20 Times Employees Did Bizarre Things At Work, That Were Too Strange Not To Share Online

Usually, it's the employees who complain about their management. But this time, it's the other way around. Although the employers most certainly have seen it all, generally, they would not put it out online, as it's simply unprofessional and usually goes against their work ethics. That's why it's so compelling to see what's so crazy happened that it was so tempting to share online? In this subreddit, current or former bosses shared stories of the most unexpected things they caught their employees doing. Starting from making different voice impressions (imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger) on the call with a customer, to lying about your mother's death just to go to Vegas for the weekend. Wild. More Info: Reddit

#1

Image source: writermonk Heh. Back in the retail book industry in ages past I had this employee... He would take a 'bathroom break' anytime an employee got called into the office. Why? Well, because he had discovered (somehow) that if you went to the men's room and stood on the toilet and lifted one of the ceiling tiles, you could sort of make out conversations in the manager's office that was adjacent. He also discovered during one of his frequent smoke breaks that there was an access hallway for grounds maintenance (this was in a shopping mall of sorts) that also had a ladder that went to the roof. He'd occasionally vanish and basically go sit on the roof. If no one could find him, he couldn't get in trouble, he figured.

#2

Image source: [deleted] I once fired a guy and he tried to go back to work. His crush was in the clock in room when I had to tell him to leave again. He cried on my shoulder as I walked him out of the building. Not because I fired him but because I told him to leave in front of his crush.

#3

Image source: w**dmoneylol I was doing a weekly call monitor on one of my better employees and found he was doing an Indian accent. I was a bit surprised so I went back and listened to 5+ calls of his from that week and found he was doing different impressions for almost every call. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Micky Mouse, Apu from the Simpsons, a pretty solid Christopher Walken and a few others.

#4

Image source: [deleted] I have so many stories about this dude, me and my former boss interviewed him for a position in IT and I got a really weird vibe but my boss was really impressed by his cv (lots of stuff like "cisco certification course teacher") and I was about to quit so I didn't really put up a fight about it and he was hired. Day 2: He brought in a three feet long rc helicopter and put it in his office. Day 3: He was told to order a laptop for himself (part of the job was ordering it stuff) and bought the most expensive computer he could find, im talking titanium and a 10k$ price tag. Day 4: He ordered a office chair in leather with built in massage stuff. Day 5: BIG argument with my boss and he was told he couldn't do anything without me approving it first. Day 8: He told me he wanted to apply for public ip's for every single piece of equipment at all the company offices (several thousand ip's) because NAT sucked. Turns out he didn't know what it was (cisco teacher remember) Day 9: He changed the domain admin password to a password some dudes at a irc channel had told him was the most secure password in the world. Around day 15: He told me he needed time off cause his girlfriend had left him for his rc heli instructor and he was scared she would take stuff from their apartment. There is so much more, he was fired a few weeks after I left. Last I heard he was selling vpn services to people using his own home broadband connection.

#5

Image source: deleted Referred to a Chinese customer's baby as "a cute little chinky"' when my coworker(who also happens to have Asian heritage) pointed out that it was incredibly racist, the employee replied "oh it's fine my boyfriend is black" the weird part is he was Filipino, not black ( as if it excuses racism anyway) She was shocked when we didn't renew her contract.

#6

Image source: [deleted] HR hired an employee to work on the mine I manage. He showed up 45 minutes late wearing shorts and crocs. I proceeded to fire him on the spot. Got a framed letter from corporate jokingly congratulating me for having the shortest tenured employee in company history.

#7

Image source: beer_hearts Not too crazy, but pretty stupid. I had a girl that worked for me at a Mortgage Company pull the credit report of her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend (no idea how she got her social security number) and then went on the girl's Facebook page posting messages about all of her debt, and past due accounts, and the crappy kinds of car that she drives, etc. Got an angry call from the girl who ended up being a pain in my butt for a while. Edit: Forgot an interesting part - We fired the girl, and about a week later an agent from the department of Treasury comes in asking questions about the girl. Turns out, she was being investigated for a series of fraudulent things, including operating as a loan officer without a license, and taking out a bunch of federal student loans in her grandfather's name. He wanted information because in investigating learned that she had been fired from the company for some sort of malfeasance, and he wanted the details. She went to jail for a while eventually.

#8

Image source: KhaosElement Was middle-management at my old job. I had a team below me, but PLENTY of (awful) people above me. Had one of my people specifically request only closing shifts, because it was easier on her family for child care purposes. After a month of this, she b*****d at my (f*****g awful) boss about no shift diversity. He "talked" with me about it, ignored that fact that she had requested it, and demanded I give her day shifts. So I gave her three day shifts, she missed all of them. Blamed me for not giving her the night shifts she wanted. My (f**k-wad) boss yelled at me for giving her day shifts too, despite me telling him this would happen when he forced me to do it initially. Fired the girl for missing so many shifts, she recruited five guys (the fathers of her various children) to come yell at me for ruining her source of income.

