We’ve all worked with someone we didn’t like. Whether it involves stealing food from the office fridge, posting passive-aggressive notes, or passing the buck on important projects, there are few things in life that are more annoying than a bad co-worker. But take our word for it: these horrible co-workers are the absolute worst.
1. The Real-Life Dwight Schrute
My co-worker had been vying for promotions for years, but he never got them. Then, after just a few months, I got promoted ahead of him. When he found out, he went ballistic. He turned bright purple and violently stormed out of the building. When he came back 30 minutes later, he walked into my cubicle and rubbed my back while telling me he wasn't mad at me, just mad at "the system". I was so uncomfortable, I couldn't even look him in the eye.
Then later, I heard him on the phone, applying for yet another promotion...and I finally understood why he got rejected every time. It was the most brutal conversation I’ve ever heard. This was his opening line: "Yes, is this Pam? This is Gary, you probably don’t remember me, but I interviewed for you a couple of months ago for the _____ position. I must have been a bad boy [said like you would say if you had a baby talk thing] though, because I didn’t get a callback. Do you remember me? No? Oh…well, anyway, I was calling to set up an interview for the _____ position you have open over there".
2. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
My worst co-worker 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 another job in banking. Instead, she worked for me for less than two weeks. In that time, she took money 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.
3. Lesson Learned
This guy had my name in his diary notebook listed under "people who need to be taught a lesson". He was fired immediately and I wasn’t allowed to come and go alone.
4. I Wash My Hands of You
I worked in a bookstore. We had a café, and the cafe manager was my worst co-worker ever. She was nice and all but sooooo unhygienic. We'd had to discuss more than once not using the dish sink in the café’s backroom to bathe (???) herself in. She always smelled slightly sour, just like all the freaking time. Oh, and she wasn’t homeless.
Well, one day while covering the cafe manager’s break, an employee discovered a pair of freshly stained underwear that she'd washed in the dish sink hanging off the counter in the café’s back room. She finally got fired for that one.
5. The Poop Bandit
In a building with three floors, he'd use alternate men's rooms each day, never flushing the toilet when he was done. The guy thought it was hilarious to leave it there for all to see—including co-workers on other floors. Even when he was called out on it, the guy persisted in leaving his #2 in plain view and somehow felt "cocky" about it.
6. The Office Predator
He took from people, would "let himself in uninvited" to homes, groom and prey on teens (13-17), harassed a girl for years and pulled a blade out on her when she rejected him, and more. He didn't get the boot until years later because "he was such a good worker". The guy is in his mid- to late-30s and still does this stuff working not far from a middle school and his former workplace.
When any of the above happened, the higher-ups would say, "He never acted like that around me" and would ignore the situation.
7. 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.
8. Hello, Nurse!
I work in ER registration. This co-worker smelled bad. She never shut up and always talked at max volume. Very very stupid. Needed a Chevy's waiter to read and explain the menu to her. She needed to keep a list by her work station to remember how to spell basic words like "stomach" and "heart" and "emergency". She also insulted others based on their appearance.
She asked me how much I would pay for a laptop. When I asked what kind, she replied: "A taken one". During a snowstorm, she bragged that she was a better driver than everyone else and that everyone else is stupid. The next day, we hear that she got her car stuck blocking her apartment’s parking lot. When she got out of the car, she fell and couldn't get back up.
A man tried to help her up, but couldn't lift her. After a second man came to help, she insulted the first guy and said he wasn't a man because he was too weak to lift her. She weighed at least 300 pounds. She was eventually fired for sending a person with weakness and chest pain home to get his insurance card.
Luckily, the hospital's shuttle bus driver recognized him coming back out of the ER and was like "Wait, weren't you having a heart attack?" She was suspected of stealing co-pays. She supposedly marched elderly ER patients to the ATM in the lobby and forced them to pay cash so she could pocket it. This is unconfirmed and we only heard about it after she was fired.
I fully believe it, knowing her.
9. I Can’t Live With or Without You
I work with a "rockstar" employee. This means they're brilliant, but a nightmare to work with. They frequently forget to attend meetings, work hours that tick off everyone else, they're a complete hypocrite when it comes to working standards, complain about everyone else, annoy their co-workers with their constant complaining, and can't follow the simple rules everyone else in the company has to follow.
Unfortunately, they're absolutely amazing at their core job and we'd be screwed without them because our workplace is obsessed with hiring cheap over qualified. So we suck it up and have them contribute in a different way to our already stupidly bad environment.
