r/coworkerstories

On Monday morning, we were all called in for a mandatory meeting at 945am no explanation. Everyone who was in the building showed up. Our director told us what happened 5 minutes later. We started crying and hugging each other. HR sent my team home for two days. Its been so hard this whole week even trying to walk by his desk. I can't. He was so young and it was so unexpected. He took a nap sunday afternoon and never woke up again. Knew him for 5 years. He was so helpful to all of us on our team. he was the only male in between 7 females so he was like a brother, a jokester, a helping hand whenever we needed. The office felt so dim and heavy this week.

And the reality of it sucks. His job will be posted Monday, but our supervisor asked us if we were interested in rhe position to apply as well.

I have a coworker who has a lack of respect for people’s times. Constantly she will stop me to discuss something as I walking by her, purse in hand and coat on, walking towards the door.

Mind you, we sit within feet of each other 8 hours every single day.

Today she brought up a discussion 15 minutes before the end of the day, which was not an urgent discussion, causing a few people to be late leaving.

Please don’t do this. I am not being paid for this time and need to leave.

I work in cooperate America, I've been here for years. The receptionist only talks to me about her children (which I seriously have no interest in what they're up too) and then she'll ask me "what did you eat for lunch today!" "what did you eat for dinner last night?!" "what do you think you're going to eat today?"

EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

She'll come to my desk or walk past my cubicle and ask. It's gotten to the point I've just started saying "Oh nothing special", I've even straight up ignored but she continues to do it every day. I'm so confused are people that interested in other people's lunches? I've never asked anyone this as I don't care. Like am I just a mean person? Or is my irritation justified.

My co-workers were very kind and celebrated my birthday, last week. One of the team-let’s call him “Randy” comes into my cubicle before the cake was even cut, first thing in the morning and says “hey, happy birthday…I’m going to take some of the cake home for my kids.”

I was sort of shocked and chuckled and said “uh…ok”. Another coworker witnessed it and was like: did he really say that? But we didn’t think much of it. Coworkers were in and out all day having cake, really there wasn’t much left at the end of the day. Maybe a two or three pieces, which I was planning on sharing with my wife.

With 15 minutes left to go, I get a work phone call. While I’m on the call, I start packing my stuff up and start making my way out the door. I get to the door and stop, still talking on the phone, here comes Randy with paper plates in his hand. He stood in front of me while I was on the call for at least 10 minutes. He starts to get antsy and announces “I’ll just get the cake later”. About 2 minutes later, I get done with the call, and start making my way to the car.

I get halfway across the parking lot and Randy screams my name and he comes jetting towards me and says “can I get some of that cake…for my kids”? I stopped and he says “can I get some”? I said “buddy, there isn’t enough here for all your kids, but…come on man…do you even have a knife to cut this with?”

Randy says “no” raises his hand and looks at it, then looks at me we locked eyes and I thought this SOB…he’s going to claw pieces of cake out of this box!!!

I said “nope sorry” and got out of there!!

I made a post a few months ago about how this coworker loves to put her name on company supplies and how she takes items from others without asking. Including my own supplies and the bottled water that’s reserved for everyone.

I’m pretty sure that same coworker is a hoarder.

We were talking about it yesterday where she takes supplies she doesn’t need and how messy her area is because she takes too many supplies.

One of my other coworkers is an obsessive neat freak and even she was commenting on how messy their location was due to the hoarding.

She also has more than 2 supplies.

I understand having a back up for when you’re almost out, I used to do something similar where if I knew I was going to be out, but didn’t want to run back to the supply closet, I’d have a backup for that reason but she’ll have 5 big jugged bottles of certain products and she doesn’t need them and doesn’t go through them as fast.

This morning, I walked in to see her name stickied note on a product that’s only for one of our machines and that machine only. She doesn’t need this product at all so I took a picture of it and let my other coworker see it just so I had another witness and told her that it was only reserved for one machine only and she ripped the sticky note off and put it back.

Besides only two of us know how to use this machine and I’m one of them. As far as I’m aware, she does not know how to use this machine and because of her age, I don’t think she’s capable.

We don’t use this machine as much as others. It pretty much sits dormant until summer. There’s no need for her to have this product.

