Cheer me up with your worst colleague stories please...

[whatsnewpussycat777]

My colleague and I are irritating each other at the moment, however nothing sinister. Thank God.

Had one previous colleague who was the laziest person on the planet ... and got away with it.....That partly nailed my leaving that particular job to be honest.

I took a job teaching dance abroad for a year. When I arrived, my boss advised that I hand my passport over to go in her safe, as it would be safer in there.
The dance school closed for 4 weeks over Christmas and I wasn’t required to work at all so I decided to fly home to visit my mum- when I called my boss the day before my flight to ask for my passport, I was told by her husband that she had already left the country to visit the UK herself for Christmas and that I wasn’t allowed my passport back. After much discussion (him on the phone to her) it materialised that she didn’t want me
to leave the country in case I didn’t come back (!) - possibly due to the fact that there had already been issues where I had been badly treat. I had to threaten them that I would go directly to the British High Commission and report them if I did not receive my passport immediately for the husband to eventually hand it over.
I did return to complete my contract, and they managed to ramp up the low level bullying until I left.

This is one of the reasons why I am now home based. Don't have to deal with annoying colleagues and I don't have to worry about annoying them.

Although my manager keeps fucking sniffing on Zoom calls. I want to tell him to get a fucking hanky.

Oh and people breathing heavily on Zoom. It sounds like porn.

I work with two people who are a job share but work the same days! I am the only full timer and they just leave everything to me and expect it to be done when they back in and get really annoyed when I have time off as they have to swap days to make sure the week is covered. One of them is so lazy tells everyone else what to do and does not do it herself.

Back in the 80s . Man who worse same pink nylon shirt to work days in a row. Knew it was unwashed because the pocket had been melted by an iron and you could see the shape of the iron on it! As you can imagine he didnt smell great

In my first real job, a female manager ruled a team of much younger women with a rod of iron. Returning to work after a day's sick leave one of her minions explained that it was due to the 'time of the month'. Removing a card from her drawer the manager reviewed it carefully before stating "no, that's not for another fortnight" and docking the minion's pay.

Same company, postroom manager had a nervous breakdown because huge amounts were disappearing from the franking machine. I found out twenty years later that one of his colleagues had an arrangement with a local business where he would take their post, let himself into the building late at night and put the mail through our company's franking machine.

Working on a large factory site dating from the 1940's, offices always freezing and the heating never turned on until October first. One year, with snow on the ground, the heating was still off on the second. We were then told that the heating would be switched on the third, when the Board returned from a retreat. CEO returns to the office, full of the joys of Spring and is told to F-Off by the first three people that he says hello to.

Through a window I saw a colleague (boss actually) let his labrador clean his coffee cup and then put it back on the rack with the clean cups.

Explains the salmonella I had two months before that I ended up on a drip for!

I have so many....

Colleague who wore the same corduroy trousers without washing them for so long (months) they went from off white to dark rust colour. He stank generally but we all had a sweepstake on how many days he would wear them before washing them. The longest was 101 days. Working with him in the summer was terrible. He rarely washed or washed his hair. His dandruff flakes were the size of cornflakes.

Another similar. Working in a pretty dirty job and colleague wearing the same tunic and trousers for weeks on end.

Boss who literally never cleaned his teeth. He had rampant tooth decay. If you walked past him you could still smell him in the corridor the entire length. Meeting with him were appalling as you could smell his breath on your clothes for hours after.

Another who put my keys in a bin after a mild disagreement. She was completely unstable in a host of ways though.

@grassisjeweled

Fuck me, Shipman

I kind of worked with him too, he was one of my customers. Nice man, bit quiet and old school but seemed very interested in the welfare of his patients (unlike quite a few GPs oddly). I met his wife once and she was very strange

Colleague who was so passive aggressive that she used to sing her thoughts out loud but quietly as if she was just humming to herself ..
"I'mmmm just getting onnnnn with my woooorrrk so don't tallllllk toooo meeeeeee"

I work a shift job. One of the shifts were all found asleep oneday and the whole team got a bollocking for there actions.

Anither one had 3 months of with a bad back and on his return boasted about all the home improvement that had done.

Not as gross as some of these, but I used to work with a guy who brought fruit in as part of his packed lunch (no problem with that, of course), but he used to peel off those little sticky labels on the apples etc and stick them around the frame of his PC monitor. This continued until the whole frame was plastered several labels thick with the things and his boss finally made him remove them.