10. Your Lack of Faith Disturbs Me
My manager. After break, a girl didn't come back. I asked why and my manager said it was because her grandfather passed on. And then said: "She could have at least finished her shift".
11. Roger That
Roger. He was a software developer, he was very very smart and stupendously incompetent in the ways that only really intelligent people can be without everything collapsing around them. Everyone hated him. We cheered when he finally left. He was condescending to the point where he would stand behind people and tell them what to type on their computers.
He was a colossal jerk. Years later, another co-worker was getting his security clearance. I got interviewed as a reference. One of the questions was "Did the applicant get along with everyone?" I said, "Yes, except for one guy". I couldn’t believe the interviewer’s reply. She just said, "I've heard all about Roger, and I don't think I've ever encountered a more universally despised person in my life".
12. Keep Your Enemies Close
The "subject-matter expert" who was supposed to be my mentor decided she was intimidated by my existence and seized every opportunity to try to get me fired. I didn't get fired. I worked extra hard to figure it all out on my own and eventually got promoted because of it. So screw you, Janet. Definitely the worst.
13. The Bad Scientist
I had a girl starting her PhD in the lab I worked in. She was the embodiment of entitled, lazy, and spoiled. She’d come late, leave early, do next to no work, and constantly complained she needed more money. After a while, we all just hated her, mostly due to the fact that while we all worked our behinds off, she did nothing.
However, the bosses didn’t seem to care at all and just let her hang around in the lab for years. When the time came to hand in her thesis, we were all curious what she’d hand in, since she basically hadn’t done any work. I was convinced she’d somehow weasel her way out of it, like she had done all the times before.
I was convinced that when you can pull off being in a lab for years doing no work but no one fires you, you must be somehow a bit clever to pull that off. But nope, she got what was coming to her. She failed so spectacularly. I’d never seen anyone fail like that before or since. So note to everyone: you can’t be lazy and stupid; you can only be one of the two.
14. Jan the Scammer
I worked in data entry with her at a debt settlement office. She got suspended for a few days for actually tossing the mail rather than processing it. This included settlement offers, up-to-date balances, and letters from debtors. But that's not what made her the worst co-worker. Like I mentioned, this was a debt settlement office.
We took monthly payments from people in order to settle their debt, so we had sensitive banking information to process their payments. Well, she got caught using their information to buy things online. That's right, this woman literally took money from the poor! People who are already in debt and she took from them! The lowest of the low. She went into HR crying and begging them not to fire her.
They told her they didn't call her in to fire her, they called her in because the authorities were outside to arrest her, and they escorted her out of the building.
15. Nepotism Will Get You Everywhere
Worked with the owner's son at a marketing company. Dude was disgusting. He had been let go a few years prior to when I started because a co-worker caught him watching adult stuff on his laptop while at work, and he had been re-hired about a year after I started. This guy ate gefilte fish for lunch at least three days a week.
Would get sushi and drink the remaining soy sauce. Pants to the floor when he was at the urinal. Just an all-around slob. The last straw was when he pulled out his phone and thought his headphones were plugged in. Lo and behold, he was blasting some nasty adult audio in an office full of people. My friend had to tell him to turn it off.
Nothing came of it. I left that place soon after.
16. Don’t You Dare Be Good at Your Job
My first job out of college, I worked in an HR department. We hired a new VP of HR, so, technically, my boss's new boss. Before Day 1, I scheduled a flight of hers and forwarded her all the information along with a friendly email saying that I was very excited that she was starting at our company. I told her to let me know if she needed anything.
Very typical email for me to send, didn't matter your role at the company. Day 1, she walks in and asks for me specifically. I stood up and smiled and went to shake her hand warmly, because who asks for the lowest on the totem pole? She refused to shake my hand and showed me an email. The email I sent her with her flight information.
She asked what was wrong with it. I was alarmed and read through it again, then had to sheepishly admit I wasn't sure, but I'd love to know for next time. What she said next made my blood run cold. She told me, "You come across as SUCH a brown noser! I came to talk to you first so you could rub your face in my rear-end now and we could get it over with". Ummm.
I told her that's how I talk to everyone at the company, I see us all as a team and that's how I work. She guffawed and handed me a piece of paper she had shoved in her pocket. "Here, good to know you are for real! You can get started, then". My list of tasks included getting her computer set up (already done), her email up and running (already done), her new passwords (already done), and a few other things for comfort around her office, which I could complete in about five minutes.
