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We all know that we’re expected to act professionally in the workplace. But depending on what company you’re employed by and how well you know your colleagues, what’s considered appropriate behavior may not be black and white. Sure, you probably shouldn’t show up to the office wearing a robe. But you might be able to get away with using swear words or getting drunk at the holiday party if your boss doesn’t mind.
Some employees, however, get carried away and end up throwing workplace etiquette out the window completely. Redditors have recently been discussing the wildest things they’ve ever witnessed while on the clock, so we’ve gathered their juiciest stories below. Enjoy reading through, and be sure to upvote the tales that you can’t imagine ever taking place in your office!
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Every Wednesday there was a tamale lady that would walk local businesses, selling her tamales. My boss, had a bit of an addiction with them because he would buy a dozen or more weekly.
One day, she tells him that she is moving, and thanks him for his business. Well, he offered her $500 to teach him how to make them. Next day, she comes in with her husband, we have a tamale making class, and it was one of the weirdest (but fun) moments I’ve had.
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#2
My work let me take two hours out of my day once a week for weeks to play D&D with coworkers. Probably about 40 people participated across all the groups. Most people I tell about it can't believe they let us do that.
#3
I am director of security at a college with over 400 cameras....pretty sure I have seen it all but my favorite is a guy scratching his junk furiously, pulling his waistband out to look and then screaming. I don't even want to know what was going on down there.
To find out how this thread began in the first place, we reached out to the Reddit user who started this conversation, who was kind enough to have a chat with Bored Panda.
"There wasn’t really anything in particular about what made me want to create the post. I’m newer to using Reddit and wanted to create something people could engage with, plus I feel like everyone has a story of something crazy they’ve seen," the author shared.
#4
At my old job, a coworker got fired but refused to leave the building. Instead of making a scene, he calmly walked into the breakroom, popped a bag of popcorn in the microwave, and sat down at his desk like nothing happened.
Security was called, and while they were trying to escort him out, the microwave caught fire because he set the timer for 20 minutes instead of 2. So now, the office smelled like burnt popcorn, the fire alarm was blaring, and this guy just grabbed his half-burnt bag and walked out like it was all part of the plan.
Still not sure if it was a meltdown or the most legendary exit ever.
#5
I worked at a job where this woman a few cubicles over had a tragic weekend. Her husband died while napping on the couch, and she had to deal with that circus and now on Monday, she was on the phone, making calls and sobbing hysterically: funeral homes, family members, insurance companies, the hospital, the morgue, and so on. All the s**t you have to manage when a spouse dies unexpectedly.
A few of us reported to management, but her manager said, "she only gets of three days bereavement as per policy, and she already took those when her mother died at the beginning of the year. She is also out of sick days, which she took because her kids were sick. Nothing I can do, it's an HR mandate. if she didn't come in this morning, I would have been forced to write her up."
God damn.
#6
I got my first manager job (IT). I was really excited. I was going to mentor and mold the youngins. I had taken business management classes. Conflict resolution classes. Mentoring workshops. I had binders. I was ready to go.
First day. First task: "Jimmy is one of your direct reports. You need to get him to stop cutting his toenails at his desk.".
The OP also says that they've seen plenty of shocking things at work. "I used to work at a country club, and behinds the scenes of weddings gets particularly interesting," they told Bored Panda. "I’ve seen people have s*x in the bathroom, cheating spouses, and more dr*gs than I can count."
#7
Layed off almost everyone over 50, then HR rewrote all of their job descriptions and hired younger people to do the same job for less pay. During the exit interviews you signed a paper saying you wouldn't sue and if you didn't sign you received no severance pay. This happened in a US state that has almost no employee rights.
#8
I used to work at a bank and every morning the businesses would file in to drop off their morning deposit bags, and it was always the same 9-10 businesses so I’d see the same employees day after day and make small talk while I counted the deposit for them.
One of these places was a tile shop. Just a massive retail warehouse of tons of different tiles for your kitchen, bathroom, etc. one day the normal guy I joke around with is gone. The backup guy looks somber and nervous. The next day he’s also gone and it’s a totally new person. So I start making small talk and me and this new guy start becoming friendly. After about a month of this I finally ask what happened to the other guys.
Turns out that their manager, and a bunch of his underlings were opening up the warehouse after closing hours and renting the space out to a porn studio. It was discovered when one of their customers recognized the tiled kitchen set in the background of the porn, and took screenshots to send to corporate. Corporate came in and rained holy hell down on them and fired like half the staff and brought in management from elsewhere to cover.
