What is an odd thing you had to deal with at work?

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theevildjinn@reddit

I worked for a small British software company, in France. They made really niche software for supermarkets and DIY stores, basically it helped them plan the layouts of their stores and where to place the products on the shelves based on sales and footfall etc. There were only about a dozen employees, and the boss was this ultra paranoid man from Portsmouth who was convinced our competitors were lurking around every corner. A group of 2-3 of us had to go and visit the client head offices every week, usually in Holland but sometimes in France or Spain. Weird things we had to do: Sit with our laptop screens facing away from any windows whilst at the client, in case a competitor had planted someone in a nearby building with a telescope to spy on us or steal source code. Just before a meeting at a client in Spain, we'd been left in the meeting room on our own with the boss. My colleague (project manager) was asked by him to stand on a chair and check the ceiling tiles, for hidden listening devices. We were told not to socialise with each other outside of work, in case we discussed work topics and were overheard. He went apeshit once in the lounge at Schiphol, because somebody mentioned the name of an employee of the client. We weren't allowed to connect our laptops to the clients' network, we had to sit near a phone socket and use dial-up. We had to use a really primitive navigational database system from the 1980s that was a complete PITA to work with, just because our company had bought the rights to it when it was discontinued. One of the French developers put together a proposal for the boss, in which we'd port all the products to using SQL Server instead (sorry if this is a bit too techie). The boss started yelling about how Microsoft could put a backdoor in SQL Server so that it stopped working if it detected that it was our software using it, because he regarded them as a competitor. There were loads more, I was there for 6 years or so. He told us how he washed his hair with Fairy liquid, because he reckoned the shampoo manufacturers put stuff in their products to make you go bald, so that they can sell you hair restorer.

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BarryFairbrother@reddit

Reminds me of a company I worked for where one of the windows looked out onto a railway bridge that was a lot higher than the building itself. The boss had all those windows blacked out in case anyone on a train took a photo of the computer screen. The train would have to be stationary in that exact spot, and anyone interested would have to perch out the train window and aim a powerful periscope down about 10 storeys to be able to see the (from that distance) tiny computer screen.

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theevildjinn@reddit

Sounds like they'd have got on with my boss! It's been many years since I last saw him, he'll be in his 70s now and I heard a couple of years ago that he's gone blind. I can guarantee he'll be claiming they've finally got to him somehow.

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earthworm_express@reddit

Interviewed a guy for a job that involved driving. Checked he had a driving license etc. Gets the job, first day “I don’t drive”. He’d passed his test in the 80s and never driven since, wasn’t interested in doing it. Quit a week later, then applied for every vacancy we posted.

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BarryFairbrother@reddit

My guess is he needed to tick the boxes to get his Dole money.

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lemon-bubble@reddit

I worked in airport retail where you had a target number of boarding cards scanned per day. Problem is, people could refuse. Also not everyone who would be airside would be flying. There was one override for passengers who refused, another for staff. A major airline went bust and the number of passengers dropped. I got pulled up for not having enough boarding cards scanned. Asked to see my numbers. Quick maths showed my number of boarding cards scanned (passengers minus refusals) was on target. But my total number (passengers minus refusals PLUS staff) was off target. Explained that that was the problem, and there was a clear cluster off staff transactions where there were no longer flights due to the airline that had collapsed. Management refused to believe me. Got a verbal warning. Apparently nobody else’s had dropped as much as mine. Nobody else had dropped as much as mine because everyone else refused to do staff transactions. It’s been years and I’m still mad. It was so fucking stupid.

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BarryFairbrother@reddit

That's bonkers, I mean what are you supposed to do anyway if a passenger refuses? You can't force them. Is this to do with avoiding VAT?

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sneakyblurtle@reddit

I work at an airport. Are you saying if I went into Boots or whatever and tried to buy some lunch the staff could refuse to serve me? On a half hour break with a 15 minute round trip to the shop I'd be quite upset at that to say the least.

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Crab-Turbulent@reddit

My odd thing (in my personal opinion) is doing stuff like one to ones or like staff meetings...in the canteen. I get it might be normal and it probably is but I don't like having other people overhear stuff (like, canteen staff will openly gawk at us during them) especially if it's personal like it might be during one to ones. I've had like team staff walk past during one to ones and even sit on a table behind us. Makes me feel like I can't be very upfront about things, unlike yknow, the POINT of one to ones....Also the canteen gets so loud and it's really hard to hear anyone. I don't get it because rooms can be booked and we have an entire section of the building that's empty. And yes I have asked whether we can hold one to ones (at least) privately but got told it's just easier for the manager (I have booked rooms before for myself and it isn't too hard...).