I did so and returned promptly. She slapped the piece of paper out of my hand and called me a liar. I told her making sure that she was comfortable on her first day was part of my job and I accomplish many of the tasks before new employees arrive. She asked me to walk another employee into her office, so I went and got that employee and brought them down to the new VP's office.
That employee was promptly fired, no reason given, and the two had never spoken before…and I was asked to walk that employee out. It was at that moment I decided to start looking for new roles. The new VP basically made me her gofer for the next three months while I looked. I was denied any vacation requests, sick leave, breaks, whereas my peers in my department could do whatever, whenever.
About one month into her tenure, she pulled all of us into a room and made sure we were sitting down. She then told us that a department member of ours had taken their life over the weekend. We were shocked and saddened and obviously emotional. VP then did two things: she didn’t let us go home to mourn in peace and we weren’t allowed to tell anyone that this employee had passed, only that they were no longer at the company.
I could only apologize when people asked, say I was not allowed to talk about it, and quietly suggest that they Google her and that they could come to me with any concerns. Her obituary was public and one of the first things you would see on a cursory Google search. VP went to the funeral on the company’s behalf and forbade us from going. We ended up putting a picture of her up and paying our respects that way in a corner of the office.
I finally got an offer and went to resign with my two weeks' notice. I told my direct boss first, who congratulated me, and he also said he'd tell the VP for me since he was so worried about her reaction. The new VP came in screaming about how working for her was the opportunity of a lifetime, how could I pass that up, I am an idiot, that's why nobody can be trusted. I was so glad to get out of there.
17. Do You Know Who My Father Is?
The boss's daughter. She was a piece of work. Horribly entitled? You bet. Bad attitude towards everyone? Goodness yes. She made it clear that she thought everyone who worked there was lazy, stupid, and taking advantage of her father. Also, she was thoroughly convinced that she should be running the business because she would do it better than anyone else, including her father!
She had an uncanny talent for sniffing out problems, areas where things weren't being done right. At one point, when asked to provide a professional reference for her, I mentioned this in a positive light. The problem was that her idea of a solution to the problems she found was "do it right" or "do it better". The idea that she should help solve the problems she uncovered seemed utterly alien to her.
She worked for her dad's business because no one else would hire her. She kept that job because her dad would never fire her. When her father hired her older brother, and was openly grooming him to take over the business, then she finally left, after securing a generous severance package. I quit a while after that, but last I heard, she was back working at the family business again...
17. Talking the Talk
My former general manager was awful. He managed to talk his way to the top, but didn't really know anything. He was also a creep who tried to hit on every woman in the office and would often try to use his position and title to get favors. He made the work environment so bad that almost 40% of the workforce quit. Still, the owners loved the guy because he knew how to talk his way out.
I was already planning to leave, but he made it even easier to go. Last I heard, the company is struggling to hire people and is not doing well, but he's still there collecting a six-figure salary. I'd like to think he'll get what's coming to him, but life sometimes just doesn't work that way.
19. Karen Knows Best
Someone who, by now, would go as an entitled Karen. I was still a teenager back then and it was just a side job for me. I was a sales assistant in a bakery. Or, to be exact, in one store of a bakery chain. I had been there for almost a year, worked 2-3 times every week and usually worked alone, closing the store. I knew what I was doing. So did the apprentices who were my age.
They hired a part-time worker. We were the age of her children and she treated us as if she had the right to give us orders. Didn't ask if we would clean the glasses, but ordered us to. Didn't do things herself. Knew everything better: "No, you can't take that cloth for window cleaning, take the other". We always take the other one...
The worst incident was when I was with a customer and sold them a very big bread, bigger than our paper bags. I put it into two bags. Not in the plastic bag, as bread really does not belong in plastic bags. In front of the customer, she told me multiple times how what I was doing was wrong and I needed to do it differently, and how dumb and wrong it was.
I finished the sale, took her to the back, and I, a 17-year-old, scolded her massively to never to do that in front of customers again. I also told her that she had no idea what she was talking about. Why was I so sure? A month before, I had been to a workshop on product sales, professional attire, and promotions. The apprentices made her quit after a few months...
