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.
Non-disclosure agreements, or NDAs, are becoming a far too common practice amongst businesses and corporations.
While generally signed and distributed to ensure classified information isn't leaked, far too many companies and businesses use them to cover up shady business practices, as well as hostile work environments.
As a result, when employees sign them, they are unable to come forward about the unhealthy, unethical, or even unsafe working conditions they may have had to endure.
As doing so could possibly result in their being faced with legal issues themselves.
Thankfully, certain types of NDAs are now illegal allowing many people to come forward and share the hostile and dangerous conditions they had to endure at their former places of work.
"Blanket NDAs are now illegal. What can you finally tell us about your former employer?"
Insider Trading And Dirty Money
"They bought back a sh*tload of shares from employees under the pretense of 'we know the extra cash is better now than later!' and then went public shortly thereafter."
"The bonus is that the CEO then admitted he was using 'some' of that money to finance his divorce."- crackpotpourri
Improper Spending
"They misused pandemic assistance funds."- Quercus408
Falsifying Records
"I worked for a school district that changed grades to boost graduation rates."- RoscoeFreidland·
GiphyToo Little Too Late...
"They tried to get me to sign one when I retired but I just laughed at them and walked out."
"When you retire you are not under any circumstances required to sign an NDA!!!"- Tede6977
How Long Have You Got?
"I worked for the political consultant best known in DC circles for having gotten a dead fish in the mail from Rahm Emanuel."
"The consultant was a super weird boss."
"Full of shady business practices, including expensing all of his personal sh*t like family vacations to the business."
"But this is the story that tends to blow minds:"
"My former employer had me print out his emails so he could handwrite his responses, which I would type up and send back."
"No, I wasn't his assistant lol."
"He was too cheap to hire one."
"So he'd pull people off time sensitive client projects to do this crap, which turned everything into chaos."
"One of the many reasons turnover was high and the business failed."- rotatingruhnama
Buster Keaton Secretary GIF by MauditGiphyDeception At It's Worst
"Our sales department deliberately used deceptively vague language when selling extremely expensive travel packages to disabled passengers."
"They routinely left caregivers stranded with no accommodation other than 'the floor' or sleeping in the same bed as their patients."
"They also routinely failed to provide accessible bathrooms for disabled passengers."
"They also lost/damaged wheelchairs and mobility aids."
"There was little to no sympathy for these passengers and their caregivers when they rightly complained."
"When I tried to raise the issue with higher ups I was labelled a trouble maker."
"I left the company back in 2019 but I know nothing has changed in regards to sales."
"The price for the cheapest trip offered was over 2k CND person for a two day trip."
"The average booking was 8k for a 5 day holiday."
"They charge much more now."
"Can you imagine paying 8 thousand dollars and not being able to shower, or your mobility aid being lost."
"Then when you complain you are told you were never promised anything only 'we will do our best' or 'that shouldn’t be a problem!'"
"F*cking disgraceful."- moodychurchill
But Did They Get It In Writing?
"A publication I worked for completely embezzled from the parent company."
"The editor in chief hired their best friend as creative director."
"Creative director contracts their husband as a 'men’s fashion editor' when the publication had no men’s fashion section and was not a fashion-related pub."
"He was paid thousands monthly on retainer and almost never came into the office, and if he did, he never did any work."
"On top of that he was paid usage fees for travel images he took and were printed."
"That family took a one week trip for a story, brought their child, and submitted a $40,000.00 expense report after for it."
"Oh, then there were the future invoices for her husband’s usage fees for his photos, while they were being paid to be there because it was for a story."
"Other editors in chief from other publications were given a $25,000.00 clothing budget every year and a daily black car driver to take them to the office."
"When I worked for another title in the building that EIC submitted a very high expense report which included his groceries."
"The company would even provide interest free down payments to EICs for homes but they stopped doing that."
"Meanwhile they ran multiple rounds of layoffs a year, consolidated staffs so they worked across multiple titles, and paid peanuts to regular employees."
