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.

@Jetstream

Another one. I worked for a bit in a regulatory agency.was interview got the job. Discovered the supervisor was a demented nutcase. She used shout and screen at me. Tell me how to do something, a month later go bananas at me because it was wrong. She got up to real dodgy stuff like changing information due to be presented at a judicial review. The agency issued licences with errors and omissions. The most senior manager walked around as if he owned the place. Considering the power these people have, it was truly shocking. I reckon she got rid of me because she knew I’d find out what they were really up to. I know how she treated was openly discussed after I was gone. She got a real hard time over it.

Scream 🙄

One of my last jobs where I stayed for 5 years (and was bullied by the boss' PA and her sidekick/friend who worked for us sometimes as a temp...).

My boss was a solicitor and a complete idiot, drunk driving, buggering off down the pub for the afternoon with his PA and leaving me to deal with his clients who wondered where he was. A lot of solicitors, I subsequently worked out, some are fine but some are mad... as was this one.

His PA used to have periods and drip/leave blood smeared all over the toilet seat - toilets were right behind reception which was where I sat. I said something to her once but she gave me a look and carried on doing it.

Their temp legal secretary friend was a nightmare - she'd come in and criticise the other lawyers and my boss for not doing work and would work slowly and whinge away. She was retired but liked working for us to get extra pin money. After 2 years of her bullying and being a pain I found a lovely temp agency who supplied us with temp staff who didn't do legal sec stuff (can be hard to teach quickly) but did everything else including phones, photocopying, sorting out filing etc and the bitch PA who was permanently pleased was really pleased with this and told me so.

@Alexandernevermind

Ooh, just thought of another good one. A man at a company I worked with got caught washing his dick in the sink

@Alexandernevermind Oh my God. Was it the sink in the toilets, at least? Not the kitchen sink surely??

Oh I forgot this one - worked for a large accountants in the west end. Wasn't that long ago but was when female partners were still a rarity.

We had this female partner as a boss of about 13 of us. When she was in a good mood in the mornings she was lovely, however in the afternoons and usually after a bad meeting with other partners she was an absolute pain and took it out on staff, screaming and shouting and swearing. She was also quite funny as she'd play tricks, walk around the office clowning and making jokes but she was unhinged. Her aim was to retire at 50 which she did.

However her PA was a total bitch and eventually took over part of my job because she wanted to do that work and her other boss was on extended sick leave so she couldn't work for her so I was transferred to accounts dept where I was told I should be happy.

This boss then tried to bully me, told me she could get rid of me like she'd done to another very talented young employee recently (can't state area of work as potentially outing) so after 16 months I left. Another very clever older worker, a woman, whose father was terminally ill with cancer was constantly being got at and shouted at by this woman, one day I noticed (as I was in toilets) my boss actually followed her downstairs into the toilets as she was very upset and crying (her father was almost at death's door) and was then all faux concern with her. HR were useless as they were always on the company's side.

Oooh me…

Best line from the worlds worst workplace .

‘You’re so useless you should just go kill yourself’ ‘banter’ of course

Different company

When informing my line manager that I was pregnant ‘are you keeping it or having an abortion?’

When I told wider colleagues one then proceeded to show me picture of a relatives stillborn as they the baby sadly passed away at the same amount of weeks pregnant I was 🙄

@CustardySergeant

"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. "

How did you manage to convey that with a look?

Just a little smirk and holding his gaze a bit longer than necessary.

He runs a massive and very profitable online company now so I see his face pop up frequently on websites and adverts linked to my job. I probably do the same smirk to myself, come to think about it.

Not nasty but annoying/funny. She was American and just very classicly so. Worked in quite a strict work environment and she would turn up 30-60 mins late every single day, take 2 hour lunches, leave early... manager never said anything! Drove us all mad.

She did fuck all work but any time she did anything she would make a huge song and dance about it, sending emails and standing up to tell the manager about it in front of everyone, which he would applaud her for. We all did 10x the work but it was just the job so we got on with it, didn't need a parade.

A classic moment we all still find bonkers was when we went on a trip to another country to visit a work location. We were chatting and she said, for no reason, 'I could never go to Ireland. As soon as I hear an Irish person I immediately start talking in a Cork accent. Like my ancestors. It's just immediate and I have no control over it'

Everything was a sob story drama. A fun work lunch when we were talking about old awful jobs we had as teens, turned into her sobbing hysterically over her food about how she was forced to work in a saw mill at 13 and her hands would bleed all day and she's never recovered. Someone mentioned buying a hair straightner once and she said she can't even be in the same room as one as she bursts into tears if she even see's one???

