"A Guy Thought It Was A Good Idea To Scratch His Head With A Hot Glue Gun": 32 Of The Dumbest, Most Mind-Numbing Things People Have Seen Their Coworkers Do While At Work
Reddit user u/Adrian0091 posed the question, "What's the dumbest thing you've seen a coworker do on the job?" The thread quickly filled with jaw-dropping, eye-roll-inducing stories of workplace chaos. Here's what people shared:
1."I worked at Chick-fil-A, and the kid in the cow costume decided to walk over to the nearby Walmart and ride bikes around while still in the costume. The manager called and was like, 'Hey, do you know your cow is riding bicycles around in our store?'"
2."A dude once photocopied a slice of pizza. We found cheese and stuff inside the machine for weeks. It was pretty funny, though."
3."I worked with a lot of hazardous chemicals. I had a coworker who was notorious for being on his phone. We had to use a pump to put a hazardous chemical into a tank. The problem was that you couldn’t look at the destination and pump the pump at the same time. Someone had to pump, and someone had to watch. So, I specifically asked said coworker to not look at his phone this ONE time. The tank overflowed and spilled the chemical everywhere because he was staring at his phone. It took hours to clean up."
4."A guy superglued himself to the component he was fixing twice. The second time, he was showing us how he had done it. Then, he superglued his eyelids together — all within half an hour."
5."I saw a tattooist I worked with tattoo 'Laugh now, cry ladder' across a guy's chest. He was let go. A few years later, a guy came in with 'Warior' across his upper back in bold letters wanting it fixed. Same tattooist."
6."My coworker blasted his music, not realizing the jack wasn't connected to his phone. He thought he was hearing it from his earphones. Our CFO, whose office is near our department, came marching outside to the employee floor and shouted, 'Who the hell is playing that?' Someone had to get his attention. We couldn't laugh at the time, but it was really funny later that day. The song was 'Low' by Flo Rida."
7."The general manager, who was new to the company, walked in and told all the women they weren't qualified to do their jobs. Sacked instantly."
8."I watched a woman with long, acrylic nails fish a raw chicken breast out of the marinade bucket with her bare hands, drop it on the grill, wipe her hands on her apron, and move to grab a fist full of lettuce with the same bare hands. She did not understand why this was a problem. She did not finish her shift."
9."I asked one of the new kids to stack the shoe department. Easy, but a bit boring. I showed her what to do: stack by brand, then size, with bigger at the bottom and smaller at the top. She decided to organize by the color of the boxes instead because it looked prettier. It took me hours to fix that mess."
10."I worked in the kitchen, and one of my colleagues forgot to put oil into the oil fryer, and he turned it on without noticing it. A fire shot up, and he stupidly put water on it. You now what happened next: bigger fire. Luckily, there were no injuries and just some black spots near the fryer wall."
11."I worked in a restaurant that had a large mixer for baking. Imagine the KitchenAid one, but five feet tall. I watched one guy hang on to the mixing paddles while another guy turned on the mixer. The guy holding the paddles was thrown across the kitchen."
12."A coworker of mine was fired for using his cellphone in an electrically classified area. The cellphone wasn't explosion-proof, not to mention that there were no cellphones allowed on the floor. They gave him a warning the first time, and the second time, they walked him out. The worst part for him was that his wife found out he was talking to his girlfriend. Twenty years down the drain. As we liked to say, he fired himself."
13."They told the manager on duty, 'I’m not the one eating it, so why should I care?' while the manager was trying to explain to her how to correctly prepare a customer’s food."
14."They put a bunch of freshly-sharpened knives into a sink that was full of soapy water and didn’t tell anyone. Another coworker got, like, five large cuts on his hand while reaching in to start cleaning dishes."
15."In the late '90s, I was a custodian at a New York City public school to pay for college. One of my coworkers accidentally spilled about 15 gallons of gasoline in the school parking lot. He didn’t want to get in trouble for spilling that much gas, so he thought the best course of action was to burn off the gasoline. Of course, gasoline burns with huge billows of black smoke, so he panicked and tried to put out the fire BY DRIVING HIS CAR OVER THE GIANT PUDDLE OF BURNING GASOLINE. The fire department showed up within minutes and saw him doing donuts in the giant fire. They spent a whole hour screaming at my coworker about how stupid he was."