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No-Structure-8125@reddit

This one annoys me so much. At the job I've just left they used to do this shit all the time. Despite the fact we had 5 different meeting rooms to use, they'd have team meetings and chats in the canteen. Or the directors would take phone calls in there. Made me feel awkward when I wanted to go in and make a cup of coffee.

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BarryFairbrother@reddit

I encountered an ex-colleague having a heated discussion with her divorce lawyer in the canteen. She was making really rude gestures and giving the evil eye to anyone who dared walk in for a cuppa, as if we had done something wrong by being there.

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Crab-Turbulent@reddit

Yeah and we have members of public there staring at us too when these conversations feel private 😖

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BarryFairbrother@reddit

I've had this too, it's very annoying and makes you self-conscious. I also had a line manager who happened to be German. Whenever she needed to talk to someone about anything perfectly normal or banal to do with everyday work stuff, she would go up to their desk and say, "We need to talk." Although her English was excellent, the nerve-inducing interpretation of this particular phrase was lost on her as a non-native speaker.

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yeeyeevee@reddit

I have similar in my workplace. We’re a laboratory and therefore wear lab coats in designated spaces, meaning that to use the line manager office or meeting room, you have to remove your lab coat and wash your hands, doing the same to re-enter. Apparently, that’s too much work when a team leader or manager want to have a private chat, so they will end up using the back room which is the exit to the bins, or the walk-in incubators. Depending on who’s having the talk, you either use the space while they stand awkwardly waiting for you to leave, or actually tell you to leave and you can’t use the space. I wish they’d give the floor managers a dedicated area for these sorts of situations

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Ravekat1@reddit

Yeaa I get that

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BarryFairbrother@reddit

My former employer would only reimburse travel costs if you went first class (trains) or business class (flights). The management was typically greedy and trying to cut costs in any tiny way, but for some bizarre reason totally inconsistent with the rest of their financial attitude, they had this policy. They were really petty with zero discretion, e.g. on a train trip from Sussex to Newcastle, I had to pass through London on the Tube from Victoria to King's Cross, and they did not refund the tiny amount of the train journey that was covered by Tube, because there is no first class on the Tube. There was no travel department with people booking trips for you - we had to book work travel ourselves and then send the invoices for reimbursement after the trip. So people would often accidentally book an economy flight (surely the automatic habit unless you're loaded) and then the company would refuse to reimburse, even though it would have cost them a lot less than reimbursing business class! It could have got a bit dodgy legally because not everyone could afford to book a trip to e.g. Singapore or the west coast of the US on business class out of their own pocket and wait months for it to be paid back, but this was the only way it would be reimbursed. So some people would have no choice but to book economy flights and not get reimbursed, or not go on the trip at all, the latter of which risked being given a bad performance review.

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DoctorWhofan789eywim@reddit

I have huge anxiety around phone calls. The difference is I dont apply for jobs where that would be a problem.

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Loud-Competition6995@reddit

What job do you do? I can’t think of many modern jobs where phone calls aren’t at least tangentially involved.

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BarryFairbrother@reddit

Loads of office jobs where you are at a computer - instant messaging is far more common. I have a phone call maybe once a month.

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ThginkAccbeR@reddit

People so weirdly make phone calls in my job that the company took away everyone’s physical phone and only gave you a license for a VOIP system if you could prove that you made phone calls. All communication is done through Teams. I’m an office manager, so I have a VOIP license.

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Loud-Competition6995@reddit

I made my comment under the assumption that their anxiety for phone calls wouldn’t draw a distinction at Teams calls.

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ThginkAccbeR@reddit

Well, my anxiety on phone calls does not affect my ability to take or received Teams calls. And it was more your assumption that people do jobs that require a telephone these days that I was responding to. Even as an office manager, I so rarely call people. For one thing, email leaves a trail.

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thorn312@reddit

I work in eCommerce, I have the odd meeting or team call, but that's not the same level as calling customers/clients. Also, mostly they're scheduled in so I can prepare. I actually moved from customer support sideways in to eCommerce and it is a lot more time to myself to focus on what I'm doing, which is definitely useful.

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r_hcaz@reddit

In software I make zero calls. Only internal meetings, but never cold calls to customers or anything

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Nerry19@reddit

I mean most jobs in catering, retail, manual labour etc dont

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DoctorWhofan789eywim@reddit

Copywriting/web design and admin, emails etc.

