Work is bad enough as it is without terrible co-workers like these making our lives even MORE miserable. From creepy weirdos to psychotic Karens, you couldn't pay us enough to work with these people.
1. Stranger Than Fiction
Many years ago, the bookshop I worked at in the UK hired a new employee with terminal cancer. It was very sad since she was quite young. She wasn't around too much due to the chemotherapy, but when she was in, she worked in the children's department, and she was actually a pretty good salesperson. She was also was a huge fan of a fairly major American children's author.
She ran the UK branch of his fan club and knew him personally. He occasionally flew her out to the States for events. One day, she wasn't in, and all employees were called to a staff meeting. We were informed that she had passed. There was a lot of sadness, and her close colleagues were devastated. Then, we found out the jaw-dropping truth.
A few days later, one of our staff happened to go into a branch of McDonald’s in a nearby town. Guess who was working behind the counter? Go on, guess. Turns out, she was never ill. She had made the whole cancer thing up and also faked her own death for reasons that we never really fully understood. The general consensus was that it started out as a way to connect with her favorite author and kind of spiraled from there.
In the end, she couldn't handle living the lie anymore and so... she had her mother tell people that she’d passed. Then she got a job at McDonald's a few miles down the road and was surprised when she got found out. That was a pretty what-the-heck sort of experience for us all.
2. Work Is A Four-Letter Word
I was a supervisor at a movie theatre. We had a new hire, who had been on the job less than a week, throw a very loud, unbelievably childish tantrum in front of a lobby full of customers. It was a sight to behold. And why'd she do it? Because her direct supervisor asked her to sweep up some popcorn that a customer spilled. She kept screaming, "I ain't cleaning up someone else's mess! Make them do it!"
She was 24 years old. The meltdown she had when she got fired for her tantrum was nuclear, with lots of screaming and threats about how her parents were going to "call the company and get everyone fired!" The next day, someone claiming to be her dad did call and told us that we were “going to rehire my daughter and apologize to her or else."
But nothing more came of it—the top manager just laughed and hung up. I've never seen such an epic, entitled tantrum before or since.
3. The Tip Of The Iceberg
The finance director was having an affair with his assistant, who was married to a different employee in the company. That's not the insane part, though. What's insane is how we found out. I was the HR director at the time, and a court investigation is still underway, so some details have been changed. One day, the CEO approached me about rumors of the finance director’s affair.
In retrospect, maybe I should've dug into it, but things were busy enough, so I discouraged him from listening to scuttlebutt. I said we should only worry if we thought there was an operational impact. Private lives are private, in my opinion. A few weeks later, our auditors got in touch to point out that a subcontractor had the same company name as a dormant business owned by the finance director.
A quick call to him followed and he confirmed that it was a mere coincidence. “That's funny,” said the auditor, “Because it has the same tax number, too.” Whoops! Things happened quickly after that. The finance director, who was on holiday, resigned before we could push him with extreme prejudice. But at the end of the investigation, it turned out that he had set up a pal to work as a subcontractor so he could cream the profits off work sent his way.
Plus, he'd also been making creative use of the company credit card and had authorized a company loan to himself. A check of the company cell phone records showed that there had been communication between his ex-assistant and him since he jumped. So we recovered her phone, examined the SMS history, and found out not only that she was telling him about the progress of our internal investigation, but also the full history of their affair, with explicit detail.
The assistant's marriage imploded. She resigned. In the end, the whole affair swept up multiple employees who'd been involved in the scheme, gutted the finance team, and taught us all some valuable lessons.
4. We’re All Friends Here
I was the head night auditor at an upscale airport hotel. We had a young night auditor who put a room into “out of order” status and let his friends party in it...for a literal key party that he joined in on during his lunch break. He got caught because of a noise complaint. We called the authorities, and he was fired and blacklisted from being hired back.
5. I’m Special
Early in my Navy career, there was this kid whose after-hours stunts were absolutely legendary. He was a nice guy who always seemed to be smiling, but the stories about his off-duty antics were just insane. Nothing crazy dark, just WILD. For example, he solicited a contract marriage on Craigslist, with benefits. He also paid his “wife” an allowance as part of the contract.
He loved to pay for intimacy while he drove around with someone else in the back seat— he’d pay them to sit there, too. He has a big, weird list of bedroom proclivities. Anyway, it finally got to the point where his supervisor was concerned enough to refer him to a mental health specialist. By the way, that does not happen in the Navy. Usually, you'd be hung out to dry or end up behind bars LONG before anyone ever considers the mental health option.
He ended up being the only guy I’ve ever known to be a medically diagnosed psychopath. As he put it, smiling, “They said I have an inability to experience human empathy!” He had to go home.
6. The Case Of The Disappearing Co-worker
We had an assistant who plotted to get me fired and take my job. Some of my workers let me know, because he tried to get them on board with him. Eventually, due to work politics, I was demoted, but asked to be put on the shift relieving him. After being called in to relieve him by phone a couple of times, which is against the rules, I intentionally came in four hours early. It was finally time to get my revenge.
Surprise surprise, he was nowhere on site. I still got a call from him, as if he was on site and needed to be relieved. I let the guards know. They videotaped him and I got him fired.
7. Mental Health Check
He was a new hire. He was kind of weird and definitely suffering from a lack of social skills, but whatever. Well, fast forward a few days—a customer came back to return a piece of merchandise. When they told me why, my stomach dropped. They said when they got the product home, they noticed it was covered in someone's blood. We looked. Yeah, there was blood. Lots. We looked up the transaction, which was only made about 45 minutes earlier.
The new hire had set it up. We went to find him, but he wasn't in his department. But that was not necessarily a big deal, since we had to go back into the warehouse for stuff all the time. So now we went to find him in the back and there he was, in the warehouse, cutting himself with a razor blade and bleeding all over the place.
8. Do You Know Who I Am?
I was working in a bank. We had a teller who was about 19 years old and he got really angry at the way a customer would send in her deposits at the drive-up window. He ended up complaining about the customer on a public Facebook post. But, oh, that was far from all. He also tagged the lady, as well as her store, in the post!
The customer, who was furious of course, called the bank and told me. I told the customer we would investigate, and then I asked the teller. He straight-up admitted it, saying, "What's she going to do about it? My grandfather is friends with the bank president." I called HR and the bank president on a conference call.
The girl lost her job in less than 15 minutes of me receiving the call from the customer. Breach of customer confidentiality in banking is a MAJOR no-no.
9. Power Plays
I worked in a factory. There was a kid whose father was the regional manager, so he felt like he could do whatever he wanted. Spoiled brat doesn't begin to describe him. This kid was maybe 18 years old and went around flashing a blade at people he didn’t like...which was basically everyone. It had a six-inch blade and he kept it under his shirt in a holster. He also harassed all the women, never did any work and blamed the temps for his failures.
He would constantly be pushing up against women and telling them what he wanted to do to them, and he even took personal information from the computers for employee records to get their phone numbers and addresses. How he got access was easy—the manager above him let him use the computer with his password whenever he wanted because he always pulled the “I can do what I want because my dad is the regional manager" card.
He had tons of complaints against him. The authorities even showed up once and detained him at work, but nothing ever came of it. They took his blade as far as I know, but he had a new one a week later. Before I left, he was made a full manager, and whenever anyone went directly to his dad, his dad just sighed and kind of zoned out, acting like he couldn’t hear. That was the last straw for me.
It was a messed up place, but luckily it closed down a few years back. I don’t know where he’s at now. A funny detail to add is some girl there did actually date him for like a month for some reason. She said it was literally the worst intimacy she ever had, so we got to have a laugh at him for a few days. That said, they had a massive argument and she was “let go” the next day when they broke up.
10. Imperfect Strangers
I found out that this guy was stalking a female employee. We worked at a 24-hour retailer and she was a morning shift worker while he was a night shift worker. Basically, there was no way they knew each other. Then, one day, I was filling in for a different manager and he came into the break room, taking pictures of the morning shift schedule.
I asked him why and he told me some story about another employee who just wanted him to send their schedule to them. I came in on my day off later that week during the day shift and caught him staring at her from a different aisle while she was stocking. She had no idea. The full story was so creepy, though. He would follow her home and watch her house and all that.
She was 17, he was 38. I called the authorities and had him escorted off the property. I also helped her get in touch with the right resources for a restraining order. He ended up violating the order multiple times and the last I heard, he’s behind bars.
11. The Doctor Is Out
I used to work at a rural hospital in Texas. We had a surgeon who was always asking the assisting nurses to leave the OR to get some random supplies. Fun fact: you are never supposed to have only one person in the OR, but he would always figure out some way. These were minimally invasive surgeries that just required sedation, so there were no other assists besides nurses.
He was the only physician. The door would also “mysteriously” lock and the nurse would have to knock to get back in. One of our nurses got fed up and knew something was going on, so she set up her phone to video him. That footage still haunts me to this day. It turned out he had been taking his, uh, “manhood” out around the patient. He was of course fired, but horrifically, he did not lose his license.
12. I Don’t Like The Cut Of His Jib
This guy was teasing another employee really, really badly. Like, American high school movies in the '80s badly. The reason? He was from out of town. That was it. I thought there HAD to be more to the drama, so I went to the location, interviewed a few people, watched it happen myself, and…yeah, it seemed like this guy could NOT take the fact that this kid was from another state.
