During the annual company picnic, one of our notoriously tight-lipped accounting folks, let's call her Jane, apparently decided it was time to really let her hair down. After a few too many glasses of wine, she found herself atop the karaoke stage belting out tunes like a contestant on a talent show.

But the real kicker? Jane wasn't just singing—she was revealing office secrets between songs. Everything from the truth behind mysteriously disappearing stationery to who really broke the microwave in the break room. The crowd was in stitches, and cell phone videos of her performance went viral within the office.

By Monday, the videos had somehow reached the higher-ups. They weren’t too thrilled about the breach of office etiquette and confidentiality. Management called an emergency meeting, but instead of the expected reprimand, they announced a formal karaoke contest as a new annual team-building event, thanks to Jane's unexpected display of spirit and surprisingly entertaining accusations.

Jane still works in accounting, but now she also heads the party planning committee – and the microwave has never been cleaner.

On a team trip, a coworker attacked me and kissed me. I pushed her away and got away, went to our manager and told her what happened. She (manager) said I needed to “be careful” because pushing this too hard would be a career limiting move. She said she’d deal with it.

After a couple weeks of having to work with her every day, I went to HR and said “if I did this to her, I’d have been fired the next morning.” HR lady said “yep.” It took months to get rid of the woman who attacked me, all while I was kind of waiting to get fired to make it all go away.

Not worked with, but Brian Baumgartner (Kevin from The Office) had an appearance at our local baseball stadium. He was taking photos and signing autographs. The line was VERY long. At one point a stadium employee came up to him to say time was up and to wrap it up. He politely refused and said he would stay as long as there were people who wanted to meet him. He met and talked to every person in that line. Real stand up guy.

An old coworker had a side gig of helping to set up concerts at our local arena. We were talking about Justin Timberlake and my coworker was like “oh he was a huge jerk, he made us set up a hot tub backstage and then never used it. But his grandparents were really cool.” And I’m thinking, Justin Timberlake’s grandparents were with him on tour? And then I’m like “do you mean Justin Bieber?” And he did 😂.

Jeff Goldblum knew my name when i was introduced to him. I was working as an assistant (to another actor), and he memorizes everyones name on the roster. I've heard the same for Tom Cruise.

If you ever have a chance to meet Jeff, it will exceed your expectations.

In college I worked as a bellman at a fancy hotel in Del Mar. During the horse racing season we would get a lot of celebrities. The one that stands out was Martin Sheen and his wife. They were incredibly nice, interested in me, and remembered me on a return visit. Just solid people.

The people *surrounding them* are usually god awful, manipulative and rude people. Most celebrities are just normal folks with interesting skills or talents from my experience, but the managers, agents, entourage, etc are just heinous. (Creative director having done brands, events, and campaigns w them for over a decade) edit: grammar.

Some of them are terribly lonely.

I once spent the day hanging out with one of the huge names in rock from the 70s (won't mention who he was out of respect as he's gone now, and it's not important anyway) who had asked my roommate, who was nannying for him, to gather some buddies for him to hang out with. We were all in our 20s, he was 60-ish.

He was a nice guy, wasn't being creepy or anything, but it became clear he just wanted companionship. He was dropping all these big names but was spending time with a bunch of rent-a-buddies who had nothing in common with him. I enjoyed his stories found the entire experience quite poignant.

I worked as a fashion photographer for nearly 25 years. At the very beginning of my career around 2000 I was in Aspen for the winter and was invited to a party one evening. Was randomly introduced to a few known people and went home after a nice evening.

Two day later, day before new years my phone rang. “Hello? Hi, this is Rose I work with Mariah Carey. She’d like to know if you’re available to photograph her New Year’s Eve party?”

Come to find out my name was passed over to her even though she wasn’t at that particular party. I of course said yes to photographing it. Showed up, signed an NDA and the agreement to hand over all files at the end of the evening. At the first party I was introduced to JayZ, Will Smith who was there with a baby Jaden and a number of others. Mariah was so kind, stayed with me all evening, introduced me to everyone like I was a friend. Party ended and I went home, paid in cash and over the agreed amount. A couple of days later my phone rang again. Photographed her a couple more times that winter while she was staying. Always insanely sweet. Stupidly changed my phone number at one point that year and lost contact.

Will always remember how sweet she was to a deer in headlights at my first celebrity party. It also shaped me to where I was hardly ever intimidated by celebrities that I later worked with or met in the future.

EDIT: Changed Maria to Mariah. Need to learn how to proofread voice to text before hitting send.

I did catering at a sports venue and the blue man group was getting ready in their dressing room. I witnessed them blasting radiohead, globbing on their blue paint and doing various actions in the mirror after applying blue paint with their hands. Was very strange vibe while I was setting up their veggie and hummus platter 😂.

I used to host at a michelin star restaurant and met a lot of celebrities. The most interesting part was how normal and unassuming many of them were when in public- I seated people like Tina Fey and Leonardo di Caprio and no one else in the restaurant even noticed they were there because they look so ‘normal’ when they don’t have their public personalities turned on.

But Jimmy Fallon was always a big ham and is exactly like his screen persona in real life. And Hugh Jackman… that man had waves of charisma coming off him so strongly they were practically visible. It was incredible.

Tom Hanks comes to the restaurant I bartend at fairly regularly with his writing company. Everyone who waits on him says he's insanely nice, and if he pays, he always tips at least a bill.

I worked with Stanley from the Office at a Con once. This was before I had gotten around to watching the show so his celebrity was a bit wasted on me. He was incredibly nice and appreciative towards me, it was a very positive experience (not all of them are). He was very nice to all the guests too but what was special was his interactions with children. After he talked to the parents, he'd ask if he could talk to their kid, and then talk to their kids like they were equals, it was awesome to see. Do you like school? What grade are you in? What's your favorite subject? How are your grades? Do you plan on going to college? He then would really encourage them to do well in school and stuff. I thought it was wonderful! Afterwards, I learned that he used to be a special education teacher before he went into acting. Still out there totally being a supportive teacher, absolutely love it!

My company hired celebs to entice people to attend our biggest events each year. The opener at one conference was Adam Savage from Mythbusters. He was incredibly kind and engaging with all of us backstage. He asked about my son’s academic pursuits and suggested he attend the Colorado School of Mines so “he could learn to blow stuff up.” It was the most appropriate and delightful thing he could’ve said.

Played table tennis with Keanu Reeves. There was a table tennis place in the same building my sister lived at in NYC. He was a regular there, and if he wasn't Keanu Reeves, you'd never know he was famous. Totally normal, down to earth, guy. There's loads of questions I wanted to ask, and things to talk about regarding his career, but I just felt like it wouldn't have been appropriate.

Coolio stayed at the hotel in was working at probably the best part of 15 years ago now. I checked him in and also brought him up some food and helped him with some stuff in his room. Super chill guy. He tried to give me a few tickets to his show that he was in town for but i declined cause my girlfriend was in hospital so i was with her when I wasn't working. He asked after her when he saw me the next day. All in all, sweet guy, tipped well, cool hair.

Also dealt with former Australian prime minister Toby Abbott. He was nice enough but stared at you like a lizard.

I’ve met my share of celebs but the one who stands out was John Candy. I was a young guy doing a bit part with some friends on SCTV. John was the nicest person, who was so careful to make sure we were happy and had everything we needed during the shoot. He hung out in our dressing room, telling stories. Just a really good guy. Eugene Levi was on that same shoot and he was pretty cranky, but at the end of the day, when we were leaving the studio, he came to us and apologized for being cranky. Completely unnecessary, and a completely stand up guy.

Edit: the SCTV skit was a Shmenge Brothers episode.