Yahoo Lifestyle People Are Sharing Some Of The Most Out-Of-Pocket Behaviors They've Seen While At Work, And I Might Never Use A Company Microwave Again
We've all done things we're not technically supposed to do while at work. From scrolling social media to secret naps, taking back time is almost like a right of passage. But I think we can all agree that some behaviors go a little too far.
So when Reddit user u/pm-me-ass-pics-69 posted, "What’s your 'I can’t believe they were doing that at work' story?" on r/AskReddit, there were some truly chaotic answers.
Before we get to some of the responses, if you have also experienced or witnessed wild behavior at your workplace, let us know in the comments or by filling out this anonymous Google Form.
Your response could be featured in a BuzzFeed Community post!
And now, without further ado, here are 19 truly wild stories of people doing stuff at work that is truly beyond the pale.
1."I once caught a coworker using the office microwave to dry his socks. His logic? 'It's just like the sun but faster.' I started eating my lunch cold after that."
2."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 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 two. 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."
3."I was working at a fast-food chain in the '90s. My coworker brought acid to work on New Year's Eve. Around 9 p.m., he calls for the manager's help. He was insisting he couldn't make the milkshakes because the machine kept melting."
4."I am the director of security at a college with over 400 cameras. I'm pretty sure I have seen it all, but my favorite thing that happened was when the cameras caught a guy scratching his junk furiously; he then pulled his waistband out to look and started screaming. I don't even want to know what was going on down there."
5."I was really excited when I got my first manager job in IT. I was going to get to mentor and mold the youngins. I had taken business management classes, conflict resolution classes, and mentoring workshops. I even had binders. I was ready to go! My first task on my first day? To get one of my direct reports to stop cutting his toenails at his desk."
6."I used to work at a bank, and every morning, the same 9–10 businesses would come in to drop off their morning deposit bag. Because it was always the same business, I’d see the same employees day after day and make small talk while I counted the deposit for them. One of these businesses was a tile shop. It was just a massive retail warehouse of tons of tiles for your kitchen, bathroom, etc. One day, the usual guy I joked around with was gone."
"The backup guy came in looking somber and nervous. Then, the next day, he was also gone, and there was another new person. So I started making small talk, and this new guy started becoming friendly. After about a month of this, I finally asked 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, rained holy hell down on them, fired half the staff, and brought in management from elsewhere to cover."
7."My work used to let me take two hours out of my day once a week to play Dungeons & Dragons with coworkers. Around 40 people participated across all the groups. Most people I tell about it can't believe they let us do that."
8."I used to work at a place that was a fever dream. We started every Friday with a full company 'huddle' of around 30 people. Occasionally, the CEO wanted to prove how cool and hip he was and would come in a costume. One day, the 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. Then continued the meeting for the full 30 minutes dressed like that."
9."When I was pushing carts at a Costco in the early '00s, one of the other cart guys would show up, clock in, get back in his car, and leave. He would return to show up for all his breaks and lunches but leave again right after. I told our supervisor, and she came out and watched him do it every day. He worked for a week, and then our supervisor reported him to her manager. The next time I came in, our supervisor told me to 'not worry about it, don't bring it up again.' It turned out that guy was selling weed to her manager at a discount for the job."
10."I have a colleague who just goes around with some paper in his hands and just stops all the time to chat with people, smoke cigarettes, and drink coffee. I've never seen him do any work. He's a legend."
11."I had a coworker named Darryl who would build 'Turd Traps.' He would construct almost like bird nest-type structures out of rubber bands, paperclips, and pallet/skid broken wood fragments and hairnets and flush them. All the ingredients fit in his pockets, so he looked totally normal when walking in. It caused constant plumbing issues in the facility. Cameras were installed, but working 12-hour shifts, just about everyone used the bathroom, so it didn't really help management figure out who it was. It was hysterical for us, honestly, but the company got pissed after a while, and he slowed down. But if Darryl was having a bad day, you could expect a 'turd trap.'"
12."My ex-husband was in the navy, and there was a guy on his ship mining crypto using the government computers."
13."Former high school teacher here. One of my colleagues would send his teaching assistants (16- and 17-year-olds) 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 something he bought on Craigslist."
14."I worked at a very well-known restaurant as a server and at the salad/dessert station. One day, a mother and daughter I had waited on many times before waved me over. The daughter had bitten into her house salad (which I had made) to show me that she had bitten a small dead tree frog. I apologized, and amazingly, they were not mad. But they wanted me to know so it didn't happen to anyone else. We went and inspected the other seven bags of lettuce I had prepped that morning and found three more tree frogs. We then inspected the two cases of lettuce in the back and discovered six more. Management wouldn't let us throw away any of that lettuce. I quit the next day."
15."My coworker, Suzy, dries her cycling shorts every day inside out by hanging them off the cubicle wall."
16."I had a troublesome employee who was always doing inappropriate stuff like eating leftovers in the work fridge that weren't his. One time, I stopped by his desk at around 9 a.m., and he wasn't there. Apparently, he started getting to work at 9 a.m. and then he would take a 20–30-minute walk around the office park with some woman from another department."
17."We had a new guy start work at the warehouse. One day, he took a bathroom break while his phone was still connected to the Bluetooth speakers. We all heard him watching porn."
18."We had a phantom sh*tter on a ship I was on during a deployment in 2014. Every day, you would hear where they had struck. They sh*t on the missile deck, on the catwalk, in a shower, on and on. I don't know if they ever got caught."
19.And lastly and most meta: "I caught a coworker watching The Office while we were in an actual meeting."
There you have it: 19 wild stories that made people go "I can't believe they were doing that at work." What do you think, and have you ever experienced or witnessed anything similar? Let us know in the comments or by filling out this anonymous Google Form.
Your response could be featured in a BuzzFeed Community post!
