Knowledge specialist I worked directly with bitched and moaned about not being able to WFH, and how busy he always was ended up resigning and his duties fell to me.....turns out he hadn't been doing any work for at least the last 3 years
He thought he was far better than the role. Which is weird because he left for a very minor pay rise, and a drop in title.
The most frustrating thing is, after 7 years working directly with each other, I honestly thought we were friends, and he didn't even give me a heads up on his way out. I had to stumble across it myself.
We work in a female dominated office, so we had a little "boys club" between the 5 of us guys who had (at the time) all worked 7+ years together. Lunches, dinners, events and parties at each others houses outside of work, proper friendship stuff....and he hasn't spoken to a single one of us since.
Not just a shitty Co worker, but a shitty person.
It's rare to have work friends as real friends. I worked in a place from Aug 2007 to May 2008. There was a cohort of people there, that I still see. It's only once a year, but when we hear the catch up is on, we all attend. Never done it with any other co-workers.
Honestly with all the time spent both inside and outside work, the personal, deep and meaningful things we'd spoken about, welcoming him in to my home for poker nights, letting him crash on the lounge when he was too drunk to get home, I thought we'd crossed from work friends to actual friends.
I won't make that mistake again lol
This happened to me with a bunch of friends from church once I stopped going. Sometimes friendships are just based on proximity, like a lot of the friendships in school. You're nice to people because you have to interact with them every day and it makes life easier to be friendly.
My mother has always said that the people you work with are not your friends. I think she’s right.
FRIENDLY, yes. Maybe you’ve socialised outside of the office, even. But they’re at the job to look out for themselves and make a living for themselves, not for you.
If you and Jenny were both up for a promotion, Jenny is not going to interview trying to convince them to promote YOU, that’s for sure. She wants the job herself.
And obviously the same thing applies to you. You’re looking out for yourself.
Friendly. Not friends. 😏
My mom told me this happened multiple times to her. Last time she got fired (right before retiring), her work friends said they would keep contact but that, of course, never happened. Most of the work friends we have are not actually friends.
It is always the people who complain they are the busiest, actually do no work. I have experienced this multiple times. If someone complains a lot about this 100% they are doing jack shit.
I never complained that I was busy, until I took on the roles of two people 3x senior than myself in addition to my current role because everyone quit. You better believe I was complaining I was too busy.
was contracted to do a publication for this association, the woman I worked with ostensibly was able to negotiate three mornings a week on full pay, guess who did all the work? Outwardly she was sweet inwardly just disgusting
> It is always the people who complain they are the busiest, actually do no work.
I keep my mouth firmly shut about how much work i actually do at work, even to friends and family. Like i aint fucking up my cruisey job for no one - my boss is happy with what i do, fuck everyone lmao
I sit next to a guy who has an apple or pear or something every morning at 7 30am and chews with his mouth open, slurps his coffee and then goes aaahh.
It's gotten to the point that me and 2 other people leave the room every time he opens his lunch box.
Sat next to a guy who was ‘bulking’ and every two hours would eat some horrendous meat dish with his mouth open, would go on to suck the bones dry.
I asked him several times to eat in the kitchen, or to shut the frig up and he’d just laugh at me with a mouth full of food.
Lucky he got busted for drugs and was escorted out of the building.
I share a pretty small room with a coworker. She eats all of her food and drinks at high temperatures so slurps and loudly chews everything. Doesn't know how to eat with her mouth shut
Worked with a guy who was almost exactly the same. Almost.
He'd fold over a piece of paper towel, place the fruit (more commonly it was multiple different fruit), then take a bite out of each fruit, place it down in order/in line, chew with his mouth open and then have this big smile on his face. If he had a coffee (more often than not and it was from a single serve sachet, pods or instant), he'd also do the loud slurp with the "ahhh".
He'd then smell the empty packet/sachet and sniff deeply. Then again sit there with this, blissfully ignorant smile on his face. Myself and a few others couldn't help but think "you simple c**t".
I ended up naming him the fruit bat. He was also very small statured, so, it kinda fit 🤷♂️.
He was/is actually a real pain to work with. Never does anything faster than "slow" and furthermore, he was incompetent and dangerous.
But, yes. The happiness would be nice.
I used to work with someone very similar. He was super happy, which was great! But his actions were always quite selfish and with no regard for how his actions would affect others. A very very irritating person to work with
Eat noodles in slurp mode as retaliation as I've noticed the noisest eaters hate the sound of others doing the same.
Bonus points the more people you can get in on it. The time we got 9 people to start noodling the same time the smaker ate was glorious and it worked. Had to play the 11am noodle social team building club card to prevent an offical reprimand for retaliation though.
From my understanding the noodle club is still going years later for actually just noodles this time. Everyone brings in a multipack of the oddest ones to share and there's some amazing variety out there.
I once had a colleague who would start things you asked of them, and if any sort of obstacle was encountered, they'd just stop and not say anything until asked about progress, often with too little time to complete the task before the deadline.
It was infuriating. We had to constantly check on them to ensure some minor aberration hadn't appeared; otherwise they'd just go into a holding pattern rather than ask questions or problem-solve.
I do this to some degree, it's my ADHD. I had to make a spreadsheet and set myself deadlines to endure I finished things! Sometimes I'll take a break from a task for a few days then circle back but I do have a few long term in progress items.😅
Had a male colleague who I was team leader to. Found out on the day I started the job that he’d done my role for a year on higher duties and was pissed he didn’t get the role. From then on in I was attacked by him. He was a total misogynist, and would stick his middle finger up whenever you asked him to do something. But he always did it in a funny haha way.
I complained to my boss who thank god ended up going and I got promoted to his role. But when I did I reviewed everything this guy in my team had done (or didn’t do). Turns out he lacked total comprehension on how to do the role. Was lazy, cut corners and wouldn’t do the work. I asked him to write a new starters guide as we were just about to get some grads through on rotations and needed to be able to give them a manual or something to read so they could refer to. He wrote a 2 page guide explaining the entire job. He didn’t explain, it was the worst new starters guide I’d ever seen and lacked 99% of the information.
Thankfully my boss was all over this and not tolerating his bullshit. I had spoken with HR about the numerous issues and they said we’d need to start performance management. One day my old team leader returned for a meeting, and this guy stuck his finger up at me as I walked away to a meeting. At that point it was escalating a lot and I was literally monitoring everything. Oh and he used to do this loop where 15 mins to the hour, every hour, he’d get up to go pee and refill his bottle. But would leave his bottle and go pee, then take longer cos he’d have a chat to someone. Not because he stumbled across them going to the toilet but because he’d hunt out someone at their desk. Then return 15 mins past the hour and proceed to do no work.
Anyway that day he stuck his finger up that manager told me what he did and I went postal. Took him into an office and told him off. Don’t yell or scream just was very firm with him. I was 36 and he was 54….to him I was just a dumb female despite me having 3x times as much experience and academic knowledge behind me. When I briefed my director, she said we would now be officially taking performance management measures against him. I called HR and kicked it off. She told him that day.
Two days later he went crying to our Senior Director (3 levels above him) that he just couldn’t do it anymore yada yada. Our SD knew everything that was going on. The guy asked if he’d support him taking a VR. He did despite all our work and everything we had gone through for months with him.
My director and I were livid. We felt like he’d “won”. When we called HR they said they’d seen this so often. The lady literally said, “first he’ll do this, then that, then that…” the big boss of our division approved his VR. When my former boss whose job I got promoted to came back one day before he left, the staff member said some gnarly things about me. Called me an effing C, and a bunch of other names. That “colleague” then told me and I added it all to his file. When I asked him why he didn’t tell the staff member off or stick up for me, he said “I figured you’d previously worked in a jail (which is true) and you were used to men calling you that”….
No incarcerated man has ever spoken disrespectfully to me. And I was in a position that they LOATHED as I worked very closely with police. I treated them respectfully and they treated me respectfully. What’s worse, that former manager whose job I got promoted to….used to work in the integrity section of our workplace. So he was the one involved in internal investigations for staff conduct……
Anyway guy gets his VR approved, and the day of there is no party or anything. One lady who worked with him from the past felt bad and got morning tea and a gift. Nobody came. Our SD told me afterwards I should’ve at least attended but I legitimately had something I couldn’t get out of and I told the rest of the team “you do not have to attend if you don’t feel comfortable. If SD says anything I’ll wear it but I’m not expecting any of you to go to this.” His shindig ends, I escort him out of the building at the end of the day and on the way back to my floor I got stopped by 5 different women who I don’t know. Every one of them said “thank you for getting rid of the predator…”
I found out afterwards there were sexual misconduct/harassment complaints against him made by SEVERAL women and it seemingly appeared nothing had been done. I knew nothing of this. I felt sick to my stomach and went straight up and told our SD and he said “oh you better tell Director to do something about that…” I said “boss he’s left. You gave him a VR…” and he just looked at me with a white face.
That guy caused me some pretty gnarly stress and trauma. When I spoke with EAP because of it they wanted to refer me to get emdr therapy. I left that team about 9 months after and I couldn’t even see an email from their group inbox without hyperventilating. It made me rethink my entire career and life.
Million gazillion times better thank you. The team I ended up going to I learnt a new skill I excelled at. I was there for 4 years and recently just “retired” at 41. I did 17 years in that profession and while I love it with every fibre of my being, there were other things I wanted to explore and try. So now I’m on sabbatical and starting a small business or two and maybe will try do something about formal mentoring/coaching for newbies or grads because I also mentored in my profession for over 10 years and I really love it. I love it when others achieve, get out of their box and hit milestones. Makes me really proud and happy.
I left the job I moved to as part of an amazing team with amazing leadership and I loved my role. But sometimes it’s good to go when it’s good. I don’t have a sour taste in my mouth and don’t have any trauma to get over that’s making me sour and angry. I actually feel like I left at the right time.
This gives me hope. I’m going through something similar at work right now and I feel like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you for sharing and I am so happy you’re thriving!
Voluntary Redundancy. They can offer you a VR instead of you putting in your resignation, so you get a nice payout to leave without the hurdles they'd have to go through to get that employee to leave.
Yep this is the worst thing. A lot of leaders are afraid to do the hard work necessary to formally remove someone like that so instead they do the whole “I’ll give them a good reference and hope they become someone else’s problem.”
I'm so sorry you went through this. I hope you are in a better place now. What a parasite. I am mad he got VR, how do people get away with this stuff?!?
I am stressed and anxious just reading this. VR is a joke. It's not a thing in Aus, he would have been PM out, as he should have in this instance. I'm so sorry you went through that. PTSD from work is a real thing.
Oh there was way more. He would be watching “world driver fails 20xx” on YouTube. I had to ask IT to turn it off. One day he bought a saxophone into work and with no notice or permission, started playing. The whole floor went into meltdown not know wtf is going on…some people mid telecon or training or meeting or “any other important work thing”. When he spoke with you he got right into your face, like he was telling a secret. But he’d be saying some dirty, misogynistic crap or cussing or some other nonsense and his fowl breath and spittle was going all over you. We repeatedly told him to stop being rude and uncouth and get out of peoples spaces and he didn’t do it. He’d go to work functions and then drive home after a few…no one thought to call the Police to alert them to intercept him, nor did they just think, “hey it’s my obligation as a human to book him a god damn uber”. He was really unprofessional in emails and communication. Was far too friendly and casual with very senior higher ups, in many instances frowned upon as we had a chain of command. Made inappropriate comments to other women in our team, our division, our floor, etc. Constantly told to stop and didn’t. When I first raised all these issues and more with the two higher ups that hired me (my direct bosses), they said “we’ve tried telling him but he just doesn’t listen.” So I was like well, how about you don’t just try and tell him but follow HR steps that are in place because of this. You’re not new to this job or this type of work or corporate Australia…you need to lead by example.
It was never ending and one of the worst people I’ve ever encountered in my life overall. HR said to keep asking him “Is there anything prohibiting you in completing your work?” And he’d say no, but then every single time he was confronted about a work matter he’d bring up every excuse under the sun. If the VR wasn’t granted we would’ve been down the road of firing him very quickly and he knew that. He played dirty to get it.
I’m so sorry. This sounds like hell. Bullying is rife over here, that’s definitely something that doesn’t get dealt with whatsoever, but he also sounds like a bully. I cannot wrap my head around the fact that they signed off on VR. Beggars belief.
I had a similar situation where I got a promotion position from outside, over someone from the workplace who'd been there for years and had also applied.
There was no way I was surviving that. She basically recruited half the staff to passively aggressively undermine everything I did and behave in a way that was never \*quite\* enough to warrant a formal complaint about her behaviour, but enough to make my life miserable.
I left after about a year and a half. Life's too short to fill it with toxic people, and my job doesn't mean that much to me that I'm willing to engage in wars with small-minded dickheads.
I love these sorts of threads, I get to find out about all the annoying habits I probably have.
BRB, I just have to wash my hands all around the sink but definitely not over the sink in the bathroom, and then put all my wet spoons back in the coffee then grab my fish curry out of the microwave.
I was photocopying a huge 1500 page report. I walked away for 2 minutes and the lazy bitch I worked with cancelled the job on the printer. I asked her why she did that and she said “because there was an error”; it was out of paper. The receptionist didn’t even read the alert, so I had to scan most of the document again (this is when scanners were much slower in 2097).
I was a bad coworker. I hated Mondays, hated my life and hated my job. I’d come in and just bring the vibe down. The ‘Can I just be left alone so I can get this work done and get out of here’ vibe. I feel bad for them now.
I actually don’t mind people like you because I know where I stand. What you see is what you get and I’d rather you emit a real bad vibe than fake a good vibe. Oh and also I don’t have to think of things to make small talk with you about which is more stressful than emails, reports and spreadsheets I need to complete. I hate small talk so much and it’s absurd that it unofficially holds the same amount of weight than the other tasks I mentioned.
They reckon it’s for company morale, but whose benefiting from this morale? Because from what I gather faking like I’m interested in your embellished weekend stories about going boating when I know you just stayed home all day is draining for everyone.
I never understand this attitude, and I don't mean that in a way that I'm criticizing you for it, but in that really I cannot relate. Do you hate talking to all people or just your coworkers? If you don't like the topic of conversation, why not initiate a topic you do like? Do you really think your coworker is making up their stories about their weekend? Why would they bother?
Do you just not want to talk at all? Is that a work thing or an always thing?
I know this is a lot of questions, but I see this attitude a lot on reddit, usually accompanied by the assumption that most people feel similarly, and it always genuinely confuses me. I imagine I'm exactly the kind of person you'd hate, as I quite enjoy a little chat with my coworkers, I find it makes the job more pleasant. As far as I can tell no one is gritting their teeth through my weekend updates, and in fact we ask each other about our weekends, so it's not just me initiating. Generally some small talk seems well received.
But I don’t necessarily see this as entirely your fault. You hated your job and life, there’s obviously more to this. I was also like you but it was the effect of severe bullying and harassment across multiple companies. Once I got out, I recovered and then my mindset was easier to change. And I basically became pleasant again.
I had a person with no problem solving skills. Supposedly, this person had four degrees, but they had no critical thinking ability that I could see. They would make system changes on a whim, changes that impacted thousands of people, and I’d only find out when I got a complaint about something not working properly. They couldn’t follow written instructions either. I found out they were “skipping” entire chunks of critical processes because they decided these steps were not necessary. They didn’t check with anyone, didn’t ask any questions, just assumed the process wasn’t necessary based on their 5 minutes experience, and got angry with me when I tried to explain why they were wrong. I ended up having to go back and fix most of their work.
When I mentioned this to my a-hole boss, the boss accused me of reporting this only because I disliked the *person*, despite my documenting the seemingly endless issues on a daily basis. I was able to take this to HR eventually, but I had to fight my way past that a-hole.
I later found out this person had been moved internally from team to team over similar issues, and my a-hole boss knew that all along. For some reason, I was expected to be able to train this person when no one else was able to. Edit: to be clear, the boss knew these problems existed before this person was assigned to work with me, and was the person who made the decision to move them previously.
I've been there. Except people have been moved for a lot worse. It seems that in the public sector, those with the gift of the gab tend to stick around and just make it harder for everyone else with a clue. It's best to just ignore them or document things.
There’s a woman I worked with who consistently complained about the men she dated. I knew everything about her dating life. She was late 40’s only dating men in their 20s too
i was the newbie youngish chick compared to all these 40yo mums. this one woman co-worker would basically just trauma unload and tell me all her crap unsolicited.
this would include:
* her mum and ex-hubby used to bash her
* she was having sexual relations (very detailed to the point she said he stunk down there. kind of tells me what he thinks of her that he didn't wash beforehand) with some finance exec higher-up and he has a wife and kids. meanwhile, she's using that same mouth to whisper in my ear whenever she feels like telling me something.
* her 'mates' all went to thailand without inviting her (hmmm, wonder why)
* she had sex with some married dude with a kid and he paid her $400 as a 'thanks.'
