I am a person who simultaneously loves AND hates scary things.
I blame it on my obsession with Are You Afraid of the Dark growing up. I was hell bent on proving I was not afraid, when in fact I was, so I sat through EVERY episode.
To this day, I can still hear the creepy children’s laughter from the theme song…
I really wanted to prove my commitment to not being afraid of things so I went through a phase of reading R.L. Stine books. And not just Goosebumps I’m talking about the SUPER SCARY Fear Street series. One could argue you haven’t lived until you’ve read those…
I grew up (yay) but somehow never outgrew the thrill scary stories give me. I’ve been known to do a horror movie marathon then be so scared I have to leave every single light on in the house. The good news is I *think* I could survive in a horror movie, maybe… possibly??
The bad news is, I’m a lil obsessed with spooky szn. And that means for this week the newsletter has become something a bit different…
What you’ll read below are REAL horror stories submitted by readers like you!
Honestly, some days in HR feel like I’m in a bad horror flick, so it should come to no surprise that I had A LOT of stories being shared.
WITHOUT FURTHER ADO
✨Submitted for the approval of the I Hate it Here Society, I present…. HR Horror Stories Vol. 2. ✨
The Tale of the Gilded Car Wash
I had to fire 10% over our employees because the company was having financial problems, so they said.
While I was explaining this to a 25 year old woman, who just bought a house, had a mortgage to pay and was crying, the owner of the company parked his car in front of the window of the meeting room we were sitting in.
One minute later, his private carwash person arrives to clean his Bentley car by hand. The carwash person was not fired because of financial problems, he could stay.
By the way, the owner knew I was doing all the redundancy meetings in that exact meeting room.
The girl in front of me was as shocked as I was.
I decided to quit that company after that meeting.
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The Tale of TMI:
An employee submitted a PTO request with the reason listed as “vasectomy”.
Reason is an optional field in our system, by the way.
The Tale of Silent Rage
As an HR professional, terminating employment wasn’t the reason I joined HR but it’s part of the role. There have been some messy situations over the years however with good communication/planning and treating the other person with respect, I find it hasn’t been horrible, until…
I worked for a small company and the Accounts Payable Clerk, we will call her Suzy, was being let go. We had done everything we could to provide an improvement plan, additional training and tools.
Unfortunately the day had come to part ways.
From the minute the Controller and I sat down, there was an edge to Suzy’s voice, “so what, you are firing me now?”. The Controller said very little, as I walked through what led us here and that we are terminating her employment.
Suzy didn’t say a word, wouldn’t respond with even a head nod and she refused to sign her final paperwork. As soon as the Controller could, she sped away from that conference room and left me with Suzy.
So I gave Suzy an option to gather her things now or we could arrange a time after hours if she needed more time to pack up her things. Suzy didn’t say anything, just stood up and began walking to her cubicle so I followed her.
Once back to her cubicle, there were no other staff members around (we asked them to take a long lunch). Suzy began talking very loudly about what a horrible company this was, and she couldn’t believe that she was being fired. I didn’t respond, as there wasn’t anything I could say and I didn’t think she was really listening.
I stood against a wall as she gathered her things and threw them into a box she had stored under her desk (which later made me wonder if she might have known something like this was coming). I was in the process of calling for some additional help and backup, as her temper and actions seemed to be getting worse, not better.
I looked up as Suzy threw a ceramic coffee cup at me!
Seriously, a heavy ceramic coffee cup filled with cold coffee. It shattered on the wall and left shards all around me and left me very shook up.
Thankfully one of the other managers was walking through and came over when hearing the commotion. Between the two of us, we escorted Suzy out of the building.
It was a terrifying termination but also a good learning experience of establishing procedures to protect yourself and your staff from events like this when you can.
The Tale of the Unwanted Lick:
I recently had to handle an employee complaint regarding face licking.
That’s right, I said, FACE LICKING.
One of our leaders licked an employee’s face.
It has been a blast.
Worst part, I don’t think the CEO will do anything about the bad behavior making this an extra cringe one for me.
The Tale of the Warehouse Walkthrough:
Picture this: you’ve had the State Insurance Fund guy (ya know, the one that handles workman’s comp claims, etc.) begging to get in and get his hands on your safety plan, etc.
He gives a great presentation on new/updated OSHA regulations, things to watch for, etc. and you end with giving him a tour of your facility that was built 4 years ago.
You just finish explaining how employee-oriented you are as a business, just to walk into the warehouse to see the manager scaling metal shelving at least 15 feet up, flinging boxes of product to waiting warehouse employees to catch with their face.
Yup. That happened.
That’s all for today, folks!
KEY WORD THERE: TODAY.
Dropping on Thursday- an EXTRA SPECIAL TREAT FOR YOU.
A special edition of the pod where I read some of the juiciest, MORE wild HR horror stories you will ever hear.
Wilder than what you read… so proceed with caution.
Like, I actually felt my jaw drop reading some of these.
I hope you’re ready for more frightening stories, none involving clowns, I promise!