20. The Wind That Broke the Camel’s Back
I have two who actually tie into each other. I worked at Walmart when I was 20-ish and worked in the back, receiving, sorting, and staging products as they came off the truck. There were four of us: the lead Robert, myself, and two kids. We also had the three folks from the team who processed returns to merchants. One of those was a middle- to late-aged man named Jan.
We all reported to one boss in the back who was never actually there, and none of us really knew when he'd be around. To start off with, I had worked at a Walmart previously, so I had experience coming in. You'd think I'd be on a track to promotion, and so did I...til Robert just vanished. Robert was gone for two months in total.
During this time, the boss had been notified and he asked me to step into Robert’s role as lead, which consisted of a bit of scheduling and mostly making sure the others didn't mess around all day. I did this with no problem for two months. Then, as quietly as he disappeared, Robert came back. No notes, no doctors’ explanations, no anything.
He was immediately handed his old vest and the boss told him he'd "sort out the re-hire later". Just like that, the interview I had for Robert’s position as a lead was closed, and Robert was re-hired without any penalty despite two months’ no-show. On that particular day, it was 110F and I was already absolutely fuming when a truck that we had been waiting on rolled up.
Turns out, the driver had tried to drive in overnight and was going to exceed his driving allowance so had pulled over at 6 am and slept till 1 pm. The trailer had sat in the sun and was HOT. I'm talking "open the door and heat just blasts you"...but we needed to get it unloaded, so me and one of the boys dove in and started pitching everything we could out.
Robert got a pallet jack and was trying to arrange some stuff to make the two 7-foot high pallets of dog food easier to get out, but had got them stuck instead and called Jan over to help. Jan is a big guy. He's German, complains loudly and often, and ate sauerkraut without fail for lunch every day. Jan and Robert are working away trying to get these pallets out while me and the kid were basically stuck in the sweltering trailer.
Suddenly, I hear Robert cough and Jan goes "Oof. Ohhh...Ooh" and Robert backs slowly away from the truck while Jan just gets back into it and keeps working away. Then the smell hit. We're in a trailer that's easily 120 in the sun, baking, sweating, and barely able to breathe, and Jan just let out the most god-awful silent toot.
Sauerkraut and Sausage.
We had fans blowing into the trailer over the dog food pallets to keep me and this poor kid from dying of heat exhaustion, and suddenly we're ground zero of this nuclear toot. I can taste it, my eyes are watering. The poor kid next to me is dry heaving and we're ABSOLUTELY STUCK because Robert jammed the goddarned pallets together at a messed up angle.
I slice the shrink-wrap and just start chucking bags of dog food behind us. The kid starts helping while he's gagging and finally we clear about four rows out and I boost him up and crawl up myself and out into the warehouse. I ripped my vest off and walked into the office where the boss was and chuck it in his face and walk out.
As I leave, I can hear him asking Robert what happened and a "Christ. What's that smell?"
21. Caught Red-Handed
Bruce is the one I have the most stories about. I came in to work one day and started printing out a bunch of chapters for a meeting later in the day. I find it's faster to print one copy and use the Printer Manager to tell the printer to reprint that job four times instead of telling it to print five times up front. I have the bulk feeder removed because it just causes jams.
So the tray empties and needs to be refilled a few times. Bruce opens up a ream of paper only to see that there are red marks on almost every sheet of paper he touches. He's getting upset because he thinks we got a batch of flawed paper. Like a whole bunch came off the press with ink on it and they all came to us.
I look at the paper for a few seconds. Then I grab Bruce's hand and flip it over. He'd cut his thumb and was bleeding on all the paper.
22. Sick Leave
About a month after this lady started, she ran into the building bawling, saying she had cancer and would need one day off every two weeks for treatment. Our director complied—until it was revealed that the lady had been caught shoplifting and was taking the time off to go to meetings with her parole officer. She then got fired.
23. The Last Straw
During college when I worked food, I had a co-worker who absolutely could not handle customers coming in. I mean, we’d open and wouldn’t have anyone come in for an hour, and as soon as someone walked in, he’d throw a fit. He was there so long, it just broke him I guess. Towards the end, he took a chair and sat just outside the back door to the restaurant so he didn’t have to be in the place.
It was really sad honestly.
24. Cart This Guy off
I worked at a golf course and Sean the cart attendant was the worst, I'd say. Sean was just plain lazy and got the job because his grandfather worked as a ranger there. If I saw my name on the schedule with him, I knew I'd be doing all the work even though I was a clubhouse worker. We'd often run out of carts and have to help him because he was so slow.