"I was laid off from that company twice within 2 years and they didn’t vest my 401K match because both times I missed the cutoff by months."- The_RoyalPee
Editor In Chief Media GIFGiphyConflict Of Interest
"One of my old bosses reprimanded an employee after the employee called HR to file a complaint about him."
"This is because the HR employee happened to be a friend of the boss in question, and the HR employee blabbed about it to the boss."
"The boss did not get fired but he did get reassigned not long after."
"Not sure what happened to the HR employee."- NotConsistentCalc
Lack Of Common Sense
"I worked for a company that f*cked up itself by biting off more than it could chew, and then a competitor went under, which flooded the market and f*cked over the company I worked for even more."
"Most of the company has been laid off by now."
"CEO went before anyone else."
"The new CEO?"
"The same f*cking sh*tty CEO that sunk their competitor."
"Who the f*ck would see a competitor fail, have it nearly take themselves down too, and then hire the same f*cking idiot a few weeks later."- prettyqueerdad
Not What They Appear To Be
"The weather forecasting company I worked at a while back didn’t actually forecast."
"They just copy/pasted products from the National Weather Service and slapped their logo on it."- freesedevon
GIF by Owain Wyn EvansGiphyIt's shameful to think that some companies are able to silence their employees from exposing their corrupt practices.
Unluckily for them, the truth always has a way of coming out.
Very few people enjoy being scared.
Those very few that do enjoy being scared often seek it out, by watching scary movies, going to a haunted house, or enjoying a thrill ride.
But even those brave souls who seek out being scared do not enjoy the feeling when it comes upon them by surprise, in real life.
Finding themselves or loved ones in life-threatening situations, and leaving them with a memory they would give practically anything not to have.
"What's the scariest experience you've ever been through?"
Narrowly Avoided Drowning
"At about 10 years old, I fell through ice on a pond."
"When I came back up, I smacked into ice...instead of the hole I fell through."
"The water was too murky to see any light from the hole, and I thought that I was witnessing the end of my short life."
"I was lucky to find the opening again, but as I tried to get back up, the ice kept breaking and I'd go under again."
"The whole event probably lasted 30 seconds...but to me, it was a lifetime."
"It's been 35 years, and I'm still nervous on a frozen body of water...even if cars and trucks are driving on it."- jekern
"Drowning."
"I was jumping off some high rocks into a river."
"It’s was a place in the town I grew up in that everyone knew."
"One day I somehow got turned around in the water after hitting and swam down, when I realized and turned around I was too deep to make it up."
"About 8 feet down I inhaled water."
"It burned and was cold at the same time."
"I could feel the pain in my ears as I tried to exhale the water."
"I don’t remember surfacing, my friends pulling me to shore or coughing up all the water."- WhatWouldTNGPicardDo
Chainsaw Accident
"I survived a chainsaw accident to the throat, 16th March 2022."
"Trachia, thyroid and epiglotis (hope I spelled those right) were each in two parts."
"The operating doc came by two days afterwards, with huge eyes, and told me about the puzzle pieces he had to put back together."
"I’m basically fully recovered except for my voice that sounds a bit hoarse because of nerve damage."
"It is slowly recovering and I am going for speech therapy."
"At the beginning though I did sound a bit like Lemmy Kilmister and thought about reviving Motörhead."- TokoloshNr1
Family In Danger
"Getting a phone call at work to tell me that my wife’s routine surgery had gone wrong due to an anaesthetists mistake and she was now in a coma in the ICU."
"I dropped everything and ran."
"What greeted me when I walked in was the stuff of nightmares."
"Tubes everywhere, machines beeping."
"My wife was in ICU for 23 days before they took her off life support and she died in my arms."
"Life has never been the same since."- M1r9f7i9sh
"Watching my 3yr old son whither away due to Leukemia to the point he was so weak he couldn't walk, sit up, talk, and we would have to hold his head in place so that he could watch 'Paw Patrol'."