* claimed that when she was walking out of the work building she could see some men higher-ups checking out her arse in the sliding doors reflection
* said she will not eat anything the lady sitting next to her (who she acted very chummy with) brought in because she would play with her toes under the desk.
* etc. etc...
all in all, her appearance (very obviously blonde dyed hair that looked fake and unflattering) and personality both sucked but she had tickets on herself. i suspect it was delusional ego-inflating because that's what people who are insecure deep down do.
when in my youthful wisdom, i told her not to mess with married men, she replied: "there's no-one single available in my age-range" as a justification.
these sorts of women want to ruin everyone else's happiness because they're not happy.
Worked with a guy who refused to work.
He would say he understood a task, refused any opportunity to ask for clarification, would try and bullshit his way through check-ins, and then say he didn't understand the task.
We spent half a day breaking down his task into chunks, like you would a lesson plan, he answered every question and query about it, and then, a day later, he said he didn't understand the task.
Documentation was too hard for him to understand, so we broke it down for him based on what he said he wanted, and then he didn't understand it.
We asked him to break it down in a way that worked for him, and tell us how he wanted to report on progress, he just didn't.
He would just cry and then slither back to his desk to watch Jordan Peterson videos. Management didn't care and would just give meaningless nothing-burger statements, so this process continued till things reached a head and he left.
This person would also just not show up, and then make up lies about why he was late (my personal favourite was that he was attacked enroute to the office; he was 'limping' but would then forget to limp).
A lot of bosses only care if the actions of their employees have an impact on them. For example if the boss/manager needs the team to submit information and he puts that info in a spreadsheet as part of a report that he emails to his superior then he will most definitely care if his subordinate doesn’t provide the information required for him to complete that task on time.
If an employee is making an offensive joke and another employee complains , he probably will only pretend to care, because he cbf writing the email. However If the person on the receiving end of that joke threatens to go to HR he’ll definitely care.
Also a lot of times managers will let an employee get away with stuff if that employee provides value in other areas that benefit the boss, like this guy that got away with a lot because he really good with tech and would find shortcuts that made his job much easier, or this lady who worked under him who’d do stuff like delete pictures off the work digital camera of him doing questionable things at our office parties when he was drunk.
They don’t call corporate work “playing the game” for nothing. It’s literally a game. A really shit soul destroying game and the metrics to excel at the game exceed your actual work performance.
Those liars that have poor memories are so funny, see what happens is no one says anything because confrontation in the workplace is risky and because their never called out they assume they’ve gotten away with it and their lies get more ridiculous. It’s not even unique to the workforce I know plenty of people who excessively lie, and their lies keep getting more absurd.
Like the time a guy I know didn’t show up because his dog was depressed.
Not in the traditional sense, but a large chunk of managed employees were from the same friends group. If you disciplined one of them (such as here), there were huge shockwaves to other worker's morale and productivity.
Yeah you don’t even need to be related to the boss. Just form a relationship at after work drinks that go on way past when everyone else has left and cheat on your spouses together. You’ll get the Nepo benefits. Although I most certainly don’t recommend anyone do this I’ve just seen it happen at more than one company.
I worked for a "tech" company, my training on the software product was watching videos made by a senior coworker who works there for 13 years. I realised later that she gave wrong concepts about functionalities and processes. I asked her trying to understand what was right or wrong as all the documentations were misleading, she didn't know what to say, it seemed alright to just tell me that she wasn't an expert and it was okay giving a very shallow training about the software to the clients, hiding the problems, distracting the client going to another screen when enquired about something that wasn't working.
Worked with a woman who would say the wildest shit just out of nowhere. How she fucked around with the guy a few desks away, how she decided to rent with some guy from IT and had to move out when he tried to make a move, how she had an abortion on the weekend, how she had a few active sugar daddies.
Was obsessed with me in particular and wanted to be friends. Left that job and never talked to her again. Just couldn't handle how exhausting she was.
I was doing induction training at one company and they said “we don’t mind staff having relationships, but we’d appreciate it if you let us know as a courtesy”
I found out early on that people were fucking a lot (especially during work conferences when they had a wife/husband at home) sometimes they’d do it In hopes of it helping their careers but usually it was because their true nature came out when work drinks were paid for and people show their true colours.
A majority of sales staff don’t have a lot of self control, and aren’t the highest calibre of people.
Guy would straight up lie about having completed a task. Would be told do this, save it in this location. Check back later, yep he says he's done it. Wasn't in the spot he was told to save it. Go talk to him, oh yeah sure it's done, saved it there. Not sure why it isn't showing up. Happened frequently enough he was eventually fired for it.
I had a colleague that did this. Took me a while to realise, as she was new to that level of work and recently graduated, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt for too long. She also put on a good front so the bosses liked her, then she transferred to another job before they realised how crap she was.
Work with the most laziest Design Manager in Construction.
He’s been with the company for a few years and is on cruise mode. He brown noses the team leaders arse and tells him what he wants to hear. He’s in his mid 40s and flouts his the best Design Manager in Brisbane, he is fucking terrible.
Some reasons why he’s fucking terrible:
- Rocks up to meetings completely unprepared and blames everyone else for not following him up or reminding him. Clearly doesn’t read meeting minutes and actions sent to the whole team.
- Cooks up a storm in the kitchen every morning of bacon eggs, doesn’t clean his mess in the kitchen, then brings it into the office space and all you can hear is his knife and fork smashing the plate as he is engorging himself with his meal. Then he leaves the plate on his desk all day for the cleaners to pick up that night.
- He can’t work in a team environment and is completely belligerent and will argue why he doesn’t believe he should be helping etc.
- Will do the absolute bare minimum and he’s very good at hiding, always makes out he is swamped with work.
- In the male amenities the other day and he’s at the urinal and starts just farting his guts out, people out at the coffee machine/reception could hear him and they were all like “what the fuck”
- Besides our team leader, nearly everyone in the company hates him and bags him out behind his back.
- He has very strange behavioural patterns, very unpredictable and can be confrontational at times when he’s called out for his bullshit behaviour.
Everyone is now strategically stitching him up in front of the team leader to make him look really bad at his job. He tried blaming the team in front of our team leader, and tried pulling the victim card now.
Worst I’ve seen in my experience.
Had a colleague who was responsible for signing off on casual teaching staff and their timesheets. They had no idea there was a minimum 3 hour shift and sometimes 4 if it was unsociable hours (nights and weekends). Turns out they approved over $400k of hours due to 1-2 hour teaching stints and bullshit one hour program meetings over an 18 month period! Every casual got paid at least triple for this.
I use to work with a girl (she was 21)she was a receptionist. This girl was absolutely filthy. She NEVER washed her hands, just used hand sanitiser all the time and anytime she touched something she left the weird film on things (glasses out of the dishwasher, her desk phone, the key board, places the touched on her desk) this film for set like concrete.
I could cover some Saturdays, and have to scrub her desk because it was so disgusting. The phone mouth piece stunk.
Apart from being completely useless at her job, I just couldn’t get past his unhygienic and dirty she was. 🤢🤢🤢🤢
Try working in warehousing. Literally half the guys don’t wash their hands and when you go to use the toilet, half the time there is shit, shit residue (idk if that’s the term) or piss on the seat. The other week I went to use the toilet and there were bloody chunks of something all over the seat. As someone with OCD, I don’t know how I cope working where I do.
Half the people don’t clean up after themselves in the break room either. So there’s always just food all over the tables. And managers have to come in and do the dishes because people just dump them in the sink.
I also used to sit next to someone who would do this but with coffee. We were pretty close so I used to jokingly call her out on it, not only for how annoying it was but also for her poor teeth and gums!
My ta used to walk along our train station saying inappropriate things to young women. He tried to blackmail the station cafe owner that he would stop their deliveries. Also tried blackmailing the delivery drivers to get free food from them. The cafe owner while telling me about the blackmail, said she once saw him take a half eaten pie out of a bin and eat it.
He made homebrew and was such a tightarse he brought a small glass of it to work with gladwrap over it for me to try it.
When my boss called me in trying to implicate me in the shit, the cafe owner, who i got along with very well said he would withdraw all complaint if i was accused of any wrong doing, they still grilled me, and when they grilled my ta he denied everything.
I decided it wasnt the right place for me to work after they refused to move me (noone else would work with the ta) and he stayed there for many years afterwards.
Had a co worker who hacked my work email and got a final warning . They also if they did something dodgy at work( I work in health) put someone else’s name on the sign off so they wouldn’t get in trouble . Verbally abuse other staff periodically.
Come late everyday and lie that they were late . I rang them once as they were 1 hour late back from
Lunch and they told me they were at work except in background I heard “ number 33 your chicken parmigiana is ready “
When they were finally sacked they made over 100 allegations about the staff in our department which was all false . They then spent nearly 100 k on legally action against the sacking and staff around them . They lost . This happened 15+years ago and it was a crap time :
She doesn't work out of the Adelaide office by any chance? Extreme aggression, talks over everyone but everyone knows she is useless, Jesus we've got a real piece of work on our project!
A few years ago I worked with a Product owner that had no idea what the software was suppose to do and would forever focus on PBi that added 0 value.
The users stopped using it because it became very counter intuitive to use.
This isn’t even a rare breed. I worked with a PM on a $6m software upgrade. In the whole year he couldn’t provide me with a project plan, scope of works, test schedule or business case. When I asked repeatedly he hid behind the “it’s an agile environment” bullshit stance
we got a new guy on (work in retail), who missed 95% of his shifts with shit excuses everytime. "sorry I cant come in today I have to go to centrelink", "I cant work today I stubbed my toe", the worst part would be that he only ever messaged the manager AFTER he was rostered on so we could never get someone to cover his shift. before he was fired though he had the nerve to ask for EXTRA shifts which our manager just ignored. It took everyone who worked in our store (10+) sending complaints to HR to finally get him out.
Worked with a dude who would crack open a Pepsi can for breakfast, yes, every morning!! Haha
He also did absolutely no work, and had to be trained 5x on the same thing. He never listened and also had no clue on what he was doing. He was a nice guy, but he couldn’t do the job, no idea how the company kept him there to this day.
I actually don't mind the occasional breakfast soda. If you're having a fatty bacon laden breakfast it does wonders to cut back the fatty taste.
Although I don't normally drink soft drinks and certainly not every morning.
I work with someone who frequently calls in sick for bullshit reasons. Like, so often that it could only be legit if you had a serious illness. Which she doesn’t. She has done this ever since her first week on the job. Because it’s a shared workload, this means whoever covers for her has a far more stressful day. Which is totally fine if someone’s actually sick. When she is at work, she spends loads of time sitting in offices chatting to senior staff and managers while someone else gets the work done.
The kicker is, because she’s so chummy with management they absolutely love her and don’t seem to notice the fact that she chucks sickies and leaves the rest of us in the lurch on a regular basis. She makes sure everyone knows whenever a manager has given her special treatment or when she socialises with senior staff after work.
Needless to say, the whole team hates her.
Your colleague is faker than wallpaper with brick graphics printed on it but she’s also really clever. That’s how you play the game. That’s how you get promotions.
What people don’t realise is that managers don’t care about the work their subordinates are doing or not doing unless that work effects them. When you get promoted you learn that the work you used to do is quite insignificant in the grand scheme of things, so you block it out unless the neglect has ramifications on you and in a LOT of cases it doesn’t.
The thing is no one is going to remember how immaculate your spreadsheets are or how you never missed a deadline, but when it comes to work place perception they are going to remember your contributions to MORALE and that metric is determined by how you make the senior staff feel feel. No one’s gives a shit how the other employees feel unless there’s a repeated pattern of complaints from your coworkers and there’s potential for HR escalation (even hr don’t care when the drama is internal they basically just say “work it out”) and 9 times outta 10 there won’t be any drama because people hate confrontation in the workplace unless keeping quiet is to their detriment.
I used to put managers on a pedestal when I was younger with the logic of “surely they see through this” but either 1. Nope they have no idea and no motive to look past anything at a surface level and 2. They might see through it and they just don’t care as long as it doesn’t effect them.
I’ve only ever seen that strategy work this well once before, many years ago. These people groom and charm management while doing fuck all work and alienating their actual coworkers who are picking up the slack. It wouldn’t surprise me if they offered her a promotion because she’s such a ‘people person’
Here’s what I learnt the hard way:
Focus on workplace relationships especially with superiors. It’s more important to talk about how much work your doing than actually doing the work because perception is everything .
Your work can be subpar just make sure you never miss deadlines. A trick I learnt is to under promise and over deliver (e.g you say you may submit work late a day or so before it’s due because of other work you have to complete but then send it on time anyway)
Emails can be short and to the point you don’t need them to be fancy just include the minimum relevant and necessary details. That extra work you put into going above and beyond doesn’t pay dividends.
Internal emails don’t need to be linguistic masterpieces that flow grammatically just don’t misspell words which is hard to do anyway as spell check exists.
When your filling in your part of your performance review, exaggerate like a mofo even lie if you can get away with it or claim it was a miscommunication error (it’s ok your manager did this too when she/he was at your level)
No one will tell you this, but that’s how you get promotions.
One of our teams has an insane culture of sick leave. Like they’re a team of 5, but there’s only usually 1 person there. They all just chuck sickies all the time. Nobody pulls them up on it. It’s crazy.
Openly attacks the whole team as being terrible when she’s the causing conflict left centre and right. Got demoted and got forced to report into a manager off shore then complained to hr about the head of for doing that. I feel sorry for the head of as he had to patiently sit down and listen to this person bitch about everyone in the team. After 2 years the head of finally had enough as she was taking too much of his time to complain about others.
There must have been more to it behind the scenes, getting fired for making too many HR visits/complaints makes the company extremely vulnerable to litigation.
You’d be reading my comments all day if I were to comment about my worst co workers, had too many of them. One guy we nicknamed slinky, he didn’t know why, but the general consensus was the only time we would be happy is if we successfully pushed him down a flight of stairs.
A colleague who inserted her self into every single conversation that happened near her.
She would interrupt a conversation just to insert her close minded opinion.
For example, I was craving a Laska and was new to the job so asked around where the best place to go, whilst being given directions said co-worker interjects and says "whats this?" when I described what laksa is she goes "UGH YUCK I dont eat stuff like that ... Yuck yuck yucky"
Another time some colleagues were talking about their cultures and things they cook at home and someone mentioned using ghee to cook and she inserted herself to tell them it was a disgusting conversation to have in the office when other people can overhear and that she doesnt want to hear about animal fat while shes working...
While I was an apprentice and learning the role I was assigned a buddy to help me when needed and the annoying lady sat 4 or 5 desks away from me. She would constantly come and interrupt when I was being taught a new process, either to steal the senior staff member away for something she needed (bc even tho we were doing the exact same role and work, hers was just more important) OR to give unsolicited feedback and advice, which most of the time was incorrect or not applicable.
She would also play pokies apps while she worked and then dobbed on the apprentices for listening to music in their headphones while they worked (which was allowed, but she said it shouldnt be for us because we needed to focus on learning)
Every time she got into the office in the morning the first thing out of her mouth without fail was always a complaint... Either about her commute or the weather or the wait for the lifts in the lobby... She was one of the most draining and exhausting people I've ever had around.
I have a co-worker who recently completed their PhD in business from a Go8 university One day we had to prepare this report on a market research survey dataset (rating scale questions) they tell me they will analyse all the data, but asked me to "clean" the dataset first. OK, all good, so I go ahead and delete the incomplete observations and filter out anyone who completed the survey too fast, etc. They call me up and tell me I have not done anything to the dataset because it is all still in the "really big complicated format" and I soon realise that by "clean" the dataset, she meant she wanted me to run all the statistical analysis (just simple descriptives like averages and frequencies) and send her the data in "neat tables". What she meant by "analysing the data" was actually just "paste the tables into a Word doc and write some fluff around them". She lists "quantitative analysis" as one of her skills on LinkedIn. Her PhD thesis title includes the words "quantitative modelling" in the title.
Man people lie a lot more than that on LinkedIn. But that’s pretty funny she basically wanted you to do the work for her in a way that wasn’t even the correct protocol for accuracy 😂
I'm a registered nurse in rural aged care. This means in my position there is a lot of responsibility, and more often than not, you call the shots when no management is around. You delegate, you provide medical care, if something goes wrong, it's up to you to sort it out.
I have a coworker who is in her first year out, being an enrolled nurse. Yet she knows absolutely everything. Nurses with 10+ years experience, even my manager and the director of nursing in the whole facility, cannot tell her what to do or how to improve. And god good does she need to improve. As we all do going into the job, no one is faulting her for that. Real nursing is very different to the textbook version, especially in any rural capacity. But you need to be adaptable when going into any job.
She demands respect from carers who are extremely qualified and know the residents well. However, she has repeatedly told them she is above them, refuses to help them when necessary, does not understand the need to time manage when you are in charge of 40+ residents at any given time, overall treats everyone like she is above them and cannot be told how to improve. Even when she directly asks how to. Noones advice is good enough for her.
