The job where I tried to take one of my coworker’s pretzels and she slapped my hand.
The job where the light in the bathroom went out one day and still hadn’t been replaced when I quit six months later.
The job where each department had to write and perform a Halloween skit for company management.
The job where a coworker reverse-engineered a scent sensitivity so that whenever she had a headache, she’d walk around sniffing people’s hair and clothes until she smelled something she could blame.
The job where that same coworker developed an undiagnosable light sensitivity and began wearing sunglasses in the office.
The job where I had to ask my boss to tell the chairman of the board to stop playing with my hair when he visited.
The job where instead of firing employees she didn’t like, my manager would move their cubicle every three months until they quit. (We gave people red swingline staplers at their going-away parties.)
The job where I knew it was time to go when she moved my cubicle to a spot directly under the air conditioning vent.
The job where my director would look at my lunch and say, “Wow, are you going to eat all of that?”
The job where I showed up for my second summer and my manager hadn’t mentioned beforehand that she was eight months pregnant, didn’t mention it all week, then finally said, “So did you notice that I’m about to have a baby or what?”
The job where I was trained for less than an hour on how the phones worked before the receptionist went on vacation for the rest of the summer.
The job where I spent the next three months saying, “Well, if it was important, they’ll call back” whenever I tried to transfer a call.
The job where our office was next to the event room and kitchen, and I saved a year’s-worth of lunch money by eating leftover hors d’oeuvres and, occasionally, leftover rack of lamb.
The job where my manager and an employee who were dating broke up and I was tasked with relaying messages between them like a poorly paid child of divorce.
The job where a middle-aged white woman explained what “the down-low” was to me to illustrate how much she knew about black men.
The job(s) where my boss called me “Lynette” the entire time I worked there.
The job where the office had mice.
The job where the office had flying ants.
The job where a rat died in the walls.
The job where I knew it was a rat because there were more rats.
The job where a coworker accidentally grabbed my boob during a team-building event.
The job where the real team-building occurred over tequila shots long after the event had ended.
The job where I have literally just this moment realized the waiter at the restaurant next door was flirting with me every time he came to visit. Eighteen years too late.
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tabbylavalamp 149p · 473 weeks ago
The job where a co-working was too scared of the parking garage to go in it alone, but was fine leaving her escorts (also usually women) to fend for themselves.
CleverManka 143p · 473 weeks ago
falcofield 135p · 473 weeks ago
archivesjulia 140p · 473 weeks ago
BestLaidPlans 127p · 473 weeks ago
Also, the job where the place was owned by Scientologists and they worked their creepy lingo into performance appraisals so now I know what being "hatted" means.
poppy · 473 weeks ago
The job where my boss asked me to organize his slides, including, it turned out, very graphic slides of his wife giving birth.
The job where, after a change in management, they fired all the midlevel employees and made them reapply for their jobs. Some of them had worked there for 25 years. Upper level and lower level employees got to keep their jobs without reapplying.
The job where the male supervisor liked to sit backwards on his chair while addressing a group of twenty women, most of whom considered themselves proactive feminists. Just in case we might have otherwise forgotten about his balls, I guess.
The job where my supervisor threatened to "shoot myself in the head with a Colt .45" if I took vacation at a time he had already approved. (Not a congenial, jokey supervisor either, but a weird paranoid guy).
WallisWallyOlly 110p · 473 weeks ago
The job where I went to my manager's wedding shower, she leaned in for a "thanks for the gift hug," but she leaned in at such a weird angle that I thought she was going for the "kiss on the cheek" thing, but she wasn't. (I thought it was weird but she was my boss so I went with it and was horrified for the rest of the party.)
The job where the boss fired a group of people every three months just to remind people that they could be fired at any time. (These are all the same terrible job.)
Give me back my hat · 473 weeks ago
WallisWallyOlly 110p · 473 weeks ago
olive_cat 138p · 473 weeks ago
Frumiosa 141p · 473 weeks ago
The job where salaried employees weren't paid for overtime but still had to sign in and out every day.
The job that for coffee had that milk that doesn't have to be refrigerated until it's opened but really should be after it's opened, all of it expired over a year ago.
