OSHA Employees Reveal The Biggest Violations They've Seen In The Workplace

Workplace safety is no joke. Injuries on the job can lead to lawsuits and months of headaches. Last thing any shift supervisor wants to see when they arrive at 5 in the morning is the "Days Without Incident" poster reset to 0. That's what OSHA, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and other safety organizations are for. They keep people safe and those poster days up. Sometimes, though, a day at work doesn't always go completely safe.
Reddit user, u/KrazyKingZ, wanted to hear from OSHA people firsthand about the dumbest thing they've seen when they asked:
OSHA employees of Reddit, what is the biggest safety violation you have seen in a workplace?
50. Surfin' USA
Not OSHA but I worked for a year in a small plastic molding plant. Saw a guy surf a bale of scrap plastic as it ejected onto the pallet. To be fair it wasn't on purpose lol, the bale wasn't coming out so he climbed behind it (so his body was between the back wall and a 1500+ pound bale) to push it out from the back. It worked but he held onto the bale and rode it on the way out.
49. Gross People Shouldn't Work For Food Places
I'm not an OSHA employee, but I worked at a convenience store that had a pizza place inside that made food for travelers and that locals could order. We had to make cookies and we had about 6 kinds, two of which contained peanut butter. It was important to keep those two separate from the rest when making them because of how serious nut allergies can be. My manager put all the cookies into one tub to bring out (they were already pre-made in frozen disks, we just thawed and baked them) completely contaminating all the different kind of cookies with each other. I brought it to her attention, but she didn't care.
There were other violations when she was there. Like leaving food in the way past its time just so she wouldn't have to make new stuff and never dated any of the food in the fridge. She never cleaned up after herself either by wiping down counters.
48. Who Needs BOTH Hands?
I was the new safety guy for a metal shop that would send out a can of aerosol adhesive(flammable) with some products. For some reason they had someone peeling the label off of the can and applying a new one. The guy was using a heat gun to remove the labels. He said he didn't think it was safe, but one of the other guys told him that they always did it that way. I've seen some crazy and dangerous practices, but this stands out for the absurd lack of common sense.
47. Shot Yourselves In The Foot
Military safety guy here. We have a building on base with a ceiling that leaks and basement that floods when it rains. The coolest part is that there are unshielded wires and comm boxes laying in the parts of the basement where water pools. We also have the emergency phone lines for the fire department for the nearest large civilian, passenger airport right next door running through that basement. So, F everyone if we get water in those. You didn't need the fire department anyway.
It has been two years since I reported that building. The responses I got then were "it has always been like that". Also, we're "still waiting for bids for the repair".
OSHA doesn't cover the military.
46. Not A Single Thing Right
I'm not in the USA but part of my job involves working in confined spaces accessing cabling ducting and risers etc. There's a crap-ton of confined spaces working regulations in this country that have to be met when working in spaces such as these.
The work we do is classed as very low risk confined space but a friend of mine works at a chemical processing plant and sometimes has to enter empty chemical holding tanks or pressure vessels to clean out sediment and other contaminants by hand. Obviously these are classed as massively high risk.
There was an incident a few years back at his place when a new management team took over and the cleanup crews were ordered to go in and clean out an unknown sediment layer without proper breathing apparatus. They had air-fed fume hoods but these were nowhere near sufficient protection.
Previously they would bring a specialist contract company onsite who had all the necessary BA gear and training to carry out the work safely but the new management didn't want to spend the money. The union got involved and there was threats of the company being reported to the HSE (UK equivalent of OSHA) for endangering life.
Weirdly though, according to one of the BA contractors i was speaking to previously mentioned that it's usually the confined spaces classified as low risk that are the biggest killers. Apparently when it's an obvious high risk situation or when nasty chemicals are involved, you're more inclined to treat it with caution, yet it's in a seemingly harmless space that stuff tends to go wrong.
Apparently what usually happens is Person A enters an unknown space without a risk assessment or the proper protective equipment, passes out. Person B enters the space to try to retrieve Person A, passes out. If they're lucky, Person C calls the fire service and once they arrive on site and suit up, enter the space to retrieve two bodies. If they're unlucky, there is no Person C.
45. I Guess It's Problem-Solving?
None summer in college I worked in construction. We had to hang some stucco board on the side of a building. It was probably 50-60 ft tall at its highest, at the bottom was a sort of drainage ditch. We had to build scaffolding to get to the top... of course the drainage ditch isn't level, so our boss found some flat rocks, stacked two or three of them and then we continued to build the scaffolding. We worked at the top of that thing with heavy ass 12 ft stucco boards on scaffolding that was balancing on a couple of rocks stacked up. Hindsight, I can't believe that scaffolding held up over two full days.
44. Almost Blew Up The Town
Uhh not sure if it's exactly an OSHA violation but I worked as a security guard out of high school for a high security warehouse (stored toxic, flammable, and otherwise dangerous containers) and one night a driver fell asleep while bringing his load in and flattened our plywood guard shack, turned the truck on its side and dumped a bunch of oxygen tanks into the countryside. Nobody got hurt though!