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aboottime_@reddit

I have an autistic colleague who is on a pretty good wage but they're terrible at their job, constantly messing up, freaks out at every new project, refuses to go above/beyond, is basically given easy non challenging tasks. Nothing can be done about it apparently ....

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Dapper_Ad_9761@reddit

We have two of these at work.

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aboottime_@reddit

It's a difficult one isn't it. Our manager is very soft but our workplace is heavily focusing on wellness so it's a difficult one to approach. I don't want the person to lose their job; I just want them to be useful

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Dapper_Ad_9761@reddit

It certainly seems so. Forever in meetings and final warnings, but they are just let off the hook every time. While two other staff have been sacked for next to nothing. And other staff have to pick up after them and do their jobs as they can't or aren't doing it. Years ago, if you couldn't do it, you were plain sacked. Now it's ridiculous.

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Ornery-Woodpecker214@reddit

On the other hand, disability benefits aren’t enough to live off as it is, extremely difficult to get and it’s even harder than it ever was before. When these people don’t work everyone tells them they are physically capable and have no excuse but realistically, nowhere is hiring them over a candidate who doesn’t have a disability preventing them from doing the job or asking for adjustments. It’s fully legal to not hire someone for their disability so long as you don’t state that’s the reason why. People with disabilities such as autism or mental illness unfortunately cannot win although businesses and employees sometimes have to suffer as a result as well.

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aboottime_@reddit

Yeah we're facing redundancies and I reckon they'll be excluded from it tbh

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Dapper_Ad_9761@reddit

That's terrible. Just to look good on paper. If that happened at our company, there would be uproar as our two are both on benefits, so we don't really need to work for cash reasons, but most have mortgages and kids etc trying to get by in life.

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Ornery-Woodpecker214@reddit

I had the same in a supermarket she was given the customer facing role but customers constantly complained about her because her lack of social skills made her very rude, blunt and unhelpful to customers. She’d also randomly trauma dump onto them as well as us. I’m autistic myself but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been able to learn social etiquette (even if it’s harder) like not trauma dumping to strangers. She was genuinely extremely difficult to work with because she’d follow you around always within a 50cm radius of wherever you were when you worked the tills with her just constantly talking and talking at you even when you don’t respond or you’re stood helping a customer and already talking to that customer. Her boyfriend broke up with her for practically 5 minutes and she didn’t come in for 2 shifts nor did she ring in sick she just didn’t turn up. They didn’t sack her but classed them as sick days told her she doesn’t have any more sick days/hours left and if she takes any more, as per her contract, she’ll have to attend a meeting and get a disciplinary. The managers overspent on everyone’s wages so sacked 18 staff and kept 3 and she was first to be let go. It wasn’t because of her autism but because she just wasn’t capable of providing good customer service and was incredibly distracting to work with even if that was due to her autism.

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daz1987@reddit

My workplace is absolutely full of sick notes. People who can't do this and that due to certain reasons. Thing is all these people, all these "issues" have only arisen over the past few years. Nothing can be done about it. PC brigade.

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AffectionateBall7151@reddit

We have an autistic colleague too who sounds the same. He will also ask the most inappropriate questions. He asked how a pregnant lady will be able to financially look after the baby, not directly to the lady. He is always asking the younger ladies out for drinks. Autistic or not he does seem odd.

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ChadHanna@reddit

Being socially awkward is a key criterion for autism diagnosis e.g. making inappropriate eye contact, lack of reciprocity in conversation. This colleague also seems to have a learning disability - I have learned to try and keep my mouth shut.

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ibiacmbyww@reddit

> He is always asking the younger ladies out for drinks. This drives me up the wall. Unless someone has tattooed the words "I'M GAGGING FOR IT, PLEASE ASK ME OUT" on their forehead, assume all colleagues are ageless, asexual, agender blobs. People you work with are officially Off Limits. It's really not that difficult.

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InternationalRide5@reddit

Or they ask you to come and help them tidy up the stationery cupboard. (Do workplaces still have stationery cupboards?)

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Naolini@reddit

Mine does!

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YouWascallyWabbit@reddit

Wouldn't have married my husband though if that was the case. We got hammered on a works night out, hooked up, and that was it. Different time I guess.

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gordonbennettsuncle@reddit

That makes me really annoyed that you can’t sack them. No one should be paid for a job they are unable to do.

