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.

Jesus, some employers are absolutely horrendous. In my experience, HR departments in smaller companies are a farce. The fact some of the people you've mentioned kept their job is a disgrace. They shouldn't just lose their job, they should be public outed and humiliated as the perverts they are.

A male carer abusing an elderly lady when I did work experience at a care home. I walked out that same day and reported it. I can still picture what I saw that day and it was almost 27 years ago.

The freak accident my ex had at work one day, We worked at the same place so I saw it happen. We worked in a supermarket and he was walking along, Next thing someone else walks by pushing a crate full of flat cardboard, The edge of the cardboard caught ex's eye and sliced his eyeball open, He ended up wearing an eye patch for weeks and on his first day back same guy ran over ex's foot with a different crate and broke all his toes!

Lol. Reminded me of an old manager who would just scratch his undercarriage whilst talking at work.

I worked with someone in education who physically assaulted a student. I can't believe they kept their job.

I had an agreement with the managing director that I could work from home if I had a flare up with my fibromyalgia which mainly affects my mobility and not my ability to answer a phone. A “manager” then told me I can’t work from home when I have a flare up with my fibromyalgia because if I’m not in the office because of my health I should be taking it as sick and him then doing the EXACT same thing and not being in because of his health (chest infection) but “working” from home (doing about 5% of his job). Went to HR saying I felt he was discriminating against me because of my disability saying I can’t work from home if I’m not in because of my health but it’s ok for him to. Never seen a flexible work request agreed so fast

What a horrible, horrible human. I really do hope the worst things in life happen to these people.

Good on you for advocating for yourself. Not many people do!

A guy with an axe patrolling the stairwell. An armed robbery police chase, children living in poverty, literal filth in bathrooms, a person injecting himself with something in a public walk way some of the worst

Years ago , a colleague was a Jehovah’s Witness.
At Christmas, which he didn’t celebrate, he was given a toothbrush with a naked woman handle and a set of porn pictures.

Not quite seen in the workplace, but was work related. I used to work in a small coffee shop in a business centre. I was working with a lovely hardworking lady, who had cochlear implants, so she had a little bit of trouble hearing on the phone. Our boss (who was a seriously nasty man) called, she answered but because he had previously given her grief for not understanding what he said, on top of ways he had previously treated her too, she passed the phone to me. He asked why she did that and I just said she just has trouble hearing you properly because she has cochlear implants. He immediately said, oh that's another mark against her! I just stood there with my mouth open in shock, absolutely disgusted with him. Thankfully he's now lost his business, probably due to customers witnessing his abuse of his staff, as custom seemed to slow a lot after another incident, that happened in front of customers.

Small village school, full time head/80% teaching and FT infant teacher. 10 other staff, all part time including me - bursar and governor.
New head with big ideas. Worked her way through us all - too many horror stories to mention. After two years there was only one left, the infant teacher who had kids in school.
i was second to last to go. She blamed me for lack of budget when she’d spent thousands on supply so she didn’t have teach 80%. I asked her if she was accusing me of anything and, obviously, she had no answer.
Several of us were damaged and couldn’t ever work in a school again. She, on the other hand, used the school as a study for her masters and, after a PhD qualified as an ed psych. God help any families that come across her.

First ever job in a hotel cleaning rooms

• a man had written weird cult type notes in blood in his room and cut himself in the bed, was left as a sixteen year old to sort it out, was terrified.
• I was just meant to clean but ended up as a waitress, server and front of house too.
• older waiter was furious I rejected his advances so did weird little things in the hotel and blamed them on me, trashed the laundry room and said clearly I did it, ripped sheets, towels etc, also left food and milk out so it'd spoil, would put it back in the fridges before my shift so when I went to make people's coffees they had spoiled milk!
• the guy who was the owner of the hotel was an older man who liked grabbing all the women's arses. I was just told oh yeah watch out he does that.

Had the absolute worse manager, vile little goblin of a woman. We had a customer have a heart attack in the shop we worked in, luckily a doctor was in store and brought her back round. Her poor elderly husband was distraught - manager kept the shop doors open until one of the older members of staff flipped her lid and closed the doors and kicked the customers out. The public were stepping over this poor woman on the floor to get around her. Never seen anything like it in my life. When the ambulance came and took the woman away, manager just opened the shop back up like it was nothing.

