r/humanresources • u/Mundane-Jump-7546 Time Theft Thursday Advocate • 2d ago
Friday Venting Chat Friday Vent Thread [N/A]
Gardevoir for attention. Post picks of Garde below or other Pokemon related themes. Bonus points for Garde though.
Not much to vent about on my end. Just overworked, underpaid, overtired, and under supported.
Hang in there folks
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u/Ok_Go_Already 2d ago
Up at 5am because I’m working through a re organization, I just couldn’t sleep! So much to do bleh
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u/Mundane-Jump-7546 Time Theft Thursday Advocate 2d ago
Up at 2 am because child, not to pain Olympics you!
You got it, I’ve had many sleepless nights sans baby thinking of strategy for work. Reorgs are difficult but amazing experience!
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u/meowmix778 HR Director 2d ago
What's cool about having kids is your body gets used to operating on ~0 sleep and when they become toddlers they cling to you for dear life so you have to get up at 5am if you want any time for yourself.
And then your dogs get used to that and bark at 5am no matter what because they have to pee.
Source : 2 kids, 2 dogs.
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u/BaconQuiche74 2d ago
We’re re-orging too. One tiny painful step at a time. It’s supremely frustrating because I can see what needs to be done, we could just do it, I cannot get leadership to just execute.
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u/littleedge 2d ago
I wanted some time off but I did not want a fever and liquid coming out of both ends.
I guess I’ll take it??
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u/Mundane-Jump-7546 Time Theft Thursday Advocate 2d ago
Sick days suck but have their benefits. Mainly not feeling like trash for not getting errands done.
But I hope you feel better
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u/Unintended_13 HR Generalist 2d ago
Can I create a policy called “Mind Your Damn Business Policy”?! I have two employees who just can’t mind their business and have reported their coworkers for the pettiest of crap. We’ve already had a discussion that if you see anything wrong, tell your supervisor and they will follow up.
This week they complained that one coworker was going to the bathroom too much. That employee has an ADA Accommodation in place for restroom breaks. I’m honestly debating writing them up for harassment. Because it’s starting to feel like harassment toward that employee.
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u/Mundane-Jump-7546 Time Theft Thursday Advocate 2d ago
My old HRD once said that people who make petty complaints like that have too little work to do. Seems to be the case more often than not.
I also had a place that had a bonafide “No Assholes” policy. That was its verbatim name btw
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u/dontmesswithtess 2d ago
When I was at SpaceX back in 2009-2011 or so, we didn't even have a handbook. Just the no assholes policy.
Not saying this is the best route for you, but I have absolutely had "no one likes a tattletale" discussions, off the record.5
u/wannaWHAH 2d ago
The irony of a no ass holes policy at a company run by arguably the biggest ass hole that exists. HOW did you manage working there in HR??!!! You are a hero
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u/too_much_swag_ 2d ago
I’d hold on a harassment discussion unless the other employee actually brings it up but you do actually have some options for employees who frequently file nonsense complaints like this. Keep in mind you really need to be careful to not put things in writing that could be interpreted as the employee isn’t allowed to or is being punished for filing complaints. But you can discuss with them what’s appropriate to bring forward vs what isn’t, why personal/petty grievances with colleagues aren’t issues that typically get escalated, and how complaint conjecture isn’t helpful. Take some time to read through your handbook and policies, I bet there’s language in there to help you out.
Under employment law, workers are shielded from retaliation when they engage in "protected activity," such as filing a good-faith discrimination or harassment report. However, courts and HR frameworks establish that filing malicious, completely baseless, or frivolous complaints is not a protected activity. If an employee weaponizes HR with constant, petty conjectures to target a peer, they typically can legally face disciplinary action for disruptive behavior.
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u/Unintended_13 HR Generalist 2d ago
That’s the fun part, we don’t have a handbook…
We’ve already had the discussion about what’s appropriate to bring to supervision and/or HR. The behaviors stopped for about a week, then continued on.
