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46 Unhinged Workplace Dramas That Prove Coworkers Can Be Worse Than The Job
If you think that your bosses and colleagues are overly dramatic or slightly toxic, you may want to put everything in perspective. Things can always be worse. Much, much worse! Shocked and confused employees revealed the biggest, most bizarre, and downright strange workplace dramas that they have ever witnessed.
These stories hurt to read, but we can’t look away. We are featuring the most interesting ones that made us do a double-take, and you should show these to your work besties and HR so that they can take notes. And if you’re scrolling these stories at work, make sure to zoom in so your boss can read them while they’re standing behind you, too.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
The sandwich filling thief.
I was warned not to bring sandwiches for lunch, because somehow any sarnies in the staff room fridge managed to lose their fillings by lunchtime. Yes, even tuna mayo.
People had tried a rota to keep an eye out, but it didn't work (too much work to do).
The problem stopped soon after I joined, possibly related to a likely-anorexic woman leaving.
UnclePanda 1 minute ago
I had a roommate we called the Baloney Thief. He'd take one slice of lunchmeat from each of us to make a sandwich. to hide his proclivities.
As fun as it might be to listen to office gossip and watch workplace drama unfolding, these things are highly toxic. They corrode trust and make the office a much worse place for everyone to, y’know, actually get work done. It’s hard to focus on being productive when your colleagues are obsessed with being characters in a real-life soap opera.
“Drama-filled personalities exaggerate, catastrophize, and spin minor situations into full-blown crises. And if you match their energy, you’re just adding fuel to the fire,” Mark Murphy writes on Forbes.
Drama-prone work environments tend to lead to more stress, worse engagement, and lower productivity. “Emotional overreactions create confusion, amplify negativity, and derail meaningful work,” he notes.
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#2
I was in reception one day when a well dressed older woman came in, approached our young, glam, receptionist and said, 'Hi, are you Debbie?' (name changed to protect the not so innocent). When she said yes, the woman leaned in and punched her squarely on the nose and before anyone could react said, 'tell my husband his clothes are on the lawn' and then went straight back out the door. Our boss didn't even know he'd been rumbled till then.
#3
Had a summer job in a packing factory when I was a student. Guy who started at the same time as me really didn't like being asked to do any actual work. Lasted about 30 minutes before he lost his rag and threw a box at the Supervisor and gave him a nasty cut. Obviously he was immediately sacked and sent on his way. A couple of hours later he wanders back in to the warehouse with his mum in tow. She just walked up to the Supervisor and bit him, drawing blood, and walked back out without saying a word. Weird.
As Murphy points out, office drama is “only as powerful as the reaction it gets.” Your best, healthiest approach is to focus solely on facts and remove the emotional response to all the theatrics.
“Drama thrives on emotional reactions, but when you stay neutral and insist on facts, it loses its power. By maintaining a steady tone and redirecting energy toward solutions, you create a more rational and productive workplace. So next time drama knocks on your office door, remember your four magic words: ‘Just the facts, please.’”
In other words, if you want less drama and emotional turmoil at work, create an environment that functions based on rationality and logic.
#4
Right out of college I moved to a small town in my home state. I had taken a job as a jr project engineer on a construction site about 30 miles from the town I worked out of. Everyone was new to me, lots of various characters, some fun, some not so fun. One particular day our boss came screeching to a halt near the vehicle we were all in, he came up to our suburban and yanked a woman out who was working with us and hauled her back into town, the rest of us just sat there with our mouths dropped open wondering what was going on, Turns out this woman was putting her younger daughter in a locked cage in their living room while she was gone during the day at work. Never saw her again.
#5
Used to work in fleet/transport management for a large reputable parcel company. We had quarterly targets to breathalyse delivery drivers for alcohol.
One morning a few years ago, the management team thought it would make us look really good figures wise if we breathalysed most of the workforce the morning after a big World Cup match.
After pulling and suspending about five drivers for being over the drink-drive limit, the management team made us stop testing drivers as they were more worried about being short staffed than they were about people driving over the limit.
#6
I had a work colleague who volunteered with special needs kids in his spare time. One summer he went and volunteered for “Spesh fest” which was a weekend camp with medals handed out.
He bought one back and gave it to me as a joke, I laughed, put it in my desk and went back to work…. 15 minutes later I was called in to a HR meeting as someone reported my colleague on my behalf.
In the meantime, Indeed emphasizes that a positive work environment starts with an active desire to cultivate a healthy and communicative workplace. Intent and good vibes aren’t enough. You have to take active steps toward moving away from office drama.
Two of the biggest contributors to drama are gossip and negative talk. You have to stop venting at work. Save it for when you clock out.