He was also a Dr Who geek and had all kinds of memorabilia all over his desk - a Tardis pencil holder, Dalek paper weight .... you get the idea ...

Horrible married colleague somehow got hold of my boyfriend's phone number and started texting him wanting to go on a date

Hell, a post upthread that described a colleague with a bollock hanging out has just reminded me of a time I had to go knock on the door of the service flat of a supervisor.

He answered in his pyjamas and his cock was hanging out. He clearly was not aware of it and I tried to not look down. He was his usual foul self but later when he arrived dressed, I gave him a look that made him aware I had seen his todger. He treated me well for the rest of the time I worked with him, presumably in the hope I wouldn't tell anyone he had a dick the size of a Rice Krispie

I worked at a job for seven years and in that time the manager was systematically syphoning money off in massive amounts.

When she went on holiday the company allowed her daughter to do the books and wages thinking a favour was being done when in fact the daughter was clearly covering up and continuing the syphoning.

Eventually the practice went to computers and of course the issues would likely be highlighted as the company would suddenly have been making thousands of pounds more per month after having them installed which could never be explained away. Mysteriously the computers were sabotaged for over a year. The computer company repeatedly visited to sort out the issues until sabotage was suspected. I left at this point for another job but have often wondered if I was ever blamed for the thefts.

shop phone would ring with orders 1 lady was fast every time to answer it,1 college did pretend calls liked seeing her race to the phone to stop call as she answered it,we made a joke someone was having an affair and the wrong person was answering the call.went on for weeks,same person used to leap in my car for a lift home without evan asking,i saw her one day before xmas last out pince a xmas cake put in inside her coat and get a lift home with me,made a miserable xmas for me,deciding if i reported the xmas cake,

In the early 90s I was in my first job after graduating and used to travel around branches training up new recruits on the product/service I managed. All of our branch managers were male at the time and the culture of the company was very misogynist although change was happening very slowly.

The male managers treated it as a laugh to try to embarrass any women who were advancing towards a management position and I was used to dealing on a pretty much daily basis with comments about my appearance, my love/sex life etc...

On one occasion I went to visit a branch in the North West and the manager called me into his small office where he and his (male) deputy manager were sitting and I could see them sniggering away so was expecting some kind of comment/joke at my expense. When I opened the door the stench of stale fart was overwhelming - they'd clearly been 'brewing' my welcome up for some time between them.

Nowadays I would loudly comment on it but at the time, in my early 20s, I wasn't confident enough and just put up with it while they merrily sniggered away. Ironically, the branch manager in question now runs a Christian charity which preaches about being kind and loving thy neighbour - clearly something that he preaches but doesn't practise.

@MonkeyPuddle

Chap I worked with had questionable food hygiene. Once saw him pour a load of manky juice out of the bottom of a bag of salad leaves and then eat them.

Thanks for that. Nauseating!

I worked with someone I really liked, he was a social worker and a great guy. He was absent from work for a while and then he appeared on the front page of the local paper charged with armed robbery. He was a really terrible armed robber though and bought the mask from ebay and even had pictures on his phone of him wearing the mask he used in the robbery - and the robbery was staged so the person working at the petrol station was his friend (so at least he was a nice armed robber!). Still cannot believe he did it and such a shame as he was a lovely social worker - maybe he is working with offenders now somewhere... often wonder.

I has a colleage who I share the office with and he used my notepad that was on my desk to add stuff to my list of things to organize. One day he picked up my mobile phone when I was out /it was a phone from my other job/. He also took my clothes off the hook and then complained big time I was taing his off it as I was putting mine back on.
Before he came into my office he helped in the library and would take piles of documents/records from colleagues desk they had been working with and put it away. He even did it wrong and the stuff couldnt be find as it wasnt in its place. Turned out they had to lock stuff so he couldnt get it.
It took about a year to get rid of him and it was only because he decided he is not fit for the job which I knew from the start but for my boss, who was new the the boss role, it took long to acknowledge that it wasnt me causing problems.

