There's always something going on at work that at least one person knows about. Some of these people should definitely consider other professions...
No One Expected That Outcome
“I worked for a company that would give you 2 weeks vacation if you worked for 50 weeks straight. I found out that one guy got laid off for a week… right before he hit 50 weeks. He had been there for 5 years and never got a vacation. They laid him off for 1 week and saved 2 weeks vacation pay.”
Pretty Sure That Is Highly Illegal
“In my previous office, our head accountant stole almost half a million dollars. She hid it claiming that she was the only person in our office able to run the software and the company’s CPA was her dad.
She paid for jewelry, her house, her car, different things like that by writing herself blank checks and stamping the president’s name on the signature. The only reason she was caught is because she went on maternity leave. People in the office were denied raises that they deserved because ‘money was tight’ and the office supplies were scarce.
Over a year later and the company still hasn’t pressed charges (or even confronted her about it). She was a total scumbag.”
An Abnormally Creepy Fetish
“I work at a club. Things seem okay. Boss is a stern, but overall a jolly guy. Over time some of the women share stories about sleeping with bossman (he was short, stocky, and bald, but he had money) and it gets a little strange. Every woman that’s slept with the guy reported that he was really into diapers, as in wearing diapers and crawling around as well.
Whatever floats your boat.
About 2 months after the last report of a diaper episode…the dude went down for 12 counts of child exploitation. I fear to this day the extent of that diaper fetish…”
He’s Lucky He Was Family
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“The last place I worked was at a family owned restaurant and bar. The oldest son was 24 and often bartended and managed.
Here is a selection of things:
-Son sold a shot of Southern Comfort to an old man with visible gnats. Then told the old man that’s just how it comes now. Old man drank it.
-Son stole left-over liquor/beer from any caterers then sold it. When asked by caterers, he told them they already threw it away. Multiple times.
-Son made his own ‘beer’ in the back of the place with no knowledge or license. Then sold it to people. I homebrew myself but this guy had no idea what he was doing. Plus it’s illegal to sell.
-Son would top liquor bottles with water. Pretty common I guess.
-There were NO raises for ANYONE in the company for 4 years. Then, the family would buy 8 MacBooks to use for making reservations.
Needless to say, I quit. And called the alcohol board…”
I’m Thinking It Was A Homicide
“At my last job, it was somewhat common knowledge around the office that the CEO was suspected of murder some 30 years ago.
The guy got his start in the company as a bodyguard for the founder, partly due to the fact that he used to be a cop (he was also let go from his department due to supposed corruption).
The founder himself was suspected of various anti-union activities, and for the most part his business model (this was a temp agency, of a sort) included hiring out scabs, hiring people with questionable citizenship and paying them low wages, and dealing with politicians in the way only Chicagoans can.
Anyway, at one point in 1980 the founder, a married man, was seeing this woman on the side. He was 60-something and she was in her 30s. It came to pass that she found out she was pregnant, and he would have none of that. After coercing her to go through with an abortion, she fell into a deep depression which resulted in her feeling rather bitter about the whole situation. She threatened to give an interview to the press detailing his shadier business practices.
She was last seen on the night of April 26, 1980, with the founder’s bodyguard. No one has heard from her since.”
Someone Needs To Take Him To An AA Meeting
“I work at a pub in a nice old stone building. My boss is an alcoholic- he would regularly get hammered at the bar, become belligerent with the customers, and then sleep it off on the floor in the dining room.
One time he actually bit a lady’s ear at the bar. Another time he drove home drunk in his little KIA, hit a tree, destroyed it, then he sat for several hours before the jaws of life cut him out.
When he’s drunk, he will come into the kitchen and pick fights with the staff. He’s pretty cool…”
He Completely Set Me Up
“Worked at a Gamestop as an assistant manager. I was drug tested per policy when I started the job and passed the test.
My store had two assistant managers and a general manager. I am gay but not flamboyant and I usually don’t disclose any more about my personal life to employers than I need to.
It became clear to me there that my co-assistant manager was homophobic, but inevitably it came out that I was gay.
