We spend 8 if not more hours of the day at work and that’s without commuting, which is a notorious time-eater. That’s also a third of our day, and it takes up 5 days a week. That means that in the US, a full-time employee spends an average of 2,080 hours per year at the workplace.
That also means it gives us enough time to gather some great memories and valuable experiences, as well as moments we’d much rather forget. And this post is about the latter scenario.
“What is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever had to deal with at work?,” someone asked on Ask Reddit and the sea of responses started flowing in. With 5,936 upvotes and 3,844 comments, the stories range from pure entertainment to something you’d see in a horror movie.
#1
A coworker screaming at me for leaving food to rot in the shared fridge. It was my first day there and I hadn’t even unpacked my belongings yet.
Image credits: idontdigdinosaurs
#2
I had someone throw a drink at me through the drive-thru window, which is an unwise thing to do to someone standing in front of a shelf of other drinks waiting for the customers behind you.Close second: we had a guy that robbed our gas station for like a month with a finger gun before he finally got caught. Everyone knew it was a finger gun, but you have to comply when someone robs the store so.... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Image credits: JAHNOOSKA
#3
Used to work in a Muslim country where this one guy would almost force me to go pray with him. I told him as nicely as possible that I’m an atheist and don’t feel comfortable being asked to pray. He complained to HR and I received a warning saying I was hampering the work place sanctity by expressing “anti religious sentiment”.
Image credits: eventhorizon2093
#4
Kind of weird - but here I go. I work in politics and part of my job was reporting to my board the status of a various advocacy groups. Like what issues are they working and who funds them. With one group a major donor was George Soros. I put him on the list with all the other major donors for a power point presentation. A staff member freaks out and says I’m anti-Semitic because I listed Soros. I’m very confused because I thought the factually incorrect meme was that he was a Nazi (he clearly was not). Anyhow - HR gets involved and I have to apologize… me being of a family who was Jewish and literally chased out of Germany in the 1800s.From then on if Soros was a donor I just put “major donor”. A board member asks who it is. And I refuse to answer. Staff member figures it out and accuses me again for being anti- Semitic for leaving him off.
Nobody would stick up for me, because they were terrified of her, so I took a buyout and got another job
Image credits: DKmann
#5
When I worked in the NHS, I had to take part in an investigation about a poo on the floor in a community hospital. A patient had missed the bog, so it sat steaming on the floor. The nurse said, too busy, can't clean that up, get the cleaner. Cleaner said can't touch that, it's biological waste. Went back to nurse who said find a healthcare assistant. Healthcare assistant said can't do it, haven't been signed off on the infection control policy. Escalated to sister who said the student nurse should do it. Student nurse vomited and ran out crying. I was in the building at the time and heard all the fuss. Thought FFS and cleaned it up myself. Got reported as I was just a manager and not clinical.
Image credits: Deleted
#6
A coworker attempted to prove that you couldn't actually hurt yourself slipping on a banana peel by stepping on one. After which he slipped and hurt himself.I refused to write it up as an incident. It was too stupid.
Image credits: Terytha
#7
My boss made us play a game to keep moral up: There were several rules like calling each other certain nicknames or you could challenge someone to "rock,paper, scissors". If you break a rule or loose in "rock,paper, scissors", you needed to do 10 pushups. It was all in good fun, or so I thought. On afternoon I didn't feel like doing pushups, and my colleagues we're kinda teasing me about it, but again all in good fun. Turns out, my boss didn't like my refusal at all and fired me the next day. This was as a work and traveller in NZ, so not to horrible, although it still bugs me that I got fired because I refused to play a silly game lol.TLDR: Got fired because I refused to play a silly game which had nothing to do with my job
Image credits: R3v0lu710n123
#8
I was serving at Cracker Barrel and a woman came up to me saying her son thought I was Shaggy from Scooby Doo and practically begged me to come to their table to talk to him. I gave them the laziest attempt at a Shaggy impression.
Image credits: andyduphresne92
#9
My boss invited us to her bachelorette party. Work is kind of her whole life so she doesn’t have friends outside our company. The invitation asked us to bring a pair of “sexy panties” for her as well as a “naughty toy” for her and her soon-to-be husband to use on the honeymoon. Btw I am 22 and my boss is 50. She’s older than my own mother.
Image credits: TEMNEET
#10
I work at a library. The amount of people who don't bring their library card with them and then refuse to give me ID so I can look up their account is baffling. I'm just trying to prove they are who they say they are.Also a mentally ill lady once told me that Osama bin Laden wanted to steal shoes from the artist formerly known as Prince.
Image credits: cihojuda
#11
I worked in returns at IKEA and had a customer complain that they accidentally ripped the instruction manual in half for the furniture piece they were assembling when they were cutting open the box and couldn’t finish assembling it.I politely informed them that all our instruction manuals were available online in pdf form, but this just made her mad and she wanted to speak to the manager. Manager gave her a few $5 gift cards just to get her off my back but I will always find it so funny that this lady thinks accidentally cutting in half an instruction manual (she had both halves too so she could have just easily put them together to read the instructions) inhibited her from assembling furniture.
