you know the "sinister events from school days thread?" - what are your work stories?

[MamaG]

As a Saturday girl at Barratts shoes, the Area Manager came to visit. Said AM was a tits pervert and had married a 19 yo (who used to be a Sat girl)

He sent me downstairs to the stock room to check some slippers (?) and made me SQUEEZE past him when he could easily have moved

dirty bastard!

I actually to this day suspect that he came

I once witnessed two pretty senior employees having a hair-pulling, bitch-slapping, brawl in the photocopying roon
Unbelievable and most enjoyable to watch

My manager locked me in the ciggarette storage cupboard when I was a SG at Co-op... The room was literally filled from floor to ceiling with fags and had just enough room to move left-right (not turn round) ... I was kept in there for about 15 mins and refused to freak out; am not claustrophobic and refused to give him any reaction so as to not fuel his "enjoyment" - I completely ignored him for the rest of my employment!

I was once poked in the nether regions with a baguette by my female bakery manger, who said "Oooh, I bet you'd love a bit of that wouldn't you?". I was 16 and very innocent!

my ex bosses stole over £3million from clients (allegedly )

I used to work with a man who had a foot fetish - and I used to walk round in my stocking feet (not realising, obviously). He used to go all pink and flustered when I walked into his office.

Also worked in a furniture shop as a student. The assistant manager rammed himself up against me one day when I was straightening the trolleys - and when I shouted at him very loudly to f* off I was reprimanded for making a scene....

My boss would shout "this tea is BOLLOCKS" and throw/hurl it in the air if it was the wrong shade.Would also vomit into a carrier bag if you had got him a cake with lemon in it.

also once worked in a vintage clothing store where I had been told of "harmless"man who liked to stroke the lingerie.In he came,I innocently let him try on some stuff.out he came in a 30's pink satin nightie and nothing else ,with a massive erection,and asked me "how does this look on me,do you think?" He was about also only 5'tall with greasy thin hair and glasses like ice cubes.certainly not Carole Lombard.And I was still POLITE! I blame my mother.

Helly
That is actually the first tiem I have truly roared at an MN thread. Not even the erection, the tea and the vom. So hilarious!!!

My hideous first boss was too fat and lazy to walk down the stairs to the kitchen to make her own tea. She would call either me or the other employee to make it for her and bring it up. I walked into the kitchen one day to see him wiping his knob around the rim of her mug before calmly making her tea in it.

PMSL Ninedragons. I wish I'd done that to my first boss. I hated him so much. He would ring my extension three times if he wanted me to come into his office - then he would hand me a pile of papers and point at the photocopier as I was not worth wasting words on. If he wanted a cup of tea he would wave the mug at me and point at the kettle, however, if the tea was not EXACTLY as he liked it he would tell me to make another.
He also liked to wait until 5pm before he 'discovered' that some urgent letters needed to be typed AT ONCE in order to catch the post.
The office manager in the same place used to sexually harass all the secretarial staff. He would come up behind us when we were typing and put his hands around our breasts. I used to go home to my bedsit every night and cry. Sometimes I'd wake up in the morning still crying.

oooo Used to work in a small well known supermarket store, the store manager had a wife and his bit on the side, the area manager, had to work a shift with them both once, it was hilarious they locked themselves in the office was a young impressionable 17 year old!

plus ended up shagging the store manager (disclaimer a new unmarried one)

Had a very odd lady who used to come in and steal melons, and melons only

oh god rosalux i had a boss like that when i was about 18, he was a total pig

he would watch porno movies in his office, make me go out for a 'fried breakfast in a bun' for him every morning (relief tho as it got me out!)

normally he wouldn't talk to me normally, just waving at things and grunting, but
he would say things to me like, once when i'd had my hair cut, ' bet your boyfriend likes your new fringe, now he can see your face when you're giving him a bj'

and

(i am embarassed recalling this) " let me play with your beef curtains' (pass me a bucket, quick)

wtf? i often think, why couldn't that happen to me in the noughties, then i could get loads of compo money, lol

