Cringey coworkers, we've all been there. The worst I ever encountered was a male associate at a higher end jewelry store. He was good, his sales spoke for themselves, he looked like a model, which perfectly showcased the touches of diamonds he wore. Really, he didn't need to suck up to be noticed as a good employee...but he did anyways and it came back to bite him.
He would gossip to bring other salespeople down and make them look bad. After sharing an especially personal and mean-spirited comment about another coworker I looked at him in disdain and said "I would hate to hear what you have to say about me when I am not here." He sputtered a bit trying to say something along the lines of how I was different etc.
The environment wasn't for me and I left although months later it turns out he was fired after trying to spread false and damaging gossip to a regional manager about the boss. He could have just been nice to people and gotten promoted his own merits instead of tearing people down.
It's such commonplace for these situations to occur one Redditor by the name of ActualWater1994 wanted to her more cringe-inducing stories.
They asked:
"What's the cringiest/ worst examples of butt-kissing you've seen at work?"
Reddit did not disappoint.
That came back to bite her!
“Part of my job is delivering children's books to some agencies to hand out. One month our executive director didn't like the book that came in. There were a couple lines she felt were inappropriate."
“She asked me not to deliver them and she would order new books. A coworker of mine noticed I didn't deliver them and took it upon herself to do it. The executive director doesn't care for her and she was trying to get on her good side."
“She thought she could make herself look good by making me look bad. I thought she went to lunch, had no idea she was out there trying to do my job. She came back and proudly tells others that she did my job and maybe now the director will be pleased."
"She came to my desk and angrily says, in earshot of the director, 'I just went and delivered the books that you never delivered. I shouldn't have to do your job on top of everything I'm already doing for this agency'. I just looked at her and said 'Well that was dumb'."
"She went to the director next and told her that she delivered the books since she seen it hadn't been done and asked if there were any other tasks she could do for her. The director was pissed!!! She was planning on returning those books so she could order different ones."
"They weren't labeled with our logo yet either, which she would have seen if she checked. It's required that we put our logo on them. The director tore into her for overstepping her boundaries and trying to make me look bad. She tried so hard to kiss her butt and it backfired big time. Oh and I was praised in front of her for listening."
Blatant butt-kissery...
“My boss sent me out to get her boss a birthday card and gift, which was all fine and good as it meant an escape from her for an hour or so. The card was nothing out of the ordinary, but the cake was very fancy and not your typical office birthday cake. I then had to swing by Tiffany's to pick up the bracelet that was the actual gift, just from her to her boss. Expensive gifts to colleagues let alone managers, were not the done thing there (and it wasn't even like it was a bank or anything high end) so it seemed horribly out-of-place and blatantly butt-kissing.”
No one likes a braggart.
“Had a coworker in my marketing team who was a lead designer. He was often pretty dismissive of junior level employees, or would try and one-up everyone's stories (you tell him you stayed at a hotel at the beach over the weekend, he tells you he stayed in a penthouse at the same beach for a whole week).”
“He also always tried to be in proximity of senior staff members and would brag loudly if they were within an earshot, hoping they would hear how awesome his life is, I would assume. One day, a VP from our company had come up to talk to somebody in a pod close to ours.”
“The pretentious designer loudly asked me about my weekend, I gave him an answer. He responded loudly, one upping my answer, noticed the VP wasn't paying attention to him at all, quickly got up, hovered behind the VP while he was talking to the other employee.”
“Eventually the VP cracked a joke and the designer let out the loudest, fakest laugh I've ever heard, startling the VP, who up until then was not aware that this guy was standing behind him. VP just got an awkward close lipped smile, quickly nodded his head, and walked away. Designer came back to our pod, sat down, and started working as if he was never mid conversation with me."
Awkward Smile GIF
Giphy
"I just looked at him and kept walking.”
“I had this coworker at target that would go on the biggest power trip for no reason whenever he was on guest services. Guest services is the people usually at the front of the store where you do returns and stuff like that for anyone that doesn't know. We all would alternate doing it, and it was usually with a manager — there's literally nothing special about it besides that it was slightly more tolerable than being on a register."
“Whenever said coworker would be on guest services he would think he was manager and was the most unbearable person for the hour he would be doing it.
One shift I was walking to the bathroom, which you had to walk past guest services to get to, and he went out of his way to loudly ask me where I was going in that managerial tone I'm sure you're all familiar with as if he was a manager."
"I just looked at him and kept walking.He would do similar things like that to everyone and it was just the cringiest thing I've ever seen. I've never seen someone become such a kiss-*ss because they did a slightly different role from everyone else for an hour — and everyone did guest services like we literally just alternated throughout the shift."
No one wanted to work with him...