Image credits: carissadraws
#12
Worked at a grocery store. Customers dog takes a s**t at the front of the store by the registers. He stands there while I’m cleaning it, and the dog takes a second s**t as I’m cleaning the first. As I’m cleaning the second s**t, the dog then pukes. As I’m cleaning that, the owner pats the dog on the head saying “good boy.” He was trespassed after so at least there’s that
Image credits: KiteTenjo
#13
Worked in HR for a non profit that hired people who are legally blind. That was the mission. One day, two employees got into a fight. One was partially sighted and the other totally blind swinging his cane. I had four witnesses to the altercation. But they were all totally blind and thus, couldn’t tell me what happened.
Image credits: marabou22
#14
I was working as a sign language interpreter in a classroom setting and the teacher’s aide decided to stand between me and the student, blocking their view. I asked her to move and she told me that she was doing it on purpose so that the student didn’t rely on me too much.
Image credits: laur3lwr3ath
#15
I worked at Geek Squad in Best Buy. A customer had a weird s**t-eating grin. He reached his hand out for a handshake. When I grabbed it, he pulled me in and jabbed me in the ribcage with 2 fingers. I look at him baffled, and looked at my coworker who stared back at me in confusion. I walk into the back to process the situation. When I come back the man has his hand reached out to my coworker. My co-worker slowly puts his hand out but blocks his ribcage with his other hand. The man looks at him and says..."Aaahhh, you're smart... YOU SHOULD COME TO MY DOJO".
Image credits: doomsayer1992
#16
One time while working front desk at a gym, a woman complained that there were too many geese outside and they should’ve flown south by then and we needed to do something about it.
Image credits: Wisterialaneresident
#17
I worked at a chipotle. There was an exorcism going on (performed by a man on his female SO) in the lobby. We tried to intervene but were ignored. We called the police but they left before the police got there. The man murdered his wife in what was only described as “brutal” 2 weeks after the lobby incident.#18
When I was a waiter I had a nice guy come in and tip me hundreds of dollars every time he came in, which was frequent.He would come in and ask for me by name, sometimes when I would serve him in another server section I’d give them some cash for letting me wait on him.
He never had his credit card on him which I thought was weird but just went along with it because I was insanely broke. So we would enter it manually. I never paid to much attention to the numbers because there are a lot of numbers on a credit card and we were busy, but I did start noticing something off about him using an Amex card twice and then a Mastercard, then visa.
Turns out this guy works as an even coordinator next door for the Mariot so he would take peoples million dollar payments, and was taking down the numbers and using it to pay for food.
Saw him get arrested and escorted out of the hotel one day.
My manager pretty much said I’m probably going to have to give it all back, and promptly told him no. Nothing came of it on my end luckily.
TLDR: guy was stealing credit cards and tipping me a lot of money, and the manager told me I’d have to give it all back.
#19
English as a Second Language teacher here. A mom came very angry to my coordinator to complain about the grades I was giving to her daughter.Thing is... I gave her an A+ because she was super responsible, got everything right in her monthly exam and participated a lot.
Apparently I was not doing an appropriate job because she expected her kid not to be an amazing student.
But she was. Easily within the top 5 I've ever had. Smh.
#20
probably that one guy that was upset at the price of green beans lmaoman knocked over several displays and wouldn't stop calling for the next week. Literally checking in on if the price had gone down yet because he called our corporate office.
#21
I guided ecological tours in Colorado. A 10-ish year old girl from NYC got bit by a few bugs and had a VERY mild allergic reaction (three mosquito bite size bumps on her leg). Her mom started screaming at me to inject her with an epi-pen which I explained was not a safe option. She began physically attacking me trying to get to my med kit and threatened to sue me for malpractice (I had a basic EMT at the time). I welcomed her to. The poor girl was more scared by her mom's reaction than anything else. It was on that hike that I realized why my MD dad told me not to go into medicine in college.#22
This old f*****g man kept staring at all the girls and women at work. He didn’t hide it. It was so obvious and he made all the women feel extremely uncomfortable. I complained about him multiple times and so did other women. Our boss didn’t care. He didn’t believe it was really an issue. Finally I got sick of it and went to the owner of the company and literally the next day he was fired and my boss gave me a formal apology for not taking it more seriously.#23
My boss was making fun of a lady for calling in sick to work. In front of god and everyone. The person that called in sick, has ovarian cancer. I quit ten seconds later.#24
I didn't have to deal with this directly myself, but I have to share it anyway.I used be a truck driver for a slaughterhouse. When the cows are killed their guts and s**t get dumped into a huge trailer to be disposed. One of my duties was to replace the trailer with an empty one when it was full of s**t. This trailer was hidden behind a sliding door so I couldn't see when it was full, someone who worked in that department would have to call me over and open the door for me.
One day they forgot to call me.
There was literally steaming pile of s**t that reached 20 feet above the top of the trailer. The conveyer belt that brought the s**t out was completely clogged. A couple guys, that I'm pretty sure were getting minimum wage, had to climb on this pile of s**t to unclog it by hand.
