Employees Reveal The Most Epic And Embarrassing Work Meltdowns They've Ever Seen
Employees Reveal The Most Epic And Embarrassing Work Meltdowns They've Ever Seen
[rebelmouse-image 18345620 is_animated_gif=Piling stress on top of stress only contributes to a very tenuous state of being. You can easily break under pressure at any minute. And where are you most apt to do this? At the source of your stress: work.
Flaxmoore was morbidly curious and asked Reddit:
And here were some of the stories.
Plowing Over
[rebelmouse-image 18348795 is_animated_gif=I work for my local municipality. Coworker was driving one of those sidewalk plows. He was ready to retire any day (65+) and it was garbage day. What a lot of people don't realize is when you place your bins on the sidewalk that the guy plowing the sidewalk has to stop, get out and move the bins then continue. More often than not you're doing this for EVERY driveway.
He was ready to retire and was having a bad day. He said f-ck it. Drove down the sidewalk and crushed every single blue box that was on the sidewalk. He did one street, drove the machine back to the depot and parked it. Got in his car and drove downtown and quit. Didn't tell the foreman or any of us, just said f-ck it and quit.
I miss him.
Meaningless
[rebelmouse-image 18348796 is_animated_gif=Writing financial software in the 80s. The systems analyst sitting at her desk near me suddenly burst into tears and wailed "it's all so pointless - money doesn't mean anything!"
Ring The Bell
[rebelmouse-image 18348797 is_animated_gif=I worked at a fast food joint while in high school. One of my coworkers was this guy who was really friendly, but also really strange. He was obsessed with being a "straight edge" kid and drew the Xs on his hands, and the whole nine yards. He had a high pitched, but pleasant voice, and spoke in an overly polite manner.
Anyway, he had put in his two weeks and on his last day he was working the front counter register. This lady walks up to order and he just stares at her. After a few seconds she says "Umm... can you take my order?" In his very calm and polite voice he says "Oh, I am sorry ma'am, but I cannot." There was another awkward pause and she says "Ummm... well why not?" He responds with "....BECAUSE I AM A DINOSAUR!!!"
He immediately started growling and roaring at her, and he walked back and forth behind the counter like a T-Rex. He did this until the GM who was back making food realized what was going on. On her way up to the counter he calmly clocked out and left. The GM had to apologize over and over again to the poor woman trying to order.
Narnia
[rebelmouse-image 18348798 is_animated_gif=I wasn't there to see it, but my coworkers have talked about "the cabinet incident." Last year was my first year of teaching, and I was working in a low-income inner city school. People kept saying to me "there's no way you could possibly be worse than the last girl we had." When I asked what they meant, I was told that a few years prior the principal had hired a first year teacher. Apparently one day she got so overwhelmed and upset by the behavior of her class that she chucked a ream of paper out the window and then ran into the back room, shut herself in a big cabinet and cried. Her class was unsupervised for a while (apparently none of the kids had told anyone what happened) and when the principal found her, she was curled up on the floor of the cabinet, rocking back and forth and sobbing. Clearly, she was fired soon after that.
I didn't stay at that school longer than a year because the principal was the equivalent of Satan, but when I left she said to me "despite all the s* you were put through this year from your kids, you're the first teacher I can remember who I never saw cry at school." I'll take that as a compliment, I suppose.
It Wasn't His Fault
[rebelmouse-image 18348799 is_animated_gif=Working a retail summer job. A forklift driver was moving a skid of pickled eggs that wasn't wrapped properly. It fell, and a ton of juice and eggs went everywhere. Manger comes out and does the "takes off hat and throws it on the ground while yelling GAAAWWWW DAAAAMN IT." After he went full Gunnery Sergeant Hartman on the dudes -ss for f-cking up. It was enough to make him cry and quit the next day.
Like A Robot
[rebelmouse-image 18348802 is_animated_gif=This guy in a restaurant kitchen got in a fist fight with a younger guy, punched him in the face, backed up, started shaking his face and doing the Scooby-Doo voice. He was nuts. I broke it up and took the other guy out of the kitchen to separate them and came back ten minutes later and the crazy guy had perfectly cleaned his area - like freaking spotless - and clocked out early and never returned. Never seen or heard from him. Never picked up his last paycheck. Weirdest sh-t I've ever seen.
Alarm
[rebelmouse-image 18348803 is_animated_gif=New hire in her first week rubs coworkers the wrong way, acting as though she's the hottest thing to hit our restaurant since food its self.
When told her schedule for the next day, she argued with the manager about her availability. Threats of litigation start coming out of no where.
She approaches two police officers who are trying to enjoy their meal completely in tears, breaking down and begging them to arrest our manager for firing her unjustly. The helped escort her out of the building.
Not Worth £5
[rebelmouse-image 18348804 is_animated_gif=First, this involves the new £5 notes. For those who don't know, they're polymer notes, and if you fold them up they tend to stay folded. Its important for the story.
I served a customer, a friendly old man with white hair, who paid with a folded £5. I put it in the till. A few minutes later my boss was in the till and saw the folded note.
He decided that the folds meant it had been rolled up into a tube to snort with. He was absolutely adamant. I said no, I just took that note, from an old man. He started yelling, rolling the note up in his fingers to make a tube, shouting at me, "Look! It rolls up like this! Don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about! Don't tell me I'm wrong!" He kept shouting at me, basically waiting for me to apologize and back down, say I was wrong. But I wasn't so I didn't.
He wound up storming off, throwing things and slamming things. He's f-cking insane and I should have complained but there would be no point, everyone knows what he's like and no one cares.
W.H.A.T.
[rebelmouse-image 18348805 is_animated_gif=My boss was pretty tightly wrapped. One day I came into the restroom and there she was in a stall smearing her poop on the floor (I recognized her rings) and muttering. When she was finished, she cleaned up the worst of it off the floor, somehow got dressed with her icky hands, got washed, and went back to work.
Pettiness
[rebelmouse-image 18348806 is_animated_gif=During grad school a professor in my department had a doctoral student who'd been there a few years, had passed candidacy exams and was writing up the dissertation.
