Our jobs are usually where we try very hard to look like responsible, well-adjusted adults. Being on your best behavior seems like a small price to pay for keeping a steady income. After all, who wants to lose their paycheck because they couldn’t keep it together at work?
Well, apparently, quite a few are happy to push their luck. When one Redditor asked users to share the most ridiculous workplace drama they’d ever witnessed, they came through with some wildly entertaining stories. Scroll down to read them.
#1
A manager kept bringing cakes to raise morale a bit, in and the group of office huns reported him to higher management because they were all always trying to diet and he was “spoiling it”.
He stopped bringing cakes and sweets in. None of them ever even lost any noticeable amounts of weight.
Sad day.
Image source: rezonansmagnetyczny, Alex Kad
#2
A guy at work everyday used the communal kitchen cutlery, licked it clean and put it back in the drawer. He was spoken to several times but didn’t see anything wrong with it.
He also used the teaspoons to mix mackerel salad so quite a few people had fishy tasting cups of tea.
I still can’t understand why it’s not a sackable offence.
Image source: CharteredWaters, Ron Lach
#3
Teenager got us all called into HR for bullying because she didn’t think badgers existed and that we were making it up, including apparently putting fake google search results on her PC.
mental.
Image source: foxhill_matt, Vincent van Zalinge
#4
We had a table tennis table for breaks. One worker was really good and was unbeatable, but not arrogant about it, just a bit of fun. Came into work one day and someone had snapped all the handles off the table tennis paddles, bent the net, stamped on all the balls, kicked in the table. Someone had come in at night and put the table tennis table out of action. A big mystery ensued. Who was the table tennis saboteur? The management checked the office CCTV a couple of days later. It was the office champion!!! He’d been beaten by a food delivery guy when working late, and smashed up the table. Managed to hold onto his job by the skin of his teeth, blaming ‘stress’. He left about 6 months later because of the shame.
Image source: anon, Aleksandrs Karevs
#5
A senior (Head of Geography) colleague’s husband walked out on her after a twenty year marriage. She only told her closest friend at work who was asked to keep it quiet. She had a spectacular meltdown at the end of year staff party because someone asked her how her husband was.
Image source: PeggyNoNotThatOne, The Yuri Arcurs Collection
#6
A colleague complained about me when Princess Diana passed away, as I apparently “wasn’t acting sad enough”. Utterly bizarre.
Image source: anon, Getty Images
#7
One time an order came in and the company gave some free helium balloons with the order. The guy in charge of orders gave some people balloons and kept a couple next to his desk. There was a Halloween party at the business and everyone was dressed up and slightly drunk. A guy goes to get the helium balloons first as decorations then they start doing the voice thing with them. Everyone has a laugh, everyone was fine with it. The Monday comes around and we come in and this guy is furious, he starts stopping people and doing interviews as to who stole his balloon. He literally then starts standing in the corridor stopping everyone getting full witness statements. I got stopped and he starts saying things like “I know by around 10pm the balloons had been taken, what did you witness around this time?”. Eventually the person who took them just says sorry but then has to buy him a new balloon.
Image source: JPK12794, magnific
#8
I share my name with a saint. On their day, I jokingly tell people it’s Saint [my name]’s day, worship me or similar. I said it to a couple of people at work and I got the sorts of reactions you’d expect but one grown adult cried (as in actual tears) to the manager about how upset he was by it. He was so devastated by it, he quit and a new rule was made so that anyone who shares their name with a particular day, they must book it off. I don’t think they’d cope with having a May or June.
Image source: OverlyAdorable, Toa Heftiba
#9
Company I’m in sent out a company wide pdf about ‘micro aggressions’ in the workplace. We all ridiculed it because it included things like ‘don’t tell someone that they are doing a good job when they are doing normal things’ or ‘don’t call women babe and love in the workplace’ or my personal favorite ‘don’t comment on a woman’s body.
My whole team ridiculed it and it’s a common pun nowadays when we joke, because we have women not only in our team, but also working with us from other teams and we are all actively quite professional and respectful towards them.
