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Employers Share Top 20 Strangest Complaints They Received from Employees in New CareerBuilder Survey

CHICAGO, August 12, 2009 - In the midst of a stressful employment environment, hiring managers took some time to bring a little levity to the workplace. More than 2,600 hiring managers participated in a nationwide survey from CareerBuilder, citing examples of the oddest complaints they received from employees. Highlights include:


  • Employee is too sun-tanned.

  • Employee has big hair.

  • Employee eats all the good cookies.

  • Employee is so polite, it’s infuriating.

  • Employee suspected co-worker is a pimp.

  • Employee is trying to poison me.

  • Employee’s body is magnetic and keeps de-activating my magnetic access card.

  • Employee is personally responsible for a federally-mandated tax increase.

  • Employee was annoyed the company didn’t provide a place for naps during break

    • time.
  • Employee only wears slippers or socks at work.

  • Employee’s aura is wrong.

  • Employee smells like road ramps.

  • Employee breathes too loudly.

  • Employee wants to check a co-worker for ticks.

  • 8:00 a.m. is too early to get up for work.

  • Employee wore pajamas to work.

  • Employee has bells on her shoes and it’s not the holidays.

  • Co-worker reminded the employee too much of Bambi.

  • Employee spends too much time caring for stray cats around the building.

  • A male employee keeps using the ladies’ room because the men’s room is not as tidy.

Survey Methodology
This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Interactive© on behalf of CareerBuilder.com between May 22 and June 10, 2009 among 2,667 hiring managers and human resource professionals (employed full-time; not self-employed; with at least significant involvement in hiring decisions; non- government) ages 18 and over. With a pure probability sample of 2,667 one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/- 1.9 percentage points. Sampling error for data from sub-samples is higher and varies.

About CareerBuilder
CareerBuilder is the global leader in human capital solutions, helping companies target and attract their most important asset – their people. Its online career site, CareerBuilder.com, is the largest in the U.S. with more than 23 million unique visitors, 1 million jobs and 32 million resumes. CareerBuilder works with the world’s top employers, providing resources for everything from employment branding and data analysis to talent acquisition. More than 9,000 Web sites, including 140 newspapers and broadband portals such as MSN and AOL, feature CareerBuilder’s proprietary job search technology on their career sites. Owned by Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE:GCI), Tribune Company, The McClatchy Company (NYSE:MNI) and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT), CareerBuilder and its subsidiaries operate in the U.S., Europe, Canada and Asia. For more information, visit www.careerbuilder.com

CareerBuilder Media Contact
For all media inquiries and interview requests, contact:

Jennifer Grasz
(P) 773-527-1164
(E) jennifer.grasz@careerbuilder.com