What’s the worst thing you’ve seen in the workplace?

[chbahjng]

Mine won’t be half as bad as some peoples or even a quarter but -

I worked in about a team of 20 and it became very obvious that higher management wanted this team dissolved. At least 12 of us left within the space of a 3 months (no backfilling) because they made it so horrendous and then management shit themselves because all they had left were the lazy ones who did no work.

Another place I worked one manager (who was clearly miserable in life) would get people fired like it was a sport.

Quite a few 'WTF' moments over the years and I've worked for big blue chip companies as well as the charity sector. Spoiler alert I've come across far more twats in the charity sector...

A manager taken through disciplinary for racism and allowed to keep his job "because he's got kids".

The same manager encouraging his team not to take loo / drink breaks to help with their call stats (rather than giving any coaching / support / performance management). Also telling them which days their calls were going to be listened into for quality checks, so they could do things 'properly', before reverting to getting people off the phone as quickly as possible with no real care or thought of the impact on service users (who sometimes needed quite complex in-depth advice).

Another manager (same charity!) sexually assaulting a colleague on a night out (not a works do, a social drink). She didn't feel able to report to police, but did make a complaint at work as he was senior to her. Despite a number of witnesses (including me - he basically put his hand right up her skirt and grabbed her in public) he also kept his job, though he was warned about future conduct.

Same charity - a staff member ended a call with a client who became racially abusive to them (all calls were recorded). Another staff member was told to call the client back and continue with advice and apologise that the previous call was terminated. Absolutely no support for the staff member who had been abused, which left many frontline staff feeling unsafe / unsupported.

When I was much younger I worked in a call centre for a mobile phone company. It was great money at the time and I found it easy tbh. I was never late or off sick and had a good work ethic. I'd been there 2 years when I took 3 days of sick leave with the flu (proper flu, couldn't get out of bed, very weak etc). We were lucky enough to get occupational sick pay, all good.

On my return my manager proceeded to tell me that as I had been off over a weekend day, I would need a sick note. Errrr no I don't I was off for less than 7 days? Manager reluctantly acknowledged this but then said as I didn't have a note I would need to take annual leave instead of sick leave. This actually didn't bother me as I had plenty of days left and thought it would keep my absence record clear. Oh no, the official policy was that I would need to use my annual leave, but it would still be counted as sickness absence. WTAF?? This was confirmed by HR and I ended up going to Citizens Advice who confirmed that this was bullshit (I'm paraphrasing). Also they counted Monday and Friday as 'weekend days' so you could basically be ill 3 days a week.

So I arranged a meeting with my boss / HR to clarify the legality of what I had been told and the cheeky fuckers expressed 'disappointment that I'd felt the need to take advice'. Absolute pisstakers. BUT...an email went out the the whole contact centre the following week confirming that if we should choose to book annual leave to cover sick days, then they could not be counted as sick days.

I've definitely heard of far far worse things, but these are probably the worst I've ad some direct involvement in / awareness of.

A member of staff who was visually impaired asked not to attend team events/lunches etc as it would be unfair on other colleagues for her to rely on them for any kind of assistance.

Same Manager, a member of staff was kept on a temporary contract but the manager told her that this was temp to permanent and would happen within six months. Said woman was pregnant with IVF triplets, gave birth prematurely and one of the babies died. The day afterwards while they were all still in special care the manager called her up to tell her that she no longer had a job to come back to. I don’t know the exact in’s and outs but I do know that she took the manager to court and the company settled.

I used to work for a small company on an industrial estate. My "office" (which was basically a chair and desk in the freezing, filthy workshop) looked out onto a wooden pallet company behind us. The used pallets were fed into a raised conveyer belt to be broken up, but sometimes big bits ground everything to a halt. It was the job of a young lad, who looked about 11 but was hopefully 16, to climb up into the conveyer belt and dislodge the offending bits. He used to protest like hell and one day even vomitted with fear but the older guys would get a sharpened pointed stick and force him into the mechanism. It was like something out of a Charles Dickens novel. God I saw some really, really bad shit on that industrial estate. This was late 90's early 00's so not that long ago.

I did a performance improvement plan initial meeting with a couple of managers about a particular member of staff. There were systematic performance issues. We discussed their behaviour too - lots of low level racist jokes quickly dismissed as banter whenever they were pulled up.

I said that if we hired someone from an ethnic minority they'd be gone within a week for gross misconduct.

Three days later, the manager pulled me aside to show a screenshot from their phone.

