HRendous Week

I LOVE the TV show “The Office.” I could watch that show all day every day. There are some things that happen on the show that are a real testament to what it’s like to work in an office, but there are also some things that occur that just would NEVER be allowed to happen in my HR world (mostly the antics of Michael and Dwight). For those of you who are foolish and are not watching this show, the idea behind it is that a documentary film crew is around at all times capturing the action and frequently the office employees talk one on one to the camera to express their secret thoughts and feelings. Today I am making this blog my own personal documentary camera crew so I can share with you my secret thoughts and feelings about my office job.

So…..speaking of my HR world, let me tell you it has been an interesting time in my sphere of influence lately. For a little background info, I’ve been working at my company for almost 9 years now. Next year, I’ll have been here over 9 years and will start to accrue 4 weeks of vacation annually – COLOR ME HAPPY. But it’s certainly no secret to those of you who know me that lately things have been rocky. I’m not going to rehash what you already know, but suffice it to say when you work in HR, going through 6 layoffs in less than two years’ time is rough. Each one does not get easier, instead it gets more personal.
Most of you probably don’t know what I really do every day. Maybe you think perhaps I create iTunes playlists all day (sometimes I do!). But I want to tell you a little about the week I just had. Here are a few things that I’ve dealt with over the past 5 days:

• An employee returning from leave of absence due to a certain addiction this liberal country considers protected under the Americans With Disabilities Act called me because he was had not received his paycheck yet. I had to find out why and deal with his attitude and phone calls every hour.
• Employee returning from Maternity Leave did not provide the documentation we need to accept her back.
• An Employee resigned and we asked him not bother coming back in to work through his notice.
• Another employee resigned. My boss asked me to throw an office party in her honor and order her an engraved memento in gratitude for her years of service.
• 4 female employees started a leave of absence due to various illnesses and causes. I advised several of them about filing for disability.
• My employee on Maternity leave decided she does want to come back to work, so I had to tell her replacement that we would no longer be needing her to work for us anymore. If there’s nothing I hate more, it’s telling someone they are out of a job, even if it only was temporary to begin with.
• I organized and threw the office party for the girl who’s leaving. I created an iTunes playlist of songs (including Oingo Boingo’s ‘Goodbye, Goodbye’) and hooked it to the speakers here at work and played the songs during lunch. She loved the engraved crystal vase I ordered her.
• I advised a manager on how to write-up her employee who yelled at her and was completely insubordinate to her but later apologized and thought that would erase it.
• Advised two managers who found beer in the refrigerator of one of our division sales offices. They now have to issue a warning about violation of our ethics policy.
• Witnessed a violent altercation of words between two co-workers who work next to me. I was so uncomfortable listening to it that I kept my head low and my eyebrows raised. Had to get upper levels of HR involved on this one and the term “hostile work environment” was uttered (by them, not me). I’ve never heard such anger being spewed in an office before, and considering the guy I used to work for that is saying something.
• Spoke with another female employee on leave due to her recent surgery, asking if she can work from home.
• Dealt with two former employees who called me claiming we owe them more money than they were paid out before they left. One lady’s claim to more dough goes back two years. TWO YEARS. Why she waited two years to mention it, I cannot guess.
• Worked with our Worker's Comp Claims adjustor on a file for one of our employees who filed a claim, cannot return to work because she supposedly is in so much pain, yet we discovered through an investigator while she's been off work, she has been going to school to earn her master's degree. Needless to say, this one will be going to arbitration.

It is a week like this that really makes me wish there was a Jim and Pam romance in my life:

Or maybe an opportunity to encase my co-worker’s stapler in Jell-O:

I’d even welcome a Michael-esque team building excursion at this point: But since it is Friday, I’ll settle for a quiet weekend at home working on my scrapbooking at watching reruns of The Office instead.