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

[wvugurl26]

In grad school, I worked for a pharmaceutical manufacturer. They were going through a huge acquisition buying a piece of another company. All of the sites of the other company were overseas. It took forever to get everything lined up and ready to integrate especially from the IT side of the house.

It was getting closer to completion and a bunch of the VP/director level people went to Italy to finalize things. As a thank you for all the work and hours that had gone into this thing, the employees got to bring their spouses along for free.

The one director's wife suspected he was having an affair. She watched him put the Blackberry password in. When he left the room to shower, she put in his password and found all the emails and texts to his secretary. And then it was ugly and they were in Italy and expected to attend different dinners and outings.

I was like how cliche sleeping with the boss. And how stupid to have it all on your work phone. She was a single mom with kids. I know they reassigned her to report to someone else. Not sure what happened to him, I moved to a different division.

For years, the rumor around town was most of the employees of that company cheated on their spouses. I've known other people who worked there and it wasn't true. Probably started with the founder cheating on his first wife....

[chiver78]

not work, but school. there was an English teacher in my jr HS that had written a book about life at the school and the faculty personalities involved. this was the rumor going around, based on 'knowledge' from classmates with older siblings. supposedly one of the book's storylines was an affair between a 7th grade unmarried English teacher and a 7th grade married math teacher (and having seen these two interact, I wouldn't doubt it). I have yet to find this book in print anywhere, but I found a review just now that sounds nothing like the legendary story I remember. although, a drunken EOY party doesn't sound like a stretch. lol... 

[chiver78]

wvugirl, I'd believe it. my first overseas project, I was barely out of college at 22. we would fly over for a couple weeks, fly home for a couple, rinse and repeat for 6-8mo at a time. I lost count how many times we'd be out at the pub after team dinners, where some drunk coworker slipped his extra hotel key in my back pocket.     I'd just hang onto it for the night, and drop it on his keyboard the next morning while the leads were all at the morning construction meeting. at one point or another, I got a key from all but one of them - the sole exception being the sober grandpa who used to carry an extra case of Irish beer through customs for me on the way home. I brought stuff home every trip for college friends to try. 

[wvugurl26]

Oh I forgot about high school. One of the assistant football coaches got caught in the showers with a cheerleader. He would have been in more trouble but she was a senior and 18 so there wasn't a whole lot they could do.

He was acting head coach my senior year after the head coach was pushed out due to made up allegations that never went anywhere. Won the state championship and they wouldn't make him the permanent head coach because of the incident with the cheerleader. He went to the other side of the state and did well over there coaching.

He was in his 20s and attractive. The girls in my high school never minded when he was our substitute teacher.

And yes, I know it's wrong, position of power and all that.

[susana1954]

A student asked to go to the bathroom.  She came back, shaking, and told me that her mother had just texted her that her brother had died.  Yes, texted.  And, yes, it was true.

[happyhoix]

Well, for moral outrage I would nominate the big Christmas party we had where our company president gave a big speech about how important family values were, especially in that time of year. Said to a gathering of maybe 300 employees.

The thing was, the boss only recently left his third wife and took up with a woman 30 years younger than him. He had kids older than her. She had two preschool aged kids she left behind with their dad (they attended our church.)

Didn’t really care to hear what that guy had to say about family values, and judging from the snickers around me, no one else did either. Always wondered if they were still married or if he was on wife 5 by now.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

DH saw a supervisor get arrested for child porn.  Manager/Supervisor computers were not monitored like the peon computers.  Apparently he had been running a ring out of his office for awhile.  DH said it was just like the movies, this black van pulls up, out comes a bunch of guys in suits, carts supervisor/computer into the van and drove off.  The FBI had been working undercover to expose him.   The plant had to have a meeting about that one.

Then at another job there was a coworker of his who banged another coworker on the work floor during work hours.  Neither got fired because she said  HR doesn't have a rule saying she CAN'T have sex at work therefore she would sue them if they fired her.  The owner of this company is terrified of the S word so he let it go.  Never mind I am pretty sure OSHA would have considered that a fireable offense but hey what's federal regulations compared to a company HR manual?

