It can be infuriating to watch a boss, coworker, or anyone at work get away with a lie - whether they lie for comfort, cash, or street credit. But when justice is served where justice is due, it's downright satisfying to watch the truth finally come out. These people share the worst fibs they ever encountered at work and how these liars liked the taste of their just desserts.
All content has been edited for clarity.
She Wasn’t The Shiniest Coin In The Register
“My boyfriend used to work third shift at a popular gas station on the East Coast. He worked with one of those notoriously terrible coworkers that calls in all the time with tons of excuses. Well, one night, she called out saying that she was sick, that she was vomiting and feverish, couldn’t come in, sorry. The only person available to work her shift was the district manager, who happened to be in the area for a meeting. Manager comes in and works cashier with my boyfriend.
Around 3AM, who should walk in but the called-out coworker, wasted beyond belief. She bought two rolls of Tums and ate one while waiting in line. Waiting in line for the manager to ring her up…and fire her on the spot.”
He Was Fired For Lying In The Second Degree
“A guy I used to work with had been attending graduate school and my work threw him a party shortly after his graduation. He shows up to the party with his diploma – which of course is a huge red flag to everyone there (my company was full of alumni that attended the same school, and knew that you wouldn’t receive a diploma for at least several weeks/months after graduation).
One of the HR ladies called up admissions to the school to verify that he was previously registered there. He was not, and was never a student. He was confronted about this and pretty much had a meltdown, telling her he had issues ‘at home’ and was currently trying to deal with them through the employee assistance program at the company. So the HR lady calls up the EAP to verify he was a client – at that very minute the guy runs into the EAP office and has another meltdown. He was immediately thrown off the premises, never to return.
To put this in perspective, his employer had adjusted his work schedule for 2 years so that he could attend classes. The company he worked for is a well known engineering firm, and he worked on a government contract that required a high level of security clearance. Also, the company had an educational reimbursement program that allowed (during his time-frame) an allowance of around $10k tax-free to the employee for schooling expenses (I am hazy as to if he was enrolled in this program or not). Being fired for pretty much embezzlement and lying to your employer is not a good thing. Also, I think his wife divorced him.”
He Had The Last Laugh Three Months Later
“I worked in an IT department and had the option of taking some leave time as cash. This required submitting a form to my then-manager, who had it in for me at the time. After several hours, I decided to take a stroll over to Accounting and talk to a fellow co-worker to see if she had received the paperwork. She hadn’t.
I then asked if there would be any foreseeable problem with issuing me the cash. ‘Nope,’ she said. ‘Just need the paperwork.’ I went back to my desk and not five minutes later, my manager walked by the door on her way home for the day (at 1:30 no less) and told me that she had talked to Accounting and said they couldn’t issue me the check.
‘Who did you talk to?’ I asked.
‘(Name)’ she said.
‘That’s funny,’ I replied, ‘because I just spoke to her 5 minutes ago and she said it wouldn’t be a problem. Let’s go talk to her.’
‘No, no….I’ll go talk to her,’ my manager replied. And wouldn’t you know it, I got my check 15 minutes later!
As an epilogue, I had the sincere pleasure of securing down my manager’s PC and locking out her network account per the CIO’s orders when she got terminated three months later. The last thing she saw as she was ushered onto the elevator and led out of the building was my smiling face.”
A Very Costly Lie
“I work for a broadcast camera house – we rent out camera systems to shows, news, sports etc. A few years back, a client rented a few cameras and some specialty lenses – including one very rare, very expensive fisheye. Nice lens – it’s not made anymore, so replacing it isn’t possible, and fixing it will be extremely expensive. That was foreshadowing, by the way.
So, the package comes back at the end of the job, and the lens has a divot the size of a quarter taken out of the front element. I mean, this thing was trashed. I call the producer to have the ‘you broke it, we’re billing you to fix it’ conversation. Within seconds, the conversation breaks down to the ‘this is bull, we never even used it, it never came off the camera truck, I can’t believe we’re being treated this way etc. etc. etc.’ screamfest.
Meanwhile, it turns out that the client had also rented a few tape decks. One of the still had a tape in it. On a whim, we watched the tape, and by golly if it wasn’t footage from the camera with the lens in question VERY CLEARLY showing the truck driving into it. Big hit, too. Truck had to be going 25+ MPH.
I grabbed the tape and went to the producers office. Let him scream a bit (in front of about 10 other people – he’s the type that likes an audience) before showing them the tape. I made sure to shuttle back and forth a bit, slow it down, replay it a few times – also showed them the part where his name was visible on the slate. The look on his face was priceless. Ended up being a $20,000 repair bill. Never heard from him again. It was worth it.”