"He's now almost 4 and back to walking again, and seems to be winning this long hard battle."- -Alter-Reality-
Held At Gunpoint
"One night I was working in a rural old wooden gas station."
"A masked man kicked the door open and robbed me with a shotgun."
"He was more scared than I was, which made me more scared than he was."
"I got him out of there with the money and all the cigarettes."
"The next day the newspaper published my name and address."- eightfingeredtypist
Infectious Disease
"Tick-borne encephalitis."
"I didn't even know a tick had bitten me and went from headache to shivers and extreme fever until I wasn't able to walk without my wife supporting me."
"Even reading made my head spin like crazy and I didn't know what the reason was."- DifferenceDependent6
Near Abduction
"I was 13 years old and my dad had just picked me up from high school but had my grandma in the car too so I sat in the back seat."
"We were driving back home and my grandma wanted to quickly run into a shop so we parked up outside the shop."
"My Gran was having trouble getting up the steps out front of the shop so my dad jumped out to help her, at that exact moment I noticed my dads gold chain he lost a couple of weeks ago under the seat in front of me so ducked down and reached under to get it, as I'm trying to reach under the seat someone got in the car."
"I looked up and they kinda looked like my dad from behind so I said "Dad?"
"They turned around and I immediately saw it wasn't my dad, they clearly didn't realize anyone else was in the car and were a little startled but quickly replied 'sit back and shut up, I'll let you out in a minute'."
"The key was still in the ignition and they started the car and peeled off."
"I have never really felt fear like it, all the worst kinds of thoughts rushed through my head and I was convinced they had stolen the car because I was in it but they drove down a couple of streets and pulled over and just said 'OK, get out'."
"I ran back to the shop and halfway ran straight into the arms of my dad who had been running after the car."
"I could literally feel the relief that he was feeling through that hug."- PeyJ
Unknown Illness
"I was in a hospital for months because of something else, couldn't get up and had already lost a ton of weight which made me severely underweight."
"Then caught some kind of virus (the doctors couldn't figure out what it was) and got weaker every day, I couldn't eat or drink and vomited all the time, at some point what I spat out was entirely black, probably dried blood."
"I can hardly remember that time of my life, but looking in the mirror and seeing my bloodshot eyes where all the veins popped and my chin and neck with burns from the acidity in stomach fluid and my skinny arms and ribs was horrifying."
"I think I was around 14 at the time and was sure I'd die."
"It went on for days and then just stopped."
"We thought it was that hospital virus that happens sometimes but apparently it wasn't, still don't know what happened and how I survived."- fluorishingStripe
Near-Fatal Car Accident
"Back in the early 2000s I lived in northern Minnesota."
"I was born and raised in Louisiana, so direct opposite side of the US where the only ice on the roads was when someone dumped out a cooler into the street."
"At the time I was dating a Canadian girl and went to spend Christmas with her and her family."
"Drove across the border, went to Ontario, had a good time."
"I came back across the border a few days after Christmas, sometime late afternoon."
"It was a 5-ish hour drive from her house to mine."
"Being the middle of winter, the sun went down very early so it was dark by the time I got to the first town in Minnesota."
"I drove down highway 61 which runs along Lake Superior, and is dotted with blink-and-miss towns."
"No one travels that highway that late unless they live there or are a trucker usually driving from Duluth to Thunder Bay."
"The roads were clear, no snow, no ice that I could see, so I cruised along at my usual 60 MPH."
"I hit a curve that had a patch of black ice and sailed off the road."
"One side of the road was an almost 90-degree drop straight into Lake Superior, the other was into a forest."
"I sailed into the forest, barrel rolled a few times, and landed on my wheels in a ravine."
"I credit my seatbelt for saving my life, so I'm now a hard a** about that when anyone gets into my car."
"So there were a few problems."
"First, cell phones weren't nearly as ubiquitous as they are now, and by extension cell towers weren't covering as much area."