#25
I work in influencer marketing and we hired an Instagram influencer to work on a yogurt brand campaign. As part of the activation we also sent a tie-dye kit and branded swag for them to make tie-dye shirts, hats, etc, with their friends or family. One of the influencers pulled the tie-dye ink out of the t-shirt kit and used it to tie-dye her yogurt bowl, took a video of herself eating it, then shared the video with her followers who ultimately alerted her that you can't eat tie-dye ink. This was, of course, our fault (the agency) for not being more clear that the tie-dye kit was not edible.TL;DR hired someone who ate paint
Image credits: nanrosenthal
#26
I work in a doctor’s office and the worst patient I’ve dealt with was one who refused to pay us. She was insistent that her insurance would cover everything since her card mistakenly read “$0 copay.” We called the insurance company multiple times to verify that they would not cover her appointment charge, and we sent records from her insurance company directly to her in order to prove this. She still refused to pay us after yelling at me for five minutes. All I could do was tell her to contact her insurance if she didn’t want to pay. She proceeded to call me unprofessional and inconsiderate after her outburst before she stormed out.#27
In the Navy we are quite often required to sweep water off the ship, but I always found it truly ridiculous when I was forced to do it while still raining. You could never get ahead of it and get yelled at for water still on the deck of the ship.#28
Oh boy, story time. I Work in a fairly large factory, we had one employee who was in his late 30s who had apparently never been taught/learned how to use a urinal before. We received a few complaints from different people that it was uncomfortable in there at times. He would go in and drop his pants and undies to his ankles, pull his shirt up under his chin like a toddler and hands on hips just p**s away into the urinal. In all his years using a restroom with other guys he never noticed he was the only one getting almost buck a*s naked to take a p**s. It was a very awkward conversation to have with a grown man, thankfully he stopped doing it.#29
Worked In a facilities department, one of the older ladies in another department came in to the facilities office.She said someone's had a mishap in the ladies toilet. (I KNEW THIS WOMEN WAS NOT AT FAULT SHE WAS A GENUINELY LOVELY PERSON)
I asked if there were any ladies still using the toilet.
She agreed to go back and in and check while I waited outside.
So she comes back out and gave me the all clear, so I put an out of order sign on the external door.
Period blood was all over the floor. So I checked the toilets and yep even more in one of the cubicles.
Separate incident that also happened in the women's toilets a turd was on top of the toilet paper dispenser.
Not a little bit but a full on log of s**t.
Felt so sorry for the cleaner, I also told them that they had every right to refuse to clean it up.
I wanted to send photos to the managers of every department, for them to speak to their teams.
But my boss didn't want to make waves, she wouldn't even let me approach HR for them to address this.
#30
Owner was too cheap to replace a broken air conditioner in the middle of July. We took what little break we were allowed in the deep freezer.One of my crew passed out on the line and he got canned the next day.
I quit that same day.
#31
I worked for a political activist group. Our goal was to get minority groups to register to vote. I would be sent to stand outside grocery stores in minority dominant neighborhoods.At the end of the shift, I had to report how many people I got registered to vote, and what ethnicity they were. (Black/brown/white)
I would get reprimanded because I would sign up too many white people. I was explicitly told to not ask white people to register to vote. And my manager would throw away their registration form if they wanted to register as the political party my manager didn’t like.
It was a vile group. Horrible work.
#32
I used to work in the warehouse for a supermarket.I was off work for 2 months due to a car crash.
We had a new manager who dragged me to the office to scream at me over the mess of the warehouse.
I got up and explained I've been in a car crash and this is my first day back go speak to someone who has worked since I've been off I'm still sore so I'll be taking my time, I got up the manager then gripped my shoulder (which was really bad due to accident) I was in physical pain.
The manager doesn't work there anymore.
#33
We had a lot of newly arrived people from Vietnam and some other South Asian countries working at the company and apparently they didn’t know what a toilet was. Most figured out that if they stood on the seat they could still squat over it but many just used the paper liners on the floor and crapped on them and then tossed it in the trash.I was low man on the totem pole at work at that time so I got tasked with instructing them how to use a toilet properly. All it did was to get the floor shitters to squat on the toilet seats. But at least it was better for the janitors. No s**t on the floor or in the trash. Just shoe prints on the seats.
#34
Mcdonald’s employee here - customers. never in my life have i dealt with anything worse than an after church crowd on a Sunday afternoon.the amount of straight up b******t that comes with working in fast food is absolutely not worth the pay and i will fist fight anyone that would like to argue we’re paid enough to put up with your s**t.
#35
One time when i was in the army in germany, we were supposed to separate our trash for recycling. as you might guess this wasn't very popular with the lively cross section of American youth living in our barracks.One special bag was meant for HDPE plastics, washed and everything else was sorted into glass, landfill etc. The brain trust decided to just mix all trash into the special yellow sacks and pile it up in the special yellow sack dumpster.
fast forward a few weeks to a month and when the germans came to pick up the recycling they were horrified. our command made all of us get on our gas masks and stand in a parking lot full of these putrid stinking horror bags in the middle of summer and sort other people's trash.
I tell you although I faithfully sorted all my garbage like a good boy from day one, i stood there and with rubber gloves peeled used condoms from hair extensions, pried dried feminine napkins from fried chicken boxes full of maggot infested leftovers. Everyone got to take vomit breaks but had to come back right away to complete the task. That was the day I decided against re-enlisting.