#9
Engineer was always saying he had low bandwidth and was overwhelmed with tickets whenever any of us asked him for anything. Turned out he was playing World of Warcraft 10 hours per day on his company laptop. HR fired him right away.
As for why people think it's appropriate to behave like this at work, the author says, "I think some people just really can’t control themselves and don’t have the ability to stop their behavior in the workplace. Also some people are just crazy."
Finally, we wanted to know what they thought of the responses to their post. "I absolutely loved reading the replies, especially now since they’re still coming in," they shared. "It’s hard to pick a favorite when there’s so many good ones."
#10
Sort of indirect, but I once worked in an office that had a very relaxed dress code, and one of the only things specifically prohibited was Speedos. We were told that, yes, there was a story behind this. We were not told the story. I didn't inquire further.
#11
Just today, my 80+ year old coworker was just watching a video on how to keep an erection out loud in the office. You could literally hear it down the hall.
Jan Rosier 1 month ago
Can't decide what's more outrageous : Playing that video out loud... or an actual 80+ c oworker. Think I'm going for the latter.
#12
Toys R Us was one of my first jobs when I was a teenager. Used to work with this metal head guy who was probably about 5 years older than me. He used to regularly show up drunk/stoned/hungover to supervise the warehouse, operate the forklift and compactor etc. They didn’t want to sack him because he was one of the only people there who knew what they were doing. Also used to have sex with his (co-worker) girlfriend in the customer toilets. He was funny as f**k, cool guy. Fell out of touch with him after a while as you do. Last I heard he worked as a Captain Jack Sparrow impersonator. 🤷♂️.
#13
Grown a*s man slept in a corporate office. at his desk. on the toilet. in the lunch room. in his car. in 8 person mtngs around a conference table. in town halls as the PRODUCER of such events, front row, head back, mouth open, as president of company spoke. he snored. he was startled awake. it was truly something.
#14
I have a colleague who just goes around with some paper in his hands and just... kinda stops all the time to chat with people, smoke cigarettes, take coffees. Never seen him do any work really. A legend.
#15
Receptionist picked up her sick kids from school and brought them to work. Laid out a blanket IN THE FRONT LOBBY and gave each of her 3 kids a tablet to watch movies on.
#16
Happened in a different city, but two people who were having an affair at work went into the cash room to have a quickie. The cash room with ten cameras so they were caught in every possible angle. Somebody leaked the video the all the offices around the country, so we all saw it.
#17
I worked a few years as a freight delivery driver, everything from flatscreens from Amazon to human cadavers on the same truck.
One day I’m at a regular stop which happened to be a medical school’s ears, nose, and throat department. We frequently delivered smaller boxes there and even though every box containing a cadaver just says “human tissue” it was clear there were heads in these boxes.
The typical woman I delivered to wasn’t there, and her understudy was out sick.. so they had a student worker guide me. We mistakenly end up going to the wrong room, instead of the storage room with freezers my paperwork for some reason had a classroom written on it.
We enter, the lights are out so she goes to the opposite end to flick on the light. Once it’s on I look around to see maybe a dozen small desks each with a human head sitting on it with one of those blue paper towels similar to what you’d wear at the dentist resting on top, partially covering them.
This poor girl freaks out, it turns out her field of study pertained simply on dealing with medical instruments, and had never seen such a thing (nor have I). She is clearly having a panic attack and excuses herself to go get some PPE as Im standing there nervously laughing like a maniac at the insanity of the situation.
I go back outside of the room and after a while am met by somebody who works there who apologized profusely asking if I was alright. In hindsight saying no could have been a good financial choice.
#18
A woman working in a supermarket I ran was stealing bottles of cola from the shelf and then stealing bottles of vodka, mixing it under the checkout and necking it. I caught her and went through months of CCTV as evidence and called in HR. Before she got sacked she did a final shift where she came running off the checkout and shat herself in the back office 😭
It also came out that on her lunch break she would go out to her car and drink in there. She must have been absolutely wasted by the time she drove home, it's a wonder she didn't end up killing anyone!
#19
A new coworker started on day 1 and fell asleep in our morning meeting with our boss.
#20
Guy brought his kid to work yesterday. The boss had a big meeting with some people in his office and this dude just busts in, interrupts during the meeting, and hoists his kid up on his shoulders like it’s no big deal.
#21
I worked in a call center around 2005. One of the employees and a manager built a sex toy website on company computers during work hours. Both fired.
#22
Nurse here…A postpartum nurse at a large hospital in Minneapolis was in charge of making sure mothers after giving birth (not normal births, high risk and c-sections) were treated with pain medications.
