Who’s your favorite character on The Office? Maybe you’re partial to Michael’s hilarious antics or Jim’s wit. You might even love Dwight and his dedication to rules and authority. But I’m willing to bet that your favorite character is not Toby. Regardless of how you feel about Toby as a character, though, you have to admit that his job would not be for the faint of heart. And as ridiculous as the scenarios on this beloved sitcom seem, it appears that real life HR reps encounter shockingly similar situations.

Human Resources employees have been sharing the most outrageous occurrences they’ve had to deal with at work on Reddit, so we’ve gathered some of the most sitcom-worthy moments down below. Be sure to upvote the tales you can’t believe actually happened, and remember to thank your lucky stars that you're not responsible the next time something wild happens in your office. (Unless you are HR, in which case, you should definitely get a pay raise.)

#1

I had an employee put in a complaint because another employee didn't want to give them a hug. There was no reason for a hug. The other employee was very sympathetic when I spoke to them (because I had to!!!) and just didn't want to hug people.

The original employee was insistent and complained to anyone that would listen. Most of the staff took her side and thought he was a jerk for not wanting a hug. I kinda wanted to hug him for the s**t he was given for wanting the basic human right of autonomy....

Image credits: mdg_roberts1

#2

Was once asked to investigate a sexual harassment situation where three different women were coming on to a male coworker throughout their shift. I took down the details, got the names, easy peasy investigation so I thought.

A week later, nobody by these descriptions or names had ever worked for the company. I decided to talk to the gentleman again. After a lengthy conversation where things didn’t quite stack up I asked him how these women communicated with him.

I s**t you not, with a straight face, he looks me in the eye and replies “telepathically” like I’m some kind of idiot.

I had never sent an employee for psychological evaluation up to that point and I hope never to have to again.

So yeah I was asked by a delusional schizophrenic to conduct a sex harassment investigation on the voices in his head.

Image credits: skittlesnwhiskey

#3

I had one employee submit a form to increase her own salary, she also forged her manager's signature.

Like, for real?

Image credits: VoidDrinker

#4

Not HR, but I had a coworker at a bakery who quit in a most spectacular fashion. She was quirky to say the least. The first time I met her, I was shoulder deep in a big bowl of buttercream when I felt a hard slap on my a*s. I turned around, totally shocked, my arm covered in frosting, to see a total stranger. She grinned and said "Hey, girlfriend. Which one's your favorite Prince song?" I said I wasn't sure and she responded "Me neither, but if I had to pick I'd take broccoli over asparagus any day."

One day she was working up front, making coffees, and helping customers and what have you. She was in the midst of filling the honey container that went out for customers to use for their coffees. This was a messy sticky job, as the honey came in a 50 lb tub, and it needed to go into one of those tiny bears. Our manager asked her to come to the back for a second. I was back by the ovens pulling out a rack of cookies and I overheard the manager informing her that she was being written up for tardiness. Which was fair, she was 15-30 minutes late every day. He asked her to sign a document saying that she had been informed of the write up so it could go in her file.

Girlfriend lost her mind. She started shouting and insulted everything from his choice of shoes to his wife's hair, to the way he walked. She then threw her hat at him, ripped off her shirt (buttons and all) tossed it on his desk while shouting "I quit your dumb a*s job". She then preceded to take off her pants as well, tossed them in the guy's face and left. She walked across the bakery, through a line of customers, across the parking lot, and out to the bus stop to wait for the bus while shouting, wearing only her undergarments, and smeared with sticky honey. Our co-workers were giving the manager some very dirty looks. The thing that has always baffled me about this whole exchange is that the hat and shirt were issued by the bakery and had the logo on them, but the pants belonged to girlfriend. Why in the world did she decide to take off the pants too?

Image credits: Fyxsune

#5

I am on the HR team that supports a wide variety of US cities for our company, including our colorful Florida locations. This is the best story I heard.

We had some woman trying to avoid doing work by sitting out in her car in the parking lot. While she was hiding out there, she needed to use the restroom. Well, instead of going back inside (or doing literally anything else) she decides to pee out her car window. Even though I am also a woman, I was impressed and disgusted by the physics behind this feat. She had stuck her bare a*s outside the window and just went for it. Unbeknownst to her, her male co-worker had arrived at work late due to an appointment. He drove past to find a parking spot as this was happening, and got full view. He then reported the incident to us.

One of our HR people had to investigate this, and sure enough, parking lot cameras could corroborate his story. Our HR person confronted the woman. Her response: "Well how did he know it was me?? It could have been anyone." We thought, ok fair enough. The cameras aren't CSI grade zoom, so we only saw the a*s part. It was harder to completely identify the face. So we went back to the male peer and asked how he knew it was her. His response? "Oh it was definitely her. The face tattoos are pretty recognizable."

We definitely don't get paid enough for this.

EDIT: for you investigative sleuths out there...our cameras are not as amazing as you think they are. It's a parking lot, not the white house. The one camera that caught the event didn't have hyper zoom on the license plate. That's why we have a witness.