It turns out the pdf was sent out because very VERY senior members of the company were doing the things in it.
Image source: Moment_37, Azwedo L.LC
#10
I said hello to a colleague and told her that her perfume smelled nice. Next day I was brought into a HR meeting with my boss because this passing comment made her feel uncomfortable. Safe to say I never said anything to her again.
Image source: Specific-Ad-532, LinkedIn Sales Solutions
#11
I have a friend who works for his dad, along side his brother (family business) my friend has now had an affair with his brother’s wife and neither of them can work at the same time as eachother so my friend now goes into work and does a night shift, arrives after his brother has left, and before he arrives in the morning.
Image source: Desperate-Soup-4880, Christian Erfurt
#12
Birthdays got banned in a veterinary hospital I used to work in.
One of our student nurses was working his 21st. With it being a 21st we decided to make a bit of an effort. A few of us got the night staff to let us in an hour before our shift started and we decorated the staff room with balloons for him. Our head nurse reported it to upper management because we didn’t decorate when it was her 36th birthday the week before. We had gotten her a card and cake like we did for everyone but we didn’t bother decorating because it wasn’t a big birthday.
Birthday celebrations were then officially banned. We started throwing secret birthdays in the stock room without her, we’d just wait until she was in her office.
Image source: Pabs23, Paréj Richárd
#13
Workplace rounders match. About 8 teams. Got to the final and teams started yelling banter. Including “I’m sleeping with your wife!” Turned out a couple guys were sleeping with the bowler’s wife, bowler bowled the ball at one’s head, giant punch-up ensued, police called, two arrested…
Made the mystery sandwich filling thief at a workplace look quite mundane. It went on for a couple years – people would go get their lunch out of the fridge and find nothing between their slices of bread. They never found out who did it, though it stopped after a possibly-anorexic colleage left.
Image source: DameKumquat, Wesley Tingey
#14
I worked in a call centre about 20 years ago and I represented a charity who had a series of summer events to raise sponsorship. Let’s call the charity ‘Cancer Research UK’, because that’s who it was.
One day a lady calls to pay for her friends and family to participate in an event. Having been told to improve my customer rapport, I thought I would ask why she wasn’t also taking part, to which she tells me she’ll be on honeymoon. “I think I’d rather be on honeymoon,” was my response, and the call continued as normal, albeit less chatty than before.
A week later, I was hauled into a meeting with my manager, their manager, and two people from the charity. Why? Because the dork I spoke to thought I had said “I think I’ll rob you while on honeymoon,” and then put in a complaint. She also (apparently) cancelled her wedding and honeymoon as a consequence!
Worst still, I had to listen to a recording of the call, and nobody should have to listen to their own voice. It was also crystal clear what I had said to the caller.
Image source: daniscross, Tima Miroshnichenko
#15
I got called into a meeting because someone reported me for looking on a bands website at my desk.
The manager was even all “Don’t try to deny it!”
I was just so shocked that I was being reprimanded for looking at Bon Jovis website on my break. This was over 20 years ago and I still chuckle at the ridiculousness of the whole thing!
Image source: Kaapstad2018, Craig Adderley
#16
2 blokes in their 50s got into a fistfight in the car park as one had lent the other his binoculars and he wanted them back because some students had moved in across the road and he wanted to perv on them.
Image source: SeaLeggs
#17
A friend told me about a pretty juicy one that happened at a Christmas party. One of the co-owners wives started an argument with one of the secretaries, nobody he knew heard the start of it but it was a pretty back and forth exchange of insults and increasing volume.
Till the wife said something like “I don’t know why you’re arguing just admit it, you’re sleeping with my husband”. The girl suddenly looked confused and didn’t say anything back. Then someone from the back of the room said “No she isn’t. It’s Garry who’s sleeping with him.” At which point the man who’d been sat next to the secretary and the co-owner went absolutely bright red and wouldn’t look at anyone.