And if he closed with you, well, get ready to clean the bathrooms, restock the merchandise, vacuum, etc. all by yourself. We once caught him sleeping in the cart storage area on a busy Saturday. Needless to say, he wasn't asked back the next year.
25. The Dating Game
I worked as a barista for a while, and I had this one customer who came in a few times a week. He was awkward, not in a cute way, but I didn't think much of it. He'd try to start a conversation and I'd be polite but I wouldn't necessarily encourage him. He mentioned where he lived, and I noted that my chain had a coffee shop in his town, but he drove a couple of towns over to mine, which I thought was odd.
One day I'm at work and he orders a coffee. As I'm making it, he starts talking about how cool and pretty I am and asks if we could go out sometime. I was pretty annoyed and I politely declined, saying I had a boyfriend—which I did at the time—and he said "He's lucky, I wish I had a girl like you," which creeped me out.
That was on a Friday. I come in for my shift on Monday and my blood runs cold. He's behind the counter in a uniform. Excitedly tells me he got a job here. I didn't really know what to do. Not only did he continue to hit on me and constantly try to get my social media from me, he was absolutely incompetent, and a health hazard.
He came in with a disgusting rash on his arm once and he would scratch it and then handle people's food. I told the manager if she didn't fire him I'd quit—I was the longest working employee there by far, so I figured she'd fire him. She didn't, so I left.
26. This Cat Has Nine Lives
Amanda. She smelled SO bad and knew it—because she'd make excuses. "I forgot to shower". "I showered, but my washing machine is broken so I have to wear dirty clothes". There was documented disciplinary action about her hygiene. One day, she legit smelled like old maxi pads & got sent home. The same girl always "forgot to eat breakfast," so she took extra breaks to gob McDonald's and Uncrustables.
Also, she couldn't (wouldn't) vacuum the store at closing because she "heard screams coming from the vacuum" and thought it was ghosts. I documented EVERYTHING. Verbals, written warnings, she always stopped whatever stuff was afoot at the second write-up (third was termination). I finally got the green light from HR to let her go.
The very day she was getting fired, our owner decided to shut the store down and gave everyone (including freaking Amanda) severance and unemployment. Not fair.
27. A Rude Awakening
I worked at a fast-food chain themed around a royal figure, and we got a new assistant manager who transferred in from a fast-food chain known for their special sauce. She was the whiniest person I’ve ever met and made everyone else do her tasks for her. I was napping on my break when I was sick and she physically grabbed me and shook me awake to do something for her.
I should have refused, but I was too sick and tired to fight, so I just did it. She lasted two weeks before being kicked to the curb. Screw you, Brittany.
28. Anger Management
Oh man, where do I begin. I worked for a medical supply company that specialized in oxygen therapy and other supplies. I worked with this guy, we'll call him John. John was very religious and was a part of one of those cult-like churches who speak in tongues and force their beliefs on you. One day, he went too far. He tried to get into a religious discussion about homosexuality.
I politely passed and told him that I didn't have a problem with it and what two consenting adults did in the privacy of their own bedroom was none of my business nor his. After while he saw that I wouldn't play into these discussions at work or any other time, and this made him angry. John would act very Christian until something made him angry.
He would throw things around the warehouse for having to do his job. One time, he decided to throw an oxygen tank, filled with 2000 psi. He regretted this decision when it hit one of the tank carts, sheared off the top, and took off like a homing missile right back at his shin. The aftermath was truly disgusting. I believe his shin was like a jigsaw puzzle that had to be put back together, because it looked like a bag of Legos between his knee and ankle.
What's even better is that since he was such a jerk to me and everyone else he worked with, I decided to let the manager know how this happened. John spent months out of work and fought the company to get workman’s comp, but when they found out how it happened...he was denied. I'm assuming because he was an idiot with a short fuse.
Instant karma.
29. Pics or It Didn’t Happen
Had a serial pooper with us for a good two years. He always took a dump midday and would always take a picture of his masterpiece. He would find creative ways to show us his art. On better days, it would just look like a python, but darn the worst ones were during Mexican lunch-outs.
30. Don’t Be Catty
I worked in an office with a literal "cat lady". She had at least a dozen cats and didn't have enough money to care for them. She looked like a cadaver. She was very skinny, her skin was waxen, her hair oily and limp, and she stank. I won't even talk about her teeth...For some reason, she thought I was her best friend, even though I'd never socialized with her outside of our office and never sought her out inside of the office.