#36
Being told no one can effectively work from home and summoned back to the office in June 2020…. Most of our competitors and suppliers continued wfh policy until Sept/October 2021#37
I had to fix my boss’s company issued laptop and found a ton of farm animal and granny porn links stored on it. My boss was a Mormon woman in her 50s.#38
A customer handed me, a stranger, his three year old over the counter at the print shop. She had to go to the bathroom and he was busy filling out a form. She was going to pee everywhere so I took her. She called out after a few minutes and said “I can’t wipe by myself!” So that’s the story of how I wiped a strange kids butt when I used to work at a print shop.#39
Well, I was a Mormon Missionary and had to deal with paying for the privilege to work 80 hours a week, barred from communicating with family and friends, disciplined if I read books outside the approved library, got mocked by my boss for being a nerdy virgin, and shamed for not being very good at selling a religion nobody ever wanted.#40
As a concierge in a luxury hotel in Europe, I have seen all kinds of ridiculousness.The most harmless was a woman who had a tantrum because we couldn't spontaneously organise a Maybach transfer and she had no idea how taxis or Uber worked, which really boggled my mind.
One guest called her assistant in Austria, who then called us at the concierge only to ask how far away a store was from her current location. It was 7 mins and she could have just googled it.
#41
Back when I worked at Safeway there was this guy who had a son. This child was sick this preticular week. And every single day he brought him shopping. Every. F*****g. Day. The kid was sick in the store 10 times total. We gave this guy so much s**t and told him so many times to leave the child at home. He said he would make sure to every time. He said he would leave this kid home with his wife. Did he? NOPE. By the end of the week he got banned from the store and the very next day his wife comes in FURIOUS with us. Because it's not their responsibility to keep the store clean, because "how else are we going to get our food". She stated that he had to bring the kid with him so she "wouldn't catch his cold and need to take time off work". She was eventually told to either leave and shop elsewhere or do your shopping in peace and be on your way. She never came back thankfully#42
I worked security in a busy bar. I almost got glassed by a crazy lady in the toilets during a hen night.#43
I worked as a PA for a billionaire and when covid hit she still wanted me to come in to work (aka her house) but didn’t like that I had to take transit, so she bought the her neighbours house so I wouldn’t track covid into the house. So for over a year I sat alone in a 6,000 square foot home next door to her.#44
One of my coworkers was constantly stealing my food. I couldn't figure out who was doing it, but i was pissed off, so I put laxatives in my food for a few days, no intention of eating it.When the dude spent 2 hours in the bathroom one day, he came out demanding to speak with me. He tried saying he could sue me.
Took too long for him to understand that he stole my food. He skipped the part where I didn't give it to him.
So naturally I said, "Now why the f**k are you eating my food?"
Tried saying he didn't know it was mine.
"... Then why are you saying you'll sue me? How do you know it was mine, and also not know it was mine? My name was on the lunchbox."
The kid just straight up cried and went to the boss. The boss never said if he got fired or quit. But he never came back.
#45
I worked at Uncle Buck’s in a Bass Pro. For those of you that don’t know, it’s a bowling alley/restaurant. One night a group of people come in to celebrate their friends 27th birthday. After another host and I set them up at a lane, the manager comes over to tell us that they are getting a warning because she caught a few of them on camera pissing on the side of the building before they came in. And that’s not even the worst of it.Some time later I receive a call at the front desk from the police saying that they were outside would like to speak to the manager. Turns out the manager caught the party doing coke in the bathroom. A few people in the party were detained and 1 guy tried to fight a cop. The rest that were left alone started raging. They started screaming slurs, smashed glasses and plates, stuck ketchup in the bowling balls and even tried to grab me over the counter. It’s the only time I ever felt unsafe at work.
Image credits: Nocte-Nils
#46
I tattooed a cartoon character (the image my client picked out) and then they complained because it was "too cartoony"
Image credits: AnyoneButMee
#47
As a teenager while working as a cashier at a store, I was robbed at gunpoint by two dudes with guns pointed inches from my face. The store manager and someone from corporate showed up shortly after the police came to show support. Immediately after the police left, both the manager and corporate rep tried to convince me and my other coworkers that also had a gun in their faces to keep the store open for the remainder of the shift (~6 hours). I was literally still shaking from the ordeal, and somehow they felt that I was good to work until midnight as a teenager. I asked to go home, as did everyone else. Management decided to compensate us for the trauma by paying us for the remainder of our shifts but, said that we still had to work our next shifts and could not call out. It's amazing how insensitive some people in management can be.
Image credits: ItsEarthDay
#48
Call center setting. Someone came to me to complain that there was an inordinate amount of pubic hair on the flat top of the urinal in the men's room. Went to check and there were a remarkable amount of pubes there. Nasty. And clearly placed there by someone on purpose.Cleaned them off with a paper towel, washed hands vigorously, and continued on with my day.
A couple hours later, I'm told the pubes have returned. Not quite as much as the first time, but still too much for the universe to have deposited there naturally.
I and another manager have our suspicions as to the culprit. We try to catch him, but can't get more than circumstantial evidence. Not enough to confront.
After a third iteration, I've had enough. And so call all the male staff into the board room and address them as a group that the disgusting behavior had to stop immediately, because there would be grave consequences for whomever was caught doing it. I make sure to make eye contact with the main suspect multiple times during the meeting.
It never happens again.
Still boggles my mind that I had to deal with that crazy behavior, but you know...call centers.
