To ask you for your WORST work stories (to cheer me up!!)

[CrossedToTheDarkSide]

I know I can’t be the only one who’s had my fair share of horrible bosses, nightmare colleagues and just miserable work situations.
In light of a recent nasty colleague i’ve been really struggling at work and feeling a bit sorry for myself so thought we could trade (lighthearted and hopefully funny) horror stories in the hopes of giving us all a few laughs.
So any tales of unreasonable bosses, unbearable colleagues, clever pay-back or just all round ridiculous work stories would really pick me up right now.

You start

Yes, where's yours?

Lots of ones about people sending emails to the wrong people, or the whole company spring to mind

I had a drunk boss 20+ years older than me try to snog me. I kneed him in the nuts. I was 17.

Another boss bought me a monogrammed Montblanc pen cos I was awesome at my job.

One boss wrote a limeric using my name on a restaurant napkin - I still have it, it's hilarious!

One boss on my first day, while sitting on my desk explaining part of the job to me, farted rather loudly. We both just carried on talking as if nothing has happened and neither if us ever mentioned it. Barbara, if you're reading this, I'm still laughing

I worked in a call centre when I was 22, looking back it was quite a bad company but it was my first real job I really did well in so was super proud of myself. In the office we were all quite young and silly but we got on really well. Anyway as a silly prank I threw a banna skin at one of my colleagues but it hit another colleague in the eye. It ended up in a huge row between us, so our team leader said it is best we go home and cool off. Anyway the next day we all made up and everything was fine and resolved. Than a week later my team leader pulled me aside and said our direct boss wanted to fire both of us over the incident. Luckily higher management intervened so we kept the jobs but my direct boss hated being overruled, so i knew he had it in for both of us, anyway luckily a few weeks later i got offered another job and left quickly. The direct boss was super mad I didn't give enough notice but I felt I didn't owe him anything after he tried to have me fired. I really gave so much to this workplace for very little in return so it taught me a good lesson about valuing yourself more and knowing where the lines should be drawn between work and private life.

I have loads... mostly naughty:

Very suave, rather smug boss dumped his gf who worked there too. She posted nude pics of him on noticeboard (this was pre Internet) as revenge, then resigned . We identified him by his Italian handmade shoes: which he had a well known penchant for: They were all he had on.

Different job, newish secretary in huge corporate with very big drinking culture met colleague she'd been flirting with in pub at lunchtime. Both got blotto & she booked a meeting room for a romp. Being new she didn't know all meeting rooms have CC TV routinely spot checked by security. She got sack, guy didn't.

2 married colleagues having affair snuck into a video conf room. The link to Head Office was still on but as it was minimised, bottom of the screen & they were preoccupied , they didn't clock someone had stayed on at the other end & could see them.

Lady coming up for retirement in HR would routinely & somewhat gleefully regale us with the gory details of her swinging parties & keep trying to recruit us all. Now we have the Interweb I can only guess at the senior shenanigans she's probably posting somewhere.

I got a document from a client that was funny and sent it to a friend to laugh at. 2 days later it was printed in a tabloid newspaper. I spent weeks terrified it would be traced back to me and I'd be sacked but it never was.

Not really one particular story, but in general the place I’ve just left was ridiculous events one day after the next. I suppose to an outsider it would have been hilarious that this is how a business was ‘run’ and I’m more than sure it would have made a very popular sitcom - if only I’d taken more notes! Honestly the characters were all there and developed
I can’t think why I handed in my notice...

Oyster My goodness, I’d have been a nervous wreck! Please tell us more Do you know it was definitely the friend that leaked it?

Worked at a spa 6 years ago, colleague was deaf and I’m certain autistic. She couldn’t even grasp how to paint nails and brought fish curry to work EVERY DAY to put in the halogen oven it stunk out the whole building

Sorry to hear you’ve had a bit of a rubbish time, OP.

I once worked for a woman who took great delight in making it hugely obvious she was having a 20 YEAR affair, despite the vast majority of staff knowing her DH of 25 years.

She was dumped by the original bit on the side and swiftly moved onto another, who began to insert himself into business matters very quickly (still don’t know whether he was on the scam, but it all seemed very suspicious), and was made Ops Director within about 6 months of meeting him. At which point I was fired for completely fabricated reasons, still bitter!

I was a hospital lab tech in my youth. There was this nurse who didn't like me because I shouted at her husband when I caught him trespassing (hunting) on our farm ground. Once in the middle of the night, when I was on-call, she called me back in for 'lab work'.

