People Share 33 Odd, Wild And Unhinged Things That Their Coworkers Did

You meet all kinds of people in a workplace, some of whom become your friends, some your enemies – or at least people to watch out for – some who inspire you to be better, while on the other hand, some people are only good as fodder for gossip because of their wild and unhinged behaviour. 

#1

Image source: hyteck9, Charles Fair

He missed work unexpectedly. The next morning the FBI showed up and went thru his desk. They only found a post-it that read, “Too slow FBI”. It also had a smiley face on it.

#2

Image source: BananaSplitun, Magda Ehlers

Oh, they came in with a potbelly pig as their emotional support animal. Office meetings just got a lot squeakier.

#3

Image source: decoran_, Austin Distel

He was a strange looking person. Also smelled strange and said strange things to some people. None of which was very good for a temp looking to be made permanent. Words were had with him in private and to everyone’s surprise, he turned it around. He’s a strange looking person in general but he addressed the issues around personal hygiene and his general appearance (more groomed and professional looking) and he changed how he interacted with people. He got his permanent position and seems to be well liked overall. Just shows it’s not too late, someone could be “that co-worker” because of issues in their private life. A few discreet words from a superior can make all the difference. Just knowing someone is paying attention can be enough to start a change for the better.

#4

Image source: CodeBeginning6548, Daniil Onischenko

He was the life and soul of the office, a proper family man, and a trusted department manager. His wife was sadly diagnosed with cancer, so for a couple of years, he was on reduced hours to look after her and his young son.

Sadly, he passed away (never found out how), but the strange thing was the police had to reach out to the company as he had no next of kin. Turns out he didn’t have a wife or son or any other close friends or family. Very sad.

#5

Image source: squirrel-phone, Caio

I taught new technicians on the machines we worked on. In our work area all of us were required to wear work smocks. New hire I noticed kept eating M&Ms out of his pocket, with tweezers. Food in the work area is prohibited, so I told him he needed to stop. He didn’t. I told him again to stop, he didn’t. I told him to go to his locker and leave the food. Caught him later the same day eating something else out of his pocket, again with tweezers. He didn’t make it past probation.

#6

Image source: Embarrassed-Oil-5794, Anna Shvets

I had an internship as an electrician in a hospital and one of my colleagues, middle aged fed up with life dude , was always stretching the barriers. The f****r (you’ll see why I just called him that soon) had wife and kids to take care of but he was Showing up late, going shopping while still punched in and just had a general lazy attitude towards work.

The boss sent him over to another hospital nearby where after a few months the grounds keeper called us in to tell us someone had been sleeping in the vent room for a good while (weeks) and there was a mattress there and a reading lamp.

We immediately figured it was our guy but no proof.

Anyway the hospita where I worked had 8 floors, and the 4th floor was off limits as they had closed that specific department (can’t remember which specialists where in there) but some of us could access this floor to do maintainance work.

.

So he gets transferred back and a couple of months pass. Collegues starts noticing he’s hanging around the orthodontic department alot and is gone for weird periods of times, til one day one of the security guards does a round on 4th floor (all abandoned and dark) and hears moaning coming from one of the rooms.

Start walking there when moaning stops abrupt and a person f*****g bolts out of the room with a jacket onto of his head and trousers halfway pulled up (strong pull out game).
Dashes to the doors like Casper the horny ghost ? and then this poor lady he was f*****g was just left there.

He’d even dragged a worn out mattress for the occasion (and they say chivalry is dead).

Anyway so you have to access the floor by swiping you card and enter your personal code so we had our Scooby-Doo meeting the next day where we revieled our horny-ghost-on-floor-4 must’ve been our collegue.

Aaand he was fired..

Oh and he lost his family too?

#7

Called in sick the first day on the job. Later that day his wife called, asking to speak with him. We told her he was home sick, She told us he was definitivly not. He never came back in.

Maybe “coworker” isn’t really the right word.

Image source: Tobutch

#8

Image source: Maximum__Engineering, CRYSTALWEED

A small company. The dude who absolutely STANK, and I mean you could tell he had been in a room 10 minutes later it was so bad. After about a year at a staff part I think, someone had the (liquid) courage to ask him what was up with the odor.

Turns out he showered regularly but he was eating medicinal garlic oil which caused the terrible smell. Oddly, he had NO idea. He switched to a different type of garlic oil and the smell went away almost instantly.

Great guy, was at the company several years afterwards.

#9

Image source: tah4349, Annie Spratt

Management finally took notice and “reorganized” so that he no longer had any staff under him, but gave him a higher title and almost no work in the process. A short time later, they used layoffs as a reason to get rid of him entirely, but he parlayed his higher title into a more powerful, better paying job elsewhere, where they’re now trying to figure out how to get rid of him. Basically, he failed up. That’s what you get when you have hiring managers who get star-struck at an Ivy League education without checking if there’s any substance behind it.

