HR Diaries: What’s the Worst Thing You Could Do on the Job?

It’s crowd sourcing time again! What’s the worst thing you’ve seen done at work–by an employee?

Either write this as a comment or send me an email at evilhrlady@gmail.com. Please remember this is a PG blog, so keep the language clean the descriptions appropriate.

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44 thoughts on “HR Diaries: What’s the Worst Thing You Could Do on the Job?

  1. The controller changed the way paper paychecks were distributed. About half the employees paid this way do not speak English as their first language. A notice was posted in the payroll office only in English, although the practice at our employer is to do anything official in both English and Spanish. Someone complained. He said, “I don’t pay them in dineros so why should I notify them in Spanish?” and he said it in a large meeting. This happened in 2014.

      1. The evil part of me hopes that someone (physically) slapped him silly. Fortunately, that is a small part.

  2. I’ve been disciplined because false statements by someone else implicated me in something that not only did I not do, the situation never existed.

    I formally and correctly documented a published cyber security vulnerability that Boss was unintentionally using that needed to be addressed. Boss’s henchman whispered in Boss’s ear that the only way to know their was a vulnerability was to exploit the vulnerability. When I, a trained cyber security professional with a decade of experience, tried to privately explain to Boss that her henchman who wasn’t even in IT, did not know what he was talking about, that there was no cyber breach and that I was doing the responsible thing by reporting an issue that needed to be addressed, boss proceeded to publicly rake me over the coals in a very serious way that was probably one step away from being fired. That was the last time I reported a cyber vulnerability. I’m sorry to say but its better to have the company attacked and taken down then to go through that again.

  3. I’ve seen a cashier find a way to skim off customer’s gift card balances and transfer the money to her own store card. She then spent it on lunches in the in-store cafe.

    It took about four months for her to be caught and arrested. Nobody noticed until enough customers complained their gift card balances weren’t right.

    1. I swear this happened to me at Starbucks!

      Now I know there is a possibility and not something I imagined (possibly).

      WOW.

  4. I’ve seen management officials, who were in a position enabling them to cover it up, steal from their employers. The first time it happened, I — naively — reported it up the chain of command. Unfortunately, within that chain of command was an immediate family member of the thief, and the result was that I got fired instead, on trumped-up grounds, in an at-will employment state, with no employment contract, no grievance rights or other recourse. The next time I saw it happen, I did not report it and allowed the losses to — eventually — come to light when they, finally, became too large for the organization to continue to ignore.

  5. Bullying, hands down.
    We had a manager at Exjob who bullied one of his subordinates relentlessly. The employee cowed to him every time. I had to listen to this constantly, as we had an open office arrangement with short-wall cubicles. I would get so angry on his behalf, but there wasn’t anything I could do–if I called out the manager on it, I would have gotten into trouble for insubordination, and it wouldn’t have helped my coworker at all. This manager got away with a lot of other things–not doing his work, incompetence, etc. He was a perfect example of the Peter Principle.
    Unfortunately, bullying isn’t on the list of illegal workplace activities. But every manager and HR person should realize how it poisons a work atmosphere, and they should take steps to end it wherever they see it, even if it means firing someone. It’s definitely a zero-tolerance thing.

    1. That’s funny. Bullying has become so commonplace that I didn’t even think of it as awful behavior until I saw your comment.

      1. It’s so unbelievably common. I’m sure it is costing companies a lot of money yet no one addresses it.

    2. Agree 100% – bullying is out of control. My middle age female boss (I am not far from that), was openly bitter that she was not a VP, yet considered indispensable and knew she would never be fired. Staff had been removed from her prior, due to her abusive nature. I was doing good work and being recognized by the C levels, she did NOT like that and proceeded to belittle and humiliate me in meetings and yell at me in the open office environment. I was given impossible deadlines and often worked 16-18 hours/day trying to meet them. 3 complaints were rec’d by HR with regards to how she treated me. Traumatizing…keep trying to convince myself that I am a good person, talented and did not deserve that.

        1. Unfortunately, that’s all too familiar. 🙁 You have my sympathies and fervent hope that you were able to land in a better place.

