Customers aren’t the only ones throwing tantrums, employees do it too. Content has been edited for clarity purposes.
He Made People Cry
“I work with a guy who is a complete monster. Since being at my workplace just over a year, he has made 7 female co-workers cry. One of them actually left the company due to his behavior. He is rude, obnoxious, incredibly biased against women, and the whole company is certain he was the guy who pooped in the urinal because the cleaning lady threw out a week-old bagel he had on his desk. He has created a void around him of empty desks due to people not being able to tolerate his belligerent and often abusive behavior. He has a personal vendetta against my boss, who is basically just too soft to complain about him.
We have this policy that all unattended computers must be locked for confidentiality and all that. So 6 months ago, he left his screen unlocked one day, so I set his background as a crude explicit paint drawing. He still refuses to talk to me. He reported me to HR and I have been instructed to never touch his property again.
So, every day when he leaves, I go to his desk and turn everything upside down or unplug every cable for his computer, just enough so everything looks normal but nothing works. Yesterday, I dipped all the ends of his pens in salt and told my friend in the office to tell him it’s a sign he’s having a stroke. He’s been on Web MD since 3:00.
What I did cause him minor embarrassment and a small amount of inconvenience. What he does demoralizes the entire office and creates tension within the air that makes everybody uncomfortable. Everybody in the office knows about my little pranks and everybody gets a chuckle out of it. I don’t see what I’m doing as wrong. I see it as a small amount of justice.”
Growling Isn’t Workplace Appropriate
“I worked with a woman with the worst personality I’ve ever met. If you said ‘hi’ to her as you came in, she would just growl or ignore you. If you had a conversation and didn’t include her in it, she would get angry and tell you to shut up…even going so far as to tell her own team leader this. She muttered insults under her breath all the time as if people didn’t hear her. Obviously, we all heard her, but somehow she thinks it’s acceptable to insult people if she muttered it, so they couldn’t hear what she said clearly.
When she got frustrated, she would growl or slam her desk. And she would eat at her desk. We weren’t supposed to, but we did have small snacks. Not her though, she didn’t just eat a yogurt cup, she ate those huge yogurt buckets meant for families.
I pity her because EVERYBODY in the office disliked her. I tried being friendly with her, I just have that sort of personality that pities the underdog and tries to be nice to them, and the only thing I got back was her spreading rumors that I had the hots for her. I received even worse treatment when she got jealous over how I was actually seeing a girl at the office.”
“Bug-Eyed She-Devil”
“My work environment is like a soap opera.
We are under a federal health sciences grant and the funds are quite poorly mismanaged. My boss fills our students’ time with knitting and other unrelated activities, and she uses our rather tight budget to buy giant touch screen computers to try to impress the grant compliance people down the hall. I spend most of my time making our department look less like a dumpster fire than it really is. Recently, she hired a ‘secretary’ (that’s her job title, but I’m not really sure what she does besides complain), who sounds like a T-Rex stomping down the hall. This secretary (whom I affectionately refer to as the Bug-Eyed She-Devil) walked into my office one day and said, ‘I am going to find out how to antagonize you.’ I laughed, thinking it was an ice-breaker of some sort. Oh, how wrong I was.
She’d come in every day after that while I was busy doing work and would speak so loudly at me it was difficult to ignore her, for about an hour at a time (asking her to leave had no effect, so I started tuning her out). I mentioned the annoyance to my boss and she did nothing, so I started being rude to the secretary (the wisest course of action, I’m sure). This seems to have made her snap. She’d come in and curse loudly at me, then stomp off calling everyone ‘loser’ (she once left my boss’ office going ‘SHE’S SUCH A LOSER!’ in front of our students). My boss knows ALL of this, but she insists on ‘giving her a second chance.’ I’m all for second chances, but MY GOD THERE IS A LIMIT.
My boss is very passive-aggressive and paranoid. Because of the various ordeals with the secretary, she now spends her time worried that I am going to quit on the spot. She shows up with gift baskets of office supplies and candy and takes me out to lunch to try to keep me from quitting.
I will say, my job certainly isn’t boring.”
“Worst Noise I’ve Ever Heard”
“I worked for a long time in an office with a resident demon. She had started with the company from day one and was therefore untouchable. She had a very specific job function and quite honestly, only did work about two hours a week. She would roll in around noon and sneak out around three, spending those three hours making everyone completely miserable.
