15 crazy true day in the life stories from real hr managers 2

If you’re an HR person you’ll nod in agreement with all of these. If you’re not in HR you’ll reaffirm your decision to go into something sensible.

  1. Robin Halford: Let’s see: My HR experiences over the years include (but are not limited to): Crazy Guy with An Axe, I Don’t Believe in Drug Testing, My Resume Should Include A Boudoir Photo of Me, I’m The CEO and I Can Sleep With Whomever I Choose, It’s Okay To Stalk My Medical Director While Simultaneously Believing My Supervisor is Stalking Me in the local Sears, Stirring the Pot is My Primary Job Function (I’m a Scientist), and Threatening the Life of My HR Rep is How I Spend My Spare Time. To name but a few…
  2. Jon Hyman: “No, you can’t store an 8-ball of coke in the ceiling tiles.” (And that was the CEO!)
  3. Christine Stevens: Two I’ve seen happen:  -Telling an employee, yes, you must wear underwear and no, you cannot “Sharon Stone” the courtroom. -Telling an employee that no, you cannot purposefully fart right before you leave the elevator and leave the rest of the passengers to suffer your emissions.
  4. Lisa Fite: One of my most memorable… an employee crawled up into the ceiling tiles and cut peep holes into the ceiling tiles over each of the ladies restroom stalls.  Eeewww.​
  5. Erin Snedeker Thoresen: “A single-use bathroom is intended for just that, to be used by one person at a time. Two people should not be occupying the same single-use bathroom for 30 minutes each day at lunch. Oh, and btw, it’s also inappropriate to make out in your car in the parking lot in full view of people, including Directors, walking by.”
  6. Joshua Hill: Please clean up after yourself in the bathroom. Yes, every time you use it. Hey is that a hidden camera?  Is that guy really urinating on the side of the building? What do you mean he is our employee? Wait, he got on the midnight bus and just left?
  7. Colleen Carmichael: No, you can’t go to the bathroom in the greenhouses…. with glass windows and flood floors. Please flush toilet paper. Please flush.
  8. Nicolas Gaillot: “No, you cannot use the maintenance workshop during the weekend to create spare parts for you vintage car; No you cannot use you handicapped co-worker as a punching ball during lunch break; No, you cannot fight against a coworker – even on the parking lot; Yes you have a right to come to work riding your bike, but considering the fact you leave 40 miles away, you need to consider taking a shower before joining the open space (and that was in the mountains!);
  9. Leah Eggers: So very true – although I didn’t see any references yet to:  when my cubicle mate cuts his toenails and they fly over the wall and land on my desk,  the ever-popular nasal excretions on the wallpaper, or yes I’m serious about taking your keys, you are too drunk to drive yourself to your drug test to prove you haven’t been drinking….​
  10. Frank Evans: I once had an employee insist her pregnancy was work comp eligible since she got pregnant on the premises. ​
  11. Emilie S. Ah yes so many, it’s hard to choose… the employee siphoning funds through fake invoices to support the relocation policy they believed they should have had is one of my favorites. It got pretty creative…
  12. Vikkie Hinton: A dispute over which way the toilet toll is replaced – paper out or paper in; Why two people who shared a piece of cake during their break didn’t offer any cake to the third person; Being told during a disciplinary meeting “I’m not paid enough to be on time”
  13. Becky Ross:  A complaint that there seemed to be too much static electricity in the office (and would I please do something about that), from an employee who often wore those nylon track pants that generate static electricity. // Vomit in the bathroom that wasn’t cleaned up (multiple times) // A manager who complained that her own boss was harassing her by holding her accountable when she missed an important deadline and that it was “just like we learned about in harassment prevention class.​
  14. Jen JD: Someone left underwear in our parking lot. Guess who got called? I wore two pair of gloves for that job.​
  15. Marie Lobbezzo: Somehow, facilities maintenance is part of HR where I work. Our part-time Janitor only comes in for a few hours in the evening. I keep a stash of nitrile gloves and cleaning products in my office, for the all too frequent events that there are some sort of bodily fluids, etc, where they shouldn’t be in the ladies’ room. I am also responsible for plunging commodes and unclogging sinks (which happens on a regular basis).

Published on: Aug 17, 2019

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.