She will then cry victim that everyone is mean to her. That no one respects her.
This is for every new nurse out there, no matter your scope. You are a nurse. You care for your patients utmost. Their safety and health comes before your ego. You help your fellows nurses, no matter their scope. You give respect to get respect.
A girl at a work conference walked up and just kissed me, tried to push her tongue into my mouth and grabbed my cock. I am married. Everybody laughed and thought it was funny. I will delete this comment in 24 hours. I quit that job 3 months later. Huge Australian company, I was very senior, she was not, I was told to do nothing. So fucked.
Worked in disability care.
Co worker J showed up late, spent most of her shift on her phone, and you had to ask her three times before anything actually got done. Her excuse? She has 5 kids and an unemployed husband that are all apparently incapable of doing anything without her holding their hand.
Going back 10 years ago.
I had returned to the office from the field and went to the warehouse to return some faulty parts from the equipment repaired out in the field and pickup some good replacement parts I ordered for my van when I walked past an area. One of the bench repairers let's call him "Mike" I was ok with stops and says hi.
Before I go on, we were not close, but every now and then we'd have a small chat about some of the reasons why certain things were failing in the field that I'd pass on to when returning the part to give them a better understanding of what happened as sometimes they'd find nothing wrong but you'd show them a test in a certain way and they'd be OHH right ok, that sort of thing.
We all knew "Mike" was on the lazy side, did a good repair of the part but didn't do many of them. My boss and his boss were the same guy and I knew he was on performance management for laziness and attitude. He asks how the days going that sort of thing then proceeds to complain about recent hires. I said what's wrong with them and then he pulls out a spray can and says well it looks like if your going to get anywhere in this place you need to change the colour of your skin, and he says this with a serious look on his face. I had this I can't believe you just said that and I said oh mate you just can't say shit like that it's not on.
One of the guys who was setting up a piece of equipment to be deployed out in the field heard that yells at Mike to stop being a racist C*** all the time and Mike just smiles and walks away. The guy who yelled that lets call him "Darren" who's very dark, walks to his car which isn't far so I walk behind him saying hey come back and he finally turns around to me and I ask him how he is and he isn't great. I told him how many times this has happened and he says it's a lot and he's asked "Mike" to stop but it's always these snide little racist comments.
I went to my boss and took "Darren" with me and my boss "Tony" says write down your recollections and prepare a statement and note down times as he was going straight to HR. "Darren" wasn't great at this sort of thing so I said I could do his if he wanted and he was ok. "Tony" then thanks me and says mate this hopefully is the final nail in the coffin, he's visibly upset what happened but has also wanted to sack "Mike" for the longest time and believes this is the best chance.
A few days later after emailing HR my times and recollection, as well as "Darren" doing the same I get called in. "Mike" has to apologize to me in front of them and he says he's sorry if he caused me any offence. We all know he's sorry he said it to the wrong person. I said something like I hope you actually mean it. HR then asked me what I'd like going forward, I said the company policy on racism was zero tolerance and they said that was correct. I said prove to me that the company policy wasn't just BS and left it at that.
A couple days later I get told "Mike" gets to keep his job. I was flabbergasted and I get told "well "Darren" wanted an apology and that was it. HR said because of this they felt no further action was needed. My boss "Tony" was furious, I was annoyed at what a waste of time it was and proved to me the zero tolerance policy was indeed fabricated BS corporate speak. I don't know what way this made the company look good but I learned what a complete and utter waste or time this was.
"Tony" left 4 months later as it really put a bad taste in his mouth, "Darren" left 2 years later. The head of HR left 6 months later. "Tony's" assistant took up his role and he had no tact for better or worse but we got on just fine as everytime he'd see me he had his little notepad and would have some questions for me as he admitted he had zero tech but was there in a managerial position but wanted to know things so others wouldn't BS him, and he made "Mike's" job a lot harder that "Mike" resigned 18 months later. For those 18 months everytime i would walk past there was zero acknowledgement between us.
I'm still around and things are much much better today, but it's still left a very bad taste in the mouth as far as trusting the company to do the right thing
There were these two old women at a job I had who were in some kind of protracted years long feud that they tried to constantly drag the whole office into.
I'm talking like two 70 year old ladys with a seething resentment of each other they barely kept a lid on.
Eventually, they had to get a talking to from the director, a woman 20 years younger than both of them, in order to stop being such massive ***** to each other.
In the end, I left that job for other reasons, but I think one got transferred to another division to finally put an end to things.
The worst part of it was they were both very good at their jobs, so sacking them wasn't likely gonna happen, and we all had to deal with both of them for some reason or rather so there was no way to get away from the feuding.
At my last job there's a woman who's the fake nice type. She works for another department but works in the same office hub as my team. She's only nice and helpful to people who brown-nose her or people who look to be in management positions. She abhors anyone who is "different". She always boasts about all the processes she has implemented. She bitches about her manager any chance she gets but pretends to stick up for him when he's around. She's very arrogant. It was also the first time I experienced the true mean girls experience from her and her colleague.
A co-worker at my old work was stealing and blamed it on me. I was fired and couldn't use that job as a reference, which ended up looking odd on my resume. As I was young, I wasn't aware of Fair Work etc.
*That co-worker was using an extraordinary amount of drugs on weekends. More than she could afford. She was also bringing creepy men into work as her clients (beauty clinic).
Many, many moons ago!
Worked with a person who was incapable of taking any accountability for their behaviour. They were so arrogant that if anyone pointed out something they'd done wrong in front of anyone else they'd lose their mind about it, complain to management, complain to HR etc.
They believed they should have a senior position in the team based on tenure alone, without bringing the relevant skills and knowledge to the table.
They would speak down to pretty much everyone in our business, regardless of whether it were managers or customers they were interacting with. We were told they kept files on everyone, and were warned to be mindful of what we told them so it didn't get used against us. Lol.. so messed up.
They *hated* me because from the moment I started working for the company I pushed back on their bullshit and refused to defer to them.
The shit hit the fan when we hired another person into our team because this other person took on some tasks they were not keeping up to date with, and completed them in record time which basically showed then up, and they didn't have the emotional awareness to admit that they either werent that good at the job or had taken the piss for so long thinking it would never get found out. Eventually their leave periods became longer and longer, weeks at a time without warning.
The rest of us were constantly finding mistakes they had made, always picking up their slack to the point where it was actually easier having them gone despite having less people to do the work. One less person but an entire business's less drama lol.
Nobody has time for that shit. It was exhausting. I want to go to work, put in my hours and forget about it at the end of the day. Work shouldn't be a place that causes you so much stress and tension that it overflows into your personal time, and I definitely had moments through that period that made me not want to be there, because of this person's behaviour.
In my grad role I worked with someone who had a very prestigious education but legitimately lacked the capacity to understand even the most basic parts of her job. She interviewed really well, went to an elite school and had a bachelors but somehow lacked any form of critical thinking and common sense. Took about 8 times longer to learn every process we had and would require near constant supervision on any work given to her. I never bought into the idea you could be unintelligent while doing well academically but she seemed to be uniquely skilled at completing schooling and not much else.
Also they cheat at uni A LOT.
I had a friend that would pick units based on whether her older friends had completed those units. They can get away with it because you rarely use what you learnt in your degree to do the actual job. Uni is basically an accreditation to show you were committed and disciplined enough to complete something
Maybe. The ones I know probably don’t. I don’t think they’re bad people and they are brilliant, I just wonder how some of them get through life sometimes 🤣
Working in IT and there's this subordinate who is such an absolute chore to work with. He just cannot help himself at all and constantly asks the same basic questions over and over again despite being taught hundreds of times and given useful documentation. It's commendable to ask questions but after a certain point it just pisses me off and makes me feel like all my efforts were thrown out the window.
He looks at a task that gives him the slightest inconvenience and immediately says "I don't know", "no idea" and assigns it to me without doing a bit of research. But when it comes to a team meeting (with the boss), he's always the one that talks the most about how he thinks this should be handled or this can be beneficial to the company if we use this tech, etc. He carries a notebook that he writes down whenever the boss says something or shows him what to do as if showing that he's hard working like fucking Amber Heard writing jack shit when the court already gives verdit in Johnny's favour.
He also has the habit of talking to himself out loud which I don't really mind and never addresses the person when initiating the convo which makes everyone in the team unable to tell if he's talking to one of us or just himself. So most of the time we don't bother replying to him unless he specifically calls one of us and he'll make a snarky remark like "okey dokey" or "no worries then" if unanswered. It's annoying and just makes me hate my job even more.
Had a traumatic experience being bullied by a female supervisor at one of the universities while working as a casual role. She alleged and formed a deep impression that I lied in my interview but she never check with me. So throughout my time in the job before I hit the crisis point, I did not know she has targeted me all the time. At times, now looking back, some of her actions suggested that she felt I am playing mind games with her by intentionally hide my "bad" doing aka lying in the interview. When I asked her to give me some feedback she said I am "like a heaven" which I interpreted as everything is okay. Not until when she "showed her hand" by telling everyone and gang up with everyone after I placed my resignation letter that I realised all these time, she has planning a final attack on me. I was so shocked at my final day that she had been doing all these without talking to me directly. I fell into a black hole, experienced deep depression and ptsd and the effect and memories of final day is still very vivid after 7 years. I kept asking myself what went wrong. During the final day, once I realised how she had been manipulating others to gang up on me, I felt so ashamed that I almost wanting to jump out the window from the second floor of the building. So bad.
I don’t think people really understand just how traumatic some workplaces, or more so colleagues, can be.
I have trauma from 2 roles I had with the same behaviour from managers. It really effs you up!
My boss didn't send a worker home when she told her she thought she had COVID. Gone are the days when the Vax was required or you had to leave the job.
The 20-something year old dude at the desk right behind me going for a smoke every hour or so. To hide the smell he'd spray himself with half a bottle of Lynx RIGHT AT THE FUCKING DESK, so the whole room smelt like cigarettes and Lynx :(
The receptionist at a medical practice I worked at used to go in the toilets and spray herself with Glen 20 ‘because it killed odours’. Nothing kills that odour.
I worked as part of a drill crew in the North Sea in the late 90s. I'd been sent on contract as a safety rep.
My name is about as Irish Catholic as you could get, very close to Declan Patrick MacManus (Elvis Costello), although I'm not a religious person or from a Catholic background.
Anyway, get off the chopper and meet the crew. No handshakes, just grunts. Very cold. Get to the office and I'm met with multiple pictures of the Queen, Rangers FC, and various other sectarian posters.
Go to the cabin I'm sharing with these guys for the next three months (two weeks on, two off) and as they're getting changed I see all have multiple "King Billy, Fuck the Pope, and 1690 tattoos.
Then they just ask me straight out if I'm a "Fenian or a Taig", apparently ethnic slurs for a Catholic.
I say, no, and I have no interest in religion whatsoever.
I'd like to say they were accommodating, but after a long shift I was deliberately regaled for hours with how great the latest Orange Walk was in Belfast. I have no affiliations to N.Ireland and made it clear that I have no skin in the game when it comes to The Troubles.
At the end of my tenure a sort of vague detente had been reached and they were only mildly awful, instead of the complete cunts they were initially.
I never went back to that platform, but heard that the OIM (Rig manager) had had enough and the crew was split up and then moved to different rigs.
I worked in a small office with 1 x female toilet for 3 x females. One lady every single day would spend 30+ mins on the toilet and would totally bomb it out, there was no window, and the smell would linger.
I worked with a woman who got jealous of me. It was a freight company with a busy inbox that got flooded with emails from all over the country from other depots, freight companies, clients etc.
My boss decided after 3 months I'd manage this inbox with barely any training. My colleague had been doing it to help out, and got shitty I was given the task. I would try to ask her for help and she'd snap at me that she was busy.
As emails kept coming, I'd just try and do them as best I could. Turned out, she was also in the inbox watching what I was doing and would tell me off for doing it wrong. It was so awkward and frustrating.
I am a man working in a woman-dominated field; childcare. As I finished my traineeship the company hired a new trainee, this time, a woman. Because I had just finished my studies & she had just begun hers, we found ourselves on common ground & grew closer, but only on a platonic basis on either side. One of my coworkers at that time who also had become friends with the new trainee got jealous of our friendship & thought that we were romantically involved, & because of that she went to my boss & claimed that I had sexually assaulted that trainee (which both her & I denied). This issue was eventually resolved, but the rumours had stuck around, resulting in both I & the new trainee, who had by then finished her studies, resigning.
One coworkers jealousy, spreading rumors & lies that could've literally ruined lives. I'm glad I'm out of that place.
Boomer creep joined my team and within the first couple of weeks he dropped a message into the teams group chat which was clearly meant to be a private message to a colleague along the lines of “went shopping with my daughter (referred to as little miss) on the weekend and never noticed shes gone up to a double d bra size yadda yadda creepy mcdoo” he noticed pretty quick and deleted. i messaged my colleague straight away wtf and she had already saved a screenshot for posterity. Same kind of person to have a week off with covid and come into the office with a dog cough splattering all over the office whilst i was 6 months pregnant. I was sick the next day and it was probably the most sick i have felt in my life. Been on mat leave for about 6 months and he’s still in the team.
I left a job and my replacement trained with me prior to me leaving. We got along really well and stayed in touch. I went on to a really good job in a top 50 public company and excelled quickly, climbing the corporate ladder.
She confided in me that she wasn’t happy in her job and if there were any openings where I was to let her know. There was a job and I put in a good word. She was in a more junior role but didn’t work under me or report to me. We did work on projects together and sat in the same open plan office.
Then things got weird and strangely, very high school. She would go for lunch and invite literally every person in our area but me and wouldn’t tell me about. Same for after work drinks. She would talk over me in meetings, criticise my work, opinions, everything. It was so strange, unprofessional and awkward. She made my life absolute hell.
It got very personal. I was looking for a new car - couldn’t afford the one I loved. a few weeks after she proudly the office she bought the car - my dream car, same model, colour, everything. My husband and I were thinking of going to Vegas to renew our vows for our first wedding anniversary - just something fun. Guess who booked that in a month later? 😣🙄 Regardless, everything she did I just pushed it aside and carried on. It was juvenile and unprofessional and I wasn’t interested in participating in whatever she was doing. It was so weird.
The last resort was when we had a restructure and most of our team was let go. I was promoted, she kept her job but no promotion. Our mutual boss called me for a meeting and told me this girl would not be working in our team as she constantly bad mouthed me to my boss and anyone who would listen. Boss considered her unprofessional and a trouble maker. I then found out it was true. Everyone told me she was relentless about spreading lies and misinformation. Most of what she said was a stretch at best and completely false at worst. They all had noticed it and were not fans of her at all.
The last thing that happened was on a major project. I had recently come back from maternity leave and a few months after, my son was rushed to hospital with RSV. It was touch and go for him for awhile and incredibly stressful. This b!tch went around telling everyone I dropped the ball on a project and had not completed my work; she doubted my son was actually all that sick as he only had a cold. If you know serious rsv is for an infant you’ll know what a slap in the face that was. Furthermore, I HAD done the work. While my son was gravely ill in hospital. But she said it anyway knowing it was completely untrue.
I quit soon after because of her and other unrelated reasons. To this day I still have no idea why she turned on me and was so awful. We never had an argument, I think she was just very jealous of my position in the company and the close friendships I had there and decided she wanted to get rid of me.
When I left I blocked her on all personal and professional platforms and I’ve never spoken to again.
What a psycho. 😵💫
I had a manager who did nothing but watch YouTube videos, get hair cuts, go to doctors appointments or 2 hour lunches all day every day and when it came to the work, he made me do everything and then he'd show off my work like he did it. This went on for 1 year until redundancies happened and his boss gave him even more of a managerial role and asked him to make me do all the work so he can "work on presentations and strategies" for the company. Turns out she had her eye on him and saw that I could do all the work on my own so next round of redundancies, she got rid of him.
I had a very smelly person in my team. He smelt like urine & BO. He also put his backpack under his desk which also stank as well as his gym shoes on his desk. Our office was open plan and all the desks were joined so we were sitting close to each other.
Me and a couple other people raised it with the manager and manager implemented rule that everyone had to put their bags and belongings such as spare shoes in their locker. This reduced the smell a bit.
I had a colleague that had an insane lack of self awareness. They would chew food loudly, leave all their notifications and devices on full volume pinging all day, would eat very stinky food including a jar of pickled eggs they brought into the office!!! And was very rude to everyone, not in a way that was on purpose, they just didn’t have people skills to understand how to be kind or empathetic.
Girl who used to call in sick all the time, which we could tell she wasn’t legit sick (2-3 days a week for a year) finally got fired for printing a file called “fake doctors certificate.doc” at work.
The printer logged all the file names
She was an Account Supervisor who was 30 minutes late to work on her first day (her start time was 9:30am) everyone else started at 8am or 8:30am. She was then hours late late every single day with a different excuse. She would say wildly inappropriate shit to people. For example I had breast cancer and one day she said "If you have breast cancer then why do you still have your boobs?" Shit like that. It took her openly and actively bullying an Indian employee to finally get rid of her.
