“What are your most memorable HR moments, positive and negative? Share your stories with us! #HRStories #PositiveAndNegative #MemorableMoments
Positive HR Moment:
– Share a time when you felt supported and mentored by a colleague in the workplace.
– Reflect on a moment that still sticks with you after many years.
Negative HR Moment:
– Discuss a challenging experience you had to deal with in HR, whether it was a difficult termination or a troubling situation.
– Share a story that left you feeling unsettled or regretful, even if it wasn’t directly your fault.
Join the conversation and let us know your most memorable HR experiences!”
Bad? My boss was having dental work done and had a temporary tooth cap thing. One day, as she was talking to me, the tooth cap slipped and somehow flew across the aisle and under the cubicle wall. Not so bad right? Yea, she got on her hands and knees and dug under that cubicle wall until she found it. She stood up, brushed it off, and stuck in right back in her mouth!
Good-open enrollment season, I have to travel 50 or so miles to another location to do the open enrollment presentation and paperwork (back in the day, nothing was online). Only problem? Our benefits provider hadn’t gotten the packets to us yet. So off I went to the local kinkos with a b&w version I printed from our version edits. I was there for hours making enough copies for the presentations our department had the next day. (I was exempt, so there was no extra OT for me, but I did buy a phone charger cause my phone died) End result, we were able to do our open enrollment presentations without a hitch! I even got employee of the Quarter for that! And shockingly, Employee of the Year, though I did have to share the year award with someone in operations, understanably.
Bad: I had an employee that had 30 years of service with the company murder someone who he got into a verbal argument with about politics. Luckily not at work. He led the police on a high speed chase before getting caught. I was listening to the whole thing on the radio while driving to work. He was terminated for no-call/no-show.
Good: assisting an employee and family who was diagnosed with a termination illness. I helped them fill out paperwork to get an early life insurance payout. I assisted with the leave paperwork. They were so gracious and appreciative of me just doing my job.
Something that lives rent free in my brain: the time I had to explain to an employee that despite not having any PTO available, she needed to go home and change her pants after shitting herself. It was severe enough that her chair needed to be replaced.
Edit to add the good: worked closely with a subordinate, she was tired of the company’s usual BS (she was a minority and tbh she had a legit reason to be annoyed). Anyway she decided she wanted to move across the country to be nearer her family, only she dreaded interviewing. Since my role at the time focused heavily on interviewing candidates, she asked me to teach her to be a good interviewee. We worked on techniques and practiced interviewing for about a month. She applied to a role that would’ve been a big step up for her out near family and got the job! She genuinely thanked me for taking the time to coach her, attributing her success to my help. Honestly I’ve never felt more appreciated by anyone in a professional setting, even now – 11 years later. Still makes me smile whenever I think of it.
Good:
3 years into my career and one month into working for him, the CEO/owner asked how busy I was, and without waiting for an answer said “I need you to go Helsinki Wednesday to help set up our new business”. Being trusted to just get stuff done was great, and helped shape the kind of employers I’d seek out.
Bad:
Amusing now, but having to tell my wife I’d be organizing personal security and we’d need to install a Ring doorbell wasn’t great.
Positive, I launched a program to hire deaf individuals to staff a retail store overnight when we were struggling to find people who wanted to work that shift. Employed around 15 individuals 10 years ago, a handful are still there, most in some sort of leadership. 💕
The worst – my boss was fired just before the holidays (AVOID THIS AT ALL COSTS, ITS AWFUL!!!!!!). He told me to take the day off, even though the next day was the office holiday party. I didn’t care for events and often didn’t participate (fun times of being HR). Anyhow, he showed up to that Christmas party and he murdered one of the founders of the law firm, critically wounded and other and then killed himself.
*sighs*
Negative/Odd: A generically attractive (and married) male director of housekeeping having to resign on the spot because he had been sleeping with one of his employees (a J1/international employee) on resort property in guest rooms. An investigation had started and it was obvious where it was headed; resigned before he could get fired.
If I had a nickel for every time that happened I’d have two nickels. Isn’t a lot but weird it happened twice….at the same resort.
Good: we hired a veteran with PTSD to work in our warehouse. He was a mountain of a man but very kind. Overall he was someone that you’d remember just because of his stature both physically and personality.
Bad: some dickhead temporary employee in the warehouse decided he wanted to start shit with said gargantuan veteran with PTSD. Things escalated to where the dickhead pulled a box cutter on the veteran. The veteran’s PTSD kicked into overdrive and he proceeded to beat this temporary employee into the ground like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It is an absolute bloody mess and it takes multiple people to pull the veteran off the dickhead, who by the way, is now a pile of black and blue mince meat. The warehouse is absolute insanity with some people screaming with adrenaline. The amberlanz is called and both were treated. Veteran was able to be treated for minor injuries, mostly to his hands, on site. Dickhead gets carted off to the hospital. From the footage, it is clear who started the fight and that it was self defense. Unfortunately, the veterans’s PTSD had him continue the beating long after the dickhead stopped being able to defend himself. We ended up having to let him go but not before we made sure he had some resources to get job placement help, a recommendation letter and a small severance. Dickhead didn’t get jack shit from us aside from a letter to his staffing agency outlining the whole event and our recommendation that he be dropped from their lineup.
Bad: no you cannot file for fmla or a medical leave for you genital herpes flare up. You have to use your own time for that situation if you are unable to work.
Good: found woman living in an abusive situation safe housing.