43. Pendulum Swung Into You
I was at a steel mill in the middle of PA. One of the EEs had gotten really good side pulling the ladle from the furnace, arcing it down a corridor, and placing it in the cooling area.
All of the overhead cranes had just been modified from a pendent control to a wireless control.
The EE stood at the top of the fulcrum, next to a railing of a cooling pit for another furnace.
As the EE swings the load, he is struck by the ladle and hit into the railing.
He suffered several broken ribs, a broken back, and arm. His side pull did not go as planned.
I've also investigated fatalities, and a bunch of other stupid decisions that lead to bad injuries.
Everyone needs to slow down and think about what you are doing, at work AND at home. Bad habits follow you everywhere.
Remember stop work authority too, be that guy or gal. If your company doesn't care that much, you don't want to work there.
42. Flip Flops Go With Boats, Not Cranes
Intern at an osha equivalent org in asia. Was at a site where they were building two housing blocks very close to each other. The blocks were up to 40 floors high. The main contractor installed proper bridges with handrails to link the two blocks every 10 floors, but the workers also placed thin, unsecured planks on every floor to link the blocks. The end of the plank on the top floor looked like it was less than 3 cm away from the edge.
There were bare live wires randomly poking from the ceilings, workers climbing on scaffolding without helmets or harnesses, workers on 3m tall ladders and using them like stilts (rocking side to side to "walk" the ladder to the next light fixture) and the workers were housed on the site in the unfinished building. Their tower crane operator turned up and climbed up the crane in wifebeater, sarong and flip flops - his excuse was that the weather was really hot that day.
That site was disastrous. My supervisor was shaking with anger by the end of the inspection.
41. A Ticking Time Bomb
Security tasked with ensuring EHS compliance here.
The absolute worst has to be this one department on my post (chemical processing and storage facility.) Going in there when they have agitator motors running on drums (and venting the exhaust right into the room) will physically make you sick. I once had an extremely painful sore throat for a week after one ~60sec exposure.
Yet, not a single person who works in there regularly wears even a dust mask, let alone a respirator. Elsewhere in the facility, people have allegro hoods being fed O2, good respirators, etc, but not in this one area where it seems to be the worst.
Other than that, fire extinguishers with blacked-out gauges, lights starting fires because they're so covered with cobwebs, PPE is essentially optional, yeah, good times.
40. Standing Up For Safety
but my job put in brand new 20 foot shelving units for holding pallets. They looked great and we really desperately needed the space to get pallets off the floor. Only one problem: they weren't bolted to anything. They also were not against a wall, so if they fell it would almost certainly hurt or kill someone. They'd be bolted down in a week, my supervisor said.
I was threatened with a write up for insubordination because I refused to load a dozen pallets weighing over 200lbs each on this shelf. I told them I had already taken a video showing that no shelves were bolted down while my coworker loaded them and they could kiss my *ss. They did not kiss my *ss, but they did not write me up either.
39. What Not To Do
One of my college instructors showed us a picture he took of a scissor lift on an angled rooftop with it fully raised the basket fully extended doing repairs on the building. The roof in the picture did not look sturdy whatsoever, and it looked like the slightest breeze would topple the thing. He doesn't even know how they got the lift on the roof to begin with since the only machinery that place has were fork lifts and the one scissor lift.
38. My Cigarrette Took Down The Store
When I first started working at my current workplace, I used to smoke and I had to go to a designated shelter, which was right next to a large pressurised oxygen tank. On a number of occasions I saw employees actually smoking right next to the tank itself, for some reason deciding that they didn't want to be in the shelter. What people don't seem to realise is that yes, oxygen is good for breathing, but that goes doubly so for fire. If that tank sprang a leak and someone lit up nearby, their ordinarily not so flammable clothes and flesh would suddenly be very flammable indeed.
In the end they moved the shelter after a couple years to be at least 200 yards from any building.
37. Sparkling Cyanide
I once found a cabinet with random vials of cyanide laying around. Another time I found an asbestos enclosure where the enclosure had failed and it had been without negative pressure for 2 days, this was in a VERY busy federal building. I know of one agency that routinely sends it's employees into high pressure steam tunnels without any kind of confined space training or rescue apparatus. I saw one of the carry-on scanners the TSA uses (480V) with exposed wiring directly adjacent to carpet/passengers. I know of a popular online retailer that under-reports its recordable and lost time rates by writing an essay on why the injuries don't count for every single injury.
36. A Difficult Thing To Witness
real life OSHA inspector here. Most gnarly case I had was when a father/son team was doing field service work on the hydraulic piston of a mobile crane. The piston cylinder casing failed due to a combination of over-pressurization and metal stress fatigue. Opened up an 11" fracture on the piston, releasing pressurized hydraulic fluid directly into the torso of the father, who was standing on the crane deck next to the piston. The pressurized fluid jet cut his torso in two, from roughly his left collar bone to the bottom of his right rib cage. The son was on the ground and watched it happen.
35. Just Like A Cartoon
Maintenance guy was changing the bulbs in one of our overhead light fixtures in the warehouse. Goes up in the scissor lift with the new bulbs and somehow makes contact with the live part of the fixture...with his bare hands.