Because she took this specific product, I have a small theory she might be stealing these products to bring home. She’s already been caught stealing already so I wouldn’t be surprised.

My first name is Ingram. Most people call me Gram though, because Ingram is weird and sounds a little pretentious in my opinion. With that being said, I have a coworker who is originally from England but spent half her life in Australia. So obviously some words are pronounced differently, and that’s not a problem most of the time. But it’s becoming a problem in this one specific way.

She refuses to pronounce my name correctly. She says “Grey Ham” every single time. Not “Grey-Am” in a fluid way, which would make sense even if it’s not my name. But she pronounces it very intentionally as two words, then smirks after she says it. I’ve tried correcting her and explaining my name isn’t Graham, it’s Ingram and people call me Gram for short. But all she says is “sure, Grey Ham.”

I went to her supervisor, as well as HR, and I’ve been told it’s “just her accent” and to give her some grace. So then I started to ignore her when she calls me Grey Ham, which my supervisor said isn’t acceptable because I know she means me.

I’m at my wits end because I know she’s doing it to annoy me…and it’s working.

My friends say I’m overreacting and I should just let it go. But they all have regular names and don’t get called something different on purpose.

Third job in a row where I end up in conflict with someone who works completely differently than me. They're slow and deliberate, I'm fast and want things done quick. They want to discuss everything in meetings, I want to make a call and move on. I used to think I just had bad luck with coworkers. Now I'm wondering if I'm the common denominator. Is this a personality flaw or am I just in the wrong environments?

Female coworker is a creep and nobody wants to work with her. She's arrogant, constantly fights, constantly makes up shit amongst coworkers that are not there, accuses people of attacking her, acts like a victim, acts stupid, gives guests the wrong information, touches me inappropriately (my hands, my wrists, what the fuck it disgusts me) but I've seen her touch other people inappropriately like the creep she is so I don't take it personal, she tries to spy on coworkers to hear what they're talking about, she's tried to see people's phones, etc 🤢 nobody wants her and everyone is about to quit because of this creep and the owner of the company doesn't want to fire her, they baby her. FFS I'm this close to quitting this bs, bruh.

Not looking for advice just wanting to vent and be heard.

I was fired this past Monday for multiple coworkers accusing me telling them about my intimate sex life at work.

This never happened. I always chatted with my coworkers but I never discussed my sex life with them. Though there was one coworker I would talk to outside of work about anything. Some of these conversations were about sex but they were never initiated by me.

This guy would tell me about all the sex he was having and give intimate details. Like leaving a girl in handcuffs because he lost the key or how he slept with a students mom when he was a teacher. He also had an attraction to another coworker. He would tell me how hot she was and one time called me in the middle of the night and said: “Tell ***** I have a huge penis.” Of course I didn’t tell her. I also never reported it because 1. It wasn’t on the clock. 2. I was having a secret relationship with another coworker and it didn’t feel right to report him when I was fooling around myself.

This went on for nine months where him and I would talk about almost anything. Religion, family, relationships, and sex. We were the same person. We laughed and enjoyed the same things and were very open with each other.

Two weeks ago he called me and asked to talk. He said he had some concerns and wanted to address them with me.

1. He was told by others I had his address. I never had his address nor have I ever wanted it. I thought it was odd that this was mentioned and the accusation was outrageous.
2. He doesn’t like that I Google people: I told him in the past that I Google men I go on dates with for my safety and that was that.
3. He didn’t like that we talked about MY sex life: I told him I understood but he needs to recognize that he initiated all of those topics and maybe I shouldn’t have reciprocated but this isn’t all me.

He told me he wasn’t going to tell anyone at work about our conversation and that this was between us. He said I was the light of the company and missed when I’m not there. He told me we were the same person. This whole conversation made me reflect on how he told me his last two relationships were with women who were emotionally manipulative and now I think he was the one who is manipulative.

The next day I get an email that my supervisor and the CEO want to meet with me. They said they are sending me on LOA unpaid due to mental health concerns and that I was being investigated for sexual misconduct. I asked to speak my side on multiple occasions and provide evidence but I was ignored.

I found out he told multiple lies about me in a meeting and told his crush and another coworker about things I had told him and they all reported me in that meeting for having a sexually explicit conversation with all of them on the clock. I was then terminated.

