You may love your co-workers, but these people could not hate theirs more. Reading these stories will have you both laughing and cringing over the ridiculousness of these co-workers.
Same Dress as the VP’s Wife
“I used to work for a mid-sized construction company that would throw a massive party once a year for all its staff and crew. Everyone from the laborers to the executives and the president himself would get crazy drunk in a fancy hotel, with liquor alone running up a $20k bill. One year, an old crusty laborer who had been with the company for years brought a hooker as his date. Not an escort, an actual hooker. She ended up “servicing” people in the bathroom for $5 a pop. And the best part: she was wearing the same dress as the VP’s wife” (source)
This One Will Make You Scared…
“We had a new girl start. From the first minute on the job I could tell she wasn’t happy, but I figured she would stick out the shift and quit, or else push through and learn to like it. She did neither. After about two hours, she said ‘I’m just going out the back.’ And, walked out the back. Now, ‘back’ at this job isn’t outside or anything, it’s just the back washroom, which has no doors leading outside, and no windows. She walked out the back, and never came back out again. Everyone swears they didn’t see her walk out, and the front entrance of the store was pretty small so it’s not like we all could have missed her. But no one knows where she went” (source).
Godzilla Tears Down Everything
“I have a story about my former co-worker, Mark. For some background: Mark owns a Godzilla costume. Our office is on the same floor as the development company responsible for managing the retail campus we’re on. They have a room in it with all their various awards and a full scale model of the entire campus on a giant table in the middle. Now for the actual the story: Mark got fired under less than pleasant circumstances. He went home, got into his Godzilla costume, came back to the office building and stomped THE S@%$ out of that scale model. I mean LEVELED IT. Really did Godzilla proud that day” (source)
Incompetent Lab Assistant
asda
“When I was in University in Glasgow, I worked with probably the most stupid person ever to walk the the face of the earth. I remember she was using a stapler which had jammed; she unjammed the staples and then ‘tested’ it on her finger. She was asked which pizza toppings contained pork. She replied, ”Errr…. spicy pork? Ham?”,and after much head-scratching, ”…green pepper?” She once bought a birthday card for one of our colleagues. it was one of those ones with his year of birth and notable news events on the front. When it was pointed out that he was born in 1973, not 1972, she said, ”Nivvur mind, Ah’ll jist keep it fur his birthday next year.” She got a hole in her tights at work, so I said she could nip out and get another pair. ”Ouch, I’ll jist turn thum inside-oot.” Worryingly, she left to become a ‘Lab Assistant’. Whether this meant she was continuing employment in a field of science or just helping out a dog from time to time, I don’t know. I suspect it’s not the former, though” (source).
Portable Chemical Toilet
“My boss didn’t like using the restrooms in our building, so he put a portable chemical toilet in our server room. He would swagger into the server room, do his business, and then walk out like he was Albert freaking Einstein having just solved the Grand Unified Theory. This lasted a month or two until he had to empty it and it spilled all over his arms. He used the public restroom from that day on” (source).
Thanksgiving Toe-Stubbing
“A co-worker of mine came to work after 5 days off and claimed that she stubbed her toe working on Thanksgiving. She went to her own doctor instead of the company doctor, and then went to the company doctor, and no one could find anything wrong. They send her to an orthopedic surgeon who couldn’t find anything wrong. She carried a cane around with her and if anyone was looking she used it, but people saw her walking around just fine without it. 3 months later when I quit she was still on ‘light duty.’ They couldn’t fire her because she couldn’t do her kitchen job, so they had to give her hours stuffing envelopes and stuff where she didn’t have to be on her feet” (source).
Joke’s On You
“I worked with the brilliant guy who was one of the cheapest people I have ever known. He unplugged everything, even his alarm clock, every day before leaving for work, so his electric bills were something like .70 cents a month. He ate very cheaply, only buying what was on sale and often taking home leftovers from office parties. On one memorable occasion, he scraped some green mold off of some old lunchmeat leftover from a luncheon and took it home. He also did crazy things like sleep under his desk and eat homemade hummus made with entire bulbs of garlic (he would reek like garlic for a week). The joke was on all of us, though, because the guy retired at age 50 after working for our company for 12 years. He had over a $1 million in his retirement account” (source).
