What’s the Most Outrageous Thing That’ Happened at Your Job?

[Deleted]

I don’t have a #1. Years ago, one of my coworkers and I talked about writing a book about the crazy shit that happens at our job, and how if we did, people probably wouldn’t believe it was all true.

I have lots of stories, but I’m going to say that any story I share may or may not have actually happened. They *allegedly* happened….. “allegedly” sounds like a good word to use for this stuff.

So allegedly, yesterday at my job, a young man (late 20’s, maybe early 30’s) got into it with a woman in (I’m guessing) her early 60’s, because she asked him if he was going to help her and their coworkers do something and what was his problem. He told her he was going to beat her ass, and followed her telling her the same and what he was going to do to her when they got off work (beat her ass).

She was shaken and upset and called her son and I guess told him that the guy had made her nervous. Apparently she also reported it to management. So she and the young man were in the office with management and a guy showed up walking around our (supposedly secure) building asking where he could find *young man’s name*. He told one employee he was *young man’s* brother. 

Some people tried to get him out of the building, but he was determined to find *young man* and shook them off. He said he wasn’t scared to go to jail, he’d just gotten out of jail, and nobody was going to fuck with his Momma. 

A female employee was finally able to convince him to leave by telling him he was putting his Mom’s job in jeopardy, so he did finally leave. But he only got off the property and went to the sidewalk, still trying to see if anyone that came out the building was the young man.

By then, our security was running around the building trying to find him. Meanwhile, his Mom came out of the office and started back working, not knowing he’d been there. She gets a call on her cell and jumps up and tells her coworkers she has an emergency and has to leave. Her coworkers assume the call alerted her to the fact that her son was at her job.

Young man….. somebody tells him his brother was there looking for him, he calls his brother, and of course his brother doesn’t know what he’s talking about. So now, he knows somebody is there looking for him.

The son never does find the young man, so nobody got hurt. Security never found son either.

And work rolled on, like nothing ever happened. 

I can tell stories all day lol. But now it’s your turn.

[Ava]

I used to work at a fast food place many years ago.
The manager was the craziest person I've ever seen in charge of a restaurant.

She was very young, but had the full time job at the restaurant, plus a part time job, went to night school, oh, and she was married and had a toddler.
I guess she didn't have time to sleep. She was always so mad, angry and aggressive.

I'm not a fast person, and I was super comfortable working either the counter, the register, or taking orders from the drive-thru. But she had this idea that we had to cross-train. So she put me in the sandwich station at the busiest hour. Not only I'm not fast, I'd never made the sandwiches before.
As I was falling behind, she got on my face and started yelling abuse at me. That's the only time in my life that I walked out of a job.

The franchise owner also worked there with us, and she yelled and screamed at him too all the time.
She abused the employees, also the customers.
One time a customer came from the drive thru and explained to him what a horrible experience it was to be yelled and abused by her, and see the way she treated the employees.
The owner offered her a gift card and she declined it. Said she wouldn't return as long as this woman was the manager there. It was so great to hear someone say that.

The day I walked out the owner came after me and asked me to return and he'll talk to her. I went back the following day because I needed the money. A few weeks later I fell asleep and arrived a little late (we started at 4 am) and she said my punishment was working the late shift because it was quiet at night and there weren't many tips.
So I started working 6pm to 12 am. Which I actually liked because I'm not a morning person. It was slow and relaxed during those hours, and the crew were friendly. I actually met a coworker who encouraged me to take the GED exam and gave me the book she had used to study for it.

About a year later I put in my notice, the manager called me at home to yell again. She got really angry with anyone who put their notice. She kept my last paycheck captive for a few weeks, until I finally went into the restaurant ready to make a scandal if she didn't give me my check. After a few nasty remarks she went to the office and came back with my check.

[Sharon]

I was working a semi-swing data entry shift, we worked 3pm until 2am 4 days a week.  Our area was located in a room in the front of the building.  The people on one side of the room had desks next to windows and the windows had these sorta of lacy curtains, no blinds, just curtains.  You were able to tell someone was working at a desk but not necessarily see who was sitting on which desk.

One day one of the ladies came in and asked if someone would mind changing desks with her for that shift.  Her boyfriend had threatened to come to work and shoot her through the window while she was working, so of course her obvious answer to this was change desks with someone.   No one took her up on the offer, management was notified but we just worked our normal shift.