I was just there to do my job and go home. But I was the one she came to in order to complain and moan about how everyone was against her. She also thought that the vet should treat her cats for free because...reasons. I dunno, I worked there for about seven months, and every day I heard more about her cats than I ever wanted to hear.
She also had no concept of personal space, so I got to smell them too—whether I wanted to or not. And whenever she wasn't parking herself in my cubicle, someone else would take her place and give me an earful about her.
31. Check out of My Life
I had a co-worker who literally would do nothing but tell my higher-ups they needed to fire me, because I wasn't as organized in her way as she was. I worked the front desk at a hotel at the time and my first day with her, she refused to check in a soldier who had a room with her two kids under her husband's name.
Over the next several months, I had to record our interactions, because she would say I made some backhanded comments to her and left the front desk messy. My bosses always took my side, though, because she'd had a reputation there before and only took her back on because they were desperate for staff.
32. Can’t Touch This
Fawn was a complete psycho. She set the mood of the workplace and every boss was afraid of her. It wasn’t until she finally met someone dumb enough to date her that she calmed down a bit, but she was still insufferable. She loved when she was in control, but hated when someone didn’t put up with her stuff—somehow, this rarely happened.
Saw her intimidate an elderly co-worker who was a third of her size. She was legitimately insane. She never really wore makeup but when she did, she looked like Leatherface. Truly horrifying. Her mom would visit often, and let me tell you, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. I actually ran into her a couple of years ago and I dodged her hug.
She looked like she wanted to smack me, but it was so worth it.
33. The Customer Is Always Wrong
We'll call her Anne, because that was the insane woman’s name. Anne, as she loved to remind me, worked in bookshops for 25 years. And yet somehow in all that time she had not learned how to 1) be polite or helpful to customers, 2) keep track of stock properly or use the computer ordering system, 3) answer the freaking phone.
I once saw her make a customer cry, she was so rude to them. She once complained to the manager about me because people would ask me questions instead of her—this was apparently my fault, silly me for being nice instead of belittling people for daring to not know something. She attempted to blame me for other screw-ups she was responsible for, one of them on a day when I wasn't even in.
During her time at the shop, three other workers left because they "Couldn't work with that [bleep] any more" (direct quote). Her hair was reminiscent in style and color of a WW1 pith helmet.
34. In Bed With the Enemy
One of my co-workers was a 20-some-year-old girl who initially seemed nice until she took the liberty of informing me that she had previously been detained in Korea—for trying to off someone. Apparently she went after a woman with the end of her stiletto heel. Obviously, I tried to be extremely nice to her even though she was an incompetent fool because I didn't want a repeat of her incident to happen to me.
She began dating our boss (who was well into his 50s) and, unsolicited, shared explicit details of their bedroom life with me. All the time. She couldn't properly work our computer system, and whenever she'd fill out paperwork, she'd mess it up...and everyone else somehow got blamed for her errors. Thankfully, after she and my boss broke up, she was fired.
35. Not a Boss Move
I had a boss who nobody liked. He was the one-upper. Everything he had anything to do with was better than everyone else’s. His kids, his wife, his dog, his car...We've all dealt with them. He would also tell these outlandish lies and stories all the time, even if he wasn't trying to one-up you! He didn't think twice about throwing people under the bus when it came to problems in the office, either.
He was pretty much universally unliked and unrespected. Well, one night he started acting a little squirrelly at work. Kind of vacant, not much to say. The next day, the authorities show up looking for him, but he was out to lunch. They tell us if he shows back up to call them, but he never made it back.
The next morning, he comes back to work, but the officers were waiting for him. He sees them from the parking lot, takes off running back to his car and drives off. The men leave, but call back a few hours later and give us a dire warning. They tell us if he shows up, he's probably armed and we should give him a WIDE berth by leaving the building.
But, the dude never showed...Three days later, I see him on the news. In a mugshot. He had burned his wife's business down, then he offed her. Waited outside their house, and when she walked out? Point blank, two to the head, five to the chest. Apparently she was about to divorce him and had kicked him out a few days previous.
It doesn't get much weirder than seeing your boss on the nightly news like that.
36. Let’s Go to the Tape
I worked with this lady in a restaurant who for some reason decided to hate me that week. She always hated someone, it was just a matter of who. I never gave her any reason to dislike me, I think she was just one of those people who thought that the worse she could make others look, the better she would look to the management.
