Get Premium
Dark mode theme is available exclusively for premium users. Learn more about the benefits of subscribing.
No fees, cancel anytime.
Dark Mode 
No fees, cancel anytime 
Workplaces are supposed to be professional spaces where people focus on their tasks and collaborate smoothly. But anyone who’s spent long hours with the same coworkers knows that’s not always how it plays out. When you work eight hours a day, five days a week together, tensions build, gossip spreads, and conflicts are almost inevitable.
And sometimes, those situations turn into truly unbelievable stories. When someone online asked, “What’s the wildest office drama that happened in your workplace?”, the responses did not disappoint. From secret office romances to shocking cases of embezzlement, the stories quickly spiraled into chaos you’d expect from a TV show rather than a normal office.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
I was browsing Craigslist looking for furniture for a new place I had.
I see a picture of a tennis racquet for sale and the floor looks VERY similar to the floor at the tennis club I worked at.
I make a fake email account and send an email expressing interest and the response is from one of my staff.
It was a small tennis club and the owner had a bad habit of just giving away our merchandise so it took a bit to track that anything was actually missing.
The staff member had been swiping racquets and selling them on Craigslist for months completely unnoticed.
RELATED:
#2
We were a small division of a very big tech company selling PC components – memory sticks, Ethernet cards etc. One of the managers created a bogus company and generated phony sales orders. His girlfriend worked in accounting and generated fake payment records. They had the stuff shipped to his relative’s house and from there sold them at flea markets.
They got caught when a product was recalled for a safety problem. Since the gear was shipped across state lines and they used the US Mail, the FBI and USPSIS got involved. One day FBI & state police came in and took them away in handcuffs.
#3
Lady got hired for some management position. Showed up to training on the second day completely naked.
Storytime: Lady was hired for a management position and started the moving process to move for this new opportunity. I don't believe she had settled into her new home/apartment/where ever she was going to live long term yet.
She shows up for training for first day and everything goes fine. The trainers and trainees go out after training for dinner and drinks. Sounds like a few of the trainees kept the party going once the trainers left. Lady in question had a few too many and decided to sleep in someone's office overnight.
Some offices had couches so I assume she just chose a random one. Welp 8am rolls around and she walks into training completely naked. Apparently she was still drunk from the night before and either forgot about the work stuff or wasn't bothered by it. Trainer freaked out and covered her with some sort of blanket. She was fired.
If you’ve ever worked a typical 9-to-5, you already know the routine comes with its fair share of pressure, deadlines, and emotional fatigue. Work isn’t just about tasks; it’s about expectations, performance, and constant interaction with others. That pressure adds up faster than we realize. In fact, a 2022 report from the American Psychological Association found that nearly 79% of U.S. workers experience job-related stress. That’s not a small number. Stress has quietly become a normal part of modern work life.
Demanding jobs naturally bring higher stress levels, especially when workloads pile up or expectations keep rising. Long hours, tight deadlines, and constant multitasking can stretch employees far beyond their comfort zones. When people feel their responsibilities exceed their ability to cope, work stops feeling challenging and starts feeling overwhelming. This is when productivity drops and exhaustion creeps in. Over time, that constant pressure can affect both mental health and performance. A demanding job can be fulfilling, but only when it stays manageable.
#4
Hotel:
Maintenance Director and the Banquets Director were caught in a room together by guests. Maintenance guy used his master key for the door and forgot to put the room out of the system. the room was sold in the morning and the guests walked in on them, who had spent the night.
Both were immediately fired and had to go home to their respective spouses to explain why.
As a side note, both people were arrogant jerks to pretty much the rest of the crew and the schadenfreude throughout was amazing.
Upstaged75 3 minutes ago
I worked in a hotel for a while. There's a lot of infidelity going on in those places. Among other things.
#5
We have wellness rooms for napping or taking a moment, they are single rooms with a lock. One day there was a sign posted that read “Maximum 1 person at a time”. That’s how the whole floor found out that two of the people in contracts were enjoying wellness together.
Zig Zag Wanderer 9 minutes ago
I have heard that it's easier to fully relax with two people who know each other very well....
#6
HR scheduled a “mandatory wellness meeting” and that’s how we found out half the department was being laid off.