“While there are undoubtedly days where an employee may annoy you or something isn’t done correctly, avoid taking those feelings out on people in the workplace or venting about it to other members of your team. Even if you deem someone trustworthy and see them as a confidant, they likely have someone of their own they share everything with in confidence. The chain goes on, and this is how rumors get started.”
#7
Worked in a chain family restaurant. It was a Sunday lunchtime and the local football team had a 3pm kick off so we were busy. I was running table ordered drinks from the bar and we had ran out of orange fruit shoots and I needed at least one on all the orders waiting... So shouted the bar supervisor as normally only supervisors or managers were allowed in the cellar but he was busy with some angry customers so I went in the cellar, the fruit shoots were usually on a shelf near the door but they werent so I had to go further in and as I found the fruit shoots I could see a foot sticking out near one of the barrels.
Curiousity got the better of me and I peaked over and saw the shift manager with one of the new waitresses and they were obviously being intimate.
Anyways I got the fruit shoots and went back. A few moments later I had to go in the kitchen to check an order and I realised that the new waitress was engaged to one of the boys in the kitchen and she was picking up shifts to help save towards their wedding...
I told a couple people and nobody believed me apart from another shift manager and she only believed me because she had noticed him always asking that waitress first to cover any shifts if someone was off but it wasn't enough evidence...
Took a good 3 months before someone else caught them sneaking around in the cellar. That someone was the area manager. We had an emergency team meeting and both of them got sacked.
#8
We had a phantom bread puncher. One of my colleagues would bring in a loaf of bread each week to make his sandwiches but kept finding it all squished up in the bag. Went on for ages, everyone making jokes about whoever it was beating up the bread.
Sandwich guy didn't get on with one of his colleagues. No one was wrong or right, they just had a clash of personalities. Turned out her son who worked in another department would smash the bread everytime he was alone in the kitchen to do a tea round. It all came out literally the day before the office got closed for covid lockdown. Obviously at that point management had bigger priorities and as far as I'm aware nothing ever came from it.
#9
A girl used to go around offering people a cake she had made. They weren’t very appealing and most people took one to be nice…she then asked for money.
Was it for charity? Oh no she seemed to think she could make money off people in the office. HR got involved and told her that she couldn’t do it for health and safety reasons, I assume rather then telling her she was socially inept.
What’s more, you can prevent situations from spiraling out of control if you stop assuming that someone has malicious intent. Try to give your colleagues the benefit of the doubt if (read: when) they make mistakes.
But the easiest way to avoid workplace drama is the simplest: simply stop engaging with it.
“Don’t discuss other employees with their peers, don’t perpetuate rumors in the office and if someone is complaining, develop an escape excuse you use to get back to work, such as ‘Sorry, I’m on a deadline.’ Encourage employees to avoid this engagement as well, so everyone understands that gossip and venting are not tolerated in this workplace,” Indeed suggests.
#10
We got 2 new managers that nobody liked so one day I got told "don't eat the cake it the staffroom" turns out someone had baked it with laxatives inside intending on giving it to the managers but neither of them were in that day so they just left the cake in the staffroom for anyone to eat. The person who did this told there friends not to eat it and eventually word just got around and that person was promptly fired the same day. Thankfully no one ate the cake!
#11
Woman gave birth to a baby in the toilet and tried to drown it. No one knew she was pregnant because she was a BIG woman.
#12
A coworker of mine had a heart attack and I rushed over and gave him chest compressions and brought him back to life.
What are the biggest, messiest, and most mind-meltingly weird workplace dramas that you have personally seen, Pandas?
Who are the most toxic and drama-prone colleagues that you have the ‘pleasure’ of working alongside? Do you think there’s any hope for them, or are they a lost cause?
We want to hear from you! Share your spicy work stories and weirdest office gossip in the comments. We promise your secrets are safe with us—we won’t tell anyone.
#13
A place I worked as a warehouse worker had a woman in the office who got arrested because she was sending electronics from the warehouse to her self using the company's UPS account.
#14
Liquor store. My very married boss disappeared as soon as I walked in the door. My coworker told me a customer was hitting on her hard and she just followed him home. A few weeks later I saw a used pregnancy test in the bathroom bin. Her husband came in often and none of us could look him in the eye.
#15
Many years ago. A male mid-level sales leader was carrying on an extra-curricular relationship with one of the female administrative staff. His wife came to the office and caused a huge scene. The police were called. The company refused charges against the wife, the husband was fired on the spot, and the female affair partner was "laid off" quite abruptly.
#16
Didn’t witness it, but heard all about it. Partner at a conference, running a session for clients. Has a lapel mic. Proceeds to the bathroom but forgets to turn it off. Entire conference room hears his entire toilet performance al la Leslie Neilson style. Everyone, including the clients, were gossiping about it for months afterwards!!
#17
A girl got her hair caught in the automated rollers of a conveyor belt. Her screams could be heard far and wide around the factory, and the mechanics had to take the conveyor belt to pieces to free her from it.