Image credits: Plumpuddingdog
#49
I work in film and television. We were shooting in a pretty upper-class neighborhood and the woman living beside the house we were filming in decided that she hasn't been paid enough. So a few hours into our day she starts playing opera music as loud as she can with all her windows open. After an hour or 2 of that and no one batting an eye she ramps it up and starts mowing her lawn.Once that was done she just sits right on her property line with the mower going full blast until a producer went iver and kindly asked her to stop. I'm not high enough in the production to know how much she was asking for but apparently it was too much because he walked away shaking his head and told the sound guys there was nothing he could do.
Once night rolled around my boss decided screw this lady legs annoy her right back, so we got some 10k lights which are pretty goddam bright, and pointed then directly into her windows. It was basically mid day sun light blasting into her house at 10pm. That's when she called the police saying that we were filming illegally (it was a full union show with permits and on duty police were also there).
So a cop pulls up sees the other police already around for blocking traffic, goes to the craft table and gets a snack and leaves. We turned off the lights to her house around 1am because we're not animals.
Image credits: Bojangles9000
#50
One time my boss saved a hurt goose and put it in a box and made me take it to an animal hospital. Driving down the highway the goose started flapping and got out of the box. I didn’t know what to do and I was scared to grab the goose so I drove the whole way there with a goose riding passenger
Image credits: k923f
#51
I worked in hospo and the manager was a young girl around my age. She wore tiny skirts.Me and my friend started wearing skirts - no short, just a bit above our knees. That manager pulled us aside and told us our skirts were too short, while she was wearing a skirt that just covered her bum. I thought she was joking, so laughed and she threatened to write me up.
My response was 'sure I won't wear this skirt again' and next shift rocked up in an even shorter skirt. She sent me home during a very busy shift that was already short staffed.
The big manager had to get involved. Was not happy. Skirt manager was transferred out as there were already issues with her for other stuff and keeping the floor staff was more important. I went back to wearing my normal skirt.
Image credits: thescarfismissing
#52
I install flooring and I was working on the third story of a house newly under construction. Long story short while I was installing some flooring in some upstairs bathrooms (third story) some framers were scheduled to repair the stairs from ground level to the second story. There was no communication and I went downstairs to grab something and to my surprise there was no downstairs! The framers had completely torn out the entire staircase without checking if anyone else was upstairs! I ended up trapped on the second story for a little while until someone brought a ladder lol.
Image credits: SlimesterG
#53
I’m a nanny and I had one boss ask if I was interested in inducing lactation to nurse her child and the one on the way. She even gave a lactation consultant my number.Another time when I was a teenage babysitter, one parent literally gave me a spanking. Now I was young, 14. But that was insane.
Image credits: cleaning-meaning
#54
Intern once thought that he could fax a physical object to the receiving machine.He was trying to fax his belt to a friend.
Kid was either an acting prodigy or maybe he needed a life jacket to eat soup. I guess I’ll never know.
Image credits: FieldneyRodnerfield
#55
I had to massage a woman who was drunk at the spa I used to work at. She had an appointment for a facial and massage, but wanted to cancel because she was tipsy. She didn't want to pay the cancellation fees for both so she only cancelled the facial.Anyway, long story short, she peed on the table (I didn't realize until she left and was cleaning the room) and I had to knock on the door several times because she kept falling asleep instead of getting dressed. It was my last appointment of the day too (9pm). Management didn't care as long as she paid.
Image credits: 227743
#56
A group of four grown men sneaking into the fitting room to smoke a joint. This would already be really, really dumb except the store they did it at was…Justice. For non-Americans and those outside the demographic, Justice was a clothing store for teen (or 8-12 year old) girls. They didn’t sell anything for men at all and it was literally impossible for them to blend in. Moreover, the tops of their heads were visible over the child-sized stall curtains. We called security, they got escorted out, and we had to close to air out the windowless store. I have no idea how they thought this was going to play out.
Image credits: undeadgorgeous
#57
That would have to be the time I asked for time off on a Friday to go to my wife's grandmother's funeral. I knew we were in a big deadline crunch, but my wife was really broke up by the loss, and I felt I needed to be there for her.I had been averaging over 50 hrs/week at this firm (salaried, so no overtime), with many weekends and holidays spent in the office, so I really didn't feel I was asking for the moon, but I still felt bad leaving the team in the lurch.
Anyway, I realize that one task still had to be done Friday morning, and I was really the only person who could do it, so I asked my wife if it was OK that I ran into the office for a couple of hours in the AM to get it done. She was fine with it.
So I run in, and there I am, sitting at my computer, EARLY, on the day I asked to have off, wearing my funeral suit, and my boss sees me. So he sidles up and says, sarcastically, "So, I guess they cancelled that funeral, huh?"
F**k that guy.
Image credits: THSSFC
#58
My boss wasn't in the office but instead the company owner was there who's also a millionaire. I had heard he's very rude and cocky, but never seen him before because he barely ever visited the workplace. I didn't know at first who he is so I asked where my boss is at I have something to ask from him and the man answered he's the company owner so I can ask from him too. I then said I want to apply for 2 days of holidays because I'm going to travelling with my family and I had notified boss about this beforehand just didn't know date till now. He then walked me around the place and asked every possible detail about the holiday and couple times while we were walking he told me to look in his eyes while I talk because it means I'm lying if I don't?! After like 10 minutes of interrogating me and walking blindly while looking at his eyes he said "You can go for the holidays but remember that other people will have do your work too if you leave". It was weirdest and most passive aggressive convo I have ever had with someone. Made me feel like ashole for going to holidays...#59
My wife had a miscarriage when I was at work. I left to take her to the hospital and support her. The next day when I went to work I got written up for leaving.#60
A co-worker took a work truck “hostage” until my boss paid him the 100 dollars that he was owed from a pay-cheque. He then sent her a pin on google maps of where it was parked in the middle of downtown.#61
Working in medical records in a private hospital in near enough the basement.Someone left a tap on in an operating room above us and a massive leak started in the ceiling drenching a load of the records.
