A lot goes on during the work day, and sometimes it can really add up. When a person's under pressure, that can lead them to snap. Just as these people.
People on Reddit share the moment then they no longer gave a care. Content has been edited for clarity.
Did He Notice What Happened?
“I once was walking down the street with one of my bosses. Total stoner. Him, not me. We go to cross the street at a stop sign and get part way across and the car lurches forward and hits my boss hard enough that he falls onto the hood. He was mid sentence when the car hit him, and he literally didn’t even skip a beat. He just continued his sentence like nothing at all happened while keeping eye contact with me the entire time!
Not only that but when the driver yelled asking if he was okay he didn’t even look over. He just gave a little hand wave to the driver while still keeping eye contact with me and chatting away.”
He Was Following Directions
“I used to be a manager at Petco. We had this fish tank that was very old, it was original to the store and it was being held together by Band-Aids and good intentions. We kept requesting it be replaced, we were putting more money into it than it was worth at this point. But corporate kept saying no, the new tanks cost well over a thousand dollars and they would rather chuck out a few hundred every month or so, because that made sense.
Well we hired this young punk kid to be aquatic specialist. He was bright but did not have a good background, he was a criminal. He stole loaded weapons and was a stoner. I don’t know how he got hired on, he was a touch above worthless on a good day. On his first day I jokingly said if he can come up with a way to break this tank I would much appreciate it.
Within two weeks he broke the tank, and showed me how he broke it so it would look like an accident. The silicone had been cut in a way that it would leak badly without it being able to be fixed. He didn’t even hesitate, didn’t even seem remorseful or anything.
Within a month we had a new tank.”
They Took The Offer
“I worked for a company that had gone public after operating as a private company for 18 years. About four months after going public, our company was caught fabricating the financial statements for our quarterly reports (from acquiring 72 companies in one year). This put an extremely large strain on our accounting department. They were required to work overtime (almost 70 hours a week) to try and ‘fix’ the corruption that had taken place.
Well, the accountants started complaining that they were spending less time with their families and were not being treated well. So, the CEO held an emergency meeting. In that meeting, he told the accounting department that all departments are working hard and if anyone is unhappy, they can leave. The entire accounting department of 14 employees got up and left. It was super awkward. About two months later the CEO stepped down, and two years later the company was sold to a competitor for next to nothing after jumping from executives to executives.”
An Honest Answer
“Worked in a movie theater, and an older man came to the box office to complain and ask for a refund for his movie. I don’t remember the reason, but he was furious and disgusted by the film, cursing under his breath.
My co-worker gave him a refund and the gentlemen still wasn’t satisfied.
He said, ‘This is nonsense, I need to talk to your manager.’
My co-worker calls the manager. The man buffs and puffs as he waits, looks at my co-worker and says, ‘Aren’t you even going to ask me why I’m upset?’
My co-worker looks him dead in the eye and says, ‘I make minimum wage you idiot, they don’t pay me to care, they pay me to sell tickets.’
This man exploded; the manager has to defuse the situation. I don’t remember what he said but he got the guy to leave. My co-worker was only given a slap on the wrist as his rudeness was unseen by anyone in that theater. Preston really never gave a care, even when they did eventually fire him.”
They Belonged To Her
“So my parents owned an automotive garage. One day, a guy comes in and says ‘My headlights don’t work, it’s the switch.’
Dad checks, the lights aren’t out, and it isn’t the switch. The dude has four blown headlights. It was the old sealed beam headlights, so it was expensive but not as expensive as a switch on the column.
Anyway, guy picks up the car, dad explains he just needed new headlamps not a switch. Dude thanks him, pays and leaves. He comes back a little later complaining that dad didn’t do what he asked, and he was ripped off. Dad explained again that wasn’t his problem but he persisted. Mom gave him his money back, but told him she needed to get the lights back. Dude says nah, he’ll come back. In the moment of giving no cares, mom walks out and smashes all the lights with a hammer.
She comes back in and sits down as the guy is yelling about calling the cops. Mom dials 911 and hands him the phone. The cops show up and they tell him he got his money back so the lights were mom’s property to do with as she pleased. He yelled and the police lady told him to leave before she wrote a ticket for driving with no lights.”
Mia Didn’t Hold Back
“I used to work at a country club. There was a girl (let’s call her Mia) that had worked there four years before me. Mia was told she was to replace the wedding manger immediately when she started, but had YET to be given the job after four years. She confided in me that she was done and ready to quit and move on and this would be her last wedding. I told her to do what was best for her.