I still don't know what truly caused the argument, but they ended up having a shouting matching in the hallway in our academic building one day. Allegedly student wanted to publish results and prof said no because they actually corrected a previously published theory he had first authored. Major fireworks.
Student ends up switching to a new lab, refuses to let professor have the lab / research notes, and wrote up his dissertation using the original data funded by the original prof under a different prof (a big deal, again).
Huge drama.
That professor submitted his tenure packet one year later. It was unanimously approved by the dept and college.... the provost rejected it, because this former student went to the provost with the prof's original paper, student's data, the still-unsubmitted manuscript the student had written up...everything.
The uni had a rule that if you don't get tenure you have to leave....prof never could get hired in the states after that and had to go back to his home country in the Middle East.
Don't Scream
[rebelmouse-image 18348807 is_animated_gif=When I was an intern we had a high priority project come through that my mentor was working on. Really fast turn around with many late nights, shitty coffee, and good beer. Anyway it was towards the end of the project and I was finishing bring up on the board at my bench when I heard him muttering quietly to himself. I looked up to see if he needed me and watched him absolutely POUND a computer monitor with his fist then grab it, smash it down on the floor before stomping on it screaming "Theres no god damn DRC error!"
He calmed down after a bit, got a beer then requested a new monitor. Thats when I learned that no matter. How mad you are screaming at Altium will not make your sleep deprivation better.
So Fired
[rebelmouse-image 18348808 is_animated_gif=I had a coworker freak out on a customer. I used to be a cashier, and people used to tend to treat us like sh-t. Anyway, the lady got pissy because she couldn't price match some doritos because it was the wrong size or something. Anyway it escalates, we cant find the csm and a few minutes later they are screaming at each other. The cashier's parting words were "I ain't f-cking price matching your doritos! You don't even need those doritos"
Needless to say, that was her last day.
In Contempt
[rebelmouse-image 18348809 is_animated_gif=I was in court (lawyer) and we were arguing a motion and requesting sanctions against Plaintiff's attorney. The judge starts talking and dressing down the Plaintiff's attorney... who, now offended, decided it would be a great idea to interrupt the judge, insult the judge, and flat out told him "You were too stupid to make it in private practice and you do not know what the f-ck you are doing."
She had been licensed for all of 3 years.
She is no longer licensed.
Don't Mess With Howard
[rebelmouse-image 18348810 is_animated_gif=I'm in radio and one of the group of stations I worked at had an oldies station, a rock station and a pop station in the same building. We had an announcer who was really eager and wanted to learn and work and was really a great guy, but the big bosses were total jerks to him and were stuck in their old ways of doing things. They treated the announcer (we'll call him Howard) really poorly and Howard used to come in and vent about it. He ended up getting hired at another station but before he left, he went into the music libraries and replaced all the Led Zeppelin songs on the rock station with a gospel song from the oldies station called, "Trumpets Of Jesus." For an entire weekend, any time Led Zeppelin was supposed to play, Trumpets Of Jesus played instead. Howard has since gone on to become program director and has won all kinds of leadership awards... total legend!
Take Him Down
[rebelmouse-image 18348811 is_animated_gif=I use to work in a kitchen in an old folks home. I had a manager named Edward who was a know it all piece of uninformed sh-t. I had a co-worker named E who had a very serious medical condition and required a certain medication at certain points of the day.
Edward didn't like E or the fact that she needed to keep her medication on her person. One day E forgot her medication and begged to run home and retrieve it. Edward smugly denied her and told her to finish work. So she tried and ended up briefly collapsing. She was okay but very weak and disoriented.
Edward grabbed her by her arm, escorted her to her car handed her the keys and told her to leave. Then he left. To go tell anyone that would listen that E was on drugs and he smelled booze on her. E was in the parking lot and called her mom to take her to the hospital. E was only 20 and very scared.
E was discharged that night after some fluids and came back the next day upon hearing what Edward told everyone about her. She stormed into HR screaming for them to bring Edwards -ss in the office IMMEDIATELY. As soon as he was called in she whipped her nametag at him. I obviously lingered close by like a nosey b-tch. She was screaming at the top of her lungs that Edward denied her to go home to get her medication, that was on file and hr was very aware of, and how f-cking dare he accuse her of being a drug addict. And if he really believed she was under the influence of something how stupid was he to put her in a car on the company's property leaving them liable for her damages. At this point much noise can be heard- as all 3 of them are screaming full force at one another.
She threatened legal action and stormed out. Well she did take legal action. For a ton of sh-t including putting a clearly ill person behind the wheel. Not too long after this I also quit. And a few months later Edward was no longer employed by the kitchen but rather was working as a deli boy in the local grocery store.
I don't know what happened with Es lawsuit but I hope that place and Edward got everything they deserved.
Silent Meltdown
[rebelmouse-image 18348812 is_animated_gif=I worked in IT and one guy, who was one of the most chilled guys I knew, was responsible for the deployment, updates and maintenance of a specific product that generated high revenue.
One afternoon I was sitting at my desk and just heard a big crash and saw one of his 3 monitors on the floor. He stood up, shoved the next monitor over the divider onto the next sections desk, then swiped the third monitor off the other side, picked up his keyboard and smashed it as hard as he could, kicked his chair away and slowly, and calmly walked out the department, without saying a word.
He came back to work the next day as if nothing happened. Everyone knew the pressure he was under and was very good at his job so nobody said a thing.
I Didn't Do It
[rebelmouse-image 18348813 is_animated_gif=In high school I worked at a grocery store and this kid was all pissed off at another bagger and swearing in front of the customers. He said he was hoping he'd get fired. I told him he should quit before he gets fired so that it would look better on his resume in the future. A few minutes later I realized he was missing, then suddenly he comes around the corner from the managers office, no longer in uniform (he threw his uniform in the trash in front of the manager) then he looked at me and said loudly "I took your advice" then proceeded to walk across the front end, point to each associate saying "F-ck you" to each of them and walked out. Everyone was staring at me after and I said "I did not tell him to do THAT!"
Louder Than Words
[rebelmouse-image 18346220 is_animated_gif=Actually it was the quietest most calm meltdown, but it screamed of anger and frustration.