Image credits: thot_sauce

#6

I work for the civil service in the HR department, and I’ve heard some crazy things. A lot comes to mind, but I suppose the first thing that I thought of was the time that we were clearing out room old paperwork and I was relatively new. Some of the older colleagues were commenting on some of the files we were finding as they remembered the cases. Things like “Oh I remember this woman, she got married to this guy in the Post Office” or “This guy go through Stage 4 cancer, good for him”.

One of the files they picked up they just said casually “Remember this job? He’s the one that stabbed his manager in the face and ended up with a promotion. Crazy.” ... and just moved right on past. I was like woooah hold up, I need the end to that story please.

Turns out they were out for a Christmas dinner and this guy had a fight with his manager, grabbed a steak knife and stabbed him in the cheek. Because of some strange circumstances at the time in government and who he was connected to, they couldn’t or wouldn’t fire him so they decided to transfer him to a different department. Only that there were no more positions left at his grade, and he wouldn’t settle for a lower grade so they ended up promoting him to a higher position including all benefits and pay. Civil service eh?

Image credits: AmzeyWamzey

#7

1) I had a bookkeeper that paid himself two checks every week. We did not catch it for a year.

2) Another bookkeeper quit and files for unemployment. He then claimed a claim with EEOC that he had a disability and we failed to make accommodations for him. The disability was alcoholism, and the accommodations were leaving early to attend AA meetings. Seriously, we had to hire a lawyer to fight that.

3) A guy I hired hurt himself on the first hour of the first day of work, he claimed he fell and hit his head on the wall. He was out for weeks on workman's comp form the concussion. Then when he came back on light duty, he could only do desk work but managed to fall again in the bathroom and hit his head again. It took me 9-months to get rid of him. It turns out this was not his first rodeo, when I called his former employer the lady I spoke to made an offhand comment about workplace accidents and head injuries and the importance of cameras in the workplace

4) While doing a remodel of a museum, one of my employees helped himself to a gun that was on display. It was very ugly and embarrassing for everyone. My company was kicked off the job and banned from ever working for them again. I fired the guy and he filed a discrimination claim with EEOC because I did not fire the whole crew, just him.

I got more..

Image credits: Phat3lvis

#8

There was a dude in our other facility that was going around and wiping their a*s and shoving the s**t back up into the toilet paper dispenser so that when the next person goes to reach ...

Image credits: Antepast8

#9

I had an applicant list JESUS as her references.

Image credits: Pin-Up-Paggie

#10

As an office manager, I hired an employee and on the first day he was told to fill in his new hire paperwork. I put him in an office and come back in a while later and ask for the papers. He hands them over, and I scan them off to our HR dept. About twenty minutes later I get a call from our HR rep who thought it was pretty funny that he filled out their name as "Batman" on all his paperwork. So I have the guy re-do the paperwork, and he wrote his name as batman.

By the end of the day I had to get this new hire on a call with HR to have them explain to him that if he didn't fill out the paperwork correctly he'd be out of the job. I had him in my office about once a week for one ridiculous thing after another until one day he comes in and announces that he's changed his name, officially, to Batman. So, I get him the W-4 and paperwork, he fills it out and off we go. He's Batman now. HR comes back and says they need the proof of name change so that they can update his withholdings. I tell Batman he needs to provide that so we can finish updating him in the system. No problem, I'll bring it tomorrow he says. Three weeks go by where he's telling me and HR he forgot again, then it got lost, etc. Turns out, he'd never actually changed his name.

Image credits: theouterworld

#11

I had a friend working a GM when HR thought it was a good idea to test everyone on the skill set needed for their department regardless of how long they were in their position. Long careers, 15, 20, 25 years were ruined because even though they worked there for a long time with a long string of great performance reviews, they didn't pass the test that measured what HR thought was required for the department.

Say your a materials expert working in a design department. You may know barely enough in the CAD system to draw a cylinder. On the other hand, given a cylinder, you can whip out all the properties that cylinder would have if it were made from aluminum, cold rolled steel, fiber glass etc. You'd be out of your job because HR said you had to have a certain level of CAD expertise even if it wasn't relevant to your role in the design process.

Image credits: AmazingPass0

#12

My dad was pretty high up in HR for a F500 company, he had some great firing stories.

They had to fire one of their VPs because he was stealing bacon from the cafeteria every morning. He'd get his tray and put his newspaper over the bacon and then go through the cashier line. He lost a $200k/yr job over 60 cents worth of bacon every day.

He also handled the on the job deaths since it was a utility company. Since it was a power company, many of the power plants were cooled with water from natural bodies of water. The plants would have a water intake pipe submerged in a river for this purpose. They were big too, easily seven or eight feet in diameter.

The intakes would fill up with debris from time to time and they'd have to send a diver down into it to clean it out. The intakes used an impeller to pull in the water, which is basically just a big fan blade. The impeller would have to be stopped for the diver to go down in there. One time they sent a diver down there thinking the impeller was stopped, but it wasn't. The diver was dead before they could pull him out. Evidently, there wasn't much left of him and the company ended up having to shell out a lot of money for psychotherapy for the guys that had to go down in there and recover what was left of him.