Lack of work-life balance is another major contributor to workplace stress. Imagine spending ten or more hours at work, only to come home too drained to enjoy your family or hobbies. Important moments slip by: school events, family dinners, even time to exercise or rest. Slowly, work begins to consume the space meant for living. That imbalance doesn’t just affect relationships; it chips away at health and happiness. People start feeling like life is happening somewhere else while they sit at their desks. A job should support life, not replace it.
#7
15 years and my most spicy story is a dude got fired for installing monitoring software on his work laptop to catch his wife cheating on him.
They were both using the work laptop as a personal PC off hours.
So weird.
#8
A guy got fired for using his company credit card to get cash advances every weekend at a casino. The wildest part was that he managed to get away with it for almost a year.
Also, he was at the casino because it was where he would meet his girlfriend he was having an affair with. Also the girlfriend and ex wife both worked with us.
Super dumb. But how did he get away with it for so long??
#9
Worked at a pharmacy where floater pharmacists would come to cover shifts. Apparently, they were monitoring one of them and discovered he was writing all kinds of control scripts for himself and using random people to use their insurance. Guy ended up getting sued and sent to jail. Wild stuff. Cool guy, had some pretty great lunch convos probably cuz he was on meds for a lot of it.
Financial stress also plays a huge role in how people experience their jobs. Employees often feel pressure when their compensation doesn’t match their workload or doesn’t cover rising living costs. When wages barely stretch to rent, bills, and groceries, work stops feeling rewarding and starts feeling like a constant struggle. Low pay doesn’t just affect bank accounts; it affects motivation and morale. People begin to question the value of their effort. Fair compensation isn’t just a perk; it’s a basic foundation for job satisfaction. Without it, stress becomes unavoidable.
#10
HR Woman had a fwb relation with a married co-worker. Co-workers wife loses job and applies at our firm. She gets a job as a regional finances officer. HR woman knows this and isn't happy seeing husband and wife eating lunches together. HR woman tries to fire her with false evidence that she is allocating funds to departments out of her jurisdiction. Husband gets mad at HR woman. They meet up at a hotel (like yeah a hotel doesn't seem sus...) to talk things over. HR woman set up camera filming them having some angry relations. She sends this to his wife out of anger. Wife leaves her house, says to husband she is gone to her parents, her mom is sick. 2 days later husband and HR woman get called to higher management. Wife is there also. Both get fired immediately. Wife keeps job and divorces husband.
We were talking about it for months.
#11
Manager was pretty abrasive, with boundary issues likely due to different culture backgrounds (intense micromanagement, personal space issues, would follow you to the bathroom and either ask you work status questions in the stall or wait outside bathroom for you). The team was already pretty drama-filled and didn’t respect her. One teammate on the team seemed pretty mentally unstable.
Manager noticed the teammate’s laptop was unlocked when they were away from their desk. I see the manager type something and walk back to her office. Teammate comes back and starts shrieking freaking out. Manager had sent a resignation email as written from the teammate, and then responded as the manager accepting the resignation.
Manager responded that employee shouldn’t have left laptop open. HR gets involved. Employee keeps her job for awhile but gets fired within a couple months of the incident. Around the same time, manager gets transferred to another team within the department.
#12
We had a serial pooper that would use the toilet, then leave a mountain of toilet paper. Like, not a little pile that might have said "I have IBS" or "I don't know how to wipe my own bum properly", but a towing mountain of shredded paper waste that could not be cleaned easily or just flushed down the toilet (as per the angry emails from the facility manager).
I saw it once. At least a foot of toilet paper above the toilet, cascading down and over the seat. I have no idea how anyone could have had the time to do this and not get caught.
I worked there for years and they never caught the serial pooper. It only stopped when we had to move buildings to a new parent company's head quarters that had cameras everywhere.
The physical and social environment of a workplace can make a big difference too. A poorly lit office, outdated equipment, uncomfortable seating, or lack of proper tools can quietly drain energy throughout the day. On top of that, a toxic culture can amplify stress even more. An article by Forbes notes that negative workplaces often include weak communication, unhealthy competition, or a lack of support. These factors slowly erode employee well-being. People may show up physically but feel mentally checked out. A workplace environment should empower employees, not exhaust them.
