The HR team of a company is constantly under a lot of stress. From petty complaints to more serious issues, these professionals have to deal with a lot to keep the office in check. Whether it be creepy bosses or rude employees, they see it all. In this piece, HR professionals reveal the biggest scandal they've ever had to deal with on the job. Keep in mind, content is edited for clarity.
Don’t Make Me Work
“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 butt 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 her bottom half. 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.”
Your Sins Always Find You Out
“I’ve got a good one. Last place I worked at was a bad 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 set up a meeting with owner, expressed my struggle and asked for growth opportunities and training moving 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.
A week goes by and he calls me into the office. I am all stoked for some good news, but he proceeded to point out how the projects he put me on weren’t complete. I tried to explain the reason weren’t complete because he never responded to my multiple emails for sign offs or information, but he didn’t want to hear it. 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. He 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 regard to somethings he did with an underage 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 girls overseas, 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.”
A Watch Party
“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 doing 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.”
A List Of Violations
“So many stories.
1) We had a guy murder someone during his training period. We had a week-long, classroom style training. On Tuesday night he shot and killed someone in an armed home robbery, then continued to come to training until he was caught by police. The entire thing was caught on the guy’s doorbell camera and it took the police a week to catch him. We found out he was being charged with murder when his manager saw it on the news and called us asking how to proceed.
2) We had an HR employee steal upwards of $20,000 over the course of about a year. She would clock in when she left her home and stay clocked in throughout her commute. She would often take 2+ hour lunches and leave hours early but stayed clocked in. She would clock in for 12+ hours a day on weekends and claim to be ‘working from home’ but would just clock in and basically take the day off. At one point, she spent 20 hours in the office and clocked in for almost 80. It took them about a year to fire her and they ultimately chose not to sue, lucky her!
3) We had an employee threaten a manager with a weapon, I don’t know all the details of that but something to do with the manager calling him a name and the employee finally having enough of it. I believe we ended up paying the employee a small amount of hush money so I know it wasn’t good.
4) We’ve got a manager whose known to ask women who’s taking care of their children in interviews. We’ve got another one who tries to figure out people’s ages based on their application and won’t interview anyone over 40. There’s a third who explicitly said he won’t hire women. That’s all run-of-the-mill stuff in my industry. Major HR violations, but these guys have to have regular training on why calling someone the n-word because they were 5 minutes late isn’t appropriate so nothing surprises me anymore.
5) This wasn’t at my company but I know someone who had a manager in their department get fired for harassment. It wasn’t just your run-of-the-mill inappropriate comments, he would constantly make the one woman on his team work late, overload her with work, and then give her bad reviews on it. He called her names and often would talk about her appearance in front of the team. In an odd turn of events, they slept together and were even kind of friends outside of work. She left the company and he was fired shortly after. They figured she probably told HR what was going on in her exit interview and he was fired for it. That wasn’t all it was…apparently he had been hitting on an intern for a couple of months and she took that to HR just before the other girl left. Then as icing on the cake, he told a woman in another department that he could sleep with her entire department if he wanted, whether they liked it or not, and HR wouldn’t do anything about it. He was fired the next day. Textbook case of harassment and a man with a god complex. His termination followed him and it took him about a year to get another job. He has two degrees, a CPA, and a great work history prior to this.”
A Surprise Visit Really Escalates
“I used to work in human services. We would go on night rounds to ensure that our graveyard shift healthcare providers were awake. Our company served people in residential homes versus a traditional facility, so we’d drive around in groups of 2 or 3 and stop by unannounced to houses.
Pull up to a driveway and there’s two cars parked there (only one employee should be there at this time). Pull out keys, open the door, walk inside and see no one. There’s a 2nd floor to the house so I head up there. No one in the room, but there’s a light on in the closet. Open closet to see employee plus random man doing the dirty. I close the door, ask the employee to get dressed and please leave the residence.
While they’re both getting dressed, guy hits his head on a coat rack in the closet and manages to knock himself out cold. Now I have our employee screaming with no pants on in a closet with a passed out guy. I call 911 and an ambulance picks up the guy. I let the employee leave after firing them on the spot. Someone has to stay overnight with the clients, so I stay there to finish off that shift for another 4-5 hours.
Two hours later three cars pull up on the street and 5-6 guys start walking towards the house. I begin to panic as they look very menacing and like they’re going to hurt someone. All the doors are locked and I go into our client’s bedroom and lock their door. They knock at the door then these guys start tearing up/breaking stuff on the outside of the house. Call 911 again, and they show up within like 5 minutes. Police arrest all these dudes and I learn that they received a couple tips about someone selling her ‘services’ from our client’s residence.