Image credits: ChesterMcGonigle

#13

A friend of mine who did HR for a museum just reminded me of this one: It was a history museum, dealing in famous people from American history, and one of the senior museum guys was an expert on ... let's say Alexander Hamilton. Gradually, over the course of a couple years, it became clear that at some point this guy had started believing *he was Alexander Hamilton.* Either literally, or reincarnated, or possessed -- I have no idea. His e-mails only used words and phrases that appeared in Hamilton's writing (which made for high hilarity when they wanted to talk about an interactive online exhibit), and when people insulted him/Hamilton he would start calling them 18th century names and get pissed they were impugning his/Hamilton's honor. He started getting angry at the other museum guys if they tried to put "wrong" things in the Hamilton exhibit (things that didn't suit his preferred narrative of Hamilton).

When he challenged another employee to a duel because he was angry at the verbiage on a sign explaining an exhibit item, they had to call the police and have him escorted off the premises and get a restraining order. It was INSANE.

(the figure was not Alexander Hamilton, but this guy did literally challenge another employee to a duel and appeared extremely ready to follow through, to the death. The police put him in the hospital with a psychiatric hold, I don't know what happened after that.)

Image credits: AliMcGraw

#14

I was sitting in the HR office with one of the members of HR, I was waiting on her to finish a form so that we could go eat lunch. Suddenly, this guy comes in, he was a young temp employee and had only been there a week or so, and says he has something he needs to talk about. I start to get up to leave when he blurts out that he doesn't like that fact that there are so many gays and lesbians working in the company. Once he says that I sit right back down. The HR employee asks him to clarify and he goes on about how his trainer was gay and his team lead is gay and his manager is a lesbian (all true) and he doesn't feel comfortable working around all these gays and lesbians. The HR employee asks him is anyone has every sexually harassed him, which he says they haven't. She then says 'so you want me to fire these employees, strictly based on their sexual orientation, just so you don't feel uncormfortable?' He says yes, after which she tells him to leave the office. She then calls in his manager and talks with her about it, he ends up quitting by the end of the week.

Image credits: Whirligig44

#15

My job is a constant HR nightmare. Boss has slept with coworker A. Coworker A is married to coworker B. Coworker B+A have been married (unhappily), for 10 years or something now, B has no idea, even though B invites boss over for dinner once every other week.

Boss is now dating new coworker (my best friend lol), and has already "gifted" her 2000$, despite another coworker suffering from cancer and barely being able to pay the bills when he was still working.

My other boss, who owns other lesser half of company has called me a narcicist in a meeting, told me literally "there are no such things as business ethics".

Image credits: asdaaaaaaaa

#16

I’ve got a good one. Last place I worked was a crappy internet company. I was on tech support, the higher ups fed us all lies to tell customers when their service was bad. The GM at the time was a smile at you when you’d talk to him and then humiliate you in front of everyone kinda boss. And the owner was a family friend of my wife, a youth leader for the church and young marrieds group. But at work he was rude cussed at us, total fake act. I was working a pretty entry level position at the time but my wife ended up with a health diagnosis that required us to need more money for treatments so I setup a meeting with owner, expressed my struggle and asked for growth opportunities and training to move up in the company. He seemed like he genuinely cared and said we’d talk again soon. Mind you he spent half of every year in Austria for the youth program so getting to sit down with him was a rare opportunity. Side note, a few projects he put me on required all his logins to manage his yelp page and have him sign off to have a graphic designer paid for a troubleshooting guide we designed, I sent maybe 7 emails requesting the same info and he would never reply. Anyways a week goes by and then he calls me into the office, here I am all stoked for some good news. He proceeded to point out how the projects he put me on weren’t complete, I tried to explain the reason but he didn’t want to hear it. And then he began mocking me using a stupid voice about how my wife had health issues and that I needed more money. And laughed at me, tore me a new one then fired me on the spot. Of course I could go into the aftermath but there is a satisfying ending here. A couple years later it comes out that a family in Virginia is pressing charges against him in regards to somethings he did with an underaged girl. Mind you he’s a good looking guy in his early thirties with a wife and 3 young boys. Turns out he was conducting private bible studies with some of the girls over seas, having them pray together and then make them, pleasure him. Yeah dudes in jail in Virginia for 7+ years. Your sin always finds you out.

#17

I work for a general contractors office. So many uncomfortable actions that my boss acknowledges he’s doing but refuses to change. One being that he sends any of our guys that are injured on the job to get checked out and treated by his chiropractic girlfriend who then gives him their full medical report. The company then pays her. Just a big no.

Image credits: anon

#18

Where should I start?

* 2 employees having loud sex in the restroom during shift change

* A carpenter getting a BP from someone in finance in the supply room

* 2 employees speaking Elvish on the manufacturing line and pretending not to understand English. This went on all the way to their termination. They formally requested all documents be translated into Elvish, sent me hand scripted letters (PTO requests, etc) in what I assume is Elvish.