[happyhoix]

The cops came and arrested coworker for child pornography. They perp walked him and his work computer out the front door, right in front of the TV cameras. Ugh.

Also, I had to break up two temporary employees who were fighting over a man. They pulled each otherwise hair out. I had to grab one by the waist and try to drag her away. I yelled at them both for getting fired over a stupid man.

[swamp]

In court some dude flipped over a table and a led the judge to go fuck himself.

[Deleted]

I officially retired from "the company" in 2001 when the owner downsized the corporation from the top floor of a high-rise office building (laying off all staff but me) to a luxury apartment.  I oversaw the transition and move (got an incredible piece of art as my "pay" for endless hours of backbreaking work) and set up shop in one of the bedrooms in the apartment.  Working one day a week and sharing the space with the CFO, I was tasked with bookkeeping (thank you Quicken and Quickbooks!) for both the corporate and personal sides of the owner's life, as well as certain aspects of daily living such as laundry, unloading the dishwasher, grocery shopping, returning porn videos, vetting the maid service, booking travel etc. I was already aware of the complexities involved on both the corporate and personal sides, and got along well with both ex-wives and their kids, and all mistresses, so I did an amazing job of juggling all the plates UNTIL THAT DAY.  That was the day when ex-wife #2 had her very substantial tax refund seized by the IRS because of HIS indebtedness to the IRS.  Yup, they filed jointly during those golden years so she was jointly liable for the debt.  

At that point, my pay was frequently late and it was never a given that I would be paid at all.  She kept screaming that I was helping to hide the $$ and I finally screamed back that there were no $$ to hide or I wouldn't be a month late in getting paid. 

I finally left the situation in 2009 b/c the CFO became addicted to a lot of drugs and alcohol.  I could no longer go in to an apartment littered with broken bottles and a man passed out on his desk at 8 a.m. And I could no longer answer the apartment management's questions about middle-of-the-night guests.  When I quit, the owner asked me to meet with him and asked one question only, "Was it me or was it XXX, the CFO?"  I answered honestly that, while he was a jerk, my reason was really the CFO.

We didn't have any contact for many years, but he later hired me to type up several of his novels, and we now chat periodically as friends.  

[Cheesy FL-Vol]

[TheOtherMe]

Mine would be mostly about office sex and when we moved in to a downtown high rise, adults not understanding there were cameras in the elevators. A memo was sent out to stop screwing in the elevators.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

My dad and brother got in a fist fight and rolled under the prep table.

When I cut a mouse's head off it's body got up on it's hind legs and ran into the sink.

I've seen and rubbed ointment on a prolapsed mouse penis

Ihad to get mice to pee on a diabetic test stripes, they don't cooperate.

I for the first time in my career dropped a syringe and it stabbed my brand new coworker in the knee. It was sterile and surprisingly she still spoke to me afterwards.


I accidentally turned mice into smurfs when we tried to use blue dye to stain their lymph nodes to make them easier to find during dissection. Those mice were BLUE.🤯

[Tennesseer]

My employer had a three step appeal process for employees who believed they were treated unfairly.  The could appeal involuntary terminations, warning letters, performance reminders, perforformance evaluations, and a few other things.  Step one was with the employee's director, step two with the employee's vice president and step three was with the CEO and a few other senior VPs as a group.

As an HR rep, I sat in on the appeals hearings with the employee who filed the appeal, his manager/Sr. manager and their director.  At step one, the director would decide after the hearing whether whatever the employee was appealing should be upheld, modified or completely overturned.

One appeals meeting was for an employee who was terminated after receiving his third performance reminder in a rolling 12 month period.  All three letters were due to his constant late arrival for work.

The employee apologized for his tardiness but the last episode of tardiness was not his fault.  It was his wife's fault he told us.  The employee explained as he was leaving for work, he and his wife were having an argument.  As he walked out the front door to go to work he saw his wife in a second story window throwing all his clothes out the window.

The employee stated he ran into his home and spit on his wife's face.  Had she not thrown his clothes out the window, he would not have had to go into their home and spit in her face. 

Termination upheld.

Sat in another appeals meeting.  A woman was terminated for failing a random drug screen.  Her report came back cocaine was in her system.

The employee repeatedly told us the drug screening must be a mistake as she does not do drugs including cocaine.  Then she was quiet for a moment or two and told us her boyfriend does use cocaine and it must have entered her system after she gave the boyfriend oral sex.  We did not believe her and her termination was upheld as the drug levels were too high. 

