What is it about working in a restaurant that makes people think they can get away with such awful behavior? Maybe it's the fact that these awful employees got away with their disgusting deeds. Customers should definitely try the restaurant down the street instead. COntent has been edited for clarity.
Sweet Disaster
“I worked in a bakery and this woman we hired refused to work with buttercream due to her hand surgery she had over 5 years ago. So, I made buttercream cakes. Whatever. Then we started to somehow lose orders. People would come in for their cakes and we’d have zero record of them and have to make them in a rush. I found out she got mad at our other decorator and just started throwing them away.
She’d bring in coffee and ice cream cones from home to use them as decorations, leave out whipped cream for her whole shift, leave spoons in buckets, never did her dishes, refused to help Spanish-speaking customers (she speaks both fluent English and Spanish), and would lie to people that we didn’t have kits (like Disney toys), when we did, so she wouldn’t have to make them. She never wore a hair net or gloves, and would leave mousses and other dessert items out all day without refrigerating them.
I was mixing buttercream and went into the back to do my dishes, came back out, and found out she’d tossed it and was using the mixer because she needed to soften the whipped cream for her hands.
I reported it to management and got in trouble for not alerting someone sooner. I quit 4 years ago. I went back the other day, and somehow she’s still working there.”
“The Most Stressful Moment Of My Entire Life”
“I work at a sandwich shop that I will not disclose the name of. But I work with some really dumb people. One day after my main manager left, an assistant manager was allowed to close. There was the manager, myself, and one other employee. After coming back from dropping of a delivery, I noticed my other co-worker seemed super off. He had put dip in his mouth, so I assumed maybe he just wasn’t used to it. Boy was naïve. After coming back from another delivery, I could really tell he was just messed up. So I asked the manager what he had taken. I continued to press her until she told me she had allowed him to take Xanax. She said, ‘It’s fine. He is a better worker now. So we all took Xanax.’
This dude was walking around like a zombie, hunched back and staggering, struggling to walk. I went on another delivery, obviously furious at this point. When I came back to the store, the whole lobby was filled with customers with my one manager making all the orders. The messed up employee was in the back, unconsciously sitting in a chair. So we started trying to make these orders with two of us. Phones were ringing off the hook, we had 10 or so deliveries late. Some took almost an hour. It was the most stressful moment in my entire life.
After we took care of the orders in store, we canceled all the other orders online and through delivery. We locked the door and started to clean almost 3 hours early. I was so stressed and upset that everyone was messed up. I legitimately said to my manager that I was taking the trash out, but I just left. I called my two main managers and the main owner and went home to let the awful manager and messed up employee deal with it all. I got home and cried like a little baby. Two hours later, I get a call from the owner saying I had to come in to help close, otherwise I would lose the tips because he had to close the shift. I did that. AFTER THE INCIDENT, NEITHER ONE OF THEM GOT FIRED AND THE SHOWED UP TO WORK MESSED UP THE NEXT DAY ACCORDING TO ANOTHER MANGER. To this day, I still work with the employee. I need a new job.”
The Show Must Go On
“I worked and bartended at a theatre. Here are some things that happened:
-Coworkers used to sharpen the broom handles until they were shivs and then stab each other. It got so bad that management had to switch to non-wooden brooms.
-They kept a book to write down funny things an autistic coworker would say, and they made crude drawings as well. I think the managers were in on it.
-There was underage drinking OFF the clock, during a work party gone wrong. Imagine 15 high schoolers wasted and stoned out of their minds at their workplace.
-It was very common to eat leftover food found in the theatres. Sometimes drinks, sometimes candy or nachos (only if they were at least 3/4 full). They’d hide the snacks in the janitor closet in a loose tile on the ceiling.
-Once a customer clogged a toilet with poop, plus he pooped on the seat. The water was overflowing onto the floor. My coworker marched in with a plunger, plunged that monstrosity, and then proceeded to wipe it on the mirrors.
-There was the creation of a secret room behind a trash can, in the wall under the theatre seats. It was filled with cursed objects. Stale food, empty bottles, a few baby dolls, and things with faces drawn on.
-A coworker tried to attack me with a stool. I was working when all of a sudden the radio goes, ‘No throwing stools in box office.’ I turned around and he’s got it above his head ready to throw it down on me. He reluctantly put it down.
-We hired quite an interesting person. He was 6’8, long black hair, had gauges, was an open satanist, and he had recently left prison. He was pretty cool at first until he started harassing girls. And then he got in a fight with a customer about whether or not he could eat my chapstick, and he ate my chapstick. He chewed and swallowed too, which was pretty impressive. I think I still have a picture of it.”