So my co-assistant manager invited me over to hang out, smoked with me and we played some video games. Then out of nowhere, he reported me to the regional manager the next day because he suspected me of smoking. I was then drug tested and fired.”
Make It Look As Real As Possible
“The software company I worked for, applied for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of tax credits, for research and development claims (SRED). However, they fabricated the entire thing and got audited.
They told me a day before the auditor came to create this project, ‘…and make it look as real as possible.’ Then, they got the sysadmin to change the timestamps on every file to make it look like it had existed for over a year. As far as I’m aware, they got away with it. I still feel dirty thinking about it.”
They Didn’t Even Give Me A Warning
“Every year, Walmart lays off a group of associates right before the fiscal year ends (Jan 31st), therefore, giving salaried managers a larger bonus. The majority of these people are long-term, full-time associates, but they include cashiers as well since they usually hire more for the holidays. I’ve seen this in 4 different stores I’ve worked at, so I know it’s just not one location.
This year was my turn. After 10 years, they decided to let me go on Jan 22nd, because I returned an item I bought as a Christmas gift without a receipt, which is done on a daily basis. No warning and I wasn’t even on my last stage of coaching. I was one of over 13 people let go before Feb 1st, including a close friend who was there for 13 years.
I’m not going to say it’s related, but I also noticed stock prices have had a slight increase since January when I was still employed there…”
Sadly, The Most Certified
“I spent several years writing and editing U.S. public-school textbooks. In my office, I was the go-to authority on physics. I was an English major. I got almost all of my information from Wikipedia and my own scientific curiosity. And I was probably still the most qualified…because at least I cared.”
A Woman’s Hidden Agenda
“The owner at work was married, had a wife, kids, and the company. An employee started becoming ‘Drinking buddies’ with the owner… Then she got pregnant. Later, she convinced the owner to leave the wife, kids and sign over half the company to her.
Now, these two co-owners run the place, while she was trying to cut out the first wife & kids out of his will, out of the company… and he was sick. She hired all of her family for super high paying ‘remote jobs’ where they do nothing for the actual business, so I presumed it was her way of draining the accounts. She refused him conventional medicine & went all naturalist on him which just made him sicker and sicker.
He died, she continued the charade for a year while getting lawyers to try & make sure the original wife & kids get nothing if she were to sell the business he built up.
Before this woman, aka ‘new owner’ fired me, she accused me to my coworkers of ‘not really needing the work.’ She also talked about how because I’m an only child and my parents are well off, once they die, I’ll get everything and therefore am not serious about my job because I get all my parents riches anyways. I’m 20-something… My parents are 50-60ish right now, PLENTY of years left to live! Also…totally not true. Also…why is she discussing my family & home life to my coworkers?!
Then she fired me through a voice-mail after cutting my hours back from 40hrs/week to 28hrs/week (Even though I was supposed to be a full-time employee, she forced everyone on hourly instead of salary)
The worst was when this woman fired the last coworker I had there. This woman was already being underpaid for the work she was doing. Then she had to fly out for a funeral because a family member had died and was being buried in another country. ‘New owner’ called her house to talk to her husband and told the husband ‘Tell your wife she’s no longer needed at this company.’ While. At. A. Funeral.”
Illegal Working Conditions
“I used to work for this company that was just terrible, it was a tech support company. Rather than actually have contracts or customers we’d highjack calls from 411. So if anyone called asking for any computer manufacturer or tech support they would get us instead.
We would then charge them $200 for a one-year unlimited support contract, before helping them, and 9 times out of 10 we’d just run a free virus scan or do a system restore. If a customer ever called back we’d make it a point to make them wait at least an hour even if there were no other calls to be answered.
We were told to let them wait because, ‘we already have their money, forget them.’ We also did network support for various hotels, every time we got a call we’d just reset the entire network and say it was fixed, or do nothing and say it was fixed. The owner made it a point to try and f— every female they hired, videotaping some. And has been sued for sexual harassment 3 times.
The payroll was damn near always empty, paychecks would bounce all the time and they’d tell us that we can’t cash our checks till a week later. I used to work 11-hour shifts with no break, there was no windows, no heating, and no air conditioning. I was fired because I said something about the illegal conditions there.