He's shocked pretty good, even his belt buckle flew open because of the surge. He apparently "squealed like a stuck pig", somehow manages to hit the lever to lower the lift, and stumbles off of the platform.
He never went to the hospital and said his arm "tingled for a few weeks".
34. Malicious Noncompliance
I was the safety officer at a few workplaces. I had a bunch of rescue qualifications. The rule was this: protest the bad thing in writing. After that it's not your problem. The boss will break any law he sees fit and if something goes wrong, you told him so and it's not your fault. Some businesses actually care about getting sued and the safety officer is king. The companies I worked for cared about daily costs and that was all. I was often asked to do things (as I was also a worker) that contravened OH&S and I would refuse but I would never stop anyone else from doing it.
I was never given that authority. Managers like to keep all the "God of this activity" to themselves even if they don't know what they're doing and they just want A done, they don't care how. I was once asked to move 40kg loads on a regular basis. I refused as it exceeded the legal limit and I didn't want to hurt my back.
I suggested the person telling me to do it should do it that way if they wanted. They apparently couldn't as they had hurt their back. Strange coincidence yeah? Different guy wanted me to store a 20kg box at full reach from a ladder. I refused as it was unsafe. He put it up there himself.
Cue two days later when the box broke as it was being retrieved and destroyed the expensive contents. On another occasion I was busy with something and someone wanted to use the forklift to shift a drum of oil. I was the driver but we had one of those walk behind models with a steering handle which you are allowed to use without a license. I announced that I would be a couple of minutes and of they simply went to collect the drum pincer (a special tool for picking up drums that is awkward and heavy) I would be there shortly.
No. They are in a rush, they'll just do it themselves. OK, I think. Saves me the effort. Suddenly, I hear telling and commotion. This is never good. I run out and they have pierced the drum with a tine. What's more, they have removed the tine from the hole and the drum has fallen over. Cue me on safety mode yelling at everyone and rolling out the super expensive spill kit. Two hours later and it was decided nobody was at fault as it was the boss who did it and since he couldn't blame anyone, nobody was to blame. That place was a hotbed of malicious compliance. Always had to get it on writing though.
33. Pipin' Dangerous
Watch 8 tonnes of pipe fall from about 20m because someone was in a rush and used the incorrect rigging.
The kicker is everyone there (20-30 people) were totally willing to let it go unreported, except me. I never really did make too many friends after that. Oh well.
32. That's No Lift...
But my local junkyard has their draining lift made out of steel shelving with 3 legs. The 4th leg is a piece of 4x4 wood, sitting tall ways, with a bottle jack on top of it. They have it covered with a tarp so it's safer or something. A good friend of mine worked under it for a number of months.
31. Like The Least Fun Game Of Jenga
two electricians changing the lightbulbs of the street lights in my hometown did it with one driving the van and the other standing on top of a ladder on its roof.
30. Water + Electricity = Bad
My tafe teacher tells a story of an employee hosing down a three phase outlet with a water hose and getting badly shocked. He copped all the blame as he was not following the safe work method statement.
29. All With A Chainsaw
It wasn't related to my workplace (which is extremely strict with OSHA) but work I needed to have work done in my yard and knew the violations because of my job. Hurricane Florence knocked a tree over in my yard. The contractors who ended up coming out to remove it didn't use any safety equipment at all and, while wielding a chainsaw, stood on a bobcat with a forklift attachment to get a better reach, being raised up at least 10 feet in the air.
28. All For The Trash
I'm OSHA certified since our store needs so many employees certified.
We have a magnetically sealing door that leads to a trash compactor. The door is broken so it won't stay open. So instead they use a broken bungee cord to hold the door.
The one window is taped up because someone thought it would look better.
They lost the key to the door so the only way to keep it open is to wedge a peace of card board in the hole so it won't seal.
And it doesn't open from the other side for some odd reason.
When I have to use it,I have to put one foot in the door and toss my trash.
27. Sparks! Face! Burns!
go to a lot of sketchy body shops all day, so I see some unsafe practices. I have two.
Once saw a guy using an angle grinder to cut metal. He wasn't wearing any eye protection, and the sparks were flying straight into his face. He wasn't even looking away.
I also once saw a guy using a MIG welder with no welding helmet. Staring straight at what he was working on. Bonus points because he was smoking a cigarette.
26. Why Is There Always A Chainsaw
I work in construction and have seen some gut-wrenching safety violations. Too many to count. I once saw a man walking across a 2 x 4 brace (1.5 inches thick) cutting the unwanted remainder on support beams off with a chainsaw while 60ft high and no safety harness.
25. Is It Really Worth It To Cut So Many Corners
I work for a company that manufactures electrical equipment that prevents explosions in hazardous environments like and oil rig or refinery. I've seen electrical enclosures that are designed with very small tolerances for error that have only had 4 bolts holding the cover on when 20+ are required. Even one missing bolt can lead to catastrophic explosion. We're talking the risk of major loss of life just to save a few minutes of time.
24. Poor Cows Don't Deserve This
My old boss had us spray out trailers hauling cattle with Sulphuric Acid to sterilize them, all without using PPE or respirators. Cheapo wouldn't even buy us gloves until I had to take a month off work due to chemical burns to my right arm.