"I had a cheap prepaid cell phone but no signal."
"Second, I was in a ravine so I was hard to see on a road that was hardly traveled anyway."
"Third, it was the middle of winter and I think in the single digits, somewhere between 0 and 10 F."
"I had a blanket I kept in my car in case sh*t hit the fan like that, but that won't do good for long since I had to stand on side of the road to be seen, and hope no one else skidded on the ice and squashed me."
"I for certain thought I was going to freeze to death."
"A local guy named John, who lived in the town of Schroeder, found me."
"He brought me to the hospital, I think up in Grand Marais, and even let me stay with him for a few days until someone could come get me."
"He had a long distance calling card (remember those?) that I used to call my roommates and girlfriend to let them know I was alive."
"I spent the first day sleeping from the painkillers."
"Nothing broken but everything hurt."
"The second day one of my closest friends said she would come up from Duluth the following day to get me."
"I slept a lot that day too and I found out John had this massive collection of musical instruments and played blues."
"That's what we bonded over, that and him literally saving my life."
"I found out recently he passed away a few years ago, though I'm not sure where his grave is but I've been trying to find out just so I can pay my respects."- SuperflyX13
Risky Surgery
"My son's brain surgery."
"He has epilepsy and had a small portion removed in 2020 to alleviate his seizures and give him a better quality of life."
"He spent a week with wires in his brain tracking his seizures as he had them in real time."
"They slowly stopped his anti-seizure meds to induce them, he had 26 in one night as he slept."
"Once it was enough data they removed a portion of his brain near his speech and memory center."
"This was the location of his misfires."
"The general consensus was that he had a good chance of losing his speech and memory."
"His personality could disappear."
"After his surgery as he was being taken back to his room he raised his arm to touch his face, the physician told him not to and my son said 'I'm not, I just want to touch it'."
"He spoke before he was fully out of anesthesia."
"Three days later he was home, three days after that he was being transported back for emergency surgery because of a nasty infection UNDER his skull."
"The surgeon later said he was maybe 12 hours from dying if he hadn't been seen."
"He had no symptoms other than a gross drip."
"No pain, no fever, nothing."
"Another brain surgery and six weeks with a drain tube and monitor on him at home with nurse visits weekly."
"He is now seizure-free and on a much lower dose of meds than he was previously."
"1500 daily down to 100mg."
"I spent a month in the children's center helplessly watching my son slip in and out of consciousness and have hundreds of seizures."
"The possibility of him waking up with no memories and no way to speak was horrifying to me as his father."
"So the scariest moment in my life was almost losing my 16 year old child 3 times in one month."- MardawgNC
Perhaps one reason people enjoy being scared at scary movies is they know that what they're watching isn't real, and the fear and adrenaline will eventually wear off.
Reality is far more terrifying than fiction.
Everyone has secrets -- those facts about themselves that they're either ashamed of or want to keep to private.
Some secrets are harmless and not even meant to be a secret -- it just so happens no one knows.
Others are shocking and may even make people look at your differnetly.
Redditors have some shocking secrets of their own, and they are ready to share them.
It all started when Redditor Difficult-House6853 asked:
"What’s a secret that would change how the people around you look at you if they knew?"
What Happened To Just Say No?
"In high school I kept my DARE pledge in my stash box until one day when I ran out of papers and used my pledge to roll a J."
– DanManKs
"How DARE you!!!"
– OkVolume1
Time To Leave
"All of my friends and family are Jehovahs witnesses, they think I am but I plan to leave. 85% of them will shun me when I leave."
– Allegedlystupid
"I hear you, left evangelicalism 20ish years ago. It’ll be scary and lonely at first but as you become the person you were meant to be instead of the person they told you to be, you’ll bond with others over shared interests and build new relationships. It takes time, be patient, but it’s worth it."
– Mr_Lumbergh
I Don't Wanna Know
"People think that I’m a good listener, and that just makes them say things to me that they really shouldn’t. I’m only listening because I don’t want to be rude, not because I care. Don’t tell me your family secrets, please."