Luckily, the owner is now being sued again, lost all of their steady customers and is going through a divorce with a very angry Russian woman.”
Apparently Money Can Get You Out Of Trouble
“My boss is the owner of a country club. Several months ago he went to a strip club and apparently got a little wild. He was ‘removed’ and on his way back to his car, he overheard someone comment on his level of inebriation.
Like any reasonable person would, he returned to his car and retrieved his pistol. He was either going to shoot the bouncer that evicted him and missed in his drunken stupor, hitting the commenter, or had intended to shoot the commenter. Either way, the commenter ended his evening at the hospital on the wrong side of a lead mining operation.
My boss, meanwhile, fled the scene and escaped…. Until three months later when he returned to the strip club, got recognized, and arrested. Several months after that, and much butt kissing to our membership, his charge is reduced from attempted murder to assault with a deadly weapon and then from four years in the clink to 3 years probation.
The moral of the story, boys and girls, is if you have enough money you can do whatever you want without consequences.”
Welcome To Kroger, Harassment In Aisle 10
“I worked at Kroger, the boss was a real jerk, and there were rumors for years that he was gay. I have nothing against gay people – this guy was just a straight up monster.
An example:
He would hassle you when you asked for days off, drive around the store when he wasn’t working and call the manager and tell them if someone was smoking on the back dock. He also kept a daily binder where there were articles pertaining to sales and Kroger stock, but it also included a binder which he would write in every day. He would use it to talk bad about certain employees
ANYWAYS to the scandalous part.
When I worked there, there were rumors that one of the young men that worked there, as a bagger, would mow his lawn and such. Apparently, he offered him a beer and then tried to coax him into spending the night cause he’d been drinking.
After I quit there I stayed in touch with other employees. Anyways right after he hired this new 18-year-old young man, he started texting him very vulgar things… He would be telling him he had a nice body, said he could move into his house with him for free, asked him to come over and get in the hot tub with him, and asked if he was interested in a ‘sandwich’ where the young man and his girlfriend were the bread and he was the meat.
This kid reported it and is now suing Krogers because when he reported it to the union, they suspended the manager for a week. And then relocated him to a new Krogers about 30 miles away, where he was given a raise.”
They Almost Got Sued Because Of Him
“I was a contractor through a contracting company right out of college. The whole experience was incredibly shady. The company was started by a guy who was, I’m pretty sure, completely insane.
First, he got military contracts, then took the work on his unsecured laptop to the Philippines, when visiting his wife’s family (we were all convinced it was a mail-order bride, honestly).
He used to ‘borrow’ equipment from companies we contracted with. It was usually incredibly powerful, and expensive, equipment like oscilloscopes.
We had a collection of about 15 of them on a workbench at one point when an office manager came in, face white as a sheet, saying ‘I just got a call from XXXX, and they say if we don’t return their $50,000 scope this week, they’re going to sue us…and I have no idea which of these it was’.
The whole job became a game of trying to provide good customer service while keeping the owner away from the customer and trying to keep him from getting us all sued or arrested.
I started looking for work well before the company folded, which it finally did. One of my workmates did the same and had to apply for a security clearance, which is common in our line of work.
When the feds called me for a reference, I just told them Bob was amazing, trustworthy, and careful to follow rules and regulations. I don’t remember if they asked about the company, the owner, or if I just brought it up on my own, but I found myself telling the feds ALL ABOUT the scary stuff I’d seen happen with my employer. I told them I was feeling a good 90% chance that he had part of the F-22 plans on his laptop in the Philippines, that he was known to over-bill, steal equipment, lie to customers… everything.
The guy on the other end of the line just patiently listened, asked follow-up questions like, ‘Have you ever noticed him go to great lengths to save small sums of money’, which I answered with a story about how unbelievably cheap he was. Before long I realized the entire call was about my former employer, and I finally said, ‘I’m sorry for just launching into all this, but I needed to get that weight off my shoulders’, and he replied ‘It’s okay, every single one of your coworkers has done the same thing when I called, and we’re taking the matter very seriously’.
