There's no telling what type of coworkers one is going to get at work. They can become their best friends, or their worst nightmares. One thing's for sure; coworkers always provide an interesting story. Even if that story is about getting themselves terminated.
People on Quora share the weirdest thing their coworker did to get themselves fired. Content has been edited for clarity.
“No One Has Any Complaints”
“I worked in a data entry office where we would receive batches of patient files that had to be coded and entered into the system. The place was fairly lax, and allowed workers to surf the net or play on Facebook while waiting for new batches of files to be brought to them. We worked in the typical cubicles with walls you could see over if you stood up. They also had little doors for each cube so we had some privacy, and it helped to keep us from being distracted as much. Most of us worked with headphones on, jamming out to whatever music we wanted to.
We had a girl get hired that seemed normal enough. We all got along with her, and no one had any complaints about her work. That was until the day the office was filled with a strange smell. I don’t really know how to explain the odor, but everyone noticed it. No one could figure out what it was or where it was coming from. This went on for a couple days, until one of the other women in the office who delivered file batches started yelling. She was in the new girls cubicle and all I could hear was her asking what was wrong with her, over and over before both left and headed to our supervisors office.
The smell? That was the new girl smoking some kind of substance and masking it with spray air freshener. Our file delivery woman opened the door to her cubicle to find her sitting on the trash can, pooping, with a glass pipe in her mouth.
Needless to say, our privileges ended that day with her being fired. We lost our doors, internet access (they found she had been using most of her time to visit Craigslist and other dating sites), and earphone use, and they of course started to substance test us all.”
“We Weren’t Too Worried”
“We’re a payroll company, and one question seemingly on many new hires minds is, Gee could I get away with printing myself a large check and never getting caught? My answer to anyone who asks me is that ultimately, no you can’t. Most people apparently conclude we must have a few hidden tricks up our sleeve and so never try it.
This has only been tried twice. One person cut himself a check for $500 and then thought better of it. He voided the check out and put it in the shredder. Two days later, he was called into the operations manager’s office, shown evidence from the system logs and allowed to resign. There was no further action since the check was shredded.
The second guy was bolder. He cut a check for $10,000 one night but then voided it out. The next night, he cut a check for $100,000 and again got cold feet and voided it. Still no tap on the shoulder, so on the third night, he decided to go for it. He cut a check for $1,000,000 and left the building with it.
I’m sure he soon found out that it’s very difficult to cash a check for $1 million. You can’t just walk into a bank with it, not even the one where we have our business account. Your own bank is very unlikely to take it unless you have a special account with them. Check cashing stores aren’t going to take it.
There’s an additional problem in that any sharp-eyed teller or clerk is going to see that a second signature is required for a check that size. We auto-sign all of our checks, but a large check requires a manual second signature. This is common policy of the services around here and most check-cashing places know that.
The logs were tossed on the COO’s desk, but this guy had failed to show up for work. We could also see the check hadn’t yet been cashed. In fact, we weren’t too worried about that, but it was officially a live check still.
The guy’s co-worker admitted he’d seen the guy print the succession of checks and had said nothing. He also knew that his colleague left with the $1M check instead of voiding and shredding it. He was going to show it to his family when he got home.
The co-worker was fired, but avoided any possible prosecution by swearing out a statement and agreeing to appear in court if called on. Meanwhile, we contacted the police and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). He was on a ‘green card,’ hence INS involvement. They conducted a raid and found the check sitting in the middle of the coffee table. He conceded he’d made a couple attempts to cash it once he realized how much trouble he was in.
He thought he’d take the money and run, but instead he was deported in lieu of prosecution. I recall they gave him the choice of a few years in prison followed by an INS hearing or he could agree to be deported for life.
In the end, he was deported leaving several of our execs very unhappy there was no other prosecution. The crazy thing is since they had nothing against the rest of his family, including his wife and kids, they were left here. And our CEO was sweating bullets during the several months the live check was out there somewhere either in INS or police hands. It could still have been cashed if someone had the right connections.”
“Can’t Imagine How Bad It Was For Customers”
“I had just quit an extremely stressful job where I was being used and abused for little pay. There was a telemarketing firm across the street that paid the same plus sales or completion commissions. I was soon hired, trained and on the call center floor. Everything was going great, until Andy showed up.