#10

Image source: Notmiefault, john amachaab

I used to work for this extremely unethical medical device company. The owners had really strong “timeshare salesman” energy, and would say or do *anything* they thought would make sales or improve their bottom line. As a result, most employees (myself included) got grossed out and left within a year or two, with the only ones staying having something deeply wrong with them, either ethically or professionally.

As a result, a lot of s****y behavior was tolerated from senior employees becuase the owners couldn’t retain anyone else. Enter Bill. In the year I worked alongside Bill, I watched him:

* Ask a brown-skinned coworker how “his people” prayed. Said coworker was born and raised in Maryland.
* In a conversation about how people’s personalities change when they drink, suggested to another coworker that he probably got “more autistic” (said coworker was not, and had never implied to be, autistic).
* During the George Floyd protests, assured everyone in the lunch room that he and his church had an impressive stockpile of weapons in case that kind of civil unrest cropped up in our town.

That’s just the stuff I witnessed first hand, pretty much everyone had similar stories of Bill.

The straw that finally, *finally* broke the camel’s back came during a company picnic. We were playing cornhole and Bill, unprompted, said very loudly that I “should be careful not to throw the beanbags towards [the name of the only two black employees in the company] because *Black Lives Matter*” and then grinned like he’d told the funniest joke in the world. Everyone, including the two employees in question, heard him. Afterwords, as I was explaining the incident to HR, our HR director shook her head and said “this is really bad, you know this isn’t Bill’s first strike.” Yeah no s**t Stephanie.

#11

Image source: Unknownkowalski, NordWood Themes

Worked in a different office but, serial killer. Possibly 25 victims in Southern California. Apparently he was religious and kept mostly to himself.

#12

Image source: DadsRGR8, Ron Lach

Her husband was the head of a department in another area of the company, banging his secretary. She’d I guess had had enough of his BS and unfortunately decided to confront him at work by bursting into his office and stripping off her clothes in front of his whole department screaming “Am I not woman enough for you?” Husband and wife were both in their mid 60s. Both got fired/forced retirement. Not sure about the secretary- I think she just never came back to work.

I felt sorry for her. He was a known prick and she must have gone through a lot to get to that point and snap.

#13

Image source: beepboopthrowaway89, Alexander Suhorucov

We worked at a group home agency specifically for mental health. Still something I feel incredible guilt and shame for not being able to do more about earlier.

Ex coworker openly said she searched for married men to fool around with, and seemed proud about it. Big yikes. She had a second job at another agency that worked more as a halfway house. I worked every shift nearly every day at our shared agency, so I was scheduled with her every few days or so.
It wasn’t until she confided in me that one of the married men in her rolodex might be married to a woman in one of the homes in an agency in town. There weren’t many, and it’s not our shared group home agency we were both employed at because the clients we had weren’t married. (Most were barely 18) I was loud about how wrong it was, she said she didn’t even know the woman or that it was for sure a client at the agency. He had confided in my coworker about the struggles of having a mentally ill wife in a home and he kept it very vague as to where she was. I called the applicable state agency to report her behavior and they said while it was incredibly bad taste, no HIPAA laws were being broken and I didn’t have enough information to prove it was. I looked for advice everywhere, and everyone told me that if you can’t confirm it IS a client in the agency and it’s not HER specific client, then you can’t report it accurately. I was honestly kind of shamed for “getting involved in private lives.” I didn’t know names or locations of the second agency clients/homes as it was all protected by HIPAA. We really do take that seriously, and weaseling the information out of her was so f*****g upsetting to me. I kept the colleague relationship fresh despite wanting to vomit when scheduled with her, mostly because I felt that this was wrong and wanted to gather as much evidence as I could to prove it. I actually considered applying for a job at the other agency so I could ask around freely. I found out the agency name, and the current house she worked at. I wrote in an anonymous email with my information so far and it went unreturned.

A week or so later, she told me she was reassigned to a new house and for sure the woman lives there by confirmation of the husband after bragging about “a new position.” She talked down on the client and started telling the husband when she refused her meds, to leave her, etc. “He has the right to know that she’s not even *trying* to get better.” I will never forget feeling upset enough to throw up, but keeping it hidden to press her for more information. I needed to know where the house was and the husbands name, hoping the client had the same last name and SOMEONE, ANYONE, could connect the dots. As a bonus to being loose lipped and trashy, this woman let slip the clients name. After finding out everything I called everyone I could. Head of departments, the state department, our manager at our shared agency, her manager at her second agency. I did not stop and admittedly, it probably seemed crazy to some people how obsessed I was with getting this woman banned from working with vulnerable populations. I had everything I needed to finally end this.
She was fired from both jobs and threatened to [end] me because it was obviously me that told people. No idea if applicable agencies gave her a VA report through the state but I strongly advocated for one.
I blocked her on everything and ended up moving a short while later back to my small hometown.
Imagine my face when I walk into my local gynecology clinic a year later and she’s sitting at the front desk.