She was drawing the liquid med into syringes, filling other syringes with tap water and filling the med bottles back up with water
Then she would go into the bathroom and inject herself and then go see her patients.
Thank you to cameras and the Pyxis machine she was caught
TL:DR - Hospital nurse was an opioid junky stealing meds from sick patients and hurting them with tap water “pain” meds.
Warren Peece 1 month ago (edited)
Retired nurse here. Sorry to say, but drüg addiction is an epidemic in healthcare - especially among doctors, nurses, and nurse aides. As for me, I have never abused a drüg even a single time in my life.
#23
Fast food in the 90s.
Our best drive through worker would sell weed through the drive through. There was some small order, he'd tell them the total was 21.07 instead of 1.07. I thought it was kind of brilliant, no one would accidentally be cool with paying $20 for a $.99 whopper.
Another guy brought acid to work on new Year's Eve. I heard the manager tell him to just wait until after closing (midnight). Around 9pm he calls for manager help. I heard him insisting he couldn't get the milkshakes because the machine kept melting.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 month ago
Had coworker in high school who had to open the next day and downed three hits to stay awake. When I got in for my shift he had spent two hours polishing the windows.
#24
Local to me a drywaller was retiring, they threw a party in a unfinished townhouse complete with stripper, blow, booze etc. young guy pulled out his phone and posted a video. They all lost their job. Retiree lost his union and pension. Died of a heart attack a year later.
#25
I used to work at a place that was a fever dream. A few stories from there because I don’t have the time.
We started every Friday with a full company “huddle”. Around 30 people. Occasionally bossman wanted to prove how cool and hip he was and would come in a costume. One day CEO and his right hand man came down in full over the shoulder mankinis with a speaker on their shoulder and ran around humping all the dudes there. The left the women alone while dressed like that at least. Then continued on for the full 30 minutes dressed like that.
Different day same whole company meeting bossman learned one of the ladies had never shotgunned a beer and he was like oh you have to do it now! Anyone else wanna join she can’t do it alone so like 6 people shotgunned beer at 8:15 in the morning.
There were some perks but it was largely hell. One time he took the whole company to drive on a race track. That is still one of the most fun things I’ve ever done.
#26
I work 9-5 but in a building that has plenty of 24 hour workers. Outside my office there is a small first aid room with a bit of medical supplies, a sink and small bed. Shortly after starting here I went into the room and there was a post-it note on the bed that said :
"Please don't have sex on this bed".
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 month ago
I helped open a new restaurant once and one day I saw a futon appear in a back storage room. I was like "Where the hell did this come from?". Turns out it belonged to Jeramiah, our bar manager. It was there for exactly the reason you are thinking and we fired him for sexual harassment. Being a white male, he failed up and owned his own restaurant less than two years later.
#27
Former high school teacher. One of my colleagues department would send his TAs (16 and 17 years old) on errands during his class. They'd make coffee runs, get him lunch, take his car to get it washed, and do other totally inappropriate tasks off campus. He was finally fired after it was discovered he had sent a 16 year old girl to some random person's house to pick up somthing he bought on Craigslist.
That whole school was a s**t show. It was a small, conservative town where people covered for each other because they all grew up together and they all had dirt on one another. I have a million stories but this is the only one where the person faced consequences.
Mike F 1 month ago
I did this for a teacher in HS. I think he felt sorry for me cause I was such a mess, but smart. He'd toss me his keys and some cash to go get his car washed and some donuts for the class. I was the envy of the other guys when he got his Vette and did the same thing then. He said he knew I "wouldn't do any stupid 💩 in it". He was also the teacher who organized a field trip to a pancake house for us, lol. He taught me how to do hexadecimal and binary math, so there's that.
#28
Back in the mid-1990s, in the very early days of the Internet, we had a colleague who would sit at his desk with 2 or 3 windows open streaming porn. On his screen. In the office. In an open-plan office building.
Again, this was in the 1990s. Another colleague would smoke cigars at his desk. In an open-plan office building.
A couple of years before that, we had one colleague who didn't show up to work on Monday. Or Tuesday. We asked our manager if he had called in sick ... apparently no, he was in jail for dealing heroin. I never saw him again...
#29
Manager was stealing deposits and banging a cashier in the office. Where he knew there was a camera. His solution? Turn off the computer monitor showing the camera feed. Because he thought that would turn off the camera. He got arrested for the theft. The cashier kept her job. Why? Because there is nothing in the handbook saying you can't have sex in the office. Yes, that was the official reason given for her keeping her job.
