It is important to keep your relationship to your coworkers strictly professional at first and let it naturally develop into friendship, or even further than that. It is never a good idea to actively try to become buddy-buddy with someone at work, especially by revealing too much about yourself... on day one.
If you are the type that loves to make new employees feel welcome, you may feel inspired to hold back on that reputation after you read these stories. People took to Reddit to share the most messed up thing that a fellow employee told them after they had only just met. Either some people did not read the employee handbook, or these companies' handbooks are in for major revisions.
TRIGGER WARNING: of what, exactly? Pick one. They are all here.
Sad Story, Bro
“A guy I worked with from another branch said he was depressed about ten minutes after meeting him. I was an idiot and asked what was wrong.
He went on to tell me in excruciating detail about how his wife hated him, cheated on him constantly, and told him in detail what she was doing with other guys, all while walking around the house naked just to tease him. He thought it was because he had a small member.”
He Wanted A Handshake, He Got TMI Instead
“I had just started a new job. A co-worker I had not met yet walked into the break room while I was eating lunch.
‘Hey, man, I’m Matt,’ I said, putting my hand out for a handshake. ‘How’s it going?’
He did not shake my hand, but said, ‘It’s my wedding anniversary.’
‘Oh. Congratulations,’ I said, sitting back down.’
‘We’ve been married six years and that wench has been cheating on me for four.’
‘Oh…'”
Never Trust Him With Dogsitting
“I had a co-worker whom I worked overnights with at a very large, well known retailer in the United States. One day, after work, we were both smoking outside. I was asking casual get-to-know-you type questions, which quickly turned into him telling me what breed of dog he found most attractive.”
Would You Trust This Guy To Sell Meat To You?
“I work for a commercial butcher. Sometimes, I train new delivery drivers. After a few hours, one new guy I was training said, ‘You know, some people say that human meat is the sweetest.’
I then spent five more hours in a truck with him.”
He Had A Secret Life His Wife Did Not Know About
“A co-worker whom I had only known for about two or three days proceeded to tell me how he regularly cheated on his wife with ladies of the night. He was about 40 years old with one kid and had been married since he was 22. He also added how he and his friends would go to kitten houses together and ‘try’ different women. One would go first and tell the other if she was worth it. If she was, they would go to her in turns.
One time, his wife’s brother wanted to hang out with them. They took him to the bordel and paid a woman for him without his knowledge. This was his way of keeping his brother-in-law ‘quiet’ about the activities. According to him, he had been doing this since he was 31.”
His Head Was In The Clouds Before The Plane Took Off
“I’m an airline pilot. I had just met the guy I was flying with one morning at around 6 am. Twenty minutes later, as we were rolling down the runway, amid our normal callouts, he peppered it in that he was going through a divorce.
’80 knots. Checks… Yeaahh, I’m going through a divorce. V1… rotate.’
Take off is the most critical part of any flight and NOT the time to tell a stranger you’re going through a divorce.”
One Can Only Imagine This Woman’s Upbringing
“In the course of one shift, a co-worker admitted to me that she had not lost her V-Card, that she believed in angels, and defended the honor of specific angels like Gabriel by boycotting media that would besmirch their reputations. She also admitted she thought women belonged in the homestead, barefoot and pregnant, and insisted that the world would be a better place if rock and rap artists were executed.”
This Guy Had Absolutely No Remorse
“I worked with a guy for about two days before he started talking about his kids and never seeing them. Eventually, I asked why he didn’t get to see them.
‘My girl’s sister was coming on to me while she was gone and I made my move, but she started backing out, out of nowhere,’ he explained. ‘I may have lost my cool about it, but if you play hard to get, I’ll play hard, too. I kept talking her up and pushed her on the couch and the wench started attacking me. I mean, woman or not, you hit me, I hit back. So, I knocked her in the head a few times then she finally gave in. Bull crap was when the kids saw her acting like that and me reacting. I mean, what did she expect to happen, putting me on like that, you know? Bull crap is, I went to freaking prison and missed out on my kids’ lives because of her. Now, I still can’t even see them.’
That is not word-for-word, just how I can remember him saying it. I told him it was messed up and started asking how he got hired. He had just gotten out of prison and lied on his application which they, for some reason, never checked.
He told me all of this bluntly and obviously without remorse, almost like he was the victim because he was not allowed around his kids. I told him, straight up, I was taking him to the office to tell them and that I would not take him into the houses of customers with his history. He played victim, trying to reason with me, saying he thought I was ‘cool.’ Then, he went to anger and started throwing stuff around like a child. I’m a calm man, but that doesn’t mean I can’t handle myself. I was also twice his size.