As office junior, I used to have to make everybody's coffee and it drove me mad! Even when I was really busy, I'd hear "mamaG can you make a round of drinks" in the head secretary's tinkly voice

ARGH

and she'd insist that I went odwn a flight of stairs to wash every cup EVERY TIME!

one day I dunked hers in teh loo

I worked in a library once where the staff consisted of:
the librarian, who had egg stains on his tie, greasy hair and who used to make innuendo-loaded remarks to me all the time

a man whose wife had left him and he had had a breakdown and hated all women with a passion.

a woman in her 50s who aspired to being the librarian and had a massive chip on her shoulder because she wasn't.

a woman who was just odd, but a member of the public had shot at her through the letterbox with an air rifle one day, so this may have explained things.

If you had put these characters in a TV sitcom, people would have said they were too far-fetched.

This library was in an area with a large population of Bengali people - so the librarian cancelled all the newspapers which they came in to read, allegedly in a "cost-cutting" exercise. He kept the Sun, though

I didn't last there very long, but I still have bad dreams about the place!

When I was 16 worked as a waitress in a horrible hotel. The second chef was a nightmare, a complete psycho. He was going out with one the the waitresses and when she tried to finish with him he rammed her up against the wall with a huge chefs knife to her throat.

When I was queuing up one day to collect some puddings, I was faffing around trying to remember the order, he said 'you are such a fucking stupid cunt' and started throwing puddings at me. I remember exactly what they were, peach melbas and sticky toffee puddings. I scampered whimpering out the back to hide away from him, covered in custard and raspberry coulis, and hid in the bread cupboard (which was cockroach infested to makes things worse). When I came out, nobody would talk to me, the chef told everyone to ignore me from then on, and because he was so fearsome everyone did what he said. I worked there another 6 weeks and nobody spoke to me at all, apart from this chef who called me all the names under the sun.

Bloody hell that was grim. No other job has ever come close to being this bad!

MamaG, what year would that have been that you worked for Barratts? The AM wouldn't have covered the Edinburgh shop too would he??

Cerys, that all sounds perfectly plausible alas, especially the egg stains
A friend used to have to sit and watch a colleague gnaw a cold lamb chop every day in the staffroom

The psychology depatment of Well Known English University, had, at one time, a receptionist who didn't like asnwering the phones, a librarian who didn't like you taking out the books, and a catering manager who would give you dagger looks, if you didn't have the right money for your sandwiches.

I worked for a short while in an insurance office where the head clerk and one of the agents used to get "stuck in the lift" on a regular basis.

I was quite matey with the night security guard at one of my old workplaces. He used to fill me in on all the juicy stuff that the night shifters got up to and he'd have me rolling around laughing at some of the stories, although I didn't always believe them. Apparently there were all sorts of shenanigans going on - from staff members rolling spliffs on the fire escape at 3am, to unlikely members of staff shagging in the meeting room. I thought he was a bit of an embellisher until I started working nights myself. On my first night there, he showed me a CCTV clip of my &boss getting a blowjob from another senior member of staff on the stairs, and said with a wink 'Remember - you even pick your nose, love, and I'll know about it'. True story!

martianbishop, I have to say that also sounds pretty universal in HEIs
The rudest person I ever met had the obviously high stress and hateful job of Secretary to a meek French Professor. She was absolutely volcanic before you'd even opened your mouth to say "here's my essay"

I worked as a freelance gardener in a beautiful but very unkempt garden.The owner had died but the family wanted the place kept tidy.
One day, after a bit of a hard slog, I decided to stop for my lunch and happily sat in the flower border, sandwich in one hand, my other hand resting on the ground. Something felt a bit weird though and when I looked my hand was covered in big lumps of what looked like fertilizer but lumpy.
Turns out that the family had lobbed the old man's ashes under his favourite bush.

It would have been about 1989 I think - but Leeds

Same time but different area then, maybe it was part of their training! Come to think of it the manager was a bit sleazy too and the assistant manager was an old bloke who they obviously had found a job for but who used to hold your hand when he was 'helping' you look for something in the stock room!