– A_Guy_From_The_ME
No Rhyme Or Reason
"A few years ago, I went to the zoo during their Halloween celebration month where costumes were allowed. I dressed up as a zoo keeper. I told people that the penguins were animatronic. That when the giraffes get sick we feed them to the lions. I told a group of children that scientifically speaking, snakes and apples are cousins."
– Binder_of_chains
"I love how bizarre this is."
– Pickingupthepieces
The Horror!
"I like Cheese Whiz"
– Peckerhead321
"Not going to lie, I put that on an apple cider donut once as a gag... sh*t was soooo good. Like... I finished it. And thought about more. Never did it after that, but I think about it every now and then."
– BludgeIronfist
The Travesty!
"I’m a Philadelphian and I think cheesesteaks are soooo f*cking stupid. They’re really not that good. It’s the most okayest sandwich and people around here will steal your catalytic converter if you don’t succumb to their Philly cult."
– asking_for_it
"Can't argue with this but as a "born in Philly" guy, I get irrationally angry when food places serve "Philly Cheesesteaks" and their default toppings are green peppers and onions."
– MarcusAntione
Social Media Is Beneficial!
"How normal I've felt since I started using TikTok. I've learned so many things I berated myself for and told myself I was a freak are in fact things many, many other people do. There's really no unique life, everyone has something in common with someone."
– LordyIHopeThereIsPie
Superhero! Or A Dog...
"My sense of smell is off the charts. I can usually tell if someone showers in the morning or at night by the way their hair smells. If someone ate a yogurt in an auditorium hours prior but threw out the container in the trash and I walk in on the other side of the room I can smell the yogurt. My memory is also sense-driven. I remember people by their voices or scent, not their faces, or if there is something different about them (odd gait, odd body proportions, etc). My touch memory is also weird. Did I lock the front door? I focus on my hand and go through what my hand has felt in the past 20 minutes and if the feeling of locking the door is there I’m good. I’m literally a freak and if people knew how much of their behavior/body-oddities/scent I actually have no choice but to remember, everyone would look at me like I’m a monster."
– crashmurph
Alien! Or A Frog...
"I’m from a different planet… I just don’t want to be stereotyped as having big eyes and skinny legs and green, I’m not anything like that."
– AdditionalCheetah354
"You just described a frog"
– MN_Hotdish
"Do you have a waggy tail and floppy ears? Do you lollop when you run? You may be a labrador."
– The_Queef_of_England
"This is fascinating! The closest thing is I don't read by letters, but by shapes. So if two words have the same peaks and valleys, I have trouble reading it. It's also why I can read upsidedown at the same speed as right-side up."
– hobbes8889
Net Worth
"I’m a janitor. But I’m worth over a million dollars because I own real estate."
– Flashy-Weather3529
"Thats awesome. I work in Wealth Management, and one of the most surprising things I have learned is how people seem as though they are poor, but are just humble people living a simple life. A guy I work with regularly lives out of his van with his dog, drives all over the US and Mexico but has millions. One of my favorite people to interact with because he is so kind and mellow."
– ItsbeenBroughton
Check The 'Yes' Box
"I’m a convicted felon. Nothing violent, a white collar crime."
– PhotographIcy600
"F*ck people who disrespect felons. In the face or the law, you have served your sentence and redeemed yourself. The moment you step out of jail, your criminal record should not interfere with your life in any way (unless special security checks). Everyone deserves a second chance, and anyone who thinks otherwise is an absolute idiot with no empathy."
– S0crates420
Woof Woof
"I get more of a rush out of training my dog than any experience I've shared with humans. Dogs just feel more intense and genuine. when you look at them you know they are there, present, with you. There's only a handful of people I can say have ever even come close to that level of understanding and none of them managed to achieve it without words the way the dogs I've worked with can."