We had soft but ample lighting throughout the office. There was an option of fluorescent lights, but they were painful. This witch would come in after everyone had been there for three hours and turn on ALL the fluorescent lights.
She would complain that it was too cold (at 75) and turn the thermostat up to 80 something. When someone low on the totem pole agreed with her, she started making it colder in the office.
Again, her work was minimal. She had no use for interns and would tell them they ‘wouldn’t understand’ how to help. If any of us had the gall to have an intern helping us with printing, she would remove those papers from the printer and hide them at her desk then go to lunch. She also gave interns the silent treatment at random, seriously stressing some out. She did it to us too, but messing with an intern is super low.
Every day, she would obtain two large cups full of ice and throughout the day, chew ice cubes with her mouth open. It was the worst noise I’ve ever heard.
The bosses were just as fed up, but they were either afraid of her or knew she would never get fired. In my exit interview, I made it clear that she was partly responsible for my decision to leave. The company is definitely not known for the loyalty but, alas, she still works there.”
A Chaotic Night To Remember
“Late to the party but this is too memorable to pass up.
It was my last day working in the restaurant of this hotel chain. Not only were we short-staffed on a busy night, but we also had a new chef in the kitchen. It was so busy we even had to recruit visiting employees on the fly to help. It was a recipe for disaster.
Well, this story focuses on the new chef. He was friendly for the most part, a little arrogant about his capabilities but still nice. Long story short, he could not handle the number of orders that were coming in. His rage was slowly building up like a pot of boiling water.
It all started to bubble overboard when he asked the busboys to help him man the grill and take orders. We refused since we had our own jobs to do and no idea how to use an industrial size grill/oven.
This new guy went into a flying rage! Throwing pots and pans all over the kitchen. On his first day! The poor dishwasher couldn’t speak English and he was in the middle of it all.
The chef then proceeded to get in one busboy’s face, nose to nose, pointing, screaming sort of display until someone started pushing because we wouldn’t help him with the orders.
I was only 18 at the time and called my boss who was home, as well as security and everybody else who was important. Things went from bad to worse.
It took two calls to convince my boss and security to come in and take care of this meltdown.
We finally called cops who led the chef off the premises. All the while, the restaurant staff was instructed to hide in the office behind locked doors like it was a mass shooter situation. Just a chaotic night.
So, yeah! Great last day. And the cherry on top of the cake: they were forced to close their doors due to bankruptcy the very next day with no heads up to guests, weddings scheduled, or staff. A day or two later I was surprised to see that night written in the local newspaper. It was certainly one to remember.”
If Only They Could’ve Switched Places
“Fun story because the person who should have been fired didn’t get fired, and the person who should have stayed didn’t.
Working on a restaurant on the main road of a ski mountain. It was December 30th and we were on pace to do 600 plus dinners for service. The two weeks around Christmas and New Years’ is pretty much the busiest time of the year and we were cranking out. The restaurant has an open line setup, so while the prep and storage are done in the back kitchen, every dinner is made on the line that almost every table in the restaurant has a pretty clear view to.
For whatever reason, the management had the idea that this night would be a good time to move cooks around from their normal positions and see how they handled high pressure on a station different from what they were used to. One of the cooks, Mike, had moved up from New York City and while he knew his cooking inside and out, he was placed on expediter (Coordinating and passing orders out so the food flowed to tables properly and with good timing.)
Working the oven on the pizza/pasta station was Karl, an older gentleman who was in with the owners, so he was only ever on that one station. Karl was very particular about how orders were called out and after a few hours of service, a pizza was called that didn’t have been prepared already.
Now, the missing pizza was ‘A Natural,’ so a personal-sized cheese pizza. The dough was pre-rolled out and the Naturals took just a quick moment to put together and toss in the oven. Karl decided to take it personally, and Mike exploded on him, yelling to get it done.
Karl, rather than handle the issue or try to argue his point, decides to storm off the line out to the back kitchen. I’m caught up on my orders, so I dart back to try to reason things out. In the back kitchen, our prep cook is bewildered saying Karl just walked past, grabbed his coat, hopped in his car, and drove off. Just great.
I tell him to join us on the line and we go out to try to salvage service.