Had to spend the entire day salvaging as much as we could and hanging up medical records on makeshift clothes lines.
There was also the time that I very nearly crushed a colleague to death in the moving records shelves. She though I knew she was in there and that I was just moving them a little bit so didn't say anything, but I had fully intended to completely slam them together before someone stopped me.
For reference: https://imgur.com/a/rHaBOJT
They were massive heavy shelves on runners that would absolutely do massive damage were you to close them on somebody.
#62
Worked at a museum as a summer student, and one day I had to accession a box of old first aid kits from 1890-1970. Opened the box and a cloud of white powder engulfed my desk. Now - for those that don’t know - all kinds of powdered pharmaceuticals were standard in first aid kits back in the day. Anything from cocaine to meth to heroine and boric acid. No idea what I’d just inhaled. Spent the rest of the day monitoring my vitals and waiting out any side effects.#63
A lady getting mad because the breading on our CHICKEN nuggets wasn’t vegan#64
A drunk guy in his early 60s who was constantly s**t faced at work. He’d have screaming matches with my boss in the middle of the office, he’d call me on the phone from his cubicle to ask why he was cc’d on certain emails (they were short emails sent for informational purposes to everyone and I wasn’t even the author of these emails) and my favorite thing was when he would pass out and fall out of his chair. “Call 911, Tony collapsed again” was like a monthly thing. I really liked my boss and when she left, the new boss kept asking me to finish Tony’s work. I left shortly after.#65
Maybe not most ridiculous ever, but I just received an email from a frustrated woman who reached out to us weeks ago and hasn’t heard back. I’m unable to find her name in the system so I ask my boss who also can’t find her, who asks her boss who also can’t find her, so we go to our CRM manager and they can’t find her either.The lady had changed her first and last name a week ago. Had changed her email as well. I ended up having her former name on an attendance sheet from a few weeks ago but man is it hard to help people sometimes
#66
Not work, but as a student in college I had an economics teacher stop me at the door when I needed to take a p**s. He told me, “You can sit and stay for the whole lecture or not come back.” So I walked back, got all my s**t and walked out laughing in his face. Most annoying part of his attempted power move. 2 girls went to the bathroom in the same lecture before I attempted to. I went to the dean about it and successfully got the stupid f****r fired. My power move > than his power move.#67
One of my employees was propositioned in a quite explicit way by the general manager of the site (like 4 levels up) on grindr.I overheard him telling another employee in a "holy s**t can you believe who messaged me???" way and was not offended at all but it became a whole thing. (the GM did not recognize them due to the fact they are 4 levels apart and did not interact much).
#68
My grandfather was a contractor, and for years on his job sites, workers would find human turds in their toolboxes, atop piles of boards, everywhere. No one knew who was doing it, but whispers circulated about the Phantom Shitter.You guessed it, my grandpa was the Phantom Shitter.
#69
I was a tour guide in Central America for a few years. Here is a short list:- bribed border officials several times. I could actually claim those on my expense reports.
- Passenger took drugs from a stranger in El Salvador and apparently didn’t pay for them. Drug dealer came to the hotel late at night looking for money. I paid him to go away.
- had to get a passenger out of jail in Belize.
- had to evacuate our tour out of Honduras due to a coup and subsequent lockdown/curfew in 2009.
- had to evacuate a group out of Belize for a hurricane that never came.
- had to kick a guy off the tour in Guatemala for being an a*****e.
- whole tour group (including myself) got food poisoning in Ometepe Island, Nicaragua. Fun times.
- got food poisoning myself a separate time in Guatemala and had to explosively s**t on the side of the road in front of my tour group.
- got a panicked knock on my door to procure plan B (morning-after pill) for girls a few times. Not a result of my actions.
- had a couple decide they wanted a divorce halfway through the tour, but wanted to finish the tour. They had horrible fights in front of the tour group daily.
- passengers complained about seeing one of the other passengers with prostitutes that looked uncomfortably young.
- had a passenger that was mentally ill and started to self-harm during the trip
- I got deported from Canada
- a passenger went to a seedy strip club alone one night and woke up the next morning with pink eye.
- passenger was so scared of eating local food that she brought a small duffel bag of protein bars and only ate those. By day 4 she was complaining of stomach cramps and her farts were so bad that I thought they would strip the paint off the interior of the bus. I had to help her find a McDonalds or something so that she would eat actual food.
- I’ve been to countless world wonders and UNESCO world heritage sites hungover or still drunk from the night before.
- Passengers hooked up with other passengers. Passengers hooked up with other passenger’s friends. Passengers hooked up with locals. Passengers hooked up with way too many locals. Passengers hooked up with other random travelers and invited them to follow our tour group for a week. Passengers hooked up with tour guides. Tour guides hooked up with other tour guides. Passengers hooked up with the local white water rafting guides. Tour guides hooked up with locals… You get the picture.