So I used to work in a bank's call center. A colleague of mine came in the morning (he came in late and didn't even have his coffee) and logged in. The first caller was a rude -sshole who started screaming obscenities so early in the morning. My colleague without saying a word, hung up the phone while the customer was still talking, logged off and put his headset on the table. He walked calmly and get a pen and paper, wrote his resignation and handed it over to his supervisor alongside his access card. He walked out the call center and never came back. All of this without saying a single word.
It was the embodiment of the phrase "action speaks louder than words."
Too Much
[rebelmouse-image 18348814 is_animated_gif=Best I've seen was my 7th grade math teacher. There was a girl who always talked in class. She got moved to the front at some point and she was laughing and giggling as always. After being told to be quiet about 8 times, the teacher is standing front and center in front of her, back to her and writing an example on the board. Girl has one of those plastic pencil boxes all the girls used to decorate sitting on the front corner of her desk.
The teacher just cracked. In one smooth motion he spins around, yells SHUT UP and smacks the box as hard as he can and it goes flying 15 feet across the room, smashes into the wall. Pencils. Freaking. Everywhere. He swiftly walks to the door, slams it shut and we could hear pounding on the wall. One brave kid peeks out the window....dude was banging his head against the wall.
About 2 minutes later, he walks back in. Crickets, not a noise in the classroom. He begins walking around picking up every single pen and pencil, puts them all in the box, places it gently on her desk....And then just continues the example like the nothing ever happened. It was exquisite.
Union Rep
[rebelmouse-image 18348815 is_animated_gif=Not saw but had. I was about 7 months pregnant and had just recently been moved to a different office. The new office had all kinds of rules no one informed me or my fellow coworkers of and I kept getting hauled into the office to be told off for things I didn't even know I was doing wrong. Now, if it was just friendly reminders I wouldn't have had a problem but my supervisor was this high and mighty b-tch that kept belittling me and trying to make me feel bad, and kept commenting on how I wasn't fit for this job (keeping in mind I had been doing it for over 2 years at this point with the no problems). Time before the blow out she said I'd be written up next time she has to talk to me.
So I'm working away, trying my damnedest to not f-ck up cuz I really don't want to be written up and I honestly couldn't handle anymore stress. Well I get called into the office with her and our union rep and I see a notice on her desk. I LOST IT. I starting yelling and crying and listing off all the horrible things she's been putting me through and how it was unfair for her to treat me like this and how half the sh-t I wasn't even told about.
I think I actually started having a panic attack during the whole ordeal and told the union rep some of the comments she made to me over the past few months. It felt good to get it out and finally put her in her place. She was so taken aback that I stood up for myself (read: freaked the f-ck out) that I ended up being sent home early cuz they were worried about my baby's wellbeing. The notice turned out to just be a list of expectations (only 6 months late) which I had to read and sign but she left me alone after that.
If You Can't Help Yourself...
[rebelmouse-image 18348816 is_animated_gif=One day when I listened to a call this woman had a very slow meltdown over the phone that ended in her in sobs. The caller didn't hear something she said and asked her to repeat herself. My coworker repeated herself in a really irritated tone and then says "why does everyone want me to be mean today?" To the caller. The girl on the other line is obviously confused and asked her if she was having a bad day and if she needed to speak to someone else. She then says NO and that she will be the one helping her...
It gets worse.
She bombs this call. Like totally does not do her job correctly and makes this painfully obvious to the point where the caller says that she will help her figure this out together and to not cry anymore (this was a help desk type job for other employees). Well they don't and she ends up crying and you can hear her snap at someone else in the office which obviously has the caller insanely concerned. My coworker goes on a rant about how people are hateful and that she hates this job and that it's too hard for her to do (it wasn't really easy for everyone) and tells the caller she's going to be transferred...
We had to call back and issue the caller an apology, she responded by asking if my coworker was going to be okay. We said yes but no, she wasn't. The office manager ended up having to fire her for another call where she was complaining and abusing the caller. Before she was fired she was told she could use her benefits to speak to a counselor because she kept having outbursts bay work and everyone was getting worried about her, she said this wasn't the first time she heard that and didn't know why people kept saying it......
I still think about her (this was 2 years ago) and wonder if she ever got help.
Drinking On The Job
[rebelmouse-image 18348817 is_animated_gif=When I was in college, I worked at an animal hospital. One week, the boss/owner was on vacation and several coworkers joked about having a "liquid lunch" together one day. One girl thought it was such a good idea that she brought a bottle of vodka back to work from her break. She tried to get us all to drink together, while on the clock, but no one else participated. So she was butthurt and drank herself into oblivion. She made an absolute fool of herself. During all this, she hid one person's wallet, asked me on a date, cursed two people out, spun herself around in circles on the floor like a drunk break dancer, and puked all over the only employee bathroom and passed out. The office manager helped her to the couch to sleep it off.
As most folks were leaving for the day, she woke up and snuck out to her car and flew out of the parking lot, almost hitting a coworker. She floored it down the road and eventually ran over a large curb, which messed her small car up, and she left it and walked to a friend's house.
Yeah, she got canned the second the boss got back, and even acted surprised about it....go figure!
Appreciate Your Teachers
[rebelmouse-image 18348818 is_animated_gif=I went to a private high school. The teachers having 12 to 14 hour days plus their grading wasn't at all weird. One of my teachers ended up completely snapping one day in the middle of the school year. He went on a full on rant at one of his classes because they wouldn't stop talking. He was so angry the entire class of about 30 students was being yelled at full volume for 45 minutes of their class time because of this and left them all in complete shock. For the first 20 minutes of my class period he sat there, quietly, without addressing the class. I've never seen a group of 20 teenagers so silent in my life and I'm sure I'll never see it again.
Only One Bad Day
[rebelmouse-image 18348819 is_animated_gif=My ex co worker.
We work in an office and this one day she must have just been in a bad mood. We were due to have a staff meeting and she was supposed to arrange it all, hand out agendas, prepare the conference room, lock up etc. It was about 10:05 and the meeting was at 10. My boss, who was also in a bad mood, came down to reception and asked what the hell was going on. She just flipped out on him. She threw a bunch of paperwork at him and just started shouting about how she's fed up of him and is quitting. She then storms out of the office. My boss just stood there, then turned around and went back to his office.