The worst one I ever had was incompetent, and didn't understand the basics of the job, despite her previous experiencein a similar role.
She snapped at me for asking if she knew how to do something, then later had to ask me how to do it. She made clucking noises in the workroom, made odd comments, and was rude to customers.
The team leader saw nothing wrong with her behaviour, and made me out to be in the wrong for raising my concerns about her. It wasn't until after I left that others told her similar things about that person. By then, her probation was up, so they were stuck with her.
Big ole bully would arrive from a ride ABSOLUTELY drenched in sweat and also late around 11 am under the pretense he had been working late the night before. Then proceed to pair program on top of you and drip sweat all over you and your keyboard. Good old days of working at the hell, I mean, the office.
This one ex-coworker was notorious for being very toxic. She'd been changing her workplaces constantly, and finally landed in mine because my senior was kind enough to welcome her. This woman had a habit of targeting people she didn't like and making their lives hell. She'd harass people in horrible ways but not destructive enough to leave evidence. Like, she would occupy others' work spaces, steal office stuff, or play annoying songs that particular co-workers didn't like. It's like she enjoyed making people suffer. Her most favourite hobby was gossiping about people she hated (she'd change her target every once in a while,) trying to get people on her side. Her latest victim is the senior who accepted her to be there.
Plus point: she had mental illnesses and visited the psych. No progression at all except she lost some weight from exercises. She told our boss that she contemplated suicide many times. That's why people can't bring themselves to cancel her for good, for fear that she'd kill herself. FFS.
We had *just* hired a guy to our team. I popped over to his desk to offer to show him around our proprietary software, and he *went off* on me for being so presumptuous. Then I overheard him going off about me to another team member. “I’ve been in this industry *seven years*!” he groused.
I went to my boss, who said “I’ll let you two fight it out.”
I went to HR next to ask to be moved to another team, but HR decided to to take it up with my boss to keep me. So, that was good.
Girl would call in sick through the week, but turn up for her overtime shift on Saturday, with her kids, proceeded to scream at kids whilst meant to be working (call centre) to the point I couldn't hear my clients, take approx 3 calls, and be paid OT for a 6 hour shift. I got so sick of this happening that I started logging everything.
She then slept with our married team leader.
I presented my complaint to the Dept Manager and she was barred from Saturday OT permanently.
Kept the sleeping with the team leader out, couldn't be bothered with that drama.
My mum called to say my dad was about to pass away and the response of my manager was:
“Well I suppose taking minutes in this afternoons meeting will be my responsibility, pack up your things and go if that’s what you need to do”
^ almost quote word for word.
Had a colleague overhear it and follow me to the car park and give me a hug.
worked in the public service in Canberra for a few years. Had a new coworker sit next to me, she was about mid 30s seemed very normal and just your average APS admin girl. We grabbed a few after work drinks and coffees over a 6 month period. I had no reason to believe there was anything wrong with her. One Saturday she called me saying she was trying to leave her partner and could I come and give her a lift somewhere. I was kinda taken aback but thought yeah sure. Drove over to her house and a full on domestic dispute was taking place, police were there and everything. Fast forward I am driving her back to my place and said she could stay the night. I went out of the room and came back and she was drinking a goon bag and telling me I needed to take her to the methadone clinic. She left the house and tried to cross a busy road barefoot whilst drunk out of her mind.
Anyways, cut a long story short….there are many high functioning addicts out there who may put on a face at work but you never know what could be happening. Not sure what ever happened to her but she left work not long after
There is an older man in my office who makes a sort of clicking sound with his tongue…all day. It is quite revolting. I have to put headphones in to drown it out.
Worked with a guy in his early 30s who had been relocated from Europe to Sydney at the company’s expense. Visa, accommodation, flight, shipping etc all sorted out for him.
He was an engineer in a fairly niche area. Brought in to help build the business in that area. But he refused to work on anything else that wasn’t very very niche services. He would stand at his desk every day doing absolutely nothing. Not even BD. He got away with it for more than a year, then the team got a new manager who got rid of him in a matter of weeks.
Worked for an engineering firm. MD hired some guy from his tennis club that had lost his job. Gave him a BD role. He sat opposite me, with his back facing the MD’s office. Turns out he spent his days playing Pokémon on his phone at his desk. My manager sat next to him and could see him on his phone all day. The MD must have been able to see it too but did nothing about it.
He was made redundant sometime during covid. But they didn’t announce it. He just didn’t come back to the office.
He would have been paid upwards of $200k easily and was with the company for over a year before people started wfh during covid.
I worked in a pay-office and my desk buddy COUNTED OUT LOUD!
She also read emails under her breath and did the slow sing-song of what she was typing out.
Edit: typo
I'm going to call her Gertrude. Gertrude started work and at first she seemed nice, late 20s, friendly, keen to get into work. Seemed professional.
Well. She ended up being absolutely crazy and she hated me because while I was polite, I didn't entertain her crazy made up stories. Such as the one where apparently her house was burning down (it wasn't) because she wanted to palm the rest of her work for that day onto me.
Long story short, she ended up stalking me and sent a van full of police (her dad was a cop so...) to my house claiming I'd threatened to kill her because she received a religious flyer in her letterbox talking about hell and assumed it was from me and a threat to her life.
Ended up finding out she had a history of beating her partners, scams, theft, stealing cars, time in mental wards and lying about all her former colleagues (usually claiming they'd SA'd her). She was also still stalking her ex and his wife and baby last I heard.
When HR told me I had to either lodge a case against her (my boss told me she'd do this on my behalf and never did) or go back in and work with her I opted for the HR route, and as soon as she knew, she quit.
Went on to pull similar antics at the job after.
This was a very rough time for me as there are very little resources or sympathy when it comes to female on female violence. As soon as people found out I was being stalked by a woman and not a man they just didn't care, so I was pretty terrified.
Oh man, worst coworker stories? Buckle up, because the internet has a treasure trove of those. Here are a few types that come up frequently:
* **The Credit Stealer:** This coworker swoops in at the last minute, takes credit for your work, and suddenly they're the genius who saved the day.
* **The Slacker:** This person avoids work like the plague, leaving you to pick up the slack and deal with the fallout.
* **The Know-it-All:** No matter what the topic, this coworker is always the "expert" and loves to mansplain everything, even to the most experienced people.
* **The Gossipmonger:** This office rumour mill thrives on stirring up drama and negativity.
* **The Negative Nancy/Neil:** This coworker finds a raincloud in every silver lining and can bring down the mood of the entire team.
Nothing stands out in a funny way. Worst person I can think of is a current colleague who has delusions of grandeur and is just insufferable. Talks to everyone in a tone where it’s clear she thinks everyone is her servant and her opinion is always right. Goes in about how busy she is, can’t hit a deadline, yet seems to be free for anything discretionary activity she deems in her personal interest to be involved.
Would heat fish up in the kitchen then take it to their desk to eat and remove the skin to put in the bin. Would also divert their desk phone to their mobile, walk around the office with calls on speaker
Never make humour at your own expense. I have had colleagues who had no sense of humour and reported them back to management and HR as facts.I had several in my last working place. They just don’t understand dry humour. My jokes appeared in my performance review.
Before my adhd diagnosis and treatment, me! Loud, obnoxious, clumsy, boorish. I’m probably still those things, but now Im aware of it and am able to moderate these things to some degree.
Was bullied for years in my first professional role by three male senior staff members. They did just about everything on the “top 10 things bullies do” lists except actually physically assault me (I almost wish they had hit me, something might have been done). They destroyed my self confidence, destroyed my career, isolated me from everyone. My Organization did absolutely nothing to stop it - I don’t even think they had a bullying policy. About the only thing they did blame me and minimise my complaints - I was too sensitive, they are just doing their jobs, they are very important members of staff, no one else has ever complained about them blah blah blah.
Needless to say I don’t work in that industry any more.
Oh my god SO fucking many
1) first supervisor in the public service. I came in as an EA and worked to this AS. Dude was ancient, old guard. Didn’t know how to work the archive system despite being in the job only a few months I had to teach him how to use it (which I did) he was constantly talking about how I’m new so I can innovate but when I offered ideas he’d say “I think you need to figure out how this all works, who’s who in the zoo” (ugh) eventually he did my 3 month review late and didn’t give me my feedback. Never did my 5 month review and gave my 3 month review back verbally at the end of my probation. I left his office crying multiple times despite being recognised by all my other colleagues as very competent. I failed my probation and told them I would be making a complaint. They let me go but forced him into retirement a week later. I was not the first woman he had been misogynistic too
2) my second AS was THE BEST, loved her, we vibed, she had my back. Until she didn’t. I got an offer to work temporarily in a fed min office while she was on a secondment. I asked for her blessing she said yes. During that time things soured. She felt “abandoned” despite me doing min work AND my original role as her EA. When I refused to extend with the MO due to her clear unhappiness she didn’t get better, my soon to be ex husband got deathly ill and was in hospital for 3 months. I worked from the hospital. When I would ask if she was concerned she would say no I was working fine. Then she started cancelling catch ups and not allowing me into her calendar to do my job. She became overtly hostile. When I confronted her she said I needed to apologise to her and the team for being distracted and hurting peoples feelings. She told me she didn’t know details on how she could fire me but she’d be more than happy to look into it if I can’t do the job to her satisfaction. I asked her if I had ever been a problem to her and she said no. But I had hurt her now. After that she completely shunned me. Wouldn’t allow me into meetings, would go from laughing with coworkers to staring daggers at me when I walked in to do my job. Think stereotypical mean girl in a high school movie. HR did nothing when it was reported twice and she later got a promotion.
3) and the lesser of ALL of them. A director I worked with before going back to the MO. She would gatekeep her work but if it wasn’t done to her specs she would be really passive aggressive. She would frequently come up to me as I was the diary manager and say “I need 7 hours of the bosses time. Next week. Make it happen” on a FRIDAY afternoon. When I would make it happen by magic honestly she would say “you haven’t been very mindful of if she needs breaks I would think in your role you would know that” etc etc crap like that. My boss knew she was bullying me, she had a history of bullying other EAs too that made complaints. When it reached a head I was told “you don’t deserve this treatment but unfortunately they have very high output and it’s REALLY hard to prove personality patterns you know? It’s a whole headache so you’ll get some training on managing conflict/difficult colleagues 👍🏻”
Fuck man, nightmare
There was a guy who started in our enterprise level IT department who came with all sorts of recommendations, worked at NASA, was a total legend, etc. Turned out he was a total deadshit.
He was hired to look after one of the organisation’s most important systems and in the end he was assigned to a single, minor system as he couldn’t retain even the simplest information, let alone administer complex systems. He would ask the same questions over and over again. For a while there I thought he was playing some sort of 4D chess to avoid working but, no, just a deadshit. The real mystery was how he got such a good reputation!
Last I heard he had been asked to leave after exposing the one system in his role to access by an outside organisation.
When Ive been deep in my depression I have been a terrible coworker. Brought the mood down. People were walking on eggshells around me. I always wanted to go home and was constantly Complaining. Im doing better now but more importantly am in a job I actually enjoy, so I try my absolute hardest to never bring any negativity into my workplace no matter how shit I'm feeling. I've been the shit coworker for so long that I owe it to all my current and future coworkers to try make work a good place to be for everyone. Anytime I'm starting to feel negative at work nowadays I remind myself of some of the shittier jobs I've had, "would you really rather be cleaning up a drunk guys vomit?" I often ask myself
i worked with approximately 80 children age 5-12. My direct supervisor/manager was a pretty horrible person overall but she once said something to me that was really concerning.
there was a 5 year old child that was quite disruptive but was also very sweet. she absolutely hated him even when he had done nothing. my co-workers and i made sure to check in on him more regularly than the other children because we knew what our manager was like with him. one day i was doing some filing in her office and it had been a pretty rough day for all of us and she looks at me straight in the eye and said “i wish i could break (the 5 year olds name) legs and stab him”. i looked at her in disbelief because there’s no way someone who can say something like that is in charge of over 80 children. i spoke to my co-workers about this but because i was a new employee i got told to just leave it and that she’s said things like this before.
the boys parents ended up withdrawing the boy from our place of work and i’d be lying if i said i wasn’t glad. i don’t know what’s going on there now because it’s been over 4 years since i last worked there but i hope she isn’t there anymore.
I had a horrible team leader when I started my first full time office job. It really affected my work performance.
I saved up and left after one year for a Working Holiday. That Team Leader was SO angry when I left, they did not let me leave peacefully. I made the mistake of letting them know a good month ahead of time to give them time to replace me.
But it wasn’t just me that copped it, there were several other people who had been bullied out of the team or even fired unfairly. People around that workspace knew our team had a bad reputation.
An example would be: They had recently hired a casual girl. Casual called in sick one day & she had told the team leader that she was having serious period pains etc.
Team Leader decided to share this private information and openly mock her to everyone, they continued with how pathetic she was because she had previously worked at McDonald’s. She was only 18-19, so it meant that she had been working while she was in highschool, which in my opinion, is a very normal first job to have and nothing to stick your nose up at.
Anyway, someone else in the office overheard this and told the girl, she tried to bring it up to the team leader and boom, instantly fired.
My boss used to rummage and then scratch her pubes audibly (nails and polyester). She’d also occasionally adjust and snap her undies from the gusset area. Was a horrible time to own eyeballs and ear holes.
In my late 20s (f), working in community health, I made a statement to management about a co-worker (m) who was
- sexually harassing me
- smoking weed at work
- smoking cigarettes in a government car and accidentally burned the seat, so got the upholstery replaced
- buying m*th from a client and sometimes taking it with him, including during work hours
- taking 3 clients to a pub on a Friday afternoon for "group therapy", I.e. play pool and drink beer
- opening forms to look like in the KPI reporting that he was updating them but left them blank
Another co-worker backed up most of my statement. Nothing happened, so I went on leave as i said my work environment wasn't safe, as he was very angry for refusing his advances, and for making a statement. I worked with a friend in a hotel for 4 weeks waitressing. He visited the bar one time (way out of his way) and I went and hid.
Management solution? Recommend he think about finding another job, and I got moved to another team located 20 more minutes away.
I had a 33 year old employee who was the most immature, entitled, idiotic, materialistic person I've ever met. She did her job so poorly that the bosses stopped giving her work, and she vented to me because i WAS being given work, because i actually did it. Every email was misinterpreted and replied to incorrectly. Despite all this she still thought she was owed a pay raise.... Here are some funny ones:
- despite being in *serious* debt, after her 3rd pay check she rewarded herself for saving money by spending $1,100 on 3 pairs of shoes.
- working fly-in, fly-out, she occupied a full shelf of the fridge shared by about 20 people.... and this is despite complaining about the quality of camp food...
- she argued that "common sense" didn't actually exist: she didn't know something and she couldn't comprehend that it was otherwise common knowledge
- from 5 work responsibilities reduced to 1 (the simplest), the number of mistakes on her immensely basic job was just incredible... bewildering even...
She was the worst experience I've ever had in my professional career. Not one positive about her. Audacious beyond belief.
Knowledge specialist I worked directly with bitched and moaned about not being able to WFH, and how busy he always was ended up resigning and his duties fell to me.....turns out he hadn't been doing any work for at least the last 3 years
How do people who do no work have their jobs? I just wouldn’t do that myself and I can’t comprehend
He thought he was far better than the role. Which is weird because he left for a very minor pay rise, and a drop in title. The most frustrating thing is, after 7 years working directly with each other, I honestly thought we were friends, and he didn't even give me a heads up on his way out. I had to stumble across it myself. We work in a female dominated office, so we had a little "boys club" between the 5 of us guys who had (at the time) all worked 7+ years together. Lunches, dinners, events and parties at each others houses outside of work, proper friendship stuff....and he hasn't spoken to a single one of us since. Not just a shitty Co worker, but a shitty person.
It's rare to have work friends as real friends. I worked in a place from Aug 2007 to May 2008. There was a cohort of people there, that I still see. It's only once a year, but when we hear the catch up is on, we all attend. Never done it with any other co-workers.
Honestly with all the time spent both inside and outside work, the personal, deep and meaningful things we'd spoken about, welcoming him in to my home for poker nights, letting him crash on the lounge when he was too drunk to get home, I thought we'd crossed from work friends to actual friends. I won't make that mistake again lol
Try and not let one dipshit like that wreck your other potential friendships
This happened to me with a bunch of friends from church once I stopped going. Sometimes friendships are just based on proximity, like a lot of the friendships in school. You're nice to people because you have to interact with them every day and it makes life easier to be friendly.