  6. Ugh… this was awful: We had an employee “pleasure himself” in the driver’s seat of a company van, and did so in a public parking lot. The van had the company’s 800 number on it – so guess who got the call to investigate this?

    1. Oh… and upon being confronted, he ultimately confessed he had done this before… a couple of different times…

    2. Oh my–please tell me your benefits include emergency mental health counseling (for you, or maybe the employee, too)! Ew ick gack yuck!

  7. So, so many stories. Probably the absolute worst was when an employee was looking at child porn. He was caught by the fbi who came in and confiscated multiple computers. Fun HR learning tip….they don’t give the computers back. Ever.

    1. I’ve had to adress issues with people and regular porn, granny porn and inter-species porn. Thankfully I never had to address children.

  8. #1, had an employee pulling food out of the trash that had been in the fridge for months, he said it wasn’t bad because of all the chemicals in it and he took it all back to his office and ate it.

    #2, Employee had illegal prescriptions filled and shipped to the office.

  9. I was working with a bunch of consultants at a major bank. We had the whole floor to ourselves. There was a fire in the parking garage, which affected power and water to the whole building. The toilets wouldn’t flush and if you went down the elevators (powered by generators) to use the bathrooms, security wouldn’t let you back up. We were all on hourly wages so somebody used a trash can to go #2 in a hidden corner. They would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for the smell.

  10. On two separate occasions caught employees dealing illegal substances from a retail location of a former employer – once they were selling and the other time they were receiving.

  11. One temporary worker and one contract security guard. Secluded area of the parking garage. Windowless van but, unfortunately, not soundproof. Happily, because both were “temporary” workers, a quick phone call to their employment agencies resolved the uncomfortable situation.

      1. Oh yes. I read that. (Well, I read everything Alison writes.) That was a doozy on so many levels.

  12. Two coworkers at PreviousJob got caught having sex. In a City vehicle in a park.

    Neither got fired.

  13. 1) An exempt employee who regularly closed his office door for ‘conference calls’ and was unavailable for 1 1/2 – 2 hours each time. I opened his door unexpectedly – broken water pipe = clearing the office – to discover he was checking porn sites and pleasuring himself. No tolerance policy…fired
    2) Guest rooms were regularly marked ‘unavailable/maintenance’. Turned out a supervisor was spending the night whenever the happy hour lasted too long. Potential paying guests turned away….fired.

  14. I was returning an important file to my Director before he was to leave on an extended trip. I knocked on his unlocked office door and entered when there wasn’t a response only to find him standing with a female employee on her knees in front of him. Now I knew the answer to the boxers or briefs question.
    It was the only time in my long career that I have been fearful about my job. The female employee had just been promoted to a newly created manager position over just 2 people when the department norm was 10 – 20 employees in a work group. There was a lot of office chatter that it didn’t make sense. I kept my mouth shut (no pun intended) and it didn’t adversely affect my job though it was months before I felt secure.
    Now I never, ever open a closed door unless I hear “Come on in.”

  15. Oh and I have soooo many, but this one is my absolute favorite.

    We had an employee who had been here a few months. Everything was going great until one day our HR manager gets a call that the employee had died in a horrible skiing accident. Of course everyone was upset, but one lady was particularity distraught even though she supposedly had only met him a couple of times. Come to find out through a series of events that he was alive and well. Apparently he was having an affair with the super distraught lady, his wife found out, and he figured that calling in dead would be the best way for his mistress to stop contacting him. Yeah, it was actually he who pretended to be his own wife and call himself in dead…

  16. Not mine, but all over the Milwaukee news for several years: the VP of fianance at Koss company (headphones) embezzled $34 million dollars over a ten year period. Cam to back from lunch drunk, frequently came in late and left early, bought all kinds of stuff that was later found in her home unused.

    1. Yeah, their audit process left a lot to be desired, but then, family-owned business where the guys running it have the right last name even if they don’t know what the heck they are doing.