The wife had a moment of stunned silence, mumbled an apology to the secretary and went and sat back down just staring into space for about 10 minutes, before getting up and calmly, if slightly shakily, walking out.
Apparently Garry never came back in and a month later the co-owner sold his portion to the other two and moved abroad.
I think my favourite bit of it is how my friend ended the story. “It was a shame, cause he was the only one of the three that actually knew what the company even did. And, that secretary was lucky, cause she was sleeping with one of the other owners and his wife is actually mental.”.
Image source: IhaveaDoberman
#18
A guy walked home with a girl after work once because they live in the same direction and had worked together for a while. She just moved in to a new flat and the guy was looking for a place himself. When they reached it he asked her what the flat was like and if he could have a quick look inside with the idea being to see if it was something he would like to get himself.
She said no then went to HR the next day and claimed he made a move on her and had been “stalking” her for weeks (which was entirely untrue).
In the end it was regarded as a big misunderstanding and they carried on working together as friends/colleagues for years but i dont think they walked home together again.
Image source: RainbowPenguin1000
#19
At a place i worked recently there was a big drama with the cleaning company because someone was doing poo’s on the toilets, like on them, rather than in them.
Image source: bazmass
#20
I heard about a couple of guys who were using the office ID pass printing machine.
They thought it would be funny to take a picture of one their private parts & make it into a photo ID. They then pinned it up on a noticeboard.
A co-worker saw the pass pinned up & complained to management. One confessed, the other came up with an unlikely sequence of events including trousers falling down at the wrong time that led to this pass being printed accidentally.
The ironic thing was the person who reported them wasn’t actually offended, they thought someone else entirely printed it who they had a grudge against. Once they found out the wrong people were in trouble they tried to withdraw their complaint!
Image source: Ill_Refrigerator_593
#21
I know a woman who worked in.a teacos superstore who found out her partner (who also worked there) was sleeping with a team manager.
So she printed all their rude texts etc and placed them all around the staff area for every staff member to see.
She got away with it, too, as there was nothing in Tescos HR guidance that they could punish her on at the time.
Image source: CompetitionNext3736
#22
Two women got into a fight over my father at his (and their) place of work. A proper fight.
He was in a relationship with a woman he worked with (who he’d left my mother for), then cheated on her with another women he worked with. (They didn’t directly with together but we’re all in the same office for at least part of the week and all knew each other).
He’s so not worth it ! He’s a good father but relationship wise he’s the kind of person who’d cheat on a woman with someone from the same office. What’s to fight over ?
At the time I was volunteering at the office (unemployed and needed a reference – so he suggested and arranged this) and the woman he cheated on was supervising me. I wasn’t there for the fight (she she never had a problem with me) but it was still very uncomfortable.
I liked the first woman.
Image source: victoriaj
#23
I outed an affair by mistake when I was an apprentice. I knew that one of the managers just got married. I got lumped on the end of the table with her at the Christmas meal. Next to her was a bloke from the workshop who I didn’t really know either. It was so obvious that they were in a relationship, but I just assumed it was her husband.
The next Monday I said something about getting lumbered with her and her husband. I got told that’s not her husband, her husband is X. I was like well if that’s not her husband they aren’t half close. Queue the rumour going around that she’s seeing the bloke out of the workshop. Couple of weeks later she gets divorced from her husband and is pregnant with the other bloke’s kid so they get married to eachother.
Image source: spaceshipcommander
#24
I used to work for a reputable parcel company but a lot of the work and routes are subcontracted out to service partners. It’s hit and miss whether a driver ends up with a good subcontractor or not.
The business typically got phone calls saying “I’ve not been paid for last month, I need to speak to somebody!” And we’d have to tell them to take it up with their service provider as it’s them they’ve worked for, not the company.
But one guy was screaming at us in person that he was about to be kicked out because he couldn’t pay his rent and hadn’t been paid by one of the companies, and then he took it to the extreme and decided to lay down on the floor by the exit gate to stop vehicles getting out.
He ended up having to be dragged up and out by a site manager.