23. Yum, A Fungus!
the restaurant I used to work had mushroom formations a foot tall growing under the drink station. I saw it being scraped out during my last week.
22. This Ain't A Race, It's A G*D* Post Office
I wish OSHA would come to my local USPS facility. But only sort of. They'd shut it down after just a few hours, no doubt.
Some forklift / tug operators zooming by in the halls at 20-25 miles an hour when they're not supposed to go more than walking speed. Also just the general unsafe nature of equipment.
21. Micro Center With Macro Problems
Worked for a Micro Center that way overstocked its warehouse without good options for navigating the mess. We'd have to regularly climb on, through, and around loose pallets and gaylords, as well as boulder about 15 feet of shelving. Hard drives dropped on heads (thankfully packaged) were really common. Lucky it wasn't more often worse.
20. No Safety Here
A "friend" worked for a safety audit company. Fire alarm goes off. Not a drill. Turned out to be a false alarm. Which was handy because when they went to leave via the only emergency exit on the floor the door handle came off in his hand... Only other way to exit the floor was via the elevator.
19. Door To No Escape
I opened a fire escape door once and someone had removed the staircase from the other side so the door just opened into thin air with a 20foot drop on the other side.... it was like something out of an acme cartoon.
18. Sometimes It's Not Worth The Court Case
Not an inspector but did work comp insurance for a bit.
I saw this on cctv for evidence
Factory that made foam for mattresses had a machine that would cut up medium sized chunks of foam into smaller ones to put into mattresses. Sort of like a wood chipper.
One guy got tired of putting handfuls at a time (the recommended way) and decided to get a bucket and starts shoveling into the cutter.
When it got stuck from too much foam he used the stick part of a broom to push it thru. This got the broom stuck. He then decides to put both hands in to dislodge the stick and stuck foam.
The machine was still on this whole time.
He somehow manages to get the stick out and the blades start going again.
He amazingly only lost two fingertips and tried to sue his boss.
We settled for 30k...
17. Gotta Love Ingested Chemical Burns
While working on a small pipeline project, one guy had a 6-pack of beer under the back seat of his truck. Obviously the beer was warm. We figured we could cool the cans by tipping a propane bottle upside down and spraying them with liquid propane. I guess there is a safety device to prevent this, so we put a hose on the tank and cut the hose. One guy held the cans with his bare hands in the stream of liquid propane on the worksite. Good times.
16. Electric Coats
I interned at OSHA. I got to ride around with a former electrical union superintendent and I'm still telling stories. As an intern they honestly let me ask anything. The inspectors were so glad that someone actually respected them and wanted to learn so they just spilled.
Personally the worst was a couple dozen guys hung their coats up to cover the hot commercial electrical box they had pig tailed their broken radio directly to. The OSHA inspector saw it and just turned to them and said "do you have a family?
Do you ever want to see them again?" Turned out the crew chief had a brand new baby girl at home. He basically cried his face off about how stupid they were and shut it down until they could make it safer. No fines were issued. Even though it could've bankrupted all 3 companies on site. Just real talk.
In case you didn't know that amount of electricity would kill you in the worst way (unable to let go and feeling every single shock) and leave you a pile of dust.
15. Eh, We'll Fix It Later
In college I took an OSHA certification course and my instructor, who was an OSHA inspector, shared this story;
My instructor was inspecting a lumber mill in northern Maine, walking around the facility. Employees told him to be careful around two large milling machines in the back of the mill. Every 10 seconds, like clockwork, a giant high voltage charge would jump between both machines, arcing over the walkway path. Apparently all of the employees knew about it and just carefully timed when they would walk through.
That, he said, was the most glaringly obvious violation he's ever seen, ever.
14. So Long As It's Dry, Right?
Using a wet-dry vac to clear a plugged drain.
In a lead-acid battery pit.
Without the benefit of any PPE at all.
13. A Story Of Catastrophe
I work in pharmaceutical manufacturing, and we occasionally get OSHA investigators to give safety trainings. One trainer/rep in particular had been assigned to a case in Texas where a natural gas refinery exploded because a perfect storm of miscommunication, failed safety checks, and employees not following their SOPs. Opaque sight glass (that needs to be clear to detect levels), pressure gauges out of calibration, broken overfill alarms, among other safety violations.
12. The Things You Do When You Think You're Not Being Watched
I do EHS and watched a bunch of guys using a forklift to literally lift an entire box truck over a fence instead of just pushing it through the gate.
They thought I was at lunch. I was not.
11. It'll Hold. Trust Me.
Once saw a foreman tie a rope around a 100lb gooseneck elbow, secure the rope with a pair of vice grips and then pull it up about 40-50 meters onto the roof of a building.
10. When Your Bro Doesn't Have Your Back
I work in a CSO and had to clean out one of our vortexes manually. It's a confined space so I needed an attendant. After about an hour I finished and came out to find nobody was around. Walked up to the office and two of our guys were asking where I'd gone, because my attendant went to take a sh-t 45 minutes before and was playing on his phone in the office. He said he told me to come out and figured I was f-cking off somewhere. Should of lost his job then
9. Buses On The Run
I don't work for OSHA but I do work in a role where ensuring compliance with Workplace Health and Safety and arbitrating on those matters were a major portion of my role.
