10 Real HR Moments That Show the Hilarious Human Side of Workplace Humor and the Corporate World

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.

Had an employee who was very clearly living in his sprinter van in our parking lot and using toilets and shower at the office so I had to tell him he couldn’t do that (he made over $200k so it was a choice not a lack of resources). He then made up a whole story about moving into an apartment and would share pics on slack that were obviously AI-generated. I left before it was resolved, it was very weird.

I once had an employee request an ADA Accommodation of not having to use the telephone for work due to a phobia. She made this request by phone instead of an email or other means of communication.

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 says, “Pretty casual for a workday, huh?” I had to stifle my laughter when he replied with, “That’s one of the benefits of owning the company.” She turned an amazing color of red that I haven’t seen since... it was all in good fun though, she ended up working there a long time.

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 like they were doing something. She left shortly after.

Not HR, but my friend is who recently told me about a VP at his company making a post on LinkedIn 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.

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.

Had a guy send me his 100-page dissertation instead of his PhD transcripts (PhD was a requirement for the position). Also his resume was 45 pages.

Was doing an interview for a debt collector position for a call center. Discussed with the candidate that people can get angry and mean and say inappropriate things like calling her names on the phone.
She said she can handle all of that with no problems. She then proceeded to tell us that she tells her boyfriend to pull her hair and call her names when they are in bed so it won’t be an issue if a customer calls her names.

Worked HR in an Employee call center. Got a call one morning from an employee saying they had been overpaid. They worked an hourly job and got paid once a week. Took a look at their check and yeah, we paid them about $60,000. WAY overpaid.
We fixed it pretty fast, pulled out the 60k and paid them the right amount. We finally figured out that they had entered their employee ID number in the hours worked field when they filled out the online forms. That was fun.