#13
Guy got caught having an affair with his assistant. Tale as old as time, right? Wrong. When the rumor mill started going I could hear shouting from the floor. Two guys were beating each other as they both were "dating" her and couldn't figure out who was cheating on who.
When the dust settled four guys in the department came forward that they were all having relations with her. Two of which were married.
I spent hours in meetings and "training" dealing with the fallout from that chaos.
#14
I worked at a local credit union and the teller supervisor was a nice, unassuming, little old lady. She was kind to me when half the tellers weren't. Come in one day and she wasn't there. She'd stolen half a million dollars over the years.
#15
At my old job, two coworkers were secretly dating, but nobody knew… until one of them accidentally sent a very romantic (Spicy) message into the entire company group chat instead of a private DM. HR got involved, people started picking sides like it was a TV show, and meetings were suddenly way more awkward. Productivity that week was basically zero.
Research from Leadership IQ shows that high-drama workplaces don’t just feel chaotic; they actively harm performance. Employees surrounded by conflict and emotional overreactions tend to feel more stressed and less engaged. Productivity drops because energy shifts from doing the work to navigating the tension. Drama confuses priorities, fuels negativity, and wastes time that could be spent solving real problems. It’s not just irritating; it’s costly. A calm environment isn’t boring; it’s efficient.
#16
I had a coworker that slept with our coworkers husband (this was a place with a super small staff, only about 4-5 people) so it was kind of a big deal. She also faked a whole pregnancy (not with the husband) but with someone in another country that didn't even know she existed. It was a wild time.
#17
But of a roller coaster here so stick with me. Girl I used to work with fell pregnant. Now she was a bit of a party girl and because of this there ended up being four potential fathers. She narrowed it down to one and they went through the pregnancy together. After the baby was born father asked for a paternity test and discovered it wasn’t his. Now the workplace drama comes into play when sometime later it was discovered that the actual father was one of our married coworkers (not one of the original four) who kept their little affair very quiet. I don’t know if she ever told him that he was the father, as he left the business before all this came out.
#18
Not me but a friend. They hired a new sales person shortly before their Christmas party and invited her to attend prior to starting. The party was at the boss's house and it was fairly formal. She showed up alone, proceeds to get hammered, sits on the boss's lap with his wife in the room, tries to kiss him, and he pushes her off. She then hits on several other men, all of them refuse her advances. A bit later, she falls down the stairs- like the entire flight. She is crawling around trying to get on her feet, grabs a limb off their Christmas tree to pull herself up and pulls the tree to the ground. She was going to be fired on her first day of work, but she didn't show up.
At first glance, office drama might seem entertaining, almost like a live soap opera unfolding in real time. But in reality, it creates constant tension. Imagine two coworkers locked in a feud while everyone else is forced to tiptoe around them. People start choosing sides, avoiding conversations, or feeling anxious about saying the wrong thing. That emotional strain drains focus and enthusiasm. Instead of collaborating, teams start surviving. What looks like harmless gossip can quietly damage morale and trust.
#19
At my company someone was hosting a customer at an NFL game, which was nothing out of the ordinary. Turns out they booked a suite and it was mostly non-customers attending. Like their friends and some coworkers. They racked up a $50k bill and expensed it. Finance flagged it and there was an investigation. Two people got fired.
#20
somebody printed out everyones paychecks and just let them in the printer for the next person to see.. oh damn. what a funny day
#21
I had a manager once that got fired due to a sex, drug, and embezzlement scandal. He was married and sleeping with an employee, had a massive bag of unmarked pills in his desk, and had stolen around $100K by claiming his wife was an employee doing courier work when she wasn't. This all came to light and out in the open during the Christmas party.
The impact of workplace conflict isn’t just emotional; it’s measurable. Research from the Myers-Briggs Company found that employees spend an average of 4.34 hours per week dealing with workplace conflict. That adds up to more than 200 hours per year for some workers — time lost to tension instead of productivity. Those hours represent missed opportunities, delayed projects, and reduced innovation. Conflict doesn’t just slow individuals down; it affects the entire organization’s success. Drama has a real cost, and companies feel it.
#22
“Strange” numbers appeared on the official e phone bill.
MD at the time didn’t want to make a fuss so mentioned it in a group / office meeting.