The country club hosted a lot of weddings, and we would always rotate the girls who would take care of the bride and anything she needed. I did it four or five times and only had one bride that was slightly demanding. But poor Mia had the worst luck and always got the bridezillas. Mia was one of the nicest people I ever met. I was in the lobby setting up for drinking hour. The hall to my left had two doors a closet and the bridal suite. Mia and the bride were in the hall, and heard the bride start yelling at Mia about water. They were standing in the hall and I watched the whole thing go down:
Bride: ‘I ASKED FOR COLD WATER! THIS WATER IS ROOM TEMPERATURE! CAN’T YOU DO THE ONE THING IM ASKING YOU TO DO?’
Mia: ‘Ma’am, you asked for a bowl of ice and a pitcher of room temperature water. You asked to put the ice in yourself. You didn’t want me to touch it.’
Bride: ‘WATER IS COLD! EVEN ROOM TEMPERATURE WATER ISN’T THAT WARM! I’M THE BRIDE! YOU WILL DO AS I SAY! THAT IS WHY YOU ARE HERE ISN’T!? TO SERVE ME!’
Mia: (smiles and clears her throat) ‘Ma’am I have gotten you water three times now, I’m sorry it is not to your liking, but you know what’s not to my liking? YOU, YOU FREAKING BRAT! YOUR DRESS IS HIDEOUS! YOUR WEDDING IS HIDEOUS! PURPLE AND FREAKING PALE GREEN!? WHAT ARE YOU?! FREAKING BARNEY?! YOU LOOK LIKE FREAKING BARNEY IN THAT DRESS!! JESUS CHRIST!! FORGET YOU! FORGET THIS TRASH! I HAVE A MASTER’S DEGREE FOR CHRIST’S SAKE! I DON’T NEED THIS FROM YOU BARNEY LOOKING UGLY BRAT! FORGET! THIS! TRASH!’ (Storms to the office hands over her name tag and fob and leaves the bride in tears).
Mia works at a college in NC now. I miss her.”
She Wasn’t Here For It
“At my first job, a co-worker and I both came on to work the three to nine shifts.
After clocking in and assuming our positions at the register, she casually said ‘Ugh, I really don’t want to be here today.’
I sighed and said ‘Yeah, me neither.’
We stood in silence for a minute, and then she walked back to the manager’s office, punched out, grabbed her purse, and walked out the door. The manager came out a minute later and asked me ‘Did she just leave?!’
Not a word to anyone and we never saw her again.”
She Wasn’t Messing Around
“The nurse-in-charge at our emergency department has been working there for 20 years. Our hospital is in a rough area, she’s seen it all. We have people come in with all types of wounds, concealed weapons. She has single-handedly tackled violent patients with superhuman strength because they’re high on something.
A disheveled guy came to be treated for assault, to be arrested after discharge. He was annoying everyone all night, almost made his nurse cry. The nurse-in-charge called from the nurses station to cut that out.
He called her a ‘Miserable, old brat.’
The nurse-in-charge picked up a chocolate doughnut from the nurses station and without breaking eye contact, started slowly chewing it in front of him. Then she called the police to pick him up.”
Should Have Done It Herself
“Used to work at a bakery a step below Assistant Manager, and was constantly bullied, berated, and used by the current AM. She would give all the tasks she didn’t want to do to me, so I was literally doing her job for her while getting paid a little over half her wage. She had been there for five years and no one recognized her as a poor worker because I made her look so good.
One day I wasn’t feeling great, and she tried to hand me a thick stack of orders to double check, confirm, and file (strictly her job) while I was already in the middle of something. I didn’t say a single thing.
She stood there awkwardly for a minute before putting them down next to me, saying ‘Thanks’ and walking away.
I was the closing leader that night, and never touched the stack.
The next day she’s reamed out by the district manager for not only not doing her job, but also leaving crucial customer info (credit card numbers and the like) out in plain view. Kept her job, but her mascara was runny as heck.”
He Tried To Warn Him
“Working at a precision machining factory and setting up machines to run prototypes for engineering. The guy that was training me kept arguing with the head engineer that the part he wanted to be made was literally impossible to make.
No matter how he described, it the engineer was 1,000% positive he was wrong and it could be done. So trainer dude stops arguing with him, proceeds to spend the next three days setting up and custom-building the tooling to make the print and exactly how the engineer wanted it.
He finally gets it all set up, tells the engineer to come out to the shop and watch, begins the run and the machine completely crashes, breaks every tool/spindle/collet and basically ruins a six figure machine. Trainer guy just hits the emergency stop button and walks outside for a smoke break without saying a word.”