Lab work in the middle of the night was usually an emergency so I rushed to the hospital to discover a sample jar with a lone turd in it on the lab bench. We didn't even do stool samples there, they were 'sent out'. So I just placed the jar in the fridge and went home.

Touché Nurse, touché.

We had the strangest receptionist once. He would patrol the grounds around our buildings and report breaks in the fence and evidence of teens having late night goings on in the bushes. Even though policing the property was nothing to do with him.

Anyway, one time he phoned the police because he claimed he had DNA evidence and hoped they could catch them. The coppers face was a right picture when he produced a packet from his filing cabinet with a used condom in it. The ‘evidence’ was declined and he got a right roasting. Weirdo.

Oyster My goodness, I’d have been a nervous wreck! Please tell us more. Do you know it was definitely the friend that leaked it?

Not for certain but I think it's pretty likely. They said they passed it on to a couple of their friends and I think it cascaded from there. I was only a youngster at the time and it certainly taught me a lesson!

While I was still at school I worked in a garage at weekends and two evenings. I had the job of phoning customers to tell them that the £40 service they thought their car needed was actually eleventy billion quids worth of work.

The garage had a programme running where there was someone on day release come in for 12 weeks or so as part of a prison skills thing. They always kept themselves to themselves really. Never really bothered anyone. Anyway as I was about to turn 16 I invited everyone to my birthday party (it was a polite invite - only the other young ones like apprentices actually came). A woman in charge of the service spotted the invitation on the notice board and all hell broke loose.

I have no idea (although can probably guess) what the guy did, but I had four interviews with my boss, the woman (probation service I assume), a police woman and Nana all basically trying to find out what conversations I'd had with him, how much I'd told him about my life and had I ever been alone with him. The woman was unaware that there was any female staff under 18 employed there.

My boss at one point suggested that I might be too much hassle for them to keep on so my Nana suggested that if that happened I'd make up for lost wages by selling the story of their fuck up to the local paper (who basically paid £50 for anything at that point).

In the same place during the school holidays I used to pick up a McDonalds for everyone at lunchtime on payday each fortnight. Mainly as I got an hour for lunch, but the mechanics only got half an hour. Everyone added their order (food only, couldn't carry drinks) and money to an envelope that was on my desk. Usually folks would round it up so there was 10p or 20p per order extra and the lads all insisted that was my treat for going, usually it paid, or almost paid, for my meal which was great as I was only on £40 a week. Then twice in a row I went and the envelope was actually short and I had to add money. Obviously I wasn't happy so said I wasn't going to go again to one of the mechanics I was closest too. He set up the envelope the next time and monitored who was adding to it and we discovered that one of the bosses (on about 50k!) had taken to just adding his name and order (always the biggest order), but no money as he thought it was unfair that I always got the benefit! Even though I was the one in Maccy's waiting for the 20+ orders on my lunch break.

Years ago I was a waitress. DM came in and I served her. My boss came over and said have you seen the woman on table X, her face is like a crater. I looked him straight in the eye and said that's my mum.

No word of a lie. He looked away and said no it isn't. I said yes it is.

To this day I cannot fathom how the worm thought he didn't need to apologise. If it were now (I am older) I'd have made him squirm more.

I was working in a cafe when I was around 17. I was very shy at that age and always tried to make a good impression.

I'd been holding in a humongous fart all day, as I hadn't been able to break wind quietly without anyone noticing. (Plus, my farts are always rather smelly!)
Anyway, the cafe was only small, and you could see and hear everything that went on behind the counter. As I was drying the pots alongside my 3 colleagues, the loudest rip-roaring fart finally broke free of it's own accord and the whole place went quiet. I mumbled an excuse and went out the back to die of shame!

I worked in a large government department and a disgruntled employee around the time of the annual performance reviews broke every hot faucet lever on each of the kitchenettes 8 floors so no-one could have tea or coffee for weeks while they ordered in replacement lever parts.

At this same department someone shit in the communal showers.

At this same department HR had to send out a building message to inform staff that - no, it was not appropriate to walk naked on the lower ground floors between the showers and change rooms, and could all those showering downstairs please cover up.

In another role, I also had a b@!ch and bully of a manager who only approved my annual leave request to go on my honeymoon, 1 day after I was scheduled to go on my honeymoon after 8 weeks of asking. After 20 years and > 15 complaints of bullying against this manager, and institutional reluctance to deal with management bullying, I have heard on the grapevine that 1 compliant of bullying has now finally been upheld against her.