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OptimusLinvoyPrimus@reddit

You absolutely can sack them, assuming you follow the right process and have tried everything short of that. The problem here is that OP’s manager either isn’t competent to do that (and hasn’t asked for help), or can’t be bothered with the hassle.

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aboottime_@reddit

The worse part is, I think my manager is going to avoid it until she retires in 4 years and the next manager (likely me unless they change the team) will have to deal with it...however we might be facing redundancies this year or next....

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Best_Needleworker530@reddit

I work at uni, deal with basic student queries. One day I was looking for a labelled tablecloth for an academic.

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thenorthmerchant@reddit

I worked in enforcement as an Environmental Health Officer so I've seen a lot of odd and not so savoury things. The jewel in the crown though is investigating "the hotel orgy that turned into food poisoning"

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ThePangolinofDread@reddit

You guys got me out of the shit once, I was sent in to take over a pub in London after the previous manager had done a runner with the takings. Area manager wanted the pub back up and running the next day. I have never seen such a disgusting dangerous premises. It was infested with rats, the kitchen & cellar looked like they had been cleaned in years, you had to reach past hanging slime mould to get to the ice, a section of ceiling in the customer area had fallen with more looking like it was about to come down due to leaking raw sewerage from the toilets, the list goes on. I called the area manager and told him and his response was get it cleaned as best you can and get open tomorrow! I called the EHO from the pub I was a shift manager at previously, told her what I had walked into asked her to come do a visit and told her what the area manager has said to me. She turned up at 7am and by 10am had issued a Hygiene Emergency Prohibition Notice! Area manager got the sack and the company ended up doing a full refurb and I went back to doing my nice easy shift manager role in a pub I liked :D

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thenorthmerchant@reddit

Yeah the easiest way to go about things like that is is call us, if it looks wrong then it is and you don't want to be dragged in for a prosecution and have dead rats, cockroaches, rotten food and a stack of photos slammed in front of a district judge in crown court (I'M LOOKING AT YOU HARVESTER)

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ThePangolinofDread@reddit

I always saw you as a resource rather than someone to be feared. Far too many people I worked with were scared of EHO visits but I always welcomed them. If I'm doing my job right then I've got no worries and if you did find something wrong , great! that's something I obviously have missed or don't know so you finding it was a learning experience. Over the years I ran pubs I learnt so many little bits from EHO's and you made me a better manager. Plus my area managers couldn't argue with your report so you gave me the backup to get things sorted when they claimed there was no budget to do it

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Temporary-Zebra97@reddit

My fave was getting called into sit on a HR disciplinary investigation to discuss one of the sales reps who had been suspended. She had been having a few issues with her laptop and had brought into IT to have her data ported onto a new laptop, there was one folder stuffed with videos and images of her engaging in a number of sexual acts, mostly it seemed with our customer base. The really odd thing was me sat between the Sales Director and HR director who were having a full on blazing row, HR director wanted her fired and the Sales Director didn't. (Her numbers were awesome)

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ThePangolinofDread@reddit

Back in my pub management days I was recruiting for waitstaff at an airport pub. Hours of trade were 4am to 10pm, busy times were 5am-9am, 11am-2pm & 4pm-7pm. During interview I had a candidate state that she would be unable to deliver pork products or handle alcohol due to her religion and that due to child care she could only work 9am to 1pm. The job advertised was for full time staff able to attend work from 4am and to be available to work until 11pm. I rejected her application on the grounds that she had no experience, was unable to fulfil the required hours criteria and during the interview swore repeatedly. She tried to take the company to court for religious discrimination! Thankfully I had documented her swearing during interview on my notes and my only comments on her religion were writing her statement about pork & alcohol. Still had to deal with a full company HR investigation and her claim went nowhere.

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blozzerg@reddit

I actually used to know someone who sued for religious discrimination and won - this was a big corporate sales based job for a worldwide chain and the area they were based in had normal bonuses but also other smaller prizes like £20 gift cards or a box of chocolates for things like biggest sale of the week, best feedback received etc One week the prize was a bottle of Prosecco and they argued that it was discriminatory because they didn’t drink due to religious reasons, and no alternative prize was available. They actually won and received a payout, and a couple of years later at a different company we got wind that they’d tried it again for something similar.

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NibblyPig@reddit

Gosh that's stupid, you'd just regift it like anything you don't want.

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blozzerg@reddit

There’s a been a few cases like this, unfortunately you have to be careful with stuff like that. One bloke won some alcohol in a work raffle and they swapped it for chocolates on the basis he didn’t drink because of his religion and thought he’d appreciate the chocolates more, but because they didn’t ask him he sued for discrimination and won. Simple stuff like raffles and incentives which should be a bit of fun turned into something you have to tiptoe around because of religion. It’s stupid.