- much much more. If you have questions or want more stories, fire away!
Edit: Wow. People seem most interested in my diarrhea and getting deported. I've expanded on those stories in comments below.
#70
I work in the funeral industry, so I get to deal with new ridiculous things on a near-daily basis. For example, today I had to look for a bullet in a body bag, because the list of personal effects of a deceased that we got from the medical examiner included 'ammunition x 1.' This person was going for cremation, and bullets in a crematorium are a no-no for obvious reasons.So, we looked and looked, inside the body bag, inside the clothing, pockets, shoes, under the body; I even shone a flashlight into the hole that used to be the deceased's face to see if it was maybe still in the head-ish area, but no. So after 20 minutes or so of thoroughly searching this poor dead person, I called the MEO to see if *they* had the bullet. The girl who answered the phone checks with the morgue and comes back to say "yep, it's here, we always take and keep the bullets!" Great! Then *WHY* list it on the personal effects sheet with everything else that is still with the body??
My job is weird as hell, y'all.
#71
I work in a law firm as a legal assistant. We represented this crazy lady (not my idea) who claimed the city was treating her unfairly by taking away a few more inches on her parking lot for some stupid reason than her neighbor. Whatever, it literally wasn't worth the fight.Anyway, I try to file the document and the Court rejects it without notice. I call them, ask them what's wrong, they say A needs to be drafted a certain way instead. Ok, whatever, we still have a week to file it. I fix it and send it back. It gets rejected AGAIN, no note AGAIN. I call them and they say A was actually fine, but Exhibit B can't be rotated horizontally because the dinosaur of a judge "can't read it" (rotating it vertically would mean I go into Word, paste the scanned PDF document, blow it up, and rotate it, making it way smaller in the process). Mind you, the decided to reject it ONE HOUR before it's due date on Friday. So I rush to get it done, working overtime because I leave early on Fridays and work late the other days. I submit it at like 4:55 that Friday.
The Court approved the document that following Monday and the prosecutor says that we filed the document late. To top it all off, our client comes into the firm yelling and screaming at us that we're incompetent and shes going to sue my boss (the attorney) to take his license away.
Needless to say, working in law sucks a*s. There's no rest for the "wicked"
#72
A coworker routinely didn't flush after doing #2 in the employee men's room. He just left it there in the toilet for all to see.The guy thought it was hilarious - especially when other employees would call him out on it.
#73
Worked at Petco for a summer (cause my parents thought smoking weed would be cured by working a retail job, lol). We used to have any number of pets on our person while working. Sometimes a chameleon, or sometimes a gecko, or maybe even a small bird. Really any animal that was content just chilling on your shoulder or arm. Well, my best snake buddy, Murphy (albino ball python), was just chilling around my forearm while I worked the register. And then I heard the most feminine scream from across the store. Apparently a snake-phobic (I forgot the term) walked in, and this b***h lost his marbles. I couldn't understand why you'd walk into a store that sells snakes if you're that afraid of them. Regardless, corporate changed their policy so that no animals could be out of their "homes" unless an interested customer requested it. Thankfully it was toward the end of the summer, and I quit and told them it was because I couldn't hang out with the animals anymore.#74
Small company of about 30 people. Owner was extremely racist, his 19 year old daughter who dropped out of college to run the social media marketing and sales team. She had no clue what she was doing and it was costing me money due to lost commissions. I told her I won’t be listening to her since she has no background in sales what so ever. Well her daddy didn’t like that and went off on me. Claimed I was high on drugs and I moved on from there.#75
I had to build a 3000 ft sidewalk leading to nowhere because of the ADA. It was a chemical storage plant being newly constructed. Everything was up to code, there was a trailer at the end of the property, and a handicapped spot next to the trailer. But no, that’s not good enough. What if someone in a wheelchair was coming to the job site and they needed to wheel instead of taking a car? So we built this sidewalk 2000 feet up to the gate. Not good enough. There’s no sidewalk out front, what if they needed to wheel themselves down the sidewalk to the gate? So we get to the very edge of the properly line, then cut off the sidewalk. Now we’re good, since it’s no longer along the property.It’s a chemical plant, nobody in a wheelchair can work there! And if one came to visit, nobody in their right mind is magically spawning at the edge of this sidewalk and wheeling themselves 3000 feet, when they could take their damn car and park 10 feet from our trailer.
#76
Man threw a temper tantrum over captions on his tv being turned on, and a woman throwing a similar tantrum because I gave her two $10 instead of a $20.#77
I work for a law firm and sometimes meet with prospective clients who feel they understand the law better than I do. They cite things they have googled, often from other states whose laws do not apply here, and then argue when I correct them.#78
I got pulled aside and told by my boss, "It's been noticed that you tend to only work your scheduled hours and no more".I told him that 1) when needed I often stayed back to finish a task and b) If they wanted me there for more hours, I'd need to be paid for those hours!
He let me go and I heard no more about it. I've done enough unpaid overtime in my life, no more.