Neither the spitter or the swallower went to step two of the appeals process.
 

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

I work with teenagers. 
I don't think I could narrow it down to top ten. 

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Okay, some of you have seen some weird shit. 

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Jul 1, 2021 19:24:56 GMT -5 TheOtherMe said:

Mine would be mostly about office sex and when we moved in to a downtown high rise, adults not understanding there were cameras in the elevators. A memo was sent out to stop screwing in the elevators.

But my desk is acceptable right? Just no elevator sex.

[Deleted]

Jul 1, 2021 19:13:13 GMT -5 Sharon said:

I was working a semi-swing data entry shift, we worked 3pm until 2am 4 days a week.  Our area was located in a room in the front of the building.  The people on one side of the room had desks next to windows and the windows had these sorta of lacy curtains, no blinds, just curtains.  You were able to tell someone was working at a desk but not necessarily see who was sitting on which desk.

One day one of the ladies came in and asked if someone would mind changing desks with her for that shift.  Her boyfriend had threatened to come to work and shoot her through the window while she was working, so of course her obvious answer to this was change desks with someone.   No one took her up on the offer, management was notified but we just worked our normal shift.

No shootings that I know of, but plenty of angry exes, wives and girlfriends at my job or showing up. Allegedly.

One guy always parked on the street instead of the parking lots. An angry woman (that didn’t work there) set his car on fire while he was at work. A big, blazing fire.

Another couple that both worked there, she literally ran over him on the street outside of the building. Not just a little bump with her car, she gunned it and ran into him. He was on foot, not in a vehicle. She was mad that he’d gone out of town with his baby momma. 

Another coworker had a girlfriend in our building and one at another one of our facilities. The GF at the other facility came to ours and caught the other GF getting out of her car on her lunch break and pistol whipped her. She was permanently disfigured after that, surgery couldn’t completely fix her face. 

A wife drove from where they lived, an hour away, to catch her husband coming back from lunch with his mistress. Wife, a woman with a professional career, came prepared in leggings and tennis shoes, with her hair tied back. She chased the mistress into the building with a butcher knife. Husband had to talk to upper management about his wife running around chasing people with a butcher knife. He didn’t get fired though. He did stop fooling with the mistress. 

Those are the ones that immediately come to mind. And my disclaimer is still that these things may or may not have actually happened.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Jul 1, 2021 20:17:15 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

Jul 1, 2021 19:24:56 GMT -5 TheOtherMe said:

Mine would be mostly about office sex and when we moved in to a downtown high rise, adults not understanding there were cameras in the elevators. A memo was sent out to stop screwing in the elevators.

But my desk is acceptable right? Just no elevator sex.

[Deleted]

Jul 1, 2021 19:16:22 GMT -5 swamp said:

In court some dude flipped over a table and a led the judge to go fuck himself.

Not quite the same, but an employee that is retired now made his mark in history because a manager made him mad, then told him to come with him to “the office”. Employee literally kicked the manager in the ass all the way to the office. 

Allegedly.

[Deleted]

Jul 1, 2021 20:13:03 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

Okay, some of you have seen some weird shit. 

IKR. But for me, I haven’t even gotten started good yet.

[Deleted]

Jul 1, 2021 19:24:56 GMT -5 TheOtherMe said:

Mine would be mostly about office sex and when we moved in to a downtown high rise, adults not understanding there were cameras in the elevators. A memo was sent out to stop screwing in the elevators.

Oh boy! The stories involving sex!

I’ll just share one. For now.

Two women were having sex with a male employee that was paying them. He liked for them to pee on him. A supervisor liked one of the 2 women, was dealing with her, or whatever. He got into a fistfight with the man they were peeing on. Idk what happened to Mr PeePee or the supervisor, I haven’t seen either of them since the fistfight, but both the women still work there. All of this was over 10 years ago.

One woman has been involved with a married man (who works there too) for years, he wanted to leave his wife for her, Idk what shut that idea down.

The other is reunited and living with a man she dated and had a secret baby with while he was married to another woman that works there too. It was all so along ago that I can’t remember for sure, but I think the secret baby was before Mr. PeePee.

All of this may or may not have actually happened.