I was absolutely expecting the sort of drama that location was more famous for—like baby daddies, sleeping with someone’s wife, etc. But nope…
13. The Office Gossip
I had a co-worker who would call people individually and complain about other people. It got to the point where people were fed up. They were telling the people he was complaining about, and tell them what he was saying. It got a little too personal for me, so I sent his manager an email to have an unofficial conversation about his behavior.
I was allowed to stay anonymous, so at this point, I was. His reaction was genuinely disturbed. He lost his mind and ended up going off sick for seven months due to the stress it caused him. He constantly asked HR who complained about him, and that he wouldn’t be able to come back to work if he didn't know. I dropped my anonymity because I didn't want him off work, I just wanted him to change his awful behavior.
In the official meeting with HR, he brought up my mental health, saying that it was no secret that my depression had caused me to over-exaggerate my emotions. He got an official warning because he counter-complained about the company, and lost his appeal as well. Eventually, he decided to quit and stop wasting everyone's time.
14. Let The Games Begin
This co-worker loved to try to pit people against each other with gossip. My grandfather passed. I live in the South, and he still lived in the mountains of West Virginia. It was midwinter, and a storm was expected. I made the decision not to go to the funeral for fear of being snowed in out of state. I continued to work to keep my mind off of things.
Another co-worker lost a family member a couple of months later. She went home for the funeral. She posted pictures on Facebook about seeing friends she hadn't seen in years. This apparently ticked off Miss Gossip. She started telling everyone about how horrible she was to be out with friends when she was gone for the funeral.
When that co-worker and Miss Gossip had it out, that co-worker brought me up as an example of how people deal will grief differently. Miss Gossip immediately ran and told everyone how that co-worker called me heartless. Suddenly, everyone thought I needed to be mad at that co-worker. I just told everyone to consider the source, and that it was none of my business.
15. Time For Some Detox
We had a co-worker who kept bringing negative energy into the workplace. I remember one day, she kept coming up to my desk and saying, “Can you check my back? I think there’s a blade back there.” Like, haha, do you get it? I was tempted after a while to say, “I have no idea what you are talking about!” but I didn’t want to engage.
She requested a two-week vacation at the last minute, and was of course denied because other people had already been approved for that time off. Being totally melodramatic, she quit and sent a group text to everyone saying, “I won’t let our boss destroy my marriage!” Like she was being brave for quitting a perfectly fine job because she didn’t get her way.
She also borrowed money from multiple co-workers and never paid them back. A year ago, we heard she had reapplied to work for us. As you can imagine, none of us wanted her back at all. In fact, multiple co-workers went to our new boss, and begged her not to hire her. Yes, she was really that bad of a co-worker. I’m so glad she’s gone.
16. Oh, Poop
Our construction worker took a dump in the toilet of a vacant apartment that didn't have running water and then left without saying anything. All the workers were aware that they are supposed to use the bathrooms in the offices and clubhouses because the vacant units never have running water. The complex didn’t find it until three days later when they brought in a potential tenant for a walkthrough.
It had been over 100 degrees all week. The woman I spoke to said there wasn’t any toilet paper, either.
17. Every Dog Has Its Day
There was this guy named Gus who worked in retail with me. My boss told me, "Hey, this guy's got anxiety, go easy on him OK?" So I was like, okay, that's cool, I can relate. I did everything I could to help him make sense of the infernal godforsaken hellscape that is retail. He started off with little mistakes that were forgivable things—forgetting a task, accidentally giving the wrong information...things like that.
However, he quickly devolved in popularity as his complacency grew over time and his helpful attitude shrank. Gus started screwing around during his shift, getting caught on his phone while ignoring backup cashier calls, etc. He would also make stabbing motions behind the manager's back to other employees, then and play it all off like he was some innocent dope who didn't know any better.
None of this got him fired. Day after day, there was a new complaint from a different employee about some responsibilities he shirked. He also got reported for telling customers blatantly wrong info, saying stuff like, "Oh yeah, we have another location up on the hill" when we didn't. We had no idea whose son he was or whatever because that was apparently all kosher. What ACTUALLY got him fired was a doozy.
One day, he brought a dog wearing a super-expensive dog collar into work. He claimed he almost hit the dog on the way to work and it was running around wild, etc. He then tried to sell the dog collar to a customer, and even pushed to "adopt out" the dog to a co-worker. This co-worker was competent enough to take the dog to a vet, whereupon they found a microchip and contacted the actual owners.
THAT'S where the fun started. It came out that Gus never found the dog at all. He straight up KIDNAPPED this dog from his neighbor and tried to pawn it off, knowing full well what he was doing. The guy lawyered up immediately, tried to sue Gus, and threatened to sue the store and the store manager if Gus wasn't fired. Suffice to say, Gus was gone the very same evening. We talked about him for years and years.
18. Liar, Liar…
This girl I worked with when I was a personal shopper tried to get me fired a couple of times because she saw I was moving up faster than her—but she eventually crossed the line. We both got sent to work at a different location for a couple of months. she went around bad-mouthing me to anyone who would listen, so they thought I was a terrible employee and that she was amazing.
I proved myself with my work ethic, and they realized she was a liar. It definitely changed their opinion of her. I ended up going to a different location, and when she went back to our original location, she continued to say horrible things about me. My co-workers took my side and called her out. She left not long after on a bad note with them.
19. A Shady Past
We hired a guy on a trial basis. He was super polite and careful when speaking to me, but several of my female employees told me that he was creepy when I wasn't around. After his first five days, one of them came to me and said almost verbatim: "I think he's a molester." She just had a gut feeling about him. So I ran a background check on him and...yep, he was convicted.
For what it’s worth, this was almost 20 years ago when it was not standard procedure to run background checks, and I was not in charge of that regardless. In this case, I requested it specifically from HR because the safety of my employees appeared to be at risk, but not one other time in my career did I feel the need to ask for one.
20. Taken Down And Out
I had a former supervisor who was a jerk, a gossip, and an all-around horrible person that picked one or two people to be her punching bag. My introduction to her was absolutely horrible. I was sitting at lunch, and she came barreling out to one of my co-workers and proceeded to literally scream and curse in his face in the break area.
She also had a habit of gossiping in the warehouse office in full hearing of other people, which made me uncomfortable. It's one thing when a co-worker gossips to another, but it's an entirely different thing when a supervisor gossips about those under them to others. I actually mentioned to a different supervisor that it made me uneasy to be in the office.
While this was going on, she got wind of my complaint. She then decided to make me her target. Over the span of six months, she bullied me and behaved in some really disrespectful ways. For one, She gossiped about me. How did I find out? She started doing it in front of me. It was not exactly subtle. But wait, there’s more!
She gave me a very unflattering nickname. I found out when she blurted it out one time when I came into the office after being paged. She was passive-aggressive towards me in all respects. She actually growled at me, seriously growled at me, in the ladies locker room, and put papers over her face so I couldn't "look" at her.
She frequently sighed or scoffed when I tried to engage in conversation with other people that weren’t her. She ignored me or outright walked away when I needed a supervisor override. She told me I needed "to step it up" with my work. I was the second most productive worker, with the second-lowest fault rate of my department.
To give you an idea of a typical day: the most productive would do around 25 jobs, I would be at roughly 23, the other five people averaged around 15 jobs apiece. I finally had a breakdown after she started doing it in front of other supervisors and the manager. This was a week after I told the manager, again, about her behavior. Nothing was being done about it.
I was ready to just walk off the job and had a breakdown. Someone told the manager’s boss that I was having a breakdown, and she called me directly to find out what was going on. I was walked through an official HR report that went to the front office. She was given one last chance. I told them she wouldn't last a month.
Three weeks later, she had a screaming match with another employee and was suspended and subsequently fired. I later found out she was directly responsible for three people quitting, and one person getting fired because they couldn't take it anymore and threw a pair of gloves at her. Thank heavens she’s finally gone now.
21. Obsession At Work
I have a co-worker who was an absolute nightmare. He spread rumors about me and told people I got the job by sleeping with some manager I've never met in person. He had a history of becoming obsessed with women at work and some have left because of him. It got so bad that another contractor within our workplace noticed and took action.
This contractor, who has an office within our building, had to blast out a company-wide email telling staff to not attend their office because my co-worker would continually go down there and flirt or harass the office lady. He turned into a stalker and still continues to park his car next to mine and stare me down in front of colleagues.
Turns out, the guy has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and isn’t exactly self-aware. It eventually became way too much for me to take, so I tried to complain. When I complained, HR labeled it as a "personal issue" and victim-blamed me. I was asked by the top manager, "But you wanted it, yeah?" Disgraceful. He will get fired eventually.
22. An Acquired Taste
I had a co-worker who always had a really strong stench, and I thought it was just bad BO. Turns out, she was addicted to mothballs and she was licking them during working hours. The chemicals gave off an unbelievably strong smell through the skin. We got complaints about her odor but didn’t take them seriously since we thought people were just being jerks.
That is until someone saw her actively licking mothballs on the job. I was leaving my job when this was discovered and I was sworn to secrecy because it’s not the kind of thing we can advertise around our office. It was the kind of smell where you could never really quite put a finger on what it was, but once we figured it out, it made a lot of sense.