Image source: Jlaw118
#25
Using made up names – 2 girls at work called Rebecca. Rebecca Taylor and Rebecca Johnson. Rebecca Johnson marries her long term BF, who’s Dave Taylor. Becomes Rebecca Taylor. Original Rebecca Taylor goes mental, tries to file a complaint through work and hasn’t spoken to her in 2 years (work in same team). Complaint says “she’s stolen my name”.
Image source: -WilliamMButtlicker_
#26
Managers dog pooped in the middle of room of senior leaders on a training session.
Image source: allyuffy1
#27
We were having cash flow issues and hadn’t paid the bill to the company who supplied our shop floor consumable items. The items were stored in vending machine type cupboards which gave you the items you asked for.
The owner of the consumables company managed to get into the building by lying to the new receptionist and he put padlocks and chains across all the vending machines so we couldn’t use them.
Image source: Agreeable_Guard_7229
#28
A guy had cheated on his wife with one of his co-workers, and the co-worker had then for some reason turned everyone against him and shared all their filthy texts to each other with everyone else. So the entire workforce basically marginalised him, including the managers.
Image source: xieghekal
#29
Mine involved me. A colleague heard that I was severely arachnophobic, so decided to email me a huge photo, which immediately sent my into adrenaline overload. I stormed over over the his desk, with him pissing himself, at which point I hit him (open handed). Massive square off ensues.
This being a recruitment agency, with me being a high performer, it was swept under the carpet.
On top of that we had a shared line, where you’d have to put callers through to one another. We had a cold war of not speaking for a good while, bar putting calls through to each other, till the Christmas party came and we drunkenly made up.
Image source: Bug_Parking
#30
Fairly tame, but my office is kinda dull. Co worker 1 (F) had a car with broken heating and another coworker, generally a friendly guy, brought in some hand warmers for her to use under gloves on the way home (this was in January). She declined and he thought nothing further of it- he would have done this for anyone. A couple of days later, one of the other coworkers (2) came and said to him that co worker 1 was trying to find a way to let him down gently as she was in a long term relationship and didn’t see him that way. He was confused by this as he has told her he was interested in someone else, and asked coworker 2 to tell coworker 1 that he wasn’t interested in her like that but she refused because the drama was funny to her.
He eventually left the department, with the resulting awkwardness being a deciding factor.
Image source: docju
#31
A bloke at work passed away. I personally thought he was a bit of a knob, but he’d been there a long time and a lot of people did like him. Massive funeral and at the wake, three women were reminiscing. Turns out he was having it off with all 3 behind each others backs. And he was married.
Image source: sprucay
#32
At a work Xmas party one year, one of the apprentices (I think he was about 18/19) had a bit too much to drink.
He proceeds to slap one of the girls in HR (who had organised the whole event) then squared up to one of the directors who was old enough to be his dad.
Surprisingly, all that happened was he was kicked out of the party but welcomed back to work on the following Monday without any repercussions for slapping the HR girl. Not surprising though, a lot worse happened in the 4 years I was there and not a single person was fired.
Image source: abeeeabeee
#33
People I used to line manage.
One of them was joking that she’s perfect and never does anything wrong. She is from Zimbabwe and is black
One of the colleagues in the office just asks her the following ‘how can you be perfect?, you’re not white, blonde or have blue eyes’
Queue awkward tension when she didn’t realize how what she said is seen as racist…
Image source: Karklayhey
#34
A colleague once jokingly threw a foam ball at another colleague who was pregnant, this caused an entire scene and she broke down crying. Ran all the way to HR and reported the bloke, who threw the foam ball because they were jabbing at each other about football.
It was honestly such a cringe moment as an on-looker.
Image source: anon
#35
I work in an almost silent office 99% of the time and we have a very quite dude who sits in the corner, he doesn’t really speak to others and when you do engage in conversation it’s always two things – how bad the traffic and weather is. Anyway the whole office of around 10 or so people had about 2-3 minutes of louder talking than usual and he stormed out of the office slammed the door and put in an official complaint that the environment was unprofessional and the noise levels were unacceptable. I would understand if the complainant was autistic and sensitive to sounds, but the guy is fully grown adult who just threw his toys out the pram because for a few minutes it was louder than usual. My boss basically ignored his complaint though as he was part of the noise!