I don’t know what happened to him, but I’m not sure I want to know.”
Selfish Superintendent Is No Hero
“I work at a middle school for a school district that encompasses Pre K-8th grade. A few weeks ago, an 8th-grade girl was held down and sexually assaulted. Our Superintendent sat the mother down and told her it would be impertinent to press charges…
The Superintendent then came up with a list of things the school would have to do when she takes action, which conveniently will make it harder for her daughter (and which is not our actual policy).
NDA’s have flown throughout the staff and those occasions swept under the rug with all 5 children involved still attending. It’s killing me because the entire middle school should be getting an education on the matter. At the very least, the parents should have been told that they need to talk to their children about sexual assault, and where the boundaries are.”
Always Close Your Tabs People
“I spent a year working in a shady computer shop. My boss was a tall, praying mantis-like man (think Sheldon) who screwed people every single day. Once, people committing credit card fraud came to buy computers. He realized they were suspicious but sold the computers anyway. Right after the transaction, he faked that the card didn’t go through and he had to call the bank. The thieves left without their computers, not knowing they had paid for it. He changed his inventory and placed back the stuff upstairs, destroyed the tapes and got paid by the insurance for ‘stolen goods.’
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
I’ve been harrassed by him to go on trial for a friend of his to assert that a security camera’s photo of the guy (gardener dropped his pants and played his instrument in front of the lady of the house) was fake, even though we all knew it wasn’t. $500 to lie in court? No thanks.
I thought it couldn’t get worse. I was wrong;
One weekend (I worked alone on weekends), I was helping a customer. I went to my boss’ computer to check a price list (his computer is in front of the shop, so people see the screen) I minimize IE and bam. Limewire is running, and a small clip of a horse f—ing a small woman appears on his screen…
I’m smooth enough to quickly minimize it and go back to the client, who hasn’t seen it. After he left, I went back on Limewire to see a big a– list of downloading and downloaded cp and animal porn. I called up my boss to ask him what’s up. He panicked when I told him he left it open and a client might have seen it. He told me he was making compilation DVDs for a few lawyers friends who paid him well for that. Whether or not it is true, it is creepy AF.
The following Monday, I realized one thing; his wallpaper is a pic of him on a horse. Grinning…”
Everything She Touched Turned To Crap
“My old supervisor
1) She relocated all her duties to one of my co-workers, without asking and without lessening her normal work schedule.
2) Sat around all day doing nothing and chastising us for being inefficient, no matter what we did or how well we did it…
3) Called and threatened a co-worker (single mom of two) not to make waves in the middle of the night.
4) Lied about me being absent for three weeks (without notice) when I was gone for three days…trying to take care of health problems, having notified everybody a week earlier.
5) Tried to relocate me across the country for five months without a dime in compensation, not even for gas money…
6) Forced everybody to work untold hours, unpaid overtime, with the promise of extra days off a month later, then acted as if she promised nothing at all.
7) Threatened to fire me when I discovered the company I was working for was skimming money from my monthly wage installments.
8) Insisted the main office doors stayed locked, forcing us to use the exit doors on the other side of the building, which was in a heavy industrial area. If there was a fire anywhere in the building we were literally trapped inside unless she remembered where she had hidden the keys. She had lost them after the first month.
9) She gave a co-worker who just had a miscarriage one day of leave, then the next day told her to ‘work her sadness off.’
10) And when everyone in my department got laid off, because the company didn’t need us anymore, she stayed as a valuable employee, even though she started work the same day as I did, with but a basic education degree.
She created such a horrible atmosphere, that there were employees quitting left and right, well before the end, and the rest of us getting so stressed we displayed physical symptoms. The last summer I worked there, half my goatee hairs had gone white, and I was twenty-eight years old, previously with only three white hairs total.
This was in Greece. According to foreign and local media, we were all lazy and demanding to retire at fifty. Out of a workforce of a hundred people, all with a university or college degrees, there’s ten people still working, all ten in menial jobs at minimum wage or less, the rest of us still unemployed with no unemployment benefits due to a binding contract we were forced to sign when we started.