The rest of the staff made our way to the conference room for this meeting and as we were sat there, it was really intense and awkward and deathly silent. We were all just looking at our boss waiting for him to react. Surprisingly he stayed super calm.
Next thing we know, we hear someone unlock the front door and come in, we assumed it was this lady. We then start to hear furious typing. I mean, she must have been slamming her fingers on the keyboard because we could all hear it from upstairs.
So we all just sat there listening to this noise, still deathly silent. Eventually it stopped and this lady storms up the stairs and throws her quitting notice at my boss and leaves again.
My boss just looks at it calmly, then finally addresses the rest of us and just said that he will not tolerate being spoken to the way she spoke to him and that was pretty much it. We carried on the day as normal.
Still makes me laugh to think about it. That was a good day.
One must really hate their job in order for them to get fired.
Depending on the actual job, it's not that difficult to follow established rules and work protocols. Deviating from them just to get terminated can take more effort.
That is, of course, the employees are completely inept or severely disgruntled and have no problem going on a self-sabotaging mission to be let go.
Why can't they just quit, you ask? Well, that'll be less dramatic.
Strangers online shared what they've witnessed at the workplace when Redditor ImaginaryBank9587 asked:
"How did that one coworker get fired?"
These former employees would do anything for a meal deal.
Egg Thief
"We had an employee cafeteria at a Fortune 500 company. You'd get your food at a counter and bring it, in one of those white foam clamshell containers, to the register where you'd just tell the cashier what you got. This one fellow regularly ordered 3-egg scrambles and told the cashier he had just one egg. He got caught once and told never to do it again. He did it again, and lost a $100k+ job for stealing eggs."
– Yossarian147
Costly Stand-Off
"Similar thing happened at my work, Fortune 500 company, VP of some department, company cafeteria but it was a salad. Would order a salad in line, the kind that they charge by weight and would loiter around until the cashier line got busy and then slip out the exit."
"Cafe worker noticed, told her boss …her boss told corporate security, they start watching for him and due to the guy’s position they watch for a few weeks. 2-3x’s a week he does this for close to a month. Finally they decide ok now it’s ironclad and we can fire him so they walk him out."
"Turns out he thought charging for salad was a ripoff and decided he wasn’t playing the game with the cafe. Well over 300k a year and lost it over a 5.00 salad."
– Due-Pineapple6831
The camera sees all.
Clumsy Ninja
"He was stealing Klondie Bars from the company freezer."
"One of the managers brought in a hidden camera to catch the thief. We all knew the camera was there so he crawled over to the freezer all ninja style to stay under the camera's field of vision."
"It would have worked, except, when he stood back up he tried to do it all fancy, and fell backward back into the camera's view."
– pirateteaparty
He May Have Fooled The GPS Tracker
"Dude would drive to the site, park his work van, then have his GF pick him up and take off for 8 hours, come back and pick up the van, thereby cleverly fooling the GPS tracker in the vehicle..."
"But not the camera pointing directly at the spot where he parked, got picked up, and dropped off. Cost the company a substantial contract. And himself a job."
– Dylsnick
Keep an eye on your baby wherever you go.
Free Baby
"She picked up a customer's baby without permission and walked off with her, the customer was beside herself thinking she'd been kidnapped. Co-worker didn't think she had done anything wrong because she's also a mother...."
– miss_demean0r
Up For Grabs
"My girlfriend had a coworker who did something similar, customer came in with a baby and she just grabbed the baby out of mum's arms and starts rocking it as this was a normal thing in her culture and her fellow co-workers freaked out about it but the mum was actually totally fine with it for some reason. She did not get fired though, they actually gave her a full time contract soon after which was a rare thing where she worked."
– Bubblez4
The Cart Pusher
"We had a cart pusher at target who did the same thing. He def have some mental disabilities, but I wasn’t privy to that info. I just know there were very few tasks he could do and he wasn’t very verbal."
"He was instructed to return carts, so he picked the child up from the child seat in the cart and held it out for the mom to grab after she finished loading the trunk. Mom was mortified, came in to raise hell at guest services. He wasn’t fired, but he also wasn’t allowed to push carts anymore."
– thisisntmyOGaccount
Alcohol and work don't mix.
Workplace Blackout
"Showed up drunk on the job, passed out on a chair in the lobby, then pissed his pants."
– SheZowRaisedByWolves
Sad Story
"At a prior company, we had a programmer who was brilliant. He actually built their computer systems from scratch and was able to update and maintain them. Only problem was, he was a total alcoholic. He was married and his wife did a damn good job getting him to work each day and keeping him reasonably coherent during business hours, probably because he was earning over $300K/year and it was worth her effort."
"Well, I guess she finally had enough of conducting his life and divorced him. He went OFF THE RAILS, like the company sent cops to his house for a wellness check. He was fine, just really drunk. The company paid for him to go to go rehab about three times, they were that invested in him. Each time, he'd stay sober for a bit, but then would be back to his old tricks in a couple of months."
"Eventually, the company hit its breaking point. I think the final straw was when he was in the parking lot, drunk, passed out in his car."
"He was fired and ended up passing from a massive heart attack about six months later, no doubt due to his addiction."
"Very sad story all around as he actually was great guy and an incredible programmer."
– Bleuet73
When I was a young performer in shows at a certain theme park, me and my coworkers got away with a lot of harmless but unprofessional behavior backstage that involved roughhousing and stupid antics out of view of visiting guests.
But when it came to showtime, we were always professional and helped create magical memories for our audiences.
The only time someone was fired was when a coworker tried to sneak a prop–in this case, a wig of a very popular princess–out of the park. Whenever we would "clock out" the security gate, they would always check our belongings for this very reason.
I guess my friend forgot about that part.
The next day, he didn't show up to work and none of us had a clue as to why. The company is so secretive when it comes to stuff like this.
We all eventually found out, and none of this played out dramatically. But one thing was made very clear.
You don't steal a mermaid's wig from this company and think you can get away with it.
For many people, escaping to the woods, either in a tent or a cabin, is just what they need to escape from their current realities and reset their mind.