After many many years of working for bat-shit crazy managers and employers, I can now happily say I work in an amazing workplace and given a choice will never leave

A large, stuffy law firm I worked for had an annual piss up.

The head of Human Resources stripped to the waist and ran around the room with her boobs out.

I don't think she was sacked, but I bet she was mortified the next morning.

My boss rang me on my day off because there was a power cut and he didn't know what to do. He was earning about 3 times what I was.
Another boss used to perve over our 17 year old apprentice. She was a lovely girl, very attractive but thankfully completely oblivious to what a creep he was.
The team was all female, all mums. We made a pact that we never left them alone and we didn't.
He got sacked in the end and I laughed and waved

I had a boss who was horrible, had favourites and bullied others. I recently found out that she went for an interview elsewhere- her performance was awful but the icing on the cake was her dress splitting up the back during the day and she had to wear her coat. She didn’t get the job.

I once crashed the company car on my very first day at a new job. I was absolutely horrified —and for a split second considered just leaving the car in the middle of the road and doing a runner—

I’m usually a great driver, but I was already nervous and it was a much bigger car than what I’ve ever driven before, there was a fuckwit parked in a no parking zone and I just couldn’t see oncoming traffic. My boss was pretty good about it, and I stayed at the job for many years, but I still cringe whenever I think about it.

These are brilliant! Thank you everyone.
I realise I should have included my own!! I was rushing to post last night before bed because the idea to ask everyone suddenly occurred to me whilst scrolling Mumsnet!
So...
When I had my first job in a restaurant I was a very young inexperienced waitress, I used to get very nervous carrying drinks in particular as we served some fancy wines and I was always worried about spilling them! One day I confidently put two large glasses of wine on a tray and carried them over to a table, as I lifted the first off the second glass flipped over as the other glass was balancing it and I spilt red wine alllllll over the light coloured carpet. I wanted the ground to swallow me up.
Later at uni I had a bar staff job and our boss was a known drunk. He would sink pints the whole night behind the bar and he was a big bloke so it took a lot to get him drink. He used to take the car out after a few drinks (I was never aware at the time I thought he ordered takeaway) and waltz in with a huge pizza just at closing for himself. One night I met him in the carpark and he had just dropped an entire large pizza into the dirt and was grovelling on the floor to pick it up. At that point I realised he must have driven to get said pizza!! That and the fact he was caught with a punter in the disabled toilets in the middle of a shift doing god knows what, led me to hand my notice in very quickly!!
Also worked somewhere with horses once (always been a keen rider but only experience of my own horses) and they had lots of lovely old riding school ponies who I adored. But the boss owned an insane show jumping horse who was the biggest thing I’d ever come across. He used to be the most difficult horse to handle and after being very nearly run over, stepped on, kicked at and bitten a couple of times, I had had enough. The last day I was attempting to get him in from the field and he tore off across the field - lead rope dangling and it took me forever to get the courage to go up to him and get him back!!
Keep them coming guys, i’ve loved reading these!!

The first day of my last employed position (I have been self-employed ever since) should have been a warning.

My boss was an awful micro-manager and told me that I had to send every piece of written work to her for reviewing before it could be sent out (despite the fact I had fully managed my own case load in my previous job). On my first day she explained that they used a particular method to file share internally. This needed the IT department to set me up with certain privileges and induct me as to how the system worked. Unfortunately, they were in crisis mode dealing with problems that had arisen during a system upgrade and couldn't spare the time for two days to set me up on the system.

I suggested to my boss a different way of file sharing that I could use temporarily so that I could get on with some work in the meantime, but was rather rudely told that this was not acceptable and the preferred system had to be used at all times.

Eventually I was set up with proper access to the system and got on with my work, dutifully sending each file to my boss for review. She would review it and email me back to say that she had saved it with amendments. I always read it over again as I was keen to learn and to improve my work and was pleased that I never spotted any major changes.

I didn't last long in the role, for a variety of reasons, but largely because I really disliked the micro managing boss and she had taken an equal dislike to me. Other people I worked for in the organisation praised my work and we got on well.

However, it was only shortly before I left 4 months after joining that I discovered that my boss didn't know how to use the file sharing system that she had been adamant that I use, and so the 'amended' documents she had been sending back to me were my own originals! It still amuses me that the 4 months of micro managing she did was completely wasted as not one single amended document was ever sent out.