Employee shares how he got out of a difficult position with HR just by being honest

Sometimes, taking things into your hands, quite literally can work wonders. Similarly, u/civiljourney realized this when his direct approach helped him in dealing with a difficult hand given to him by his HR. The nature of his work was such that it was impossible for him to fulfill the demands put forward by his company. His superior was also not making the situation any easier for him. Therefore, he decided to take the route of confrontation, which most of the time never ends positively in corporations. However, in a hilarious turn of events, he managed to get the attention off of himself, by just being "honest."

He began by describing the conditions of his workplace. He stated that in the past he worked on an hourly basis even though the features attached to the job should have given him a salaried position. The demands of the work were such that he needed to be available at odd hours. Despite the overtime and odd hours, he was instructed to clock in and out at a particular time, and also work fewer overtime hours, since they did not want to pay extra. Another particular demand put forth by them was to take lunch at a set time.

It was impossible for him to cater to these demands and he began to get reported by HR every time he missed following any of the protocols. They went straight to his supervisor. After several such reports, he was called by the supervisor. He made a compelling case for himself, but the supervisor told him to point blank, "I don't want to see these anymore." He replied, "OK I'll make sure you don't have to see them anymore." Being an earnest employee he ensured that the supervisor's message reached the right people.

The employee went straight to HR and passed his supervisor's message, that his supervisor didn't want to see these reports anymore. Surprisingly, the HR complied, and the reports stopped coming. In his opinion, they never double-checked with the supervisor, because they were also aware of the fact that it was impossible to adhere to these demands with the nature of the job. There were no more reports and the employee continued to thrive with the supervisor being extremely happy with his job.

He later shared about this incident with his co-worker. After listening to everything the co-worker remarked, "I don't think that's what they meant when they said that." The employee does not have full knowledge about the intention behind the message. All he knows is that his superior gave him a task, and he fulfilled it to the best of his abilities. For him, the important fact is that all the parties were happy in the end.

The comment section was mostly elated to hear the story, as it was one of the few times an employee was able to one-up the HR, rather than be exploited themselves. Moreover, all of this happened without the use of any kind of lie. u/ResponseMountain6580 was impressed by the way the OP handled the situation, "Fantastic. I love a literal interpretation." u/Renbarre brought the other side of the story, "I work in HR/Payroll, this is exactly the kind of situation that makes us tear our hair off in frustration because we have to do those reports and we know that they are totally unfair, stupid, worthless, demotivating, and a waste of time. Well played. I wouldn't have checked either."

This article originally appeared on 8.31.23.