The worst issue I have ever seen has been a bus operator (for a major metropolitan area) direct their employees to drive buses which due to the inclusion of a new safety barrier did not possess a line of sight to the Left-hand side mirror ( This is in a Left-Hand side driving Country). I filed a dispute, and after some argument, approximately three weeks of it, they came to the conclusion that there was a problem and made the right decision to withdraw them and install a new less obstructed panel. Through this period the operator was threatening to take disciplinary actions against drivers who refused to drive these buses, drivers who couldn't see the mirrors and posed a huge risk to the public.
8. Skateboards Aren't Safe
I work in construction, and when on site, I heard our OHS person had to leave to write up a violation.
Someone decided to send one of the young blokes down a drain pipe on a skateboard to clear a blockage on a pipe. The line was 80m long, and a 450mm dia pipe. It was also storm season.
Apparently they used the skateboard so if he passed out, they could pull him back, or words to that affect.
7. How Did This Place Not Close Already?
My father was a safety coordinator at Kennecott Copper Mine and... Boy... I'll go in order of severity:
First, there were times that he caught the crew out by the woods trying to feed apples to the deer. They had skewered the apples and were trying to reach as far over the fences as they could to coax them just a bit closer. Nobody fired.
Next, he found some guys trying to break this gigantic bolt. He came across them right at the time that one was standing under this giant wrench to hold it in place while another guy was climbing up onto some equipment and planned to jump onto the wrench. Genius, I know. Two guys got fired that day.
Then comes the story about the acid vat... During a shut down, he came across some guys playing "Jack Be Nimble" with the opening of the acid vat. Needless to say, these vats, designed to process ores, were extremely dangerous. My father came across them doing this as one guy jumped and lost his shoe in the vat. Instantly disintegrated. About eight guys got fired that day, and the one had the balls to ask for a replacement for his shoe! Probably why my dad has high blood pressure nowadays.
There are more, but those ones stood out the most in my mind.
6. The Wheels On The Bus
Bus had the donut on for 8 weeks. WEEKS
-username deleted
5. Sour Experience
International Gas Plants, construction and operations:
-Once my idiot Chinese customers decided to ignore a massive leak in a sour gas line, that was like 200,000 ppm of H2S. I was infuriated and fled site, and only then were they willing to shut it down. Waiting to kill off the control room and poison the nearby town. This was by far the most dangerous thing I've seen.
-Confined space entry without an attendant. Yea that was stttuuupid. And of course this is the time it catches on fire. Luckily were able to escape.
-Hey lets dump sour water into an open drain = slowly forming cloud of poison gas.
-Online unplugging: In one case this guy waits for the bottom of a vessel to plug. He has a drain the same diameter as the vessel discharge pipe. SO when it plug he blocks off the discharge valves, opens the drain, and eventually the pressure builds up and a hunk of solids flies out from a 300 psi source.... followed by a corrosive solvent which they'll quickly block but not before getting it all over their boots
I was in the receiving end of an ice plug that blocked a vent valve while we were pressure testing some pipe. It released with enough force to tear apart the metal pail we had hanging on the valve to catch what should have been a couple cups of fluid. I got showered head to toe with methanol. Ended up totally fine.
4. Importance Of Grounding
A 19 yo employee was cleaning out a silo with a vac-truck and got fatally electrocuted. There was enough static generated from the friction between the air and the wall of a 100ft hose to stop his heart. All because the other operator said he didn't need to ground the hose because he'd "done this a hundred times"
Another time for a hydroelectric power plant, some guy had literally gotten cooked with a ton of voltage when someone forgot to lockout/tagout something. My friend said will never forget the smell of burning flesh.
Not an OSHA employee, truck driver instead. I don't see a lot of big rigs violating the safety laws since we get in huge trouble if we do, but I see stuff on dualie pickups and box trucks all of the time.
Last week, I saw a pickup with mattresses stacked almost as high as my trailer (~13'6") It reminded me of this one time when I saw the front end of a Mustang completely smashed in from a mattress that had fallen on it, on the freeway.
It's terrifying how some people load their pickup trucks. I once saw an uncut 4'x8' sheet of heavy (like 3/4") plywood fly out of the back of a truck on the Dumbarton Bridge going over the San Francisco Bay. The guy was going 70mph, and I had to swerve big time to avoid getting hit, nearly going over the side. I see loose steel pipes all the time too, reminds of the opening scene from The Descent...
[deleted]
3. Crushing News
Owens Corning had a company wide stand-down that affected all their plants. The issue? Someone had disabled an interlock that prevented the door to a caged in area for an automated robotic portion of the production system. A worker was crushed. Cleaning agents were stowed in the area and it seemed to have been used as stowage for a long time.
I was part of an engineering team that was modernizing the system at the time this occurred about 15 years ago. Same company also had a tornado response of going outside in the even of a tornado warning. The muster area was also where millions of squares of shingles were stowed. There was perfectly adequate "building inside a building" called the restrooms and showers.
Yeah, that pace was unreal.