I finish up the shift and have to go back into the office at 8:30am and explain all of this to the company owner. Have to share both police reports with the client’s guardian. No one blames me for what happened, but everyone is super disappointed with the situation.
Icing on the cake: guess who filed for unemployment?”
Stab Your Boss, Get A Promotion
“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 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 went 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?”
The Cameras Never Lie
“I managed this smaller company and also served as the ‘HR guy’. Had this one employee who needed rides to work for a short while, so I’d pick him up when he needed one.
One day I go to pick him up and as we are driving away he very calmly explains that one of the employees of the company we were servicing had approached him, saying that another one of OUR employees basically cornered her in the break room and kept trying to get close to her, flexing by saying he had family that were higher ups in the company she worked for, and kept trying to ask where she lived.
Once he had said ‘trapped her in the break room,’ I u-turned and sped back to the site, running frantically inside and finding the girl. I pull her aside and ask about what happened. She repeated basically the same thing to me. Thing is, this guy is married but the way she quoted him, it definitely sounded like she was telling the truth. While we had ZERO problems with him up to this point, I had no reason to believe she would just do this out of nowhere. I apologized profusely and told her she would never have to see him here again, she was very kind and understanding.
With the other employee still in my car, I speed to the other guys house, let’s call him ‘Dan,’ and knock on his door. He answers and immediately I demand the keys for the on-site vehicle. Once he hands them over I unleash the beast.
‘So I heard this interesting story that you wouldn’t leave this girl alone, and you kept trying to ask where she lived, and wouldn’t let her leave the break room.’
He IMMEDIATELY glances back over his shoulder because his wife is nearby in the kitchen, and comes outside and closes the door. He talks in whispers,
‘I didn’t talk to anyone.’
Me: ‘They have cameras so how bout I go ask security to take a look?’
Dan starts trying to guide me over to the parking lot away from his front door as his wife cracks it open to listen in on what’s going on.
‘I was in the break room with some chick but I didn’t do anything except say hello and asked if I would be in her way (for cleaning)’
I was livid. I could tell by the way he was acting he was desperate for me not to say anything.
Me: ‘I find it odd we’ve had that location for over a year, and a week after I put you there I get the first harassment complaint I have ever had to deal with.’
He tried getting all puffy chested, saying stuff like ‘How dare you question my integrity’ and ‘you won’t even let me say my side of the story.’
Me: ‘So were you blocking the doorway, so she couldn’t leave or not?’
‘No.’
I shrug, ‘okay fine. I’m going to go back and see what the cameras have, and if I see otherwise then you’re fired.’ Then I start walking away, and he shouts out, ‘then I’m effing done, Ellis!’
‘Great! Pick up your last check tomorrow from, so I don’t have to deal with you ever again.’
This guy was a pain… twice my age, this was his second job, always tried to make himself seem vital while he would also complain about ANY job I put him on. It all just kind of came out right then and there. So I leave and ignore the argument between him and his wife that breaks out and I get into my car and drive off. Other employee riding with me breaks the silence with
‘So we’re good, right?’
Lol
Anyways, went back and saw footage of him definitely obstructing the doorway when she was obviously trying to get out.”
Through The Peep Hole
“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.”
Weird And Creepy Coworker
“When I was on my gap year I worked a part-time job as a fitness instructor at a leisure center. One of my coworkers, I’ll call him Bill, was a nice guy and I would often sit and chat to him on my breaks. He had a long term girlfriend 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 pass code on it. I didn’t want it going off while I was teaching because 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 around January 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 and my girlfriend on holiday in Thailand. I’d like to stress that it was not an x-rated video, we were just joking around, but we had just got out the shower and had no clothes on.
At this point I’m still thinking it’s some kind of big mistake as I would never send that. However, I look a little closer and realize 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 pass code into my phone during all the times we had been sat chatting and had memorized 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 realized it synced to my iPad.
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.”
The Religious Horse Girl
“I was working as a Teller Manager in a small regional bank. I get a call from the regional HR Manager – he is transferring a teller to my location from another branch across town who has been nothing but a headache. I am to document every single thing that this teller does wrong, no matter how minor the infraction. Apparently she had ticked off all of her coworkers there by filing HR complaints against all of them. I’ll call her Sandy from here on.
I was able to get more detail out of one her managers. Sandy was a student at one of the local colleges, but her only hobbies were riding her horse and going to her church. The only things she ever wanted to talk about were her horse, her beliefs, and trying to convert coworkers to her religion. Talk about anything else, and she’d find a way to connect the topic to violating her beliefs. Criticize her, or talk about something that she wouldn’t do, and she’d file a harassment complaint.
So on her first day, she went off on another teller for talking about a date said teller’s boyfriend had taken her on. The next day, she filed her first HR complaint of harassment against one of my staff for talking about using a certain famous dating app.