That job meant everything to me. Those people only talk to each other because of me. I’m heartbroken and betrayed. Every morning I wake up feeling dread. I do have a new job starting and I’m excited but I’ll never trust anyone again.

Edit: He also had a habit of saying who he was closet to at work. Like “I’m closet to you” or “I’m closet to her.” He would also tell me to ask other people things like. “***** is moving tell her she should throw a party” and “Tell ***** we need more penis presence at these work outings.” I now realize how gross it was but didn’t think about it at the time.

my boss fired the girl that was training me and the only other worker in the office now i’m expected to know and do everything that other girl did after just two weeks of working part time 😀🙂🙃

full story: the boss usually has two people working for him, he had someone with him for five years then there’s Kerry and she was only working there for six months before me, after four months of working there the boss fired the girl that was there for five years and Kerry had to teach herself and do everything on her own.

then he hired me two weeks ago, kerry was doing her best to teach me but there’s a lot to learn.

now kerry is gone and i don’t know how to handle 80% of the responsibilities.

when i raised concerns the boss said “you’re a good girl and fast learner you’ll be fine”

i need to be taught to learn 😩

​

I was at work and decided to help some coworkers because I had free time. After helping them, I realized I had my own tasks to complete, and they were going to take me the rest of the day. I told my coworkers exactly what tasks I needed to do and then left.

At the end of the day, one of my coworkers complained that I didn’t come back to help and that I hadn’t clearly communicated that I wouldn’t be available anymore. However, I had already explained that I had my own tasks to complete before leaving.

He argued that I should have specifically said those tasks would take me the entire day and that I wouldn’t return afterward. But to me, that didn’t make sense because I had already explained what I needed to do, and those tasks always take the whole day whenever I do them.

By the end of the day, we had both finished our work, but he still thinks I’m to blame for not coming back to help him, even though no one helped me with my own tasks.

I am thinking that doesn’t really make sense and I won't help my coworker anymore... Is it exaggerated to think that?

People will get close to you, joke with you and say all kinds of things. You'll think you're friends. Then they'll turn around and do things behind your back. And you'll only find out after the fact. There will be denial, lots of repair and guilt behaviors. Offering to help with this and that. Don't fall for it. If they wanted to include you they would have. Choices were made. Zero apology or accountability.

Be careful what you say to people at work. Trust no one. Especially when it involves your job. There are some snakes at work and they all hang together. If you have a gut feeling about 1 person don't trust anyone theyre buddies with. People truly dont grow up even in a workplace.

To make a long story short, I have a coworker that got me into my field. They trained me and we had a solid relationship. We even saw each other outside of work.

Fast forward 3 years and I find a better job opportunity. I thank them for getting me into their workplace and tell thrm we can still hang out and I'll get them into my job as soon as there's an opening.

I swear I hear nothing from them for months. I was stuggling with my personal life and tried to reach out, but they didn't respond.

There's finally an opening at my work. I reach out and we catch up. They were going through a bunch in their personal life too. I reference them for an interview. They get the job. It feels like old times again.

I invite them out for supper to celebrate. They cancel the day of.

They talk about meeting up at my place. I invite them over and prepare a gift. They cancel the day of.

Anyways, through all of this, I trained them just like they trained me. Training goes on a bit longer than expected due to new responsibilities they never handled before which is totally fine. They're always asking questions and taking notes which is a good sign right?

They finally settle into their role, 3 weeks after we should have been done with training. I swear every single hour of the day I get bombarded with questions that I already trained them multiple times on. If I don't answer on Slack, they'll email me.

Every single day is a new complaint. "We should do this this way" "why is the policy like that" "im tried" "i have a headache" and it goes on and on and on... when I ignore them I get messages every hour like "are you ok" "hey i need help" etc

Note: we work remotely and i enjoy my peace and quiet at home but now I'm always stressed in my safe space, my home. It's the reason I left my previous job. My new job was always so quiet and stressfree before this. I don't know what do anymore and how to approach them.

Edit: used "they/them" to remain as anonymous as possible

I'm starting to grey rock my deskmate. Although we joke around and bully one another her aggression and negativity towards me is bothering me. She's combative over anything I say. I'll tell her something and she would get unnecessarily aggressive and negative over it. I've told her about craving certain foods and she would chime in with so you're eating this and that and you're so fake because you pretend to eat healthy at work then go home and eat fried food.