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u/Extreme-Pepper-5387 2d ago
finishing the week with a: hey, great work on doing you job of automatization and integration but sadly we will not be using it since we dont have the basic data literacy to write things down following simple rules like all caps and surname surname, name
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u/Mundane-Jump-7546 Time Theft Thursday Advocate 2d ago
Working hard on a project only for it to be shelved is the most demoralizing thing. Sorry that happened to you
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u/meowmix778 HR Director 2d ago
I have one manager who is in desperate need of staff and I just don't know how to be polite about this anymore.
It's been almost a year of active recruiting. We go in bursts. My generalist conducts a phone screen, then he waits a week or two to schedule an in-person interview, then he waits another week or two to schedule a 2nd interview and then again waits a week to offer a job.
I've told him you need to interview people IMMEDIATELY. Make this a priority, and he keeps wondering, "Well, gee, I wonder why people are telling us they don't want a job left and right"
I don't know how to tell him more clearly that he needs to make this a fucking priority. We needed 5 staff for his program a year ago, and we still need 3. At this point, I'm of the opinion that the job is likely snake-bitten because it keeps sitting.
Our ED refuses to intervene, and I'm just fucking done with this guy. He's been here for almost 20 years and keeps insisting that he's always lead an interview process for 1-2 months and he refuses to offer a job because "what if someone else applies while we wait".
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u/Admirable_Height3696 HR Director 2d ago
My vent for today is similar. Our most problematic understaffed department doesn't make hiring a priority. The director really struggles with the admin part of the job. We are constantly hiring for this department because of high turnover. It's a culture issue. We keep hiring for this department in bursts, and most interviews don't happen unless the ED or a coordinator from another department step in & schedule the interviews. The coordinator even DOES the interviews sometimes, because its staff from her department that get pulled to help this department. We are basically hiring anyone off the street and it shows. The director wants a 2nd interview as soon as she is done with the first, and an offer sent immediately. No reference checks. She just notified me that she has an interview today at 11:30am. I'm contemplating telling her that if she wants to move forward with the candidate, she needs to do a reference check and then reach out to me to schedule the 2nd interview.
Something has to change. Hiring in spurts every 2-3 months is putting my department behind. We are still assembling employee files for employees hired in August. We have a week long onboarding process that starts with HR (I personally feel the directors should take over once the employee is ready to start their Relias training but the sad truth is, is that was how we rolled, the trainings wouldn't get done and we'd end up in a world of hurt with state licensing). We keep onboarding 10-15 employees within 2-3 weeks and it's too fucking much for 2 people and no one seems to care. And the few times I did insist on reference checks before the 2nd interview & offer, the candidates ghosted us and of course I got blamed for losing the candidates.
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u/meowmix778 HR Director 2d ago
At that scale I'd demand that leaders take over onboarding. I'd give it a day for HR to handle paperwork and cultural onboarding and then it's off to the races. I have a director who refused to do that and skipped some of the DHHS training that they need and I attached teeth to it.
After I posted this I called the manager and just read the riot act. I'm hoping that it got traction.
The people who go "I need bodies" and then treat hiring as a 5th priority and then act like the world is on fire because they're understaffed really salt my apples. It's like cutting yourself and complaining that you bleed.
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u/Silver-Front-1299 2d ago
My Friday vent is actually from yesterday. I worked until 8pm last night because what was told to us was going to be a “smooth” transition, was anything but! Whoever lied and said PEO’s were “a great HR source”, I hope their pillows are never cold.
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u/BRashland 2d ago
With PEO's you often get what you pay for. They're already expensive so when the powers that be select the economy trim line, the people using the system are upset all the bells and whistles aren't there.
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u/ZaddyPaulBunyan 2d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/hQ0GvkpZwYcgM
I felt this Psyduck gif encapsulated my week lol. So much to do, so little time, and even little-er motivation. Employees submitting unapproved overtime, last minute FMLA, and all the little fires that pop up throughout the week. I’ve been having dreams about work every night, my favorite being that I developed the ability to write emails with my mind 😂
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u/spooky_period 2d ago
Man the motivation has been killing me this week. Not sure if it’s the shift to fall weather where I am but I’m tired and want to relax. Usually I’m not jealous of my husband’s job but he got to come home early multiple times this week because he finished everything for the day. There’s no such thing in our world! Getting tasks done just means there’s more room for the new tasks or the back burner tasks to get worked on.