I told him sternly that he would stop throwing my stuff or I would put him out on the curb. Luckily, his mother’s car was at the office, so he didn’t want to be kicked out. At that point, it was pathetic. he just cried for the remainder of the ride. I did bend the truth to get him inside the office by telling him, ‘They may not fire you if you tell them, but I will not work with you.’
He went in and I made sure he told the story he told me. Then, I left before my boss spoke. The guy was a huge liability for the company. We go into family homes and I was expected to be able to leave him with simple tasks by himself. It just always bugged me how he told me it all with no guilt, as if he was the victim because he’s not allowed around his kids.”
“The Best Boss I Ever Had”
“My first boss, after telling me about my janitorial duties, then said he wished he had guys like me in the jungles in Nam. He then went into every gruesome detail of the smell of burnt human flesh. Then, he took his shirt off to show me the wounds on the side of his body. He also offered to show me what was left of his thigh. After that, he was the best boss I ever had.”
Her Co-worker’s Hobby Left A Foul Smell
“A co-worker once told me she was fascinated with stink bugs. She would capture them and keep as many as possible in her house. One of her favorite things to do was to draw a bath as hot and bubbly as possible, set a laptop on her toilet lid and watch a movie while taking a bath, but also with a bunch of stink bugs in the bathroom with her, just flying and walking around everywhere.
We had only been working together a little over a week when she decided to reveal this to me. I didn’t even know her last name at that point. I still randomly think of it and think, OK, but what the heck though?“
Never Heard A NASA Story Like This
“I sold a vehicle to a former employee of NASA who was retired at a fairly young age. While I was in the front seat going over the setup of her new car after the sale, she started telling me all about the aliens that would not leave her alone and forced her to sleep with them. She said they kept her up all night. She looked me dead in the eyes and started imitating them, screaming, ‘Do me, Sally! Do me, Sally! Do me, Sally!’
I saw a kind of crazy I never expected out of a seemingly well put together, tiny, blonde woman. I still run into her from time to time in our service department.”
She Must Not Have Known The Definition Of “Not Mixing Business And Pleasure”
“She was my employee. She was dating one of her bosses – my friend. She told me she had cheated on him with another one of her bosses – another one of my friends. This was our first conversation.”
Looking On The Bright Side?
“I was talking to a new hire about crappy people at our former workplaces. I had known her all of five minutes.
‘This place, so far, seems so much better than my last job,’ she said. ‘There, there was this one lady who used to take everyone else’s lunches.’
‘Ugh, why do people even do that?’ I replied. ‘Well, I’ve never seen that happen here.’
‘Well, even if it did, I guess if you put it in perspective, it could be worse! At least, at work, they can’t beat me like my dad did growing up!'”
Taxi Cab Confession… From The Driver
“I worked with a girl in college, basically as taxi drivers on campus. The first time we had a shift together, she went into extreme detail about how her mom’s failed relationships have impacted her current ones, how she was willing to hook up with pretty much anyone, and how a bunch of guys would take advantage of that at parties.
I did my very best not to work with her anymore after that.”
Be Careful Who You Ask Help From
“I work as a student advisor for a university, offering information on our courses over the phone. I had a relatively normal call about our IT courses that I was just wrapping up.
‘Is there anything else I can help you with today?’ I asked the caller.
The caller replied, ‘When I was in high school, some of the other kids offered me acid. If I would have taken it, would it have helped with my chronic depression?’
Um…“
This Guy Wasn’t All That Afraid Of Going To Jail
“I had a coworker who, in my second brief conversation with him, told me about the time he killed a man by putting him in a headlock and snapping his neck. He also said he defended himself in court and won because it was self-defense. This was a very, very large guy so the killing someone thing I may have bought, but he did not have the mental capacity to defend himself in court. Obviously, I could not verify his claim.
Then, that same night, I stupidly accepted a ride home from him. It was the middle of winter, I live about a mile from work and I would normally walk. While he was driving, he reached in the back seat and pulled out a six-shooter. So, I was, of course, thinking, I’m going to freaking die. Serves me right for getting in a car with him.
‘See this puppy? I’m not even supposed to HAVE one of these,’ he said, laughing. ‘Like, if we get pulled over right now, I’m GOING to jail. There’s a 12-gauge in the trunk, too.’
