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?
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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...
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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
When we're intoxicated, or even the slightest bit tipsy from having a little too much to drink, our immediate perspective on things is hazy.
But there's nothing like a bit of alarming news or a jarring incident to snap us out of the fog and focus on the moment.
Sometimes alcohol isn't always to blame for our impairment.
It can be a state of mind, like a perpetual numbness from being complacent in life, and all it takes is one shocking moment to rattle us back to our senses.
Curious to hear from strangers online about this type of scenario, Redditor Known_Challenge_7150 asked:
"What’s one thing that sobered you up real quick?"
These individuals were witness to shocking events that sobered them up right quick.
Bleeding Out
"Got out of a taxi and found a naked man profusely bleeding from his head crawling up the driveway in my condo. Called him an ambulance completely forgot I was absolutely wasted until 45 minutes later when I'd helped him translate and in to an amublance and stepped in my front door."
"Later a few days later learned he'd slipped in the tub and literally crawled out for help. Poor dude. He was fine but I genuinely thought he was going to die there."
– DongLaiCha
Tragic News
"At a bachelor party and we got a phone call that the groom’s father had suddenly passed."
– accountnameredacted
Bottom Of The Barrel
"I went to visit my parents back in July. I was homeless and deep into fentanyl addiction so I lost a lot of weight. My folks could see it. They knew something was up. Anyway, I spent the night and I was getting ready to leave in the morning and I looked at myself in the mirror for a good long time. I finally had enough and told them everything. They took me to detox, from there I went to rehab. Graduated in August and been living with them ever since then. I have 160 days clean and sober."
– Crotch-Monster
A reality check can be enough for some people to snap out of it.
Like Father, Like Son
"Was driving a drunk friend home, he had been on a bender again and was smart enough to call me for a lift rather than try and drive. As I helped in to his house his mother came down the stairs and said 'your as drunk as your father' and went back upstairs. I haven't seen him drunk since then, he still drinks but the thought of turning into his dad scared him out of hard drinking."
– psycospaz
Busted
"Flashing blue lights."
– FiddleOfGold
"This sobered me up just thinking about it."
– redmaple_syrup
Losing Sight
"Woke up to no sight in one eye. I had cataract surgery so just thought one of the lenses had slipped and it was an easy fix. Eye doc says nope, you had a stroke. I loved soy sauce, teriyaki sauce and salty food, which caused high blood pressure, which caused retina damage. Over six months was able to get most of my eyesight back with medication, and all back within a year. Trying to navigate life with one eye was very sobering. Started taking HBP much more seriously."
– MissHibernia
Quitting The Bottle
"Looked up someone I went to highschool with who was an awesome guy. Found out he had been dead for 3 years from alcoholism, at age 33. I made an overnight change. I hadn't started drinking that night yet, 10 months ago. Haven't touched it again since."
– omgtater
These disturbing moments were enough for Redditors to immediately come to their senses.
Unplanned House Guests
"Me and a buddy Woke up in someone’s living room, realized neither one of us knew the people, they were just nice and let 2 drunk guys sleep on their living room floor. We didn’t even say goodbye."
– Oneinsevenbillion75
Serious Health Warning
"Elevated liver enzymes."
"And the knowledge that this sh** was gonna kill me and I just couldn't orphan my family over it."
"So I opted for recovery, instead."
"Clean and sober since June 5, 2009."
– Far_Meal8674
The Joyride
"Grew up in a rural area. The little town hosted dances at the hockey arena, everyone (adults and kids) went and they overserved everyone, regardless of age. I was maybe 16 or 17 and was absolutely sh*tfaced, and jumped in the back of someone's truck with about 8 other people to go back to someone's cottage for after dance drinking. The driver (still don't know who it was) started racing one of his buddies and we whipped around small dirt roads, flying around blind corners on the wrong side of the road, going god knows how fast. It was basically a disaster waiting to happen. It was crazy scary and I was sober and thankful to be alive when we finally arrived."