It doesn’t smell exactly like the real thing...more like it’s been processed through the body and skin.
23. Phoning It In
I’m an HR head. I once got a call from a “private chat administrator” informing us that our official account was unpaid. They said they would take court action if we didn’t pay immediately. I thought it was a joke. And then we got an official notice! At that point, HR investigated, and the “chat” company sent us a copy of the phone calls.
As soon I played it, my co-worker’s face went white. She screamed, “I know this guy, he works in the supply chain!” Apparently, he had been making these chat calls using our company landline. We politely told him to pay up and settle the matter, and then we issued him a final warning letter. He’s lucky he didn’t lose his job that day.
24. Why Can’t We Be Friends?
I work the night shift at a packing line. We had two new temps in, and they were polar opposites. One was a super bubbly religious guy who was pretty emotional. Like, he cried during his favorite songs. The other guy was grungy, pretty cynical, but a darned good worker. Well, they both ended up working on adjacent lines and I was training them.
Things were great until the bubbly guy decided it was his mission to befriend the grunge guy. The grunge dude wanted to be left alone so he could work, but the bubbly guy kept going to our team lead to tell her he couldn’t understand why the grunge guy wouldn’t be his friend. My team lead, who was oblivious and despised by most of our crew, came down and told them to play nice and be friends.
I told her that bubbles needed to leave grunge alone, but she wouldn’t have it. Grunge walked out, and bubbles cried for two nights straight. He never came back.
25. An Old Grudge
I briefly had a co-worker at my current job at a local grocery store, who we'll just call "Fred.” Fred was one of those people who are always talking on their phone in the break room, and that's my personal pet peeve at work. More often than not, he was usually arguing with his girlfriend, and he doesn't seem to care that anyone's listening.
He'd do other annoying, gross things like chewing with his mouth wide open, and wiping his boogers all over the place, but then there was one day when he tried to flush a hot pocket down the toilet. Needless to say, that it didn't play out so well, and that temporarily put an end to our closest employee restroom right by the break room.
He surprisingly didn't get fired over that, but he did get fired when one of his old high school teachers came in shopping, and he threw a whole sack of potatoes at her. She was an elderly woman who got seriously injured, and both the ambulance and the authorities had to get involved. I never did hear about what happened to his old teacher.
26. Never Hire Family
This is the classic story of a co-worker who was a relative of the owner. He started working with us a few years after me, and was immediately given a great position. I had been doing the work for this position for the year it was vacant. I trained him, but he seemed disinterested, and for the next three years, I did most of his job while he took credit for it.
Of course, that was only when it came to work that was done well. When there was an issue, I got thrown under the bus. Every time I walked by his desk, he was watching F1 races or soccer. I eventually asked for a raise, outlined what I was doing which was essentially two jobs, and was told there wasn't enough budget. I knew what I had to do. The next day I quit.
Shortly after that, they asked me to train him on all the work I did for him, to which I politely declined.
27. Young And Foolish
I used to work part-time at a shipping warehouse, and at one point, we ended up hiring this 16-year-old kid. He made a ton of mistakes that we ended up having to fix for him, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt at first just because he was new. But not only did he never learn from his mistakes, but he was incredibly lazy and lacked any self-awareness.
There were instances where he was given a task, but then he'd either mess around on his phone most of the time, hide out in the bathroom for like 45 minutes and then hoped we wouldn't notice, or just whine to my supervisor that he didn't want to do whatever he was assigned. Because of that, he would often take half the day to do like 30 minutes of work and would then complain that he had too much work piled on top of him. It was ridiculous.
28. Fight Club: Workplace Edition
She didn’t officially work at my store’s location. She was supposed to be at another location training to be a manager there, but her predecessor was still working at said location, and the upper management/boss didn’t want too many people working there at once. So, she had to work at my store’s location instead. As soon as she started, she had a problem with me.
I don’t know why, I’ll never understand why. She essentially bullied me from the get-go and when I told my manager about it, she claimed nothing could be done since the rude lady wasn’t officially under my manager. But one day, she went too far. She started bumping into me and saying, “You have a problem with me? Let’s take it outside.” Stuff like that.
I was half her size, I’ve never fought in my life outside of sibling squabbles, and I have terrible social anxiety. So I went to the bathroom, called my significant other to come pick me up, grabbed my things, and walked out on my shift. I didn’t say a word to anyone and left her there alone during the lunch rush. Honestly, she deserved it.
I later learned from my friend who also worked there that my manager didn’t blame me, and officially, on my papers, she said I left for “personal reasons.” She was a nice woman and I don’t blame her for not being able to do anything. Upper management at this chain was very irresponsible and didn’t seem to care about that store location whatsoever.
29. Drive Me Crazy
This happened recently at my driving job. I got this person through our training process and we set him out to train. The trainer came in, exasperated. Apparently, this dude couldn’t even drive, which was supposed to be the easy part of the job. He also couldn’t secure cargo, which was more challenging, but still a relatively straightforward task.
He started crying while driving, and he ignored instructions. This went on for a week. Eventually, the trainer said he was not going to be able to pass the guy. I told my boss his options were to have him retrain under another trainer, do a ride-along with him so he could draw his own conclusions, or just fire the guy. Eventually, my boss opted to do the ride-along with him.
The guy nearly caused a wreck, all while doing exactly what I told him not to do just three minutes before. During his ride-along, he ran two stop signs and nearly had a head-on collision. My boss wanted to give him another week as long as he didn’t mess up his paperwork...but then he proceeded to back out of the lot with both hands off the wheel. Yeah, that was it.
30. Fake It Till You Break It
I got hired as a long-term temp with one other person to do some basic data entry work at a major brand that pretty much everyone has heard of. It was at their corporate headquarters too, so pretty prestigious. Anyway, we went through all of this on-boarding stuff in the morning that required us to get photo IDs and figure out parking and all that stuff.
Then, after two or three hours, we were introduced to one of the employees in the new department. They began telling us what we were going to be doing. None of it seemed overly difficult and I figured that while it was a new system I had never used before, I'd be able to work it out in a few days as long as I asked questions and took notes.
And that was the thing that made me realize that the other person who got hired with me probably lied on her resume. She was completely out of her depth—she didn't take any notes or ask any questions. And whenever I glanced at her, I could see flashes of panic on her face. Well, lunchtime came and when we came back, she said that another company had called her and offered her a permanent position so she couldn't work with us any longer.
Both myself and the person training us knew what was going on, but I'll give the other lady credit for finding a way out without losing face too badly. The takeaway here is: Yes, "Fake It Until You Make it" can and does work. But you gotta be able to fake it. You can't fake faking it.
31. Best Friends For Never
I had a co-worker who was adamant about being my friend, and I did not reciprocate. It got to the point where I went to the owner of the company and straight up told them, “Please tell this guy I am here to work. I don’t want to be friends. I just want to work my job and then go home.” I had told him several times before that that he was making my job difficult and I didn’t want to be friends.
I thought it was finally resolved when I went to the owners. I was so, so wrong. The next day, he came in and told me, “Even if you don’t want to be friends, I still see you as my best friend.” Eventually, I went in to quit, and instead, they called me into the office to let me go. They said even though I was their hardest worker and got the most customer satisfaction the atmosphere was "too tense" when we both were working.
See, he had anger issues and would curse up a storm if I didn’t respond kindly to friendly banter. In front of customers. He would literally ignore customers to ask me things like, “What’s your favorite movie?” making me have to stop what I was doing to help the customer. He’d then go into the backroom and kick something or spew just tons of profanity that you could hear if I didn’t answer his question.
He even had a habit of yelling at and harassing customers. Anyway, the owners decided it was my fault for not wanting to be his friend. So they let me go. Really. Then they handed me a paycheck for $20 and told me not to worry, they hadn’t taken the taxes out. I heard they made him a manager and then later fired him after finding out he was taking merchandise.
I liked that job until he was hired.
32. Thank You, Next
My document-processing clerk was getting married and going on his honeymoon, so I got a short-term temp. It wasn't a temp-to-hire, and everything was out in the open through a legit temp agency that generally performed thorough screening. Well, on the temp's very first day, he showed up with a box of things: photos, mugs, office equipment, and stuff to decorate a cubicle with.
I advised them not to unpack since we were getting right into training. Within two hours after I cut him loose on a computer and told him, "Let me know if you need anything or have any questions," he said, "This mouse is hurting my wrist. It gave me carpal tunnel. I'm going to need worker's comp paperwork." I made an immediate call to the agency to end this contract.
I then told the temp, "Your paperwork is at the temp agency office. Go ahead and go see your rep there." He left their box of stuff behind and I had to have the temp agency pick it up.
33. Red Redemption
I had a horrible supervisor once. I was working in the snack bar at a local Target, and we'd gone through a handful of employees who just didn't work out for whatever reason. Then, they hired this guy—I'll call him Red because he had reddish hair. He was to be a supervisor. He was probably in his late 20s, early 30s, somewhere around there. He was also a total jerk.
