Worst colleague you've ever worked with?

[ThoseArentSpiritFingers]

Some of the stories popping up in the leaving work early thread have got me thinking about this, and thought we could share stories here to give me something to read

Worst person I've worked with was a guy in a bar who thought it was ok to serve underagers half pints because it wasn't a full pint.

Or the person who told me on one of his first shifts that he had a major come down. I was his supervisor at the time.

Or the person who arrived for a shift steaming, dropped and smashed 4 glasses in a row and had to be taken home. (Lived nearby so didn't take too long, but still)

Any stories to share?

My darling colleague who thought she was god's gift to everything. She fell out with everyone, and would bully anyone she could.
Her work was perfect (of course) but for some reason she spent her days looking for faults in others' work and then denouncing them to managers.

She used to send snotty emails but would 'ask to borrow' someone elses machine, so of course it looked like the other person was being snotty.

Great was my joy the day she left.

I once worked with a Spanish girl, who was stunningly pretty, but as moody as fuck. Face like a slapped arse all the time. In the job we did you had to be approachable, smiley, helpful etc. she was neither, she was inviting as a shark infested pool.
If a customer asked for something out of the ordinary, she'd stomp off in a huff. Or say something like 'take it or leave it', just no customer skills whatsoever. I do wonder how she got the job in the first place

I worked with a man who would not speak to female coworkers. He would say things necessary to do the job, but no chatting. Not even "good morning." He just blanked new female employees until they got the hint.

He was perfectly friendly and chatty with the male coworkers.

And it was a video store We were expected to chat and be friendly with one another.

The one who threw keys at my head for daring to disagree with him.

The one who was a sexist cunt and who thought it was totally ok for female staff to get paid less than male staff.

The CEO whose temper meant that a fair few things in the office were broken thanks to his rages.

The supervisor who used to drag all the male staff into her office to flirt with her, while making the female staff do all the work.

The restaurant manager who used to slap my backside and yell at me in Turkish, then yell even louder because I hadn't understood what he was saying (I don't speak Turkish!). There was a bellydancing night on Fridays and so the upstairs of the restaurant had half a dozen beautiful dancers who seemed to live there, at least part of the week. Or so my naive 16-year old self thought. I later found out the upstairs was a brothel and the 'dancers' had a little side job, which several of the other waitresses had been offered as well.

My first ever Mumsnet post was about whether to shop my lazy, untrustworthy colleague who called me babe and told racist, sexist and homophobic jokes.

He was truly awful, I still maintain that he had two jobs but he did nothing when he was here. He was our sort of sales rep, but he never took any collateral with him and I was reduced to counting sales packs and noting when he'd taken none with him on 'visits'

I caught him at an event talking about some pharma sales to my invited GPs but he lied to my face and told me I was 'loopy, babe'

He'd put in huge expense claims every month, once for mileage worth £180 which I had to attend instead of him when he told me he couldn't go the day before.

It came to a head when I was asked to provide ROI on our combined activity and he had to supply a list of all his visits etc... I found out he'd asked our admissions manager for a list of referrals, presumably so he could 'reverse engineer' his visit list but thanks to the help of Mumsnet I did indeed shop the cheating bastard!

Oh, and one morning I found him asleep in our office wearing a full tuxedo, reeking of booze and he asked me for £20 and a lift to find his car...

I declined.

The colleague, who stole from the company a grand total of £36,000! She did this in stages.
Everytime she moved some money to her account she used to call the office phone from somewhere else in the building and pretend to be one of her family members, calling with tragic news of a family death. We couldn't believe all this bad stuff happened to her, there was even a collection for her.
Security and accounts picked up the irregularities and traced the money to her account, where her wages were paid into. Then listened to the calls that were recorded on the office, all of which coincided with her fraudulent activity.

They decided to let her try again - which of course she did. Cue the phone call from her "mum" to say her father had died.
I was in the room with security and HR, when she was led to an office, I made the call to her mum expressing my condolences for the loss of her father (after colleague insisted her dad had died). Her very much alive and well dad answered the phone .....
So she was caught and prosecuted, company got their money back, but what really pissed me off was the fact that her theft, put four other members of staff under suspicion, who had to be suspended whilst an investigation was carried out into their work, they were all innocent .....

A man I worked with was strange, my friend would give him a lift to work he would stand waiting with his coat over his head (not his hood) then get in the car for the 20 min journey and keep it on his head, he would just peep out, he never gave her petrol money even though this was agreed, so she told him she couldn't take him anymore, the next day he stood waiting in the same place, she drove past! He also sent us a Christmas card, each one had odd writing in some just said 'Christmas' some just said 'from' mine had nothing in it. We found a blog he done it mentioned us all in it....