– foxfood9116
The human psyche is a fascinating thing, isn't it?
How we can automatically focus on something urgent at a crucial time, even after getting buzzed from drinking too much alcohol.
But as we're in the thick of the holidays, it's a good reminder to drink responsibly and stay off the roads if you drive to your celebratory destination.
Cheers. Stay safe. And happy holidays.
We've all complained or vented about something in our lives which, in the grand scheme of things, wasn't exactly a problem, or is very easily solved.
Then there are those who complain about things that others almost hope will happen to them at some point in their lives.
These are known as "first world problems", as they are problems that pretty much only the world's one percent faces.
From having to fly business class instead of first class, or being served Roederer instead of Dom Pérignon, these complaints are often met with amusement, bewilderment, or even anger.
Redditor jennimackenzie was curious to hear the most absurd "first world problems" anyone ever complained about, leading them to ask:
"What’s the most ridiculous 'first world problem' you’ve seen people get worked up over?"
"Tale As Old As Time..."
"I once knew a mom who was legitimately devastated, to the point of tears/grief, because a doctor predicted her 8 year old daughter's final height to be around 5'2","
"Which wasn't tall enough to get cast as Belle at Disney World."
"That was the child's (and her mother's) only dream in life, apparently."
"Didn't appreciate my suggestion that she could be Minnie or Mickey."
"Lol!"
"Only a face character would do!"- TravelLovingMom
"Must Be Funny, In A Rich Man's World..."
"My boss from about a decade ago was this insanely rich dude who always went to the bank to get fresh and crisp currency."
"He'd call the bank in advance to make sure they had some on hand."
"I think he was a germaphobe."
"He had a trash can that he'd throw $1 and $5 bills in that he thought was 'dirty' and regularly just donated it vs spending it."
"I asked him why he did this and he said it was too much trouble and asked if I wanted it."
"I said f*ck yeah dumped it into my bag and when I got home it was close to $400 in singles and fives.
"Another time, he wanted to upgrade all the computers in his studio, so we went to a store and bought 10 PCs."
"They all had $150 mail in rebates and he wasn't bothered to go through the trouble of mailing them in."
"3 weeks later I received $1500 after spending a whole afternoon filling out all those goddamn forms."- azninvasion2000
Money Burn GIF by nog
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Who Wore It Better?
"When I was about 19 years old, I was at my boyfriends family BBQ."
"I was wearing this pretty floral sundress."
"His cousins girlfriend showed up in the same dress and she was SO mad that she went and changed."
"I will never understand being upset when someone is wearing the same thing as you.'
"Did you really think that your shirt you bought off the rack is going to be unique to you?"
"No."- mertsey627
Seeing Red! Or Blue In This Case...
"The blue of the balloons wasn't quite the same as the bridesmaid's sashes."
"Years ago my wife and I attended a wedding."
"It was very low key."
"The dinner was in the dining hall at the university where the couple met, cinder block walls and all."
"It was a Baptist wedding - no booze and very serious."
"The dark blue balloons attempting to liven up the hall were a slightly darker shade of blue than the sashes on the bridesmaid's dresses."
"The bride lost here sh*t and absolutely raved for nearly an hour."
"I can't remember how they finally managed to talk her down."- mechant_papa
south park wedding GIF
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See You In Court!
"Rich neighbors who end up in expensive court battles because they disagree about where a tree can be planted or whether the color of a fence fits in with the street’s 'amenity'."
'These disputes get really heated and rack up huge lawyers’ bills."
"The most pathetic part is after the judgement when they are arguing about who should pay the other party’s costs."
"Lots of affidavits filed citing the 'emotional distress' they had to endure, or painting themselves as brave warriors who were forced to take a stand to fight for 'justice'."
"Also lots of pompous litigants insisting that the judge refer to them by their 'Dr' title."
"An absolutely insane dumpster fire of entitled rich people problems."- ElectrocRaisin
It's Always People With Money Who Don't Want To Pay!
"I work in a public library."
