely could offend anyone. I look around a bit and see nothing I figure that someone must have gotten wind that HR was coming and removed whatever the offending calendar was.

About two hours after I had come back upstairs after determining that there were no offensive calendars, Kate bursts into my office and accuses me of not taking care of removing the offensive calendar. I calmly tell Kate that she needs to calm down and that there were no inappropriate calendars in the downstairs break room when I checked. Kate shakes her head ‘no’ and says that she will show me where the offensive calendar is.

I follow Kate down to the break room and when I open the door still see the same two calendars and for a second think I am on an episode of ‘Punked’. Kate runs over to the calendar with the scenes of the Great Lakes and points to it, announcing that the calendar needs to go because it ‘triggers’ her.

What?!

It gets worse. She gets ‘triggered’ when people say the word ‘lake’. Kate wants the business cards co-workers put up for their side businesses for lake charters because she can’t stand to see the word ‘lake’.

By sheer coincidence, we hire a guy with the last name Lake. Kate throws a fit over that as well and says she is going to sue for emotional trauma because we are being cruel.

None of us understands why she lives in this city since we are right next to Lake Erie and the company is literally a couple of blocks from it. She says we need to accommodate her and build a wall so she doesn’t have to see the lake while she’s at work.

Yup, no problem. The total piece of the cake is building a wall around Lake Erie.

The funniest thing about it is that she had a boss who catered to this.

He did not believe me that being ‘triggered’ by a lake was NOT something that we had to accommodate.

Don’t miss that job at all.

jjellison319

38. Eyeball Icon

Not so much weird as it is funny. I was eating lunch one day when an employee bursts into my office. She was visibly shaken so I asked her what was wrong. She proceeded to ask if the government was doing surveillance on her work computer. When I asked her to clarify she said she noticed an eyeball icon that she’d never seen before appear when she was typing in her password. As in the thing you click on when you want to check that you typed in your password correctly. She’d worked there for almost 20 years and never noticed. Bless her heart.

40. It Depends

We had an employee that would constantly be 15 minutes late. Always strolled in at 8:15.

So after a conversation with the employee, the supervisor changed her schedule so that her start time was 8:30.

She started coming in at 8:45.

When the supervisor confronted her about this about a week later by saying she was late again, the employee responded by saying that “it depends on which clock you look at” as to whether she was late

There is only 1 clock on the wall in the office and it is controlled by the same server that pushes the time out to the phones and computers…so they all read exactly the same.