#30
I’ve seen some crazy things at work. Manager was sleeping with a couple employees, new manger comes along and they start hooking up, they get caught, he gets fired, now they are married.
Another employee found acid and decided to take it on the clock, freaks out, hides in a closet and gets fished out to an ambulance. He got fired.
Supervisor decided to smoke weed in various places. He was fired.
Supervisor started sleeping with new employee, would deny it but was caught multiple times. Was promoted to manager.
Employee would sell d***s to patrons. I think he still works there.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 month ago
My favorite story is about a line cook. The business next door was a strip club and it was pretty common for the staff to sneak off for a shot or two on breaks. This guy Chris, he heads that way after his shift and comes back completely bug-eyed. He found a bag of d***s behind the toilet at the strip club and he did them.
#31
At a previous IT job, I helped the site safety and security guy install cameras. Once they went live, we had to monitor them for a few days to see if there were any issues. We had two employees that were dating and working on different production lines. We watched on a camera in the hall as the guy went into the bathroom and about 30 seconds later his girlfriend came from another section of the building and joined him. About 5 minutes later, she goes sprinting out of the bathroom and he comes out a second or two later fastening his belt. About 2 minutes later, water starts pouring out from under the door. We run down to investigate the water and call facilities who meet us. There was a sink broken off the wall, water going everywhere, and a condom wrapper on the floor. Couple gets called into the office and the guy confesses to everything and takes full blame so his girlfriend wouldn't get fired. We knew what they were doing.
#32
Teachers at a school I was working at for a short time we're cheating on their respective spouses with each other. Students had called it, as they'd seen some overly friendly behaviors between them. They got caught in one of the trailer classrooms by a janitor at lunch time. Both put on admin leave for like a week, then both were fired. Afaik, they also both were served divorce papers before the end of the school year.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 month ago (edited)
Mrs. Krabappel and Principal Skinner were in the closet making babies and I saw one of the babies and the baby looked at me
#33
Twofold story here, "I can't believe they did that at work" and "I can't believe the company did that"
One of the guys at my job was a technician in charge of equipment and maintenance. He would steal mobile equipment and resell it on ebay (mobile meaning it had no assigned home, so it could be used by anyone who needed it). It took months (possibly years) to discover he was stealing stuff because it was just assumed that someone misplaced what he had been stealing. He was only caught because he never removed our company's asset labels and a manager saw one of his ebay listings for a piece of missing equipment.
After firing the technician, the company started lawsuits because they realized he stole >$100k over his time there. But people who knew this tech at that time told me the company's lawyers refused to cut any deal and wanted to drag the process out to press to continue suing until they got all their money back (they wanted to make an example of him and kept him buried in lawsuits and lawyers fees). The tech was now unemployed, in debt from lawyers, and was constantly in and out of court; he took his life 2 years after he was fired, still overwhelmed with the lawsuits and seeing no way out.
The company retells this story during every new hire orientation, leaving out the lawsuits and suicide from the story. It's something I had to warn multiple new employees to not mention the guy who stole equipment. Because during orientation, it's treated as a joke about "an employee who stole from the company so we fired him." I talked with the trainers who told me the higher ups required them to mention that story and a separate story about following safety protocols and a guy who got injured.
#34
This was a good 10 years or so ago... After an altercation occurred in the store that I worked at (not related to the below), the police came to examine CCTV footage.
Whilst reviewing the footage for the altercation, it also revealed an affair between the assistant manager and a coworker in the storage area. They were both married with kids and ended up losing their job.
Imagine being caught in the act by the police and your coworkers on CCTV, then having to explain to your partner why you've been sacked from work.
As far as I'm aware, they both got divorced and tried to make a go of it together, but the relationship lasted all of 3 months.
wyngerd 1 month ago
I dont know im how many companies i have worked were.people had relationships and fornicated in different places at work. No one ever lost their job. Maximum was thatbthey had to be reminded to keep that to break hours. Maybe that is because all that happened in north europe and people here know that work love is a great motivation plus?
#35
Someone had been doing mini bottles of fireball and then flushing the empty bottles down the toilet. We got an email one day about how the sewage pumping station for our campus broke down and they cleared out "hundreds of mini bottles of fireball". That email ended with something to the effect of "whoever is doing this, we don't want to punish you, we want to get you help".
There was also the time someone discovered a bag full of feeder mice in the breakroom freezer.
#36
I used to work with someone who spent most of the day running her own business from our office. Everyone knew about it but nothing was done because she'd given one if the higher ups a huge discount for the services if her other job.