Due to our relative experience, I wind up expediting and Mike covers the oven. He has a few loud comments about how to handle the job and what an example he’s providing by working with everyone else before getting told to be quiet and things would be handled later. We manage to finish up the service and get through the night.
After work, Mike meets with the owners who ‘were disappointed in the way he handled the situation.’ He’s told that his employment depends on being able to work with Karl and the rest of the staff professionally. Upon finding out Karl would not be fired for walking out on one of the busiest nights of the year, Mike quits on the spot.”
The Spectacular Burnout Of Boris
“The tale of Boris!
I bartend at a restaurant by the sea, it’s incredibly busy and we have a high attrition rate for managers. Twelve in only two years. There has to be some kind of record.
Anyways, we have this new food runner. A handsome, slick-haired Scillian guy named Boris. He says he is going to be our manager but he has to run delivery for a couple of weeks before the job is open.
Over time I start to get to know Boris better. He is going through a divorce, is in the process of selling his car, and likes to smoke weed. He keeps inviting himself to hang out with my friends and me which is kinda weird, but I mainly just ignore him because I don’t party with my bosses. Anyways, Boris sells his old Volvo to my buddy Joel. A few weeks go by and Boris becomes a manager finally. Time goes on.
So, plot twist, Boris is the worst manager second to this one lazy woman we work with. If I need something he will strike up a 15-minute convo with a guest, then delegate that stuff to someone else so it takes another 10 to get done. He is an awful boss and still keeps trying to hang out.
So, this all comes to a head-on Pride weekend in San Francisco. I get to work at 6:30 am as I am the opening bartender. I look across the street to see four people at the beach. It looks like three high school girls in rainbow get-ups and a homeless dude still partying.
I think to myself, ‘Dang still going at it. These people are crazy.’
As I’m opening up the bar, the weather gets warmer so I leave the bar to open the windows in the dining room. I now see the four people in our parking lot, talking to our lousy manager. I think nothing of it and get back to work.
A few minutes later the homeless-looking one is standing at the end of my bar while we are still closed, and lo and behold it’s our glorious hero, Boris.
Now I’ve worked with Boris for six months now but I seriously couldn’t recognize him from 50 feet away that day.
He is in a filthy dress shirt and khakis. He turns around and there are brown poo stains all over the back of his khakis.
“What the heck, dude?” I thought.
Boris keeps babbling incoherently and it becomes blatantly obvious that this dude is definitely on some pills. He keeps going on and on, babbling more about how things are going to get much worse when he leaves the bar. The one lousy manager gets him some water and bread to probably sober up.
Boris disappears for a bit and my homie Joel gets to work. I try to tell Joel about what happened with Boris, but before I can get the words out Boris is back and asks Joel to borrow his keys.
For some reason, Joel throws Boris the keys. My eyes bulge at the sight as my interior voice screams out ‘Noooooo!’
This absolutely cannot end well.
Boris says he has to get ready for work and for some reason must go buy a suit from Neman and Marcus on Market street. So Boris leaves in Joel’s Volvo. We don’t see the guy again for two hours. That’s when I decide to tell Joel about Boris being on a bender for the past several hours. Naturally, Joel flips out at this news and starts desperately calling Boris. The thing is, it’s Gay pride Sunday, and the suit shop Boris is going to is in the middle of the parade route and is unreachable.
We start to worry for dear, crazy Boris.
Lo and behold, another two hours later Boris is back, but this time in a dookie-stained suit. Seriously, how does he keep doing this to his clothes?! The GM fires Boris on the spot. Boris makes. a scene steals two bottles of spirits from the bar and proceeds to get completely wasted on the steps outside the bar.
So Joel and I finally get off of the shift and get the keys from Boris. Except Boris doesn’t remember where he put the car. We search all over San Fran but still no Volvo. Weeks go by, and we find out Boris crashed the car, broke the axels, and then Uber’d back to work. Thousands of dollars in repairs and tickets. My buddy Joel has to be the unluckiest guy.
But the great story of Boris isn’t finished yet! No sir! Epilogue: Boris got his divorce from a woman with whom he has children, then starts hanging out with my man-floozy bug chaser friend Tony. Short story long, Boris starts playing for the other team if you know what I mean, wink, wink. Somehow Tony converted this tough Scillian dude. Now Boris has HIV. The hero’s journey is complete.
What a spectacular burn out. Boris if you’re reading this I salute you, you wild beast of a man.”