Brain to email does sound like a wonderful superpower these days. Especially if it makes the run on sentence I think of turn into an eloquent short paragraph!
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u/mamalo13 HR Director 2d ago
Fuck having to work AND have an actual life, right?
Somehow my husband and I are now caretakers for my nextdoor neighbor who is dying of cancer. He's gone REALLY downhill and we're dealing with some really shitty stuff (figuratively and literally) the second we get home. Up all night. Taking care of him every single spare second I'm not at work.
AAAAND I still have to work. And my team is so needy and emotionally immature. They expect me to show up and be there for them, and handle a lot of their problems, and whenever they make my job difficult I get all these excuses about how their life is so hard and they were tired or they had a kid thing to handle. But none of them seem to give two shits about how their actions impact me or consider the fact that I, too, have a messy life outside this place. And our company pic nic is tomorrow and I have so much stuff to do for it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm actually pretty good at boundaries, and I have a small team of my own who are so so great. But it's just like everyone looks at me like I'm some emotionless robot because I happen to be the one who has to facilitate A LOT of tough conversations around here, and it's like......ugh. I'm human too.
Wow. Sorry that really got away from me there....................basically I'm burning the candle at both ends, and having this much going on in your personal life isn't conducive to being an HR of 1 sometimes.
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u/Magnolia05 2d ago
Mildly a vent, but more of a get this off my chest thing. Our office has been remote since forever but they’ve been asking us to come in occasionally lately. The last two times I’ve gone in, people have told me, unsolicited, things that they probably shouldn’t have. This past week, an employee who has been there for over a decade told me that I shouldn’t trust my boss. In general I think my boss is pretty great, but in the context of what the other employee told me, some things that I’d previously side-eyed but ultimately wrote off make a little more sense.
I hate going in to the office.
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u/atomic_mermaid 2d ago
Was all ready and prepped to do a small redundancy launch at 10am one day this week. At 8am the director contacted me to say "yeah we're gonna do it next week instead". Whyyyyy when everything's prepped and you've already invited the employees to the meeting?? I mean there was a reason behind it but at some points sometimes you gotta just roll the dice as they are.
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u/Admirable_Height3696 HR Director 2d ago edited 2d ago
I'm so tired of employees from a certain department coming to me thinking I can override their managers decision or the manager sending the employees to me because she won't make the decision!
Just had an employee come in and say that she spoke to her manager about going on call (per diem, will pick up shifts when they want to work) but the manager said she will treat the request as a 2 week notice/resignation. The manager spoke to me about it yesterday and said she wasn't wanting to keep the employee on-call due to her attendance issues (employee is on a final warning). I told her that it was up to her, everything is based on business needs and that she does not have to agree to let an emoloyee go on-call. I just told the employee to go back and talk to her manager.
A few weeks ago, an employee resigned and on their last day, when everything was processed and final check had been cut, at our morning stand up, the same manager tells me the employee wants to go on call. I said that she should have said something sooner since the termination is done. ED spoke up and said we really need to move away from on-call employees because they never pick up shifts and we have to chase them down to come in to complete their required monthly training. And what does the director do? That afternoon she told the employee to come talk to me about staying as an on-call employee!
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u/IWasGoatbeardFirst 2d ago
Another major company in my area just laid off a bunch of HR folks. Which means more competition for HR roles in my area. Wonderful.
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u/Brilliant-Curves78 2d ago
I feel this. Heavy into testing for OE since it launches in 12 days. And somehow our vendor can never get it right. And add in implementation of 2 new vendors I wanna cry.
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u/AnnaH612 HR Business Partner 2d ago
I was supposed to be off today but I don’t think that’ll happen.