Mistaken Hunters
“I used to work in the ticket office/shop of a golf course with a co-worker who was hired around the same time. There were two shifts a day, which overlapped in the middle for about 4 hours. Outside of this time, you were on your own. The late shift finished up at 11:30 in the summer, and it would actually be dark at that time. Now, it was a public golf course and was in a very sketchy area of the city. Didn’t bother me much, as I’m from around there. My coworker however, was from a nice upper class part of town. So one night, he’s cashing up, and it’s pitch black. The electricity had been on the blink all day, and cut out while he was counting the money. At the same time, a car pulls into the car park, and 4 guys with shotguns get out. Needless to say, my coworker locked all the doors and hid. He couldn’t even call the police cause the electricity was gone. He just hid out for a while before running out to his car and getting away asap. I came in the next morning to find the place hadn’t been locked up or cleaned. There was a pile of cash on the counter and a notes explaining that he thought he was gonna be killed, and if he didn’t make it, to tell his parents he loved them… As it turns out, the guys were just hunters… They were hired to come along every few months and kill of the buttload of rabbits on the course. Our boss had never thought to alert us to this fact however” (source).
Concession Workers
“I worked concessions and it was one of the most of the ridiculous experiences I ever had. One of my co-workers thought it would be fun to douse the floor in butter. We slid around behind the counter taking orders. One of my coworkers found a bunch of boxes he was supposed to throw out, and instead drew on them and cut them out so he would look like a robot and put on a full box suit during work hours. Another co-worker put a box on his head, cut out the face, and would go to any and all customers “You’re watching Peter-Vision, how may I help you?” One of my less stable co-workers jumped over the counter and got into a catfight (She was female) with another woman. Most of the other people working were too busy laughing to stop the fight until a manager stepped in” (source).
Notoriously Frugal
“Guy at work was eating a hamburger and swallowed a cap that had been on one of his back teeth. This guy was also notoriously frugal. Took plastic gloves, a knife and fork with him when he went to the restroom for the next few days, and dug through his own feces until he found it. Took it back to dentist, where I presume it was thoroughly sterilized, and had it put back in his mouth. And then told people (source).
Warehouse Laundry Room
“I worked in a warehouse and we had this one lazy and particularly disgusting coworker. One morning he was sweeping the floors, stopped in the middle of the building, pulled a cheese steak out of his pants pocket, and ate it. He also requisitioned a supply closet to use as his personal laundry room. After he was fired we found a clothes line strung across it with is sweaty shirts and underwear hanging on it” (source).
Good Old Jennifer
“I’ve worked with my share of idiots but today Jennifer. She was the daughter of the department manager and it was the only reason she had a job, everyday for six months she pretended to type while watching Twilight on her work computer, only broken up by sad exhalations of “I want to be Bella!” She planned her entire wedding at work, including trying to guilt me into writing her invitations for a wedding I was not invited to. She often waxed poetically about returning to the club and becoming a stripper, after all that’s why she got a boob job at 19. By far the best was the day she stopped playing Farmville to take a quiz on Harry potter characters and proudly proclaimed “I’m Hermione! It’s so perfect because we’re both so smart!” I left the department and sat in IT laughing until I could compose myself. Another co-worker told me my first week on the job that she and her husband worked so hard each night because they finally had land and “a hundred thousand to build a house.” considering she was in her 40s and whining about renting all the time I was rather impressed. Until the words “on Farmville!” completed the sentence. That’s why she rushed home at lunch to plant strawberries and she and the husband had 2-3 strategy calls a day about Farmville” (source).
My Co-worker is a Vampire….
“I used to work with someone who seriously believed she was a vampire. She would shutter the doors and windows for ‘darkness’ and tell us she was going to the city to drink blood at a vampire bar. She used to conduct ‘seances’ during a thunderstorm and she was convinced her magic wielding abilities were the cause. I’m so glad I left” (source).