In case you don’t know, all the department leads at Target had walkie-talkies and headsets. Red had neither because we just didn't need them in the snack bar. Red, however, insisted that we did and threw a fit to multiple department leads, including the customer service lead, about it. Because of the store's location, we often had construction workers come in to grab a quick breakfast.
One of the construction workers who came in regularly for about two to three weeks was a lady, and Red decided to try and hit on her. When she told him she was married, he upped the ante. One day, she came in, and before she could even walk up to the counter, he reached out and grabbed her hand, trying to pull her towards him. Baaaad idea.
The next day, her husband, who was several inches taller, heavier, and more muscular than Red, came in and told him to leave his wife alone or he was gonna get it. Another time, Red started hitting on one of the pharmacists. She didn't want anything to do with him, so he followed her out to her car. When she locked the door and told him to get lost, he walked to the back of the car and started pushing up and down on the bumper.
This obviously freaked her out and she called the authorities. The absolute last straw was when he pulled a no-call, no-show. I'd left a note for our lead supervisor about his no-call, no-show and Red became absolutely furious at me. Like, screaming in my face, threatening to hit me. THAT got him fired. Why his other creepy behavior didn't, I’ll never know.
34. It’s Always The Quiet Ones
We had an employee that was actively robbing local banks on his days off. I believe he hit eight to nine different banks before he got caught, and we only found out about it during an early morning FBI raid of the employee locker/break rooms, which was done in conjunction with a raid of his house. To say it was a shock was an understatement. He wasn’t even top 20 of my list of potential felonious employees.
35. What Goes Around Comes Around
My boss at a tech company was incredibly awful to me. Among many other things, she made me do push-ups for every minute I was late due to public transportation delays—even though the delays were somewhat normal for the commute I had. For “team bonding,” she would take us out to drinks and proceed to get blacked out. She was also sleeping with two of the other people on my team.
There were multiple times at said “team bonding” events where she and one of my other colleagues disappeared into a bathroom...I brought up some of this with HR when I quit, but no one ever looked into it. All the same, she ended up getting fired a few years later due to harassment. Worst boss EVER.
36. The Jewel Mule
The critical items at our jewelry counter were anything over $500 and they had to be counted at the start and end of each shift. Well, items kept going missing, and one of the other employees complained that it was a certain lady stuffing it up her hot pocket. Security took her to the bathroom. It was true. She had a men's necklace shoved up there.
I can't imagine who she was going to give that to.
37. No Really, Pick On Somebody Your Own Size
I worked at a huge, well-known international company. There was this young, straight-out-of-college guy who we had just hired—as in, his first day had been the same week. He had moved from Eastern Europe to our corporate location. Cue company ski trip, with lots of free booze—some of his new colleagues who he thought were his "friends" told him that this woman was checking him out.
He started hitting on her, and mind you, he was already tipsy at that point. She told him to knock it off and that she wasn't interested. He kept being pushy. This large, scary dude beside the woman also told him to knock it off. He swung at the large, scary dude, and promptly found himself face first in the snow. The woman in question? Head of global HR. The large, scary dude? Head of global corporate security. The young schmuck? Fired.
38. Watch Your Mouth
I was a shift lead at a gas station. I had a customer tell me that one of my guys, who was like 80 years old, told him to “screw off” after the customer rolled his eyes at the price of an item. I talked to my guy because I was sure that, at the very least, the circumstances were different than the customer had claimed. Nope. It happened just like the customer said.
My guy apparently didn't realize his speaker was still turned on and said his spiel as soon as the customer's back was turned. The guy turned around and that started an even bigger verbal fight. I was mulling over what to do about it, but the very next morning, the employee showed up to work loaded, yelling about a bonus check that we owed him. That's when he got fired.
39. Party On, Sue
I used to work as a night auditor at a hotel, and one day I was told that one of the daytime workers was fired. She was this really sweet older lady who worked part-time. It was really hard to get fired there, so I was very curious. I soon regretted finding out the answer. Several customers had complained about her, concerned that there was something very off.
She was slurring and just seemed very off that day. Management was also concerned, at first thinking there was a medical issue. After a few more incidents, they checked the cameras and found out she was taking shots of straight Smirnoff throughout her shift. Like, an absurd number of shots. I can't remember how much, but I remember being rather impressed that she could function in any capacity.
40. Management Is Overrated
Steve was an outside hire. He was a “co-manager” at another store. To me, that translates to, “he was a manager who couldn’t handle being a manager.” Steve got hired in as a second-in-command. He was really inept at running the sales floor, but we cut him some slack. Our location is quadruple the size of most stores in just about every way.
After about 3 months, I realized he was not really picking things up. Not just that, but Steve felt as though his set schedule didn’t matter. He came in late and left early. If someone asked him to cover, he just had us swap shifts because he didn’t want to do it. He ended up getting an attendance warning from our Store Manager, Mary, but it didn’t change things.
Mary quit about four months after he was hired—and the reason why was brutal. Mary couldn’t handle Steve’s ineptitude, and eventually, they left because of it. Now that Mary was gone, Steve got promoted to interim First Lead. Basically, Steve thought he was on easy street. Corporate heads came through at one point and asked us how it was going with Steve. We spoke the truth: Not good.
It was even more detrimental when Steve showed up almost two hours after he was scheduled, when we told the corporate heads he’d be in the building. He did not call. Paul, our other lead, was left with people they’d never met before, which was great because Paul was an adult who could handle things. Basically, they ended up hiring Paul to become our first-in-command.
We chugged through a disappointing holiday season. Steve and Paul are basically going around in circles, with Paul trying not to kill Steve the whole time. Meanwhile, Steve rarely made it to work on time, and ended up, quite a few times, making Paul and I switch days because Steve didn’t want to work late. I was also running my departments and Steve’s departments, because Steve just hid in the office all day “writing schedules.”
Paul and Steve had several conversations about Steve’s performance over a period of a month and a half, and Steve got put on an official action plan. This basically meant: “One more mess up and you’re fired.” Steve finally, FINALLY, got fired. The last I heard, he was going to culinary school.
41. Real Life Game Of Thrones
This co-worker would tell peers at my level horror stories about the way I would supposedly treat her. At the same time, I was dealing with my own staff complaining about her lack of work ethic. I was overworked before she got there, and after she started, I felt no relief. Little did I know that her gossip was actually turning people in the company against me. And then it hit the fan.
Eventually, it all came to light when she made an accusation that was so far off that HR couldn’t even believe her anymore. When she was found out, and finally let go, she caused a public scene. For weeks afterward, co-workers came up to me to apologize for believing her. My own staff always had my back through those times, which I think is why she didn’t “win”.
42. The World Is Unfair
She was a lady in her 50s. We worked at a doctor’s office. She could not take even the nicest constructive criticism, and constantly complained about EVERYTHING. One of my nicest co-workers ever often was the recipient of her blame, and because she never took responsibility, it was regularly the same issues she never learned to correct.
They bickered a lot after a couple of years of this. One day, the nice co-worker went to the car to grab her anxiety medication, and the obnoxious co-worker’s reaction was chilling. She went to the office manager as well as HR, saying she thought the nice one went to get a weapon to hurt her. Like what?! She didn't even own a weapon? That’s not even the worst part. The nice one GOT FIRED. I was absolutely SHOCKED.
43. Stay Grounded, Please
This was a person that was in the aircraft qualification training squadron at the same time as me. He wasn't an intentionally terrible person, but his lack of self-awareness made any interaction around him difficult and exhausting. He washed out of another flying career field. In initial training simulations, he refused to use established procedures.
That was bad enough, but there was more. He managed to fail his first instructional ride, despite it being nearly impossible to fail if you show up. He could not figure out how to take leave, despite several people walking him through the process. Rather than trying to solve any problem, he would announce it to the rest of the room, and if no one jumped in to help him, asked the nearest person.
He managed to both frustrate and take up the time of the kindest instructor I knew because he didn't have a basic understanding of a training airspace. In a bid to get back to more pressing tasks, he gave me an apologetic look as he suggested that I, being a smart student, could probably help him get up to speed. I could not.
44. OSHA Rules, Schm-OSHA Rules
I worked with a guy that was a supervisor in another department. He was both dumb and a jerk, which was a terrible combo. He would constantly insist that I do things that violated OSHA rules or were physically impossible. He wanted me to work on a 20-ton bridge crane while he was using it. Obviously, I said NO. I wanted to leave work intact, thank you very much.
Every time I would refuse one of these ridiculous demands, he would send out an email with EVERYONE CC-ed, from the area manager, plant manager, all the way down to my boss. Soon after, I left for a better job, he was fired, and they closed his email account as he was writing a manifesto. I heard they hired security to keep a look out for him for the next month.
45. Out To Lunch
I worked for a staffing agency early in my career. One day, we got a call that one of our placements was taking his lunch break and not clocking out for it. Oh, and he was taking two-hour lunch breaks. Also, he brought in his George Foreman grill and cooked for himself in a highly flammable warehouse. So many crazy stories from that place…
46. The Wrong Man
My boss lost an internal power struggle and was soon fired. The official reason given was that he was submitting doctored expense reports. I wasn’t promoted, but was still given all of his responsibilities...plus I inherited his administrative assistant. Suddenly, charges for car service, local hotels, and local stores appeared on my corporate credit card.
