A light hearted blog post, which cancels out the fact that the last one was about TUPE.  A recent blog post by @jsarahwatsHR (which was much more professional than this one) mentioned that situation when a manager wants you to deal with a nasty situation for them.  Links to the other discussions and threads here: lnkd.in/c4nNYK 

 Discussions on Twitter lead to the hashtag #hrrightsofpassage suggested by @TimScottHR . Here are a few of my light hearted situations that I think may have tasked many a HR professional.  So, you haven’t really worked in HR until:

1.  A line manager has tried to make you tell an employee that they smell.  Because they don’t want to do it themselves (this one was from @jsarahwatsHR). 
2. You bodged a hire.  You know the one.  They turn up for the interview all normal.  Then on the day they start they have been replaced by someone from Venus.  Or Broadmoor. 
3. You have to deal with an employee who has been downloading / watching pornography on the intranet.  And you have to check out exactly what it was they were looking at as part of the investigation.
4. An employee says a family member has died so they need to take some time off work.  Only they haven’t.
5. You’ve had to deal with a drunk employee.
6. Had a disciplinary hearing go horribly wrong.  I once had to chase an employee through a very large call centre who was intent on causing physical harm to his line manager after reading the evidence.  Even the security guard legged it. 
7. An employee brings you all their personal problems, and you have to start bulk buying Kleenex. 
8. An employee turns up a  disciplinary / grievance / appeal and hands you an explanation of the relevant legislation.  From Wikipedia.  Just in case you don’t know what you are doing.  
9. Someone asks you to take responsibility for something that has absolutely nothing to do with HR.  Fill your own blank in here, but some suggestions from me: sorting out issues with cleaners, vending machines that have eaten money, anything to do with reception, etc.
10. You catch fleas on a home visit.  Yes this happened to me.  No it was not very nice. 

 What were your HR Rights of Passage?  Add them to the hashtag!