We run a small business with a retail sales area. The sector tends to be female dominated, and we had two horrific sales assistants in a row. Both early to mid 30s, both still living at home, and both getting their Mum to phone up for them The one lived 60 minutes away and hadn't realised that the commute would be so stressful, and her Mum rang to ask if she could start later/finish earlier so she would avoid the heavy traffic - yes of course, we'll run our business around you . The second one had returned from living abroad with a partner and was clearly very mentally unstable.... she was given the post one evening, and her Mum phoned the next morning to ask us not to make her do it again, and how unfair it was when she didn't know the area well and finding a postbox had really challenged her

Both lasted under a week.

Teacher colleague sold my work to an online site and then tried to take the credit for it as part of their Performance Management.

Recently recruited Internal Company accountant caught stealing quite large amounts from company— I was HR and had the lovely job of calling the recruitment agency to say we wouldn’t be paying their recruitment bill.

At one point I had a horrible job-share partner. They were always looking for ways to undermine me and would helpfully let our line manager know if I did anything they disapproved of; line manager told me euphemistically that they recognised that they were “not a natural” job sharer. Job share partner thought they were destined for the top of the organisation but left some years later, having achieved no progression at all. I suspect senior management had realised how toxic they were.

Gods where do I start?

(Female) boss who was a total mysoginist. The guys in the team would always get the prime work. She changed the job spec of a slightly more senior role than mine so she could promote the guy I had trained rather than me. Accused me of lying & "sucking up" to senior managers because I would talk football to them in the pub - she however was flirting with them & encouraging them to ping her suspenders! I or the other woman in the team were always the ones who had to stay late to get something sorted, especially on pub nights; other woman transferred so it was always me. She would bring her daughter in to work, and I would have to look after her (spoilt little brat too). Everybody hated working for her, she was nicknamed bossladyname-from_hell.

Another very small office, just boss, me & part time admin. Boss brought in an office manager over me (younf, pretty, used to wear revealing tops, stilettos and split pencil skirts in a non-public facing office). New manager would leave early every day to pick her son up from work, but we couldn't leave an hour early on Fridays which the big boss used to let us do. I had to train her in various functions; she would put them off all day then 20 mins before her leaving time ask to be shown - these were jobs that would take a couple of hours to do when experienced, so much longer when teaching someone. But somehow it was always MY fault that I hadn't trained her properly. I was eventually sacked just a week shy of my 2 year anniversary there.

Then there was the "entitled" company. 4 bloody interviews to start with. Then 2 days before I was due to start they moved the job from a 15 minute drive from my home to central London, I managed to negotiate an extra £1.5k pa to help make up for the extra £4.5k it would cost me in travel. Early on was asked to do the weekly project report, so I did a draft in the style of the previous 2 places I'd worked. Boss was very angry it wasn't in the style that a very expensive management company had used (which I'd never seen) and suggested I'd lied about my experience. We were in serviced offices, and they would demand that I book or cancel meeting rooms at zero notice, against the service company's policies. They were recruiting some rather senior management people, and would insist I organised an interview for something like 8:30am the next day near Leeds for them (London based); surprise surprise most of them declined as they had their existing jobs plus the cost of last minute trains that night plus overnight accommodation wasn't worth it to them. When I quit suddenly the meeting rooms from the office management company were no longer available as & when they wanted, and the meeting/training room agreement I had negotiated with the landlords who occupied the lower floors was withdrawn, due to the arrogant behaviour of my boss who was a director.

Many many others over the years, but currently working for a fantastic local authority.

This was in the 80s, my first job out of school. In the ladies toilets there was always a random flannel on the radiator - I asked about it and was told 'that's the boss's fanny flannel, she likes to have a wash at lunchtimes'! Never found out if it was actually true or if they were winding me up, but it did seem to be damp in the afternoons and was changed regularly for a different colour one! There was also a creepy bloke who used to sneak up on you when you were in the upstairs office alone and start massaging your shoulders or stroking your hair. I also caught him under a table at a works do once blatantly trying to look up my skirt. Sackable offences these days obvs, but in those days it was just 'keep a look out for creepy Dave, be careful not to be alone with him'.

I work with someone now who is just a vile human, no redeeming features at all, and I rarely say that about anyone. Gobby, full of herself and thinks she's more important than she is, lazy, lies blatantly all the time and palms her work off onto other people, pretends she's on calls or at meetings and been caught out that she's actually not. So many people have complained about her but they basically won't do a thing about her, she seems to be made of teflon. I refuse to go to the office on the days she's in as I can't even bear the sight of her face.