She proceeded to bang several more people while on the clock.  Then one day her husband showed up and tried to beat up one of the men she slept with.  Got him outside where he proceeded to try to break in the door window and yelled about how he was coming back with a gun to start shooting people.   Owner still did not fire her.  The company had to be on lockdown for several days.

And to answer the question I am sure you all have. .. no there never was a policy put in place to say you cannot have sex at work while on the clock.

[thyme4change]

Jul 2, 2021 11:08:36 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

Well, for moral outrage I would nominate the big Christmas party we had where our company president gave a big speech about how important family values were, especially in that time of year. Said to a gathering of maybe 300 employees.

The thing was, the boss only recently left his third wife and took up with a woman 30 years younger than him. He had kids older than her. She had two preschool aged kids she left behind with their dad (they attended our church.)

Didn’t really care to hear what that guy had to say about family values, and judging from the snickers around me, no one else did either. Always wondered if they were still married or if he was on wife 5 by now.

Executives can be so ridiculously out of touch sometimes. We had a terrible year, they paid out no bonuses, there were a bunch of layoffs and people were just plain stressed out. The president gave a speech about making sacrifices, and how he was going to buy a new boat this year, but that wasn't going to happen. Talk about a morale killer!

[wvugurl26]

My aunt's company fired a guy for watching porn all the time at work. Nothing that brought the FBI to their door though.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Yeah the company had major egg on it's face when it was made aware one of their supervisors was running a child sex ring out of his office.  From that point on EVERYONE's computer was monitored by IT.

DH said it was the FBI did a sting where one of them posed as an underage girl and that's how they found where he was running his operation from.  

[Cheesy FL-Vol]

Oh, thank God my work life is normal/boring!

These are some real train wreck/can’t look away scenarios!

[billisonboard]

Hopefully this was enough years ago and I am anonymous enough here to tell this story.

I got a call from someone who identified herself as an FBI agent. She wanted to set up a face to face visit. She said I should verify she was an agent by calling the regional FBI office. I asked her for the number. She patiently explained that she could just give me a number to a fake office so I should find the number on my own. I did that and we met. Ended up someone was using our internet signal for some type of illegal activity. She indicated she couldn't give details. I asked if I should ... and she cut me off saying that I should do nothing. It would alert them that someone was aware of them. I was at a camp in the mountains and we left the system not password protected unless a user group requested we lock it. I would joke it was a service we provided to the local wildlife. She did tell me that wasn't a problem, it wasn't someone sitting in our parking lot late at night and implied they might not even be in this country. She sent in technical support people who set up monitoring equipment. They made a "mirror image" of our server, not a "copy". Some of you with technical expertise might understand that. And then the whole thing just sat there for about a year and a half. At that point, I had a chance to sign up for better, cheaper service. I called her and she said no problem, they were basically done anyway. They collected their stuff and left. I asked the tech guy if I could get a briefing on what it was about. He said he would pass my request on. I never did get a call.

Now when I am watching some crime show and they say that they can't track where some message originated because it was bounced off multiple sites, I think one of them was me back in the day.

EDIT: I was going to add that if this disappears, you will know I shouldn't have posted it. If I disappear, you will know I really shouldn't have posted it.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Jul 2, 2021 13:25:30 GMT -5 Cheesy FL-Vol said:

Oh, thank God my work life is normal/boring!

These are some real train wreck/can’t look away scenarios!

Oh come on you know your secret life ambition is  to rub ointment on a swollen mouse penis.  

While making awkward eye contact.  There was an agreement neither one of us would speak of it to each other again.

[bookkeeper]

I worked 12 years at a commercial cattle feed yard.  Part of the pay was lunch everyday at the local small town cafe.  Cafe owner is on vacation, so I am stirring up chili and grilled cheese sandwiches for everyone at lunchtime, around 10 people.