It caused several issues. One time no one could find her during a major issue because she was with one of her personal clients when she claimed to have been at one of our client's offices. Another time I was printing up a report at the same time she'd printed up an invoice for her business. The invoice ended up in the middle of my report. I didn't catch it because I just checked the first and last page when I grabbed it. I only discovered it after uploading it to our server and someone called me about it when the read it. Had to deal with IT to get it removed so I could re-upload it. Our boss was livid and I'm pretty sure she was the one who finally called the corporate office. She retired before they could fire her.
#37
Closing manager had a gambling addiction and was taking the deposit to the casino.
Immortal Jellyfish 1 month ago
Our manager used and lost our Christmas night out funds in the bookies next door to our office. Came to light when the admin called the event to adjust the booking and there was nothing booked for us. We had all chipped in ourselves, it was our money not the company money he lost.
#38
Walked into the back stock room to get more bags, and found one of the cooks and cashiers having sex on the happy meal boxes. I oped and walked outta there.
#39
We had a guy storing very graphic X rated pics of him and his wife on a government computer. He’s now married to another woman, who happens to be the mom of one of the younger employees. A real class act.
#40
Ever hear of the “Roof Ninja of Family Fare”
I heard stories, I never believed them.
They were true.
A crazy person, related to an employee, made a home inside the sign for the store on the roof. She lived there at least a year.
#41
Had an old supervisor that would bang this girl that worked under him. She had a BF at the time and the BF had no idea. The supervisor would allow this girl “extra breaks” and they would both goto his car, bang for 10 minutes. Then both come back in. EVERYONE except her BF knew about it too.
#42
I was a management consultant working for a very large insurance company (3-letter name, was big in the news in the 2008 financial crisis). We were there late one night when my colleague goes to grab something off the shared printer. Only to find a bunch of full-color prints of very hardcore man-on-man gay sex. Interesting choice of things to print at work.
#43
Was hired as kitchen manager at a new place in town, they had been open 2 weeks just winging it with a fella who convinced them he knew what he was doing.
Day one i throw away TONS of open cans of moldy food, no coverings, no proper storage at all. Ok.
Then I look at the grill, like really look at it. Underneath is a very deep pool of sludge. Deep.
I say to this man, we will call him Batman, i says to him “Batman, what are you doing with the grease at night after youve cleaned the grill?”
This grown man says “it goes to the grease pit outside”
I ask, “Batman, how is it getting to the grease pit outside?”
He says, “it just goes there”
And that day that man cleaned a 90 year old cast iron griddle and carried a LOT of grease to the pit. It leaked goo for about 2 weeks.
The thing was huge and had 2 weeks worth of grease in it.
#44
At a previous workplace, watching one saleswoman trying to get her friend out of the male toilet cubicle, while her friend was "getting friendly" with an external sales rep. This was at a works social event.
At a place I volunteered for, they had to use a live capture mouse trap, for "reasons"...the main problem was that they are vermin and cannot be released in to the wild, especially a problem when most of the people in the office had "Ecologist" in their title. It was humanely euthanised, much to the wailing and gnashing of teeth by some of the more sensitive workers there.
#45
Employees had an air mattress set up out on the robotics field, they put down electronic barriers to keep pods around the air mattress. Set up a whole bedroom out there. Bed, lamp, condoms, sex toys. They would hook up on the robotics field often.
No cameras that far out into the field, they got caught because product pods were showing stuck so lead robotics manager went out to find out what was going on.
Yes they got termed.
What do you think ?
Warren Peece 1 month ago (edited)
I spent a couple years as a shift manager at a very large inpatient healthcare facility that was half long-term care and half physical rehabilitation. We had LPNs and nurse aides who were addicted to opioid drügs. They would steal drügs from the med rooms and from the med carts. They would also take pain patches off residents and eat them. But these workers were all union members. So we could not fire anyone as long as they continued attending drüg counseling meetings (which the company paid for).
Lauren Wilder 1 month ago (edited)
chewing or eating on a pain patch? That is low.
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Warren Peece 1 month ago (edited)
I spent a couple years as a shift manager at a very large inpatient healthcare facility that was half long-term care and half physical rehabilitation. We had LPNs and nurse aides who were addicted to opioid drügs. They would steal drügs from the med rooms and from the med carts. They would also take pain patches off residents and eat them. But these workers were all union members. So we could not fire anyone as long as they continued attending drüg counseling meetings (which the company paid for).
Lauren Wilder 1 month ago (edited)
chewing or eating on a pain patch? That is low.
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