* An interviewee kept picking his nose and "rolling" the boogers between his finger and casually flicking them. He never broke stride in the conversation or picking. I really do not think he realized what he was doing.

* A female employee with a co-worker getting "finger banged" (direct quote from witnesses) in a company suite at a Rush concert in front of 20+ employees and customers. After which she yelled "big d***s are great, but I big wallets are better!" Best part was I had to describe the situation to the CEO, a very conservative Mormon man, while discussing damage control with said customers. I literally said "digitally penetrated", he looked puzzled and said "huh?" I then dropped finger bang on him and yeah, he couldn't look at me for months after that. BTW they got rid of her, he kept his job. Total BS, but he brought the $$ in.

Image credits: oops_i_mommed_again

#19

Saw a guy blatantly lie in his recruitment form....(watching him fill it out in front of me!)...it was total bollocks....apparently he was 15th in line to the throne, went to Eaton, studied at Oxford and served in the Army for 9 years after training at Sandhurst....not bad for a 21 year old! Who had in fact spent 3 years in a Young Offenders institute, battling a drug problem......

Image credits: StanMarsh01

#20

one place i used to work, one of the upper management guys who was in charge of the warehouse would hop on the forklifts and do donuts. he had colon cancer and was always having surgeries to remove another section of colon so he had a colostomy bag. he would like squeeze air out of his colostomy bag while he was doing donuts on the forklifts. it would waft this god awful stench everywhere. everyone thought it was hilarious and would immediately run outside for a smoke break until the scent dissipated. the smell was bad enough it made a coworker puke.

also had another manager there eat six 10 sacks of white castle sliders for lunch. he ate the last 10 sack on the toilet. i have no idea how he could eat with the sounds and stenches he was emitting from his other end. it sounded like someone trying to drown donald duck in a puddle while tooting a tuba. no one went into that bathroom for the rest of the day.

Image credits: peefster

#21

Government employer. Agency management fired a popular program manager with about ~250 employees under him who all love him. He's entitled to a public hearing about his dismissal if he desires, which he demands, after his HR meeting and his private hearing before the agency brass.

Everybody packs into the auditorium, all 250 of his employees there to advocate for him. His lawyer gives an opening statement about how he's been fired for caring too much and for refusing to cut corners the agency brass wanted cut and for protecting his people from politicians trying to score political points and blah blah blah. Cheers from the crowd.

Our HR director stands up. She's booed. She informs the hearing that they guy forged every single one of his employees' required-by-law assessment forms that determined raises and promotions. He forged the signatures of all 250 people there, and filled the forms randomly. She puts examples of the forgery up on screen. It's obvious. He ran out of time, and didn't want to get reprimanded for disorganization (a long running but minor problem with him), so he forged a s**t ton of government documents.

250 people walked right out of the hearing, FURIOUS. He hadn't told any of them the real reason he got fired! He told them it was random retaliation for being awesome. He knew the agency had all this evidence; it had been presented to him twice before and he had admitted he'd done it! It was INSANE. I guess he figured he had nothing to lose by punting. He became such a pariah he had to move.

Image credits: AliMcGraw

#22

One of my employees bought in an industrial air freshener like the ones you would see in a public restroom. When I asked her about it, she informed me that the guy in the cube next to her (also my employee) has a gas problem.

I went back to my office and an hour later got a call from our HR resolution team that there had been a formal complaint logged anonymously against my employee because of his gas issue. So I had to sit there and try to have a professional conversation about my employee’s constant barrage of farting with the HR professional. We both were struggling to keep it together.

I pulled the individual aside to talk to him about it. He and I are both males around the same age so I tried to play it cool and not embarrass him. I told him he needed to stop blowing a*s all the time and he thought I meant his work performance sucked lol hahahha.

Image credits: kidselvage

#23

Came in to work early for a morning shift (work in an industrial lab). Heard noises from the back corner of the office portion of the building but can't make out what they are because of distortion. Head that way to see what was going on as I was the only one there (so I thought) at 3 am. See my lab manager f*****g the district manager (her boss) while the HR Rep for the district is sitting there ... enjoying the view. I NOPED and went to the lab and tried to forget what happened.

Image credits: Uranoscopy7

#24

I once asked a candidate to tell me about a time your attention to detail paid off. I hate that question, but it’s a standardized one that our department had to use for all positions.

The candidate said completely stone-faced: “I worked at Sears and would follow the black customers around to make sure they didn’t shoplift anything.”

There were 3 of us on the hiring committee, we all just looked at each other in disbelief and wrapped up the interview there. It’s been a running joke now about the worst possible answer you could give to a question. This person has actually applied to about 5 other positions since.

Image credits: anon

#25

My friend who worked in HR told me about her old job where the boss had drilled a hole from his office through to the ladies changing rooms and was perv whacking it every chance he could get. They found out because someone saw the light through the hole as he took the cover off for a peek. He denied everything and they had to take a dna sample from the carpet under the hole which confirmed it was a) him and b) that he had indeed been whacking away.

