Things you want to say to employees but can't because you're professional...

"I am not the poo police"

Hi Vicky
There has to be a story behind this!

Just when I think it goes through a quiet patch, my lovely employees provide me with more material for this thread!

1. No, it's not possible I "made a typo" on your P60 because you "feel like I paid more tax than that". They are non-editable forms with data fed straight from your payslips (and if you want to 'threaten' me that you will check it by adding up all the tax from your payslips, you go right ahead. Oh you've lost 8 out of the 12 months' payslips and you'd like me to re-print them for you? My total pleasure, and that doesn't in any way make me doubt the accuracy of your perception of tax you've paid...)

2. No, I can't backdate your pension contributions to February "because that's when you first reminded me my opt-out would run out in June and I meant to do something about it earlier but I forgot." I can enrol you right now, but only going forwards, due to not having an actual time machine.

3. [This one from an interview candidate who pitched so relentlessly I felt like I was on the Apprentice board - we are NOT a pitch/sales-based industry so it was wildly off-base as an interview approach]:
Candidate "So now that I've shown you all the amazing things I can do, it's time for you to give me a breakdown of how the interview's going. How close am I to getting the job?!"
Me [out loud] I always give my full attention to each candidate during their interview, so I won't be taking an overview until after all the interviews have concluded.
Me [in my head] Do NOT look at other panel member who I can feel trembling with either suppressed horror or hilarity. If I have to work with this person, I'll have to quit. WHO BRINGS THEIR INSTAGRAM FEED to an interview and makes the panel look at it? WHO???

So, having moved to a new office with dubious plumbing I was accosted by a colleague who said I “needed to sort out the blocked toilets. There is poo everywhere”

I politely informed her she needed to address her concerns to the office manager, not the HR manager as I am responsible for people, not their poo.

I had a complaint that someone had smeared excrement in the Ladies' toilet. As a small company, we don't have a facilities team, and our cleaners categorically don't do human waste.

So guess who rolled up his sleeves and found a pair of rubber gloves and a bucket?

But to Sarah's those are great! I have conversations like that first one all the time. I'm going through a grievance at the moment in which an employee is complaining that we made sickness absence deductions when he took a week off after injuring himself at work, despite the fact that he admitted he had been given the correct equipment, failed to properly assess the work or the risks involved and that it was entirely his fault. I have been biting my tongue a lot over that one.

The third one is hilarious, though. I fear your candidate may have read lots of online "advice", because that question about "how close am I to getting the job?" sounds like the sort of thing US recruitment bloggers would recommend. And everyone wants to be an "influencer" these days. My Instagram feed is just a procession of tiny painted soldiers...

With my H&S hat on (yes, I do have one) I might whisper quietly that the concept of the "Careless Worker" absolving employers from responsibility for injury has been history for some considerable time; failures such as you report now being considered as matters of poor training and supervision, but since you got away with improperly (if deservedly) withholding this guy's pay (this time) I won't. :-)

On a brighter note, however, your story does remind me of a time when, following a disciplinary investigation, I discovered (by being told) that an employee had scrawled abuse about me all over a toilet in our warehouse and the guys finding it had got together and cleaned it all off so that I wouldn't know!

That time all I wanted to say was: "Thank you", but couldn't as that would have defeated their object, and also let down the person who told me.

P

Or kitchen monitor!

"work generally forms part of the employment contract, you should try it some time"

How many times have I so wanted to say that!