The fellowship where my mentor, the executive director, was fired two weeks in and I spent the remaining six months shadowing people who really didn't want me there as they navigated the subsequent PR nightmare and transition but were too polite to say so.
The job where I got to be on-book for rehearsals of the world premiere of an iconic playwright and the first day I accidentally dropped the enormous script off the music stand and got a death glare from a Tony-winning director.
The almost-job for an anti-slave-trafficking organization whose director got really pissed at me when I told him I couldn't work for free (irony....).
Megling · 473 weeks ago
Goomaly 113p · 473 weeks ago
nicolescchung 141p · 473 weeks ago
The job where they hired a sexual offender and I got fired because he was not allowed to work with minors (I was a teen at the time).
The job where I was one of like two women and a colleague said to me "you're acting like a hysterical woman!" at a staff meeting and none of the men I worked with said ANYTHING.
The job where I was laid off on maternity leave.
nlaporte 102p · 473 weeks ago
(This company was later sold to a major pharmaceutical firm for close to a billion dollars.)
deleted9457019 106p · 473 weeks ago
Isabel C. · 473 weeks ago
robotneedslove 107p · 473 weeks ago
firstmute 116p · 473 weeks ago
If only I had not been a meek 21 year old at the time.
deleted1892326 122p · 473 weeks ago
The job where when the radiator was leaking in my office and I told HR & the building manager they both said "don't worry about it!" and I came back to a flooded office after the weekend. They repainted the wall and leveled the radiator but didn't clean the carpet. Now it smells like paint fumes every time the radiator kicks in.
dreadfulwind 156p · 473 weeks ago
Also, the job where we had to move offices for two months for construction on our building and when we came back the contractors had left a bucket of poop in the bathroom.
Gabi · 473 weeks ago
...did we work at the same place? Because my first job did that to me, too, except the training lasted about ten minutes, and nobody mentioned that some people would be calling in Italian.
katrinamhall 101p · 473 weeks ago
The job where I was pulled into the CFO's office so he could tell me that the chairman of the board thought my tops were too low-cut.
The job where everyone thought the ACA was overturned by the Supreme Court because they were watching Fox in the lobby but I was following Scotusblog at my desk.
Prebird 107p · 473 weeks ago
The job where the IT guy didn't like that my boss and I were located in the same room as a lot of his IT equipment, so one morning he had a tantrum and moved all of our stuff into the hallway. HR didn't care and said we needed to deal with it ourselves.
The job where my boss wanted to share a room at a conference even though there was money for both of us to have separate rooms, and then spent all night on the phone with her boyfriend who demanded to know "why she was whispering" and if there was someone else in the room. She also played spa music at a loud volume while I attempted to get some semblance of sleep.
smeesmeesmee 117p · 473 weeks ago
Alex_geedee · 473 weeks ago
Most of my horror stories are from that job, except for:
The job where my supervisor yelled at me for putting my feet on my chair, and I replied I would put my feet on the floor when he could assure me the mice problem had been dealt with.
paperbgprincess 107p · 473 weeks ago
latenac 125p · 473 weeks ago
The job where one of my first orders of business was to fire someone who was rumored to be on prescription painkillers and carried a loaded gun in their purse.
mike_b · 473 weeks ago
bookwormV 119p · 473 weeks ago
The job where I convinced a 90-something Dutch man to give money to my college, even though he had only taught there for a year and the period was chiefly remembered by him as the period when his son died.
Jamila · 473 weeks ago
Rillquiet 118p · 473 weeks ago
The job where I had to ask IT to let me click through to sites featuring pics of untreated STIs.
Xolandra 116p · 473 weeks ago
Edit to add: the job where the manager cornered a small colleague in the basement and told her she was "fuckable". Owner's response? Just his culture, LOLZ, don't take it personally.
megalesias 116p · 473 weeks ago
FrankieGrimm 118p · 473 weeks ago
The job where the manager got arrested for embezzlement at work after a year of bullying me and 6 months of giving me free food to make up for it.
The job where the cooks intentionally let other staff walk in on me changing on multiple occasions.