I asked the assistant about the charges and she gave me an explanation that was plausible but that I knew wasn’t accurate. So I called the credit card company and contested the charges until they provided more information. I also started doing some of my own research on the charges. That's when it all became frighteningly clear. Turns out, the assistant was a drinker who lived with her dog in the local hotel—a hotel that I was getting charged for.
She was also having the car service pick up her booze at the local store and deliver it to her at the hotel. Why? Apparently, her dog had a nervous condition and he liked that hotel. He would get upset if she went out to the store after she got back from work, so she used the car service so she wouldn’t leave and upset the dog. She charged the expenses to our corporate cards because we “owed” her for making her come to work and leave her dog alone.
I got her fired and successfully fought the credit card charges. Even though I found the person actually committing the expense report problems, my boss was still considered “fired for cause” because he signed those expense reports.
47. A Bad Egg
I just fired an intern because he thought it'd be funny to smack one of the girls on the butt...except, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Upon further investigation, she had been having anxiety coming to work because he would ask all sorts of ridiculously inappropriate questions. For example, he once asked her if she had a good weekend.
When she told him yes or some plain answer, he then asked her if it was because she slept with her boyfriend a lot. Needless to say, her anxiety was warranted and we fired him as soon as we could. The mood in my group seems a bit more relaxed this week...
48. Color Me Surprised
I worked at a little gas station. I had a co-worker we'll call "Jenny." Jenny was on "light duty," as ordered by her doctor, when I first started working there. Her injury was a heel spur, and she never missed an opportunity to complain about it. She wasn't supposed to lift more than like 30 pounds or stand for more than a half-hour at a time. Not a big deal right?
The first time I came in to relieve her from a shift, it was a busy Friday afternoon. She had two full pages of her coloring book colored in, and thought it would be cute to write that on our task list for the day under "additional tasks completed.” Alright, annoying, but she's youngish. What do you really expect from a 20-something-year-old with a medical issue?
Over time, her antics became more and more ridiculous. A stray dog wandered over to the station and she brought it inside. She let it wander around the inside of the store, where there was plenty of food on the shelves for it to get into. She then proceeded to make a Facebook post about it, and also wrote those things on the task list as if it were part of her job.
Eventually, the assistant manager told her she couldn't bring her coloring books to work anymore. She'd been off light duty for months, but continued sitting at the desk coloring during all her shifts while neglecting all her cleaning duties. She cried and walked out mid-shift when she was told, and then filed a complaint with corporate, claiming she was being bullied by the assistant manager.
49. The Purrfect Solution
I once worked with a guy who genuinely believed cats could reproduce with rabbits and would argue at length about it almost every day. The first time I told him it was impossible, he searched "cabbits" on Google Images and said, "See! Told you!". Maybe not the worst, but definitely the dumbest. Keep in mind, this guy was 32 years old.
50. Fight Fire With Fire
My first day at work, I noticed the back of my female supervisor's arms were covered in green, purple, and black bruises. I'm talking from elbow to shoulder. Naturally, I asked her what happened, and absolutely could not believe her answer. She said that our boss would sneak up behind her, pinched the back of her arms, twisted, and then laughed hysterically when she cried out.
I am a super-passive, terrified-of-confrontation type of girl, but the one and only time he did that to me, I turned around and told him if he ever laid a hand on me again, he would regret it for the rest of his life. I was taking martial arts classes at the time, which he knew, and between that and I think the fact that no woman had probably ever spoken to him like that before, he backed right off.
51. An Unlucky Reaction
I had an assistant manager at Walmart that was notorious for pinching people if they said the wrong thing to other managers or to customers. One day, I was helping a customer in the food section, since that’s where I was stocking that day, and the assistant manager came over to see how I was doing. Apparently, I said something she didn’t like so she decided to pinch my tricep really hard.
This really hurt, especially because of her nails, and I instinctively backhanded her in the mouth. I admit it was a weird, unintentional thing to do, but there was a lot of childhood history behind me getting hurt by my siblings, so hitting back became second nature to me. And that was how I lost my job at Walmart after only working there for four months.
52. You Get What You Paid For
My former company went through a phase where they would hire people who would accept a ridiculously low starting salary for an administrative job. So, they would put a job listing out there, and get lots of applications. They would make the offer to the top candidates, but with a salary that was about 25% lower than a "normal" salary for that type of position.
It was framed as a "cost-saving measure," but all it did was get the top candidates to laugh and say no to our offer. Then we went to second-tier candidates, who did the same, and then, finally, some third-tier candidates who were, let's just say, third-tier candidates for a reason, and pretty desperate for work, would accept the position.
Well, you know the saying, "You get what you pay for?" Yep, 100% true. MAN did we get some doozies in the office back in those days. There was "Vic," who tried to log into adult sites up to 60 times per day during work hours. Although they were all blocked and inaccessible, he was caught by the IT guys. The IT guys could see his search history.
There was "Stacy" who, despite being trained multiple times by multiple people, couldn't even handle the most basic tasks of the job after six months. I'm talking straight data entry and filling out purchase orders. There was "Jess" who came in dressed in skin-tight clothing, platform heels, and fishnet stockings. She spent most of the day walking around the office, showing herself off.
There was "Rob" who came in so hungover 90% of the time that he only got about 10% of his work done on any given day. I could go on. After about two years of this, my former company realized that they were hemorrhaging time and money by hiring these duds, raised the starting salary to a realistic level, and finally started getting some decent folks in the door.
53. Put Your Feet Up And Relax
I still shudder when I think about this. When I was working at my local community center, one of my bosses would literally put his feet on the counter and clip his toenails and file his bunions while people were trying to talk to him. Yes, for real. We received dozens of complaints, but the guy received no repercussions. He kept this up for four entire years.
54. Anger Management Required
I had a guy that I worked with in my meat department at the store I work at. He would lose his mind over any little thing, get super angry, and make everyone very uncomfortable. One time, he got so mad that he threw an actual meat cleaver into the wall, and the dent is still there to this day. He got fired a few months ago and it’s been the happiest that the department has been in a long time.
55. Misfortune All Around
Let me introduce you to KC. KC forgot to show up for her interview, but was somehow still hired. KC seemed to have all the signs of ADHD, and admitted she probably did, but her dad was a doctor and said it wasn't a real thing, so she never got treatment. KC told long, rambling stories about things no one cared about, and would try to read personal items in your purse.
KC worked the late rotation after the supervisors left, would just read fan fiction, leaving everyone else to work the queue while doing nothing herself. KC bounced on a rubber exercise ball that squeaked. Everyone got theirs taken away because KC fell off hers and they were deemed a safety hazard. KC would kick her shoes off and rub her fingers between her bare toes at her desk.
After everyone left, KC would raid their candy jars and snack drawers with her toe hands. The only nice thing the evil supervisor ever did was fire KC.
56. Everybody Has A Breaking Point
This was shortly before I joined the company. I'm the dispatcher for a local food delivery service. Anyway, we had this driver and she apparently decided enough was enough one day. The complaint was that she was an hour late and was very confrontational and messy. While being sternly reprimanded, we got another call from the customer.
They had opened the order, only to find mashed up a French fry and ketchup soup that she had made of a kid’s meal in the order. The chicken fingers were also eaten down to the burnt ends. They got a full refund and were offered a fresh meal brought by another driver, but they refused. When we confronted the original driver, her reply was “What? I was hungry. The fat little porker who answered the door could have missed a meal or two. What are you going to do? Fire me?"
She then tried to sue for discrimination because she claimed she was fired because she was gay.
57. It’s Not A Good Fit
I ran an in-house training course, and an apprentice from another department was sent along to see if she’d be a good fit for the job. It was a small room lined with computers along three walls, with me and a projector at the front. We had lots of practical examples to work on throughout the day, so each person sat at a computer for the duration.
We all agreed on a 30-minute lunch break, but she demanded a longer lunch as she had “things to do.” I declined her 1.5-hour lunch break, and she took it anyway. She then used her computer to apply for another job during the practical part of the course. She had chosen a computer at the back, so I couldn't see what was on her screen from my position at the front—or, at least, she thought.
I paused to get everyone’s attention but she was so engrossed in what she was doing that she didn’t notice. I let the silence hang, which usually works to get people looking up sheepishly, but she still didn’t notice. Everyone in the course was now looking at her screen and we could all see she was applying for another job. We got through the course and I reported her to her manager, who fired her.
She left the company a negative Facebook review naming me as someone who harassed her because of her mental health.
58. Full Of Hot Air
I’m a mechanic. I had a co-worker who would poke a hole into customers’ tires just so they would come back and buy more—yes, he did it to new tires as well. We finally caught him one day after I found it odd that it was only the customers he put tires on that kept coming back for more tires. At first, I thought maybe he wasn't putting enough air into them, so I kind of hawk-eyed him without him knowing.
Sure enough, he would put the tire on the rim, and then he would put a small slit into the tread on the tire. Caught him red-handed. Fired on the spot. Screw you, Brett.
59. All Signs Point To “Fired”
I managed a girl who was a loose cannon. She was a drinker who had multiple appointments every week. Psych, physio, solicitors, all of it. She was constantly disappearing from work at random hours for like half a day, and as her drinking intensified, she would show up stinking of booze. I’m a former drinker and the same age, so I tried my best with her.