Worst has to be the micromanager. A remarkably unpleasant woman, she seemed to have difficulty with distance-managing (odd corporate set-up meant we were on one site, she was in central London, and the rest of the team were in New York, including her boss and my assistant). She'd been transferred from a different department to one she had no experience in, and I think she was a bit out of her depth over that too. Because she was having problems, she seemed to decide on a strategy of bullying me "pour encourager les autres", which combined with her insistence on overseeing every single step we took from 200 miles away...
At one stage, I had to send all my emails (to clients, to contractors, to my assistant) to her to check over before I was allowed to send them out. I wasn't allowed to order catering for client meetings, because I'd just misuse it. On the occasions she deigned to visit us (we weren't allowed to visit the London office, even if we were in London on business), she'd take a hot-desk in the middle of the room, plug in a headset and then proceed to have screaming arguments with contractors. When she was finished, she'd come over to us and hold forth on how that was the best way to get them to work properly, and how I in particular was slack and incompetent at doing so (hit all my targets...)
I lasted 8 months there and had to take a week off with stress. I was so bad that I'd started to have suicidal idealisation. Took a maternity cover at another company to get out of there.
I understand she's being reviewed by HR now for her remarkable levels of staff turnover. In comparison, my current boss' 10 minute rant about how unreasonable it was that [colleague in a different department] has gone on maternity leave and how inconvenient it is for him, personally, seems perfectly normal.

DH worked for a NHS consultant who was so bad she couldn't hold onto any staff. She would go through a stream if temps. Every time a new one was appointed Dh and his colleagues would start betting how long they would last. One (the most intelligent one in their opinion) went for a coffee break at 11am on her first day there and simply never returned.

Co worker who claimed to be an invalid, used a stick for walking and whose doctor had said was perfectly fit to work. After being laid off never worked again yet when I was laid off constantly badgered me about finding work, tried to find out what my redundancy payoff was and told ex colleagues she couldn't explain why I had left as it was a private matter leaving people thinking I'd been sacked.

The female boss who asked me what perfume I was wearing. When I said Impulse (it was the 80's!) she said she'd go to Superdrug and stock up. The next day she said she'd bought four as they'd be good air fresheners for the office loos!

Another female boss who would say use your initiative and when I did would explode and say I didn't ask you to do that. Would slope off every Friday afternoon with a headache/upset stomach/sick cat. Would crouch by people's desks whispering noisily and then glare at you for looking over in her direction. Laughing her head off with any blokes in the office but glaring at any women. Systematically wore me down mentally and physically and was a huge relief to be made redundant. Didn't know at the time it was constructive dismissal. I'm happy now, been paid off and not putting up with that nonsense any more. Sorry for massive rant but made me feel better!

Oh God, I run into these a lot, thanks to volunteer work!

The worst were three guys I had to work with on a big event, lazy and shiftless doesn't even begin to describe it.

Arsehole 1 was legally blind, a creep who used to flirt with every girl who worked on the event regardless of whether she was single or not, was appallingly rude to one of our special guests, messed me around so much regarding the timetable that it couldn't be finished until the week before the event, made so many disastrous PR mistakes that we all had to scramble to get them taken care of and accepted no responsibility for it during the reviews. I don't feel bad making fun of his visibility problems because he had no problem shoving a huge workload on top of me less than a month after my heart problems landed me in hospital and my mobility problems left me attached to a drip.

Arsehole 2 was a tech guy, I'm useless with tech so I asked him for help with some events. He did nothing, in the end I had to ask a friend of mine 2 days before the event. He never told me he hadn't done it either. He didn't bother getting to his stations on time, and got a good friend of mine drunk and tried to take advantage of her.

Arsehole 3 was just useless. A sexist pig who wouldn't left a finger to help girls he didn't find attractive, wouldn't help with events he had no interest in, referred to a young girl helping us as 'the one with the big tits' and deliberately sabotaged my performance to get my job the following year.

Joke's on them now, the event is tanking and I left long and ever ago. Arsehole 2 has put on a lot of weight and his hair is badly thinning, he's in a relationship with a very pretty girl but I don't think he knows she's an MtF, he's as sexist as the other two so unlikely. Arsehole 1 wasn't as bad this year so he may be a reformed character. Arsehole 3 was looking horribly stressed out at the thought of actually having to do some work.

A few more:

The woman I worked for in my first proper job. She never paid any of her suppliers and one of them sent someone over to assault me as revenge. All she cared about was how this might affect HER reputation. I resigned immediately.

The shithead who always called me the wrong name even though he was the only other person in the office.

The man who screamed at me for mistakes that I hadn't made. Horrible man. I was seriously ill in hospital and he kept ringing me up to demand that I return to work. Tried to send me work to do in the hospital.

The wanker who told me that he hoped I wouldn't use my recent miscarriage as an excuse for not focusing on my work.

All twats.

About six months ago, I did one day at a local business (I'm a freelancer). It all seemed fine when I arrived, but then the boss turned up, and spent the next four hours calling his staff cunts, fuckers, wankstains and so on. When he spotted me, he pointed at me and bellowed 'and who the fuck is this?'. Luckily he didn't shout anything at me.

It was so stressful I burst into tears when I got home - so I have no idea how the people who work there cope with it on a daily basis.