That Is Embarrasssing
“Had a manager who pulled the entire department (around 15 people) into a meeting. This manager was well-known for being under qualified for his position, and usually had absolutely no idea what the heck he was talking about.
Which was hilarious.
Meeting starts up, and he said our group would be a part of a livestream effort with several other departments in the company across the U.S.
The hour long meeting was composed of this manager desperately trying to get the livestream to work and refusing to ask for any help. Occasionally, he would stop and talk nonsense — like literally, ‘So how’s work been going? Chat amongst yourselves,’ — then he’d get right back at it.
One of our senior staff members who is usually very quiet, got up out of his seat after 40 minutes and said, ‘Dang man, this is embarrassing,’ and got up and left.
Perfect.
He Had A Back-Up Plan
“I was once getting fired from a really terrible job, by a really terrible boss. I knew he was going to fire me after I finished the project, because the moron actually hinted at it in a conversation with his superior, which he believed I didn’t overhear.
So he calls me into a room, when he was about to start his monologue my phone rang (we couldn’t take phones in the office). I excused myself without waiting for an answer and left the room to answer the call: It was a company I had an interview on the week prior offering me the position, I accepted and got back in the office.
When I entered the room I could see he was almost foaming, he was really expecting to destroy my soul by dismissing me from the job.
We go in the room again and when he opens his mouth, I just stopped him and said ‘I know what you are doing, could we make it quick? I have a really important meeting and don’t want to be late.’
He just threw the papers at me and left.”
He Had The Power To Do So
“I was once on a US military ship, having breakfast in the wardroom (officers lounge) when the Operations Officer (OPS) walked in. This guy was the definition of NOT a morning person; he’s still half asleep, bleary-eyed, basically a zombie with a bagel. He sits down across from me to eat his bagel and is just barely conscious. My back is to the outboard side of the ship, and the morning sun is blazing in one of the portholes putting a big bright circle of light right on his barely conscious face. He’s squinting and chewing and basically just remembering how to be alive for today. It’s painful to watch.
But then zombie-OPS stops chewing, slowly picks up the phone, and dials the bridge. In his well-known I’m-still-totally-asleep voice, he says ‘Hey. It’s OPS. Could you shift our barpat? Yeah, one six five. Thanks.’
And puts the phone down. And then he just sits there. Squinting. Waiting.
And then, ever so slowly, I realize that that big blazing spot of sun has begun to slide off the zombie’s face and onto the wall behind him. After a moment it clears his face and he blinks slowly a few times, and the brilliant beauty of what I’ve just witnessed begins to overwhelm me. By ordering the bridge to adjust the ship’s back-and-forth patrol by about 15 degrees, he’s changed our course just enough to reposition the sun off of his face. He’s literally just redirected thousands of tons of steel and hundreds of people so that he could get the sun out of his eyes while he eats his bagel. I am in awe.
He slowly picks up his bagel and for a moment I’m terrified at the thought that his own genius may escape him, that he may never appreciate the epic brilliance of his laziness (since he’s not going to wake up for another hour). But between his next bites he pauses, looks at me, and gives me the faintest, sly grin, before returning to gnaw slowly on his zombie bagel.”
He Figured Out The System
“Guy at my work had a minor incident that management decided to make a big scene over, but they couldn’t technically fire him over it. They looked up his time clock and realized he had been written up for tardiness once that year, once the previous year, and once the year before that. Management decided to tell the guy that if he clocked in even one minute passed his shift, he would be terminated on the spot.
He made it six months after realizing management clearly stated they were looking for a stupid reason to fire him.
We worked at a race track as safety Marshals, so you had to be standing at alert when ever there was a car on track. So he brought his hammock to work and routinely took naps on slow days.
He trained new employees too. After newbies got the gist of the job, he would jump in the passenger seat for ride alongs-on clock with some regular members.
No music was a rule to keep radio communication clean and crisp, so he bought his own headset that had an aux jack for his music.
We realized that the tip system was messed, and management would order themselves pizza parties with our tip money on slow days then justify our month worth of tips with terrible pizza once a month. He would keep 50-60 in tips a few days before the pizza on race days, and would buy all the staff catered Chick-fil-A instead of trash pizza.
He took the company golf carts, zero steer lawnmower, and his personal car out onto the skid pad for session after close.
Called out the CEO for violating dress code after being told by management to remind other employees to adhere to dress code (namely company polos must be tucked in), easy to maintain in the office, but not so much when you’re a mechanic.
When his time came, he was fired on the spot for clocking in at 8:32 instead of 8:30. He still kept on good terms with all his co-workers and most of management, so he kept him self off the ‘Do not enter’ blacklist (75% disgruntled former employees).”