2. Employee Revenge
My first job was for a large grocery chain and the store's huge walk-in freezer wouldn't defrost. It was covered in sheets of ice and wasn't getting fixed. When I ate sh!T hard in there one day, twisting my arm and smacking my face, I marched my overly confident teen self over to the store manager and told him, as if he didn't already know, that the freezer floor was covered in ice and that I had fallen and hurt myself. He replied, verbatim, "Yeah! Haha! It's like an ice skating rink in there!" And then he walked away.
Which it was. Which was dangerous. So I filed a complaint with OSHA and investigators showed up THE VERY NEXT DAY. The store had to finally fix the freezer and no one else got hurt in there.
1. Mai Eyez
I worked for the USAF, and I usually made people run safety equipment, like eye washes, rather than relying on the inspection cards not being pencil whipped....
One time (in Texas), they hit the foot handle for an eye wash and water trickled out then a swarm of fire ants came out with the water. I couldn't even get angry and their pencil whipping the inspection card because all I could think of was some poor bastard getting degreaser in his eyes and running to the eyewash.... to get his face full of fire ants. It was literally the scene from a cartoon waiting to happen.
H/T: Reddit
Some people like sweets, some people like alcohol, some people are willing to spend extra money a month just to have full access to all 14 seasons of their favorite obscure Canadian detective show.
You don't judge us, we won't judge you.
Reddit was asked:
"What is a guilty pleasure for you ?"
...and ... like ... we honestly feel kind of bonded in non-shame over this stuff.
Because it's all just SO GOOOOOOOOD!
It's Britney ...
"Playing Britney Spears’ music on 11 when I’m in the car all by myself. Especially 'Work Bitch' when I’m on the way to work an extra shift."
-nancydrew1224
"Toxic is an undeniably fantastic song."
-TheBrontosaurus
"It's such a weird mix of elements. Obviously you have Britney's pop singing, but it also mixes harsh strings with synth electro and a lot of rock elements. It blurs several genres together, and accordingly fits well next to other genres of music."
-Nambot
Those Golden Arches
"McDonald’s"
"I regret my choice right after finishing my meal. But not enough to prevent me from going back the next week lol"
-Candidmirror12
"Why did you say the word? I've been clean for three months straight!"
-realfoodman
"Yep."
"I get a craving 2-3 times a year. Same damned order every time. Large #1 value meal with a coke and a cheeseburger."
"I love their little chopped onions"
"Did you know that the Coke syrup formula for McDonald’s is different than what you get at home or other restaurants? It’s actually sweeter per McDonald’s request and specifications"
-mlgbt1985
Can't Run
"The Tremors anthology. Bad B-rated horror but god DAMN do I love me some graboids."
-BolognaIsNotAHat
"The first movie is legitimately excellent. The rest are stupid syfy level movies that are still a ton of fun."
-Taynt42
"The second one is also not terrible. Felt like a well measured escalation. The 3rd one on, though... SMH."
-Hotarg
"You ever have something be so bad that it loops itself back around into being awesome? That's this."
- [Reddit]
Perfect Mood Lifter
"Watching kid shows or disney movies even though I'm an adult."
-BanGinGDreams
"Phineas and Ferb."
"I honestly love to cruise the country side with my biker group, smoke half a pack, get home crack a beer and see what Phineas and Ferb did today."
"I'm a 28 year old man."
-Tiger_In_Maine
"Cartoons are good for the soul. Visually pleasing to watch. Good stories. Usually have some safe humor. Always end on a feel good tone. The perfect mood lifter when you're feeling down."
-GingerJayPear
Go Go Power Rangers
"Power rangers lore."
"I'm 28, can't get myself to sit through the kids shows anymore. But man did I love the series growing up and like keeping up with the new stories and seeing how it's going."
"My significant other would pretty much leave me if she found out how much I'm still addicted to keeping up with a show that I should have dropped 20 years ago."
-PN-DUBS
"Full stop, check out the comics. They were made for people that watched it as children and are adults now and they are honestly nothing short of incredible between the art and storylines. They do some really rad stuff."
-ForSafeKeeping220
Digging
"Picking my nose. I know it’s a bad habit but it’s nostalgic"
-VictoryIsMudkipz
"Kinda same it's not just gross but I also feel like it makes my nostrils bigger so I feel even more guilty 😭"
-getawaycar7H13
"There are two kinds of people in the world. People who pick their nose and liars"
-energy_falcon
Terribly Delicious
"Bad coffee."
"Like you go to a chrome-plated diner by the interstate and the coffee is made of cheap, stale grounds that has been on the hot plate or 3 hours. Something about it is super nostalgic."
-MutantOverlord
"Hell yes. I'll get like 5 refills on that tiny ass cup, tyvm"
-stoncils_
"Just terrible enough to want another cup."
-caseyd1020
Later
"Procrastinating….I hate myself for it"
-Usual-Difference9135
"I was going to comment the same but figured it could wait."
-C0rnD0g1
"I usually have two or three things on the go at once. So when I feel like procrastinating, I switch to one of the other things. My job has become literally me always procrastinating."