#18
Worked in a some large office building, like 400ish people
Guy who I sat next to, and traveled with for work frequently, was caught taking photos of other dudes “using the facilities”
#19
Guy got promoted and used his position to get with three ladies in the office. All ended up with the same std. He got fired and they got together and sued the company. Not sure how that ended but none of them are with the company anymore.
#20
I worked at Aviva. Someone kept defecating in the middle of the floor in the toilets, then smearing it everywhere. Had a meeting to ask the person to stop or others to dob in if they knew who it was...suddenly no more poocasso.
Thankfully I was never a witness to the aftermath of the art, but I definitely felt for the poor bugger who had to clean it up.
#21
During COVID, the clock in my classroom would disappear most mornings before lessons and the site team would come and pop a new clock on the wall a few times a week.
I shared this classroom with another teacher and he had no idea where the clock was actually going either.
We just assumed they were taking it down to use in the hall for mock exams throughout the term and then site were returning it afterwards.
Things you need in schools often just go missing at random points so we didn't think too much of it but it was a bit annoying to not have a clock in the room given that students need to know the time in tests.
About halfway through the year, we found out that some boy in Year 10 who had form in our classroom had been stealing all the clocks.
Yes, clocks plural.
He had taken one, gotten away with it and wanted to see if he could take another.
And when no one confronted him, he just kept taking all the replacement clocks from the classroom.
His mum found a hoard of school clocks in a cupboard at home when the school was almost fully online. she phoned in and he had to return everything he took.
Given that schools basically have no money, I was more shocked that we had that many new clocks put in the room and that it wasn't just the same clock moving around.
#22
There was a charity snack box. Pop, sweets, crisps, etc. the guy who ran it always complained about people using change to pay for it (prices were dumb, like 55p a can of pop, 70p for crisps, 85p for bags of sweets etc) and how he had to change the change at a machine and that took a % of the profit for charity. So someone came in, or stayed late, counted every last penny and swapped it for notes, I assume thinking they were helping.
People after being told off for using the correct change pretty much all swapped to £1 coins or notes but now there was no change. So nobody bought anything for a week or so.
Candy man decided we were all in a huff and refused to restock and the money tub was forever empty.
Those cans of pop and sweets must have been there for months with the occasional £1 coin in the tub.
Completely ruined the whole set up.
A few month later, he unwrapped EVERY sweet and microwaved them, crushed every bag of crisps, binned them all, and emptied every can of pop down the drain
The more I think about it, the more I think he was just trying to make a quick few quid and was complaining those charity coin machines were eating into his profits.
#23
Two middle aged men having to be physically separated by colleagues when a fight broke out over use of a hot desk.
The one who actually booked the desk still works there. The one who attacked him because he felt he should be able to use it... well, he had to leave.
#25
Admin staff newbie manually shoved more paper in to the top loading light office use type paper shredder than should have in one go. Used fingers to jam more in, got fingers stuck. I kid you not two fire engines, an ambulance and police all turned up to “rescue” her. There must have been at least 7 emergency workers in total. The amount of paper she’d inserted had actually protected her fingers pretty well even though she jammed the machine up with them and couldn’t release them back out again. I think she was more traumatised than physically injured and we never saw her again but she did try to sue the company for her own stupidity.
#26
My husband has one.
He worked in McDonald's as a teenager. One day one of his co-workers had a melt down. Got on to the counter in the restaurant, took his nuts and put them in between a burger bun and shouted "who wants some mcknacks."
I never know whether to believe this story but it happened in Great Yarmouth so probably true.
#27
Entire mid level team leadership team getting fired for putting girly dances on company expense report at a company you have definitely heard of.
#28
Can’t go too much into detail, but worked at a family owned company for some time. The cops got called because one staff alleged that another staff pulled a knife on them. No one else in the office observed it. After that, cameras were installed. Place was pretty toxic.
#29
Two people in my small office were having an affair. One day I was the only one on the office with the two of them and the tension was palpable. This was before I knew for sure what was going on.
#30
We had the whole factory evacuated because the fire alarm went off. Fire engines Turned up and everything. Turned out that someone in the office women’s toilets had dropped a real stinky load and sprayed so much air freshener to hide the smell that it set the fire sensor off. I never found out who it was though.
#32
One of the shift managers had to be put on nights for his own safety and the general harmony of the factory after he slept with/dated too many of the day staff.
#33
Worked in an office with a woman who smelt like she was rotting and looked like it too.
You couldn’t eat your food at your desk, one girl brought her salad back up when the lady passed her desk. Had to wait for her to retire. Was bloody awful to work with. Constantly talked about.
She would also create issues in the bathroom. I was in an office upstairs but I felt for the twenty women that put up with it for years.