My ex-supervisor suffered a minor wage cut but still makes plenty. Yet her tactics actually decreased our productivity (proven when comparing our work during her time and a six-month interval when she had temporarily relocated and our productivity soared by 40% extra work done). Everything she touched turned to s—.”
I Didn’t Know Charities Could Do That
“So I work for a charity (UK) and our senior management waste money constantly. They spent £100 on a notice board to replace the £4.99 one we already had, then spent £3000 on a fire alarm system that the Fire Brigade told us was pointless, useless and overpriced…
They’re currently trying to fire my manager for selling things online without first asking permission and expect me to do her job for free. I said no!”
This Guy Is Definitely Not Qualified
“I work for a small county in NY state and there are tons of things to complain about but here is the big one. The head of the buildings and grounds department does absolutely NOTHING.
Seriously. The guy walks around in his suit all day long and he does nothing. He has no clue how to even turn on the laptop, that he requested, so he could work on the heating and cooling system from home. Oh, and the county bought him an air card too. Then the county bought him a truck because he has to drive so far to get to work. Nevermind most of the employees have to drive to work, but apparently, he’s special. He NEVER comes to work on weekends or after his work hours if something happens. In fact, he turns off his county-supplied cell phone so he doesn’t have to come in.
The topper though was this last month. We had just built a new building where I am and he was driving around the back of the building and told the head of the governing body here that the wall was falling in and there are huge cracks in the back of the building. Those cracks are actually expansion joints. I was here for the whole building process, he wasn’t here for one day until it was built and there was the ribbon cutting ceremony.
The only reason this guy even has a job is because he’s drinking buddies with the head guy of the governing body of the county. That’s the only reason. They pushed out someone who was more qualified and had been in the job a long time to hire this no talent a– clown. The guy they pushed out still works here but in a lesser role. He actually does get his hands dirty, but the drinking buddy hasn’t picked up a tool since he started here.”
Just Don’t Work At A Cellphone Store
“I worked in a cell phone store for four years (ended up being store manager before I left). Cell phone companies are really out to screw people, including their own employees. During my tenure there, we had over 3000 dollars coming up missing from two different occasions.
The first time they just shrugged it off, because there was no absolute proof. But they had the employees that supposedly lost it and there was no action taken against them. The second time the old manager still had a key, and came back and stole over 1500 and I was there the night he did it but they still did absolutely nothing to catch the culprit.
My white a–, made a mistake and lost 600. So then I got canned. Pretty screwy if you ask me… So if you work for a cellphone company, be careful, they are always out to get you.”
The Military Leftover
“We had a new girl come in, she was 19. She hooked up with almost every guy in the workplace. I know this because all the guys talked about it. We were all hanging out and a few just banged her in the bathroom like it was nothing. Two guys had families. One guy got her pregnant and they’re married now.
This is a big deal because I’m in the military and an E-6 banging an E-2 is a big deal and against the rules.”
Day In The Life Of A Movie Theater Employee
“I used to work at a movie theater with the majority of the employees being high school juniors/seniors. The number one reason people ever got fired for working there was hooking up. People did it in the theaters, in the closets, next to the projectors, in the concession stands, on popcorn seed bags, on about every desk we had, and on the dirty floors.
The second reason was probably for fighting with the customers. We probably had in the 2 years I worked there about 10 employees fired for it. The incidents would usually go like this:
Customer: Can I get a number one with a Coke.
Employee: Yes sir, would you like a candy with that too?
Customer: Did I ask for candy too?
Employee: I’m sorry sir, no you did not.
Customer: Well then get me my number one
Employee: Yes sir, right away!
The employee would then go and make popcorn and get the drink.
(Employee gives items to customer)
Customer: I wanted popcorn salt (a buttery fine salt mix that is very orange) you f—ing idiot!
Employee: Sorry about that sir.
Employee would proceed to grab the popcorn bag, popcorn salt shaker with the lid taken off
Employee then throws said popcorn on customer with popcorn salt
THE END”