#14

Image source: harryruby, George Becker

Male employee took female employees’ house keys out of her purse and had copies made on his lunch. When the female employee got home from work that day, he was waiting for her in her bedroom. Thankfully she got out quickly and without harm and was able to call the police.

#15

Image source: yowhatitlooklike, National Cancer Institute

He got a forklift stuck in the grass while drunk. They tested him and he was positive for [illegal substances] too. On his way out he tried to argue “but half the warehouse gets high!” The next day there was a random [illegal substance] test and half the warehouse was sacked

#16

Image source: midnight_adventur3s, Adrien Olichon

Kid-centric water park. He put broken glass in the pool because he didn’t get one day of the four day span he requested off. We were taught in training that if broken glass was found in the pool, the park would have to be closed for about three days to complete a process to make sure it was fully removed. He figured he could use this to his advantage.

He got his day off, him and the rest of the morning shift were sent home while the glass was removed. The park ended up opening later that afternoon after the removal process was expedited. Luckily no one was hurt because this all happened in the morning before we opened to the public.

He bragged about it to some of our other coworkers who ended up reporting him.

#17

Image source: OkBasil1125, Marcelo Verfe

One of the supervisors finally confronted him about the ever present smell of rum on his breath and his ever present, yet lighter in shade, bottle of soda. After being told he’d be given a breathalyzer at work he claimed he “had never been so insulted” by an accusation in his life and immediately quit…never letting go of his soda bottle.

#18

Image source: KrasnyRed5, nrd

Company put us all up in a hotel for one due to snow closing the roads and public transportation down. One of my co-workers decided living in the hotel was way better than at home and extended his stay for a week.

He got fired when the company got the bill for his hotel stay. No idea why he thought they would pay for it.

#19

Image source: GodOfLostThings, Greta Schölderle Möller

Oh, Gregory?

Gregory started getting more and more and more f****d up a work, to the point where he was taking four-hour long fifteen-minute breaks. Boss wouldn’t fire him because, quote, “he’s not as high today as he was yesterday”.

Once, his mother showed up and followed me around the sales floor demanding to know why I didn’t take care of her, quote, “precious boy” and protect him. From what, she never specified, and I later figured out that she was trying to get me to stop him from shooting up in the parking lot, without saying with her out-loud voice that that was what he was doing. I tried explaining that I was neither a manager nor a babysitter, but she just kept repeating that he was precious and that I was supposed to protect him.

Anyway, eventually the manager above my manager did fire him. Only for him to come in the next day. And the next. Not to work; to skulk around my department with his hoodie up and his hands in his pockets in a very I-have-a-gun way, muttering about what a******s we all were. For hours. My manager wouldn’t do anything, because she felt bad for him.

Eventually, the manager above my manager had him escorted out and banned.

He’s probably dead now, if I had to guess.

#20

Image source: SandwormCowboy, Kindel Media

He started getting a thousand-yard-stare while in the office. He sat at his computer and stared at the monitor, which is what we all did, except his monitor was off. One day he didn’t come in at all, and a few days later we learned that he had been arrested in another state for stealing a car and attacking the police that arrested him.

#21

Image source: brunchislife87, Ivan Samkov

Turns out her cancer was faked and she scammed us all out of $100K. Now she’s in prison.

(google Amanda Riley, I worked with her around 2015-2016ish)

#22

Image source: Amorong, Sticker Mule

She starved her handicapped son with hot sauce and left him to die in an ice bath. F**k you, Shanda.

#23

Image source: PilotDry4016, Adrian Scottow

He started making fart noises every time my other coworker bent over. To get something out of a case, pick something up, whatever it was, he was flarping it up and laughing it off.

We fired him when he tried to fist fight a customer.

#24

Image source: xballikeswooshx, DocChewbacca

S**t his pants intentionally 30-40 times over the year to be able go home early to play video games before his wife and kid got home. Age @ incident 37

#25

Image source: Zorro-the-witcher, Gerber Cana

They went and visited an escort during an entire work trip and didn’t attend any of the very important customer meetings. Submitted an expense report asking to be reimbursed for the entertainment. They were not reimbursed.

#26

He was in his late 20s. He started a twitch stream. Got a lot of followers right off the bat. Let the success go to his head. Met one of his female followers IRL. She was 18, but still in high school. Sealed the deal, so to speak.

In another state.

Told his wife he was on a business trip.

He phoned HR about possibly moving to that girl’s state, since his contract doesn’t require client visits.

