frustration!!!
Mike Maslanka
236 Posts
let's come clean...what employee action,request,comment or whatever have you received that just drove you up the wall,where you wanted to roll your eyes at the ceiling,and if a bubble was drawn over your head the caption in it would say "I just can't take it anymore!"...but where,of course,you acted as a professional...mike maslanka
Comments
None of these are made up, I promise.
1. The employee who comes to complain about the co-worker that threatened him by saying, "I'm going to hit you so hard it will make your ancestors bleed."
2. The employee who sits in my office arguing the law with me telling me, "That's not what Judge Whapner says the law is."
3. The guys in my warehouse who discover that one of the mentally challenged employees has missed one very significant life experience and decide to purchase a woman for his 28th birthday. I had to explain what happened to his parents.
4. Trying to cope with disciplining one of the personalities of an employee who has multiple personalities. (The other personalities had no performance problems).
5. Having to tell the widow of an employee that had recently passed away that she was not the beneficiary of his life insurance. (His grilfriend was the beneficiary.)
6. Telling my benefits manager that she should not tell the employee who has come in to put his 5th illegimate child on his insurance that "he needs to get a hold of himself."
Margaret Morford
theHRedge
1. A minority female employee claims "race discrimination" because her ex-boyfriend, a minority male employee whom she dumped, starts dating a white female employee.
2. A guy claims "national origin discrimination" because a manager doesn't select him for a job opening. It seems the families of the manager and the employee have had a feud going on for more than 20 years and no one can remember how it got started.
3. A woman claims "sexual harassment" because her male co-worker periodically asks her if she missed him while he was out of town on business trips.
4. A minority male whom, over a period of 20 years, committed a host of infractions (falsifying time sheets, misrepresenting the mileage on car rentals, forged his boss' signature, attendance problems, harassing [non-sexual] other employees and creating other disturbances in the workplace, etc.) and was never fired because management feared he would sue claiming "race discrimination."
5. An applicant who flunked a drug test because he "accidently" took his dog's vet-prescribed medication which contained a controlled substance. I wanted so badly to ask him if he used that line in school with his homework but I thought the better of it.
6. An employee who uses the company's letterhead to promote a wild get rich quick scheme that ultimately fails.
7. An employee with emotional problems had an on-going feud with her two co-workers. She asked the benefits department for information on the company's death benefit. On the day the information arrived at her home via the US mail, she coincidently received an unsolicited pamphlet from a local funeral parlor as part of a mass mailing. Together, she took both pieces of mail as "a death threat" and filed an harassment complaint against her co-workers. The employee happens to be a minority and the co-workers are white. The co-workers are members of a home association. They have their monthly meeting at a local Krispy Kream doughnut shop which they refer to as "KK." One day, one co-worker asks the other if she is going to be at the "KK" meeting that evening. The employee with the emotional problems over heard the comment and filed a complaint claiming her co-workers are members of the Klu Klux Klan and are going to a "Klan meeting."
8. This happened more than 10 years ago and it's a true story. Some of the participants are deceased. A male manager had an affair with a female employee who did not report to him. The manager's wife was a supervisor who worked in another department. The female employee's husband was a police officer and when he found out about the affair, he allegedly harassed the manager and his adult son with "trumped-up" traffic violations. One night, the police officer legitimately busted the manager for driving under the influence and threw him in jail. He tells the manager he knows about the affair. Several days later the police officer calls the manager's home and tells the manager's wife about the affair. She threatens to leave the manager. The police officer allegedly decides to blakmale the manager and talks his wife into filing a sexual harassment complaint. The investigation disclosed there was an affair and no harassment. There was no proof that the police officer talked his wife into filing the sexual harassment claim.
Her other problems include "obsessive compulsive disorder, fibromyalgia (she can only work 2nd shift), bipolar disorder, she claims she was a victim of child abuse, raped 2 years ago, & has claimed sexual harassment against us (we had an internal & IOCC investigation that denied it).
We've decided it's the "water" (Mississippi) - she is one of many characters here!
I may seek your advice later!
Margaret Morford
theHRedge
Also, when an employee tells me that they should have a raise because they know that another person in the company just received a raise.
How long have you been doing HR? And what prompted you to enter the field?
The company President had me issue a communication to all employees to remind them of our policy not to employ family members in the same department or management hierarchy (we've been getting lots of requests to hire sons, daughters, nephews, etc for the summer).
The very next Monday after the communication was released to employees, who shows up for work unannounced? You got it, the CEO's daughter.
Administrative Assistant has an affair with a manager, manager decides his marriage is in jeopardy and he wants to save it, the AA reported "sexual harrassment". At the end of the teary-eyed sob story, she proceeded to tell me that the most difficult thing about the situation was that she and her husband still had to bowl with him and his wife every Tuesday night. Doing due diligence, I then met with the manager who played provocative voice mails for me (from her) which were as recent as 3, 4 and 5 days old.
This was a good topic. It helps reassure me that the madness is not just in my world. I think it is reassuring...