Honestly, I could go on... she was bonkers and unbearable to work with.

Used to hotdesk. Always knew where A had been sitting the day before because the desk would be littered with the nostril hairs she'd been idly plucking.

@Pedallleur

A gay man in the office who was caught laminating downloaded pornography. I did suggest that putting cling film over his monitor might have been better.

Ooh that reminded me! Creepy bloke in accounts, gave off yuck vibes, greasy hair, dirty fingernails, general ugh! He'd been caught bringing in porn dvd's and playing them on his computer. (Civil service/MOD computer systems). I'd left my the time he got sacked but I was so glad I was right about him being creepy.

@AwfullyAngry

Went out to the shops at lunch, bought a razor, came back with her pubic hair in a plastic bag which she proudly displayed to everyone in the office.

Whaaaaaaatttt the fffffffff….k

I have a colleague who is the loudest eater imaginable There are camels with more finesse than her. How can an adult make so much noise even eating soft fruit? Now we are homeworkers, thank God.

Colleague who took violently against me on my first day because the uniform I'd been given to wear was the same colour as hers and ... well, she wasn't very well balanced, put it that way.

She pursued various complaints and vendettas, and would follow me around 'taking notes' and surreptitiously access my pc after hours to check my work for evidence of wrongdoing such as not using correct capitalisation. Which she would then report to management in an effort to get me fired.

One work colleague constantly viewed porn' on his work computer. When it was pointed out to him by another male that it was visible to everyone, this was met with a 'hmmmmm?' as he turned his monitor off, only to turn it on again as soon as that person had walked away.

The work colleague who physically dragged me into my boss's office because I hadn't yet ordered him his leather laptop bag. I was, at that time, doing the work of four people, and that was an 'I wanna' requisition, not a 'must have'. My boss, to his credit, dressed that bastard down, and told me to take DH to dinner, all the works, and expense it, because he realised that otherwise I'd be fucking gone. The guy that tried to drag me into the office was one of two guys that 'jokingly' picked me up to carry me off to their hotel room on a teambuilding away event.

The work colleague who cracked up laughing as she told me I'd be covering for her again, after having covered for her before, but this time for months, not weeks. That's how I came to be covering for four people. For two specialist jobs I was unqualified and untrained for. And then people had the temerity to bitch that I'd done the equivalent of leaving out the capital letters, in that area of work!

Oh, the porny colleague - another story about him, is another female colleague, older, feistier, and more senior, was talking with him. He, as was his wont, directed all his attention to her boobs. She lost patience with this, hoiked them up, and said to her boobs', 'listen up girls, he's talking to you!'

She was our hero. . . he finally got shamed about his behaviour. Lech'.

My colleague started shit stirring between various members of the team AND trying to tell me how to do my job within a couple of weeks of his arrival.

I quickly decided to put some distance between us, he picked up on my chilliness and staged an intervention.

He suggested we went for a coffee together (which I reluctantly agreed to because our manager had also picked up on my chilliness and asked me to make an effort), then said not the coffee machine, let's go downstairs to the cafeteria because the coffee is better down there. Once he had me cornered he started interrogating me about why I didn't like him.

Spoiler: this did not make me like him more.

Within a few months the entire team thought he was a bell end.

He is still in our team but has modified his personality a bit now, thankfully.

When working in an office I always kept a spare pair of tights in my desk drawer. Every now and again they would go missing, I thought nothing of it just thinking that I had been a little absent minded. One day I left a fairly expensive spotty pair in there. The next day they had disappeared. I noticed that an older lady across the office was wearing exactly the same pair.
A few days later I laddered a pair on the way to work so changed and for some reason popped the used pair in my drawer. A couple of days later they had disappeared. I spotted the same lady with the same shade of tights with the ladder in the same place. Very strange but I did not say anything.

My ex boss made me tell her why I needed time off. She knew it was medical but insisted I tell her. Being 23 and in a new job with prospects, I thought I had to be honest. It was incredibly personal and I ended up crying. While I was crying she made me go and speak to her boss - about something unimportant - who was a complete misogynist and got really angry at me for being upset. She then the other women in the office about my procedure. A few years later she got incredibly drunk and told me her husband couldn't bring her to orgasm. I took enormous delight in telling people.