Girls parents found out. Since the girl was, um, accepting of the event there was nothing the police could do.

The parents then googled his name and location. They found a phone number, took a chance when they called. The girl’s parents spoke to the coworker’s wife and spilled all of the tea.

Dude went down a spiral for the next three months and got fired for poor performance.

He landed on his feet, but his alimony and child support payments are crippling, as his wife hasn’t worked in 2 years because daycare is prohibitively expensive where we live. She also got the house.

This dude works a day job 5 days a week and reportedly drives uber during all of his spare time, some friends ended up getting him as their driver and had a convo about everything that happened.

Image source: flibbidygibbit

#27

Image source: guzziownr, Luan Cabral

College Junior, 1980’s, office job proofreading. I get a new partner. A few years older than me, Army-style haircut, very fit and muscular.

He is nervous so I give him easy stuff and bring him along slowly. After a week or so he relaxes and tells his story.

He joined a cult as a teen, the Moonies. He rose through the ranks until he was running a team of teens traveling the country raising money for the cult.

They sold flowers and magazine subscriptions door-to-door, in malls, train stations and airports. He drove them in a van and they all slept in one room at cheap motels. His job was to watch them, keep them in line and earning.

He did it for years, always traveling, barely sleeping until he finally had a breakdown and ended up in a psych ward. Working with me was his first real job back in the world. We did fine, he was always on time and like me, read books during downtime.

I found out from my supervisor that they gave him to me because if he went berserk I had the best chance of surviving @6′ 4″ and 230 Lbs.

Partner eventually requested a move to the day shift and I got an opera singer for my new amigo. Day shift is busier than nights. Ex-Moonie couldn’t cope without my support and went Hulk smash and destroyed the office until the cops came.

#28

Image source: blah_shelby, Lukas

She accepted a fake $100 bill that literally said “FOR MOVIE USE ONLY” on it and had Benjamin Franklin on both sides. We worked at a bank.

#29

Image source: the_sister_grimm, Claudia Wolff

Woman I worked with, both of us in our early 20s, came into my office, grabbed my hands, and started crying with joy that I was in heaven with her. She was relieved to see a familiar face.

After a bit more of this conversation, I told her she should take the rest of the day off and get some rest.

Then she left work and [took her own life].

(Edit: I felt like it was my fault for a long time.)

#30

Image source: Condensed_Sarcasm, Fahmi Fakhrudin

After he quit, special investigators showed up asking for him and wanted to know where he was.

He had apparently been trying to [end] his wife by putting rat poison in her coffee every morning.

#31

Image source: dollfaise, Julien L

She was legitimately f*****g nuts. Like she seriously needed to be medicated. Her moods would shift right in front of you, it was unnerving. And for some reason, despite doing next to no work for probably the highest salary, she was a miserable a*****e. Took it upon herself to literally set people up for 3 strikes so she could fire them. She managed to get through 2 managers for b******t reasons because the regional manager didn’t give a f**k no matter how many times she was reported for harassment. He didn’t have to work with her so he went on about his business also being paid to do nothing.

She’d started to set up a third manager for the chopping block when she finally went too far. She had just gotten through firing #2 when she made a fatal mistake – she put the company at risk. She told me she’d fired him for “skimming money from the till” which was absolute b******t. She told another employee he was fired for “telling a breastfeeding customer to cover up” which actually happened – in a completely different store hours away. It made no sense whatsoever, nevermind the fact that she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone anything in the first place.

Given the potential legal ramifications, they finally fired her. By then, **two dozen** employees had quit or been fired in **3 months**. They could barely open the store with the people who were left. They marched her ugly a*s out the door carrying a plant and her fish. Last I saw her, she was stuck standing at the front of Best Buy as a greeter.

#32

Image source: highly_uncertain

She was my partner in surveillance. She started leaving me for hours at a time which got really frustrating. I would try to find her on camera so I knew where to call to get her to come back so I could have a bathroom and/or coffee break.

I started to notice that every time I looked for her, she was chatting with this one new girl. This was happening every day and then I noticed they started taking night shift breaks together. Then one night, I saw them head outside together. They both got in her car and were just chatting in the front seat. Suddenly, they start making out and next thing I know they’re both getting out and getting into the back seat. This became a regular thing on night shift.

Fast forward several months, she’s now separated from her husband and living with this coworker.

#33

Image source: Jumpy-Author-4985, Daniel Lee

Guy who worked in my office for about 6 months. Older guy, nice but kinda weird, disappeared after taking a giant s**t in the stairwell leading down to the cafe. I saw him suddenly get up and walk as fast as possible to the stairwell. There were bathrooms downstairs across from the cafe. But also ones a closer walk upstairs. Didn’t think anythjnf of it till I heard a scream about 10 minutes later. Giant pile at the top of the stairs and a trail leading down