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NibblyPig@reddit

It boggles the mind, offering an alternate prize based on religion is literally discrimination based on religion, you're treating them differently due to their religion. Lots of people will win prizes they have absolutely no use for. What about the guy that doesn't drink but not for religious reasons! If I win a tin of dog food and I don't have a dog it's not the end of the world

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pajamakitten@reddit

> She tried to take the company to court for religious discrimination Sounds like you would have a legitimate case there though. Someone refusing to handle alcohol in a pub for religious reasons means they cannot fulfil the job description, even pork products would mean she could not give customers pork scratchings or bacon/sausage sandwiches (assuming you do hot food as well). Her religion is a massive barrier to her doing the job.

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ThePangolinofDread@reddit

My management teams theory was she didn't want the job and was only coming in for the interview so she had evidence for her benefits that she was trying to find work. We used to get loads of people like that some of whom were really blatant about it or even told me that is what they were doing. The discrimination attempt was probably a side hustle to see if she could get some money out of the company. I used to use her as an example when I was training new shift managers on how to interview on the importance of keeping good notes during an interview and following the company interview process.

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JimmyJonJackson420@reddit

💯 I mean it was a pub she knew exactly what she was doing

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Hyperion2023@reddit

Oh man! I’ve just remembered. I sometimes do photographic surveys of historic buildings as part of my role at an archaeology and heritage company. They’re often farmhouses, or buildings like cottages and lodges that are part of a big country estate. For one of these, we were photoing the gatehouse. The main house itself was a huge country pile, with a big gravel drive etc. Fancy as hell. The people had moved out of the gatehouse before it was due to be renovated, someone had arrived to let us in. Overall it wasn’t particularly high end, and there was a bit of furniture still there but otherwise empty. So we go from room to room taking standard pics. In a bedroom, nearly finished. Suddenly, we see from the window a Mercedes hooning down the drive and screeching to a halt on the gravel. A man and a woman get out- he’s dressed fairly smart, she’s proper dolled up, bodycon dress and stilettos, very salon hair and makeup. He marches straight into the house with her teetering behind. Straight upstairs, we’d gone onto the landing and he walked past us as if we weren’t there. We politely go and wait in the other room but can see that the guy is searching every inch of that room, down the back of drawers and upending every bit of furniture. Like a police search. The woman is saying something and he mutters at her and she falls silent. Me and my colleague not saying a word but looking at each other like ‘What the fuck’ The atmosphere was so tense. Then after a few minutes he either finds what he was looking for, or gives up. Back outside, both into the merc, wheels spin on the gravel and they’re gone. I’ll never know what that was all about, guns, drugs, ID or something weirder, but crazy shit

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bearded_unwonder@reddit

I've just returned from the coffee shop I work at after trying to get a pigeon out. Happens more often than you think, to be honest!

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Think-Committee-4394@reddit

Ok rotating shift system 6 to 2 & 2 to 10 - my viewpoint is watching from the QA office which was a cube in the middle of the shop floor Lad is seen coming on site at about 7:30 pm Clearly pissed as a newt, can of XXXX in hand Lad walks into break room where lockers are & takes about 9 tries to get key in locker Takes 10 mins to get coat off (achieved greater SUV’s when he stopped trying to get coat off over said can o larger) Slightly shorter time to get work overall on (took less time remembering to transfer can to other hand) Staggered onto shop floor & went to chat to a mate He had phoned in sick for his 6 to 2pm shift Funnily enough his employment expired that night

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r_mutt69@reddit

We once had a girl start at our place who handed her notice in after a few weeks. When I asked her why she was leaving she said it was because she didn’t like taking so many phone calls. It was a call centre. So there’s probably a few out there who just take the approach of just applying for anything to see if it sticks

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Corrie7686@reddit

Team member resprayed one of the company pool car Audi A6's with paint to cover up scratches and stone chips. When it was my time to use the pool car, I noticed the poor finish and reported it. He was the previous user, he denied it. I was blamed as I was the user before him. I.e. I alleged 'spotted' the shit paint job and was attempting to blame it on him. He eventually confessed and was ultimately promoted.