Allowing themselves to be one with nature, and cut off from technology.
Not everyone finds the woods a peaceful place, however.
Indeed, being cut off from the rest of the world, all the while surrounded by wildlife, it's easy to see why some people find the woods scary, and not at all relaxing.
Particularly if their time in the woods included an experience which made them never want to return, ever again.
"Outdoorsmen of Reddit: What is the most terrifying experience you’ve encountered in the woods?"
In The Company Of Wolves
"Walking in the pitch black out to a deer stand."
"So dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face."
"Heard some circling around me of something large, it was trotting along."
"No big deal, figured it was a deer."
"Then it stopped and let out the most bone chilling howl I have ever heard."
"So loud it was like it was inside of me."
"A few wolves howled back in the distance and it ran off."
"Needed new underwear."- jubstep45
Who's That Cackling?
"I was backwoods camping in Canada with my ex."
"Deep forest, we'd been out there a day or two and hadn't seen anyone."
"That evening we were in the tent playing cards and heard something in the bushes, making a giant racket."
"It was getting steadily closer."
"It got to the area we were in and stopped."
"We debated what to do but finally opened the tent, both completely freaked out, and found... chickens."
"Three chickens, en route home to an organic farm we didn't know was nearby."- Worldly_Salamander_
GiphyIs That Water I Hear?
"An after dark flash flood that roared through camp."
"Twelve of us...five of them were sleeping in the canyon bottom."
"It's amazing nobody died."
"That was 32 years ago and I still sleep lightly and always pack clean underpants."- BrunoGerace
Stranger By The Lake
"When I was about fifteen yrs old me and some of my friends decided to go camping at a nearby lake."
"It was a 3-4 hr hike, and the nearest house was Maybe 3 hr away."
"We brought some homemade wine and drank the whole night and ate poorly grilled hot dogs."
"Life was good."
"We all shared the tent so it was crowded as f*ck in the tent but we all fell asleep around 2 am."
"At 4 I wake up because i can feel someone running their hand down my forearm."
"Not that unlikely that someone brushes up against me since there wasn't any space to move around in the crowded tent."
"But this is the arm that is facing the tent."
"So someone touched me from the outside of the tent."
"I sit up and gets instantly horrified to see that all my friends are sound asleep in the tent with me."
"I put on my deepest voice and shout 'whoever the f*ck you are you need to leave'."
"And a manly low voice answers me 'you should pack up your stuff and leave', not threatening or aggressive."
"Just calmly and in a dead kinda way."
"By now all my friends are awake and are just looking at me."
"No words just pure horror in their eyes."
"I say: 'Okay, we will go, but you need to leave'."
"Hurry up"
"When we get out of the tent this man, who is f*cking huge btw has taken the little row boat that was laying at the bank and gotten into it and is just sitting in the middel of the lake and watching us pack up our stuff and trying to get the f*ck away asap."
"We had to walk around the lake at our way back and he was just sitting there watching us."
"We never went back."
"This was 17 years ago in a rural Scandinavian country."
"We have a 'free to roam law' so we where not trespassing."
"We knew our way around the small town we grew up, everybody knows everybody."
"There have been no people missing and or found dead."
"Never."
"There hasn't been a murder in generations."
"We told our parents who at first tried to calm us down and they said that we where probably overreacting."
"But the way he caressed my arm before he told us to go was not normal."
"When we told them everything and What he said to us we where told to never go back."
"After covid we all met up and the subject came up and we tried to do some digging."
"There are no houses or cabins anywhere near."
"The lake is way too small to fish in."
"When he was sitting dead center in his little boat there was Maybe 60 feet to land on all sides."
"No one has ever seen this man before or after."- Withthisaccountican
Water Band GIF by TennisGiphyLose Lose Situation
"As a Boy Scout, we found a bunch of scorpions in our Adirondack."
"We ran outside screaming our heads off, and then lightening struck a tree like 20 yards away."
"We turned on our heels and ran straight back to the scorpions."- captainkatalis
A Bit Too Much Holiday Spirit
"Many years ago, when I was about 14, I was hiking deep in the woods behind my house with some friends."
"We were miles away from home- further than any of us had ever gone before."
"And we came up to the edge of a clearing and a little further down the tree line, we saw a lump of clothes underneath an old deer stand."
"We got a little closer and we could make out legs and arms and boots."
"They were wet from rain and had been there for a while."
"Obviously, our first thought was that it was a hunter who had an accident and fallen out of his stand and was dead."
"We were freaked out and it took us a little bit to get up the nerve to get a better look."
"It wasn't until we were practically on top of it that we realized that it was a dummy."
"We had wandered all the way up to the edge of a big Christmas Tree farm's property and the dummy was part of their decorations from a haunted hayride thing they did."
"They must have forgotten about it when closing up for the year."
"We had a good laugh but we were all scared sh*tless for a few minutes."- Ocksu2
season 1 premiere GIF by Jersey Shore Family VacationGiphyThe Bear Necessities
"I work in the bush and sometimes spend months out there."
"Most terrifying was seeing a bear start to circle me right as the helicopter pilot radioed me to say he couldn't get to my location because of the weather."
"Luckily I had a shotgun with me, and eventually the pilot got down to me, but yeah, sitting there in the sleet while watching that grizzly slowly and sneakily try to cut around my position in the fading light was absolutely terrifying."
"The whole time I was trying to come up with possible ways to keep from being outflanked and to keep visual contact with it in case I had to shoot it."
"This was in the late fall, so the bear probably hadn't put on enough fat for the year and was looking to supplement it."
"Spooky stuff!"- Psychological_Put395
Not A Terribly Uncommon Discovery In The Woods...
"I was backpacking with my dog and about 12 miles from the road and trailhead."
"So pretty far from people though popular enough that other hikers might be around."
"Though we saw no-one all day."
"About 2 a.m. my dog started this really low deep growl and wakes me up."
"Turn on my headlamp and see his teeth showing and he's right on top of me."
"I hear heavy footsteps (black bear / moose?) near the tent."
"I leash my dog so he doesn't tear thru the tent and the footsteps move further away, but keep circling my tent."