Ex colleague used to microwave a mackerel every morning for breakfast, in a one-room open plan office.

A colleague and I were in earlier than usual and quietly drinking coffee in the staffroom. We watched as the caretaker came in, didn't see us, and then wiped his face and blew his nose on the teatowel. He did it in a really absent minded way as if he did it every day.

@DoobryWhatsit I'm sorry, I'd love to help you out with more information about the poo nuggeter but I have no idea how those little turds came to be!

Probably not what you are looking for as not lighthearted but my very worst colleague was found guilty of sexual misconduct towards myself and 3 others.

A few more:

They combined 2 sections at one place I worked, and I took over the admin for the new team as well as my original one. Apparently my predecessor in the new team would stare at a blank wall for around 7 hours of his 7.5 hour day. When he DID do anything, he would file things in completely random places e.g. letter to Mr R Smith subject starting U, would somehow be filed under G.

The apprentice who would be late in every day by 10 minutes, was shocked when it was suggested she caught the earlier bus. Would take 2 hour lunches & be out of the door bang on 5pm. 2 months in, went on a holiday for 3 weeks then texted one of the 2 bosses that shared her that there had been a family emergency so she wouldn't be back for another 2 weeks. Which sjhe extended by a further 2 weeks for no reason. She wasn't on apprenticeship wage either, on a decent salary.

Her successor, who was based in my office. Was always about 5 mins late despite living 10 mins walk from the office, with excuses like he'd had to wait to cross the road twice. I would show him some very simple task, he would get it wrong. The boss decided I must have explained badly and showed him again, using almost exactly the same words, guy was very appreciative at being told these "new" things; guy still got it wrong. Eventually was let go after shredding wet signature copies of Letters of Authority, despite being told never to.

The techy guy who refused to speak to me in the office for over a year after I gave him feedback on a document (which I was supposed to review) suggesting that as this was a business document for users could he rephrase things in a slightly less technical manner.

The woman who kept getting involved in things that really weren't our responsibility - Local Council job, things like dispute about damage to a shared wall. Boss gently suggested to leave it as it wasn't anything to do with us, next team meeting woman spends half the meeting updating us on the same subject. Had no boundaries when it came to sticking to our own areas, would constantly be found in towns that were nothing to do with her. In the end, I was the only member of the team who would work with her.

The boss who would "work from home" regularly. I could never get him on the phone, and other (more senior) managers kept asking me for his availability. So I asked him to give me access to his diary - was refused and immediately accused of "checking up on him". He got me sacked (by lying about me) shortly after.

The woman who would try to find a way to take offence about anything anyone said about her e.g. if you complimented her and say she looked particularly nice one day, she would immediately get angry because you had implied she didn't usually look nice.

The project manager who was so averse to doing standard tasks like writing weekly reports, progress tracking, and reviewing risk & issues that he moved to a different building so it would be harder for me to find him (didn't work).

@LemonMeringueThreePointOneFour

I worked for one woman who wanted you to be her best friend one minute and was a micro-managing bitch the next.

Also worked for a man who wanted the entire team I was working for to gang up on me. Some did (arse-licking cunts) but not everyone, so I soon found out what he was up to. I found out many years later that something similar subsequently happened to him which was wryly amusing.

I had a female manager who despite me really not getting along with one person ( who was a complete bitch and would "tell" on you for any minor thing like an extra minute on your break) tried to force me to have the bitch over for Christmas day dinner.

I mean I was never nasty or anything, I was civil but having that cow in my house for Christmas was too much. I quit soon after in case I was forced to be her carer or something.

I really can’t top some of these. Wow. But I did have a bonkers team leader. We used to judge her mood on “makeup/no make up days”. We knew no make up meant we were either due for a day of haranguing, snarking or ugly crying over her latest break up. She also did the little girly voice around men. And it was when the fast show was in, so you can imagine the water cooler conversations. She had inappropriate crushes on various men in the department. One on a drunken night out told his mate that he fancied me, but I was very happily married so wouldn’t say anything. She found out and started spreading rumours about us because he didn’t fancy her. We were all chuffed when she left.

Part-time job as a teen, used to get locked in the walk-in fridge as a prank by the permanent staff. One of them told the boss (untruthfully) that I had been complaining about my wages so she tore into me on the shop floor im front of customers. Another one would eyeball me as he ate raw sausage meat 🤮

Now, as a much older adult, I only have to deal with incompetent colleagues, which is a comparative doddle!