31 of the Most Absurd Complaints HR Workers Have Received

‘One employee is addicted to smoking hookah and she brought it on her first day of work’
31 of the Most Absurd Complaints HR Workers Have Received
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Let’s be very careful and clear here: The vast majority of HR complaints aren’t exactly hilarious. Nobody wants to read a thread of “HR Nightmares,” because half of them probably end up with someone chained to a radiator. Outside of the serious, very necessary things HR exists to solve, however, they also get sent some odd problems.

Redditors shared some of the weirdest HR issues raised at their places of work. Interoffice conflicts that belong more on an episode of Looney Tunes or a slapstick sitcom than they do in a genuine workplace. 

Keep reading to feel a whole lot better about your coworker’s penchant for tuna fish lunches.

thetenofswords 6y ago My work has one men's toilet. Had one coworker complain that another guy kept using the bathroom before him, and doing big ol' poos. But the way he said it was like this guy knew when he was about to go, ninja'd in just before him, dropped a massive stinker and then forced the other guy to marinade in the smell when he went for a leak afterwards. We ended up adding a can of air freshener to the bathroom, and the next complaint that came in was the poo guy never used it.
upyourbumchum . 6y ago 20 years in HR. 2 female employees visited me to complain that their female team member didn't wear underwear under her work pants.
BunnyBunny13 . 6y ago She wanted to lodge a complaint against a colleague who had a new TV delivered to the office instead of home, and she thought her colleague's spending money on the TV was irresponsible.
LibraryLuLu 6y ago I recently had HR tell me that one of my staff had been under supplied in his annual leave over the past few years, and he needed to take at least ten days off over the next six months to correct the leave liability. Paid at a higher rate than usual to make up for the error, of course. Не could take a two week block or, say, a day off a week until he'd used the leave - his choice. Не was so enraged over being given extra paid holidays that he wrote to our General Manager to
anywherebutarizona . 6y ago Hr Consultant for 10+ years. You won't believe the amount of times I've had to shut people down for trying to sell their pyramid scheme side hustle in the office.
steelie34 6y ago Not HR, but I have a story about an HR person that I will never forget. The company I worked for hired a new girl in the HR dept. She was young and very enthusiastic. I'm sure this was probably her first job out of college. Cut to a week or so later, and I'm riding in the elevator on the way up to the executive floor, and she steps in with me. A couple floors later we stop, and an older gentleman wearing a polo shirt and jeans gets on. Before I could greet him, she
Alkalined13 6y ago An employee used very derogatory terms to make fun of a customer who was in the back of the store... while talking to the customer who was at the counter. Who happened to be the other customer's mother. Yikes.
thefuzzybunny1 6y ago My HR department once fell for a phishing email and sent everyone's W2s to a random hacker. HR then informed everyone via a mass email, with no read receipts, at 9 p.m. on a Friday... even though multiple people were on vacation and had left instructions to be called in an emergency. When I got back from my trip a week later and expressed my concern about her not actually notifying me about this, she totally brushed it off. I said do you realize that I need to freeze my credit, and I'm 7 days late in
skittlesnwhiskey 6y ago 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 shit you not, with a straight face, he looks me in the eye and replies telepathically like
poridgepants 6y ago Edited 6y ago I was a manager and had to call our HR in on this one. We had a computer that was used by multiple people and a couple of girls complained that it had a virus and porn was always popping up when they turned it on in the morning. I decided to have look see if someone was fucking around on the closing shift so I looked at the security footage and low and behold one of the supervisors was watching porn and jerking off. When we called him in he didn't deny it
rainbowLena 6y ago My partner is in HR. Someone took a shit on the job site. Не was given a photo complete with measurements. The people that complained wanted DNA testing done. He's still not sure why they measured it.
tahituatara 6y ago | told my coworker as professionally as I could that it wasn't appropriate for her to be using her phone while at work, teaching kids (supposedly). She spent all her time on Facebook, little kids would be screaming and whaling on each other literally 10 feet away and she was totally oblivious. She complained by email to HR that I was rude and confrontational. They pulled me aside and told me to be more careful about how I spoke to coworkers. I told them my side of the story, they spoke to her again. She got a
yankee-white . 6y ago Edited 6y ago You wouldn't believe the headaches that I received when management signed a new copier/printer lease which reduced the overall number of printers in exchange for centrally located multiplex copiers. Evidently, people feel their social standing is signified by if they have a printer (or two) in their office.
ninjajedifox . 6y ago We had a complaint that the toilet roll holders were to low in the stalls because when a guy was taken a poo his knees were hitting the holders. We then lifted all the stalls toilet roll holders 8 inches on whole company site so no knees would hit the toilet roll holders. No complaints since. HR working for the people!