– Avengerwolf626
"As someone who always had a dog growing up and not that many friends or people around, the connection you get with a dog is probably the most honest and pure form of love one can experience. I can't have a dog right now and I miss that connection very much"
– JoStormBorn
It's all about the love!
Do you have any secrets you're to get off your chest? Let us know in the comments below.
CW: Domestic violence.
Losing interest in someone is a part of life.
It can happen in an instant.
You can be madly in love at midnight, and then at 12:10, you're running like Cinderella on fire from the ball.
"Let them keep the shoe!"
Pursuing someone isn't easy.
Because love isn't a guaranteed win.
And the more you learn, the less you may want.
It all can be a cruel universal joke.
A deleted Redditor wanted to hear about the times when the pursuit needed to end, so they asked:
"What made you suddenly lose interest in someone you were pursuing?"
I lose interest all the time.
A sneeze can turn me off. #foreversingle
Bad Swipe
No Way Beer GIF by BuschGiphy"Brought a kid she never mentioned on a tinder date (I’m 18)."
Relief-Old
Squeaky Clean...
"After dating a woman for a few months, I took her out for breakfast on her birthday with plans to see her again that night. She went completely off the radar only to emerge the next day to confess that she had spent the night in jail for violating the restraining order placed upon her after assaulting her previous boyfriend. Hit the eject button pronto. Never looked back. I was completely caught off guard because she held a very prestigious job, had extensive real estate holdings, and presented as squeaky clean."
drmonkeytown
No Womb For You
"After the second date he said he can’t wait to put a baby in me. And when I asked if we can get to know each other first he said he doesn’t have time for a 6-12 months courtship. He already knows what he wants. Anyway... I did let him know I’m not a womb for hire, and never talked again."
notyourusualprincess
No Reason
"Yelled at someone at a party for a miscommunication that was no one's fault. I get it, it was frustrating, but she just yelled at this woman for no reason."
KaRue3
"This is a reason why a standard question for me when starting to see someone new is 'What are the odds you’ll yell at me in public?' I always phrase it almost like a joke, so the way they start saying in what situations they would definitely yell at you will tell you all you need to know. Sometimes it’s very obviously a joke, and sometimes it’s obvious how dead serious they are."
The1Zackiechan
Succubus
Love Me GIFGiphy"I realized he was using me for favors. He was always needy, but never there when I desperately needed him."
blonde_77
When it's all about them... run.
Human Garbage...
Difficult People Reaction GIF by HULUGiphy"When he stopped talking to me after I didn't send him nudes, turns out he asks multiple girls for nudes, then sells the pictures to some of his friends. A complete human garbage, if you ask me."
Scarlet_Rot_Falke
True Evil
"They hurt my dog."
"Now, I was into this guy for a while. Bigger guy. Seemed really sweet. I invited him over after we hit it off, and my dog, being a dog, came up to see this new person. He responds to this inquisitive sniffing my kicking them in the face, and seeming proud of it, saying that you 'have to show a mutt who's boss.'"
"I told him to get the f**k out of my house and never come back."
"I'm still very single, but my dogs haven't been hurt like that since."
InkblotDoggo
Cheater
"They started flirting with my best friend."
Minibersy
"I was the best friend and I didn't even do anything but it killed our friendship. We were young so looking back I think it was just emotional but damn. His girlfriend was being an a**hole to him but he saw me as the problem. It made me feel so Go**amn helpless at the time. Everyone treated me like I was a cheater. Like I led her on."
Pencilowner
"Oof been there, my BF told me he was in love with my best friend. thankfully he told me at the exact time I was already planning on breaking up with him."
lifeisntsirius
Keep Looking
red flag GIF by Steve Harvey TVGiphy"The biggest red flag for me is pursuing someone who loves attention on themselves but is not very interested in your life. Basically drop the pursuit right there and look for someone who is just as interested in you as you are in them."
Pretend_Tea6261
Always follow the red flags and save yourself the trouble of becoming emotionally invested in someone troublesome.
Do you have anything to add? Let us know in the comments below.