“The Look On Their Faces Was Priceless”
“One time my family’s company was throwing a company Christmas party at an upscale restaurant in NYC. We were in a private room upstairs but it wasn’t like there was security or anything like that, so anyone could and eventually did come upstairs to mooch.
Anyway, I’m there with several members of my family having a good time, enjoying some food and drinks, and getting to know people in the company. I’m sitting at a table with several employees I had just met, and two of my cousins who worked with them, when two guys come up to our table and introduce themselves. They were professionally dressed, were quite friendly. They start asking people what they do, flirting with several of the girls at the table, and trying to act pretty alpha (they asked me what I did, which was graphic design at the time, and kinda laughed at my career choice).
So being a few drinks in I ask what they do at the company, and they say that their family owns the business. I take a long look at the two of them, take a sip off my drink, and say, ‘Oh really? I must have missed you at the last family reunion. By the way I’m Theodore [Company’s Name], nice to meet you.’
The look on their faces was priceless. They put down their drinks and just walked out.”
It Doesn’t Pay Off To Be Cheap
“So I had a job with this complete prick who for the sake of this story we will refer to as Peter. Peter had not paid me in a few weeks and I was starting to become more forceful when asking him about it. One day he handed me a letter from someone we’ll call Harry who purported to be the CEO of the company. Harry was firing me. Now I had never met Harry and in fact when I was hired, Peter told me that he himself was the CEO.
Well I was fired but I still wanted my back pay as it was nearly $2400. I wrote Peter many emails and he replied by saying that this Harry was not approving my pay. I don’t know why Harry had to approve anything as I was a legitimate employee with a contract, timesheets, the whole kit and caboodle. When I asked Peter, he was vague about it. Finally I called the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.
I set up an arbitration hearing. When Peter arrived, the first thing he said was, ‘My name is Peter and I pay my employees.’ Throughout the hearing I showed my timesheets, the contract I signed with Peter, the letter signed by Harry that said I was fired, and the host of emails in which Peter states that Harry is the one who is holding up my backpay.
Then came the coup de grace. I busted out a final document: Harry’s death certificate filed with the Social Security Administration! Harry had indeed once been the CEO of the company, unfortunately he died two years before I ever started working there making it quite difficult for him to be the one who was keeping my money from me.
Peter was furious. He started shouting and referring to me as ‘This little twit’. He was caught in an obvious fraud and he was peeved. Not only did I get my back pay, but the arbitrator also awarded me additional money that Peter had to pay in fines and penalties. It was so sweet.
I strutted out of that hearing with the swagger of ten-thousand Humphrey Bogarts. It was a beautiful day so I went to a local bar where I could sit outside, watch the girls walk by, have a drink, and eat a lobster-burger (which is exactly what it sounds like and is awesome).
In two weeks, a check came signed by Peter. I cashed it and used the money as the security deposit on a sweet new apartment.”
The Proof Is In The Cookies
“While working at Bestbuy at the Geeksquad I had a customer getting loud with one of my Agents. I go out front to see what’s going on and I have a father and daughter yelling at one my Agents for installing viruses on their brand new computer that they had only bought the day before.
I take over for my Agent and the father is chewing me out how they never took the computer online and when they powered it on today it was infected with some Fake Anti-Virus software, and there is NO WAY they are going to pay for a removal and that we infected the computer when we gave it to them. The daughter is adamant that she NEVER surfed anywhere before powering it on that day to install her AV software.
While they are yelling at me I locate the cause of the infection in the daughter’s temp files showing that it was downloaded late that night. I also pull up her internet history showing a ton of surfing to some shady sites, and a bunch of other sites like Facebook etc. I spin the computer around and show the father the information.
He looks at me, looks at her and without saying another word hands me his credit card.”
“The Girl Was Crying”
“I didn’t catch it, but I witnessed the catch in action.
Dude I worked with was impersonating an Air Force member to impress a girl who will only date members of the US military. He was not in the Air Force, but came up with this broad and just vague enough stories about being in the Air Force and in the reserves that she falls for it. Everyone else is finding this all very fishy, but not familiar with it all to come up with any definite proof, but this girl is less than bright, so she goes with it.
Come to one day, we are at work. Dude comes in decked out in the strangest mishmash of items you can get at an Army Navy store, with some Air Force insignia and such. He’s talking about his last deployment to Iraq, and how he was there and back in 14 hours and was down at Dover and blah blah blah.
A current Air Force member overhears this, asks to see his credentials (I forget what form they come in), he cannot present them. The Air Force member asks a variety of other questions that would easy for a member of the Air Force to answer, but to which this dude has no answers. Air Force guy goes off on him about impersonating a service member.
It was fabulous. The girl was crying. I was trying not to look too smug.”