Pudgy guy in unkempt clothing. We were supposed to wear business casual, but Andy ignored this rule even after the supervisors advised him.
We first noticed that Andy was strange when he started taking his first calls. He had a shrill gravelly voice. It was like a chipmunk gargling broken glass. The sound was very distracting even through our headphones. I can’t even imagine how bad it was for the customers. We were supposed to be taking non-stop incoming calls for two four-hour shifts.
The calls automatically connected, and we couldn’t take a break until called by the supervisor. I happened to look over and Andy is furiously pawing at his crotch and moaning in his shrill voice. I waved down the supervisor and silently pointed at Andy and his gyrations. The supervisor went over, stopped his calls and asked him if he had some kind of problem.
Andy said ‘I’m itchy and I have to scratch,’ he then continued to claw at his privates through his soiled bluejeans.
To her credit, the supervisor said, ‘We obviously cannot have you groping yourself in the call center, so please leave and don’t come back.’
Andy got up and stuck four fingers in her face and said ‘Do you want to smell it?’
She screamed ‘Get out!’ and that was the last we saw of Andy.”
“I Was Surprised He Was Hired”
“I worked at a large furniture company. The sales people had multi week training before they were allowed on the sales floor. It was surprising how many made it through the training. And got fired the first day, or close to it.
The first was a very…creepy guy. I was surprised when he was hired. More surprised he made it through training. I knew he wasn’t going to last long. He surprised me that he didn’t make until the doors opened on his first day on the sales floor. The daily morning meeting just ended, 10 minutes before the store opened. He had to go to the restroom. He went to the restroom. It was being cleaned by the long time cleaning lady. A lovely, older woman. A serious church woman. A nice woman to all. She told him to please wait, or go to another restroom.
Instead, he whipped out his member, said ‘You can watch. I think you will like it.’
By the time he was zipped up, his termination papers were filled out. Two other managers and I walked him from the property.
A similar sleazebag. Again, first day on floor. Right after the sales meeting, he was outside smoking before the store opened. He had been flirting with another trainee. An attractive, sort of trashy blonde. She was sitting on the stairs by the door, in a skirt. He said that he wished he could take a photo of what was under her skirt. This was in the days before digital cameras and phones.
She said ‘Go ahead.’
He walked to his car, and got a camera. She obliged. Hiked up her skirt, and he snapped away. A sales manager was standing there watching this. He fired them both on the spot.
Another guy, I think he made it a week. He went to the women’s restroom. Made sure there was no one in it, and went in. Locking the door, and putting the ‘Closed for cleaning’ sign. There was a couch in the women’s restroom. He would go in and jack off in there. I guess one of the real cleaning people came along with the key.”
“I’m Shaking Like A Leaf”
“I was walking past the back door on one of my trips through the kitchen, and happened to do a double take outside. Why were my car lights on? I felt the hair on the back of my neck bristle as I slunk to the door.
Once I got outside, I could see my coworker, let’s call him ‘Ricky,’ in the front of my car rifling around.
I called out ‘Hey!’
He jumped and got out.
‘What do you think you’re doing??’ I said in disbelief.
‘Oh hi, yes I was just looking to see if you had any weed I could smoke,’ he replied.
Ummmm what?
The only reason I would have any is because I live in California, and use it for my anorexia and depression.
I tell him no, I don’t have any, and he should go check on his table. He waltzes in like nothing happened. Meanwhile, I’m shaking like a leaf. I ask the lead manager to step outside, then tell her everything that happened. This is a big woman, and she could get scary. Her mouth dropped open, and I could see the steam coming from her ears. She was done.
She called him outside after he finished with his table. Having already called the boss, SHE asked him what he thought he was doing going into my car without my permission to steal the weed I take to be able to eat everyday. He tried to argue in a very slurred way that it wasn’t wrong, because I had let him have a hit before!
It took a good five minutes of her arguing with him before he seemed to give up and just shrug his shoulders saying, ‘Yes okay, I made a mistake, I see.’
His complete lack of empathy over the subject sent her over the edge, and she sent him home. When she came back inside, I showed her the glass that he had been drinking from. An adult drink. Another call to the boss, and another nail on the coffin. This wasn’t the first time he’d been found drinking on the job either, unfortunately. I hope trying to steal weed was worth losing your job.”