Last Friday the team leader asked if anyone wanted to work early on Monday. I said I would if other people didn't want to and my deskmate got aggressive over it and ranted about how I don't even come in on time working my normal hours and that I think I could start early. It was so unnecessarily aggressive. If she joked about it in a humored way then it would have been fine but she was so aggressive over it. Today although I came in a few minutes late it was earlier than when I usually come in and she said snarkily "you came in bright and early today".

I started grey rocking her and she feels awkward. She didn't try to say anything.

Yes it's sad we have to come up with a plan to get creeps off our backs. So far this is the only way the creepy weird men at work left me alone. Advice for women, and men may can use this too. This works if you can pull out your phone. When you are about to enter the area the person is at, or cross paths, have your phone playing a man's voice. It can be a video from YouTube or any social media.

Have it loud enough where they should hear it. Play the man's voice talking and just kind of smile at it as you walk past them. Don't even look in their face or eyes, pay attention to the video lol. If they speak either act like you not paying attention or just do a quick hey or uh huh and focus and smile at video. Worked for me..

So this whole situation is weird as hell.

My boss somehow got it into his head that I was flirting with his wife and trying to sleep with her. Which is already awkward because that’s not what was happening at all (if anything, she was the one being a bit "too friendly", not me).

Anyway, he sends me a voice message with some work instructions… and in the background you can clearly hear him and his wife having s3x.

Now I’m just sitting here like… what the hell was that?

Honestly it just makes him seem really insecure, but also kinda unhinged. I don’t even know how I’m supposed to act at work after this.

I have been working in this company for 7 years now and in this department for 4 years. My manager for the last 3 years, A, was AMAZING and honestly I would never have shifted or left as long as he stayed my manager. But alas, as happens with talented folks, he got a crazy good opportunity in a different department and so I started reporting to A’s manager, M, since April. This guy immediately had some red flags with his favoritism and behaviour but I wanted to give him a fair chance.

In the last week, a crazy good internal job posting has opened up, like a direct reportee to CXO level and it would give me exposure and learning like I can only dream of. Moreover, this particular CXO really likes me and has tried to poach me before and I will pretty much surely get the job if I apply.

I informed the manager that I want to apply and he instantly told me that “I cannot tell you to go ahead right now”. Now he has involved HR too. Apparently he feels betrayed coz he “gave me such a good opportunity” for this year and our current department will fall apart without me. I’m like?????? I am the lowest ranking and lowest salary of all his direct reportees. If I am so fucking vital, then clearly I am not paid enough.

The CXO and manager and HR are all planning to discuss this over next week to figure out how to proceed but now I feel pretty done with the company. It’s crazy how in just a week my professional life has flipped upside down and I might not stay at this company I genuinely enjoyed working at just because of one person.

I work at a warehouse I’m a clerk and my coworker is in maintenance.

The first time I noticed this maintenance guy he was bringing weights from his locker onto the floor and was doing a full on workout. I asked my supervisor if he was allowed to be doing that because I was honestly shocked and she said yes! As long as the maintenance personnel are near their assigned machine they can do whatever. I bring this up because this is my first impression of him. He’s always stretching in front of the machines my coworker says it’s all performative.

Fast forward a few weeks he approaches me to make fun of my shoes. I wear platform leather shoes. He asked me if they were uncomfortable and heavy. I told him no that I broke them in. He called them bricks and compared them to ankle weights. I honestly found that annoying like he was negging me. But I brushed it off. I told my coworker I tell him everything, I’ve learned it’s best to tell someone you trust when someone says something weird because they’ll most likely do it again.

Then one day a few weeks later me and few of my coworkers were operating a machine. The machine turned off needing repairs so I started scrolling on Amazon. I have a headphone in and next thing I know everyone’s shouting my name, this maintenance man is at the top of the machine trying to get my attention. He then explained that because nobody was sitting at a specific spot it was causing the machine to jam. I then I had to signal at my coworker to move to that spot because it requires typing and at the time I didn’t know how to operate it. What threw me off was i was the only one looking down and he picked me to tell all of this. When my coworkers were alert. He then proceeded to approach me and tell me his name. And ask for mine. He didn’t stop there he continued “you don’t have a nickname, because I go by a nickname.” I gave my other coworker a glance because I was getting annoyed. I hate being singled out and I was already getting weird vibes from him since he made fun of my shoes.

