People Are Revealing The Most Shocking Workplace Behavior They've Seen From Their Coworkers, And I'm Wondering How These People Didn't Get Fired Immediately
Recently over on the Ask Reddit subreddit, u/Virtual-Bunch-9131 posed the question, "What is the most fireable thing you have seen someone do at work that didn’t get them fired?" And the comments were filled with people who've witnessed their coworkers do some pretty shocking things — things that, under normal circumstances, would get a person fired — but, for one reason or another, didn't affect their employment status at all. Here are some of the most egregious examples:
1."He hit the OSHA inspector with a forklift."
2."I worked at a big box retail store, and I watched a coworker rent the parking lot to a BMW dealership for cash on the side so they could park excess inventory. Corporate didn't know. He pocketed all the money."
3."He was always drunk at work. This was in car sales. The dude showed up drunk or with a heavy hangover constantly. But he sold a lot of cars, somehow, so they didn’t care."
4."He tried his damndest to sleep with the boss's wife while at a work party. He got fired months later for something completely unrelated."
5."They accidentally sent out the entire company's (3,000+ employees) headcount to the company distro. The file contained everyone's salary, birthday, government numbers, etc."
6."I work in a residential adolescent mental health facility. A security guard jerked off on a bed in one of our unused rooms for our clients for a month until someone found the bed. Badge scanners were checked, and the guy was identified, but instead of firing him, he was just moved to the guard shack."
7."When I was in high school, I worked in a kitchen. A guy bled on a pizza and still served it."
8."He got drunk, went into the bar bathrooms (during business hours), pulled his infected tooth out with a pair of pliers, stole the bartenders' tips, and drove home a bloody, drunken mess. The bathroom was an absolute disaster. Another time, he pulled the wrong valve off of the bottom of a tank and lost ~800 gallons of beer before I could get it back on for him. He never got fired. I think the owner was afraid of him and was just waiting for him to leave. He eventually quit."
9."He ran a porn and MP3 site off the corporate network."
10."He did nothing — nothing at all. Day in, day out, he didn't lift a finger. Apparently, unless he did something egregious, he could just do nothing, collect a paycheck and all benefits, and not get fired."
11."He was a manager. During an interview, he told a woman he would hire her if she performed a sex act on him. She lied and said she'd do it, and he went to the bathroom and waited. Meanwhile, she went to HIS manager's office just down the hall and reported him. But instead of getting fired, he was demoted one step, I think because of a lack of evidence (but this is totally something everyone that knew him would agree he'd do). He never got promoted back to manager, even though he constantly tried. That's some justice, but he should have lived in a box for that."
12."I'm a mechanic/technician maintaining automated equipment. My coworker will not do a single task if he can get away with it. I trained him in our job and have shown him everything multiple times, but since he doesn’t actually do anything on a daily basis, he forgets how to do literally everything. Every weekend I get a call from him asking how to perform tasks that should be simple. I no longer answer my phone."
"We have a new guy I'm training as well. On my days off, do you think my coworker would be able to show the new guy anything? Nope, he sits on his ass. If forced to go to a machine where the problem isn’t a simple fix, he will tell the operators it can’t be fixed and leave it for the next shift. Our supervisor, his manager, and the plant manager all know about this. And nobody has so much as pulled him in for an official discussion, much less disciplinary action."
13."When I worked in a hospital, the nurse went out to get a patient and called out in the waiting room, 'Where's my little (insert name of disease the infant had) baby?' The mother's jaw dropped, and she was furious. Basically, the nurse just told all the people in the room what disease the baby had. Nothing happened. She ended up quitting on her own 3–4 years later."
14."She had full-on explosive diarrhea on our coworker's car in the company garage. It was all on video. Apparently, she and the coworker had been having sex, and he called it off. She got hammered at lunch, came back, and evacuated on his windshield. She disappeared for maybe two months, and one day, there she was again, like nothing happened. This was over 20 years ago. She’s still employed there and has been repeatedly promoted."
15."A coworker at the gas station I used to work at had removed her IUD on her own, brought it to work to show it off for some reason, and left it on the food prep table. She didn't even have it in a bag or anything. Multiple coworkers handled it not knowing what it was."
16."The second shift guy didn't want to get food delivered or go get fast food, so he broke out a grill and charcoal from his trunk and cooked himself a steak for dinner. Then he threw the still-way-too-hot coals into the dumpster/compactor attached to the building. He left on his own accord about six months later. They didn't even write him up for the fire."
17."My wife teaches toddlers. On a new teacher's first day, while putting the kids down for a nap, she fell asleep. Like full-on out cold. Kids were wandering the halls until someone else noticed them and woke her up."
18."A deputy stole $20k from evidence. She cried after being caught. They transferred her out of that region, but she has been promoted a few times since the incident. She never paid the money back nor was she charged."
19."One of the secretaries in my office stood up on a Friday afternoon and screamed, 'F— this s—, I've had it,' threw everything off her desk, and walked out. Monday morning, she walked back in and started working like nothing had happened. Nobody even said anything to her."
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