Local elderly guy pulls up in a long Lincoln.  Comes in to talk to the boss about buying hay or something and as I go to the frig for a drink, I see smoke.  I speak up and the boss sees the elderly guy's car on fire.  Boss jumps in giant payloader and pushes the now on fire car into the middle of the gravel yard.  We call the fire dept. and spend the rest of our lunch hour watching a late model Lincoln Continental burn.  The tires even blew!

Fire Dept comes and puts out the car fire.  Elderly guy gets his groceries and whiskey out of the trunk of his burnt up Lincoln and catches a ride back to town with the firemen.  Just another day at the feed yard.  Best lunch hour ever.

[kadee79]

When I was managing a drug store, my District Manager (DM) came in & blew up about how I had done all my displays & the seasonal items.   He tore most of it out & called in 2 male store managers to put it back "right".  They put it back almost exactly how I'd had it to begin with...the DM was not thrilled, but what could he say at that point since those 2 guys were his 'favorites'!
Oh and he was really pissed when my little store that didn't do a huge amount of business got me the biggest bonus in the district...why? cause I knew how to keep my costs down and how to schedule for the hours when we needed extra folks.  I also knew how to play the "effective scheduling" in the computer so that I always had coverage on the front end without it being me!

[Deleted]

I spent lots of years in the working world. I never got to have any fun, not even as an onlooker.

[NastyWoman]

I'm with Cheesy FL-Vol. Boring workplaces and I sure hope it stays that way until I retire this fall...

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I agree serving the public is not for the faint of heart.

When I was a server there was the creepy dude that we were convinced was possibly a serial killer.  He was so bad the kitchen guys would follow us outside and escort us to our cars whenever he was around.  My grandmother told me I had to put up with his sexual harassment because he was a "paying customer".  WTF grandma do you even realize what you just said?!

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Not my job, but TD’s.

I was waiting for him in his office at work for him to finish up.  He was busy at his computer, I was reading and looking out his 7th story window.  I looked down onto the roof top to the 5 story building next to his, and there was a couple having sex on the roof.  I brought it to his attention, and next thing you knew there were a dozen engineers watching the show.

[Artemis Windsong]

I have a few.

I'm at work in my office, usually by myself. One day the Asst. Mgr. was in. A woman came in and asked to see him. In the lobby, right next to my office, this woman is tell the AM that she is my mother and I needed to be fired. No reason given. Not my mom. But she would be that underhanded. Anyhow, I asked why she needed to be fired. No answer. I said, I'm the person you are talking about and you certainly aren't my mother. This woman had a hand held wireless radio where a man started saying abort, abort. She said what does that mean. I don't know what AM did after that.

Same place. Temporary help had been hired to help set up tables, clear tables and clean up after a big open house meal. Every one of those guys gave me the wrong name. After a couple of hours I was told I was supposed to be supervising those idiots who were drunk by 10:00 a.m. on the free alcohol that was to be handed out to the invited guests. What a sh*t show. An older man who was the maintenance man ended up supervising the drunks and sent most of them away. The temp agency was very unhappy to know none of them had turned in their work times. And their use of aliases.

I had never had lunch or got together with my aunts, cousin and great aunt ever. I was invited to lunch with this group. Manager decides to have a meeting where I had to take the minutes. This was totally out of the blue and last minute. The first and last time for this type of meeting. I was so p.o. I said something. His reply, I should have just walked out.

Different job. The BODs would travel to different cities and have meetings with corresponding banks. I traveled with them to do the minutes of the meetings. One of the VPs took care of arranging sleeping rooms, meeting rooms, meals and invitations. All was smooth then change in management. The VP was replaced without notice. The traveling had stopped. A lot of people were just replaced. Being very unnerved, knowing my skills were unappreciated, I left. To cover some of this up, the woman replacing me had the same first name. Go down the road many years and the then president comes to see me when I'm on the golf course. He wanted to restart the traveling and for me to return to that job. Nope. I told him who really set up the meetings and that being 10 years older and that much slower, the answer was no.

My replacement on that job was required to babysit the president's kids whenever. She had a very aggressive attitude problem and hung posters up to express it like choke the living sh*t out of someone, etc.