-StGir1
T.Swift
"I, on some occasions, belt out Taylor Swift’s 'Our Song' when I’m alone"
-nenolpunk
"I do it too but with 'The Story of Us' "
-SoonlyXo
"Taylor Swift's old songs are the best songs"
-AwesomeSpindleberry
"It’s this or 'Teardrops on My Guitar' because wow. Hit me in my teen feels."
"Who is Drew? I don't know, but I’ll sing about them regardless"
-nenolpunk
Hipster ASMR
"Before I discovered ASMR, I used to secretly watch videos of makeup tutorials because they made me feel relaxed. I'm a guy who's never worn make up in my life."
-SXOSXO
"I'm a man in my 30s. I love the cosplay tutorials from Alyson Tabbitha."
-amadeus2490
"Literally same!!! I watch NikkieTutorials or Naomi Jon! Like I personally don’t wear make up but I love the art behind it"
-patzzxd
So tell us, what's your pleasure? And do you HONESTLY feel guilty about it?
Go ahead and talk about it in the comments, I've got a certain Canadian Detective to check up on.
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Love or money?
An age old question.
Ideally, you wouldn't have to decide between the two.
In a perfect world, you would be able to find the true love of your life and be incredibly wealthy all at once.
But, as the saying goes, you can't have everything.
Though if faced with having to choose between the two, people might have a different idea of what the obvious answer would be.
Redditor lulinghayaw was curious how people would decide when faced with this decision, leading them to ask:
"Genuine, true love or 5 million dollars? Why?"
My love is worth more than that.
"True love because my true love is 5 trillion dollars."- ImOnARush.
Freedom to do what you love.
"I'm gonna be really honest, I'd choose 5 million dollars."
"Having that much money means financial stability."
"It means not having to work for money - that wouldn't mean not working ever again, but doing a job you really love even if it doesn't pay well."
"I would be able to study without worrying about burdening my parents."
"I could achieve my dream of getting multiple degrees."
"Money isn't just money, it's opportunities."
"Without having to worry about money, I could focus on improving myself in every way - getting healthier, studying more, having a stable routine, reading a lot, overall becoming the best version of myself."
"I'll have plenty of time to find true love, improve relationships with friends and family and everything else."- lux_blue.
Money over love any day- no matter the amount.
"5 dollars."- SpaZzzmanian_Devil.
"SHOW ME THE MONEY."- _starvingartist.
How much is true love worth.
"Money."
"Love can't pay my bills."- LiteLit.
Money can't buy happiness.
"True love."
"Moneys cool and all, but I'd much rather be in a loving relationship."- WhiskersCleveland.
But money can buy a lot of other things...
"5 mil, I’ll wipe my tears with hundreds."- Weary_Gate7941.
True love...with a rich partner.
"Genuine true love."
"It didn't say my partner and I would be poor."- moonIightbaby.
"The greatest thing, you'll ever learn..."
"True love."
"I have been alone all my life."
"I’ve always had toxic friends because i told myself i deserved it, i told myself 'at least they want to be friends with me'."
"I have a narcissistic mother and a dad that isn’t emotionally there because of his own trauma."
"I have a sister that flat out ignores me when I talk and my other siblings are too young for me to have the kind of bond that i need right now."
"I have an amazing best friend but it’s different than having someone that loves me and i love back."
"If you had asked me a month ago i would’ve said 5 million."
"I would’ve been lying."
"If you had asked a year ago I would’ve said 5 million and I would’ve been telling the truth. true love is priceless."
"I’ll be winning 4 million on the lottery tho."- 76543210987654321.
Some might say being truly, madly in love feels like having five million dollars.
While others might feel that having five million dollars feels even better than being in love.
Others might simply strive for a little bit of each.
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It's highly believed that it is important to learn history as a means to improve our future.
What is often overlooked is that what is taught in history class is going to be very different depending on where you went to school.
And this isn't just internationally, even different regions of the United states will likely have very different lessons on American history.
This frequently results in our learning fascinating, heartbreaking and horrifying historical facts which our middle or high school history teachers neglected to teach us.
Redditor Acherontia_atropos91 was curious to learn things people either wished they had learned, or believe they should have learned, in their school history class, leading them to ask:
What isn’t taught in history class but should be?
The Irish Troubles
"The troubles."
"Too many people in America do not understand why a wall straight through Ireland would be a BAD idea."
"I’m referring to the Brexit referendum and possible outcomes."
"If people were wondering why we were talking about walls through Ireland in the first place."- CLCVS.
Forgotten elements of World War II
"What the Japanese did to the Chinese during WW2."
"Unit 731."- CaptainMcBoogerJew.
"Japan gets off easy for their war crimes in WW2."
"They killed an estimated 16mil Chinese civilians and another 8mil soldiers"
"Also, Pol Pot."
"Didn't know who he was until I was like 25."
"Worst dictator all time (in terms of percentage of population he decimated)".
The truth about the American Revolution
"That the American Revolution was part of a wider cold war type of conflict with France."
"The American Revolution was basically the UK's equivalent of the US version of Vietnam."- vinsant7.
The Dark side of Swedish history.
"As a Swede, I'd like to know more of all the horrible sh*t my country has done throughout history."
"It's a damn shame we're trying to hide our history."