“Whoever is phoning competition lines please stop. I won’t investigate it but if it happens again I will. So please stop.”
Quite a reasonable approach.
After the meeting the old guy who’s been there years approached the MD and admitted it was him but somehow felt the need to correct him. It was a s*x line not a competition….
#23
Watched two 50+ women throw hands while working in the mattress department at Sears. Lady A had shown a customer around the options, he needed to go home to relay options to his wife, Lady A gave him her card. He came back the next day, Lady B was working instead. He hands over the card and tells B which mattress he agreed to buy from A. B did not use the information on the card and stole the sale commission. Neither of them were fired due to tenure or whatever, they just got put on different shifts.
#24
I posted a different drama and as soon as I hit enter, this awful memory got triggered ><
I worked at a small family owned business that had about 15 employees. Of those, 10 were related to the owner and her husband.
I was the owner's assistant. One year, she got her panties in a twist over the fact that (almost) no one got her or her husband a Christmas gift. She had me get everyone together and then just laid in to us.
One person got her a card with a lottery ticket.
And she says:
"And Joe (name changed lol) makes less than all of you and even he managed to at least give us a card with a lottery ticket!"
That was almost ten years ago and I still look back on that moment in sheer disgust that she would not only have the audacity to complain about not getting PRESENTS as the owner of this company, but to then embarrass someone like she did. Just wow.
Woman had freaking grandkids for crying out loud (and was very full of herself).
I hate her. So glad she's in my rearview.
While some employees get pulled into workplace drama, others cope by disengaging or withdrawing entirely. Both responses hurt productivity and team spirit. That’s why it’s always better to address issues early rather than letting them spiral. Clear communication, fact-checking, and refusing to spread rumors can make a huge difference. Encouraging respectful conversations and solutions keeps problems from growing into conflicts. A healthy workplace isn’t drama-free by accident; it’s built intentionally. When handled well, even conflict can lead to stronger teams and better outcomes.
#25
First Story: Man and woman (I can’t remember which one was married, or if they both were), were caught in the act in a conference room. The employee who found them, freaked out and ran out of the dept yelling “oh my lawd”.
Both were terminated, and the one who found them asked to be sent to therapy. They termed her too later on for some bs reason (the dept manager didn’t like that he had to answer for her therapy request to the execs).
Not long afterwards all the locks and door handles were removed in every conference room. And renovated some to all glass walls.
Second Story: A tenured sales employee was no longer hitting goals, and grew complacent with sales dept policy changes. Decided the best thing to was complain directly to the CEO. Welp, you know what happens when you do that… bye bye job.
So she went back to her desk to collect her things (without an escort) and decided to send another email exposing wage & hour violations, who was cheating on whom, and how unfairly the sales employees were being treated (basically it was easy to steal sales at that time)… to all 14,000 employees. Got a nice class action settlement from that one, and saw a-holes moved into other positions who shouldn’t have been in senior leadership positions.
Honorable Mentions:
An employee decided it would be a good idea to get drunk at an off-site work event and punch a manger.
A new hire decided to flick a cigarette into a bush, which then caught on fire.
#26
I was working in a hospital, front office stuff, it was really boring, but really easy and for $13/hr, in 2004, I was ok with it. It was a pretty icy reception from the other 4 folks in the office, so I just kept my head down and did the job. But I noticed something very early on, the most innocuous behavior between one guy and girl in there but it was enough for me to pick up on that something was up.
A few months in and I go out for drinks with some people from the hospital and only two of the girls from my office show up. So we're chatting and they both just finally straight ask "so you know what's going on don't you?". I knew _something_ was going on, but I'd learned from past jobs it is really worth staying out of it.
Turns out the behavior I picked up on was an affair between a woman with 4 kids and a deadbeat husband, and a guy somewhat recently married to his online girlfriend (who hated each other IRL). So I was like... this is the sort of thing I don't want to know about, but then they go on to tell me the girl is 4 months pregnant.
My ability to stay quiet ends up kind of becoming my curse cause slowly over time I start becoming the confidant for this woman and the issues these two are having in this affair. And then people start asking me if she's pregnant, but I play dumb cause I don't want to be involved in this stuff. I mean, I felt bad for the girl but it was becoming strange that because I was just out of college and all of these other people on the gossip train were at least 10 years older than me. Yet they all were trying to get me to spill the beans on what is up.