Anyway, she took money out of the register and did a reverse pick-pocket thing and put it in my apron. Then she said she saw me take money out of the register. I was stunned. I protested like crazy, but nobody believed me. They said they had the security tape and would be reviewing it, but in the meantime, I should just go.
The next day, I showed up like nothing had happened and the lady in question had been fired.
37. Devil Worship
I worked at a call center for a year and a half. It was a rather bad one that hired people with literally no computer experience. One of the new hires was a woman I will name Lynn. Lynn had no experience with computers or cell phones, leaving her in training for an extra two weeks. Because she sucked so much, they put her in a cubicle next to mine, since I would have been a trainer if not for my scheduling conflicts.
Lynn had quirks, such as reading her Bible every break. I didn't think much of it. Until, of course, we started decorating for Halloween. Lynn was quiet about this, until October 30th, when she freaked out and screamed at everyone that they were going to burn for worshipping the devil's holiday. The next day, she gave dirty looks to the preschoolers who came in to trick-or-treat, muttering under her breath about sinners.
Everyone on the account reported her to HR for harassment. She quit before she was fired, though. Apparently she got engaged to some guy and moved with him further north. We're pretty certain that the man married her either for her virginity or for a green card.
38. The Long Game
The trainer intentionally trained people how to make errors when filling out paperwork. Errors counted heavily at this company. So while trainees thought that they were doing a perfect job, they were actually making huge mistakes. This sabotage ultimately cost many trainees their job...and got the trainer promoted, "Since she was the only one who learned how to fill out the paperwork perfectly".
39. I Always Feel Like Somebody’s Watching Me
I worked at an office supply store, and one day I saw that one of my co-workers had a picture of me. In the picture, I was standing at the register, so it was taken at work. I asked why he had it, and he just tried laughing it off like it was funny. Later on, he tells me he's been putting his own memory card in the store display cameras and taking pictures of me.
But it gets worse. Then he goes on to inform me he has more pictures of me saved on his computer at home. He was such a creep.
40. I Left You a "Present"
There was a fellow sales associate at my work who was a bad employee in general—taking items and cash from us repeatedly, not respecting our boss, not showing up for shifts, etc. All that stuff. If she had worked anywhere else, she would have been fired. But I will never, ever forgive her for what she did last month.
Our store is only open Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday right now. On Saturday night, she took a McPoop in the bathroom and didn't flush it. It sat in the HEAT of the store with the bathroom door open all weekend. When my boss and I walked into the store on Tuesday morning, I literally threw up in my mouth.
41. He Who Smelt It, Dealt It
He wouldn’t stop breaking wind the entire time we worked together. To make matters worse, we worked in close proximity, and it was absolutely horrible. Silent toots, but so deadly. Once he did it in front of someone else and looked at me, trying to make it seem as if I was the one who did it. I hated that guy so much.
42. This Girl is on Fire
I used to work for a landscaping company and over the course of a summer, I witnessed one of my co-workers accidentally set three different things on fire: a hedge trimmer, a truck, and himself.
43. Reply All Regrets
My current boss is a moron. I'm really not sure how he made it to the director level. My company typically makes very good hiring decisions. He asked me to prepare a presentation for the whole company to roll out a newly instituted policy. THREE DAYS later I deliver the presentation to him and he had forgotten about it.
He replied to me (and CC'd his boss because he's that dumb) saying, "I don't know who gave you the authority to write your own policies, but nothing leads me to believe that we would embrace this type of policy any time in the near future. Please consult with me prior to wasting any resources on these types of projects".
His boss replied to both of us and said, "Is this some sort of inside joke between you two? Good job, we will roll this out immediately". Also, he doesn't use they're, their, and there. In his world, there is only one spelling.."..there".
44. The Leisure Lawyer
I was supposed to train a new junior at my firm. He showed up at 11:30 AM when the workday starts at 8:00. On his first day. When he sat down, I asked him what was up. He said "Am I late?" and I said everyone gets in at 8:00. "Oh, I'm so sorry, but I won't be able to come in earlier than ten". What the heck? No reason was given.
Sadly, I do not have the authority to fire someone, and my boss was out for the day, so I stuck with him. At lunch, he arrives back half an hour late. At three, he starts packing his bag. I ask where he's going. He said home. I told him that he had to work the full eight hours. He refused and left. He said no one still works an eight-hour day.