Said employee had accidentally posted a racial slur about a customer in a public channel.

Now, everything they'd said before had genuinely been low level. In the course of the investigation, I had to review their file. It was as thick as your arm with incidents, because they were frankly a PITA.

But the first incident? During their probation, they had got drunk, and racially abused a member of the public. The outcome of the meeting? It ended with a fucking hug. You can get rid of someone on probation if you don't like their shoes, racial abuse should be a shoe in for dismissal!

School I was working in became part of a multi academy trust. New headteacher was appointed whose regime was absolutely batshit for both staff and pupils. Cue mass resignations as staff found better working conditions elsewhere. New staff were appointed with 90% of them from the Head’s old school which was going down the toilet cos their trust was bankrupt. 12 months later and suddenly all of the old regimes that worked are adopted again. Seen so much shady stuff in MATs.

Both my parents died within a short space of time. I was called in for a disciplinary meeting. I was off in total for 4 weeks. I was asked do I have any comment my reply yes I've no parents left to die. Boss was speechless I was furious.

Senior teachers in a primary school refusing to contact Children’s Services following pupil disclosures of parental violence to them.

A human shit in a stair well 😕

Was this public sector please?

I have named changed for this because while it is a long time ago, it would be very outing.

I used to work for a company in the late 90s, I had only been there for about three weeks or so and I was very young. We did a Secret Santa. For context, remember this was the 90s and people weren't really "out" as much as they are now. There was young chap who was leaving that day to move to another company, everyone suspected he was gay but he'd never come out and really it was nobody's business anyway. He opened his Secret Santa gift in front of everyone and someone had bought him a book that was emblazoned with the wood QUEER on it, in big pink writing. Everybody laughed, he laughed it off, I was horrified. He was meant to come to our Christmas party that evening and didn't show. Nobody saw him again.

Man got slammed by a bus outside the office window

Someone is currently suspended for taking a dick pic in a clinical area (with patient obviously in the vicinity but unaware) and sending it to a colleague.

Thankfully i didn't witness it though.

I work in health care/support work.

I’ve seen so much abuse I can’t list it all.

Obviously I questioned and reported it, but it still goes on.

My workplace ( charity) can be a nightmare at times. No training, work never checked, staff allowed to get away with allsorts and management barely notice. No accountability etc. Then again this isn't the first charity I've worked for that has been like this.

Not me but a friend worked for a cleaning agency and was told 121/performance reviews were in your own time (unpaid) as they were for your benefit.

God, I remember you posting this before, it stuck with me as it was so vile (and your response was perfect). Hugs x

I wonder if we used to work together because this is one of mine!

Sexual harassment, rape jokes, inappropriate comments, also sexual assault of two female members of staff on a work night out.

All at the same company, and all of the males involved still work there. The whole department was utterly rotten and reporting it did nothing.

I didn't see it but a colleague did. Someone had taken a shit in the customer toilets and smeared it all over the walls. It was obviously done with bare hands. It happened a few times.

I often wondered, did they shit in the loo and fish it out....or crap straight into their hands??? 🤔

Gross-out warning.

One place I worked, someone (I assume it was one person) would wipe their nose pickings on the back of toilet cubicle doors. They seemed to have a favourite cubicle, which had quite the collection, and a fair amount of the deposited material would have spots of blood in it. Revolting. The cleaners never tackled it, and I can’t say I blame them. Why in the ever-loving fuck would anyone do that?

One of the worst was 'just' behavior, rather than an actual actions

The woman was clearly a sociopath. I saw grown adults shaking to talk to her, she's was just vicious.

She managed to get me fired and then gave a cheery bye bye as I was shown the door. Totally emotionless. It was a good job she was only running a small business rather than a country or something

She organized a treasure hunt, where one of the rules was 'no cars to be used'.

She then proceeded to use her car (big Merc, obviously), win the treasure hunt, and keep the prize.

Current team in working in is curious too. Weird dynamics

There is a person on a really, really good salary, higher level than everyone else etc who basically does admin. Always has an excellent excuse not to work int eh shittier projects etc.

It makes no sense. I assume she's sleeping with our boss.

All these are 30 years ago.

Someone threw an iron at someone's head ( luckily it missed)

Someone stripped naked in a dressing room ( I was helping them with their clothes) and showed me their erect penis then asked me to have a bath with them.

Someone so drunk they were sick in front of everyone.

Someone snorting coke in their office.

More recently a manager saying that someone who had had multiple claims of bullying against them was 'doing it from a good place'.

Did you work at the bbc?