Crazy Receptionist
“I worked at a company where the receptionist was a hard core born again Christian. I really don’t think the work place is the place to talk about these things so I try to ignore it. It’s just me, the born again, and her church buddy. They literally have their Bibles out talking about creationism. Then I hear the queen Bible thumper… ‘Well I wrote a note for my daughter to be excused from science class. Schools have no business talking about evolution.’ My head spun around 180 degrees. Something snapped. I couldn’t stay quiet any longer. I start blasting her. Instead of her responding with points to back up her argument she turns all ghetto on me. ‘You don’t talk bout MY god like that’ I intentionally goat her with.’Oh your god? He’s YOUR god? Did you let your congregation know he’s yours and not all’s?’ She’s in tears screaming at the top of her lungs ‘You don’t know you don’t know no one disagrees with Christians!’ At this point, I was laughing because she was being so ridiculous and I was fucking supervisor. As she’s storming out I told her that if you don’t want to have a discussion on religion then don’t bring it up. She calls me the devil and leaves. I promptly write it all up, pass it along to the surgeons. The next day a memo was released stating there was to be no talk of religion in the workplace” (source).
Christmas Miracle?
“I worked at a Christmas tree farm that had a corn maze and a bunch of other little things during the farm. One day I’m walking around the grounds and there is this paintball shooting range thing and this kid is working there. I know for a fact this kid has no idea what he’s doing. So I’m about 20 ft away walking to get something for my boss and I hear air being discharged from one of the air tanks, followed by a paintball gun discharge. So I walk over into the barn that the shooting range is in and I see the kid in tears, in the fetal position, on the ground. Apparently he was screwing the tank into the gun with his finger on the trigger and the barrel of the gun tucked into his crotch, and when the tank caught it discharged a paintball right into the kids sack. Never have I laughed so hard at somebodies stupidity and misfortunes” (source).
Alcoholic Susan
“I used to work with a girl, Susan, who I now refer to as ‘The Legendary Worst Employee Ever.’ Susan had fairly high seniority at our unionized workplace by virtue of having been hired before most of the rest of us. This same union made it nearly impossible to get rid of her since alcoholism is a disease. Susan was notorious for making loud, dramatic, personal, long distance phone calls on the staff phone in the break room when she should have been working. She would come to work drunk which was a major problem when she was working as a lifeguard. On several memorable occasions, her half hour break turned into a two-plus hour break while she went to the hair dresser to fix her hair emergency and then tanning. Did I mention she was acting supervisor on these occasions? No one would know where she was or when she would be back. I was a huge liability issue. Susan was also the queen of poor life decisions which she shared with us at every opportunity. She had a breathtaking ability to not understand how her actions caused the stuff that happened to her. She had a deadbeat boyfriend who didn’t work and bought a new truck using her money. This same boyfriend had a kid from a previous relationship that he didn’t tell her about for a year. Susan left work time to deal with bailing this boyfriend out of jail multiple times. Susan was also convinced that a boob job would make her life much better. She eventually moved to take a job at less than half her previous pay and got her boob job. I saw her not long ago and the combination of steroids and the orange tan and the boob job have made her pretty scary looking but she seems happy at least” (source).
Driving Half Standing Up
“One of my female coworkers told us how she got home on Friday, a couple of weeks ago. She carpools with another colleague and friend of her, so she drops her off and drives on. Somewhere about halfway from dropping her friend off and home, she feels this sudden urge to fart. OOPS! Misjudged quite a bit, and she “sharted” big time! She had to drive home half standing up! The story itself isn’t that great, but I just loved how she just told everyone the story, following Monday, acting like nothing had happened” (source).
Very Strong Cologne
“I work in a grocery store. Two coworkers and I were just goofing off and one of them (a manager) lets out a huge stinky fart in front of he checkstand. This older lady then comes up to checkout, and says completely seriously ‘Wow, someone is wearing really strong cologne’ Then she proceeds to load up her groceries to be scanned and bagged. The guy that farted is crying from laughing so hard, he went outside to get some air and the other coworker and I just stare him down when he comes back inside” (source).
Crazy Delusions
“I had co worker who claimed to be a competitive long distance runner and fitness expert but the company who formerly sponsored her had put some thing in her that made her heart not function properly when she ran and she would die. Also that she was a 2nd chair violinist and the same people also now when she tries to play tune her brain in to someone playing drums or something else i cant remember. She also claims she can smell unpleasant smells from across the country…” (source).