"All of my food and toiletries are hung in a tree in a bear bag - nothing in the tent to draw a bear's attention."
"I clap my hands - something is still slowly circling - not something a moose would do, and a bear might if he wanted food - but I've got nothing and a really big dog with me."
"I decide to step out of the tent with the leash in one hand and bear spray in the other - yelling 'hey bear'."
"The footsteps stop - dog's nose is in the air telling me to look right - but nothing in my headlamp that I can see."
"Didn't hear anything run off, but it's quiet."
"I give it 5 minutes or so, get back in the tent, and it starts up again - slowly circling maybe 50 feet from me."
"Maybe an hour later, I hear the footsteps wander off into the woods."
"At dawn, I take the dog, and the bear spray, and start looking for tracks."
"I find a clear path in the leaves that had been trampled, but no tracks."
"The dogs nose is on the ground, and I follow his lead - and he follows the loop around our campsite."
"We finally see a few human footprint - not shoe tracks - a regular size (not bigfoot) bare human foot."
"Plus - yup a human turd and toilet paper."
"Some a**hole was wandering around the middle of nowhere, near the tent and circling my tent for an hour or more, and left a dump for me to find."
"Hiking and backpacking is incredibly safe. I've been doing this for decades, and this is the only weird experience I've ever had."
"The hiking community is incredibly friendly."
"The trails have become more crowded since covid, and your definitely seeing more people on trails, and less trail courtesy (litter - leaving dog poop bags, pooping too close to the trail and not burying you poop)."
"Also - I was very far away from civilization. "
"Bad guys don't hike 12 miles to do harm, and I'm pretty sure they don't carry toilet paper."
"I've hiked thousand of miles without a single dangerous human interaction."
"What I think happened?"
"Much as I'd love to say it was a young sasquatch, a skin walker or a wendigo - I'm guessing it was a disoriented backpacker that left their tent to crap, and got confused."
"I was hiking a somewhat popular long loop trail, and I believe someone was probably hiking the opposite way, and stopped somewhere off trail ahead of me."
"I was backwoods camping - not at a campground."
"Regulations are that you need to be 200 feet off the trail and into the woods to set up a camp."
"So they could have been a quarter mile ahead on the trail and I wouldn't have known unless they were noisy (or smelly enough for my dog to let me know)."
"The most likely explanation is that they were heavily under the influence, got up to crap, and got lost on their way back to their tent, and found my site."
"They approach my tent and realized they were wrong, and tried to find their way back to their camp."
"Then they heard my dog, and me yelling to scare off a bear, and either thought we were a risk to them, or too lit to answer back."
"The circle around my camp was several hundred feet - and my tent wouldn't be visible for most of the loop - I was camping between several spruce trees."
"I didn't get back to sleep!"
"I couldn't get back to sleep."
"It was late Sept and sunrise was around 6 a.m."
"When we found the poop pile, I relaxed - I really didn't think there would be anyone nearby as we were in a very tough area to get to - requiring going over 2 mountain summits from my direction, and 6 other mountains in the other direction."
"The total hike was about 40 miles IIRC."
"We were going to be out for 3 nights, and 4 days."
"After I realized it was a human, my first assumption was that there was a lost hiker."
"I texted a friend that does Search and Rescue in the area t see if there were any reports of lost or overdue hikers."
"If there had been, I would have had my dog try to follow that trail to see if I could have found their campsite."
"As no one was missing, we broke camp and went on our way."
"He was the best dog ever."
"I lost him about 5 years ago."
"I knew that dog would die for me."
"Several years after this incident, I got diagnosed with cancer. **(**ETA - I've been in remission for several years and things look good)."
"This dog was so in tune with me that he knew how sh*tty I was going to feel before I did."
"He would walk with me to the bathroom, and sit right next to me as a puked my guts up."
"He'd walk me back to bed and let me rest my hand on his back if I needed a little help walking."
"Everyone has a heart dog - he was mine."
"I swear he knew I had cancer before I did."
"He used to sniff me right where my tumor was located."
"I still get teary eye'd thinking of him."
"Rest in peace big guy."- BionicGimpster
What Is It Reaction GIF by Nebraska Humane SocietyGiphyIt's What They Didn't See Or Hear...
"Absolute silence. No wind, no animals, nothing. One second there were all the sounds of nature, then nothing. Lasted for a few seconds that felt like an eternity." Reddit
There's a reason that so many fairy tales and scary stories are set deep in the woods.
For while staying alert and using your best judgment will no doubt keep you safe, the possibilities of what could happen to you are endless, and terrifying.
The older you get, the more you realize that having a worldview can be a disappointing aspect of life.
It's all the knowledge we acquire.
Sure, the more you know, the smarter you get.
But the more you know, the less you can pretend.
History can be difficult to learn.
Everything opinion and thought can change in an instant.
Sometimes that is a great thing.
Sometimes... not so much.
Redditor FlickTheSwitch167 wanted to hear about the times the truth of the world, just ruined it all, so they asked:
"What Historical fact have you learnt that ruined everything you ever thought you knew about this life?"
I feel like all of history is a lie. The more I learn, the less I'm shocked.
Aflame...
awesome rock on GIFGiphy"More of a fun one, but lighters predate strike matches by a couple of centuries. They originated from repurposed flintlock pistols that ignited tinder shoved in the barrel that was set aflame by the trigger mechanism."
Kataphractoi
Ice Ice Baby...
"Ancient Antarctica was actually a rainforest, a lush and verdant paradise, filled with flora and fauna. Despite the interesting fact that there was a whole continent of animals who lived on this planet that we’ll never know about - as their remains are locked beneath miles of ice."
"It blew my mind that Antarctica only fully froze over about 35 million years ago, despite breaking from its supercontinent ~ 180 million years ago."
"That means Antarctica supported independent life for ~ 145 million years, which ruined any sense I have for time and perspective. We really are specks on this planet."
oohaaahz
GONE
"There was a Spanish explorer that first visited the Inca empire and saw lots of prosperous cities and a great civilization, and told his peers about it when he returned home. But when other folks went to visit the said cities they found nothing but jungle and thought the explorer lied about his story."