"People will get so so mad if they have to be put on a wait list for a book."
"A popular book that just came out."
"Ok our services are not only free but so are the books."
"You’re welcome, a**holes."- Switchbladekitten
A Warm Butt Is A Happy Butt!
"My own."
"We have a bidet toilet seat (Fabulous! Everyone should have one!) and not only does it wash your bum and blow dry it, but the seat's heated!"
"It's shocking how much a heated toilet seat makes the whole process more agreeable."
"Except: We had a power outage and I went to use the toilet and the seat was cold!"
"Unacceptable!"
"This shall not stand!"
"I was really upset because it didn't feel good."
"Then I stopped and thought: This is the most first-world problem anyone's ever had."
"I was really pissed because my heiny was tepid."
"I got over it."- DeathGrover
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Holy Matrimony!
"Weddings are a gold mine for this question."
"People get so hyped up over their 'most important day of their life'."
"They'll destroy friendships, go into debt, and have crazy expectations."
"It's not always the couple who go crazy, either."
"Sometimes, it's the parents or another family member who feels entitled to control the wedding."
"It's just a party."
"Be considerate of guests, have plenty of food and drinks, and enjoy it."- magicrowantree
When Fast Food Isn't Fast Enough...
"Having to pull off to the side to wait for a drive-thru order to be brought out to you because your food isn't ready and there's a line building up behind you."- demanbmore
In Case You Don't Think Customer Service Employees Are Undervalued...
"I was working the return desk at a Target next to a military base so I have so many stories."
"One of my favorites was a lady who had her baby shower before revealing the gender and was livid that she had received floral newborn diapers when she’s having a boy."
"It was a huge box of super expensive, all organic diapers, that we didn’t carry and therefore could not return."
"I cannot accurately express her fury and disgust."
"How dare either suggest her boy could wear feminine diapers."
"I suggested she donate them if she didn’t want to use them and she instead threw away the entire box."
"When she left we pulled it out and threw it in our donate bin."
"There have also been multiple times where mom’s order massive toys and when we bring them out to the car they get furious that they aren’t wrapped."
"We don’t offer wrapping services."
"Here’s the thing, if you don’t want your kids to see the toys you got them for Christmas or their bit to day DON'T BRING THE CHILD WHEN YOU PICK IT UP."
'I’ve had multiple women scream and curse me out that I had ruined their kids Christmas by bringing the toys they ordered out to the car like they requested."- clever-mermaid-mae
Customer Service Waiting GIF by Juno Calypso
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Happiest Place On Earth!
"I used to work for Disney."
"That in itself should tell you everything."
"However for fun I'll give you two specific stories one form our tech department and one from my wife who worked bookings."
"I specifically worked for their call center to help with technical issues with magic band and the website."
"Suddenly got worse huh?"
"A right of passage call everyone has at least one story of is the 'Dome call'."
"Basically there is a subset of Disney Guest (TM) that believes if it rains at Walt Disney world there is someone that will push a button to encapsulate the whole of Disney property in a dome to keep out the rain."
"I'm not kidding."
"If this button is not pushed they call our tech department to angrily ask why."
"My wife worked booking."
"Pretty much everything including Bibbidi Bobbidi boutique and Pirate's league."
"These two things did roughly the same thing difference being price and theme."
"BBB was expensive did more and was focused on princesses, pirates league did a bit less and focused on mermaids and pirates."
"Lady called up my wife, and got pissed about BBB being booked up (It goes FAAAAST)."
"Karen: 'Im going to give the phone to my daughter and I want you to tell her how you are ruining her vacation by not letting her do BBB'."
"Wife proceeds to explain how pirate's league is so much cooler and how she can be a mermaid or pirate and basically gets the kid to start demanding to their parents about how they want to be a mermaid instead of a princess."- trollsong
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The horror!
Being booked into a junior suite at Disney World instead of an executive suite!
It's almost as bad as having no money for groceries, or no food to feed you children...
Said absolutely no one.