Household name biscuit manufacturer. Had to wear white cotton gloves on the production line, workers would go and have fag breaks sitting on bathroom floors, then go back and carry on.. same gloves on. Still can’t stomach these biscuits donkeys years later.
Rats running round the kitchen of a large seaside hotel during breakfast service.
Blatant racial prejudice in a piece work packing factory where the white supervisors handed out the lucrative well paid jobs to the white workers.
Sexual harassment from a bar manager. Complained and got sacked.
Fun times in the 1980s workplace!
Though reading this thread I don’t think things have moved on that much!

If this wasn't my story I wouldn't believe it.

I took a job as a carer and on my first day we went to an old man's flat. My colleague gave me a cloth to clean the bathroom. I'd never heard of smearing....

There was shit everywhere, loo, sink, bath, walls. I tried to zone out and just get the job done. I nearly added vomit to the mix.

I took the shitty cloth back and asked where to put it. The woman took it from me. I glanced over a few mins later and saw her wipe down the kitchen worktop with it.

Gregg Wallace's cock, I mean sock

Oh no, that reminded me of a manager who had a permanent semi and the front of his trousers were greasy looking (he also smelled). It was not good.

My ex worked for a big investment bank in the early 00s. His manager kept a massive Jiffy bag of coke locked in his desk. If he liked you, he’d offer you a line or three. 🤢

Disgusting habits - picking your nose; scratching/adjusting your bollocks and whilst waiting for the kettle to boil in the staff kitchen area, you take a teaspoon out of the drawer, scratch your back (inside your shirt) with it then put the teaspoon back in the drawer!

As a secondary teacher a lot!

Spitting on photos and doors, running around in packs stealing things, kicking doors in, throwing chairs, stamping on pens you've just given them and goading they can't do work because they don't have a pen, accusations of assault when you've put your body in front of them from to prevent them punching someone, swearing and calling you the most vile things imaginable, shouting at you because they got a detention, pushing you violently out of the way because you politely asked them to take their chewing gum out, threats of my mam will batter you, their parents come to the school and try to batter you... list can go on...

And no this isn't a particular class to be told to get under control, it's repetitive over many schools and I have been part of it and observed it. Quite a few ainstream secondary Academies in different areas.

That's the worst, would love to do that job but my heart would break 💔

I worked for 20 years in a funeral directors so you really don't want to know.

My first full time job. Trainee manager with a supermarket chain. This store had an hydraulic scissor lift to take pallets off the back of lorries. It was being serviced. The engineer had it at full height and disconnected the hydraulic system, but he hadn't put the safety bar in place. The top slammed down, taking his head off in the process. I had just left the loading area buy heard the noises.
Second job. Office based in Kent when the Herald of Free Enterprise sank. Several people in the office had friends and relations on it.
Final job. Picture framing and art shop. An incontinent customer took a print out to be framed and it was soaking wet. DH dealt very sympathetically with her, worked out a way to frame it, took it out the back, doused it in disinfectant spray and left it to dry. It framed up very nicely.

Quite senior manager ‘didn’t believe’ that one of the customer service team was ‘properly blind’. She set up an obstacle course one morning to try to catch her out.
Fortunately my colleague’s guide dog was very good at her job and the manager was stupid enough to have told people what she was up to.

When I was working at a child care center in the infant care room,another employee ordered me not to pick up a child to comfort them when they had been crying for several minutes. The reason : "You'll spoil them". The same employee would tell older children who were fussy " don't think I'm going to pick you up". I told the director I didn't want to work with this person again and why. I'm not sure what happened after that but this person wasn't working there much longer. At the same center, we were short staffed one day so the owner had his brother come in. His brother's behavior was worse than the children's. He started a "game" of having the children throw toys all around the room.The place was a disaster afterwards. Now to top things off, a few months later employees were informed on Friday at the end of their shift that this was their last day. The center was closing because the owner hadn't been paying rent on the building.