"The fact that blew my mind is that nowadays we discovered that his story was true and the people he encountered died from diseases brought into the new world. And the cities and civilization they build were consumed by jungle in the span of a few years."
Manu82134
Modern Day
"Can't remember the exact quote but it went something like, If the entirety of human (Homo) history was condensed into a 500-page book, modern anatomical humans wouldn't show up until page 450, and homosapiens wouldn't build empires until page 490, the atomic bomb and the foundation of Rome would be on the final page and only a paragraph apart."
"And yet in all of this, the vast amount of technological advancements from the discovery of the atom to the modern day would fit in the last few sentences, of the last paragraph of the last page. And people wonder why we are reckless, we're still effectively great apes but with shiny toys."
JitterySuperCoffee
Tastes and Colors
All Stars Reaction GIF by LifetimeGiphy"Ruined in an interesting, not bad way: ancient Greek and Roman polychrome. The Parthenon temple looked a bit like Disneyland."
ipakookapi
"Same goes for European churches. Statues were painted in flashy colors. The ones outside got washed blanc but there are still some inside that still have their color. By today's standard, it would be considered tacky and bad taste."
chinchenping
One does want a hint of color. Right?
Part of that World
Happy The Little Mermaid GIF by Disney PrincessGiphy"Prehistoric, but still: Given that humans tend to concentrate along coastlines, and that sea levels have risen a bunch in the last 200 000 years, it is likely that our conception of human prehistory is fantastically distorted due to most of it being lost under the sea."
HaggeHagglin
Pennies and Pennies
"Victorian era London was a terrible place to be alive as a member of the working class. If I recall correctly. You could pay a penny to sit indoors on a bench but no sleeping! Two Pennies and you could swing your arms over a rope and sleep standing up or if you made hella money that day you could pay 4 Pennies and sleep in a coffin. The water is undrinkable and children expected working hours were 12 to 18 a day starting at 4 yrs old. By those standards, a lot of us would look like royalty to them."
UnicornBrainsRPointy
Horrendous Horrors
"Learning about the depth and breadth of slavery in human history was a real eye-opener. We have really detailed documents from more modern history to show WHY that idea is so heinous, but it's always been a significant part of cultures all around the world serving as anything from a social construct to the very currency of war and with autonomy ranging from that of livestock to that of a low caste."
"Evidence of slavery predates written records and is even included in the code of Hammurabi where it was already an established institution and we still haven't stamped it out today, April 10th, 2023, where slavery affects an estimated 46 million people (that's more than the total population of California, and approximately the population of Spain). It's crazy how awful humans have always been to one another and that we still can't seem to hold each other accountable for basic human rights, despite indelible proof."
FridayInc
Far Far Away
"When I learned that NASA had discovered over 100 billion GALAXIES and saw the image to put into perspective that our entire solar system is only about the size of a coin compared to our galaxy which in relation would be the size of the United States. We are so incredibly small within the universe."
cheeseburghers
A Strange Loop
Over It Ugh GIFGiphy"If you look at the history of mankind, you quickly see that nobody ever learned from our history."
Plastik-Mann
"History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man."
Kvesh
If history has taught us anything, it's that we're doomed.
But let's keep learning.
Whether we're huge television watchers or not, most of us have at least one television show that we've really enjoyed.
And all too often, the show ends long before we're ready for that final episode, and we dream of a reunion episode or encore season.
Redditor Putrid_Cry19 asked:
"Which canceled TV show deserved another season?"
Anne with an E
"Anne with an E."
- Unusual-Neck9547
"Three seasons, and just when Gilbert and Anne realize their feelings, it gets canceled. Excuse me, what?!"
- thesnoodlee
"Especially when you have so much source material to work with. Heck, the old adaptation went along with an older Anne and followed her life."
- No_Eyed_Dear
The Black Donnellys
"The Black Donnellys."
- Lookslikeseen
"Did they even get a complete first season? That show was canceled 15 years ago, and I’m still mad about it!! The cast was amazing and all of them fit perfectly in their roles. The story was intriguing. I can’t figure out why it ended so abruptly."
- mandyama
"I always scroll far enough down on these posts until I find 'The Black Donnellys.' F**king great show and I was glad they at least put the final episodes online. They were pulled from TV mid-season and I remember just being really bummed it wasn't on."
- GrimwoldMcTheesbyIV
Lodge 49
"'Lodge 49:' it was the dose of weirdness, reality-bending metaphysics, philosophy, blue-collar camaraderie, and kindness I needed weekly. Great cast, great cameos."
"I guess AMC needed the empty slot so they could have more 'Walking Dead' spinoffs or shows where people talk about the previous show they just aired."
- AdamInvader
The Last Kingdom
"'The Last Kingdom.' They had to rush through so much in Season 5 that it overwhelms you, although it still manages to give a great send-off to the series. F**king Netflix canceling great shows but keeps renewing 'Big Mouth,' lol (laughing out loud)."
"Highly recommend 'The Last Kingdom' if anyone hasn't watched it."
- OneThicBoii
Sense8
"'Sense8.' The writers convinced Netflix to do a special series ending episode but it didn't do the show justice. You could tell it was a rushed ending. One more season and it could have been much better paced."
"If I remember correctly, the reason it was canceled was that it was extremely expensive to make."
- Interjessing-Salary
Stargate Universe
"Stargate Universe."
- Ulkrum
"I was hoping I'd see someone else say 'SGU.' I really did enjoy it, different from SG1 and SGA, but I was enjoying it. Really want to know what happened to Eli after everyone else went to sleep for a bit. Like come on, it's like Schrodinger's cat! I need to know."
- Mad-Ma84
"They literally left this show with the ability to pick it up again."
"S4 episode 1: Eli wakes everyone up from their Cyro sleep. Due to whatever mechanical failure or attack, these pods didn’t work and these characters have been killed off, some of them aged."
"Stargate opens up and new characters board the Destiny."
- Jon_F**kin_Snow
"And someone brings Eli a clean shirt. But just one."
- MrVeazey
The Tick
"The Tick."
- dreadrabbit1
"I agree. And it doesn't matter which version you're talking about, the answer is yes, that version deserved another season."