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Sad_Introduction8995@reddit

Someone I know has interviewed (repeatedly) the same person for various skilled roles. They interview well and appear competent as far as I know, but there has always been someone better. Whenever they are rejected they go off the deep end and make a complaint which goes ALL the way up and wastes everyone’s time, and has to be fully investigated. This person suggests (each time) that the company pay out a suggested amount of ££ to make the whole thing go away. They can’t see him coming because the applications are anonymised… The amount of stress and time wasted over this guy is phenomenal.

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Active-Task-6970@reddit

Bet the OP’s comment was a minimum wage job. Yet most on Reddit will be screaming from the rooftops that she should have been paid a wage she could comfortably live on.

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UnIntelligent-Idea@reddit

Another memory dredged up. Bob. Bob had been with the company 30+ years. He was objectively bad at his job, my predecessor did a lot of Bob's job for him, just to get the work done. He really didn't like me, as I wasn't going to put up with that sort of laziness. Bob's worst trick was agreeing that he'd do X,Y and Z, then in the next meeting would call Me out for not doing what I'd agreed. Once I cottoned on, every meeting had a list of actions issued after, which he really didn't like. The funniest bit was that we worked in a meat-alternative production company, his wife believed he was veggie! She would regularly pack him salads and healthy meals. He was known for loving his bacon sarnies and big breakfasts. After he retired, he lost a LOT of weight. No idea whether she ever found him out 😂

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PhantomFairy@reddit

Temp was hired to do some paper filing. Nice girl, probably aged about 22, but she'd never heard of the alphabet. She had no concept of it. No understanding there's agreed sequence of letters. My boss tried to teach her, and wrote it all down for her, but temp was so slow she was fired after a couple of days.

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Electricbell20@reddit

Management in my area decided to bring another person in to do resource management and lead things. I was previously doing this on the side of my day job as no one else was really doing it. I was only doing it because we had bunch of younger people who felt isolated. It wasn't for the business. Management decided to bring someone else in to do it. Ok I'll go back to my day job. For some reason everyone outside of my group seems to expect me to still know what everyone is doing and how things are progressing. I thought it was just a transition thing but it's still happening. Then I had someone from management ask me about progress across projects this week. I'm so confused as to what is going on right now.

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Kuddkungen@reddit

This is normal, in my experience. People who need to know the answer to X reach out to the last person who was able to give them the answer to X, because 99.9% of the time that's a successful strategy. You just need to gently redirect them to the person who *should* be able to give them the answer now. "Sorry, I'm no longer handling these things. Please reach out to Bob, he'll be able to help you!"

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Electricbell20@reddit

I have

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pajamakitten@reddit

You would be amazed at how often treatment for a patient is delayed because doctors and nurses cannot fill out test request forms properly, label your sample properly, put the label on the bottle correctly etc. Even in emergencies (patients bleeding out heavily), I have to ask for repeats because the sample has the patient's name spelt incorrectly on it (100% automatic reject, no questions asked, no appeal, my job on the line if I accepted it).

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IITommoII@reddit

I used to work at KFC. We've had times where we ran out of chicken, ran out of chips. Somebody once wrote on the wall in the ladies toilets "hello KFC" in shit. Somebody once released a tub of live crickets by the door into where we make the food.

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Pinecone_Porcupine@reddit

Jesus.

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pajamakitten@reddit

No, that was Moses.

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EdanE33@reddit

New client had an absolute meltdown at a basic ordinary question I'd ask anyone, then harassed me by email, wrote two letters to my bosses (copies for each manager!). He was convinced I was scamming him somehow and threatened to 'expose me' while declaring how clever he is because he has loads of money. I immediately dropped him as a client and my colleagues spent several hours reading and laughing at his emails. Strange strange man

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RachaelBlonde@reddit

Used to work at a Velux installation/repair specialist someone higher than me took on a new installation engineer, his 2nd day one of my jobs called to say there had been a problem with the installation, when the engineer came back to the office he told me he couldn’t complete the job as he was scared of heights and refused to go up the ladder, I was like mate your a fooking roof window engineer wtf 😂 let him go there and then

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ZimbabweSaltCo@reddit

Worked at a construction company for a time as a surveyor and we had this really exciting project slated to go on Grand Designs. It was an architect designing this very trippy eco-home for his dad in the countryside. The whole project was utter chaos and deserves a story of its own but the odd thing was the architect would always ring his dad up like a kid. Very surreal moment when he put “daddy” on the phone and this old bloke was tearing into the director and demanding to know why a council estate was now going up around his house, as if we somehow control the local housing policy.

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TubbyLittleTeaWitch@reddit

Someone shat in the soap dispenser. Now we have ones that lock.