“Yikes!”
“I was working in a data center on a 24/7 team. The 3rd shift guy was lazy and useless, and after several months he had two written warnings for ‘No call no show.’ So, he was already on his last chance.
One day I had an employee from another department working in our area. I was helping him look for some office supplies he needed, and we were digging through a handful of drawers and cabinets. Each employee on my team had a ‘personal drawer’ they could store personal items. We happened to open his which was unlocked. We weren’t trying to go through anyone’s stuff, but half the drawers were department supplies and a few were personal… locked drawers were skipped but this one wasn’t locked.
When we opened his drawer it had three to four adult magazines, a few rented adult dvds, and my personal favorite; a half-filled punch card from a local club. We looked at each other, said ‘Yikes!’ and closed the drawer.
When my supervisor came in later, I told him I had that 3rd strike on the night guy he was waiting for and showed him the drawer. After quick call to management, the supervisor got the employee on the phone and let him know he was fired (didn’t specify why, and he didn’t even ask) and he needed to come in to turn in his badge.
He came in later, emptied his drawer and locker, handed over his badge, and was taken out. Good riddance! The creepiest part was realizing that this guy was leaving the building during his solo night shift to hit the club, rent some adult movies and coming back to work to watch them on the work computer to… um… finish up.”
The Things These Coworkers Did Are Crazy!
If you want to read more stories of the same speed, check out Storyblend.com‘s selection of weird stories!
“What’s With This Guy?”
“We had a gentleman that transferred to our group. His first day, he brought in a basket of baked goods in for everybody. We thought it was a little odd, but we figured being odd with food was an acceptable affliction.
But we soon learned that he simply refused to listen to others. He acted as if he had some sort of secret superior knowledge and wasn’t interested in others’ opinions. But we figured that maybe it would take a while for him to settle into the group.
Then he started visiting our vice-president. He would just walk in and sit down and start talking. Now our VP at the time was smart with tons of knowledge, but a gentle soul. He would sit there and listen to this guy for a while, and then would mention that he had a meeting to get rid of him. Alas, a couple of days later he showed up in the VP’s office again, just to chat.
So the VP called our manager and asked, ‘What’s with this guy? He just keeps showing up in my office.’
Our manager was dumbfounded, and called the guy in and told him not to visit the VP. If he had something to convey, tell him and it would be evaluated and then perhaps relayed to the VP. My manager thought he got the message.
Nope. Another call from the VP to our manager. He had stopped by again. This time our manager explained in no uncertain terms that he could not go visit the VP, and if he did so he would be subject to dismissal. He was told that the VP was complaining about his visits.
Guess what? The guy showed up in the VP’s office again to discuss the reasoning behind his prohibition to visit him.
Another phone call.
The guy was fired.”
“None Of Us Were Expecting This”
“My first after my promotion to department leadman, I got to sit in on my first production meeting. This company had weekly meetings to go over the upcoming production schedule with all supervisors present, plus the owner/president of the company and a couple other big wigs. They would rotate in the lead men like myself to get experience, and to allow us to get to know other people in leadership positions in the company.
So I’m sitting at the other end of the huge conference table from the president of the company next to my department supervisor. In the middle of this meeting, the door opens and one of the company engineers barges in. Everyone knew who ‘Jim’ was in the company because of how large of a man he was. Just to give an idea or better mental picture here, this guy stood 6 -5 maybe 6-6 and had to be in the 300 pound plus range easily. The man stood out in a crowd obviously.
Jim jumps up on the table, cussing up a storm calling people out that were in the meeting.
‘Forget you Will, you whiny lazy piece of trash! Cam, you need to take a shower you stinky worthless idiot,’ he yelled.
He whips his member out, and starts peeing on anyone and everyone he can, including the owner/president of the company. He starts yelling about how he quits and hated everyone here, because he ‘won the powerball losers.’
Now understand this all took place in a matter of seconds, none of us were expecting anything like this, especially not from this guy. No one including the owner really knew what to do about this huge giant of a man peeing on people.
When he ran out of pee, he hopped off the table still cussing up a storm, hootin and hollering like a madman. He put his junk away and walked out yelling again that he won the lotto and quit.