  17. In a previous job, I arrived at work to a controversy (as I did many mornings). This particular day, the receptionist was upset about a transgendered employee using the women’s facilities. In no uncertain terms, she told me, that “he” was to no longer use the women’s restroom, that she was uncomfortable, and felt not only violated but discriminated against.
    Unfortunately, it wasn’t as simple as telling this employee not to use the women’s restroom. I ended up having to call her employer (as she was a third-party contractor) to ask some very uncomfortable questions. Fortunately, the first question answered the others (was she pre-op or post-op?) and once determining that she was indeed post-op, there were no other questions.
    I went back to the receptionist to explain that the employee in question was indeed female as far as it went and that she enjoyed the same rights (and protections) as any other female employee in terms of employment and that I could no more ask her to use the men’s restrooms than I could the receptionist (who was born female). The receptionist was not happy with my answer but dropped it.
    Here’s the fun part, within a few months, they were the best of friends.

    1. I am horrified that the third-party contractor answered that question. That is extremely personal information and even if she was pre-op, she would still be a woman and entitled to use the women’s restroom.

      But thank you for not asking the lady directly!

  18. Well this is related to current events. Two weeks ago I attended a conference where the director of OPM’s cyber security spoke about how well they were securing their databases…..Turns out they had found out in December the Chinese had hacked them and not notified the government employees until the story broke via the media. I am a gov employee, and I found out about this via CNN. Hope that guy gets fired….

  19. I have a colleague who went on a two week vacation and didn’t tell his boss.

  20. I once worked at a gas station, my manager was responsible for that location and another. One coworker worked at both locations and said coworker stole hundreds of dollars in cash and $20 state lottery tickets with the help of her boyfriend.

    I walked into work one day and my manager showed me the footage and said, “Don’t you ever do something this stupid!” She then asked me to come in during my coworker’s shift the next day and take over when she and the police officers arrested her.

    Needless to say, somehow ALL of my coworkers showed up for that shift. (There was twenty-five of us and we were never at the store all at once.)

  21. An employee embezzled $10,000 from an arts-related nonprofit over the course of year. That was bad, but to make it even worse, the executive director held an emergency all-staff meeting the afternoon it was discovered. He told us the situation, and asked us our opinion on how we should handle this. Should the employee be fired? Should he be allowed to stay if he repays the money? Should he be allowed to stay if he goes to counseling? The executive director said if we had any thoughts, we should put them in a memo. It was HR and risk management by a committee of everyone.

    The next day, the employee returned to the office and threatened to kill himself. At that point, he was fired. He also repaid the money to avoid prosecution.

  22. I seen more bad things done by employers and bosses than employees; but, since you asked for the worst done by employEEs here goes.

    We had one male employee who everyone, or I should say almost everyone, knew lacked the habit of washing his hands after using the restroom (I guess even the women knew because the guys gossip as much as women do. ha!)

    Well, anyway, one day after I finished my “business” and was standing at the sink washing my hands this employee did his “business” and then walked out of the restroom without washing his hands.

    About 2 minutes later I walked out of the restroom to see that our soon-to-return-from-maternity-leave co-worker brought her baby in for everyone to see – and this clown who no less than a couple of minutes before was holding his, well, you know what, saying “cootchie cootchie coo” while sticking his fingers in the kid’s face!

    I was torn between yelling “get your dirty hands out of that kid’s face” and keeping my mouth shut as the germs were already spread. I opted for keeping my mouth shut and felt guilty about it afterwards.

  23. I had an employee actually stab another employee with a piece of metal. Apparently, the one employee (we will call him A) got mad at something the other employee (we will call him B) said. So A, picked up a piece of sharp metal and stabbed B in the wrist. We never saw A again. He disappeared, only to be arrested by the police a few blocks away. And wouldn’t you believe, B did not want to press charges, so A was let go. No charges were ever brought and we had to pay for the stabbing injury through workers comp because it was on the job.

  24. After reading all of the above, I don’t think mine story is so interesting. However, here goes….I was at this position only a few weeks when this happened. The phones were monitored for quality purposes. Two employees were engaging in phone sex. The Director of Sales, listened in for an extremely long time. He could’ve disconnected them, hung up, or jumped into the call and told them to stop. But, he listened to them……..for a long time….

  25. I had an employee request a Personal LOA, said her daughter (a minor) had been sexually assualted by a neighbor. We generously gave her the four weeks she requested to care for her child. Some people even donated PTO so she could be paid for some of her time away. Found out later she made up the whole thing to take a trip to Jamaica.

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