A few weeks later he asks me if I have a pen. I told him I do and if it’s okay that’s it’s red. He then proceeded to use it and when he was giving me back the pen he asked me if I like my gloves. I explained to him I do and I don’t use typical slim gloves I use like gardening gloves because I hate that the thinner gloves leak dirt and your finger nails get dirty. I’ve got in the habit of explaining because he’s not the first person to ask. He then explained to me that there are free gloves in the supervisor office and I shouldn’t be paying for my own gloves. I did thank him because nobody told me about the nicer gloves only the latex ones. There was a slight awkward interaction because when he was handing me the pen I accidentally grabbed the tip of his walkie talkie. He then came up to me a few minutes later to give me a pair of free gloves and attempted to give me a box of latex gloves. I accepted the gloves but denied the box as I do have gloves at home.

Then the next week I’m walking to my assigned machine and he’s walking towards his area and he stops me to ask me how I get my face so shinny. I then proceeded to explain to him that I use sunscreen. And then he starts talking about his moisturizer. I told him that was nice and then proceeded to walk to my machine.

Then my coworker tells me the maintenance guy asked him if we’re related. We’re both the same race/ethnicity but we do not look alike. My coworker told me and was like “I now know what you mean that he’s weird” why are you asking my friends questions about me.

Then the next day while I was heading to clock in he asks me if I ride a bike and that he saw me riding a bike and that he wanted to give me a ride. I told him I would talk to him later because I needed to clock in. Now I feel like I’m being watched. A few hours passed and he comes up to me sitting on the stairs of my position of the machine so no one can really see him there talking to me and tells me when and what time he saw me riding the bike. He then proceeded to tell me I should’ve been on a bike path street not on the busy street. And that he thought about stopping but didn’t.

I feel like everytime he comes up to me he’s criticizing me for something. My face, my gloves, my shoes, my name, the way I ride a bike. I’m literally anxious on what he’ll bother next. I try and keep my answers short and I don’t even acknowledge him outside of our conversations. I don’t really care why he’s doing it I’m not interested in people at my job.

(Ignore spelling/grammar errors will correct when I get home.)!

I work in a rehab facility and I give report/keys to a disgusting male nurse. His scrubs are dirty/sloppy bc he claims laundry is for women. He has 5 wives in his village(true story) but they can’t come to America. He stares at my chest while I talk and makes a lot of “jokes” about how I should be #6. Hard pass! I don’t even crack a smile with him.

He recently came in & a bed bug crawled across the cart as I gave him report. I saw more on his bag and his scrubs. I counted at least 8 and I told him that he had bed bugs. He kept smashing them with his hands and said that they were just bugs from the facility. Nope!

I told the supervisor and Idk what she told him but he was pizzed and confronted me. He ran up to me screaming and pointing his finger in my face calling me a “lying little girl.” Multiple ppl witnessed this and the maintenance man told him to get the phuck out of my face & pushed him back. He’s about 6’7 300lbs and was eyeballing me with so much anger… I feel like he would’ve hit me if no one was around.

I haven’t been to work since then but my next shift is tomorrow & I heard he’s still there. I don’t want to be around this guy and I think it’s fair/obvious but I don’t understand why he’s still there. I think I’ll quit.

It’s super frustrating that within the last week, we’ve caught this coworker stealing items and damaging property with her vehicle and we have evidence of her doing both on camera. Yet somehow still has a job.

We’ve had issues with this coworker in the past. She’s felt entitled to other coworkers work supplies and takes them while they’re actively using them. I’ve had to hide items from her just so she won’t take them while I’m using them.

She’s taking partial cases of water that are meant for everyone and hoarded them for herself.

We’ve complained to our bosses about her doing so as well. Other coworkers have complained about her doing other stuff that we shouldn’t be doing.

But, I’m mean one time in a chat and I get a write up for that. Yet the two things we fire people for on the spot, aside from sexual harassment, she doesn’t get fired.