There is the lady who I got a job, even after being warned off of having anything to do with her by 3 different people, who turned into a complete bitch with a personality disorder.

Who teamed up with the;

Racist lady who thinks that the word P*ki is not at all offensive (added to her anti Muslim ranting I think we can surmise that it is).

Who is friends with

The nasty old divorced lady who's kids have moved to different sides of the globe (to get away from her I reckon), who refers to me as 'she' and told me to get on a table and clean the top of cupboard at 7 months pregnant!!

Who did the investigation into the racism and bullying by ladies 1 and 2 above which I am now questioning the outcome of as this lady obviously does not like me.

Men - probably the only one who was really really horrid was the young Saudi Prince who stuck his hand up my skirt whilst I was serving cups of tea when I worked for the private banking arm of a major American bank. Gawd how I wish I had been older and had the guts to sue his arse off.

The manager who used to meeting picnic. Kid you not. I was in a meeting, the sandwiches were under clingfilm. Manager comes in "do you mind if I sit in on this meeting, I have an interest on this matter".
Unwraps the sandwich platters and starts tucking in. Interupts the meeting to ask about fillings and snacks.
He did this whenever there was a meeting with food.

When I was 20, I had to go into a company to check a few facts for their accounts. I had been there for a week already as part of a team while their Head of Finance was on holiday, but it was just me that day and he was back. He somehow decided that I was there to spy on him & get him fired. I tried to explain who I was & what I was doing but he just kept shouting at me & asking who had sent me but without letting me get a word in. Even when his assistant had explained to him, he still refused to believe it & basically threw me out of the office. His assistant asked me to go back the following week to finish up. I agreed on condition he wouldn't be there.

:o I'll have to practise my 'meeting picnic' technique next week.

My manager who told me in every weekly 1-to-1 meeting that I was doing brilliantly, she was really pleased with me etc. but savaged me in my annual appraisal, cornered me in archive rooms to tell me that I was arrogant and to tell lies about things my colleagues had supposedly said about me, criticised my personal appearance, rubbished my ideas and then presented them as her own, micromanaged and then told me I wasn't showing initiative, threw a hissy fit when I showed initiative because it wasn't exactly the way she wanted, called me to ask me to slate colleagues she wanted to get rid of, hounded my lovely colleague until he accepted a money settlement to leave without bringing legal proceedings against the company, bullied me until I put in a grievance against her and got signed off work as I was fantasising about crashing my car on the way to work... She was made redundant while I was on maternity leave. I cried with relief after HR called me to tell me the news. Evil woman. Unfortunately for her, one of her best career prospects is out of the window because my lovely ex-manager supported me through the grievance procedure and can and will veto her for any position within her new company.

worked with a man who thought he was intellectually superior to everyone else. overheard me saying what a fab time I had in Barcelona on holiday and piped up to ask why a person like me would be interested in a place of culture.
that's a mild example of the kind of comments

I'm torn between the bullying director who, on being appointed, promptly renamed every female managerial role to "supervisor" and every male one to "manager" and the complete idiot he put in charge of me simply because he was a man.

My new manager insisted on every report I wrote being sent to him first. He would then remove my name and put his on the reports instead before sending them out.

One day, I put in a paragraph that made it very clear the writer was female
Highly amusing to the rest of the department, who loathed him as much as I did and knew exactly what he'd been up to

There was the shop manager who liked to hire incompetent people so she would shine in comparison - her passive aggressive streak was a mile wide and she would bully other staff members. She liked to buy the junior staff members some Ann Summers undies and present the item to them in front of everyone, so she could take the piss out of their reaction. She was the manager for an independent community pharmacy - if there was a problem on the shop floor or in the dispensary, she'd stand in the middle of the floor and scream like a fishwife, then refuse to speak to the person for weeks.

The co-worker who was always under the influence of some substance or other, but as we were private contractors, the parent company couldn't test us, and my boss wasn't interested. We worked for a national bus company in the maintenance dept - on heavy and dangerous machinery.

The supervisor who was such a pathological liar, he even told us that a fellow worker was his brother - in front of him

The sex pest who hated taking no for an answer

The recent co-worker who had such an inferiority complex, she was disciplined for slander and bullying; other workers resigned to get away from her. She had recently come back from suspension after being found naked on a bus with one of the mechanics!

I once worked with a guy who was the laziest wanker ever (I was temping in the local council and he was permanent). They had flexible time, but he would come in at about 9:30, go for lunch at 12:30 for an hour and a half, then leave on the dot of 4 - but always put full time hours on his flexible sheet. He would also make up 'site visits' and disappear for an afternoon. When he was in he would spend all his time arsing on the internet. Everyone, including the woefully pathetic managers, knew what he was up to, but he used to talk very loudly about racial discrimination (he was Asian) if anyone ever mentioned anything.

However, he got his comeuppance in the end as long after I left I heard he got sacked for misuse of his work phone, mwahahahaha!

Funnily enough I really liked him and we got on really well and had a good laugh at work - he was just such a dick!