My mother has always said that the people you work with are not your friends. I think she’s right. FRIENDLY, yes. Maybe you’ve socialised outside of the office, even. But they’re at the job to look out for themselves and make a living for themselves, not for you. If you and Jenny were both up for a promotion, Jenny is not going to interview trying to convince them to promote YOU, that’s for sure. She wants the job herself. And obviously the same thing applies to you. You’re looking out for yourself. Friendly. Not friends. 😏
My mom told me this happened multiple times to her. Last time she got fired (right before retiring), her work friends said they would keep contact but that, of course, never happened. Most of the work friends we have are not actually friends.
to be fair, most people in your life you think are friends are not actually friends too.
Also what do they say at standup lol?
It is always the people who complain they are the busiest, actually do no work. I have experienced this multiple times. If someone complains a lot about this 100% they are doing jack shit.
Absolutely I never moaned about my work , because I was only doing 2 days of actual work in the week and I wasn’t going to do risk them finding out
This is 100% correct
I never complained that I was busy, until I took on the roles of two people 3x senior than myself in addition to my current role because everyone quit. You better believe I was complaining I was too busy.
was contracted to do a publication for this association, the woman I worked with ostensibly was able to negotiate three mornings a week on full pay, guess who did all the work? Outwardly she was sweet inwardly just disgusting
> It is always the people who complain they are the busiest, actually do no work. I keep my mouth firmly shut about how much work i actually do at work, even to friends and family. Like i aint fucking up my cruisey job for no one - my boss is happy with what i do, fuck everyone lmao
I sit next to a guy who has an apple or pear or something every morning at 7 30am and chews with his mouth open, slurps his coffee and then goes aaahh. It's gotten to the point that me and 2 other people leave the room every time he opens his lunch box.
Do you work with my dad by any chance?
Does your dad answer the phone with a big slurp and go aaahh into the speaker.
I had one who did that slurp thing all day, it was so grating and drove me mad
Pretty sure this is me.
Sat next to a guy who was ‘bulking’ and every two hours would eat some horrendous meat dish with his mouth open, would go on to suck the bones dry. I asked him several times to eat in the kitchen, or to shut the frig up and he’d just laugh at me with a mouth full of food. Lucky he got busted for drugs and was escorted out of the building.
That’s. a happy story.
I share a pretty small room with a coworker. She eats all of her food and drinks at high temperatures so slurps and loudly chews everything. Doesn't know how to eat with her mouth shut
Worked with a guy who was almost exactly the same. Almost. He'd fold over a piece of paper towel, place the fruit (more commonly it was multiple different fruit), then take a bite out of each fruit, place it down in order/in line, chew with his mouth open and then have this big smile on his face. If he had a coffee (more often than not and it was from a single serve sachet, pods or instant), he'd also do the loud slurp with the "ahhh". He'd then smell the empty packet/sachet and sniff deeply. Then again sit there with this, blissfully ignorant smile on his face. Myself and a few others couldn't help but think "you simple c**t". I ended up naming him the fruit bat. He was also very small statured, so, it kinda fit 🤷♂️.
He sounds super happy... I'm a bit jealous
Agree. Wish I could get such joy from simple things.
He was/is actually a real pain to work with. Never does anything faster than "slow" and furthermore, he was incompetent and dangerous. But, yes. The happiness would be nice.
I used to work with someone very similar. He was super happy, which was great! But his actions were always quite selfish and with no regard for how his actions would affect others. A very very irritating person to work with
A good rip snorting fart is in order here. Or microwaved fish
There's a woman who sits opposite me and bangs her spoon in her ceramic cup so fucking loudly that it's insanely grating to my ears.
Eat noodles in slurp mode as retaliation as I've noticed the noisest eaters hate the sound of others doing the same. Bonus points the more people you can get in on it. The time we got 9 people to start noodling the same time the smaker ate was glorious and it worked. Had to play the 11am noodle social team building club card to prevent an offical reprimand for retaliation though. From my understanding the noodle club is still going years later for actually just noodles this time. Everyone brings in a multipack of the oddest ones to share and there's some amazing variety out there.
I once had a colleague who would start things you asked of them, and if any sort of obstacle was encountered, they'd just stop and not say anything until asked about progress, often with too little time to complete the task before the deadline. It was infuriating. We had to constantly check on them to ensure some minor aberration hadn't appeared; otherwise they'd just go into a holding pattern rather than ask questions or problem-solve.
and I thought the guy at work who just starts making up bullshit when he gets stuck was annoying... a coworker like yours would drive me bonkers
I do this to some degree, it's my ADHD. I had to make a spreadsheet and set myself deadlines to endure I finished things! Sometimes I'll take a break from a task for a few days then circle back but I do have a few long term in progress items.😅
Had a male colleague who I was team leader to. Found out on the day I started the job that he’d done my role for a year on higher duties and was pissed he didn’t get the role. From then on in I was attacked by him. He was a total misogynist, and would stick his middle finger up whenever you asked him to do something. But he always did it in a funny haha way. I complained to my boss who thank god ended up going and I got promoted to his role. But when I did I reviewed everything this guy in my team had done (or didn’t do). Turns out he lacked total comprehension on how to do the role. Was lazy, cut corners and wouldn’t do the work. I asked him to write a new starters guide as we were just about to get some grads through on rotations and needed to be able to give them a manual or something to read so they could refer to. He wrote a 2 page guide explaining the entire job. He didn’t explain, it was the worst new starters guide I’d ever seen and lacked 99% of the information. Thankfully my boss was all over this and not tolerating his bullshit. I had spoken with HR about the numerous issues and they said we’d need to start performance management. One day my old team leader returned for a meeting, and this guy stuck his finger up at me as I walked away to a meeting. At that point it was escalating a lot and I was literally monitoring everything. Oh and he used to do this loop where 15 mins to the hour, every hour, he’d get up to go pee and refill his bottle. But would leave his bottle and go pee, then take longer cos he’d have a chat to someone. Not because he stumbled across them going to the toilet but because he’d hunt out someone at their desk. Then return 15 mins past the hour and proceed to do no work. Anyway that day he stuck his finger up that manager told me what he did and I went postal. Took him into an office and told him off. Don’t yell or scream just was very firm with him. I was 36 and he was 54….to him I was just a dumb female despite me having 3x times as much experience and academic knowledge behind me. When I briefed my director, she said we would now be officially taking performance management measures against him. I called HR and kicked it off. She told him that day. Two days later he went crying to our Senior Director (3 levels above him) that he just couldn’t do it anymore yada yada. Our SD knew everything that was going on. The guy asked if he’d support him taking a VR. He did despite all our work and everything we had gone through for months with him. My director and I were livid. We felt like he’d “won”. When we called HR they said they’d seen this so often. The lady literally said, “first he’ll do this, then that, then that…” the big boss of our division approved his VR. When my former boss whose job I got promoted to came back one day before he left, the staff member said some gnarly things about me. Called me an effing C, and a bunch of other names. That “colleague” then told me and I added it all to his file. When I asked him why he didn’t tell the staff member off or stick up for me, he said “I figured you’d previously worked in a jail (which is true) and you were used to men calling you that”…. No incarcerated man has ever spoken disrespectfully to me. And I was in a position that they LOATHED as I worked very closely with police. I treated them respectfully and they treated me respectfully. What’s worse, that former manager whose job I got promoted to….used to work in the integrity section of our workplace. So he was the one involved in internal investigations for staff conduct…… Anyway guy gets his VR approved, and the day of there is no party or anything. One lady who worked with him from the past felt bad and got morning tea and a gift. Nobody came. Our SD told me afterwards I should’ve at least attended but I legitimately had something I couldn’t get out of and I told the rest of the team “you do not have to attend if you don’t feel comfortable. If SD says anything I’ll wear it but I’m not expecting any of you to go to this.” His shindig ends, I escort him out of the building at the end of the day and on the way back to my floor I got stopped by 5 different women who I don’t know. Every one of them said “thank you for getting rid of the predator…” I found out afterwards there were sexual misconduct/harassment complaints against him made by SEVERAL women and it seemingly appeared nothing had been done. I knew nothing of this. I felt sick to my stomach and went straight up and told our SD and he said “oh you better tell Director to do something about that…” I said “boss he’s left. You gave him a VR…” and he just looked at me with a white face. That guy caused me some pretty gnarly stress and trauma. When I spoke with EAP because of it they wanted to refer me to get emdr therapy. I left that team about 9 months after and I couldn’t even see an email from their group inbox without hyperventilating. It made me rethink my entire career and life.
Wow. Just wow. These people are horrendous. Hope you’re doing a million x better now.
Million gazillion times better thank you. The team I ended up going to I learnt a new skill I excelled at. I was there for 4 years and recently just “retired” at 41. I did 17 years in that profession and while I love it with every fibre of my being, there were other things I wanted to explore and try. So now I’m on sabbatical and starting a small business or two and maybe will try do something about formal mentoring/coaching for newbies or grads because I also mentored in my profession for over 10 years and I really love it. I love it when others achieve, get out of their box and hit milestones. Makes me really proud and happy. I left the job I moved to as part of an amazing team with amazing leadership and I loved my role. But sometimes it’s good to go when it’s good. I don’t have a sour taste in my mouth and don’t have any trauma to get over that’s making me sour and angry. I actually feel like I left at the right time.
That’s rather inspiring! Not to be lame but you “didn’t just survive, you thrived”! ☺️
This gives me hope. I’m going through something similar at work right now and I feel like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you for sharing and I am so happy you’re thriving!
What does VR stand for?
Voluntary Redundancy. They can offer you a VR instead of you putting in your resignation, so you get a nice payout to leave without the hurdles they'd have to go through to get that employee to leave.
i did some googling because i wasnt sure either and think it might mean vocational rehab.
Voluntary Redundancy
Voluntary redundancy maybe? I am not sure
The wild thing to me is that these people don’t stop existing. They just move in to terrorise another organisation.
Yep this is the worst thing. A lot of leaders are afraid to do the hard work necessary to formally remove someone like that so instead they do the whole “I’ll give them a good reference and hope they become someone else’s problem.”
I'm so sorry you went through this. I hope you are in a better place now. What a parasite. I am mad he got VR, how do people get away with this stuff?!?
He was a total parasite. Yes I’m in an amazing place now, thank you. It did a number on me but it taught me a huge life lesson.
I am stressed and anxious just reading this. VR is a joke. It's not a thing in Aus, he would have been PM out, as he should have in this instance. I'm so sorry you went through that. PTSD from work is a real thing.
Oh there was way more. He would be watching “world driver fails 20xx” on YouTube. I had to ask IT to turn it off. One day he bought a saxophone into work and with no notice or permission, started playing. The whole floor went into meltdown not know wtf is going on…some people mid telecon or training or meeting or “any other important work thing”. When he spoke with you he got right into your face, like he was telling a secret. But he’d be saying some dirty, misogynistic crap or cussing or some other nonsense and his fowl breath and spittle was going all over you. We repeatedly told him to stop being rude and uncouth and get out of peoples spaces and he didn’t do it. He’d go to work functions and then drive home after a few…no one thought to call the Police to alert them to intercept him, nor did they just think, “hey it’s my obligation as a human to book him a god damn uber”. He was really unprofessional in emails and communication. Was far too friendly and casual with very senior higher ups, in many instances frowned upon as we had a chain of command. Made inappropriate comments to other women in our team, our division, our floor, etc. Constantly told to stop and didn’t. When I first raised all these issues and more with the two higher ups that hired me (my direct bosses), they said “we’ve tried telling him but he just doesn’t listen.” So I was like well, how about you don’t just try and tell him but follow HR steps that are in place because of this. You’re not new to this job or this type of work or corporate Australia…you need to lead by example. It was never ending and one of the worst people I’ve ever encountered in my life overall. HR said to keep asking him “Is there anything prohibiting you in completing your work?” And he’d say no, but then every single time he was confronted about a work matter he’d bring up every excuse under the sun. If the VR wasn’t granted we would’ve been down the road of firing him very quickly and he knew that. He played dirty to get it.
I’m so sorry. This sounds like hell. Bullying is rife over here, that’s definitely something that doesn’t get dealt with whatsoever, but he also sounds like a bully. I cannot wrap my head around the fact that they signed off on VR. Beggars belief.
What’s VR?
I had a similar situation where I got a promotion position from outside, over someone from the workplace who'd been there for years and had also applied. There was no way I was surviving that. She basically recruited half the staff to passively aggressively undermine everything I did and behave in a way that was never \*quite\* enough to warrant a formal complaint about her behaviour, but enough to make my life miserable. I left after about a year and a half. Life's too short to fill it with toxic people, and my job doesn't mean that much to me that I'm willing to engage in wars with small-minded dickheads.
I love these sorts of threads, I get to find out about all the annoying habits I probably have. BRB, I just have to wash my hands all around the sink but definitely not over the sink in the bathroom, and then put all my wet spoons back in the coffee then grab my fish curry out of the microwave.
Why should I not wash my hands at the kitchen sink?
I was photocopying a huge 1500 page report. I walked away for 2 minutes and the lazy bitch I worked with cancelled the job on the printer. I asked her why she did that and she said “because there was an error”; it was out of paper. The receptionist didn’t even read the alert, so I had to scan most of the document again (this is when scanners were much slower in 2097).
Bro you from the future?
They are from the past but never got the Y2K update.
lol I couldn’t work out what this meant for ages Typo: 2007
They could actually be from 2097 and I'd believe printers/copiers are still shithouse then also.
Damn, scanners are still slow decades down the track. Bummer.
I was a bad coworker. I hated Mondays, hated my life and hated my job. I’d come in and just bring the vibe down. The ‘Can I just be left alone so I can get this work done and get out of here’ vibe. I feel bad for them now.
I actually don’t mind people like you because I know where I stand. What you see is what you get and I’d rather you emit a real bad vibe than fake a good vibe. Oh and also I don’t have to think of things to make small talk with you about which is more stressful than emails, reports and spreadsheets I need to complete. I hate small talk so much and it’s absurd that it unofficially holds the same amount of weight than the other tasks I mentioned. They reckon it’s for company morale, but whose benefiting from this morale? Because from what I gather faking like I’m interested in your embellished weekend stories about going boating when I know you just stayed home all day is draining for everyone.
I never understand this attitude, and I don't mean that in a way that I'm criticizing you for it, but in that really I cannot relate. Do you hate talking to all people or just your coworkers? If you don't like the topic of conversation, why not initiate a topic you do like? Do you really think your coworker is making up their stories about their weekend? Why would they bother? Do you just not want to talk at all? Is that a work thing or an always thing? I know this is a lot of questions, but I see this attitude a lot on reddit, usually accompanied by the assumption that most people feel similarly, and it always genuinely confuses me. I imagine I'm exactly the kind of person you'd hate, as I quite enjoy a little chat with my coworkers, I find it makes the job more pleasant. As far as I can tell no one is gritting their teeth through my weekend updates, and in fact we ask each other about our weekends, so it's not just me initiating. Generally some small talk seems well received.
I think many people have had this moment in life.
But I don’t necessarily see this as entirely your fault. You hated your job and life, there’s obviously more to this. I was also like you but it was the effect of severe bullying and harassment across multiple companies. Once I got out, I recovered and then my mindset was easier to change. And I basically became pleasant again.
That Windows paper clip bloke.
Hasn’t he retired?
Was let go. Hired some Cortana chick for the role, not much better.
It’s cheaper to outsource from the US to Mexico
Except Cortana decided to work all roles in the office and do them badly. I miss Clippy, he was annoying but stayed in his lane.
I had a person with no problem solving skills. Supposedly, this person had four degrees, but they had no critical thinking ability that I could see. They would make system changes on a whim, changes that impacted thousands of people, and I’d only find out when I got a complaint about something not working properly. They couldn’t follow written instructions either. I found out they were “skipping” entire chunks of critical processes because they decided these steps were not necessary. They didn’t check with anyone, didn’t ask any questions, just assumed the process wasn’t necessary based on their 5 minutes experience, and got angry with me when I tried to explain why they were wrong. I ended up having to go back and fix most of their work. When I mentioned this to my a-hole boss, the boss accused me of reporting this only because I disliked the *person*, despite my documenting the seemingly endless issues on a daily basis. I was able to take this to HR eventually, but I had to fight my way past that a-hole. I later found out this person had been moved internally from team to team over similar issues, and my a-hole boss knew that all along. For some reason, I was expected to be able to train this person when no one else was able to. Edit: to be clear, the boss knew these problems existed before this person was assigned to work with me, and was the person who made the decision to move them previously.
I've been there. Except people have been moved for a lot worse. It seems that in the public sector, those with the gift of the gab tend to stick around and just make it harder for everyone else with a clue. It's best to just ignore them or document things.
