No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Two of my co-workers brought a situation to me that needed to be fixed immediately. I questioned that because we were in the middle of Payroll processing and employee records should not be corrected during that time frame.

Considering that one of the people who brought the problem to my attention was from Payroll, I assumed it was ok. I was still against it mainly because it sends out the wrong idea to the other departments. They will go on thinking that it's ok to request changes in the middle of Payroll processing.

Anyway, I corrected the employee's record and sent a little note to the departments involved (seen below).

"Hello
Although we understand the employee's frustration of working and not getting paid correctly, amending employment records in the middle of Payroll processing is not ideal. This correction was an exception. The employee actually contacted us (HR) a few times wanting updates on her situation. We would have preferred to discuss her situation with you and then you with her, instead of with her directly. This usually creates "HR said/My department said" type of misunderstandings... At any rate, it's been taken care of on the Records side. Now Payroll will take care of it on their end.Thanks and have a great weekend!"

This is the response I received from one of the departments involved:

"First off I want to emphasize that the employee was NEVER instructed by this office to contact HR, although I can understand why she may have felt it was necessary. Also, ss no one from HR contacted this office letting us know that the employee has spoken directly with you, we had no way of addressing the situation with her."

Then she quotes numerous emails between HR, her department and the other department involved. All with red and bold notes to show how responsible she is and what a piece of crap HR is.

"As you can see, the concern with getting this employee on the payroll had been going on for over a month. Please know that we were doing everything in our power to get it done and follow the rules. We just kept running into brick walls."

Notice how there was no "Thank You HR for getting this employee into the system in the middle of Payroll processing!" Although I should be used to this, sometimes this attitude (seen often) drives me bonkers!