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Pinecone_Porcupine@reddit

What 😳how does one even do that

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Pinecone_Porcupine@reddit

There’s a woman in my workplace who says she has ADHD and Autistic and these are the reasons why she can say what she wants, mostly commenting on other women’s appearance. She loves younger men lol and will tell them they are her favourites. I’m pretty sure this is sexual harassment/discrimination but because the manager has done nothing about it, has been allowed to go on forever.

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Vast_Resolve_8354@reddit

We had one of those "auditors" turn up at our site. As I was the most senior manager there at the time, I went out to speak to him. Just asked him to keep out of the yard, watch out for trucks etc and let him crack on with it. 20 minutes later I get called and asked to come back out to the yard - one of our mechanics has taken offence to being on camera and had gone out and smacked him one. Had to spend the rest of the day pulling CCTV footage, giving statements to the police and explaining to the Directors what happened.

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Ok-Direction-8257@reddit

About 12 years ago, I was in an outdoor production of a play. It was a small amphitheatre in a residential area. Private land, but very close to a public right of way and road. Local guy who seemed a bit odd though amiable enough was often talking to us during rehearsals and we were friendly enough to him (we're working, but didn't ignore him and weren't rude or anything). Anyway, I think he had a bit of a mental health turn, and during dress rehearsal invaded the stage with an airhorn and a home-made poster simply saying "FAGS". He then got in my face and raised his fists at me. I don't think he was actually gonna hit me as it seemed fairly childlike, but it still wasn't great. We called the police and he got a bollocking, so we didn't see him again. But suffice to say, I drank a lot that night, and didn't work with the company again. Definitely not paid enough to put up with that shite. Moral of the story, stay away from the general public.

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jpdonelurkin@reddit

Boomers who have had iPhones for 15 years but still can't use them properly and need help nearly daily.

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ijustwatchedlost2k20@reddit

A family friend told us a mad story once - at her work they hired a new women, interviewed her etc and all seemed fine. Then when she started she announced that she has a medical condition so everyday she would need to go home and nap for 2 hours. Obviously they asked her why didn’t you tell us this before etc and she ended up trying to sue them for discrimination.

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PigHillJimster@reddit

I was working for a major Japanese manufacturer of consumer goods based in Plymouth. We had a summer shutdown for two weeks where almost everybody had their two week summer holiday. When we returned to work we discovered the wall separating the solder bath lines and the final assembly lines had been removed making one huge room. The Senior Management Team did a big presentation where they revealed they'd invested 50k in removing the wall that would improve efficiency and streamline the production process. Two weeks later the factory has an annual fire inspection by a member of the local fire brigade. This was when an annual inspection was necessary. He was led around by a couple of the Senior Management team. On the shop floor, in front all the staff working there, he asks "Didn't there used to be a wall here?" "Yes, we knocked it down to improve efficiency." "That's a shame because you're going to have to build it back up again. That wall was a Fire-Break". The shop floor erupted in laughter and two weeks later the wall had been reinstated.

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SurprisedCoot23@reddit

Woman i work with was having an affair with a guy that works on a different deptartment but at the same location. Eventually he moved to another branch and stopped showing interest in her. She asked me to add him on facebook as he'd blocked her. I sort've got on with him so i agreed. She had a look through his facebook when he accepted. Then she asked me to post something along the lines of RIP (name of my colleague) to see if he'd react. I declined.

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11pagesIn@reddit

I manage a team of software developers. I had one guy go on sick leave for an awful sounding issue with a swelling on the brain. He apparently had a pipe in his neck to drain fluid out of his skull, since childhood. Sounded horrendous. Completely inverifiable, but you have to trust your team. After a couple of weeks off sick, his communication slowed to a trickle. I was worried. As the weeks passed, all efforts to communicate with him went unanswered. I thought he might be dead. Then I spotted his LinkedIn profile had updated, he'd got a new job working for someone else. We sacked him in absentia, but it took several more weeks to process, with him being paid twice. Unbelievable.

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FatBloke4@reddit

At an international organisation on the Continent, I looked after the Internet connectivity, firewalls, etc. We had gone from a situation of near anarchy to starting to implement some security processes - but staff enjoyed considerable freedom in that nobody really cared about what they accessed while at work. At some point, I noticed that our Internet bandwidth was being maxxed out quite a bit and on checking, found that one individual was downloading huge amounts of porn on his work PC e.g. gigabytes per day, some of which was really dark stuff. I tried to give him a heads up by remotely deleting the porn on his PC but he didn't stop, so I locked him out of his PC. He then switched to downloading porn on the PC of a woman in his team, who was away on holiday. So, his porn downloading was documented and reported - and he lost his job. It turned out, he had previously lost his job at a sister organisation for the same thing. This was a manager in a team involved in software development and testing. He could definitely afford a broadband connection at home.