Image credits: Dr_Kintobor

#26

Ok, here goes:

I am not in HR, but I worked at a small company (approx. 50 people) who hired a new receptionist (I'll call her Jen). She was nice enough, though the more I talked to her, the more I caught her in little lies about her life/family/etc. I thought it was weird but just a quirk, nothing major.


One day, we get an email from HR that sadly, Jen's husband had passed away and there was a collection for flowers, etc. Everyone felt terrible, she was only mid-thirties, no kids, and had talked fondly of this guy (I'll call him Frank). She got 2 weeks off for bereavement, and came back as shaken up as anyone who just lost their spouse would be.


One day, I had to cover the reception area while Jen took a break. Imagine my surprise when I get a call asking for her...from her husband! I asked who it was, and made him repeat it, and he repeated, "This is Frank, Jen's husband." I wasn't sure if it was a prank or a goddamn ghost, but I freaked out and didn't tell anyone for months.

When I was finally ready to quit that job, my coworkers took me out for a goodbye party. I got drunk and mentioned the story to the HR lady, thinking I was going to shock her with my secret knowledge. "Oh yeah," HR lady says, "we know. She wanted 2 more weeks of vacation, which she got as bereavement. But there's nothing we can do about it because she knows the company President is sleeping with half of the admins and threatened to blackmail him."


Great place to work. I also got harassed by my boss for months, and HR told me not to make a big deal of it because "he said he was sorry."

#27

I've only been in the field for about 4 months now, but this is my favorite petty incident:

The morning shift starts at 5 AM. A lot of guys come in a little early and sit in their cars (read, sleep, whatever they want to do). Apparently, Guy A has a fancy European car in which the headlights don't turn off (his explanation, not mine). Well, Guy B parks directly in front of him like he always does. He thought that his headlights were b******t, and was becoming increasingly angry because "Guy A won't turn his f*****g headlights off!"

So instead of choosing to park somewhere else, **Guy B began parking at an angle with his headlights shining directly into the window of Guy A**. He did this for a few days before then bringing in a taller truck so that his headlights would fully shine into the car of the other guy. We saw this in the footage of our security cameras.

No one told me this was happening until a while after this had been occurring, as I don't start at 5 AM like everyone else does. When the operations manager finally told me, I just burst out laughing because I cannot believe that 50 year old men were acting like this. Yes, really, my employees *should* know better at the age they are, but the pettiness happened anyways.

We had Guy A take some pictures for documentation and told Guy B to knock it off, and that's been the last of that as far as I'm aware.

There have been other stories, like one of my guys deleting a program off of a machine so that the next guy following him couldn't work on his job, but the headlights thing makes me laugh every single time.

#28

We had a woman show up to work in a fishnet shirt and a black bra, which basically meant she was wearing a bra around the office because the fishnet did nothing to hide her skin. Her male manager came to me with an exhausted look on his face and asked me to come talk to his employee about dress code. I had to take the 40+ year old woman into an office and explain she had to go home and change, and no, she wouldn’t be paid during her time away from the office because she violated dress code.

She demanded I call my boss (regional HR director) because she said I was lying and being a racist. We made the call, she got sent home for the full day without pay, and we wrote her up for it. She left shouting about how I was a racist and she was going to file a complaint.

This lady eventually got fired for a bunch of other insanity, including having sex with a coworker in our parking lot with the door open.

I’m very glad I no longer work in HR.

#29

I am in HR but this one actually comes from a client.

There was this company with a really big, nice office building. They had a gym on site as well as showers for the executives. One night, the cleaners found a big s**t on the floor in the women's showers. Then a couple weeks later it happens again. And this continues over a few months with like 6 total shittings. They keep putting up signs and stuff but to no avail. The shitter persists.

The company is pretty sure they know who is doing it, but obviously they feel hesitant to accuse anyone. So they contracted my security company to install access control on the showers to see who was going in and out and when.

I never got a follow up but I am still so curious how that all panned out.

#30

Work in a place with a decently sized sales floor. Employee A had been sleeping with Employee B's wife, and received confirmation of this from Employee A himself.

An email was blasted to the entire f*****g sales floor (Around 300 or so people) that included a collage of screenshots of conversations between Employee A and the wife of Employee B, and plastered over the collage in Giant red letters in Impact Font "Employee A - Thanks for f*****g my wife."

It was an interesting rest of the day and no one could focus on their work.

#31

This is quite tame but I was the HR rep at a nursing home chain for 2 years, I had a nursing assistant text message their scheduling coordinator, tell them to take them off the schedule because they quit. Ok... fine. We process the necessary paperwork for her term and then a few days (maybe a week tops) she just strolls on in for her shift. Now, keep in mind we use a program for scheduling that syncs with email/phone so everyone always has access to their schedule in real time, so she knew she wasnt on the schedule that day. I pulled her into my office to ask her what was going on, and verify that she told the coordinator she quit. She confirms that she did in fact do exactly that. Without skipping a beat she then starts to yell at me for firing her.

TL:DR I once fired someone who wasnt employed with us.