That Will Certainly Get Bad Yelp Reviews
“I work in a fine dining restaurant, so we generally expect our servers to behave a certain way with tables. But we have this one server who is freshly 18 and the most immature person I’ve ever met. She’s left us with gem experiences such as asking a woman who was dining with two other couples on New Year’s Eve where her boyfriend was. When the woman said she didn’t have one, our server then says, ‘I feel sorry for you.’
This couple was out for a Friday night date and order a lower priced bottle of bubbly, but it wasn’t ‘cheap’ (it was somewhere in the $30 range), and the server proceeds to make several snarky comments about how they’re getting a cheap drinksas she does the drink presentation
She has several bad reviews on various sites that call her out by name about how bad she is in general as a server. She’s inattentive, not friendly, and doesn’t know the food or drink menu.
This table of 6 were out for Valentine’s weekend. At some point early into the dinner, their drinks were empty and they asked the server as she was passing if they could order more. She rolled her eyes and said she was busy. It was another 15 minutes before she made it back to that table. Not once have I seen her even get pulled into the office and talked to by management.”
She Thought She Ran The Place
“I work in a bar. There was a young woman in a supervisor role, who used to do all sort of things that would get her fired in almost any place. I don’t know why the managers put up with her nonsense for so long, maybe the GM had a soft spot on her. I don’t know.
Anyhow, she gave free drinks for her friends all the time, took shots with customers (in our place that’s extremely forbidden), called in sick very last minute, came in late, or didn’t show up at all. She would disappear to do ‘managerial duties’ in the office for hours. I’m a supervisor as well, and I know for a fact that there is nothing in the office in the middle of service, so she was definitely slacking. She would ignore customers to take snaps or tiktoks, and if her friends were at the bar she wouldn’t stop talking to them. I heard from people who had worked with her longer that tips would also disappear mysteriously when she was in charge of dividing them. When we had new people coming in, they would get no training at all, and she had a tendency to make them do all the cleaning jobs. She had a really bad attitude problem towards anyone who told that she was doing anything wrong. I also saw her being extremely rude to customers for no reason. She would blame her mental health for all that, but come on. I have issues as well, and so do literally most of our other staff members, but they manage to do their job properly. These examples could go on for forever but you get it, this girl thought she ran the place and could get away with anything.
That was until she actually got fired. Well technically, she was kindly asked to leave her notice because otherwise, the case would have lead to an investigation and she could lose her license and get a criminal record. She actually got into the premises in the middle of the night, helped herself with drinks from the bar’s stock, and passed out in the office. Nobody would have noticed unless the other bartender saw her absolutely wasted. She annoyed the coworker also by making them do everything and just lied on one of the booth chairs all morning. When I came in, I noticed that something was off and said coworker told me their concerns as well. I told the managers and they looked at the cameras. That took care of that.”
James Ruined Everything
“My old boss at a Starbucks I worked at threw two shift supervisors under the bus for something that they didn’t have anything to do with. We had to do daily inventories of pastries and milk for comparison to our variation reports that came out monthly, and we logged them into a handwritten binder that had those logs, the daily schedule and responsibilities, communication, and some other info in it that everyone perused daily to keep up with the store. One day, that binder made its way into the dumpster. It was not intentional, the leftover newspapers were probably stacked on top of it by accident and it followed them into the trash. It was found in the dumpster and rescued intact, albeit a bit soggy. Two days of data were missing. Our district manager was scheduled to meet with the manager and me, the Assistant Manager, for our monthly DM visit. She also pulled other staff aside to chat and just had some fellowship with everyone. It was a fun day in addition to business, we’d do coffee tastings and get lunch.
So Connie comes in for her visit and the Daily Records Book is missing two days of data from its dumpster vacation. I am sitting with Connie and my boss James when she asks him why there is no data. Instead of telling her the truth, he tells her that the two supervisors from those two days, Bob and Sara, didn’t do their jobs and neglected to log the info that was required. I nearly fell over in my chair. I was aghast. It was a mistake, kind of a funny thing, and he decided to not just lie to her, but to set two other employees up to be written up! Both of them were scheduled to be in later in the day, so she was planning to ream them out when they arrived. As usual, James had come in to open the store, and I was in from 9 to 5, so by 1 p.m. he was gone.
Now, I had witnessed James set a poor example daily. He never deployed the staff according to the company design. He’d walk by the pastry case, pull out a cookie, break the edge off to eat it, and tell us to mark it out as damaged. A total no no. He’d grind a bullet of coffee and take it from the store for whatever purpose, and when the new products like mugs, teddy bears, etc came in, he’d steal what he wanted. I saw it, but I never said a word. Our store made over a million and a half dollars a year, so this theft was easy to hide. Or so I thought. Connie and I finally have some time to chat and I tell her the truth. She is now the one who’s ready to fall over in her chair. She’s upset. What ended up happening that day is that neither of them were written up, and she moved on as though she took care of it.