I promptly left my boss a voicemail, and when new guy strolled in the next day (at 10:30), the boss fired him on the spot. Apparently, this 22-year-old guy has never worked a day in his life. It was shocking. He thought that working less than three hours was appropriate.
45. Like Taking Milk From a Baby
I worked at a preschool. A lady in the infant room and was lying about feeding the babies. She was just dumping their bottles down the drain and making up numbers for telling the parents how many ounces they were "eating". She got fired.
46. Work Dumb, Not Hard
He was 17 at the time. We’ll call him Jerry. We were working in a grocery store when I met him. Jerry wanted so bad to be a bodybuilder-bro. He idolized the Rock. He spent countless hours in the gym every day. He woke up at 4 AM to run 5K, only slept for 20-minute increments through out the day because "that’s what Marines do," and he made sure everyone knew about his "no excuses" attitude.
Except all he ever did was complain and make excuses. Jerry would give speeches about hard work and dedication, and whatever other stuff he obviously pulled from a motivational Instagram that day. He really did put time in at the gym, though. He had the arms and chest to show it. But if you gave the kid a basic task, he was useless.
Cleaning the bathrooms? He left stains and toilet paper everywhere. Stocking shelves? The product was always facing the wrong way or in the wrong spot. Offering additional assistance to customers? He never bothered, always got yelled at, and never changed. Even just consistently working was an issue for Jerry because he had to stop like every hour to eat a snack or drink a Monster.
For some reason, Jerry thought I was his friend, and he would always complain to me when he got yelled at by management. He made up this conspiracy theory that management hated him and wanted to see him fail. According to him, he was never actually screwing up, management was just attacking him. He would say stuff like "they’re just jealous. They don’t work as hard as me and that makes them jealous".
Jerry lived in a fantasy land that was a product of too many quotes he probably got from some bodybuilding calendar. Eventually, Jerry quit because he was "tired" and he went to work in fast food under his older brother. Jerry got fired by his older brother. Jerry tried joining the forces but apparently couldn’t hack it. Tried becoming a cop but couldn’t hack it.
Now he’s a valet at the local mega-church and he recently turned 25. He’ll probably get fired or quit there too.
47. Falling Flat
I once worked with a girl who thought the world was flat. There was an Australian guy who just started work with us and someone made a reference to "down under". She asked why Australia was called Down Under and someone reasoned that it was because it was "down and under the other side of the planet". She was confused and said that you can't go under the other side of the world because you will fall off.
Everyone in earshot was taken aback and thought she was joking, but she continued to insist that she was right and explained how the world was flat. We told her about gravity and about how it pulls things towards the center of the Earth, and she countered that this could not be true as she "was once on a roller coaster and when it suddenly dropped, she felt herself go up".
I asked her; "If the world is flat, how do you explain the oceans still being there?" To which she replied; "The water just goes up to the edge".
48. Going Postal
I used to run a small team, and one of them was a notorious screw-up. I asked him to go to the post office and send off some important documents through the classified post, AKA next-day delivery. He comes back after a while and reports that all is good. I get a frantic phone call the next day asking where the docs are.
Guy says it's all good, he posted them fine, must be a post issue. This stuff carries on for a while until I ask him to explain every step of what he did. He bought a stamp, licked his thumb, touched the stamp with his thumb, then posted the letter. Of course, stamps are sticky…and it turns out the stamp got stuck to his thumb and ended up in his pocket.
49. Take a Chill Pill
I work at a consulting firm. The boss's daughter, who shall be referred to henceforth as Captain Incapable, was working for the summer. Being a superhero whose only power is to screw everything sideways that I ever gave her to work on, ever. One day, she came into my office DEMANDING something to occupy her time.
I gave her a menial task and further asked for her to bring me some Advil. She disappeared for nearly an hour, forgot to complete the task I had asked her to do, and handed me two pills, which I later identified as heartburn medication. I didn't yell, although I wanted to, I just stared at her holding the pills in my hand until she left my office.
50. I’m On to You
I was working late one day and my dumb co-worker, "Stacy," and another co-worker who work later than me were both there. Stacy was a few feet from me and the other co-worker didn't know I was working late that day. So she comes out of the break room and says "Oh, you're still here?" I jokingly say "No, I left!"
Honest to god, Stacy jumps out of her seat and says "HE'S LYING, HE'S STILL HERE".
Sources: Reddit, ,