#32

I work in HR. Had an employee refer her bf (not 100% sure anyone knew they were dating, but they had a baby). So they work in the same building, but different areas. One day a new girl starts and he cheats. Find out him and new girl disappear at times. New girl harasses old gf (not sure if they really even broke up) and so the gf gets a peace order against the new girl. So we have to move the new girl to a different site. She quits and then the guy throws a fit and quits too. The gf eventually gets fired shortly as her work performance changes drastically.

Few weeks later I get employment verification request for the gf and the guy for a different state. I’m like....ok...

A year later he ends up murdering her and drives across numerous state lines with the toddler and drops the little one off with family back in our state. They eventually find him in a wooden area with a self inflicted gunshot wound.

Before they found him or the toddler I was made to deal with the FBI and local police as most of HR was new. This is when we discovered the managers had concerns about him. Might have been the one time I lost my cool with a manager. They never mentioned anything to HR about possible domestic violence.

#33

My mom doesn’t reddit so I will type this out for her:

“We received an outside email with a photo attachment, the photograph was of a nurse we employed with what looked like a glass pipe is some sort on her lap. The email alleged that she was an addict, we found out later it came from an ex-girlfriend she had just broken up with. It prompted us to go seek out the nurse, when we arrived at her desk she was on the phone with a patient but visibly nodding off. We requested she come to the HR office to with us to talk, then we confronted her with the allegation. She denied everything and agreed to a drug test. Instead of sending her to an outside lab we had one send technicians to our office building to administer the test, that’s when things went south. She began telling us she needed to go out to her car (we believe this was because she planned to use synthetic urine or someone else’s and us not sending her to an outside lab lost her the opportunity to do that) and we flatly told her that leaving the bathroom would be noted as a refusal to take the test which would mean an automatic termination. This woman proceeded to throw a tantrum on the floor of the bathroom for the next 7 hours of the day (we had to shut down that entire bathroom, other employees started a rumor we were holding a pregnant woman hostage) and at lunch time she demanded a meal. So I went to the cafeteria, purchased her a sandwich and drink, and then she at it on the bathroom floor!! After hours of tears and yelling 5pm rolled around, she calmly stood up and said ‘it’s the end of my shift so I’ll be leaving now’. We repeated to her that leaving would *still* be considered a refusal and grounds for immediate termination. At this time the technician (who had also been there watching all this for the last 7 hours) tried to intervene and talk some sense into her. Eventually she reluctantly agreed to a buccal swab rather than a urine test, and then she left for the day. Needless to say, the results we got back were Positive and she was terminated as well as reported to the licensing boards. I though that was the end of it until several weeks later when she called to complain her insurance card was no longer valid and she couldn’t pick up a prescription. This turned into an hour long discussion about how losing employment also means losing the benefits. “

#34

Finally all my misery is worth it! Here are just a few from my many years working in HR in startups:

- We hired a very senior person (management team) and for his work visa i needed a copy of his university degree. Followed up repeatedly, he kept making excuses like "oh i just moved i need to find where i put it" or "i need to see if it's in the basement at my parents' place." Turns out he had lied on his CV. He resigned immediately.

- CEO had threesomes with employees and ordered coke taxis to the office.

- Head of HR went on maternity leave so the CEO seized the opportunity to only look internally for the role and chose solely based on who he wanted to f**k.. which he then did.

- After a company party the toilets and sinks in the women's bathroom were all backed up. Plumber found multiple condoms stuffed down the sink and flushed down the toilets. We found hand and footprints on the wall tiles and the security cams showed the last people leaving the office to be 3 straight men in relationships.

- At a company retreat an employee did too many mushrooms and shat himself on the beach in front of the entire company. At the same retreat 3 employees cheated on their partners and there was 1 divorce.

- When we found out the developers never washed their glasses, just rinsed them and put them back on the shelf.

Image credits: snotoro

#35

Once witnessed a manager of a company try to invite kids to a casino themed party. When he asked why, HR had to explain to him. “I didn't think it was appropriate to invite children, since it's uh, you know, there's gambling and alcohol, it's in our dangerous warehouse, it's a school night, and you know, Hooter's is catering, and is that- is that enough? Should I keep going?”

Image credits: AndrewLBailey

#36

My favorite was the dude who would have meetings with his boss via camera (he was remote) and while they discussed his (abysmal) performance, he would have naked women get up from his bed and walk around. He was told this was inappropriate several times. Continued.

We fired him for fraud, a separate issue that was like a Tarantino film but gives too much away here.

Image credits: Ladyughsalot1

#37

Where do I start?