A bit of time passed, a few months at least, and I was up for a promotion to store manager at another store in the district. I got a $7,000 raise and went to my new store for the first day. About 3 hours into my shift at my new store, Connie calls me. James has been fired, and they wanted me to come back to the store to be the store manager. Not only was I thrilled to be going back- I had hired and help build the staff at that store, but since it was a million dollar store, my raise was now $10,000. After a few months at the store, the margins tightened up. Sales increased, and inventory variation decreased. So much product was leaving the store unaccounted for in the past that the smallest changes made a big impact. Some challenges that I faced:
-Being discreet about James’ sudden departure.
-Proper staff deployment so the customer flow was efficient.
-Training staff who’d never learned how to make drinks because James just had them ring up transactions all day.
-A handful of customers who got a $5 drink daily for the cost of a tall coffee being angry that the freebie train was gone.
-Breaking the habit of pastry theft.
I was the manager for that store for a year. I left the company at the end of 2008 to return to fitness, which is my professional passion. James is not the only lying boss I had. The job I left Starbucks for was with a manager who would sit in our finance meetings with the executives from the company that owned us and fudge numbers, make up programs that didn’t exist, and lie about pretty much everything to make us look good, even though we were doing just fine. The three other managers- me, Carol, and Katie, would steal glances at one another and kick each other under the table.
Connie was my favorite boss of all time. I wanted to do well to make her proud. She was a hard boss, but she was fair and understanding. She got results. While manager, if I messed up somehow, I would call her immediately, and we’d figure it out. Our working relationship was trustworthy, open, and transparent. I have carried that with me to this day.”
It All Came Out At Once
“Honestly can’t single out one thing from this guy. I work as a server at a country club. One of the bartenders is an absolute garbage can of a human being. Here’s a list of just some of the worst stuff he’s done:
-He verbally abuses our food runners and dishwashers, who are the purest people in the whole place.
-He only tends to members that he considers friends and knows are going to give him a generous tip.
-He badmouthed other bartenders both to their faces and to members.
-He got in a fist-fight with the old manager after closing time. At least twice.
-He has repeatedly given away drinks in exchange for cash under the table.
-He has cussed out and threatened our food and beverage director.
-Although he’s married and has a teenage daughter, he still brags about hooking up with girls.
-He never makes drinks evenly, but he has the nerve to try to lecture me on my technique.
-He told another member that he’d love for her to sit on his face.
-He looked a member dead in the eyes and actually said, ‘Your chest looks amazing today.’
-We work right by the pool, and he’ll stare at any 16-year old girl in a two-piece. (He’s like 40).
And the one that really ticked me off and led to my finding out about the rest of these was a few weeks ago, when he left in the middle of a shift to go get a haircut. He was gone for over two hours, and when he came back, most likely cross-faded based on his smell, he proceeded to hang out in the back while the rest of us worked. Outside. In Florida. In May. We also found out about his arrest record. There’s a couple things for illicit substances. Like 5 things for domestic violence. Some other stuff too. Somehow this guy still has a job.
She Was Alive The Whole Time
“So, I worked at a popular pizza chain briefly in my early 20s. I was hired as an assistant manager under a newly promoted GM that had been with the company for a while. I had been in retail/casual food management since I dropped out of college. The idea was that I knew how to run things and he knew the product and company. I could help him get his sea legs for schedules and management, and he would teach me everything about the specific business. Oh, how I wish I knew then what I know now.
We had a really great Mexican dude that knew his stuff, needed very little supervision, and was super reliable. Across multiple jobs over several years in this industry, I’ve learned that’s the holy grail. It just rarely happens. So he suddenly quit at one point, and we kind of floundered with a patchwork of shoddy part-timers. After about a month we rehired him, but there’s a different name on the scheduling software. Eventually, I learn that he is not in fact legalized to work in the US, and had previously purchased the right to use a legal buddy’s documentation, since the buddy was working for cash anyway. Now that guy wants access to his info back to get an official job, and our guy had to scramble to get new documentation. GM knew about it, pretty sure the DM knew about it, but I couldn’t prove anything and I liked the guy, so I didn’t do anything. Right about the time me and the GM are starting to actually gel and get rolling, his old boss at the location he came from about an hour away called me in the middle of the night. GM’s sister was in a horrific car crash and is in a coma in Hometown. GM won’t be coming in for a while, so can you cover everything? I say absolutely and offer my condolences.