"For example, Swedes killed a metric sh*t ton of all Polish people when we were at our strongest."
"That's the kinda sh*t we don't get to learn."- mogwandayy.
Colonization
"Basically what Belgium did to the Congo."
"A lot of people are telling me that they are taught about this actually."
"I'm glad to hear it because I wasn't taught about this in the USA during my public school days (1995-2008)."- EconArch.
The truth about "heroes".
"While teaching about historical Heroes they should also tell students about the unspeakable things some of them did."
"Many famous figures throughout history who are pillars of morality actually did many terrible things." - User Deleted
Intolerance for Mental Illness
"The dark history of mental illness treatments."
"I think it's worth learning about."- 7dayexcerpt.
Slavic Mythology
"Slavic mythology in Slavic countries."
"Don't get me wrong, I love both Greek & Roman mythology and as a person from the Balkans both of those cultures are part of my country's history and had great influence over not only my region but the entirety of the continent & the western world but I wouldn't mind knowing more about Slavic mythology as well."- ShorsShezzarine.
The truth about the CIA
"How the CIA was made and all the shady things they did over the years."- ALargeChip.
There is a lot about the history of our world, not to mention our own country which shouldn't be ignored.
And it's from learning from our mistakes that we really improve our future.
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So apparently we are in the endemic phase of this nonsense.
We have light at the end of the tunnel.
So what now?
Where do we go from here?
Normal seems like an outdated word.
How do we get back to normal though?
Is it even possible?
What are reaching back to?
Life pre-Covid.
Those were the days.
If only we could bring them back.
Redditor hetravelingsong wanted to discuss our new normal in this hopeful "endemic" phase. So they asked:
"What’s something random you miss about pre-COVID times?"
I miss people being sane. Though that maybe election cycle issues not COVID. We'll never know.
I thought I was Alone...
"Being able to grocery shop after 11 pm."
Reading_Rainboner
"Hell yes. I miss the days where the Walmart across the street was open 24 hours."
Small_Tax_9432
let's just go...
"I miss spontaneity... everything now seems to have a barrier of difficulty."
iidosee
"I live very close to Disneyland so I have an annual pass. My friends and I would just go there after work and hang out and grab a bite to eat."
"Now, we have to reserve a day to go. And most of the time, the days are at 'full' capacity so we couldn't even reserve. I don't want to schedule to hang out at Disneyland for a couple hours for July. So yeah, I definitely miss the 'lets go eat at Disneyland tonight?' texts."
mymymissmai
Not til 24-25
"Functioning global supply chains. Ah, the product you want has got microchips in it? 9 month wait."
richard-king
"Minimum, I'd been saying for a while now that I wouldn't expect a true return to normalcy in terms of electronics prices till 2024-2025. Although Crypto crashing through the floor really took some of the pressure off graphics cards which I really appreciate."
statiiic
WTF?!?!
"How affordable everything was!"
Disastrous_Hour_6776
"Yep. Today I was bagging up my things at the grocery store and I heard the cashier say to the lady behind me 'thats $78.12.' She had -- 2 boxes of Kellogg's corn flakes, a carton of 12 eggs, milk, strawberries, raspberries, blue berries, a small cheese cake, English muffins, coffee, and a small whole frozen chicken that could maybe feed 3 people if the meat portioning was small."
SnowyInuk
Sushi
"My favorite sushi place. It was good quality, close by, kid-friendly, and not too expensive."
InannasPocket
All of this... it was a simpler time.
NASTY
"As a retail worker, just how f**king NASTY some people have gotten."
DmitriPetrov*itch
"They applauded you for being an essential worker but won’t vote for policies that’ll raise minimum wage while insisting a wage cap for heavily paid employees."
sketchysketchist
CHANGES your DNA...
"Some of the people closest to me became very bitter and petty over the last 2 years. So many people have the 'crazy eyes' now."
__--__7
"So true and holidays with the family is like who has the biggest tinfoil hat building contest. How many jumps does your brain have to go through to think that the Covid vaccine CHANGES your DNA into the patented DNA so that the government now controls your body."
"So like vaccinated people now have a singular DNA set. I feel like I still have a chunk of my brain just broken off due to that comment alone. I was also told by same family member that I could never donate blood again due to the vaccine. I guess it is so my patented DNA doesn't affect people?? FYI my vaccinated butt just donated today fine and multiple other times after the vaccine."
tyreka13
Homeward Bound
"House prices."
adrianinked
"I'm resigned to never thinking I have a chance on owning property where I live. I'm 30 and just can't imagine it anymore. And I don't want to live anywhere else so, whatever."
Osdab2daf
"That didn’t happen because of the pandemic. That was already happening regardless."
CH11DW
Oh Mickey
"All Day Breakfast at McDonalds."
hutch2522
"It was honestly hell to do, and not very popular. ITs margins aren't anywhere dinner and lunch specials. ON top of that, the temperatures are such that They require its own grill, meaning that if you have 2 grills in shop, you are down 50% of lunch capacity."
Freyas_Follower
Way back when...
"Hanging out with friends. And I mean waaaaaay before Covid. Like 2006 back when I had some friends."
LoocsinatasYT
I miss the old days. Maybe we'll get back there.
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