Good Old Gladys: Part 1
“I normally don’t sweat the small stuff, but I had one co-worker I absolutely couldn’t stand named Gladys. I was working a help desk with her as a part of some government contracts. Keep in mind that this was one of those ‘open’ workplace environments, so the furthest I could get from her in my workspace was about 8 feet away. Gladys was, to put it mildly, a f$*&-ing nutball. She complained constantly. I don’t mean this lightly, I mean she scarcely did anything else from the moment she walked in to the moment she’d leave. It was an incessant drone of whining all day. If she wasn’t on the phone, she’d constantly be going on about something — and she’d even sometimes mute herself during calls to keep complaining. To her, everything was terrible. The job. Our boss. Everyone else who worked there. Having meetings. Not having meetings. The office furniture. The callers. The computers. The workload. The cafeteria food — too expensive, tasted bad and such small portions! On and on and on all day. Her personal life was the same thing, she’d complain about her friends. They are such a hassle! Plus they never want to see me. My mom’s sick. My mom’s roof needs to be fixed. I had to clean my mom’s fridge. My house isn’t worth enough. Dear Lord, it was insanity. I’m a bit of a loner myself so I don’t like to judge, but it was pretty clear why this lady was in her mid 50’s and forever single. Keep in mind, too, she’s terrible at her job. I had to retrain her on things that she trained me on (from a document) when I first started, within 2 months of starting the job. I tried sympathizing, I tried not sympathizing, I tried trying to fix problems for her, I tried talking to the boss about it, but it was just this constant deluge of negativity all day long and I just couldn’t take it. I finally just got to a point where I had to make a game of it, secretly marking a tally for how many subjects she’d complain about in an hour, then trying to break that record..”
Good Old Gladys: Part 2
“…Finally, one day, my boss emailed us both that ‘someone’ needed to do a task. This was around 11am. I volunteered to do it just so she wouldn’t complain, but no, she complained about how horribly overworked she is, et cetera, all fucking day long. I cringingly asked her a few times when we could start on this, and she’d just get all worked up and drive up the complaining and whining to a fever pitch. Finally, at 5, she left for the day. I was on shift until 5:30 so I just did the project before I left because there wasn’t a stated due date and my boss often freaked out when stuff wasn’t magically done when she’d bother to check up on something, and I didn’t want to hear about it. I emailed Gladys to tell her not to worry, it was all taken care of, here it is. I didn’t even take credit for it, I just finished the work. Cue to the next day. Gladys is furious with me, and she’s giving me the silent treatment like we’re children. I am absolutely thrilled because she finally SHUTS UP. It’s the best day ever. I’m smiling, with a spring in my step. Everything’s sunshine and roses. I’m hoping the good times are going to last forever. Sadly it wasn’t to be. Around 6 hours into my shift, after she’s clearly been trying to work up the nerve and trying to break me with silence and it failed, she finally — completely out of the blue, while we’re both not on calls — turns to me and half-screams, half-cries “THERE’S NO ‘I’ IN TEAM!” She then gets up, all emotional, and stomps away. I look perplexed as people turn in my direction and I go back to my work. When she returns, she says nothing. I say aloud I’m going on break. When I come back, she’s written on our shared whiteboard, in huge letters and points it at my desk: THERE IS NO I IN TEAM !!!!!!!! with circles around I and team, multiple underlines, all that. She’s sitting, facing away from me, giving me the silent treatment again. I bite my lip as I’m struggling not to laugh at her. The absurdity of this woman, who’s old enough to by my mother, acting so childishly for no other reason than me trying to help her out with her constant work complaints and not getting in trouble with the boss, just became too overwhelming. We finish our shifts, and as I leave, I quietly erase the message. We never spoke of it again. Sadly the silent treatment was not to last and the constant serenade of complaining resumed the next day. I quit the job not long after when an old employer offered to rehire me for more money. Gladys, for a time, kept sending me emails with her laundry list of complaints about life, and complaining about how my new job must be awesome compared to hers. Yes, Gladys, it sure is” (source).