Thursday, September 3, 2009

I Should Have Been a Pre-School Teacher...

An employee, in her late 20's/early 30's sent me an email this morning. It read, "I know you're very busy and there's a lot going on, but can I please come down and talk to you? It's not urgent, but it's pretty important." I told her to come down. This is what she said:

Employee: There's a girl in my department who calls me a nickname and *sniff*, I don't know what to dooooooo!

Me: What does she call you?

Emp: Queen Bee

Me: Ok, have you asked her to stop?

Emp: *crying* Nuuhh-uu-hh

Me: Ok. Have you thought about just asking her to not call you that?

Emp: *sniffle* Yes, but I didn't want her to be mad at me. *snuffle* I don't want to cause any problems or anything.

Me: Ok, hmm. Does she say it in a mean way? I mean, does she have an aggressive tone of voice or expression?

Emp: Nuh-uh.

Me: Hmm. Ok. Um, are you here because you'd like me to ask her to stop calling you that?

Emp: *snifflesnort* Whull, yeah. Um, I mean, I don't want to make a big deal out of it or anything because I don't want her to be mad at me.

Me: So, ok...Do you think she would be less upset by being called down to HR & being talked to? Do you think if you just maybe said, "Hey, um, I know you're just goofing around, but can you not call me that?"

Emp: *gulp* Yabbut, I'm afraid if I say something to her about it, she'll get upset & think I'm being a baby.

REALLY???? Why in the world would she ever think you're being a baby? *sigh* How do you function?

People, your Human Resources department is there to help you and make sure you're being treated fairly and everyone's following all the rules and crap, but we are NOT here to be your mom! In fact, if you act like this, your mom should be fucking smacked for failing to teach you to put on your big girl/boy panties and grow the hell up.

9 comments:

x said...

Oh my goodness gracious. She was the little crying brat on the playground that hugged on the teachers in elementary school because no one paid attention to her at home.
Grow up! Seriously, sometimes I think I would like a job in an HR capacity, but I just don't know how you deal with people like this!

Sarah said...

Dude. Sometimes it's okay to kill them. Honest.

Spender said...

"Queen Bee"?
Seriously?
Jebus, try working in a beer distributor's warehouse with a bunch of redneck frat-boys.
How we managed so few lawsuits in the two years I was there astounds me.
HR people are there for cases like Mrs. Spender's, who was a victim of attempted sexual assault by our general manager. By the time they were done with the guy, he joined the Methodist Church and became a minister.
And THAT is why I love HR.

Eyvi Sprite said...

I'm with Sarah, you'd be doing yourself and the rest of us a favour.

I'm non-confrontational. If something has bothered me I usually ignore it. But if something bothered me so much that it brought me to tears, you can be damn sure I wouldn't make an ass of myself crying to someone else.

Snuggiepants said...

This is why I can't work in HR: she would annoy me SO much I would say "Queen Bee? That's HILARIOUS! I'M GONNA START CALLING YOU THAT! QUEEN BEE!"

Lainey said...

You guys, seriously, I have conversations this retarded EVERY day. I could post one stupid thing each day and you would think I was lying. True story!

Whorish Mouth - YES! She has kids. I'm SO curious about life at their house. I can't imagine what life is like for their teachers.

Sarah - I'll check the handbook, but um, I don't think that's actually true...

Spender - Sorry that happened to Mrs. Spender, but I'm not gonna' lie, it's so damn nice to hear someone say they love HR. That NEVER happens! =)

Eyvi - I know, right?

Snuggiepants - I am such an asshole, I can't believe it didn't even occur to me to "jokingly" call her that as she left!

Girl With Curious Hair said...

You should have told her it was a compliment. She probably would have believed you.

Have you used 'co-irkers' before? Because it's brilliant.

Anna von Beaverplatz said...

Ahhahahahah! This is an amazing story. Sometimes I want to work in HR so I could mock all these people all the live long day. Then I remember about how you can't do that anymore, because it's harassment, and I remember about all the paperwork, and dealing with insurance and disability and unemployment and no thank you. You are a special chick, Lainey my girl. I do not know how you do it.

Cindy said...

Good grief. I think I would have slapped her. You showed great restraint.