Anyway, she was on the long stretch towards getting performance-managed, but she sped it up herself. We shared a building with the council and knew all of the staff, including the council rangers who patrol the streets and give tickets, etc. One morning, on her way to work, she saw a street sign she wanted to take to give to a friend (I cannot tell you why).
She pulled a screwdriver from her bag (why she had it, again, I cannot say) and unscrewed it while standing on a milk crate…in front of one of the rangers. She then brought it into the office, told everyone, and asked another staff member to hide it for her in case a ranger came looking for it. Then she also put photos of it on Instagram with the office and company signage in the background.
We had a meeting planned that day about her absenteeism and she told me about her little crime too because she thought it was a good laugh. Anyway, it took a few days, but she quit when HR started investigating.
60. Giving Nerds A Bad Name
A few years back at my old job, we hired a web developer who, on her first day on the job, yelled at our chief technology officer because her mouse didn't work. She proceeded to be not only unpleasant, but actively hostile to everyone she interacted with. I came in one morning at like 7:00 AM because I needed to test some stuff, and saw her at her desk. Guess what she was doing?
She was eating a box of 7/11 wings, and chugging a massive Diet Coke. She then threw the box of bones into a bin and missed, spilling it everywhere, after which she yelled really loudly while me and three others were in the office. We all gave her the benefit of the doubt, assuming she had some form of extreme anti-social programmer personality or maybe had personal problems to deal with, and everyone tried to be nice.
The last straw was when she berated the most beloved guy in the office, one of the IT personnel that everyone liked, and she gave him a sort of schoolmaster style talking down to in front of the whole office. Why? Her internet was slow. She was fired within like two weeks of hiring. And the cherry on top of it all? She also smelled like old eggs and mildew.
61. Money Talks
I have a co-worker right now that is his own special blend of horror. For the record, I work in sales at a warehouse. Here are some of his finer qualities: When the phone rings, he will literally put his hand on the receiver, stare at the caller ID, then look around the room to see if anyone else will answer it before he does. It doesn't matter how busy we are, he does this with every single call.
If a customer walks in the door, he tries to hide behind his monitor, even though his desk is the first one you see as you walk through the door. So let's say he does engage the customer who walked in. Oh, now he wants to answer all the phone calls that come in while he's supposed to be helping the guy WHO IS LITERALLY STANDING DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF HIM.
If it's not a big order? He doesn't care. You ordered one thing that costs $15? He just forgets about it. Then when the customer calls back to complain, he just acts like he never talked to them. Oh, and did I forget that he won't look the product up himself? He makes the customer find the part number they think they need, because he's too lazy to look it up on his own.
62. Computer Are Hard
My co-worker is somehow completely computer illiterate, even though he sits in front of the thing for 10 hours a day. He actively refuses to learn new things or organization tactics for using the computer. An example: a customer called up and asked for a copy of an invoice. In our program, you can generate a PDF copy to email directly to the customer without ever getting up.
But guess what? He's old school. He prints the invoice, walks across the room, puts it in the scanner, scans it, saves the scanned copy as a PDF, then emails it to the customer. A process that should take 30 seconds now takes 10 minutes, especially because he's too lazy to get up and walk to the printer more than once an hour or so.
63. This Sounds Like A “You” Problem
My co-worker won't ever actually ask for people to do things. Hypothetical: Instead of turning on a light switch, or asking someone to turn on a light switch, he would just sit there and say, "Man, kinda dark in here. Wish someone could get that light." Then he just stares at everyone else, waiting for one of them to turn on the light.
If there's a problem, he won't do anything about it. Do you need a return or exchange? Sorry, he doesn't care. Something defective? Don't call him, you'll never get an answer, much less a replacement part. I dread going to work every day just because I don't want to clean up after the messes he leaves for customers every day.
64. A Terrible Scheme
We worked in a store that sold specific and fairly expensive products, and there were four of us working there, including the owner. The woman in question was basically his second-in-command. She seemed totally cool at the time, but then I got fired. And then a month later, our other co-worker got fired. So it was just the two of them, and, when the owner was busy, it was often just her.
It wasn't long before he realized her scheme. She was stealing hundreds if not thousands of dollars’ worth of products when he wasn't around, and that she'd manipulated him into firing his two other employees so she could have the store to herself. He has new employees now and they're awesome. I plan on visiting a lot more when I can.
65. A Sneaky Thief
I was a cashier at a chain store years ago. One day a manager, who I got along with really well, admitted they’d been watching me on surveillance cameras for a few months because my drawer kept coming up short. I told her they can go on watching me then because I hadn’t taken anything. Probably a year later, after I’d quit and moved away, I found out what was really happening.
An old co-worker told me that the accountant got fired for stealing thousands of dollars. She was just taking money out of my drawer to try and pin it on me…and probably did it to someone else after I left.
66. No Boys Allowed
My former assistant manager was terrible to work with. She got caught talking with her boyfriend for several hours, never leaving our department desk, and got in serious trouble. Like, “Do it again and you're demoted back to part-time” type of trouble. In retaliation, she forbade me from speaking to my boyfriend at all when we were working.
One day, a month or so before I got the offer for my new and current job, I asked to take the recycling bin to the back where he happened to work, and she said no. A little later, she got annoyed at me for only facing shelves, and told me to find something else to do. So I took the recycling back and brought freight up. She came to the back aisle screaming her head off at me.
The reason why I got dressed-down was that she told me not to go back there, and I defended myself saying, "Well, you told me to do something else, so I was doing something else!" I turned around and I guess she flipped me the bird before walking away while calling me some choice names. One of my co-workers went to HR about it as it wasn't the first time she's gone off on me.
Up until then, I was just ignoring it, but they were fed up with her general treatment of everyone. We both got called back to write statements, and I wrote that I saw neither the finger nor heard her call me any names, but did go on about everything else. There were no punishments, however. About a week after I left, I got a text from a former co-worker with an update.
She said that the manager was with a customer when HR called her on the store phone. The manager answered, asked her to hold, and DIDN'T PRESS THE HOLD BUTTON! She then called a guest stupid while HR was on the phone. Bam. Cue demotion. It made my life suck when we worked together, but it was satisfying to hear karma had caught up to her.
67. Fake It ‘Til You Make It
My current boss is supposed to have a Masters’ degree and ten years of experience, but he knows less than our engineers who have been working there for two years. Basic facts about how our industry works, no skill with Excel or PowerPoint, and of course no people skills. His incompetence is scary but very hurtful to the company.
68. When Time Is An Enigma
He told the General Manager that he might be a bit late for a shift due to his second job. When the GM reluctantly said OK, he apparently took this as thinking he had free reign to come and go as he pleased. He'd show up anywhere from 7:30 to 8:30 for his 7:00 shift. Then, when the doors closed, he'd insist he had to "head out."
Apparently, he had an early morning the following morning, leaving everyone else to do the closing work. He also had other issues like being rude to customers and other employees. People mostly kept quiet until one day, a higher-level manager had to sub in on the night shift. When he went to leave early, the manager flipped.
He said, "If you lay a FINGER on that money before this work is COMPLETELY DONE, don't bother coming back." The guy insisted he "had permission" and left anyway. When our GM returned and he tried to come back, our manager said, "You warned me you were going to be late ONE TIME, and I never once gave you permission to otherwise start late or leave early. Clean out your locker NOW."
69. Credit Where Credit’s Due…
My old district manager partner was a very attractive extrovert, and I’m a guy who likes to keep to himself. I would end up brainstorming a lot of good ideas to further the stores we were in charge of, and she would pass those ideas off to our boss before we could both have a conversation with him, taking all the praise and recognition.
I never said anything because as long as our metrics were met and my paycheck was on time. I didn’t really care…until I got yelled at for “not contributing to the team.” Needless to say, I stopped letting co-workers walk all over me from then on.
70. Marriage Is No Obstacle
So my wife and I work together in a bigger company, but you would never know it since she has a different last name and sits very far away from me. Well, the new hire saw a shirt she wore one day that was for an anime he also liked. He immediately spent two hours at her desk, asking her way too many questions about her, ignoring the fact she is married.
He then proceeded to join us every day for lunch with some other work friends, and only talked to the women at the table. All of whom are happily married.
71. Technically The Truth…
I used to work as a trainer at a very awful cleaning company. I trained a girl who was very open about not wanting any sort of help during her training period, but was more than willing to let me observe while having a conversation. The minute her night ended, she contacted my supervisor and complained that I would just stand there and talk while she worked, and how I was never doing my job.
She got me written up quite often, but ended up leaving the company after a month to move back to her hometown.
72. This Is The Song That Never Ends…
We work in an office, and I have the misfortune of sitting next to this woman who plays the top 20 hits on her radio all day long. She’s been asked several times, by several people, to at least turn it down, but she refuses. After several complaints to her directly, I took it to her boss. Guess who brought an iPad in to play her music out loud after her boss took away the radio?
73. High On Your Own Supply
I worked an administrative job and a new hire came in. We thought something was up with him as he was always spaced out, but we decided maybe he was just settling in. Then, one day, he called in sick only to turn up five minutes later...having no recollection of our conversation, he went up the stairs to the office and walked straight into a wall.