jgear319 6y ago A woman claimed that people were spreading rumors about her sleeping with coworkers. The investigation wasn't even done yet when she moved in with one of the guys. The others showed me texts and nude pics she had sent them. And if that wasn't enough she followed me home from the bar one night to make sure I was okay. I shut my door in her face and the next day said I was too drunk and didn't realize she was there. Had enough from everything else I didn't even need to bring that part into the
danetrain05 6y ago 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
mdg_roberts1 . 6y ago She came in with a complaint that she tried to give one of the younger guys a hug and he refused. His story was that he basically had to run away. I had to explain to a middle age woman that it was not her right to hug people who didn't want to be hugged. She still didn't get it and left thinking she was still in the right.
Moontoya 6y ago Not HR but a complaint raised against me Hostile and unfriendly behaviour I had to explain to the head of HR that the complainant had walk up behind me whilst I was relieving myself at a urinal, launching into a detailed explanation of their computer problem. Rather than say shut the fuck up, reboot your pc and leave me alone I replied please log a ticket for me So yeah, prompting them to follow the proper procedure, never mind accosting me whilst urinating was me being hostile... The complaint was promptly filed in the under desk circular
jimmydushku 6y ago Not HR, but my friend who is recently told me about a VP at his company making a post on Linkedln with one of the new employees as his #WCW (Woman Crush Wednesday). The WCW lady was happy about it. The complaint came from two women who didn't get the promotion to that position.
Mixaroo . 6y ago Not an HR employee, but | recently reported a bus driver for bringing his girl friend to work and rubbing her feet while driving. She sat on the spot right behind the driver and put her feet where he could reach for them with one hand.
_captaincool 6y ago Someone complained about another employee smelling of rotten chicken and feet. The scent was bad enough that no one wanted to work with that guy around. Had to put on a hygiene fundamentals in the workplace presentation for that entire group since I couldn't single out Smelly. I think he got the hint because he also got a haircut
dancingfruit 6y ago I was the one being complained about. A patient had asked if it was okay to remove her IV fluids COS she was going home. She was one of those people who was very convinced that if we took her fluids out, she would die. (She was admitted for the common cold, and uses her insurance to pay like this so she didn't have to spend a dime.) Anyway, I told her that it's okay ma'am, we're just running 'regular saline water through your IV. No more meds. You can go home today and we can take
BlondieMeliss 6y ago After 20 years in HR, I have too many to remember. The most recent was on Monday when an employee emailed me with a request to remind everyone to be careful with scented lotions. Her area reeked from something that smelled like Moroccan oil. These kind of emails are a bomb waiting to go off. Everyone gets paranoid, and | end up replying to 50 people that they smell fine and, yes, please keep wearing your deodorant. I told her that I would rather address it with the individual, so let me know who it was. After
SemiPseudoFinance 6y ago It was lunch time, a client came in. My colleague was eating a sausage roll and had it on his desk. Next day a formal complaint came through about my colleagues sausage roll and how unprofessional it was of him to have a sausage roll he was eating on his desk.
TyRyansaurus-Rex . 6y ago Not HR, but Worker's Comp. We just had an associate file a claim this week because they burnt their mouth on their lunch. A lunch they brought from home and heated up in the microwave.
Here's my favorite in terms of how ridiculous it is. HR Director found hookah in the women's bathroom, it wasn't hidden or anything, it was just there in the plain sight on the floor. Turns out one employee is addicted to smoking hookah and she brought it on her first day of work. She then demanded to be allowed to smoke hookah in the bathroom but they came to the agreement that she can take a break every day to go out and smoke it in the nearby hookah place if she wants to.
rubbersoul-93 . 6y ago We had an employee walk out in the middle of 3rd shift, leaving 1 person alone to do all the work. Не came back a week later and asked us to write it up like he'd been let go because he wanted to file unemployment. Obviously we wouldn't do that.
punkwalrus 6y ago Previous job | worked with some huge asshole across the hall. I won't go into why he was an asshole, but one of the things he did was turn me into HR because I had a mini catapult on my desk (a desk toy) that shot mini marshmallows. Не claimed it was a weapon and HR called me to clarify. When I told her what it was, she sighed, and said if I took it home, she wouldn't make a case out of it. So | took it home.
6y ago Had a lot of people ask for more hours, I would tell them I don't have more hours in your department but I can give you hours in X department, next schedule would come out and they would say I have too many hours! So | would give them like e 10 fewer hours with still 15-25 hours, and then it would be I don't have enough hours! So then I would say okay, remember that week when I gave you 30-35 hours and that was too much? And they would say I want 35 hours! So I
journey_j . 6y ago friend in charge of hiring at his company got massive complaints from a job applicant..for not hiring him.
6y ago Very late to this party, but I can remember receiving a phone call from a woman loudly screaming into the phone how unfair it was that she couldn't use extended sick leave to get cosmetic breast augmentation surgery, going into immense detail about why she NEEDED said surgery, and how her boss was a jealous bitch who couldn't deal with an underling having big breasts. | then transferred her to Employee Relations because I work in Compensation.

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