PonyAlong 102p · 473 weeks ago
Same job where I threatened to sue the board if they didn't do something about this person's behaviour and instead of concern and support was asked if I was mentally unstable and if I had a history of slapping non profits with nonsense lawsuits (um, no and no).
Same job where I finally had a decent board of directors that allowed me to do my job but when I got burnt out, showed me the door and slammed it behind me. Sigh. Gotta love those small town non-profit art galleries!
Eva_lee · 473 weeks ago
The job where i had to clean human waste out of a fitting room.
Same job.
spockgrrl 107p · 473 weeks ago
The job where I was the only person in the building for the first 3 weeks of my job with no training
The job where the bathroom is in earshot and one coworker spends 45 minutes watching youtube videos while he takes a shit every afternoon
(these are all my current job, yes I am sending my resume around)
OliviaPJones 108p · 473 weeks ago
The job where the sexual harassment of some of the female employees was so bad that one time a waitress went home crying and later I heard it was because the head chef BROKE HER THONG, he pulled it so hard.
The job where the head chef was married to the general manager and they would have screaming fights about 60% of the time and then it was awkward for the rest of the staff.
The job where my coworker (herself a gay woman) casually told me at a sidework station that she just "didn't understand" about trans people and I did this: D:
The job where every time I started to eat my sandwich my boss, who sat 6 feet away, would stand up, walk over to my desk, hand me a folder or an envelope, and tell me it needed to be taken care of right that minute.
The job where one of my coworkers was sexually harassed by a customer and our male manager essentially told her there was nothing he could do (he kicked people out for doing other things, but apparently it was ok to pour drinks on a hostess' breasts and then start patting her down with a napkin while leering).
The job where I had to deal with everything from a drunk bride crawling around the club grounds looking for her garter to a drunk man following me into the laundry room where I was supposed to wash towels to slur at me about how sad he was about his impending divorce.
sednarea51 128p · 473 weeks ago
iamalurker 0p · 473 weeks ago
The job where they announced, right before my farewell party, that they would no longer be paying for cakes for the farewell parties, because too many people had been quitting.
The job where my boss had me make travel reservations for his affairs while I was expected to entertain his 5-year-old daughter in the office.
dianaalark 111p · 473 weeks ago
gripyfish 109p · 473 weeks ago
The job where all emails were archived; deleting anything (even junk mail) was met with horrified gasps and a discussion with one's manager about [Company's] Email Culture.
The job where I asked why there wasn't a phone at my desk, only to be informed that "there were so many abusive customers for [Client I was now working for], we had to get rid of the phone line."
The job where, every fall, I was sent (alone) to a refrigerated Quonset hut at the back of the property to bottle apple cider for six hours. Sometimes they remembered to let me out for lunch, but not always.
bird_internet 123p · 473 weeks ago
The job where we had to lock ourselves into the walk-in freezer during a tornado and I had a massive panic attack but I wasn't allowed to take lunch after it was over because we didn't get breaks
VioletandIrises 120p · 473 weeks ago
The summer job where the soft serve machine managed to snap my bra. More than once.
houblonchouffe 123p · 473 weeks ago
The job where my boss responded to my perfectly reasonable request for a post-IUD-insertion Tylenol by saying, "Well, maybe that's a sign"
The job where I spent weeks filing X-rays in a crawlspace with a four-foot ceiling, using a backless rolling chair to navigate
The job in the call center of a major health insurance company, which frequently involved telling people that services weren't covered/they were going to die because of it
The job where I was the only person on staff that understood some of the basic processes involved in the job and therefore ended up training all the rest of the staff, after having been there four months and holding tight to "most junior person in the building"
The job where everyone that sat near me was reading Fifty Shades of Grey
The job where you had to pay in $5/month in order to drink office coffee
danelleorange 119p · 473 weeks ago
Oh... Ants... you meant ants.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN, FLYING ANTS?
Theresa · 473 weeks ago
Was horrified at the time but now I wish I had been more chill about it. Sometimes you really need to know!
ectocool 124p · 473 weeks ago
Unreadaethel 127p · 473 weeks ago
We now use the cloud, as well as our server. It still has the police evidence tag on it, though. Listed victim: society.
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