When he got to his desk, he watched sports on his computer which facing the whole office. We asked him to highlight some lines on a page and he colored the whole page in instead. We told our boss we thought he was on something. The boss thought we were exaggerating—that is until he kept doing things like this and we had to let him go.
We later found out he was a dealer selling out of his bedroom.
74. Wasn’t Me
I only know of this because it involved myself. I was a new hire at a security company, and I’d only been there about four months, give or take. One week, I was given a new assignment with a couple of other guys on rotation. Someone who got hired a week or so before I did gave me the obligatory tour of the site and pointed out some hot spots.
They showed me some key equipment that needed an eye on them, etc. Less than a week of shifts go by, and the same guy offered me a bump. I declined. Then, just over a month later, I had a perfectly fine shift with no issues. About an hour before my next shift started, my boss called me up, furious at me. Obviously confused, I got to the place early.
Well, the place had been turned over. The equipment is gone, the fence is busted wide open, the works. One of the on-site trailers has been broken into where just over a grand was taken from a safe I knew nothing about because it was always locked. Still, I was blamed as the culprit. It took less than five minutes of conversation with the boss to get it ironed out.
See, not only had stuff gone missing from this place, but other stuff had gone missing from other sites the other guy had been to before. For example, one of the things that were taken was towable, and they found it in the guy's driveway. He might as well have dipped his hands in red paint. Needless to say, he didn't work for that company after that.
75. Don’t Mix Business With Pleasure
I was working for an agency in New York City, and we went to a series of client meetings for starting a new project in Boston. One of the project managers who worked for the same agency in the LA office flew in and joined us for the week-long meetings with the customer. He was a super nice guy who did his homework and gave really good presentations.
Everyone liked him. After wrapping the meetings the whole week, I flew back to New York that Friday. The next week, there were supposed to be video conferences with the client, but they sent an email at the last minute saying that they are canceling all the meetings. Well, none of us thought much about it and carried on with the day. Until we found out the chilling reason for the drop.
In the evening, we learned from our boss that this “super nice” guy had sent his intimate photos to one of the female members of our client group. None of us could believe this, but it turned out to be completely true.
76. You Can’t Hide
I was a production control analyst in a call center about 10 years ago. I saw and heard more than you'd probably believe, and helped to term out more people than I will ever be comfortable with. The most insane but true complaint came from the housekeeping staff. The janitor walked up to me one day and said, "I got to close the men's restroom for a bit. I don't know who done it, but you need to find him.”
Someone had smeared poop all over the walls in there. It took some detective work, but we found him; a guy had been hiding his mental issues when he started work there, and apparently, he hadn't been taking his medications in a while because he didn't want us to find out, even though he had insurance through us. So he went nuts and started smearing his own poop all over the restrooms.
There were apparently some other aberrations that led us to him and were listed as the actual behavioral reasons for his termination, but I never got the details.
77. Hope It Was Worth It
When I worked at Sam’s Club, one of the cashiers pocketed a few grand from his drawer and put it on Facebook. We were a new club, so if that much money went missing, it would have taken them a while to figure it out. Or so I was told. However, one of the managers overheard and they put two and two together. He was fired and then put behind bars.
78. Hatred At First Sight
I had a manager whose opening line when I first met him was, "I don't like you already." He had a major pickle up his you-know-what and even threw a cabinet door at me once. It got me square in the back, but I witnessed him get put into his place by the old lady I was helping. She gave me a good tip too, so that was nice.
79. HR’s Oopsie Run Amok
This co-worker was a nurse that apparently had her license taken away prior to her being hired at my work. Our HR didn't bother checking, I guess. The first care meeting we had with her, she started accusing the Black staff of stealing. She had been there a week, and didn't know what she was talking about. Our team actually ran the best out of the whole company.
She was determined to make everyone feel uncomfortable. She'd stand near the bathroom, pretending to wait to go inside, while listening to people chat in the kitchen/staff room She'd chase staff down the hallways, screaming at them for stealing. Then, when they showed her they had nothing in their hands, she'd say "OH, I WASN'T YELLING AT YOU, I WAS YELLING AT MYSELF.”
80. A Paws-itively Horrible Time
A vet's office I worked for hired a girl to work as a tech, whose only relevant experience was working in a non-medical boarding facility. She thought she was hot stuff. She expected to waltz right in with zero medical experience and get promoted to management, above techs that had been working there for years, by sucking up to the bosses.
Problem was, not only did she not have the experience, she also lacked the work ethic and desire to actually do any of the tech stuff. She just wanted to be able to cuddle puppies, sit at a computer, and boss peons around. So, instead of learning how to do the job better, or actually putting in any effort, she decided the best way to get promoted is to make everyone else look bad and feel miserable.
When things didn't go her way, she would make vague, meritless complaints that her co-workers were being mean to her. Every week, someone was brought into the office about it. The thing is, the other 20-odd employees pointed out that, maybe, just maybe, if she was the one having problems with everybody, it could have been HER.
In the end, we lost about half the staff because of this chick. We ended up having to hire folks with no veterinary experience to replace people that had been there for over seven years. So, it wasn't just the staff that suffered. Quality of care took a noticeable hit. I stuck around for another year, but finally, between her and the, by then, obvious management problems, I had enough.
After I left, things for worse. She got bold enough to send threatening text messages to a couple of co-workers, since we all had each other's numbers to coordinate weekend duties. They reported her to the authorities, and they took her away while she was at work. If not for that, she'd probably still be there sucking up to management while running off staff.
81. Caught Red-Handed
This co-worker would regularly ignore her phone because she "didn't feel like taking calls," and would spend all her time on social media. One day, she told the staff she was going in for a major operation and would be off for two weeks. Although she wasn't the most popular staff member at this point, everyone still got her a card and put money in to buy her some gifts for when she was off work.
About three days into her absence, and during what would have been her surgery time, another girl spotted her shopping for makeup with friends, and then took photos of her. So we came up with a plan. When the girl came back in, she was met with stares from 100 colleagues, and when asked how her operation was, she hammed it up and said she was still in pain.
The manager immediately screamed at her to get in his office, and was so loud that the rest of us could hear every word. HR got involved and she was gone in 24 hours, which was followed by her attempt to sue for unfair dismissal. Thankfully, she didn't get far.
82. Listen To Your Gut
Recently, I was working as a bather for a groomer. My hands were getting extremely cracked and dried, and I asked my co-worker if I could borrow some lotion. I put it on, and by the time I was done, she had a dog in the bath. Instead of interrupting her, I went and dropped it in her purse. I purposefully stood to the side of it and dropped it in from about six inches up.
I did this so if she tried to say I took anything, the camera that was back there could clearly see that all I did was drop it in and walk away. I didn't linger or put my hand anywhere near it. Of course, after I left for the day, she accused me of stealing, and the boss called me. I denied I even touched her purse and told her to watch the cameras if she needed proof. My boss believed me and told the girl.
The girl ended up making a huge scene and the authorities were called. She was told to leave and not come back. I was livid, but I'm so glad I thought ahead to take the exact steps I did just in case something like that did happen. I had a bad feeling about her and had a gut feeling she would try something shady at some point.
83. Unhelpful Overconfidence
My current tool buddy at work is more “tool” than “buddy.” She's by far the worst person I've ever worked with at any job or on any project. We've been running conduit on this job site for about seven months now. She refuses to use a level when bending, or do any calculations because "When you've been in this business as long as I have, you can do it all by eye."
Except her pipes are always wrong. And when they're a little bit off, rather than just adjusting what we've already made, she insists on one of us just smashing away at it until it fits. I got stuck working with her because literally everyone else on our site refused to after about three days of being around her, and they all have seniority.
84. Five Second Rule
One of my current co-workers told me this story the other day: He used to be a manager at a fast-food restaurant. He said that one night, after a busy rush, a woman called his store to complain that her fried food item had hair all over it. The manager denied this claim and assured the lady that the food items had never been in contact with hair, and would never have left the store in a dirty manner.
He backed his store and employees all the way and insisted that the woman was mistaken. Upon further investigation, one of the kitchen employees admitted that she had dropped a food item on the floor that night and didn’t want to risk having the customer wait an extra five minutes to make a new one. So yeah, very hairy burger, order up.
85. Feedback Welcome
I was reviewing employee evaluations at a Fortune 500 company, and one of them complimented an employee for improving as “he hadn't yet eaten any glue this quarter.” I thought it was a mean joke about his intelligence, so I went to the manager and asked if there was a way she could cut the insults. Manager: “It's not an insult. I caught him eating glue twice last year. Wrote him up for it, too. He's the reason the folks in documents have had to switch to different glue types.”
In these same comment evaluations, I found a comment card in our suggestions box that said, "Improve your seafood selection! Your trout made me sick!" We were a hardware store. The boss mentioned it at the next store meeting, laughing and taking bets on which customer left it and which store she'd mistaken us for. Marko, one of the assistant managers, went white as a sheet.
Boss: “What's the matter, Marko? Trout got your tongue?” Marko: “Umm, no, but that might have been me. I told a couple of customers about all the fish I caught on my vacation, and one of them asked if I'd caught any trout.” So he sold them some trout.