About a week goes by and the GM is back. Then he calls in and says he had to head to the hospital because she took a turn for the worst. Then she miraculously wakes up. Back in a coma, on life support, awake again, something else, good news, bad news, good news, bad news, for like two months. I cover or get covered every one of his shifts at the drop of a hat. Meanwhile, I’m racking up overtime, and that’s a big no-no. I was told without being officially told that it would be a good idea for my career if I made sure everything got done in 39 hours or less, and that doing some stuff off the clock was a good career move that led to the current DM getting to that position. Nah, I’m happy to help out with the emergencies, but I’m not giving out free labor. Then GM’s sister dies. I again cover a few days while he heads home for the funeral. Eventually, we sort of get back to normal. A month later, DM is waiting for me at the restaurant. It seems GM’s sister was spotted at Ladies Night at a local bar in Hometown by some of GM’s old coworkers. They all went to high school together down there. The DM went up
Turns out GM had a pill addiction and made up the whole thing so he could skip work and get high. Instead of being fired, they put him on a plan that involved going to an NA meeting every day for 100 days, which he was allowed to do during his shift. Paid. I don’t understand to this day how he wasn’t put in jail.
A short time later, our store was asked to send people to cover another location because their top three people all asked for vacations at the same time. Whatever, I’m a team player, but I don’t know how they let that happen. Then they scheduled a District meeting for a Thursday night. That was the one shift I couldn’t work due to a standing weekly appointment I had. They told me it wouldn’t be a problem and that they would find someone to cover. I show up that day to open, and GM asks me again if I can stay late to cover his meeting. When I tell him it’s still a firm no, he goes into the office. He comes out and hands me a phone. It’s DM. DM orders me to work until GM gets done with meeting. When I refuse, he goes, ‘So you quit?’
I see where this is going. ‘No, I’m working my scheduled shift and leaving at 4 according to the schedule. I offered to stay until 5 if asked nicely, but since the meeting won’t end until 7, I simply can’t do it.’
DM states that if I’m not there until GM gets back, I won’t have a job. I tell them I’m more than happy to work my scheduled shift. After a few more rounds of them pathetically trying to get me to quit, I hear the magic words: ‘You’re fired.’
I thanked them for the opportunity and easily won the later court hearing. I also called about them both knowingly submitting fraudulent I9’s and flouting labor laws about working off the clock for good measure. No idea if anything ever came if it, as I never went back in that building.
So that’s the story of how I got fired for not covering a shift I could not cover, after covering actual dozens of shifts over a few months for a lying addict of a boss that gets to take two hours of paid break to go to meetings in the middle of the day. It’s the only time I’ve ever been fired, but I got a good story out of it and I’m at a much better place now.”
Why Can’t He Take A Hint?
“I have a coworker who just cannot do his job right. I work at a coffee shop, and it’s the most well known chain, so you can probably guess what it is. We were hired around the same time and he still messes up on a lot of little things, 6 months later. He gets orders wrong, makes drinks wrong, cannot take an ounce of criticism, and won’t admit to doing anything wrong. He brews coffee without putting the urn back in place (so the coffee just brews into nothing, creating a mess), and he’s done that a couple times already. He is always late to work, but just casually strolls in and takes his time when he does show up.
I think the worst thing he did, in my opinion, was to openly talk badly about our manager with a couple of our regulars (which in itself is bad because we serve these people all the time, so why are they having my managers name in their mouth?). The thing is, this coworker was sitting RIGHT at the bar, so all of our baristas could hear him. He didn’t get fired. I don’t even know what happened, but I know my manager talked to him about it. He has a HUGE ego for someone who can’t do their job right. He once told us, ‘If I don’t get promoted to shift lead in 6 months, I’m transferring to a different store.’ It’s been 6 months so honestly, we all hope he transfers, but yet he’s still here?
A couple annoyances I’ve experienced with him personally is that he calls me ‘bud’ or ‘buddy’ all the time and I HATE that nickname because it makes me feel like he’s talking down to me, like a child. Everyone always complains about him, but he’s unfortunately still with us. Even my moms like, ‘Is that kid still there?!’
No One Saw That Plot Twist Coming
“When I was in college, I worked at an Italian restaurant that also delivered. There was a well known gross, rude customer that always ordered on the weekend and always complained. He tried to get free food and never tipped, and everyone hated delivering to him.
One day, my coworker got the short straw and had to take him his delivery. He was fed up with this customer and decided to mess with his food. He peed into this guy’s spaghetti, licked all of his mozzarella sticks, and rubbed his garlic bread on his butt. He recorded all of this on his phone and sent it to a group chat that had other employees and even managers. Everyone thought it was funny.
Since he didn’t get in trouble, he decided to do this regularly, but to other customers who didn’t tip and/or were very rude. He kept uploading the short clips to the group chat and never got in trouble. The owner found out but didn’t do anything. He didn’t think it was funny, but he did literally nothing about it.
The guy eventually transferred to university a few months later, but when he tried to come back for summer break he was denied. This guy ended up getting his PhD in psychology of all things, and I thought that was pretty hilarious.”