HR departments are supposed to solve payroll problems, not make them worse.

So when one employee submitted his PTO request a month in advance, confirmed it was received, and still came home from vacation to no paycheck, the HR manager was quick to blame him.

What followed was a battle to get paid that he shouldn’t have had to fight.

Keep reading for the full story.

The Tale of the Fight Against HR

The brand I work for earns PTO by the hour.

It’s 1.3 hours — or something like that, I never bothered with the math — for every 40 hours worked.

I worked a 50+ hour week, so I typically earned a bit more PTO than most.

This employee had a particular system for accounting for his PTO hours.

I would usually bank these hours so that right after Christmas, my wife and I could go visit her parents 1,000 miles away in another state for about 8 days or so without worry about losing pay, especially since we were trying to get my wife’s photography business off the ground.

Being the sole source of income is not a fun stress, but it’s worth it to support her dreams and passions.

Now, our PTO requests are required to be put in at minimum two weeks in advance.

In my chronically neurotic anxiety heap of a mind, I always have to put requests in as early as possible.

So the employee diligently left plenty of approval time for his request, and everything appeared to be in order.

So, one month before our vacation — which had already been approved — I put in the request for the PTO. I dated the form, stuck it in my manager’s box, and took a picture of it, just to be safe.

The day before I left, I confirmed with my manager that my request was received, sent to HR, and everything was good to go.

He confirmed it was all good to go.

But this was unfortunately far from the case.

It was not all good to go. It was not simpatico.

We had our vacation and got home and back to reality.

On my next payday, I looked on my mobile bank app and saw no deposit. None whatsoever.

I was obviously not happy. My wife was obviously not happy. Nobody was happy. I drank more than usual that day.

So he decided to call HR to figure out what was up.

But, before the alcohol binge, I hopped on the phone to give a ring to the HR department. I immediately got the manager.

Me: “Hello HRM, it’s TinyNuggins. I put in over a month ago for PTO and it seems I haven’t gotten paid.”

HRM (HR Manager): “Well then you obviously didn’t put it in.”

The employee quickly defends himself.

What? No “I’m sorry?” No “That must be really frustrating?” No “Let me look into that for you?”

Nope. Just a condescending placing of the blame on myself for her department’s mistake and/or negligence.

Me: “I’m sorry, but I put in for it over a month ago. My manager confirmed to me that it was turned in and I was all set.”

HR continues to be unsympathetic.

HRM: “I don’t know what to tell you — we don’t have it, so you must have done it wrong, or didn’t do it at all.”

Me: “I can assure you that’s not true, but either way, I need to be paid for this last week. I can’t afford to miss a paycheck.”

HRM: *long exasperated sigh of frustration* “Fine. We’ll fix it this time for you, but you need to make sure you have it in on time next time.”

Whatever. I accepted that she’d be true to her word and fix it, so I started drinking the frustration away.

But things were far from solved.

Next week, on payday, when I should have been getting two paychecks — the missing PTO and the week I came in to work after the vacation — nothing. Just the one paycheck for the week I was clocked in.

Not okay.

This time I stayed late and went to the HR office after work to meet with them in person.

Me: “Hello HRM, I still did not get that PTO check you said you’d fix for me.”

HR is already annoyed, once again.

HRM: *long exasperated sigh of frustration* “I know.”

Me: “You know?” (How would she know already?)

HRM: “Our generalist made a mistake processing it. You won’t get it until next week.”

This is obviously a huge deal to the employee.

Me: “Okay, I get it. But is there any way we can speed this along? I really can’t afford to just miss a paycheck.”

HRM: “Well, you should have done it right the first time, and you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

At this point, I was fed up and tired of her attitude.

The employee continues to plead his case.

Me: “I’m sorry, but no. I did put it in correctly and on time. Here —” *shows her picture on phone* “— my manager can confirm as well that it was correct and on time.”

HRM: “Well, how do I know you didn’t just do that and take a picture of it? And I don’t appreciate your accusatory tone.”

Me: “I just need to get paid. Please. It shouldn’t be this difficult. I need it as soon as possible.”

I turned and left before I started yelling.

But HR was in absolutely no rush.

You’d think I’d get paid at least by the next payday.

Nope. It took a full month before I finally got my PTO check.

A full month.

I took the opportunity to file an official complaint against the Head of HR — not so much for the missing paycheck, but for the dismissive attitude she had toward my situation.

HR did budge a little, but the employee suspected there would be plenty of trouble down the road.

I ended up getting an email from her wherein she apologized for how I reacted to the situation.

To me, this just sealed her fate as my arch-nemesis.

I certainly won that battle, but the war was far from over!

No one should be forced to fight this hard for a paycheck they rightfully earned.

What did Reddit think?

This user would continue to push for more punishment towards this HR manager.

This really wasn’t even an apology.

This former HR rep seemed to take a much more humanistic approach.

This employee is used to double- and triple-checking everything when it comes to HR.

This story may just take the cake as the tale of one of the worst HR managers of all time.

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.