50 Of The Most Absurd Complaints To HR That They Didn’t Know How To React To

I had a coworker complain that I was « unfriendly » because I didn’t want to spend 20mins discussing my weekend each Monday morning. Let me do my work g*****n it 😆.

That i didnt share the food that i bought for myself.

I had a supervisor tell me that I’m too honest. In a job handling other people’s money.

That I type too fast and it made ppl feel uncomfortable like they felt it made them seem less productive and felt rushed to complete their tasks.

I work in the automotive field, had a coworker complain to manager that I wouldn’t let him use my tools, to make him money, seriously!!! I purchased those tools to make me a faster/ better technician, he can buy his own tools!!!! Later the same month, manager actually told me I need to teach coworker how to perform my job, so he can make money/ take work from me, told them both to hire a new tech, I’m quitting,,,,,,,,,.

I had an employee complain when her supervisor said good morning.

We were expecting a huge snowstorm (not unusual - this is snow country) so I sent a note to all the staff to plan accordingly and work from home the next day so we could all stay safe.

One of our cloud architects said that if we were expected to work from home, the company should reimburse us for our internet costs. I calculated that 8 hours of internet use would cost at most $1.07, told him if it bothered him so much that I would personally reimburse him, and to please be patient as I went to my car to dig spare change out of the seat. He then told me it was "just an idea".

On day number one at the naval supply center engineering branch, someone told me i should work slower, as i'm making the rest of them look bad.

That I used hyperbole which made me untrustworthy- the specific example they gave was me saying “I’m so hungry I could eat a million pancakes” when we were having breakfast catered. They had one other similar example I don’t remember. It wasn’t anything related to our work. Truly baffling still tickles me to this day to think about 😂.

I had a coworker complain I don’t speak English.
I’m a Brit and have been in the USA for 32 years.

Was told by my manager that we were not supposed to work any overtime that wasn’t approved of in advance. At that point my only overtime was generally staying an extra 15-30 minutes on occasion (others were a***ing it) to finish something I didn’t want to waste time trying to remember where I was at when I came back to it the next day. I followed the request and started clocking out right at 8 hours and after a few months got a complaint that I wasn’t willing to stay late even though I had been specifically told not to.

One of my favourites from the other half who is in HR.

So Mr Blue and Ms. Pink work together for some time. At some point their inter office flirting becomes too much for Ms. Pink, and she goes to HR.

Apparently Mr Blue has been sending her texts and making overtures that the married Ms. Pink does not want and needs to stop.

Mr Blue is pulled into HR, and the go over his behaviour. He's going to be suspended while they determine if he'll be terminated. This is inappropriate and boarders on harassment. He seems to understand, but something is off with him. The he asks "Is she saying she didn't *want* me to do this?".

"Yes" comes the answer, "this wasn't something co-workers do. You're single and dont understand the full scope of what's going on.".

"Hold on a sec". Mr Blue pulls out his phone and shows a text of Ms. Pink with her naked, spread eagle along with a steamy note. Then another, and another. "I'll send them to you for your research.".

HR regroups, ends the meeting and does more investigation.

Turns out they'd been screwing for months, hubby was getting suspicious and she needed an out. They both got disciplined by HR, though her marriage fell apart and she had to carry the knowledge with her that most of HR had seen her naughty bits.

I have a presentation on our health and wellness programs throughout the organization. afterwards one of the VPs comes to me saying that they felt disrespected because I didn’t mention their health and wellness programs.

I said I was unaware of them. what are they. She admitted to not having any.

I then said that over the last decade I have tried to bring programs to your clients and you have never shown any interest.

She then mumbled something about my presentations being more inclusive.

so next time I guess i will call out that her program does not have any wellness programs so that she feels included.

My small company acquired another even smaller company last year which came with two new direct reports for me. The whole acquisition was so poorly planned and nothing went smoothly.

Because of this, there was a lot of aggravating things getting in the way of those two new employees daily workflows. As their manager, I did my best to try and fix these situations for them since it wasn’t at all their fault the transition was so messy. They were both very happy with me throughout the year because of this.

At the end of the year when it came time for my review, my boss, who really had nothing to ding me for because I had a pretty great year, dinged me for “making the transition too easy for them” …what?? She suggested I should have made them solve more problems themselves. It was so stupid.

I had an employee report that her orchid, which she had left in a common area, had been stolen. For some reason we looked into this and security managed to see on camera who had taken it. I spoke with the guy and he said the orchid was not in great shape so he decided to take it home to nurse it back to health... I asked him to bring it back to work. Biggest waste of time ever.

Not sure if I would call this a complaint, but a few months ago I had an employee come tell me someone sneezed in the employee cafeteria and "wanted to make me aware.".

I have two favorites from the same job:

First was someone complaining to another “I feel like they just keep focusing on my mistakes!” and the other goes, “then stop making mistakes!”

Second, a coworker had a little Christmas tree with three bears holding hands around it (think beanie babies or something) and someone went to HR to make her take it down because it “looked like the bears were doing witchcraft.”.

I had one employee who walked out in the middle of his shift after getting into an argument with a coworker . When I called him into my office to explain his situation, he denied the argument (even though we have footage), but insisted he left work because he was experiencing extreme hemmoroid ruptures and bleeding from his a*s.

A tenured employee quit, tearfully stating during an exit interview that we could have kept her talents on board had we simply offered more food days/catered pizza lunches.

This was an employee already on the radar for FMLA a***e. She was back re-applying in about 6 months. She was not rehired.

We had an HR complaint once that an employee clicked their mouse too loudly.