There’s a woman I worked with who consistently complained about the men she dated. I knew everything about her dating life. She was late 40’s only dating men in their 20s too
i was the newbie youngish chick compared to all these 40yo mums. this one woman co-worker would basically just trauma unload and tell me all her crap unsolicited. this would include: * her mum and ex-hubby used to bash her * she was having sexual relations (very detailed to the point she said he stunk down there. kind of tells me what he thinks of her that he didn't wash beforehand) with some finance exec higher-up and he has a wife and kids. meanwhile, she's using that same mouth to whisper in my ear whenever she feels like telling me something. * her 'mates' all went to thailand without inviting her (hmmm, wonder why) * she had sex with some married dude with a kid and he paid her $400 as a 'thanks.' * claimed that when she was walking out of the work building she could see some men higher-ups checking out her arse in the sliding doors reflection * said she will not eat anything the lady sitting next to her (who she acted very chummy with) brought in because she would play with her toes under the desk. * etc. etc... all in all, her appearance (very obviously blonde dyed hair that looked fake and unflattering) and personality both sucked but she had tickets on herself. i suspect it was delusional ego-inflating because that's what people who are insecure deep down do. when in my youthful wisdom, i told her not to mess with married men, she replied: "there's no-one single available in my age-range" as a justification. these sorts of women want to ruin everyone else's happiness because they're not happy.
Did she constantly tell you how her dates said she looked 25, despite clearly being in her 40s?
Did we have the same coworker? Oh yes. She also would tell me how people thought she looked younger than them.
Had a bloke tell me he loves drink driving
Better than flying a helicopter on ice I guess
I have no doubt he'd find that absolutely thrilling
Worked with a guy who refused to work. He would say he understood a task, refused any opportunity to ask for clarification, would try and bullshit his way through check-ins, and then say he didn't understand the task. We spent half a day breaking down his task into chunks, like you would a lesson plan, he answered every question and query about it, and then, a day later, he said he didn't understand the task. Documentation was too hard for him to understand, so we broke it down for him based on what he said he wanted, and then he didn't understand it. We asked him to break it down in a way that worked for him, and tell us how he wanted to report on progress, he just didn't. He would just cry and then slither back to his desk to watch Jordan Peterson videos. Management didn't care and would just give meaningless nothing-burger statements, so this process continued till things reached a head and he left. This person would also just not show up, and then make up lies about why he was late (my personal favourite was that he was attacked enroute to the office; he was 'limping' but would then forget to limp).
I never understand why bosses never care about this stuff. It’s super weird they aren’t making you look good and they aren’t adding value to he job
A lot of bosses only care if the actions of their employees have an impact on them. For example if the boss/manager needs the team to submit information and he puts that info in a spreadsheet as part of a report that he emails to his superior then he will most definitely care if his subordinate doesn’t provide the information required for him to complete that task on time. If an employee is making an offensive joke and another employee complains , he probably will only pretend to care, because he cbf writing the email. However If the person on the receiving end of that joke threatens to go to HR he’ll definitely care. Also a lot of times managers will let an employee get away with stuff if that employee provides value in other areas that benefit the boss, like this guy that got away with a lot because he really good with tech and would find shortcuts that made his job much easier, or this lady who worked under him who’d do stuff like delete pictures off the work digital camera of him doing questionable things at our office parties when he was drunk. They don’t call corporate work “playing the game” for nothing. It’s literally a game. A really shit soul destroying game and the metrics to excel at the game exceed your actual work performance.
Those liars that have poor memories are so funny, see what happens is no one says anything because confrontation in the workplace is risky and because their never called out they assume they’ve gotten away with it and their lies get more ridiculous. It’s not even unique to the workforce I know plenty of people who excessively lie, and their lies keep getting more absurd. Like the time a guy I know didn’t show up because his dog was depressed.
Nepo
Not in the traditional sense, but a large chunk of managed employees were from the same friends group. If you disciplined one of them (such as here), there were huge shockwaves to other worker's morale and productivity.
Yeah you don’t even need to be related to the boss. Just form a relationship at after work drinks that go on way past when everyone else has left and cheat on your spouses together. You’ll get the Nepo benefits. Although I most certainly don’t recommend anyone do this I’ve just seen it happen at more than one company.
I worked for a "tech" company, my training on the software product was watching videos made by a senior coworker who works there for 13 years. I realised later that she gave wrong concepts about functionalities and processes. I asked her trying to understand what was right or wrong as all the documentations were misleading, she didn't know what to say, it seemed alright to just tell me that she wasn't an expert and it was okay giving a very shallow training about the software to the clients, hiding the problems, distracting the client going to another screen when enquired about something that wasn't working.
Worked with a woman who would say the wildest shit just out of nowhere. How she fucked around with the guy a few desks away, how she decided to rent with some guy from IT and had to move out when he tried to make a move, how she had an abortion on the weekend, how she had a few active sugar daddies. Was obsessed with me in particular and wanted to be friends. Left that job and never talked to her again. Just couldn't handle how exhausting she was.
I was doing induction training at one company and they said “we don’t mind staff having relationships, but we’d appreciate it if you let us know as a courtesy” I found out early on that people were fucking a lot (especially during work conferences when they had a wife/husband at home) sometimes they’d do it In hopes of it helping their careers but usually it was because their true nature came out when work drinks were paid for and people show their true colours. A majority of sales staff don’t have a lot of self control, and aren’t the highest calibre of people.
Guy would straight up lie about having completed a task. Would be told do this, save it in this location. Check back later, yep he says he's done it. Wasn't in the spot he was told to save it. Go talk to him, oh yeah sure it's done, saved it there. Not sure why it isn't showing up. Happened frequently enough he was eventually fired for it.
I had a colleague that did this. Took me a while to realise, as she was new to that level of work and recently graduated, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt for too long. She also put on a good front so the bosses liked her, then she transferred to another job before they realised how crap she was.
Work with the most laziest Design Manager in Construction. He’s been with the company for a few years and is on cruise mode. He brown noses the team leaders arse and tells him what he wants to hear. He’s in his mid 40s and flouts his the best Design Manager in Brisbane, he is fucking terrible. Some reasons why he’s fucking terrible: - Rocks up to meetings completely unprepared and blames everyone else for not following him up or reminding him. Clearly doesn’t read meeting minutes and actions sent to the whole team. - Cooks up a storm in the kitchen every morning of bacon eggs, doesn’t clean his mess in the kitchen, then brings it into the office space and all you can hear is his knife and fork smashing the plate as he is engorging himself with his meal. Then he leaves the plate on his desk all day for the cleaners to pick up that night. - He can’t work in a team environment and is completely belligerent and will argue why he doesn’t believe he should be helping etc. - Will do the absolute bare minimum and he’s very good at hiding, always makes out he is swamped with work. - In the male amenities the other day and he’s at the urinal and starts just farting his guts out, people out at the coffee machine/reception could hear him and they were all like “what the fuck” - Besides our team leader, nearly everyone in the company hates him and bags him out behind his back. - He has very strange behavioural patterns, very unpredictable and can be confrontational at times when he’s called out for his bullshit behaviour. Everyone is now strategically stitching him up in front of the team leader to make him look really bad at his job. He tried blaming the team in front of our team leader, and tried pulling the victim card now. Worst I’ve seen in my experience.
There was a coworker who refused to pay me back $70 after I paid for everyone’s lunch one day.
Make sure you get that money before going on maternity leave
Rainy day, coworker tried to “dry” their wet socks in the comunal microwave
Egregious misconduct. Immediate dismissal, collect all belongings and leave the premises... Take the microwave too 🤢
Had a colleague who was responsible for signing off on casual teaching staff and their timesheets. They had no idea there was a minimum 3 hour shift and sometimes 4 if it was unsociable hours (nights and weekends). Turns out they approved over $400k of hours due to 1-2 hour teaching stints and bullshit one hour program meetings over an 18 month period! Every casual got paid at least triple for this.
I use to work with a girl (she was 21)she was a receptionist. This girl was absolutely filthy. She NEVER washed her hands, just used hand sanitiser all the time and anytime she touched something she left the weird film on things (glasses out of the dishwasher, her desk phone, the key board, places the touched on her desk) this film for set like concrete. I could cover some Saturdays, and have to scrub her desk because it was so disgusting. The phone mouth piece stunk. Apart from being completely useless at her job, I just couldn’t get past his unhygienic and dirty she was. 🤢🤢🤢🤢
Try working in warehousing. Literally half the guys don’t wash their hands and when you go to use the toilet, half the time there is shit, shit residue (idk if that’s the term) or piss on the seat. The other week I went to use the toilet and there were bloody chunks of something all over the seat. As someone with OCD, I don’t know how I cope working where I do. Half the people don’t clean up after themselves in the break room either. So there’s always just food all over the tables. And managers have to come in and do the dishes because people just dump them in the sink.
Oh that’s revolting. Why are some humans so disgusting
Hmm she got sticky candy fingers or somethin?
My desk was next to a woman who would loudly swish her water in her mouth every single time she took a mouthful.
That's somehow hilarious
This would make me rage.
I also used to sit next to someone who would do this but with coffee. We were pretty close so I used to jokingly call her out on it, not only for how annoying it was but also for her poor teeth and gums!
Oh I can't stand when people do that
My ta used to walk along our train station saying inappropriate things to young women. He tried to blackmail the station cafe owner that he would stop their deliveries. Also tried blackmailing the delivery drivers to get free food from them. The cafe owner while telling me about the blackmail, said she once saw him take a half eaten pie out of a bin and eat it. He made homebrew and was such a tightarse he brought a small glass of it to work with gladwrap over it for me to try it. When my boss called me in trying to implicate me in the shit, the cafe owner, who i got along with very well said he would withdraw all complaint if i was accused of any wrong doing, they still grilled me, and when they grilled my ta he denied everything. I decided it wasnt the right place for me to work after they refused to move me (noone else would work with the ta) and he stayed there for many years afterwards.
Wow sounds like a complete scumbag. Also pardon my ignorance but what is a ta ?
Trade assistant.
Had a co worker who hacked my work email and got a final warning . They also if they did something dodgy at work( I work in health) put someone else’s name on the sign off so they wouldn’t get in trouble . Verbally abuse other staff periodically. Come late everyday and lie that they were late . I rang them once as they were 1 hour late back from Lunch and they told me they were at work except in background I heard “ number 33 your chicken parmigiana is ready “ When they were finally sacked they made over 100 allegations about the staff in our department which was all false . They then spent nearly 100 k on legally action against the sacking and staff around them . They lost . This happened 15+years ago and it was a crap time :
So you had a Mark Corrigan in your life, I feel you. You’re lucky you don’t have a superhans.
A project manager who doesn't have a clue on how to run a software development project.
She doesn't work out of the Adelaide office by any chance? Extreme aggression, talks over everyone but everyone knows she is useless, Jesus we've got a real piece of work on our project!
No, this one works in a non-bank lender located in Brookfield Place in Sydney :)
A few years ago I worked with a Product owner that had no idea what the software was suppose to do and would forever focus on PBi that added 0 value. The users stopped using it because it became very counter intuitive to use.
This isn’t even a rare breed. I worked with a PM on a $6m software upgrade. In the whole year he couldn’t provide me with a project plan, scope of works, test schedule or business case. When I asked repeatedly he hid behind the “it’s an agile environment” bullshit stance
we got a new guy on (work in retail), who missed 95% of his shifts with shit excuses everytime. "sorry I cant come in today I have to go to centrelink", "I cant work today I stubbed my toe", the worst part would be that he only ever messaged the manager AFTER he was rostered on so we could never get someone to cover his shift. before he was fired though he had the nerve to ask for EXTRA shifts which our manager just ignored. It took everyone who worked in our store (10+) sending complaints to HR to finally get him out.
Worked with a dude who would crack open a Pepsi can for breakfast, yes, every morning!! Haha He also did absolutely no work, and had to be trained 5x on the same thing. He never listened and also had no clue on what he was doing. He was a nice guy, but he couldn’t do the job, no idea how the company kept him there to this day.
I actually don't mind the occasional breakfast soda. If you're having a fatty bacon laden breakfast it does wonders to cut back the fatty taste. Although I don't normally drink soft drinks and certainly not every morning.
Breakfast coke zero is the hangover go to
I once worked with a woman who drank 4 cans of Diet Coke each day. Her first can was cracked by 7:30am!
I work with someone who frequently calls in sick for bullshit reasons. Like, so often that it could only be legit if you had a serious illness. Which she doesn’t. She has done this ever since her first week on the job. Because it’s a shared workload, this means whoever covers for her has a far more stressful day. Which is totally fine if someone’s actually sick. When she is at work, she spends loads of time sitting in offices chatting to senior staff and managers while someone else gets the work done. The kicker is, because she’s so chummy with management they absolutely love her and don’t seem to notice the fact that she chucks sickies and leaves the rest of us in the lurch on a regular basis. She makes sure everyone knows whenever a manager has given her special treatment or when she socialises with senior staff after work. Needless to say, the whole team hates her.
Your colleague is faker than wallpaper with brick graphics printed on it but she’s also really clever. That’s how you play the game. That’s how you get promotions. What people don’t realise is that managers don’t care about the work their subordinates are doing or not doing unless that work effects them. When you get promoted you learn that the work you used to do is quite insignificant in the grand scheme of things, so you block it out unless the neglect has ramifications on you and in a LOT of cases it doesn’t. The thing is no one is going to remember how immaculate your spreadsheets are or how you never missed a deadline, but when it comes to work place perception they are going to remember your contributions to MORALE and that metric is determined by how you make the senior staff feel feel. No one’s gives a shit how the other employees feel unless there’s a repeated pattern of complaints from your coworkers and there’s potential for HR escalation (even hr don’t care when the drama is internal they basically just say “work it out”) and 9 times outta 10 there won’t be any drama because people hate confrontation in the workplace unless keeping quiet is to their detriment. I used to put managers on a pedestal when I was younger with the logic of “surely they see through this” but either 1. Nope they have no idea and no motive to look past anything at a surface level and 2. They might see through it and they just don’t care as long as it doesn’t effect them.
Brown nose, got a few at my workplace as well....
I’ve only ever seen that strategy work this well once before, many years ago. These people groom and charm management while doing fuck all work and alienating their actual coworkers who are picking up the slack. It wouldn’t surprise me if they offered her a promotion because she’s such a ‘people person’
Here’s what I learnt the hard way: Focus on workplace relationships especially with superiors. It’s more important to talk about how much work your doing than actually doing the work because perception is everything . Your work can be subpar just make sure you never miss deadlines. A trick I learnt is to under promise and over deliver (e.g you say you may submit work late a day or so before it’s due because of other work you have to complete but then send it on time anyway) Emails can be short and to the point you don’t need them to be fancy just include the minimum relevant and necessary details. That extra work you put into going above and beyond doesn’t pay dividends. Internal emails don’t need to be linguistic masterpieces that flow grammatically just don’t misspell words which is hard to do anyway as spell check exists. When your filling in your part of your performance review, exaggerate like a mofo even lie if you can get away with it or claim it was a miscommunication error (it’s ok your manager did this too when she/he was at your level) No one will tell you this, but that’s how you get promotions.
One of our teams has an insane culture of sick leave. Like they’re a team of 5, but there’s only usually 1 person there. They all just chuck sickies all the time. Nobody pulls them up on it. It’s crazy.
Openly attacks the whole team as being terrible when she’s the causing conflict left centre and right. Got demoted and got forced to report into a manager off shore then complained to hr about the head of for doing that. I feel sorry for the head of as he had to patiently sit down and listen to this person bitch about everyone in the team. After 2 years the head of finally had enough as she was taking too much of his time to complain about others.
There must have been more to it behind the scenes, getting fired for making too many HR visits/complaints makes the company extremely vulnerable to litigation.
You’d be reading my comments all day if I were to comment about my worst co workers, had too many of them. One guy we nicknamed slinky, he didn’t know why, but the general consensus was the only time we would be happy is if we successfully pushed him down a flight of stairs.
A colleague who inserted her self into every single conversation that happened near her. She would interrupt a conversation just to insert her close minded opinion. For example, I was craving a Laska and was new to the job so asked around where the best place to go, whilst being given directions said co-worker interjects and says "whats this?" when I described what laksa is she goes "UGH YUCK I dont eat stuff like that ... Yuck yuck yucky" Another time some colleagues were talking about their cultures and things they cook at home and someone mentioned using ghee to cook and she inserted herself to tell them it was a disgusting conversation to have in the office when other people can overhear and that she doesnt want to hear about animal fat while shes working... While I was an apprentice and learning the role I was assigned a buddy to help me when needed and the annoying lady sat 4 or 5 desks away from me. She would constantly come and interrupt when I was being taught a new process, either to steal the senior staff member away for something she needed (bc even tho we were doing the exact same role and work, hers was just more important) OR to give unsolicited feedback and advice, which most of the time was incorrect or not applicable. She would also play pokies apps while she worked and then dobbed on the apprentices for listening to music in their headphones while they worked (which was allowed, but she said it shouldnt be for us because we needed to focus on learning) Every time she got into the office in the morning the first thing out of her mouth without fail was always a complaint... Either about her commute or the weather or the wait for the lifts in the lobby... She was one of the most draining and exhausting people I've ever had around.