Image source: RG0195
#36
My high school computing teacher had an affair with the other computing teacher. Both decided to leave their partners, but at the last minute, he decided not to and stay with his wife.
Parents evening was the next day and the lady computing teacher storms in and calls him all the bastards in the middle of one of his appointments.
She gets disciplined but gets back into school not long later.
However then the mad lad gets caught in a supply cupboard with a DIFFERENT teacher, and has an affair with her too.
I then left school and didn’t find out what happened after, but I bumped into him a few years later and he’s now married to the first affair computing teacher…
Image source: IAMDOOG
#37
I worked at a health and beauty store in the high end makeup counters and as you can imagine it was full of drama
The best being when the benefit counter manager started sleeping with one of the fragrance salesmen who happened to also be the partner of the Yves Saint Laurent counter manager. The benefit manager started bragging about it to her counter team, assuming that they wouldn’t tell (counters can very very cliquey)
Well one girls girl was having none of it, rather than directly telling the girl (manager would have made life very difficult for her if it was traced back) she told the right people who made sure it got back to YSL girl and the carnage began
There was a huge fallout and the dude in the middle quit. Somehow both women still work in the same store all these years on.
The same Benefit manager did not learn her lesson and slept with a male staff members boyfriend, the boyfriend walked in on her getting spit roasted by the dudes boyfriend and another dude
Beauty departments are wild.
Image source: snowhoho18
#38
I was “accused” of being gay (back when that sort of thing was still an issue”. I was also accused of beating up a colleague for being gay in a homophobic attack?
Actually my colleague had a week between moving outbid his flat and into his new one, so was staying with me, and he’d been in a martial arts competition at the weekend and was a bit bruised up.
Image source: anon
#39
I worked in a relatively small office of about 16 people, that was the whole company in one office.
Anyway one employee made a very off-colour sexist joke to someone (privately)… another employee overheard and took real issue with it.
To the point they were considering having to build a stud-wall to divide the office in two because she insisted his presence was giving her anxiety.
There were 3 people in the office that were men. The idiot made the joke ended up leaving of his own steam in the end – allegedly.
Image source: LoudMilk1404
#40
The boss tickling his PA all but confirmed their affair that they thought was top secret, yet was wide out in the open.
Also those 3-day trade shows that we knew were only a 2-day event.
And the company credit card receipts for Top Shop.
Image source: byjimini
#41
Old job, guy was caught sniffing a female coworkers chair and was sent to work in a literal cabin in the woods
Image source: leeliop
#42
Our “ex” delivery driver was seeing a lady who worked as a receptionist at a company we delivered to. The owner of this company also had a soft spot for the receptionist and did not try to hide it.
Our driver, trying to be chivalrous, warned the owner of the company to stay away, the owner told our driver to go forth and multiply. Stupidly the driver “took it outside”, I was there and witnessed the fight, our driver pushed the owner a couple of times and in one foul punch, the owner connected a right cross to the nose of our driver.
The driver went down like a sack of spuds, knocked clean out and a nose at a right angle. Luckily, the ambulance station is directly next door and a couple of paramedics on a break sorted the driver out.
The owner of the company we delivered to called the owner of our company and informed him of what happened, unfortunately the driver was fired for gross misconduct and no charges were brought by any party although there was a brief police investigation.
Image source: No_Limit891
#43
My workplace at the time always attracted younger people. We had 4 or 5 new starters who were 18 or 19, one of the girls was being picked on by the other 4.
Something snapped and she chucked a bottle of water over her. She was quickly fired that day. I don’t agree with her actions but I don’t blame her.
A manager slept with one of his supervisors (he was in a superior position), but his wife worked elsewhere in the company. It got pretty awkward when we all moved into one office together.
Image source: Z_odyssey
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