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Jlaw118@reddit

In my last job, it was structured a bit strange in terms of staff. I managed a small team of vehicle inspectors for a well known parcel company, and we had a department manager who oversaw and managed me pretty much. We'd been after a third vehicle inspector for some time, but the role wasn't the greatest, it was only advertised internally and nobody fancied being stood out in the cold and rain for most of their shift so we struggled. One day there was this new agency worker who was on his way home after a night shift on the warehouse. He pointed out an illegal defect on a van that my colleague had missed and mentioned it to him. They got chatting, he knew a lot about vehicles and mechanics and my manager gave him a small interview and got him transferred to the team. He was great at first, then just started behaving weirdly. He suddenly was under the impression I was gay and flirting with him and had apparently made a suggestive comment to him. He asked me solely if I felt that way about him, and I told him no, I'd been in a heterosexual relationship for three years prior. He then commented to other colleagues that I'd tried chatting him up, and then later my manager. He was also in a relationship with a girl who was pregnant with his twin sons. Few days after that, he started begging for money. He was working on a project car for himself, bearing in mind this guy didn't have a driving licence. He'd get paid on a Friday, blow all his money on parts for this car and then ask us if we could help him buy food for his lunch, or lend him money in general. Then he became really stalkerish with his local delivery driver from that company. He'd order stuff, start taking the days off to take the delivery and see the driver, and take pictures of the driver's van from streets away and message him saying things like "I see you!" or message him asking him where he was saying he hadn't seen him for a while. He just got weirder and weirder as time went on, and we got together as a team trying to tell my manager it wasn't working out (only he had the authority to dismiss him) but he'd just argue we weren't going to get anyone else and he's doing the job so we just needed to accept that he was weird. Then he started pulling sick days. He claimed his mum had gone missing for a few days, then seemed to forget about it when he returned to work, and when we asked he laughed it off saying she'd just been in a tent in the garden all along. It started then coming out that he had a criminal record and had been in prison. Something about stalking a police officer and setting fire to her car was mentioned at one point, and had legally changed his name and my manager still wouldn't dismiss this guy. Then stories that two guys would piss on him in the showers whilst in jail. We were all feeling really unsafe and uneasy around him. Then it even got weirder where he'd tell us stories that his dad used to make him have sex with his sister and step sister whilst he watched. This was just general chit chat for him. And he was still employed with us for ages after this. Eventually he was dismissed, but only because he refused to do a job we'd asked him to do and he refused in front of a regional manager. Honestly I've seen some weird employees in my career but nothing will ever top that guy

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bnwprc@reddit

I managed a sales rep a few years ago, our reps had storage units all over the UK to pull sample stock and point of sale material from. The guy was performance managed due to unexplainable discrepancies and subsequently lost his role. I had the job of going to change the padlock passcodes at his storage unit. As I was doing a stock take a noticed there was a box of used sex toys stashed on the bottom shelf. He had recently moved back home to his parents and I presume didn’t want to take them there with him. Reported to HR. They had to write to him to see if he wanted the sex toys, after a month they sent me some gloves as asked me to dispose of them. Rank.

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Dr-Moth@reddit

Turned up to work and the landlords builders had taken away the front door leaving the office unsecured. Wasn't the door locked? Yes, they just chiselled out the whole frame. As the senior member in the building this was my problem.

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UnIntelligent-Idea@reddit

A Manager who was terrible at every role they put him into. Noone wanted him in their departments, yet somehow he'd get foisted onto unsuspecting departments until they couldn't stand it any more. Was on a good salary too. No idea why he was allowed to stay, other than he was previously part of the Old Boys Club in the business and he must've had dirt on the other Old Chums. There was no other logical reason to keep someone who everyone knew was not only useless but a drain on everything around him.

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Hyperion2023@reddit

That does sound like a case of the employer trying a ‘reasonable adjustment’, but a real solution not being workable. I’ve had to write a risk assessment for having a staff member’s dog accompany them in an active quarry.

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Jasboh@reddit

I feel like most dogs would need a service dog themselves after going into an active quarry!

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Hyperion2023@reddit

It was pretty controlled and well planned, pretty much no risk to the dog. Sometimes the system works just as it should!

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