[Opti]

Jul 1, 2021 20:17:15 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

Jul 1, 2021 19:24:56 GMT -5 TheOtherMe said:

Mine would be mostly about office sex and when we moved in to a downtown high rise, adults not understanding there were cameras in the elevators. A memo was sent out to stop screwing in the elevators.

But my desk is acceptable right? Just no elevator sex.

Off camera though. 

[Opti]

Jul 1, 2021 20:11:09 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

I work with teenagers. 
I don't think I could narrow it down to top ten. 

Depends what you consider outrageous. Very few things surprise me anymore, but there are usual suspects that happen often enough I am not sure they count as outrageous to me anymore.

In healthcare, its called elopement when you try to escape the medical facility without being discharged formally or even have your family or friends help you go out AMA (against medical advice). It does however still raise my eyebrows just a touch when someone tries to elope just hours before they are being discharged. Don't know if its anxiety, not wanting to go wherever or what, but it happens more than you might expect.

Also, people can move very fast if they are motivated. Alzheimer's patients can appear normal enough, long enough, that visitors sometimes accidently help them elope out of the facility. Usually they are still on the premises, but sometimes they are facility adjacent.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

We had a Nobel Laureate come give a talk at my university.  Not sure how, but managed to get an invite to the reception and talk.  The department really put on the Ritz, a very nice catered buffet before the talk, which included a poached salmon.  At the time, I didn’t like salmon so didn’t eat it.  A lot did.

So one of the post docs and I were standing at the back of the room by the spread.  She looked down and asked me if I saw what she was looking at.  There were worms crawling out of the partially eaten salmon.  What to do?  She went and told her PI, and at the end of the talk everyone who ate the salmon got a prescription for an anti parasitic.  But it didn’t end there.

A week later, we had a combined lab lunch at a Chinese restaurant.  Only about 1/4 of the people who went to the talk were at lunch, so the story got told again while eating lo mein.  Of course, we really weren’t quiet in our discussion, next thing we knew we had cleared the previously busy restaurant out.  It takes a lot to gross us out.  Whoops!

[minnesotapaintlady]

OMG.  I work in a factory.  15 years on 2nd shift as well where the offices are empty.  Seriously, I think everything happened.  Office sex, coke stashed in the machines (not the drink), fights, showing up naked under their ESD smock...one woman everyday for years.  Active shooter alert, people being escorted out in handcuffs, people literally dying on the production floor...

[billisonboard]

I was working with a teenage group from a mental health program. The course, approximately 20 feet off the ground, they were to negotiate had 8 sections of different configurations of cables to walk and hold plus an overhead cable to hook onto. Each had two clips allowing them to transfer one, then the other to move around trees, never being fully unhooked.  After harnessing, a safety briefing taught that each movement was to be approved by their partner on the ground. As we proceeded, I realized that "John" wasn't following the proper procedure. "John, please hook that one clip back up before you unhook that other one.  John.  John, do you hear me?" One of their counselors who was standing behind me said softly,  "Try 'Sam'." I said more loudly,  "Sam?" The kid looked down and asked, "What?" I turned to the counselor who kinda shrugged and said,  "Multiple personalities." In a perturbed voice I told him that the problem was that "Sam" wasn't there for the safety briefing. 

[Opti]

My earliest might have been discrimination at AT&T. Like the NASA movie, for the longest time women could not be called members of technical staff no matter how much education they had. There was a talk once, by a female engineer there, and I think I missed that by perhaps only a decade.

Then, Members of Technical Staff had Master's or PhDs as their top degree. If you had a Bachelor's Degree as your top degree, you could only be at the level of Senior Technical Associate, STA, in common parlance. I came in as a MTS in the 80s. My XH did also, but most peeps in Murray Hill Bell Labs were PhD MTS's. Men with Bachelor's degrees were STAs then, and an MTS with a Master's like me had to advertise & get people to believe you walked on water to be a MTS (AT&T Murray Hill Bell Labs research). I'm from the Midwest, my parents were Depression era babies and my Dad survived the Korean War to make it home. Bragging & advertising was the opposite of what I was taught to do by them.

[TheOtherMe]

Two co-workers were in a relationship.  Both single but the woman was one of our student-trainees, so quite young.  Not out of college.  The guy was in his mid-30's.  He had his license as an attorney but was not practicing law.

She got pregnant.  He wanted her to have an abortion and she refused.  He ended the relationship.