All of this he told when I had known him for about three hours total.
‘Have a good night, man. See you at work tomorrow,’ he said dropping me off, as if that was a completely normal interaction.”
His Trainer Was The Ideal Family Man
“It was my first full-time job. The very large man with two kids and a wife who was training me told me, ‘I wish cable had a package with the adult channels. I’m paying way too much for them.'”
Maybe Someone Should Tell HR About Katie
“I work as a floating banker. I’m always meeting new people as I fill in at new branches. Shortly after being introduced to this other banker, who I will call ‘Katie,’ she goes on to tell me this story about her last day at her previous job, from which she got fired.
Katie claimed she was wrongfully terminated for stealing. Katie then went on to tell me and the other banker in the conversation that she immediately went to the store to buy a bottle of bleach and poured the entire contents into her now former boss’s fuel tank.
Katie claimed that she went back to the place she was fired later on that week, for some reason, and commented on her ex-boss’s new vehicle. She asked the other employee why he got another vehicle so soon, since he had just bought the previous one fairly recently.
‘OMG, you didnt hear?!’ the employee asked. ‘Someone poured bleach in his gas tank. It RUINED his engine.’
Katie responded as if she was flabbergasted as to why someone would do that to such a nice guy, and then laughed her butt off as if she hadn’t just admitted to committing a FELONY and getting away with it. Neither I nor my coworker joined in her laughing one single bit. My coworker and I both looked at each other to see what our respective responses were going to be.
‘Ummmm, Katie,’ I finally chimed in, ‘I’m pretty sure that’s a serious crime.'”
While You Thought “Paranormal Activity” Was Fake, This Guy Lived It
“An old co-worker of mine told me that he and his friend ended up summoning a demon while playing with a Ouija board and talked with it for a while. Then, my co-worker finagled a deal and sold his friend’s soul to the demon. Things began happening – lights flickered and his friend dropped to the ground. My co-worker reached out his hand and held his friend’s soul in it. He emphasized how cold it was.
From that day on, the demon followed him and wreaked havoc upon his life. It even interfered in a close friend’s life and resulted in him being jailed. Luckily, my coworker is a hacker. He hacked into the local court’s server and deleted important evidence files. When the court date came, his friend was released due to the lack of evidence. All the while, the demon was at home trying to impregnate my co-worker’s girlfriend. He had been getting heavy into Wicca at that point to try and keep his family safe.
This story was rambled at me while slicing deli meats.”
Struggling Between Support Or Suspicion Of A Co-Worker
“A new co-worker, who has been there less than two months, let me know he was addicted to crystal for 10 years. Often times, he would smoke it with his nephew. Then, he met his husband, who was very controlling but got him off his addiction for the following nine years. Said husband passed away a few month ago. The co-worker has moved in with his nephew.
I cannot stop assuming he’s back on it every time he makes a mistake or dozes off during meetings. I feel bad but, at the same time, I really do think he’s back on it.
He is, however, very proud of losing 60 pounds within six months of his husband dying, but he does have bad skin. Some mornings, he’s very bright and alert and talkative, but other mornings he is very withdrawn and zoned out and tired. He also smokes cigs.
But, he’s still new – our newest employee. He takes the critiques fine when he has made a mistake. We expect a six month learning curve in this line of work. He does drink coffee and he does get stuck on low priority cleaning type tasks, but I struggle to differentiate if this is because he is new and not comfortable addressing more involved tasks or if it’s an obsessive behavior.”
Her Story Was Not Meant For Office Hours… Or Sharing
“A very short-lived co-worker told me about how she recently forgot about a tampon she had inserted and inserted another one again, and again. She got very sick. The ER discovered the forgotten tampon, which had resulted in toxic shock syndrome. This was on day three of our working together.
She was fired shortly after for theft. She stole a co-worker’s debit card and went down the street and bought panties at Forever21. She was caught on camera using the stolen card. My boss saw the video.”
Working Alongside A Criminal
“I had a co-worker who was on parole for criminal conduct with a minor. He was committed after being released from doing time for murdering a kid who refused to ‘engage’ with him to his satisfaction.
He is effectively back in jail now. Back at the time of his original crime, around the 1960s and 70s, they were much more lenient about such crimes. They did not have the stigma they do today.”
No Room For Gullibility At A Law Office
“I’m in a law office. After about a week of working here, one of the secretaries asked me if a 419 email from a Nigerian Prince was legitimate because she was literally about to send them money.
I warned accounting.”