#34
Got reemed out by my boss at an animatronics/puppetry job because I complained about the headcast he insisted he do of me - nearly suffocated me in the process as he blocked my airways misapplied alginate and he'd put so much on in one go it pulled on my face and ended up making the cast look like I'd had a stroke and passed. Thought he was gonna throw the thing at me he got that mad.
#35
I worked in a pretty large office. I asked then girl down the hall on a date. We went to her place where we had one dring and then I left, she just wasn't for me. Several days later she stormed into my office, stood in the middle of the room and shouted at me she said, "What the hell is wrong with me?" Everyone in the room was shocked and silent until she left. That was weird.
#36
Worked with a woman pretty much my entire professional career that honesty did absolutely nothing but personal stuff at her desk, and yes, management knew she did nothing, yet always, always, turned a blind eye to it. When the internet was introduced to our work station computers, all she did was browse the internet all day long. She was big into scrapbooking and soon she was running, and getting paid by various web sites related to scrapbooking, all from her work station, use company equipment and time, not only did she collect a handsome check from our employer, she was also getting paid by the websites she contributed to serving executive level positions with them. She also came and went as she pleased, one time I took a week off from work, I was at Walmart with my wife and ran into this woman with a grocery cart full of groceries. I had my wife call our work number and asked for this particular woman, my boss told my wife she must have stepped away from her desk, could he take a message? This woman worked nearly 40 years before retiring with full benefits, she never got in trouble once.
#37
I didnt work there but i went i to a shop, and 3 of the people who worked at this shop were fist fighting three homeless people on the street so i went up to the counter and asked what was happening and the person who was there, looked at me and said that it was their first day and had no idea what was going on LOL.
#38
Worked in a bar where 90% of the staff walked out in one evening. The bar was struggling and the team had been working hard on hosting events that brought in more people through the door.
We found someone who wanted to do over 50's salsa classes, it was the first night that it was on and it was going well.
With absolutely no warning, the owner of the bar came in with an entire stag party. You can imagine the state of them. To make matters even worse, they had hired a little person to tag along. He was chained to the stag.
Pretty much as soon as they arrived they started racking up Columbian marching powder on the kitchen worktops... All the staff flipped out and walked. Was embarrassing.
I was left there by myself (supervisor) so I called the manager and noped the hell out of there with the rest of them.
Good times.
#39
We had two co workers start dating and it ended awfully. He was a crazy person and she got a restraining order on him. The had to split the campus in half and each one couldn't go on the other ones side.
#40
Two grown women smashing coffee cups over each others head. Blood bath and a race to emergency.
#41
Apprentice beating one out behind the printer while watching a female colleague.
He is still employed, put down to his "autism". Which is wild too me.
#42
Used to work in a call center. Someone was unwell and was sick in their desk drawers….didn’t clean it out either.
#43
A friend of a friend works in an office. He's English and the office is in Glasgow where the majority of his colleagues are Scottish. So this guy decides he wants to take some time off to watch the England games during the World Cup (or Euros, can't remember which and it was a good few years ago now) and books his holidays. They're approved by the boss, job's a good 'un.
As a wind-up (and because Scotland haven't qualified, quelle surprise) some of his colleagues create a fake memo stating that all annual leave during the football has been cancelled because of staffing issues. Everyone in the office plays along and signs the memo before passing it to matey. He reads it, realises he's not going to get his annual leave to watch the footy...and decides to hide it in his desk drawer and pretend he's not seen it (it was the day before his annual leave started).
Then the boss hears about what's happened somehow - and when the poor guy returns from annual leave, he gets pulled into the bosses office and is given a bollocking and a verbal warning for hiding the (fake!) memo.
#44
Some gammon type has decided to start hiding the LGBTQ books from the staff library down the back of the lockers. It's so pathetic, imagine having to explain to your family that you had been sacked for that if you ever got caught.
#45
I asked a new colleague if she would like to go to the cinema with me. She asked some questions to figure out if she could go. She kept coming up with reasons she couldn't. I said that she can just say no and I wouldn't be offended. She said "It's not that" and left the office to go home.
For the following week she didn't talk to me and was clearly angry at me. The week after that she was back to normal with me and friendly as usual. The week after she went back to being silent and angry. This never stopped. She ended up throwing tantrums at people in the office over nothing. Then one day she kept leaning over her desk and shouting at me for not doing enough work. I was doing 75% of our shared work. Instead of retaliating and giving her ammo, I told our supervisor. We had a meeting and she refused to be nice to me ever again but gave no reason why. The day before she was due to be fired lockdown happened. I went into shielding due to my dad's health. They kept her on to cover for me. I came back after 6 months and I was hoping after this time apart she'd be willing to talk. Wrong. Still the same. She found a new job not long after. She then got fired from that job.
I only asked her if she'd like to join me at the cinema.
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