He Thought He Was One Smart Cookie
“I used to be a substitute teacher. I had classroom teachers regularly calling me to return, so I had gotten to know this particular class and, more specifically, this particular student. On this day, there was a milk and cookies thing for kids and their reading mentors, sort of as a thank you. I had a list of kids who had mentors and were excused to go greet the volunteers and enjoy the cookies.
Let it be known that J was not on this list.
At one point in the class, J has my permission to go to the bathroom (nowhere near the library). ‘Ok, J, you can go, but don’t you dare go to the library – you know it’s just for the mentors.’ (He had already attempted to blatantly ask ‘Miss, can I go get a cookie?’)
About fifteen minutes later (a bit much for a second grader to be in a bathroom by himself) he returned.
I looked at him and asked where he had been.
‘Bafroom.’ (No eye contact).
I saw crumbs on his shirt, and went with my gut.
‘Really? You didn’t go to the library?’
‘Nope. Just the bafroom.’
‘Mmm. What kind of cookie was it?’
‘Chocolate chi- dang.'”
She Was So Crazy, She Was Seeing Double
“I’m a pharmacist at a busy chain pharmacy in a really bad neighborhood. We get a lot of prescriptions for controlled substances, and because of the nature of the neighborhood and the people we have to be extra attentive when it comes to spotting fake scrips/scams etc. (FYI – people don’t seem to know this but a pharmacist can lose their license and/or face criminal penalties if they fill a prescription for a controlled substance that they knew/should have known would not be used for a legitimate medical purpose. When we turn you away its to protect ourselves, not to be rude).
Anyway, one day a regular customer comes in to pick up her prescription for oxycodone and the technician noticed that the computer indicated it had already been picked up. The lady starts throwing a fit about how we gave out her medicine to the wrong person and we need to give her her prescription right now and so forth. Fortunately, our computer also tells us exactly when and at what register the transaction occurred. Cross-referencing this with our security footage, we were able to show the woman a video of herself picking up the prescription.
Her response? ‘That was my twin sister! She’s always after my medicine.’ At that point, we pulled out our notebook on which we record the driver’s license numbers of anyone picking up what are called ‘schedule II’ controlled medications, including oxycodone, and ask, ‘Is this your license number?’
Of course, she conveniently left her license in the car. We then asked her what her sister’s name is because, as we told her, ‘We’re going to need to press charges against her if she’s impersonating others to pick up medicine that doesn’t belong to her.’
By this time, the lady was beet red and clearly wanted nothing to do with the situation. Suddenly her story changed from ‘My “sister” is always stealing my meds’ to ‘She must have just picked them up for me while she was out running errands! I’ll just swing by her house and get them from her.’
The lady walked out and we never saw her again.
Have a nice day!”
People Lie, But Cameras Don’t
“My boss scheduled one of the newer guys to come in after hours and do some maintenance on a bunch of machines our company used. Nothing real big, just a whole lot of fiddly time cleaning with solvent and a brush.
The last time I was the one stuck doing it as part of the ‘new employee hazing’ the company seemed to do, and I not only was I glad to no longer be the low man on the totem pole, but the job couldn’t have been assigned to a nicer person.
I mean, when the guy wasn’t straight up playing deaf, he was annoying people instead – standing in people’s personal space, asking the same question multiple times because he didn’t like the answer, or taking time away from his actual job to try and tell other people how to do theirs.
In the first two nights he’s finished five machines. Well, he says he’s done five, anyway. I found three, or about one night’s work.
On the third night I happened to get woken up when one of my neighbors came home at midnight blaring Steely Dan, and couldn’t fall back asleep. I know, I’ll check the cameras at work and see how new guy is getting along. Maybe I can pay him back for some of his annoying behavior by busting his back a little.
As soon as I have the cameras up I see why it’s taking him so long. I can also see he’s got his cellphone on him, so I call it.
Me: ‘Hey, just wondering how things are going.’
Guy: ‘Fine, fine. Listen, I’m up to my elbows right now, is there something you need?’
Me: ‘Up to your elbows? So that’s not you laying on the cutting table in 3 with a bunch of empty Budweiser cans and an ashtray?’
I see him sit bolt upright and stare right at the camera.
Guy: ‘Uh, I’m on my break.’
Me: ‘Go home, if you’re sober enough to drive, and we’ll discuss this with the boss in the morning.’
Surprisingly, he did not get fired. Instead, the boss assigned a second person to be there when he was cleaning. Not to help, mind you. Just to stand around and scream at him.
You better bet I volunteered for the job. I even told the boss I’d do it for free.
That didn’t happen either.”