1. One employee wouldn’t work once it got dark because he was scared of ghosts (in the interview he asked if the building was haunted). He was from Asia and refused to listen to a woman boss. If I asked him to do something he would say “ok” and then literally stuff the task between files in storage so I couldn’t find it. If my husband asked him to do something he couldn’t jump high enough up his a*s to get it done. He accused every single female employee of sexually harassing him and “his wife didn’t appreciate it”. I asked for examples...the 55 year old woman who is as sweet as a grandma asked him what cologne he was wearing (it smelled like he wore the whole bottle). I was looking for employees when a friend suggested I hire him and I said we already had and it wasn’t working well due to his wife’s complaints. Her response: “Wife?? He’s gay, haven’t you met his husband?”. Apparently to our work events he was bringing his sister as his wife? After he worked for us, he applied for a job elsewhere and listed my husband as a reference. A woman called to do a check and my husband told her he didn’t work with him, that I did but she wouldn’t talk to me because my name wasn’t listed. She asked him a few questions about his duties and my husband explained his duties...long pause on the other end “that’s not what he has listed...he said....” to which my husband said those were MY duties as manager/business owner and he never ever had access to such positions and then he went on to explain to her this guy would never take direction for me. She quickly ended the convo.

2) before we invested In cameras, we had one season where money theft was constantly happening and we had an idea who it was but couldn’t catch her. She manipulated us (it was my first year and I was naive), she always had a new (fake) type of cancer for reasons for missing work. One day a client came storming into my office and said her and several others would take their business away if we didn’t terminate her. Now not being from this area I didn’t have any background except her reference check. Turns out she’s stolen money and credit card numbers from various places of employment but she’s never been charged because she’s always apologized or repaid it back. So then the money missing made sense and we were right. Once we got rid of her the money stopped disappearing. She reapplied later on and her resume was so padded I turned it into a drinking game. The duties she put down under her position at my businesses either 1) didn’t exist or 2) were my job! When you pad your resume don’t send it to a previous employer!

3) one employee developed a drinking problem. I couldn’t figure out why they were going outside every 15 minutes for a cigarette. I dismissed it at first because they were a hard worker, put in long hours and barely took a lunch break. But then I was finding alcohol bottles hidden in places and on the day I caught it, they had also overdosed on anti-depressant meds and I had to rush them to the ER and help hold them down as they kept trying to strip and run. They were admitted to the psych ward, I didn’t hear anything for days and one day they just showed back up. The hospital let them out on day passes to come back to work because they would be in the hands of a responsible adult! This wasn’t cleared or discussed with me at all.

4) one girl started off great - on time, professional, great office etiquette. I thought I’d hit the jackpot. One day she went out for her smoke break and FORGOT TO COME BACK! I asked her the next day what happened and she looked at me dazed and confused and said she did come back. I showed her the time clock and camera and she said she had no idea what happened. She started missing shifts and on one busy Friday didn’t show up and I couldn’t get ahold of her. Another employee had gone on lunch and said she was outside our office drunk, laying in the street. I went out there to talk to her and she was adamant she didn’t work that day. Her glasses were broken and she was scrapped up and with two very large men who were intimidating. She ran away from me, missed her Saturday shift. Emailed me Sunday saying she had been in the hospital with a liver infection and would be in Monday with a note. I asked her for the note both Monday and Tuesday and she ran home to get it and never came back. She didn’t remember seeing me when she was drunk! And she was still wearing her broken glasses.

Honestly I could go on and on and on. One girl I have chance after chance but after missing 17 shifts and then showing up drunk to talk about it, I was done. (But don’t worry, she claims she wasn’t drinking she was just around people who were drinking so that’s why she smelled ?)

Image credits: _Winterlong_

#38

Manufacturing, long story short, the company uses some pretty dangerous equipment and machines. The manufacturing floor and warehouse had started to have some safety issues, so they decided to start doing random drug tests.

60% failed, including the best friend of the owner. This same person was responsible for several of the safety issues mentioned above and was directly responsible for two people being injured while on the job due to negligence on his part. So what did HR do?

Nothing. The owner was one of the people that failed.

Image credits: UniqueConstraint

#39

Niche London HR consultancy - a madhouse. Owner regularly invited consultants and support staff to join him and wife (big coke habit - also worked for the company) for threesomes. Everyone knew what was going on. When I left I handed an envelope to the head of HR and told her that I hoped she wouldn't ever have to open it but, if a certain ex employee were to contact the firm, she would have to. When you are somewhere like this (i) follow processes, (ii) document everything and (iii) do not let anyone get anything on you.

#40

Used to work in HR - can think of a couple:
Male night shift employee used to disrobe in the bathroom handicap stalls (unlocked), put his legs up on the safety rails and just wait. Lost a supervisor that day too because said supervisor walked in on this and just snapped.
Working with healthcare providers to get an employee extended FMLA. Their supervisor wasn't buying it and would occasionally report potential violations. Some coaching and professional reminders for the employee but nothing substantial. Then the employee claimed they hurt their back assisting a State Highway Trooper in changing a patrol vehicles flat tire. Red flags everywhere and higher ups I had only read about got involved. Last I heard, not only did they let him go - there was talk of a fraud case, and the police were getting involved.

I know there's more but that's all I can think of at the moment. One of my supervisors used to say, "When you work with people, they will go out of their way to surprise and disappoint you. Get ready."

#41

I don’t work in HR but I do have a nightmare HR story. When I was on my gap year I worked a part time job as a fitness instructor at a leisure centre. One of my coworkers, call him Bill, was a nice guy and I would often sit and chat to him on my breaks etc. Long term GF and baby at home.