16."I watched a coworker of mine at a Pizza Hut (1976) clean off the food prep counter with a gross floor broom. He came into work after doing a hit of acid. The kitchen was open, so people at the tables could see the food being made. Someone saw him and yelled out to the other customers, and people started walking out. The place cleared out. Once the manager figured out what happened, he fired the guy on the spot."
17."He opened a Skype window (yes, this was ~10 years ago) and started messaging me to talk crap about a person who was in the same call as us. He forgot he was sharing his screen."
18."At an old warehouse job, on this dude's first day, he offered the general manager a cup of Hennessy he was drinking out of. I've never seen someone get fired faster."
19."Back when I worked at a pizza place, we had a new guy that lasted only a couple days because he said he couldn't poop without smoking a cigarette at the same time. We found out after he clearly smoked a cigarette in the bathroom."
20."My coworker took his girlfriend through a secure area of the airport to bypass screening before their flight. The airport was locked down, they were both arrested, and, of course, he was fired."
21."In high school, I worked at a Chinese restaurant taking orders and bussing tables. Another dude I vaguely knew from high school got hired there. He was a nice, popular dude, but he didn't have much common sense. Within his first two weeks, he went to make himself some food (we were allowed to do that to a certain extent), and he dropped some wontons into the deep fryer. When he decided they were done, and as we were having a conversation, he just REACHED HIS HAND into the oil to retrieve them. I don’t think I even reacted for a moment or two, and then rushed forward. He somehow ALSO didn’t react for a moment or two before pulling his hand out and yelling out a cartoon-style 'YEEOUCH!' He went to the hospital...and quit the job."
22."He cut his hair at the bar. He was the bartender…"
23.'Without any hesitation, this guy swallowed his joint to avoid detection as the manager came around the corner. The manager still smelled it, and he ended up failing a drug test and being sacked, so it was all for nothing in the end."
24."Another employee put the wrong cream and sugar measurements in a cup, and once they realized their mistake, they threw the contents of the cup into our ice bin and started over."
25."On his first day, he wore a shirt that said 'leg rest here' with two arrows pointing to his shoulders."
26."At one of my previous jobs, a guy thought it was a good idea to scratch his head with a hot glue gun. He had to shave his head. Another guy at another place was working with some drugs (pharmaceutical wholesaler company), and a bunch of powder spilled from one of the broken packs, and he thought it was a good idea to blow on it to clear it. Thing is, we work with narcotics and cytotoxic drugs, among others, so that could've potentially caused harm or even death (if it was fentanyl, for example)."
27."I worked at Lowe’s. A guy got fired for driving the forklift to McDonald’s across the street to get a Big Mac."
28."We had a sales assistant pry open a container of copier toner and try to pour it into the machine. Everything was covered in fine black powder, including her."
29."A junior developer once sent me a chat message in his native language. I did not know what it said, but Google Translate is a thing, so I could see that he was saying some very unkind things about me. I did not let on that I knew; I just replied with '?.' He was very apologetic and said it was intended for someone else. He was obviously hoping I did not know what it said. He asked me to ignore and delete it. I saved a screenshot instead."
30."Someone did donuts on a forklift in front of the store and the store manager, all about 10 feet from customer cars and people. I have never seen someone get fired so fast."
31."A couple contractors were given the job of testing large screen monitors that had been returned. They decided the best way to test them was by watching porn in a corporate environment. The best part of all was that they put the monitors up on a shelf, so they could be seen at quite a distance."
32.And: "She was a receptionist and sat at her desk right outside her boss's office while reading a self-help book about dealing with awful coworkers. She'd ignore anyone who came up to her until she finished what she was reading, including the president of the company. She would go downstairs to 'file,' but would either very obviously take a book and snacks with her, or would take her purse and leave the building for a couple hours without telling anyone. Also, she'd spend hours a day 'filing' three documents. She wasn't smart enough to hide it from anyone either. You needed a key to enter the file room, and she'd leave it in the lock, which was a huge issue with confidential info (it was the legal department). There were stacks of files piled on the floor all the time because she couldn't understand how to file in alphabetical order. When she got called out, she was mad at people for 'disrespecting' her, and then she rage-quit."
What's the dumbest thing you've ever seen a coworker do? Tell us in the comments!
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