He Was Called Out In Front Of Everyone
“I do IT for a construction firm. We were rolling out 78 iPhones in one day to a bunch of our superintendents and corporate people. Everybody had to sign up in advance for a 15 minute time slot, and I mean sign up like WEEKS beforehand. After the deadline two weeks before the rollout day, we cut off the signups and ordered one phone per person that signed up. The phones were set up so that they’d already be attached to that person’s name, number, etc.
The signup sheet was just a document with write-only permissions. Nobody could remove or change anybody else’s name, they could only add their own.
On the day of the rollout, we have one of our higher-ups that’s a little pretentious walk into the room where we’re doing the deployment. There are lines and lines of people. He strolls in, claps his hands together, and says, ‘All right, who’s got my iPhone?’
‘Well, we don’t have one for you. You didn’t sign up. We ordered exactly enough, it’s only 10am and we’re already behind, and there are lines of people who signed up that are waiting to get theirs.’
‘No, I definitely signed up! I have it right here in my calendar. This is the event that got auto-added to my calendar, look!’
Literally every person in that room knew that there was no automatically added calendar event, because the sign up only consisted of you writing your name on a page.
‘Sorry, the invitations didn’t work like that. You made that event yourself.’
He started fuming! Turned red, began several sentences, then gave up, turned on his heel, and walked straight back out that door.
Our non-corporate superintendents and all the other field people really appreciated us that day. Don’t act like you’re important if you can’t even follow the simple instructions we send you, people. Come on.”
Her Career Ended On A Bad Note
“I am a violinist and I book musicians for a trance music orchestra. Less than two weeks before a huge gig one of the violinists emailed me saying she was ‘so sorry to do this’ but ‘due to an unforeseen family situation’ she couldn’t do the gig. She made no effort to find a replacement and so left me scrabbling around for a good violinist on one of the busiest Saturdays of the year. Obviously I was irritated but I decided just to leave it, don’t wish to make any enemies.
Fast-forward to the day after the gig. I’m scrolling through Facebook and come across a post by this violinist about the great Saturday night she’d had out with her mates.
I was tempted to respond with some catty comment but I decided instead to message all the fixers I know to make them aware of her unprofessionalism (turns out a lot of them already avoid booking her). However, what baffles me most is the pure, unadulterated stupidity, especially when making it in this industry revolves largely around being reliable.”
She Thought They Were Much More
“I used to work with a girl at a hotel. She was front desk, I worked in banquets. Anyway, turns out she had this huge crush on me. We hung out once over a drink at a bar where we bumped into each other. About a month later I start getting questioned from fellow employees and friends as to whether or not her and I were dating. We were not. I spoke to her about it, she denied it… and I kind of figured things got straightened out.
Fast forward to six months later… she no longer works at the hotel.
I get a text from my good friend BG, asking why I hadn’t told her about my engagement. Naturally I was a little confused… so I ask a few more questions. Turns out this girl has been telling her friends that this ‘relationship’ was still going on. The whole time. I proposed, it was beautiful, I gave her earrings (I’m assuming she bought herself the earrings) blah blah blah.
The only way I ever found out about this, was as this girl was telling my good friend about her fiance, and showing off her earrings at work.
Girl: ‘Don’t you love the earrings my fiance gave me!!’
BG: ‘They’re gorgeous, whats his name?’
Girl: ‘[my name]!’
BG: ‘Oh, that’s nice, I have to make a text.’
A week later one of her friends that I went to college with stopped me in the hall to ask if it was true… that I was not, nor had ever, dated that girl.”
Defeating The Sweets Thief
“One Friday afternoon at the office we got a present from a TV news station for letting them use our internet feed for a remote story they were covering. Part of the present was a big box of fancy chocolates. Seeing as how there’s 5 of us in the office, we’d just leave the box there to pick at until it was done.
Monday rolls around and the box is gone. I immediately suspect it’s one of our billing ladies because she’s taken office food home before without even asking anyone. So I confronted her about the chocolates. But I wanted to see if she’d tell me the truth at least. ‘Hey Susan, did we seriously end up eating the whole box in just two days?’
‘Yep,’ she says.
I go back to my desk and ask her co-worker, who also knows she’s a big office food thief. She IM’s me, ‘She took them home, I saw her put them into her bag.’ That thief!
I confronted her again but this time said, ‘Susan, I thought you told me we ate the chocolates – you took them home!’ She just looks up at me, flabbergasted and embarrassed. ‘Why would you lie about that? Those are for the office, not for you to take home and eat yourself.’
She gets all defensive, ‘Those were for [her step-son], and he ate them all!’
I said, ‘As if that makes any difference! Stop taking that stuff home! You’ve done it before, too. Ask people if they don’t mind at the very least.’
All over a box of chocolates. Worth it.”