I was at my desk on day, doing my job, when she came in with the baby.  She went straight to his desk and gave him papers for child support.  She said "you will support your son" and sat the baby on the desk.  He was so flabbergasted that he didn't leave.  He sat there and took her anger.  

The rest of us were looking at each other wondering what to do but I don't recall anyone getting up and leaving.

My understanding is that he then started paying child support.  

They never married.  Don't know if he ever had a relationship with his son.

[andi9899]

I worked in a grocery store when I was in HS. One day this lady shut on the floor. She was wearing a maxi dress and straight up dropped one on the floor like a horse. She kept on walking like a horse too! It was so foul!

[andi9899]

Jul 1, 2021 18:06:27 GMT -5 @pinkcshmere said:

I don’t have a #1. Years ago, one of my coworkers and I talked about writing a book about the crazy shit that happens at our job, and how if we did, people probably wouldn’t believe it was all true.

I have lots of stories, but I’m going to say that any story I share may or may not have actually happened. They *allegedly* happened….. “allegedly” sounds like a good word to use for this stuff.

So allegedly, yesterday at my job, a young man (late 20’s, maybe early 30’s) got into it with a woman in (I’m guessing) her early 60’s, because she asked him if he was going to help her and their coworkers do something and what was his problem. He told her he was going to beat her ass, and followed her telling her the same and what he was going to do to her when they got off work (beat her ass).

She was shaken and upset and called her son and I guess told him that the guy had made her nervous. Apparently she also reported it to management. So she and the young man were in the office with management and a guy showed up walking around our (supposedly secure) building asking where he could find *young man’s name*. He told one employee he was *young man’s* brother. 

Some people tried to get him out of the building, but he was determined to find *young man* and shook them off. He said he wasn’t scared to go to jail, he’d just gotten out of jail, and nobody was going to fuck with his Momma. 

A female employee was finally able to convince him to leave by telling him he was putting his Mom’s job in jeopardy, so he did finally leave. But he only got off the property and went to the sidewalk, still trying to see if anyone that came out the building was the young man.

By then, our security was running around the building trying to find him. Meanwhile, his Mom came out of the office and started back working, not knowing he’d been there. She gets a call on her cell and jumps up and tells her coworkers she has an emergency and has to leave. Her coworkers assume the call alerted her to the fact that her son was at her job.

Young man….. somebody tells him his brother was there looking for him, he calls his brother, and of course his brother doesn’t know what he’s talking about. So now, he knows somebody is there looking for him.

The son never does find the young man, so nobody got hurt. Security never found son either.

And work rolled on, like nothing ever happened. 

I can tell stories all day lol. But now it’s your turn.

Honestly, I would have done the same and went up there looking to beat his ass.

[andi9899]

At a clothing store I worked at a couple decided that our dressing room was the ideal place to have very loud sex. The dude even asked for a fan at one point saying it was so hot in there.

At the same store another customer shit in the dressing room and smeared it all over the walls.

Working with the general public is not for the weak at heart.

[thyme4change]

I worked in a place that crumbled and everyone's mental health cracked in a variety of ways. If I had written everything down, I could have fictionalized a great novel.

Two of the employees were dating and it ended. They had similar backgrounds, skills and jobs, so they both started looking for new jobs, but were usually competing for the same jobs. She went into his office while he was gone and took all of his coverletters (it was the 90s) and job search notes and then told him if he didn't drop out from one of the jobs, she would show their boss all of the paperwork. He was so mad, he got drunk, went into her voice-mail and forwarded all the messages from potential employers to the CEO of the company. They both got fired. Meanwhile, the boss was having an affair with one of his direct reports - that place was a mess.

I am not sure why it would have been a big deal for him to be looking for a new job. By that time we knew they were selling off our division, so his job was likely getting eliminated. He should have been looking for a job. Her job, however, was safe.

[thyme4change]

The other thing was a very high level executive was apparently having an affair with a direct report for 10 years. Story is he left his wife and moved in with the girlfriend and then went back to his wife "multiple times". The girlfriend had enough, so she stole all of his guns, and fatally shot herself with one of them. He never returned to work and those closest to him and her swear they had no idea about the affair, nor his fluctuating living situation.

He liked me and advocated for me often. When he came in town, we always had lunch or something - so I knew him well enough to not be surprised by his selfish dickhead actions. If you told me the story, without telling me the people involved, he would be the first person I would suspect.