[dannylion]

I once had a colleague who was a particularly sleazy, smarmy, creepy sort of fellow.  He also wore cowboy boots with his business suits despite having no connection to horses or ranches or rodeos or the like.  He just "liked the image."  His first wife had been a woman much younger than he, but he divorced her after she developed breast cancer because he felt she had become "too high maintenance" (by which he meant she had other things to worry about than making him the center of her universe).  He remarried very soon thereafter.  He married his ex-wife's mother.  (No idea what the back story was there, but it doesn't reflect well on either of them, IMO.)

All this happened many years before I was working in the department he happened to be infesting, but everyone knew the story.  One day, he came to work all sad and mopey because his "step-daughter" (who had been his first wife) had just passed away from breast cancer.  He was quite put out that no one gave him any sympathy or  made the fuss over him that he seemed to feel he deserved.  We all knew he was just looking for an opportunity to be the center of attention and was not actually experiencing grief over the death of his first wife.  No one wanted to play his game, and that probably made him genuinely sad.  

[Artemis Windsong]

My H. work place. He was frequently out of town for days to weeks at a time. He came back one time to find his office was wired to music that played loudly. There was no off switch. One of the office employees said the installers said I had ordered it. I won't continue on what the content of the music was.

I don't know how we made it through all the undermining that went on.

[billisonboard]

Two thankfully nothing happened stories from teaching at a juvenile detention center:

When in such an environment, keys had to be secured on your person. I had a cord with a loop clamped in it which I girth hitched to a belt loop on my jeans. A second thing was you did not leave pencils laying around. You had a count when you started class and the same count before dismissing class. All others were locked up in a drawer. One time I had to get an extra pencil out in the middle of class. I inserted the key, unlocked the drawer, got the pencil, locked the drawer, and couldn't it the key out of the lock. So there I was, not able to move more than a foot from a built-in cabinet. I asked if someone could get a corrections officer from the hall where they hang out during class. Of course everyone was on instant alert attempting to figure out why I thought I needed one. Fortunately it was the girl's unit that class period. They were usually on average a mellower group. One of them did get someone who helped me with the key.

Another time I was doing a month long substitute assignment for the English teacher. I was informed that one student was doing independent study so he could work in the school office. He was supposed to give me work he had done each week. At the end of the first week he didn't have any. I told him I expected two weeks worth the next week. The next week he still didn't have any. He then tried to explain that I was confused about what the arrangement was. As I kept refusing to accept his story, he grew more and more agitated. Suddenly I heard this voice in my head informing I was a fool and reminding me the reason this guy was locked up was because he had strangled a woman who had come home and caught him robbing her house, tossed her body in the trunk of her car, and drove around showing it to friends. The voice asked if the assignments were really that important. We agreed they didn't matter that much and I should let him work it out when the regular teacher returned. Fortunately he agreed to do that.

[thyme4change]

Jul 2, 2021 12:46:21 GMT -5 wvugurl26 said:

My aunt's company fired a guy for watching porn all the time at work. Nothing that brought the FBI to their door though.

At one job, before smart phones, our tech security director went through a whole procesd to monitor people's internet usage. She put in her notice to go to another job, but on the last day she was able to get the monitoring software working and she ran it on history, found that the CEO's brother-in-law had some cush job and spent all day everyday looking at p0rn. She turned over all the information to the head of HR and left the building. That was a memorable exit!!

[TheOtherMe]

Jul 2, 2021 16:21:28 GMT -5 The Walk of the Penguin Mich said:

Not my job, but TD’s.

I was waiting for him in his office at work for him to finish up.  He was busy at his computer, I was reading and looking out his 7th story window.  I looked down onto the roof top to the 5 story building next to his, and there was a couple having sex on the roof.  I brought it to his attention, and next thing you knew there were a dozen engineers watching the show.

I started at the IRS when I was a very naive 17 year old.  It was a brand new federal building in a seedy area of downtown Des Moines.  Across the street were 2 and 3 story buildings with apartments on the 2nd and 3rd floors.  No a/c so in the summer the windows were always open.  The men I worked with knew there were prostitutes living in those apartments.