People never really grow up.
#27
We all found out that we were being made redundant from the front page of that morning's newspaper.
These stories show how quickly workplace drama can spiral out of control and turn a normal job into something stressful and, at times, unintentionally hilarious. Some situations are shocking, others oddly relatable, but all of them remind us how much office dynamics shape our daily lives. Which of these stories surprised you the most? Have you ever experienced anything similar at work? Share your thoughts and stories in the comments below.
#28
Not me but my dad…
He works at a clinic (he’s a lab tech)
Anyways. One day one of the female doctors asked him to come see her in her office and my dad was confused cause why the hell is she asking to see him in the office?
He gets in there and the lady doctor goes “I think you’re very handsome and I know you have a wife but you’re probably getting tired of her and I’m very unhappy in my marriage, my husband is terrible and I want to have an affair with you”
My dad gets up and goes “I love my wife and we are great, no thanks”
He goes and tells his boss about it
(The lady eventually got fired.)
My favourite part of the story is when my dad came home and told my mom.
And she peed herself laughing because it was funny to her and she goes “at least other people think my husband is hot!”
That everyone is 27years of marriage lol!
#29
My ex- and I worked at the same place when we were married. Her boss was married to a guy named Dana. There was another supervisor in 5he building, and her name was Dana, too. Well, I guess Dana and Dana decided to become Dana&Dana, with Dana divorcing my ex’s boss.
When Dana&Dana had a kid, guess what they named it? You’re right! Whenever my boss saw them he referred to them as The Dana&Dana&Dana Show.
#30
My coworker Joe was always a bit weird and gave off some creepy vibes, but he was always nice to me, and we had polite, surface-level conversations. One day, Joe got offended that our coworker Jim made an offhand gay joke to him. Instead of reporting it to HR and management and getting Jim in trouble, Joe emailed our manager something along the lines of: "Manager, if you don't do something about this, I'm going to come back and "take care of the problem myself.""
Joe immediately got fired and walked out the next day. Turns out, this was the last straw in a long list of threatening messages that Joe had been sending coworkers over several years. We also found out that Joe had been fired from a previous job due to anger issues. Then all the stories from people started coming out about how they'd seen Joe blow up over seemingly small things and how he'd say crazy things under his breath when he thought nobody could hear it. Glad he's gone!
#31
A celebration was held at our call centre, with wine being poured freely. Staff started sneaking the opened bottles of wine away. The late shift proceeded to get roaring drunk, with a supervisor running around absolutely plastered. Imagine a young crowd of employees, many of them working in their first job that wasn't fast food. As one of them put it, "they shouldn't have left the wine if they didn't want us to drink it".
The seconday drama was that this was the newest call centre for the company, and the celebration was for a sales milestone. The oldest call centre had achieved 95% of those sales. The third call centre had been running for about a year. They didn't get a celebration. They read about our celebration in a company wide email.
#32
But of a roller coaster here so stick with me. Girl I used to work with fell pregnant. Now she was a bit of a party girl and because of this there ended up being four potential fathers. She narrowed it down to one and they went through the pregnancy together. After the baby was born father asked for a paternity test and discovered it wasn’t his.
Now the workplace drama comes into play when sometime later it was discovered that the actual father was one of our married coworkers (not one of the original four) who kept their little affair very quiet. I don’t know if she ever told him that he was the father, as he left the business before all this came out.
#33
Nothing too wild, but certainly uncomfortable: when one of the women in the office mentioned her shoulders hurt the guy from the mailroom gave her a massage. Without asking. That was his last day...
#34
A coworker infested the office with fleas, but he didn't get fired until he did it *a second time*.
The first time it happened, the boss closed down the office and had an exterminator come in, and told the guy "Here's a laptop. You telecommute now."
It turned out, he lived in a trailer with over a dozen stray cats. He kept taking in these strays and just not doing anything for them - no shots, no flea treatments, not even a bath. So pretty soon, the whole place was infested with fleas. He was one of those people who don't get the itchy, red spots from flea bites, so he didn't realize how bad it was. The fleas just got in his clothes and he carried them to work.