#79
Two employees got into a heated argument each claiming the other drank their carrot juice from the shared fridge. Yes carrot juice.#80
The C**k Bandit. Someone was drawing d***s on everything. Whole site had meetings with HR and a couple managers, all women of course. They had printed pictures of all the c***s and would slide them across the table like a detective in a bad movie. “Have you seen these? What do you know? We have reason to believe it happened on your shift. Do you find this funny?” Some how all with a strait face.Couldn’t help but to laugh at the whole situation. Once they threatened to bring in a handwriting analysis and fire anyone they caught the wieners slowly went away.
C**k Bandit still at large
#81
A co-worker improperly used a table saw. While he was being taken to the hospital I had to pay "find the thumb". It took a long time but I finally found it behind a filing cabinet.#82
I worked in a restaurant with multiple criminals. One was arrested for beating up a pedophile, another was a huge drug dealer and one was caught shoplifting in his work clothes. One also literally went missing and I have not seen him or heard anything about him to this day. The most insane one however was an 18 year old who stole over 25 cars and caught them on fire. He regularly did B&Es and would stash his stolen goods in the restaurant. He also sold meth and took it during his shifts. He is currently on trial for the attempted murder of multiple officers and about 40 other charges including gta, b&e, felony theft, assault with a deadly weapon etc. He was actually pretty hard working at the restaurant but the second he left the restaurant he would be trying to get 5 stars in gta.#83
I worked at a little Asian fusion place and we had sushi on the menu. More specifically a spicy tuna roll.. this guy orders it and then calls me over to his table when it arrives only to tell me that the sushi is raw and that he wanted it more cooked. Even though it stated raw spicy tuna.#84
Worked for Goodwill. Paid minimum wage. Was actually told by the manager "If you don't like it here go work at McDonald's down the street." I almost walked out at that.But the day I put in my 2 weeks notice, 1 hour later, loss prevention comes down and brings me into the office accusing me of theft. Saying that if I didn't pay the $11 for the items they would call the police and press charges. I went to the ATM and paid it because I wanted to avoid the hassle and a potential arrest that I didn't have the money to fight. I found out that they regularly did this. One of my other bosses called me about a year later to suggest I sue them. I never did.
#85
Someone put in a huge online order, multiple food items, and about 10 smoothies. Usually people pick up their orders really fast, so we put all the food and smoothies out in the cubbies for costumers to easily grab. About 20 minutes go by and the order is still sitting there. So we decide to put all the smoothies in the fridge. About an hour and a half after this, a guy walks in and explains how he ran just “ a little late” and that we wanted us to remake the entire order. (This was all in the middle of a huge rush btw) So we remade the order, and obviously it took a while because we prioritized the costumers who were already there, and he ended up asking for the manager, because of the horrible service.#86
My boss brought a bullet into work (when I had been there for nearly 16 hours, around 930pm), put it on my desk, and told me he wished he could shoot me. All over an audit that went sideways (not tragically, it was one error by an employee but it affected several metrics). I refused to fall on my sword (I had a stellar eight year record, no disciplinary action, and he wanted to move me to the equivalent of a FWW, skipping several disciplinary steps).When I told my bosses boss, my mentor, a VP of this huge company, he transferred me out to a location that was slated to be closed, removing me from the most prestigious posting on the West Coast.
It was, frankly, insane.
#87
At my restaurant I had a table that was a large family. The son said he wanted to pay, but the father had already given me his card to pay for the meal.When the son found out the dad had paid already, he got f-in pissed. I've had that happen before, but then the son threatened to kill me because of it. I just stood there for a second in shock. Then I laughed, and got the manager to kick them out. F-in ridiculous. Over a bill? Come on.
#88
Worked at a call center for a big box store. Customer was upset because a pack of 3 dozen paper towels advertised so many towels per roll. They got mad because the last paper towel of each roll was glued to the cardboard, rendering it unusable. Company ended up sending a $0.18 gift card in the mail. Postage cost $0.40 at the time.#89
Trying to convince the delusional patient that the very large, very alive lice crawling around on her shoulders and in her bed are real, even after two lice treatments. When she finally conceded that they were real, she accused me of putting them there, then laid down on the floor and refused to let me do a third treatment.#90
For some years, I worked at the wing chain where the servers wear little orange shorts, and sell calendars.In the restaurant business, most places have each server assigned to a section with certain tables. There are good sections, and bad sections. If it's pouring down rain all night, getting a section outside can be the difference between making great money, and going home broke.
They used to have us play games in order to decide the order of who chooses their section first. We played all these games in front of customers, and we all participated, because we needed to make money.
Different managers had different "favorite games" they'd have us play. The easiest was the GM, who would just put our name tags in a beer pitcher, and draw them out. Then there were the other managers... Sometimes they'd make us have a hula hoop contest. Sometimes limbo (that one wasn't fun with scoliosis). Sometimes the "chubby bunny" game, where you take turns shoving jumbo marshmallows in your mouth, and try to say "chubby bunny". This one was particularly bad for a vegan girl. She normally would refuse, and just get stuck with the worst section... But one time, it was a Saturday night, and she literally couldn't afford not to play, because she had to pay a babysitter for her to be there that night. Manager had zero mercy. Sometimes, 8-9 of us would all be playing twister ON THE SAME BOARD. My least favorite, was the game where we all sat at a table with our hands behind our backs, to see who could lick a plate of whipped cream completely clean the fastest.
I understand that we "signed up" to be looked at. But some of it just wasn't fair.