Security was called (our security was one middle aged overweight guy who didn’t really do anything), but Jim was gone by the time our security guard arrived.
The police were called of course. Charges were filed. Jim was arrested and charged with assault with bodily fluids, a felony.
Jim hadn’t won’t the powerball. His wife and daughter decided it would be fun to play a prank on him and texted him a photoshopped ticket that matched the numbers from the drawing.
So Jim obviously wasn’t welcome back at the company he had worked 20 years or so, ended up with a criminal record, and probably has had to explain to friends and family many times over what the heck happened that day.
I still laugh even now thinking about the looks on the faces of grown men getting peed on, and being so shocked they didn’t have the sense (or maybe it was fear of his size) to stop him.”
“A Couple Guys Run Into my Office”
“We had a temporary worker who decided to pop a pill while he was pulling orders in the warehouse. We typically hire the temp after ninety days, and this guy was about thirty days away from becoming permanent.
Next thing I know, a couple of my warehouse guys come running into my office, laughing hysterically while showing the video they had taken of this guy who was standing in the front lawn of the business, bent over, talking to his feet. He was moving his feet like he was walking on marshmallows, sticky, gooey marshmallows. At the time, we didn’t know if he was having a medical issue, mental breakdown or what so I asked the Operations Manager to get involved
The guy wanted to come back into the warehouse, but that wasn’t going to happen. His co-worker told us he had taken a pill, but didn’t know what it was. He wasn’t violent or angry so instead of calling the police to remove him, we called his Mother to come pick him up.
I felt so bad for his Mother. Here was her 30 year old son, fired on the spot and higher than a kite. Poor thing thanked us for not calling the police.
We never figured out what he took but he acted like an infant who sees his feet for the first time and is both thrilled and amazed that they belonged to him.
I really liked the guy and he was actually a very good, hard working fellow but safety first.”
“We Were All Surprised”
“After working for about six months at one of those retail stores where everything cost a dollar, a beautiful young lady was hired. I was almost instantly smitten with her. After a while she caught on, and would spend her lunch hour and break time flirting with me. The management team noticed we were getting ‘close,’ but never commented on it. Then one night the management team called me in and informed me my till was off by $60. We were all surprised, because I was almost always accurate with the money. I offered to let them search my wallet and backpack but they declined, mostly because of my reputation.
The next week a similar the occurrence was repeated but with a lower dollar value. Then it happened again a third week. I asked them if they wanted to fire me and they said ‘No.’ I requested I be assigned to duties that didn’t include the cash registers, and they allowed me to do this for the next month or so. After that time frame they started to put me on as the lead cashier and they found my till was never short. Then, they put me on as back up cashier and every so often money would go missing.
About a month later, the attractive girl stopped showing up to work.
The general manager pulled me into his office and said ‘I’d like to talk to you about your girlfriend.’
He then pulled out a chart with my name and her name on it and our schedules over the course of the past few months. The chart showed the only time money ever went missing from my till was when she and I had the same shift and I was a backup cashier. He then went on to explain that he she had been fired because after he turned down a vacation request to an exotic destination, she had just stopped coming to work. Apparently she had been taking advantage of a hormonal 17-year-old kid so he wouldn’t notice or be suspicious of her of being a thief.
The manager’s last comment to me that night was ‘I guess she was just looking for some traveling money.’”
“He Could Do No Wrong”
“Back in the early 90s, I worked in a warehouse where the shipping guy was a real piece of work. He barely performed his job, but was constantly dropping dimes on fellow employees to a suspicious boss. This boss thought he could do no wrong. The rest of the warehouse despised him.
Eventually, he was out on vacation one day when two of the warehouse girls got permission to look through his desk for something. I don’t know if they found what they were looking for, but what they did find was over 100 UPS call tags. Back then, when an account didn’t pay for product we had shipped to them, this guy was given information written out on a cardboard tag. His job was to give it to the UPS driver so they could have someone go to the account and pick up the unpaid for product which would be brought back to us. For some reason instead of giving these tags to the driver, he was simply throwing them into the drawers of his desk. This amounted to tens of thousands of dollars in losses for the company.
Honestly, the bosses had it coming to them. They had been tipped off plenty of times this guy was bad news and up to no good in plenty of other ways. Finally, they fired the idiot.”