I didn't know that.  I was a 17 year old secretary.  I went to deliver some papers to one of them and his office was full of guys looking out the window.  I asked what they were looking at.  I guess they decided I should learn something that day.....

[geenamercile]

In no certain order

1) the guy who wanted to come in when ever he wanted for 2 weeks because his daughter was due to have her baby and he had to be in the delivery room to watch.  I gave him the option of 1) taking the time off or 2) when she went into labor to call in, nope not good enough and threatened to key my car and slash my tires, when that didn't work (at the time I was pregnant with the oldest) he then tried pointing out that didn't I want my father in the room when I delivered.... Didn't like my hard No answer on that either.

2) the guy who thought using a wet rag to plug in industrial fryers was a smart idea and got shocked.

3) the area supervisor at a theme park (summer job) who use to walk around and rub the women international student workers belly's and ask if they wanted a baby so they could stay.   

4) working at an alternative school for kids with ED and trying to explain to my behavioral specialist who thought the kids should just do what he said because of his title, that if they could manage that they wouldn't be at that school.

5) said behavior specialist was also having something with the married admin, because some of the high school kids saw them kissing in the parking lot.

6) Listening to high school alternative students decided to give each other advice on home made helpers that went beyond socks.  (I had a room of 6 boys at that time) 

7) this one is from the girls father, but his supervisor held his crew way past leaving time because apparently someone stole his illegal drugs from his work truck while they were out on a job. 

I am sure there are more somewhere in my memory banks.    

[geenamercile]

Jul 2, 2021 17:01:18 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Two thankfully nothing happened stories from teaching at a juvenile detention center:

When in such an environment, keys had to be secured on your person. I had a cord with a loop clamped in it which I girth hitched to a belt loop on my jeans. A second thing was you did not leave pencils laying around. You had a count when you started class and the same count before dismissing class. All others were locked up in a drawer. One time I had to get an extra pencil out in the middle of class. I inserted the key, unlocked the drawer, got the pencil, locked the drawer, and couldn't it the key out of the lock. So there I was, not able to move more than a foot from a built-in cabinet. I asked if someone could get a corrections officer from the hall where they hang out during class. Of course everyone was on instant alert attempting to figure out why I thought I needed one. Fortunately it was the girl's unit that class period. They were usually on average a mellower group. One of them did get someone who helped me with the key.

Another time I was doing a month long substitute assignment for the English teacher. I was informed that one student was doing independent study so he could work in the school office. He was supposed to give me work he had done each week. At the end of the first week he didn't have any. I told him I expected two weeks worth the next week. The next week he still didn't have any. He then tried to explain that I was confused about what the arrangement was. As I kept refusing to accept his story, he grew more and more agitated. Suddenly I heard this voice in my head informing I was a fool and reminding me the reason this guy was locked up was because he had strangled a woman who had come home and caught him robbing her house, tossed her body in the trunk of her car, and drove around showing it to friends. The voice asked if the assignments were really that important. We agreed they didn't matter that much and I should let him work it out when the regular teacher returned. Fortunately he agreed to do that.

I had a friend who worked in the adult GED program at a prison.  She once told a story about when she started a guy decided to just wack it middle of the class all out in the open.  

[Tennesseer]

Jul 1, 2021 20:46:40 GMT -5 Opti said:

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.

Mom was a runner. The facility eventually put some type of bracelet on her and the bracelet would trigger an alarm if she exited the facility.

[Tennesseer]

Jul 2, 2021 8:31:19 GMT -5 andi9899 said:

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!

[billisonboard]

The Health teacher at the detention center had a great story about when the AIDS epidemic was in it early stages. He was explaining to a group of males that one way to contract it was through oral sex. One of the younger boys (13ish) said no way.  The teacher said there were documented cases so yes. The kid argued with him and wouldn't let it go. Then the kid said, "I don't care what you say. You will never convince me that I can catch AIDS talking about sex on the phone."