- Funandgeeky
The Punisher
"The Punisher, with Jon Bernthal."
- xXxLordViperScorpion
"Absolutely hands down! He was crazy good in it."
- MessagefromA
Carnivale
"'Carnivale.' I loved the world that was built in that show."
- m0rris0n_hotel
"This is one that gets me. Thanks for nothing, Management."
- the_murders_of_crowe
"This was the show I came looking for. I think the show creator had three more seasons lined up."
- coolmike69420
The Mick
"The Mick."
- Full-Ask3638
"I said the same!! I love that show."
- No-Teacher9713
"I came here to say this. That show was hilarious. As a Sunny fan, it was great to see Kaitlin Olson take even more of a lead role, and really helped me appreciate what she brought to the show. I was so bummed it got canceled."
- Childish_Calrissian
1899
"1899."
- TheGreyPotato
"I remember when everyone thought it wouldn't get canceled just because 'Dark' was allowed to be fully completed."
"'1899' had so much potential, especially after the ending scene of the Season One finale. Such a shame."
- HahaLookyHere
Santa Clarita Diet
"I'm still salty about 'Santa Clarita Diet' being canceled. I need to see what's next for Joel!"
- lemonjelly88
"Netflix: You should watch Santa Clarita Diet. You really should. You really, really should. Here are 15 gajillion recommendations!"
"Me: Okay, fine! ...Hey, this is really good. When's the next season coming out?"
"Netflix: Oh, we canceled that."
- GarbledReverie
"I love how well Timothy Olyphant portrays a man who's on the edge of a complete breakdown whilst Drew Barrymore is living her best life. Such a great show."
- unluckypig
"One of my all-time favorite shows. I will never forgive Netflix for robbing us of seeing what happens to zombie Joel."
"Timothy Olyphant and Drew Barrymore's chemistry was so on point. This show made me realize what kind of a relationship I want with my spouse, lol (laughing out loud). They were the best 'relationship goals' I've ever seen on TV!"
- thathunzygirl
"This is my answer for every single AskReddit post that asks about canceled TV shows. I will never freaking forgive Netflix for canceling 'Santa Clarita.'"
- spooteeespoothead
My Name Is Earl
"'My Name is Earl.'"
- ftran998
"Greg Garcia did an AMA where he shared how he envisioned the ending:"
"'I had always had an ending to 'Earl,' and I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to see it happen. You’ve got a show about a guy with a list, so not seeing him finish it is a bummer. But the truth is, he wasn’t ever going to finish the list.'"
"'The basic idea of the ending was that while he was stuck on a really hard list item, he was going to start to get frustrated that he was never going to finish it. Then he runs into someone who had a list of their own, and Earl was on it. They needed to make up for something bad they had done to Earl. He asks them where they got the idea of making a list, and they tell him that someone came to them with a list and that person got the idea from someone else...'"
"'Earl eventually realizes that his list started a chain reaction of people with lists and that he’s finally put more good into the world than bad. So at that point, he was going to tear up his list and go live his life. Walk into the sunset a free man. With good karma.'"
- edlee98765
"Oh wow, that's such a good wrap-up for the show that even just reading it feels like some solid closure. Wish it had gotten made, but it's the perfect capstone for the series."
- l3rn
The Last Man on Earth
"'The Last Man on Earth.'"
- Historical_Ad2890
"I f**king loved this show. I get that the style of humor and awkwardness wasn’t for everyone, but godd**n, this show made me laugh more than most shows do."
- The_Number_None
"I need closure closure closure."
- Klutzy-Addition5003
The Dirk Gentlys Holistic Detective Agency
"Dirk Gentlys Holistic Detective Agency."
"A lot of people didn't like the 2nd season, which is completely fair. It's hard to live up to the expectations of such a solid first season."
"The reason I personally would like a 3rd season is that the cliffhanger is so. d**n. tasty. Also, I want more Rowdy 3 (6?), Alan Tudyk, and Tyler Labine."
"I recognize that it deviates completely from the source material, and I understand why a lot of people are upset by that. There are a lot of examples where I hated the adaptation (looking at you, 'World War Z'), but I personally believe this is a perfect example of how you take inspiration and run with it."
"A dark, gritty version where Dirk was the fat slob the books described him as might also be fantastic, and I'd probably watch the shit out of it."
"However, I think this adaptation captures the whimsical nonsense of Douglas Adam's writing perfectly, and I'm ok with it. It's just a shame that the show was attached to such a scumbag. Otherwise, we might have seen that third season that gave us all the answers they teased."
- GrownThenBrewed
"That show is still my absolute favorite."
"With absolute bangers like:"
"'The Rowdy Three!'"
"'But there are four of them!'"
"'I'm WILDLY aware.'"
"They captured Douglas Adams's whimsical nonsense so perfectly in that show."
"I feel like the second series went completely off the rails, but I still loved it."
- Conductor_Cat
"This was so gloriously, bizarrely brilliant. It was completely different from the (excellent) books, but it took on some of the core ideas and added a bunch of its own, then ran with them in multiple directions all at once."
"It was a joy to watch and made me feel an almost childlike wonder. It surprised and delighted me; a modern-day fairy-tale for grown-ups. Gutted me when it was canceled."
- wretched_cretin
Teen Titans
"This may seem a bit childish, but Teen Titans. The original one from 2003."
- Sadblackcat666
"It’s a bummer because every character got one season where they were the focus of the ongoing plot. Season One was Robin, Season Two was Terra, Season Three was Cyborg, Season Four was Raven, and Season Five was Beast Boy."
"It was set up perfectly to have a sixth season focused on Starfire and we never got it."
- JRBehr
"I rewatched the whole series fairly recently. It really was such a unique show for the time. I remember seeing reruns on Boomerang after the series had finished airing on CN. It's unfortunate that they no longer air anything from the original series or movie."
"Season Five absolutely ended in a way that demanded something more, and the movie did not scratch that itch."
- ChrisTheKnight03
This is a great reminder of how entertainment can bring people together, first as a fandom and later for the nostalgia.
And there are quality selections here that absolutely should have gotten more time, and deserve a watch from those who haven't seen these shows before.