#9

Image source: s****rplug I manage a small weld shop. Generally, I don't care about less than clean background checks or pot, as long as you come into work every day and get s**t done. Finding reliable welders is difficult, so a lot of s**t flies. This sometimes leads to weird employees. This one guy we hired stopped showing up. After like 3 days days, he walks in the door. He's bright red from being sunburnt to s**t, and his clothes are torn to shreds. Dude was drinking on a little aluminum boat and somehow got lost at sea. He looked like Tom Hanks from Castaway! He didn't have cell phone reception, so he wasn't able to call me. He did take a bunch of pictures over the few days he was lost at sea, though. Including one where he was being rescued by the coast guard. I gave him the rest of the week off. Cost guard took him to the hospital, he checked himself out, and immediately came into work. Didn't even go home and shower. Odd dude.

#10

Image source: deleted Watched a cashier ring up his friend and pretty much give him everything for free. Nobody likes the store but don't make it so obvious.

#11

Image source: sugaronmypopcorn Went out for smoke breaks like 5x a day, eventually got to a point where he couldn't wait to get outside and would light up in the elevator to get a head start. 2 days after that mishap he took his lunch break and came back very drunk. I think he worked a grand total of 7 days hired-to-fired.

#12

Image source: ill_sleepwhenimd**d We had a guy that would vanish in the middle of the day for roughly 3-4 hours, then return at the end of the day. Come to find out he would go home during that time, play with his dogs, smoke weed and then come back to work. When we had to sit him down and explain he couldn't just leave, he totally flipped out and told us all to "go f ourselves and to f*****g fire him". He got a warning, and still works here, and HR still does nothing when he disappears.

#13

Image source: Superschutte Took a temp job leading the Santa's Village at Bass Pro while waiting on my contract to start at my career job. The people you hire are usually...interesting. One girl on her first shift was on her phone as I walked back to the department. I wasn't in uniform yet but told her, "You aren't supposed to be on your phone on shift." She screams, "Who the F**K ARE YOU?" I walked away, clocked in, wrote her up, and came back to her with write up. She turned out to be one of the better employees.

#14

Image source: [deleted] Was cashier manager at big box store. There was a useless kid that finally stopped showing up. A few days go by, and I see him walk in, so I assume he's going to come up front and we can do the whole formal exit process since he missed shifts. He never comes up front, nobody has heard from him. So a few weeks go by and we just terminated him. I go back to the lunchroom one day, and useless kid is sitting there. I ask what he's doing and he says he's on break. I'm like lol no you stopped showing up weeks ago and were terminated. He leaves to go "back to work". I confirmed with all managers he was fired, not working in another part of the store. He shows up in the lunchroom again a few weeks later. Turned out he didn't want to tell his mom he doesn't want to work. He kept letting her drop him off, he'd hang in the lunchroom for a bit because his mom apparently is friendly with another employee, so this way it looks like he still has the job to his mom.

#15

Image source: MaveDustaine Not a boss, but used to work for a MSP, they had an office with a big tile missing in the ceiling. Apparently they had this accountant who was working late one night, next day, everyone comes into the office and they find said ceiling hole. Turns out, the accountant heard god calling her from the ceiling, she proceeded to climb up her desk, into the ceiling, and managed to get into one of the offices next door.

#16

Image source: [deleted] I was a supervisor at a bulk food store. Had a staff member who was responsible for sweeping the floors. He would regularly snack on what he swept up.

#17

Image source: Liarxagerate I worked at a casino in California, in food and beverage. We had just hired a kid who was fresh from "culinary school" (he didn't know anything at all). So he started back makin the pub food. Something like his third night I'm outside smoking and I see him walking by with two security guys. This can't be good. Turns out this genius had decided to go take his lunch break, meet his friend in the parking lot and drive around the parking lot smoking. You know. The casino parking lot, full of cameras, other employees, security guards etc. (and mind you, you could get away with plenty of stuff on your car, lord knows I did in my days) so he must have been so painfully obvious, as this was also like 6pm and still dusk out. Come on man.

#18

Image source: Seven65, hamakabi Seven65 said: I had an employee call a French woman a frog and then start ribbiting. That was kind of awkward hamakabi replied: I once mentioned to my manager that I had a friend who was learning chinese. She asked how anyone could ever learn that language when it's all "ping pong ching chong ching" Then she noticed the Chinese customer standing behind her with his mouth open. Yeah, that didn't go over well with corporate.

#19

Image source: boydarilla Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Busy as hell. A customer comes up to me to tell me their server just dropped a platter of nachos on the ground in front of them. Yelled "f**k" in front of the family, then walked away without cleaning up any of it. Pull her aside and she is visibly drunk all of a sudden. I ask her if she has been drinking. She screams in my face "You want to go to war b***h?" Fire her on the spot. Found out she did 7 shots in about 30 minutes.

#20

Image source: deleted I had an employee call and tell me her mother died. Well, I got an anonymous phone call from someone telling me she was lying so I called the number I had on file to send my regards and I get an address to send flowers. In the meantime the office had collected an envelope of money to help with the costs of the funeral and missing work. When I called, the mother answered and was shocked to find out her daughter used her death as an excuse to go to Vegas for the weekend. When she returned I help a big meeting with everyone in the office and presented her with the envelope of money and flowers, she took it and faked cried. I called her into my office to reveal that I knew and fired her and took the envelope back. She said she "don't give a f**k" and left.