86. A Hard Day’s Work
I spent my summers in college working as a laborer for a construction company. We were doing a bunch of renovations in an active hospital, so noise and dust were a huge concern. We were a small crew and just starting renovations on an area with a super tight schedule, so the company hired a subcontractor for some of the work. Enter these two clowns who showed up to do some demolition work.
The foreman gave them the talk about how they may be used to doing things a certain way, but as they would be working in an active hospital, he'd rather the work take longer than for them to make a huge mess or a lot of noise. An hour later, we apparently got multiple complaints about the noise and the mess, so the foreman called me up and told me to go over there and clean up. He also said he'd be by shortly to see what the heck was going on.
These dudes had dust and broken pieces of wall everywhere. I could hear them halfway down the hall, just smashing away without a care in the world. The foreman showed up and we walked into the room to witness this dude standing on a pile of rubble, swinging a sledgehammer over his head at a brick wall that he'd removed the bottom. Somehow, the rest of the wall was still hanging from the ceiling...I have no idea how.
The guy wasn't even wearing a hard hat, apparently oblivious that at any moment that wall might give way and crush him. The foreman lost his mind on these guys. He kicked them out immediately and got on the phone with their company and told them he didn't want to see these guys on-site again. Lots of choice four-letter words were used, and he even threatened to fire the subcontractor entirely and get someone else to do the work.
87. Bad Environment
I had a number of complaints about a new member of staff soon after she started. They said that she kept taking off her shoes, pulling dry skin from her feet, and eating it. I thought the other staff was lying and being mean about her just because they didn't like her...Until I saw her do it. She didn't finish the week, but not because we fired her.
She quit about a week later. She didn't really get on with the other staff because they all thought she was a bit gross, and she quickly got into a bad mood because of it. That said, I'm not entirely blaming her. It’s a small group of staff, and they all collectively decide pretty quickly if they like or dislike someone. If they decide they like you, you're golden.
If they decide they don't like you, however, you are shut out. By all of them. It’s quite a brutal environment psychologically. She got cold-shouldered pretty quickly, and left before the week was out.
88. You Don’t Need It Where You’re Going
The cemetery director was selling plots, pocketing the money ($750), then selling the same plots to other families. The other families would show up ready to bury their deceased, only to find the graves already being used. He got away with it for a year.
89. Long And Strong
This girl left an unbelievable and non-flushable gigantic poop both in and out of the toilet. I went into the bathroom to deal with what I thought was surely an exaggeration and probably just a standard, nasty diarrhea mess. But no. There was a single, unbroken, enormous log that was hanging down over the outside of the toilet seat, going up over the seat and back down through the hole into the drain, as far as the eye could see.
All in one piece. Flushing it had no effect. None. It didn't budge, it didn't wiggle. Nothing. Gravity didn't even pull it apart when it hung over the side of the bowl halfway to the ground. It was...well, it was unbelievable. No one knew what to do. No one wanted to clean it up. Someone wondered aloud if we should send her to the hospital. Honestly, I can't remember what happened next, only that there were tools involved, but I can still see that monster poop like it was yesterday.
It was in 1997. I could never look her in the face again. I just kept wondering HOW? Mattie, wherever you are, I hope you're doing better.
90. Mr. Noodle
I worked at an Americanized Japanese fast-casual restaurant. We used to cook these gigantic pots of noodles. Like, you better use proper lifting procedures or you'll hurt yourself. It was a daily affair. From the stove, they get tossed in an ice bath and then portioned into roughly one million individual bags. Obviously nobody liked doing it, but it had to be done.
This one kid, who always sucked, (slow, late, dumb, complained, just generally bad) decided that if he just poured them down the garbage disposal, he wouldn't have to portion them. Not including the water, it was probably 40 pounds of noodles. This was a bad idea. It clogged the pipes to such an extent that the floor drains across the back of house started flooding and we couldn't use the dishwasher or drain sinks.
And guess what?! We just cooked more frickin' noodles! The selfishness required to destroy product/property, screw our shift over, REALLY screw the next shift over, and the stupidity to think nobody would notice, just to escape some tedium just boggles my mind.
Public Domain Pictures
91. Vetting the Vet
She was actually a very nice person, but she made my job so much more difficult. When I was a new graduate vet at my first job, there was another new vet working there as well. Now, I have some self-esteem and confidence issues myself, but she was something else. For months, she'd come find me for nearly literally every other consult to get me to examine her animal to "Make sure she didn't miss anything" or talk to her clients because she wasn't able to say things like "No, this doesn't need antibiotics" to them.
I was effectively doing two jobs half the time. It got even worse when one senior vet got sick and the other quit, so it was literally just me and her at what was supposed to be a four vet practice for six weeks.
92. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
She was our neighbor, a young mother whose husband was a truck driver. I knew they struggled with finances, had been evicted from past apartments, gone to their church for help with food and utilities, etc. When she told me she was laid off from her job at a bank, I hired her at the store I managed. What a horrible mistake.
It was the beginning of the busy season, and I figured that would give her a few months to get back on her feet while she looked for something back in banking. Instead, she worked for me for less than two weeks. In that time, she took from the register and another employee, was late twice, and quit by leaving her uniforms balled up in a grocery bag with a note saying she "just couldn't do it anymore." I held a grudge against her for a long time.
93. In The Money
I knew a guy who worked at Subway back when they gave out stamps. Basically, for every six inches of sub you bought, you earned a stamp. Once you filled a card with eight stamps, you could get a free six-inch sub. So this guy started only giving stamps to customers who asked for them. If they didn't ask, he pocketed their stamps and grew a sizeable stack of complete stamp cards. Then he set his brilliant plan into motion.
Over time, he started cashing them in. Like, when a customer paid with cash, he would ring it in as a freebie, place his own completed stamp card in the till, and pocket the cash. The customer got their sub, the till was balanced, and he had an extra five to 10 bucks in his pocket. He worked there for a few years, and the word was he racked up a few thousand dollars running this scheme.
I have no idea if anybody complained or if he was ever caught, but he did buy a motorbike.
94. What’s A “Job?”
We had a system admin who would come to work and run his real estate business from his desk while he was supposed to be working. The whole time, he was coughing and sneezing and sniffling constantly. We called him "Itchy." He would also call friends and family and have hours-long conversations with them while we all had to listen.
He picked up the nickname "Thanksgiving dinner guy," because he used the break room to cook entire meals that wouldn't be out of place at a family gathering. One of the offices in another wing had a sheet by the door for people to log when they saw him, and to write down what he was cooking that day. He didn't like any of us and left books like Jerks at Work on his desk.
When he finally got fired, they found out he never did any of his sys admin work. No backups, no password changes, no log monitoring.
95. Some Sleight Of Hand
We had one employee, Johnny, who just didn't want to do any work. He was in the kitchen so his duties were to cook, prep, clean, and restock. His favorite thing to do was prep. Ask the man to make a Big Mac and you'd get the worst sandwich ever. Ask him to slice tomatoes and you'd get perfection. Anyways, one day Johnny comes to me—and when I saw him, my blood ran cold.
His hand is sliced, bad. It’s down to the bone, he’s bleeding everywhere. It looked like he put his hand in the tomato slicer and just smashed it onto his hand. Thing is, he was so calm. He looked pleased with himself. We sent him home thinking that was that. He strolled out, said goodbye to his co-workers and we never saw or heard from him again.
That night, I was sorting out all the tills to take the dailies to the safe drop at the bank. We were missing nearly $5,000 in cash from the manager's safe. Never happened before. Never happened again. Don't know how he did it.
96. Turning You On
I work with one of the biggest jerks around. One day, he told a female coworker she was so ugly that the only thing she could turn on was a hose. Without missing a beat, she replied that at least when she turned something on it got wet. The guy was absolutely speechless, and I laughed so hard, tears started rolling down my cheeks.
97. The Lifeguard Prank
I was a lifeguard through high school. One of my coworkers ordered Chinese food but it was her shift when her food came. I immediately got hold of her fortune cookie, carefully pulled out the fortune, printed off a replica with the exact size and logo on it and even had the numbers on the back. I carefully put the fortune in the cookie. Then I got a plate for her, put the food on it (like the nice guy that I am) and made it look presentable.
There was a priceless look on her face as she read, “Lifeguarding is not for you.”
98. Just a Reminder
My annoying co-worker loved saying dumb stuff to get a rise out of me. One day, I made him regret it. He shouted at me from across the floor that “there's a woman on the phone, and she says she's pregnant, and she thinks the baby might be yours.” I just shouted back at him, “Tell your mom to stop calling me at work."
99. Let’s Go To The Tape
A colleague checked out of the mediocre but adequate hotel where we were having a conference and checked into a 5-star luxury resort. She then submitted an expense report for her stay. She claimed that she felt unsafe in the original hotel, but did not elaborate. Someone called the hotel, which checked the security camera footage. We all thought she was crazy, but we were proven way wrong.
At least four separate men tried to enter her room that first night. No wonder she left.
100. Biology Tutor Needed
I demolished my right foot in a motorcycle crash and had to have the top of my foot removed. A guy I worked with asked me when it would grow back. I explained that the skin and stuff was going to have to be grafted, but that the tendons and bones that had been removed were gone forever. He looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why don't they just cut the whole thing off and let it grow back?"