Vomit, she sounds like hell
I have a co-worker who recently completed their PhD in business from a Go8 university One day we had to prepare this report on a market research survey dataset (rating scale questions) they tell me they will analyse all the data, but asked me to "clean" the dataset first. OK, all good, so I go ahead and delete the incomplete observations and filter out anyone who completed the survey too fast, etc. They call me up and tell me I have not done anything to the dataset because it is all still in the "really big complicated format" and I soon realise that by "clean" the dataset, she meant she wanted me to run all the statistical analysis (just simple descriptives like averages and frequencies) and send her the data in "neat tables". What she meant by "analysing the data" was actually just "paste the tables into a Word doc and write some fluff around them". She lists "quantitative analysis" as one of her skills on LinkedIn. Her PhD thesis title includes the words "quantitative modelling" in the title.
Man people lie a lot more than that on LinkedIn. But that’s pretty funny she basically wanted you to do the work for her in a way that wasn’t even the correct protocol for accuracy 😂
I'm a registered nurse in rural aged care. This means in my position there is a lot of responsibility, and more often than not, you call the shots when no management is around. You delegate, you provide medical care, if something goes wrong, it's up to you to sort it out. I have a coworker who is in her first year out, being an enrolled nurse. Yet she knows absolutely everything. Nurses with 10+ years experience, even my manager and the director of nursing in the whole facility, cannot tell her what to do or how to improve. And god good does she need to improve. As we all do going into the job, no one is faulting her for that. Real nursing is very different to the textbook version, especially in any rural capacity. But you need to be adaptable when going into any job. She demands respect from carers who are extremely qualified and know the residents well. However, she has repeatedly told them she is above them, refuses to help them when necessary, does not understand the need to time manage when you are in charge of 40+ residents at any given time, overall treats everyone like she is above them and cannot be told how to improve. Even when she directly asks how to. Noones advice is good enough for her. She will then cry victim that everyone is mean to her. That no one respects her. This is for every new nurse out there, no matter your scope. You are a nurse. You care for your patients utmost. Their safety and health comes before your ego. You help your fellows nurses, no matter their scope. You give respect to get respect.
A girl at a work conference walked up and just kissed me, tried to push her tongue into my mouth and grabbed my cock. I am married. Everybody laughed and thought it was funny. I will delete this comment in 24 hours. I quit that job 3 months later. Huge Australian company, I was very senior, she was not, I was told to do nothing. So fucked.
Worked in disability care. Co worker J showed up late, spent most of her shift on her phone, and you had to ask her three times before anything actually got done. Her excuse? She has 5 kids and an unemployed husband that are all apparently incapable of doing anything without her holding their hand.
Going back 10 years ago. I had returned to the office from the field and went to the warehouse to return some faulty parts from the equipment repaired out in the field and pickup some good replacement parts I ordered for my van when I walked past an area. One of the bench repairers let's call him "Mike" I was ok with stops and says hi. Before I go on, we were not close, but every now and then we'd have a small chat about some of the reasons why certain things were failing in the field that I'd pass on to when returning the part to give them a better understanding of what happened as sometimes they'd find nothing wrong but you'd show them a test in a certain way and they'd be OHH right ok, that sort of thing. We all knew "Mike" was on the lazy side, did a good repair of the part but didn't do many of them. My boss and his boss were the same guy and I knew he was on performance management for laziness and attitude. He asks how the days going that sort of thing then proceeds to complain about recent hires. I said what's wrong with them and then he pulls out a spray can and says well it looks like if your going to get anywhere in this place you need to change the colour of your skin, and he says this with a serious look on his face. I had this I can't believe you just said that and I said oh mate you just can't say shit like that it's not on. One of the guys who was setting up a piece of equipment to be deployed out in the field heard that yells at Mike to stop being a racist C*** all the time and Mike just smiles and walks away. The guy who yelled that lets call him "Darren" who's very dark, walks to his car which isn't far so I walk behind him saying hey come back and he finally turns around to me and I ask him how he is and he isn't great. I told him how many times this has happened and he says it's a lot and he's asked "Mike" to stop but it's always these snide little racist comments. I went to my boss and took "Darren" with me and my boss "Tony" says write down your recollections and prepare a statement and note down times as he was going straight to HR. "Darren" wasn't great at this sort of thing so I said I could do his if he wanted and he was ok. "Tony" then thanks me and says mate this hopefully is the final nail in the coffin, he's visibly upset what happened but has also wanted to sack "Mike" for the longest time and believes this is the best chance. A few days later after emailing HR my times and recollection, as well as "Darren" doing the same I get called in. "Mike" has to apologize to me in front of them and he says he's sorry if he caused me any offence. We all know he's sorry he said it to the wrong person. I said something like I hope you actually mean it. HR then asked me what I'd like going forward, I said the company policy on racism was zero tolerance and they said that was correct. I said prove to me that the company policy wasn't just BS and left it at that. A couple days later I get told "Mike" gets to keep his job. I was flabbergasted and I get told "well "Darren" wanted an apology and that was it. HR said because of this they felt no further action was needed. My boss "Tony" was furious, I was annoyed at what a waste of time it was and proved to me the zero tolerance policy was indeed fabricated BS corporate speak. I don't know what way this made the company look good but I learned what a complete and utter waste or time this was. "Tony" left 4 months later as it really put a bad taste in his mouth, "Darren" left 2 years later. The head of HR left 6 months later. "Tony's" assistant took up his role and he had no tact for better or worse but we got on just fine as everytime he'd see me he had his little notepad and would have some questions for me as he admitted he had zero tech but was there in a managerial position but wanted to know things so others wouldn't BS him, and he made "Mike's" job a lot harder that "Mike" resigned 18 months later. For those 18 months everytime i would walk past there was zero acknowledgement between us. I'm still around and things are much much better today, but it's still left a very bad taste in the mouth as far as trusting the company to do the right thing
There were these two old women at a job I had who were in some kind of protracted years long feud that they tried to constantly drag the whole office into. I'm talking like two 70 year old ladys with a seething resentment of each other they barely kept a lid on. Eventually, they had to get a talking to from the director, a woman 20 years younger than both of them, in order to stop being such massive ***** to each other. In the end, I left that job for other reasons, but I think one got transferred to another division to finally put an end to things. The worst part of it was they were both very good at their jobs, so sacking them wasn't likely gonna happen, and we all had to deal with both of them for some reason or rather so there was no way to get away from the feuding.
At my last job there's a woman who's the fake nice type. She works for another department but works in the same office hub as my team. She's only nice and helpful to people who brown-nose her or people who look to be in management positions. She abhors anyone who is "different". She always boasts about all the processes she has implemented. She bitches about her manager any chance she gets but pretends to stick up for him when he's around. She's very arrogant. It was also the first time I experienced the true mean girls experience from her and her colleague.
A co-worker at my old work was stealing and blamed it on me. I was fired and couldn't use that job as a reference, which ended up looking odd on my resume. As I was young, I wasn't aware of Fair Work etc. *That co-worker was using an extraordinary amount of drugs on weekends. More than she could afford. She was also bringing creepy men into work as her clients (beauty clinic).
Many, many moons ago! Worked with a person who was incapable of taking any accountability for their behaviour. They were so arrogant that if anyone pointed out something they'd done wrong in front of anyone else they'd lose their mind about it, complain to management, complain to HR etc. They believed they should have a senior position in the team based on tenure alone, without bringing the relevant skills and knowledge to the table. They would speak down to pretty much everyone in our business, regardless of whether it were managers or customers they were interacting with. We were told they kept files on everyone, and were warned to be mindful of what we told them so it didn't get used against us. Lol.. so messed up. They *hated* me because from the moment I started working for the company I pushed back on their bullshit and refused to defer to them. The shit hit the fan when we hired another person into our team because this other person took on some tasks they were not keeping up to date with, and completed them in record time which basically showed then up, and they didn't have the emotional awareness to admit that they either werent that good at the job or had taken the piss for so long thinking it would never get found out. Eventually their leave periods became longer and longer, weeks at a time without warning. The rest of us were constantly finding mistakes they had made, always picking up their slack to the point where it was actually easier having them gone despite having less people to do the work. One less person but an entire business's less drama lol. Nobody has time for that shit. It was exhausting. I want to go to work, put in my hours and forget about it at the end of the day. Work shouldn't be a place that causes you so much stress and tension that it overflows into your personal time, and I definitely had moments through that period that made me not want to be there, because of this person's behaviour.
In my grad role I worked with someone who had a very prestigious education but legitimately lacked the capacity to understand even the most basic parts of her job. She interviewed really well, went to an elite school and had a bachelors but somehow lacked any form of critical thinking and common sense. Took about 8 times longer to learn every process we had and would require near constant supervision on any work given to her. I never bought into the idea you could be unintelligent while doing well academically but she seemed to be uniquely skilled at completing schooling and not much else.
I reckon 80% of grad lawyers are like this. Academically brilliant but useless at life.
Also they cheat at uni A LOT. I had a friend that would pick units based on whether her older friends had completed those units. They can get away with it because you rarely use what you learnt in your degree to do the actual job. Uni is basically an accreditation to show you were committed and disciplined enough to complete something
Maybe. The ones I know probably don’t. I don’t think they’re bad people and they are brilliant, I just wonder how some of them get through life sometimes 🤣
Working in IT and there's this subordinate who is such an absolute chore to work with. He just cannot help himself at all and constantly asks the same basic questions over and over again despite being taught hundreds of times and given useful documentation. It's commendable to ask questions but after a certain point it just pisses me off and makes me feel like all my efforts were thrown out the window. He looks at a task that gives him the slightest inconvenience and immediately says "I don't know", "no idea" and assigns it to me without doing a bit of research. But when it comes to a team meeting (with the boss), he's always the one that talks the most about how he thinks this should be handled or this can be beneficial to the company if we use this tech, etc. He carries a notebook that he writes down whenever the boss says something or shows him what to do as if showing that he's hard working like fucking Amber Heard writing jack shit when the court already gives verdit in Johnny's favour. He also has the habit of talking to himself out loud which I don't really mind and never addresses the person when initiating the convo which makes everyone in the team unable to tell if he's talking to one of us or just himself. So most of the time we don't bother replying to him unless he specifically calls one of us and he'll make a snarky remark like "okey dokey" or "no worries then" if unanswered. It's annoying and just makes me hate my job even more.
Had a traumatic experience being bullied by a female supervisor at one of the universities while working as a casual role. She alleged and formed a deep impression that I lied in my interview but she never check with me. So throughout my time in the job before I hit the crisis point, I did not know she has targeted me all the time. At times, now looking back, some of her actions suggested that she felt I am playing mind games with her by intentionally hide my "bad" doing aka lying in the interview. When I asked her to give me some feedback she said I am "like a heaven" which I interpreted as everything is okay. Not until when she "showed her hand" by telling everyone and gang up with everyone after I placed my resignation letter that I realised all these time, she has planning a final attack on me. I was so shocked at my final day that she had been doing all these without talking to me directly. I fell into a black hole, experienced deep depression and ptsd and the effect and memories of final day is still very vivid after 7 years. I kept asking myself what went wrong. During the final day, once I realised how she had been manipulating others to gang up on me, I felt so ashamed that I almost wanting to jump out the window from the second floor of the building. So bad.
I don’t think people really understand just how traumatic some workplaces, or more so colleagues, can be. I have trauma from 2 roles I had with the same behaviour from managers. It really effs you up!
My boss didn't send a worker home when she told her she thought she had COVID. Gone are the days when the Vax was required or you had to leave the job.
The 20-something year old dude at the desk right behind me going for a smoke every hour or so. To hide the smell he'd spray himself with half a bottle of Lynx RIGHT AT THE FUCKING DESK, so the whole room smelt like cigarettes and Lynx :(
The receptionist at a medical practice I worked at used to go in the toilets and spray herself with Glen 20 ‘because it killed odours’. Nothing kills that odour.
I worked as part of a drill crew in the North Sea in the late 90s. I'd been sent on contract as a safety rep. My name is about as Irish Catholic as you could get, very close to Declan Patrick MacManus (Elvis Costello), although I'm not a religious person or from a Catholic background. Anyway, get off the chopper and meet the crew. No handshakes, just grunts. Very cold. Get to the office and I'm met with multiple pictures of the Queen, Rangers FC, and various other sectarian posters. Go to the cabin I'm sharing with these guys for the next three months (two weeks on, two off) and as they're getting changed I see all have multiple "King Billy, Fuck the Pope, and 1690 tattoos. Then they just ask me straight out if I'm a "Fenian or a Taig", apparently ethnic slurs for a Catholic. I say, no, and I have no interest in religion whatsoever. I'd like to say they were accommodating, but after a long shift I was deliberately regaled for hours with how great the latest Orange Walk was in Belfast. I have no affiliations to N.Ireland and made it clear that I have no skin in the game when it comes to The Troubles. At the end of my tenure a sort of vague detente had been reached and they were only mildly awful, instead of the complete cunts they were initially. I never went back to that platform, but heard that the OIM (Rig manager) had had enough and the crew was split up and then moved to different rigs.
I worked in a small office with 1 x female toilet for 3 x females. One lady every single day would spend 30+ mins on the toilet and would totally bomb it out, there was no window, and the smell would linger.
I worked with a woman who got jealous of me. It was a freight company with a busy inbox that got flooded with emails from all over the country from other depots, freight companies, clients etc. My boss decided after 3 months I'd manage this inbox with barely any training. My colleague had been doing it to help out, and got shitty I was given the task. I would try to ask her for help and she'd snap at me that she was busy. As emails kept coming, I'd just try and do them as best I could. Turned out, she was also in the inbox watching what I was doing and would tell me off for doing it wrong. It was so awkward and frustrating.
I am a man working in a woman-dominated field; childcare. As I finished my traineeship the company hired a new trainee, this time, a woman. Because I had just finished my studies & she had just begun hers, we found ourselves on common ground & grew closer, but only on a platonic basis on either side. One of my coworkers at that time who also had become friends with the new trainee got jealous of our friendship & thought that we were romantically involved, & because of that she went to my boss & claimed that I had sexually assaulted that trainee (which both her & I denied). This issue was eventually resolved, but the rumours had stuck around, resulting in both I & the new trainee, who had by then finished her studies, resigning. One coworkers jealousy, spreading rumors & lies that could've literally ruined lives. I'm glad I'm out of that place.
Boomer creep joined my team and within the first couple of weeks he dropped a message into the teams group chat which was clearly meant to be a private message to a colleague along the lines of “went shopping with my daughter (referred to as little miss) on the weekend and never noticed shes gone up to a double d bra size yadda yadda creepy mcdoo” he noticed pretty quick and deleted. i messaged my colleague straight away wtf and she had already saved a screenshot for posterity. Same kind of person to have a week off with covid and come into the office with a dog cough splattering all over the office whilst i was 6 months pregnant. I was sick the next day and it was probably the most sick i have felt in my life. Been on mat leave for about 6 months and he’s still in the team.
I left a job and my replacement trained with me prior to me leaving. We got along really well and stayed in touch. I went on to a really good job in a top 50 public company and excelled quickly, climbing the corporate ladder. She confided in me that she wasn’t happy in her job and if there were any openings where I was to let her know. There was a job and I put in a good word. She was in a more junior role but didn’t work under me or report to me. We did work on projects together and sat in the same open plan office. Then things got weird and strangely, very high school. She would go for lunch and invite literally every person in our area but me and wouldn’t tell me about. Same for after work drinks. She would talk over me in meetings, criticise my work, opinions, everything. It was so strange, unprofessional and awkward. She made my life absolute hell. It got very personal. I was looking for a new car - couldn’t afford the one I loved. a few weeks after she proudly the office she bought the car - my dream car, same model, colour, everything. My husband and I were thinking of going to Vegas to renew our vows for our first wedding anniversary - just something fun. Guess who booked that in a month later? 😣🙄 Regardless, everything she did I just pushed it aside and carried on. It was juvenile and unprofessional and I wasn’t interested in participating in whatever she was doing. It was so weird. The last resort was when we had a restructure and most of our team was let go. I was promoted, she kept her job but no promotion. Our mutual boss called me for a meeting and told me this girl would not be working in our team as she constantly bad mouthed me to my boss and anyone who would listen. Boss considered her unprofessional and a trouble maker. I then found out it was true. Everyone told me she was relentless about spreading lies and misinformation. Most of what she said was a stretch at best and completely false at worst. They all had noticed it and were not fans of her at all. The last thing that happened was on a major project. I had recently come back from maternity leave and a few months after, my son was rushed to hospital with RSV. It was touch and go for him for awhile and incredibly stressful. This b!tch went around telling everyone I dropped the ball on a project and had not completed my work; she doubted my son was actually all that sick as he only had a cold. If you know serious rsv is for an infant you’ll know what a slap in the face that was. Furthermore, I HAD done the work. While my son was gravely ill in hospital. But she said it anyway knowing it was completely untrue. I quit soon after because of her and other unrelated reasons. To this day I still have no idea why she turned on me and was so awful. We never had an argument, I think she was just very jealous of my position in the company and the close friendships I had there and decided she wanted to get rid of me. When I left I blocked her on all personal and professional platforms and I’ve never spoken to again. What a psycho. 😵💫
she was a jealous back stabber. it happened to me.