As part of my job I used to teach spinning classes on a fairly regular basis. I would normally leave my phone in the staff room while I was teaching, or behind the reception desk. Both these places were secure and my phone had a passcode on it. I didn’t want it going off while I was teaching because the when it received calls/texts it interfered with the stereo in the spin studio. I didn’t have a locker or anything where I could store it.

Sometime in around January I was at at uni for an interview weekend. My girlfriend at the time had come to pick me up and while she was waiting in the car, she was scrolling through my messages on my iPad. When I got in the car she showed me one of my chats and said why did you send this video to Bill? I had no recollection of sending any videos to Bill, since I did not speak to him outside of work beyond “I’m going to be late” or similar.

I thought it was a mistake but as I scrolled further back up I saw that “I” had sent this same video to Bill a couple of weeks prior. Feeling thoroughly perplexed I clicked into the video and saw it was a video of me (20F) and my girlfriend (26F) on holiday in Thailand. I’d like to stress that it was not a sexual video, we were just joking around but we had just got out the shower and were both naked.

At this point I’m still thinking it’s some kind of big mistake as Bill is a nice guy with a baby at home. However, I look a little closer and realise that the dates / times of when “I” had sent these videos was at times I was teaching spin classes and therefore had left my phone unattended.

Bill, being the sicko he was, had the obviously seen me put my passcode into my phone during all the times we had been sat chatting on breaks etc. and had memorised it. He had then taken the opportunity to scroll through all my personal photos and videos when I had left my phone unattended to go and teach classes. I’m assuming that he had deleted the video once, hence why he had sent it to himself again a couple of weeks later. He’d also deleted the chat history from my iPhone but hadn’t realised it synced to my iPad (this was in around 2012 btw). I would only have been about 18/19 at the time when the videos were taken.

Obviously I reported this to my manager and to HR but it was a bit of a minefield for them to navigate. I don’t know what he told them but I imagine it was along the lines of saying I sent them to him of my own free will, how would he have known my password etc. It took a long while to get sorted but in the end he did get sacked, thankfully. The police also paid him a visit so I’m sure he had some explaining to do to his SO.

#42

The workers had races with those motorized forklifts. One did not know that there was freshly poured concrete. Got the forklift stuck in it, damage was >100.000€ (big foundation for a new storage facility). According to the union contracts, such damages are paid for by the company unless it was intentially done.

Walked into my bosses office, told him about the situation. "Hm ok schadavi, can you please return to your office for a while." - "Ok."

As soon as I was at my desk, I heard the loudest "GOTTVERDAMMTESCHEISSE" from his office. Then my phone rang, and he told me to inform the insurance, which ended up paying less than 10k of the damage...

Otherwise, the usual HR nightmare is just people not keeping their documents in order.

Image credits: schadavi

#43

Not in HR but IT, responsible for the offices camera system. I was asked to review CCTV footage in the vicinity of a specific employees desk. Luckily this persons entire workspace was visible. Reviewed the footage and noticed the employee lean forward a couple of times to sniff something on the desk. Turns out his colleague sitting next door could hear him snorting every couple of minutes. Guy was snorting cocaine at his desk in an open plan office at 10am on a Tuesday.

#44

Not my experience, but someone once told me that they knew a person that accidentally emailed out an excel workbook with all employees’ salaries and bonus information to the ‘All Employees’ instead of ‘All Executives’ email group.

That person was a compensation specialist. Workbook was also not password protected lol. So by the time IT scrubbed the email from the server, I’m sure a good amount of employees still downloaded the data somewhere.

#45

I don’t work in HR but a few years ago I was a manger at Harvey’s/Swiss chalet and had to fire a guy for using the food thermometer for “temping his balls”..

#46

When my wife was pumping, she'd put the milk in an insulated lunch bag and keep it in the break room fridge. She kept it discreet. Someone must have looked in the bag because HR informed her she could no longer keep milk there because an anonymous coworker complained that knowing the milk was there made him think about breasts (!?). They also told her she had to pump in the bathroom. My wife refused and quoted the law that requires companies to provide a room to pump in. HR lady wasn't having it. My wife threatened to sue and informed them that the optics of all this would be bad seeing it was breast feeding awareness week and the company was involved in the cause. Long story short, HR lady barely kept her job, had to apologise to my wife, and had to go to sensitivity training.

#47

Not me but my wife...

She is HR for a Healthcare company and oversees clinics etc. One of the Dr.s brought in an employee to her office and told her that she needed her pants. Apparently the DR had s**t her pants ( she Sharted ) abd needed a new pair so she thought she would ask the employee. On top of that, the DR. took her pants down to show her that she shat her pants.

#48

I worked in HR, and my coworker hated me. She wanted someone else to get the job I did, and she would complain about me to management for anything.

The final straw for everyone was when I sneezed and she slammed her keyboard on her desk, basically ran out of the room, and didn't come back for 30 minutes.

Management called me in and said I was making too much noise. I told them I sneezed, and they said she would complain about me every day, so they didn't believe her but had to make it look like they were doing something.

She left shortly after.