After a few days, he was already complaining to my boss that the laptop didn't work right. My boss tried to send me to this guy's trailer to fix whatever was wrong, but I said I would rather quit than set foot in Fleapalooza 2012. So he told my coworker to just deal with it himself.
A couple weeks later, the guy came in to the office to pick up his paycheck. In the 30 seconds he was inside, he infested the place again. After that, everyone threw a fit. The boss only fired the guy to avoid a full-scale revolt.
#35
Some guy installed a video camera in the ceiling of the women’s rest room and it was found almost immediately.
#36
For a month or two, the whole office saw a team lead and an intern arriving and leaving together everyday. After that time period, the whole office saw that team lead arriving and leaving with that intern's best friend. And both the interns always sit next to each other. We were having a field day during lunch hours trying to decode what's going on.
#37
My first big/real job at a major corporation. I had been working there for about 6 months in a classified area. One day the boss comes in and tells my office mate, Clifford, that security wanted to talk to him (this was not uncommon). As Clifford is walking out the door he says to me, “be back in a bit”. Once the door closed the boss says to me “no he won’t. We’ll find a replacement as soon as possible”. About 15 years later I was a supervisor at this company and there was a huge management meeting and I ran into the guy who was my supervisor way back the and ask him WTH that was all about. It turned out that shortly after I was hired everyday around 430pm…our break time…someone was making a phone call to a young lady in the building across the street and saying very perverted stuff. Security tapped the line at her desk and traced the calls back to the phone that Clifford and I shared. They investigated each of us and figured out it was Clifford making the calls. I remember at 430 everyday when he took his break he would make a phone call and then leave the area for his 15 minute break. I don’t think he was getting a cup of coffee.
#38
Person went on leave. Their work friend wanted a pen or stapler or something, opened their drawer--and found it was stuffed full of unsent accounts. So were a couple of other drawers. I think it was 7 years' worth. It was a government department so she wasn't fired.
#39
There’s usually at most 5 employees at my job, including the owner, it’s a very small hotel. The one time the owner wanted a break from working every day, he relented to his wife and hired a manager to look after things in the morning time, since that’s when he worked. Anyway, she was a pretty good manager, and after a month or two the owner leaves for a week to visit family in India. The day he gets back he pulls me aside in his office and has a really dire look. I assumed I was getting fired. But, as it turns out, the new manager stole his company checkbook while he was gone and attempted to steal roughly 35k from his business account. She’s in prison now. And she deserves every minute, because the owner is a very nice man.
#40
A female secretary, who was always sucking up to everyone who could call himself boss of something, thought of herself to be management too for some reason and kept looking down on workers (like herself lol).
The union protested in front of the company and was handing out flyers to cars about to enter the garage.
They tried to wave her down to give her a flyer. She hit the gas and almost ran over two people. They had to jump not to get run over. She was quoted later: Well, they don't have any business being on the street.
Nothing happened to her.
#41
Staff Xmas party at the bosses house in the bluest of blue chip suburbs.
Said boss was a notorious lecher and after a single beer would become extra lecherous to any female in his orbit.
Said boss was also the mayor of this bluest of blue chip suburbs
It was also widely know that said boss was having a more than professional relationship with his EA who used that to reign terror on the office - she was pretty much untouchable
At this Xmas party of which there would have been ~50 staff and plus ones in attendance, said boss after a brew or two decides to openly grope another EA on the dance floor in front of his EA and wait for it....his wife and 2 kids (under 10) who were also in attendance.
Surprisingly there was no homicides or in fact high drama but to this day I will never forget how awkward everyone there looked witnessing a rather grotesque PDA...
Monday morning everything was back to normal and EA continued her reign of terror on the firm - well before that I had the remaining time I was obligated to work there down to the second...never ever been so relieved to exit an organisation...
You May Like Server Gets Suspended For Nothing, Watches Restaurant Fall Apart Without Him Lady Is Sick Of Coworker Being Passive Aggressive With Her Name, Makes Sure She No Longer Does It Finance Professional Gets Passed Up For Both A Promotion And Bonus, Performs A Smart Revenge Plan
Gabija Palšytė
Monika Pašukonytė
Rūta Zumbrickaitė
Related on Bored Panda