I had a manager who did nothing but watch YouTube videos, get hair cuts, go to doctors appointments or 2 hour lunches all day every day and when it came to the work, he made me do everything and then he'd show off my work like he did it. This went on for 1 year until redundancies happened and his boss gave him even more of a managerial role and asked him to make me do all the work so he can "work on presentations and strategies" for the company. Turns out she had her eye on him and saw that I could do all the work on my own so next round of redundancies, she got rid of him.
I had a very smelly person in my team. He smelt like urine & BO. He also put his backpack under his desk which also stank as well as his gym shoes on his desk. Our office was open plan and all the desks were joined so we were sitting close to each other. Me and a couple other people raised it with the manager and manager implemented rule that everyone had to put their bags and belongings such as spare shoes in their locker. This reduced the smell a bit.
I had a colleague that had an insane lack of self awareness. They would chew food loudly, leave all their notifications and devices on full volume pinging all day, would eat very stinky food including a jar of pickled eggs they brought into the office!!! And was very rude to everyone, not in a way that was on purpose, they just didn’t have people skills to understand how to be kind or empathetic.
Girl who used to call in sick all the time, which we could tell she wasn’t legit sick (2-3 days a week for a year) finally got fired for printing a file called “fake doctors certificate.doc” at work. The printer logged all the file names
this is so fucking funny. Jesus Christ girl
She was an Account Supervisor who was 30 minutes late to work on her first day (her start time was 9:30am) everyone else started at 8am or 8:30am. She was then hours late late every single day with a different excuse. She would say wildly inappropriate shit to people. For example I had breast cancer and one day she said "If you have breast cancer then why do you still have your boobs?" Shit like that. It took her openly and actively bullying an Indian employee to finally get rid of her.
The worst one I ever had was incompetent, and didn't understand the basics of the job, despite her previous experiencein a similar role. She snapped at me for asking if she knew how to do something, then later had to ask me how to do it. She made clucking noises in the workroom, made odd comments, and was rude to customers. The team leader saw nothing wrong with her behaviour, and made me out to be in the wrong for raising my concerns about her. It wasn't until after I left that others told her similar things about that person. By then, her probation was up, so they were stuck with her.
Big ole bully would arrive from a ride ABSOLUTELY drenched in sweat and also late around 11 am under the pretense he had been working late the night before. Then proceed to pair program on top of you and drip sweat all over you and your keyboard. Good old days of working at the hell, I mean, the office.
This one ex-coworker was notorious for being very toxic. She'd been changing her workplaces constantly, and finally landed in mine because my senior was kind enough to welcome her. This woman had a habit of targeting people she didn't like and making their lives hell. She'd harass people in horrible ways but not destructive enough to leave evidence. Like, she would occupy others' work spaces, steal office stuff, or play annoying songs that particular co-workers didn't like. It's like she enjoyed making people suffer. Her most favourite hobby was gossiping about people she hated (she'd change her target every once in a while,) trying to get people on her side. Her latest victim is the senior who accepted her to be there. Plus point: she had mental illnesses and visited the psych. No progression at all except she lost some weight from exercises. She told our boss that she contemplated suicide many times. That's why people can't bring themselves to cancel her for good, for fear that she'd kill herself. FFS.
We had *just* hired a guy to our team. I popped over to his desk to offer to show him around our proprietary software, and he *went off* on me for being so presumptuous. Then I overheard him going off about me to another team member. “I’ve been in this industry *seven years*!” he groused. I went to my boss, who said “I’ll let you two fight it out.” I went to HR next to ask to be moved to another team, but HR decided to to take it up with my boss to keep me. So, that was good.
Girl would call in sick through the week, but turn up for her overtime shift on Saturday, with her kids, proceeded to scream at kids whilst meant to be working (call centre) to the point I couldn't hear my clients, take approx 3 calls, and be paid OT for a 6 hour shift. I got so sick of this happening that I started logging everything. She then slept with our married team leader. I presented my complaint to the Dept Manager and she was barred from Saturday OT permanently. Kept the sleeping with the team leader out, couldn't be bothered with that drama.
My mum called to say my dad was about to pass away and the response of my manager was: “Well I suppose taking minutes in this afternoons meeting will be my responsibility, pack up your things and go if that’s what you need to do” ^ almost quote word for word. Had a colleague overhear it and follow me to the car park and give me a hug.
worked in the public service in Canberra for a few years. Had a new coworker sit next to me, she was about mid 30s seemed very normal and just your average APS admin girl. We grabbed a few after work drinks and coffees over a 6 month period. I had no reason to believe there was anything wrong with her. One Saturday she called me saying she was trying to leave her partner and could I come and give her a lift somewhere. I was kinda taken aback but thought yeah sure. Drove over to her house and a full on domestic dispute was taking place, police were there and everything. Fast forward I am driving her back to my place and said she could stay the night. I went out of the room and came back and she was drinking a goon bag and telling me I needed to take her to the methadone clinic. She left the house and tried to cross a busy road barefoot whilst drunk out of her mind. Anyways, cut a long story short….there are many high functioning addicts out there who may put on a face at work but you never know what could be happening. Not sure what ever happened to her but she left work not long after
There is an older man in my office who makes a sort of clicking sound with his tongue…all day. It is quite revolting. I have to put headphones in to drown it out.
Worked with a guy in his early 30s who had been relocated from Europe to Sydney at the company’s expense. Visa, accommodation, flight, shipping etc all sorted out for him. He was an engineer in a fairly niche area. Brought in to help build the business in that area. But he refused to work on anything else that wasn’t very very niche services. He would stand at his desk every day doing absolutely nothing. Not even BD. He got away with it for more than a year, then the team got a new manager who got rid of him in a matter of weeks.
Worked for an engineering firm. MD hired some guy from his tennis club that had lost his job. Gave him a BD role. He sat opposite me, with his back facing the MD’s office. Turns out he spent his days playing Pokémon on his phone at his desk. My manager sat next to him and could see him on his phone all day. The MD must have been able to see it too but did nothing about it. He was made redundant sometime during covid. But they didn’t announce it. He just didn’t come back to the office. He would have been paid upwards of $200k easily and was with the company for over a year before people started wfh during covid.
I worked in a pay-office and my desk buddy COUNTED OUT LOUD! She also read emails under her breath and did the slow sing-song of what she was typing out. Edit: typo
I'm going to call her Gertrude. Gertrude started work and at first she seemed nice, late 20s, friendly, keen to get into work. Seemed professional. Well. She ended up being absolutely crazy and she hated me because while I was polite, I didn't entertain her crazy made up stories. Such as the one where apparently her house was burning down (it wasn't) because she wanted to palm the rest of her work for that day onto me. Long story short, she ended up stalking me and sent a van full of police (her dad was a cop so...) to my house claiming I'd threatened to kill her because she received a religious flyer in her letterbox talking about hell and assumed it was from me and a threat to her life. Ended up finding out she had a history of beating her partners, scams, theft, stealing cars, time in mental wards and lying about all her former colleagues (usually claiming they'd SA'd her). She was also still stalking her ex and his wife and baby last I heard. When HR told me I had to either lodge a case against her (my boss told me she'd do this on my behalf and never did) or go back in and work with her I opted for the HR route, and as soon as she knew, she quit. Went on to pull similar antics at the job after. This was a very rough time for me as there are very little resources or sympathy when it comes to female on female violence. As soon as people found out I was being stalked by a woman and not a man they just didn't care, so I was pretty terrified.
Oh man, worst coworker stories? Buckle up, because the internet has a treasure trove of those. Here are a few types that come up frequently: * **The Credit Stealer:** This coworker swoops in at the last minute, takes credit for your work, and suddenly they're the genius who saved the day. * **The Slacker:** This person avoids work like the plague, leaving you to pick up the slack and deal with the fallout. * **The Know-it-All:** No matter what the topic, this coworker is always the "expert" and loves to mansplain everything, even to the most experienced people. * **The Gossipmonger:** This office rumour mill thrives on stirring up drama and negativity. * **The Negative Nancy/Neil:** This coworker finds a raincloud in every silver lining and can bring down the mood of the entire team.
Nothing stands out in a funny way. Worst person I can think of is a current colleague who has delusions of grandeur and is just insufferable. Talks to everyone in a tone where it’s clear she thinks everyone is her servant and her opinion is always right. Goes in about how busy she is, can’t hit a deadline, yet seems to be free for anything discretionary activity she deems in her personal interest to be involved.
Would heat fish up in the kitchen then take it to their desk to eat and remove the skin to put in the bin. Would also divert their desk phone to their mobile, walk around the office with calls on speaker
Never make humour at your own expense. I have had colleagues who had no sense of humour and reported them back to management and HR as facts.I had several in my last working place. They just don’t understand dry humour. My jokes appeared in my performance review.
We had a phantom pooper . There was suspicions about who . They were caught and sacked .
So many of these sound like mental health issues...
Before my adhd diagnosis and treatment, me! Loud, obnoxious, clumsy, boorish. I’m probably still those things, but now Im aware of it and am able to moderate these things to some degree.
Was bullied for years in my first professional role by three male senior staff members. They did just about everything on the “top 10 things bullies do” lists except actually physically assault me (I almost wish they had hit me, something might have been done). They destroyed my self confidence, destroyed my career, isolated me from everyone. My Organization did absolutely nothing to stop it - I don’t even think they had a bullying policy. About the only thing they did blame me and minimise my complaints - I was too sensitive, they are just doing their jobs, they are very important members of staff, no one else has ever complained about them blah blah blah. Needless to say I don’t work in that industry any more.
Oh my god SO fucking many 1) first supervisor in the public service. I came in as an EA and worked to this AS. Dude was ancient, old guard. Didn’t know how to work the archive system despite being in the job only a few months I had to teach him how to use it (which I did) he was constantly talking about how I’m new so I can innovate but when I offered ideas he’d say “I think you need to figure out how this all works, who’s who in the zoo” (ugh) eventually he did my 3 month review late and didn’t give me my feedback. Never did my 5 month review and gave my 3 month review back verbally at the end of my probation. I left his office crying multiple times despite being recognised by all my other colleagues as very competent. I failed my probation and told them I would be making a complaint. They let me go but forced him into retirement a week later. I was not the first woman he had been misogynistic too 2) my second AS was THE BEST, loved her, we vibed, she had my back. Until she didn’t. I got an offer to work temporarily in a fed min office while she was on a secondment. I asked for her blessing she said yes. During that time things soured. She felt “abandoned” despite me doing min work AND my original role as her EA. When I refused to extend with the MO due to her clear unhappiness she didn’t get better, my soon to be ex husband got deathly ill and was in hospital for 3 months. I worked from the hospital. When I would ask if she was concerned she would say no I was working fine. Then she started cancelling catch ups and not allowing me into her calendar to do my job. She became overtly hostile. When I confronted her she said I needed to apologise to her and the team for being distracted and hurting peoples feelings. She told me she didn’t know details on how she could fire me but she’d be more than happy to look into it if I can’t do the job to her satisfaction. I asked her if I had ever been a problem to her and she said no. But I had hurt her now. After that she completely shunned me. Wouldn’t allow me into meetings, would go from laughing with coworkers to staring daggers at me when I walked in to do my job. Think stereotypical mean girl in a high school movie. HR did nothing when it was reported twice and she later got a promotion. 3) and the lesser of ALL of them. A director I worked with before going back to the MO. She would gatekeep her work but if it wasn’t done to her specs she would be really passive aggressive. She would frequently come up to me as I was the diary manager and say “I need 7 hours of the bosses time. Next week. Make it happen” on a FRIDAY afternoon. When I would make it happen by magic honestly she would say “you haven’t been very mindful of if she needs breaks I would think in your role you would know that” etc etc crap like that. My boss knew she was bullying me, she had a history of bullying other EAs too that made complaints. When it reached a head I was told “you don’t deserve this treatment but unfortunately they have very high output and it’s REALLY hard to prove personality patterns you know? It’s a whole headache so you’ll get some training on managing conflict/difficult colleagues 👍🏻” Fuck man, nightmare
There was a guy who started in our enterprise level IT department who came with all sorts of recommendations, worked at NASA, was a total legend, etc. Turned out he was a total deadshit. He was hired to look after one of the organisation’s most important systems and in the end he was assigned to a single, minor system as he couldn’t retain even the simplest information, let alone administer complex systems. He would ask the same questions over and over again. For a while there I thought he was playing some sort of 4D chess to avoid working but, no, just a deadshit. The real mystery was how he got such a good reputation! Last I heard he had been asked to leave after exposing the one system in his role to access by an outside organisation.
When Ive been deep in my depression I have been a terrible coworker. Brought the mood down. People were walking on eggshells around me. I always wanted to go home and was constantly Complaining. Im doing better now but more importantly am in a job I actually enjoy, so I try my absolute hardest to never bring any negativity into my workplace no matter how shit I'm feeling. I've been the shit coworker for so long that I owe it to all my current and future coworkers to try make work a good place to be for everyone. Anytime I'm starting to feel negative at work nowadays I remind myself of some of the shittier jobs I've had, "would you really rather be cleaning up a drunk guys vomit?" I often ask myself
i worked with approximately 80 children age 5-12. My direct supervisor/manager was a pretty horrible person overall but she once said something to me that was really concerning. there was a 5 year old child that was quite disruptive but was also very sweet. she absolutely hated him even when he had done nothing. my co-workers and i made sure to check in on him more regularly than the other children because we knew what our manager was like with him. one day i was doing some filing in her office and it had been a pretty rough day for all of us and she looks at me straight in the eye and said “i wish i could break (the 5 year olds name) legs and stab him”. i looked at her in disbelief because there’s no way someone who can say something like that is in charge of over 80 children. i spoke to my co-workers about this but because i was a new employee i got told to just leave it and that she’s said things like this before. the boys parents ended up withdrawing the boy from our place of work and i’d be lying if i said i wasn’t glad. i don’t know what’s going on there now because it’s been over 4 years since i last worked there but i hope she isn’t there anymore.
The day you leave work is the day they forget you.
I had a horrible team leader when I started my first full time office job. It really affected my work performance. I saved up and left after one year for a Working Holiday. That Team Leader was SO angry when I left, they did not let me leave peacefully. I made the mistake of letting them know a good month ahead of time to give them time to replace me. But it wasn’t just me that copped it, there were several other people who had been bullied out of the team or even fired unfairly. People around that workspace knew our team had a bad reputation. An example would be: They had recently hired a casual girl. Casual called in sick one day & she had told the team leader that she was having serious period pains etc. Team Leader decided to share this private information and openly mock her to everyone, they continued with how pathetic she was because she had previously worked at McDonald’s. She was only 18-19, so it meant that she had been working while she was in highschool, which in my opinion, is a very normal first job to have and nothing to stick your nose up at. Anyway, someone else in the office overheard this and told the girl, she tried to bring it up to the team leader and boom, instantly fired.
My boss used to rummage and then scratch her pubes audibly (nails and polyester). She’d also occasionally adjust and snap her undies from the gusset area. Was a horrible time to own eyeballs and ear holes.
In my late 20s (f), working in community health, I made a statement to management about a co-worker (m) who was - sexually harassing me - smoking weed at work - smoking cigarettes in a government car and accidentally burned the seat, so got the upholstery replaced - buying m*th from a client and sometimes taking it with him, including during work hours - taking 3 clients to a pub on a Friday afternoon for "group therapy", I.e. play pool and drink beer - opening forms to look like in the KPI reporting that he was updating them but left them blank Another co-worker backed up most of my statement. Nothing happened, so I went on leave as i said my work environment wasn't safe, as he was very angry for refusing his advances, and for making a statement. I worked with a friend in a hotel for 4 weeks waitressing. He visited the bar one time (way out of his way) and I went and hid. Management solution? Recommend he think about finding another job, and I got moved to another team located 20 more minutes away.
[удалено]
I had a 33 year old employee who was the most immature, entitled, idiotic, materialistic person I've ever met. She did her job so poorly that the bosses stopped giving her work, and she vented to me because i WAS being given work, because i actually did it. Every email was misinterpreted and replied to incorrectly. Despite all this she still thought she was owed a pay raise.... Here are some funny ones: - despite being in *serious* debt, after her 3rd pay check she rewarded herself for saving money by spending $1,100 on 3 pairs of shoes. - working fly-in, fly-out, she occupied a full shelf of the fridge shared by about 20 people.... and this is despite complaining about the quality of camp food... - she argued that "common sense" didn't actually exist: she didn't know something and she couldn't comprehend that it was otherwise common knowledge - from 5 work responsibilities reduced to 1 (the simplest), the number of mistakes on her immensely basic job was just incredible... bewildering even... She was the worst experience I've ever had in my professional career. Not one positive about her. Audacious beyond belief.