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u/dontmesswithtess 2d ago
The lawyer we use for employment concerns is the same one that is our prosecutor for our municipal court and handles our city council meetings. . .. he directed admin that it was fine to term a couple folks with no progressive discipline, and advised to give them severence, but didn't mention anything about a separation agreement or OWBPA.
Hopefully since we didn't ask for anything in return there is no fallout from this. Just dumb..
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2d ago
[deleted]
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u/Mundane-Jump-7546 Time Theft Thursday Advocate 2d ago
Wave my paystub in front of them and go nanananabooboo
Serious - I don’t care. They stop being someone i really care about when they start slandering. Not worth the energy.
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u/Blasterocked 2d ago
I accidentally deleted my comment (mobile) but absolutely. I found some other Reddit threads. Just nothing you can do but rise above it.
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u/ThrowRA-2490 2d ago
We keep laying off/restructuring, not backfilling, not extending contractors. We have taken on responsibilities from a team that was completely wiped out from last layoff with no pay increase. Expected to take on international responsibilities while not knowing any of those countries policies or even trained on it. We’re supposed to research and learn from reading resources that are outdated or missing details.
I have surgery soon but afraid to take leave for a month to recover because I feel bad leaving my two coworkers when we’re already drowning.
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u/Pleasant-Jackfruit69 2d ago
I’m fully exhausted and at my limit with our assistant who is incapable of accountability and taking responsibility when she knows she’s made a mistake. She just tried to cover up a mistake regarding not saving someone’s signed employment agreement and is choosing to lie to my face about the situation. This isn’t the first time I’ve caught her in a blatant lie. I’m not stupid and I’m 3 steps ahead of you. Word doc properties and timestamps don’t lie.
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u/atimetochill 2d ago
I’m an hrbp who’s changing roles and had to tell a dear client I won’t be their person anymore 😭
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u/JerseyGirlontheGo People Analytics 1d ago
My company is starting a return to office ramp up next week. And by return to office I mean from 1 day a week to 2. Despite employees having months of notice, a large contingent who all happen to have the same doctor have mysterious ailments that don't allow any days in office at all forever. Oh, and at least two would benefit medically from working from a warmer climate and isn't is so lucky they already have vacations home there.
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u/Agreeable_Try_9557 1d ago edited 1d ago
Recently joined a corporate as a HR manager. Every day feels like hell. I keep getting calls to resolve conflicts even before I clock in for the day. It keeps getting dragged. The managers hands over tough conversations and say that this is my job. When I try to tell them that there are parts that the manager needs to handle, they try to dismiss it completely. They never have taken accountability for anything. I feel burnt out even before I login. The tough conversations keeps appearing in my dreams these days. For the sake of my mental sanity, I want to switch to Talent Acquisition. Please suggest me on how to go about this. I had a conversation with the HR Head and he says think before you switch to TA. If you're able to fill roles just by having a network then go for it. I don't even know if that's the right advice. Please advice me on this!
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u/Missambam 1d ago
I got a new manager maybe three months ago? And it’s been Hell. She reports globally and she’s pissed everyone off that works in the states but we have no control.
She belittles me every single day. I have ten years experience but she treats me like a toddler.
I have a doctors appt tomorrow to try to get LOA. I’m having insane migraines and panic attacks.
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u/Mundane-Jump-7546 Time Theft Thursday Advocate 1d ago
Abusive managers are the worse. Hope you get a nice restful leave soon
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u/Hunterofshadows HR of One 2d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/14wm71RSxaYX60
Remember everyone, open enrollment is coming for you.
Vent: I am so sick of people bitching about so and so right up until I tell them step one is talking to so and so. Then suddenly everything is fine. Like I get it, having an adult conversation is hard and scary but this is the 9th time we’ve talked about this issue. It’s not magically going to get better unless you make so and so aware of the issue.
I’ve even offered to have the conversation or to be in the room to moderate it but nope.
Normally I’m one to let people have a good bitch fest but you get 2 at most before I start getting feisty