The employee handbook said, in summary, that what counts as harassment depended on what offended the most easily offended person present, so watch your mouth and where you talked. I pulled each teller into a one-on-one meeting, walked them through the sections of the handbook on harassment, and warned them to be careful of what they discussed where. I did not call out Sandy, but everyone guessed who we were talking about. Word about her had made its way around the grapevine.
Over the course of the next couple weeks she filed a new complaint roughly every other day. All of the complaints were for coworkers talking about, or doing, normal things, such as: a coworker went to a party; saw a coworker hug her boyfriend when he brought her lunch; a coworker wore a blouse that showed a bit of cleavage; a coworker refused to get up early on Sunday to come to church with her.
Morale was low, everyone is stressed coming in every day, most of the staff are refusing to talk to Sandy. I’m grumbling to the HR Manager, who just answers everything with ‘document her infractions’. So I’m writing up every minor mistake, categorizing them, and for each category I think I have enough, composing a formal write-up and submitting it to HR for approval. I wish I could remember how many I wrote.
I was sure we’d be stuck with Sandy for months before I had enough Tardies or Drawer Errors for HR to be willing to fire her. But after about a month, she made the error we needed. There’s a religious group that’s well known in our state, and the group’s HQ is in our city. The group’s religious leader occasionally would come into my branch, for some reason he liked dropping off deposits and transfers himself. It didn’t take much to get him preaching on a topic. Everyone would just smile and nod along while finishing his transaction. But, Sandy couldn’t do that. Apparently her church takes some issues with what his church teaches.
He came in to run a transaction. She called him next out of line. While running his transaction, she recognized the name of the church. They started talking, then arguing, then she was yelling at him. She was dragged into the back to separate them. He filed a complaint, which I wrote up as an official customer complaint. Those get reviewed by a VP and the Operations Director, but I also CC’d HR Manager. Religious harassment of a commercial customer with a few million on deposit was sufficient for HR to terminate her the next day.”
Relationship Scandal
“One of my favorites from the other half who is in HR.
So Mr. Johnson and Mrs. Smith work together for some time. At some point their inter-office flirting becomes too much for Mrs. Smith, and she goes to HR. Apparently, Mr. Johnson has been sending her texts and making overtures that the married Mrs. Smith does not want and needs to stop.
Mr. Johnson is pulled into HR and they go over his behavior. He’s going to be suspended while they determine if he’ll be terminated. This is inappropriate and boarders on harassment. He seems to understand, but something is off with him. Then he asks ‘Is she saying she didn’t want me to do this?’.
‘Yes’ comes the answer, ‘this wasn’t something co-workers do. You’re single and don’t understand the full scope of what’s going on.’
‘Hold on a sec.’ Mr. Johnson pulls out his phone and shows a text of Mrs. Smith with her exposed, spread eagle along with a steamy note. Then another, and another.
‘I’ll send them to you for your research.’
HR regroups, ends the meeting and does more investigation.
Turns out they’d been doing it for months, Mrs. Smith’s hubby was getting suspicious, and she needed an out. They both got disciplined by HR, though her marriage fell apart, and she had to carry the knowledge with her that most of HR had seen her naughty bits.”
Comfortability Does Not Matter
“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 ever harassed him, which he says they haven’t. She then says ‘so you want me to fire these employees, strictly based on their orientation, just so you don’t feel uncomfortable?’ 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.”
Doctored Up Note
“The last company I worked for did not have an HR department. My boss was one of the worst people I have ever met. And if they did have HR she would have been gone a long time ago. The one incident that made me high tail it out of there was she used a doctor’s note of mine to get out of a class she was taking. A month or so before I had a missed miscarriage at 18 weeks and had to have a D&C. My doctor wrote me a note for work, so I could have two weeks for recovery and time to process what had just happened.
I found multiple doctored copies of my doctor’s note on the printer. The dates were changed and a part in the note excusing me from work was changed to class. I remember seeing it and my heart dropped and I immediately had anxiety. I also thought at first someone else was going through the same thing until I looked at it closer and realized it was mine. I felt extremely used and exposed.
A coworker of mine actually walked in on her trying to fix it up on the computer. I ended up telling the CEO because that was her boss. I left my coworker out of the story because she was a single mom and my boss was lenient with her hours, so I didn’t want her to make it harder on her. He encouraged me to talk to her about it. Which I did and they played it off like she didn’t do it. I was told it was in the ‘executive drive’ so only the executives could get to it. My boss was the only female executive and it was doctor’s note from an OBGYN and she was the only one taking a class. They basically offered me a raise and title change after that. I took it knowing I was trying for a baby and wanted the money to save up. Going back I wish I held my ground and quit.”