“Happened recently at work. One particular co-worker is almost insufferable with his behavior. Constant trumpet blowing with his lackluster work, endless comments about how much money he has, degrading other team members to get some kind of moral high ground and get in good graces with management."
“Whats more cringe is his posts and interactions on the team member WhatsApp group, really fake or cheesy crap that definitely is not his character at all. Basically everything that he does involves trying to sh*t on someone to look better at his job."
“Anyway, he thought he was top sh*t after one of the managers recently left and applied to take the advertised Duty Manager role. He was shut down almost immediately and apparently one of the night managers straight up told him that they did not want him to work nights due to nobody wanting to work with him."
Former Flat Earthers Explain What Finally Made Them Come Around | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
That’s the way the cookie crumbles...
“Other receptionist at my work is a huge *ss kisser. Calls herself head receptionist when she's really just a part-timer that doesn't do her job right. Will constantly have 'meetings' with the bosses and take credit for things other people do. Most recent example is when a client brought us donuts and left them at the front desk."
“I was in a room but heard the convo between the client and her about the donuts being a gift. Then heard her walk to the back and announce to our boss that she (receptionist) ordered them donuts because they work so hard"
They added the sweet ending to their coworker's donut deception in another comment.
"I walked into the breakroom when the boss was in there, pretended to see the donuts and went 'Oh! Mr C did stop by with those donuts after all!' My boss must've suspected something cause she got a look on her face but smiled at me and told me to add him to the thank you card list."
"I guess it got back to that receptionist that I 'tattled' on her because the next time she was in she critiqued me on a bunch of things. Most annoying trait about her though for me is when she talks to me, she hardly ever makes eye contact and will just stare at my arms (which have scars). Only me, no one else."
“Just be yourself.”
“My supervisor is always trying so hard to be best friends with management where I work, there are many examples to choose from but this one makes me cringe the hardest due to the sheer expense: my manager is a big lover of fresh coffee. So yeah, my supervisor spent a small fortune on a fancy coffee machine for herself, even though I remember having a conversation with her at one time about how she can't stand the taste of coffee.”
“She comes to work everyday with the branded travel mug that came with the coffee machine, but, instead of coffee inside it's extremely milky tea. I asked her about it and she uses the machine for hot water. Just be yourself, people would like you more god dang it all!“
Office baby shower...
“I work with a woman who threw a baby shower for a manager's (not her manager though) wife, thrown in our office. Meanwhile her equally pregnant ‘friend’ in the office was invited to the party but received no shower of her own or even an acknowledgement from the suck up.”
“Funny thing is everyone hates the manager so nobody really stayed longer than they had to. Also she tries to call us out for not getting gifts for for the manager on national boss's day as if him being paid more to f**k things up for us isn't enough already.”
Magic the Gatheing cards...
“One of my co-workers knew the branch manager was obsessed with magic the gathering, so he pretended to have 'connections' with someone at Wizards where he got 'free cards'. Turns out this guy was actually just buying the cards."
“One of my other co-workers saw him buying a booster box at a Walmart nearby. He was literally bribing the boss for favors with magic cards that he paid full price for. The sad thing? It worked."
“Everyone knew this dude got preferential treatment. When he f**ked things up, manager dude would always cover for him. He got promoted to a position he definitely didn't deserve over someone else who was way more qualified."
“We even tried letting bossman know that he was just buying the cards at the walmart nearby, but he didn't believe us. So yeah, a few thousand in magic cards got the buttkisser raises worth 5x that."
d&d love GIF
Giphy
Dating the boss's daughter, *mega-cringe*.
“The worst was a guy I worked with at my last job doing HVAC...because the boss was going to get a full report on whatever crew he worked with that day. If you said something negative about the boss, he was going to tell. If you were a minute or two late coming back from lunch, he had a pic on his phone with the time stamp."
"If you didn't hang something perfectly level or straight, he'd toss a level on it, snap a pic, send it to the boss. He also came in every Sunday and washed all the trucks (with no pay) to make sure we kept a good image. Found out eventually it had nothing to do with the job...he was just dating the boss's daughter and he was trying to 'prove' himself."
These are some serious cringe-inducing work moments. Sadly enough, most of the attempts would have gone over better if the person had just been themselves and worked together the first place. Others though, well, flattery can get you everywhere...
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Love is crazy. I've finally come to that conclusion. And marriage, you take your life in your hands and just throw caution to the wind in hopes of survival with that step.
When love falls apart, things can get real messy, real fast. And I've always been stunned by people's behavior when love subsides.
More often than not, it's like they become different people. Sometimes people are beset by tragedy and grief and sometimes people smile wide and move on. It's a coin toss.
But my favorite post divorce personality has to be the sudden super villain. Oh honey watch out for them!
Redditor u/hyperyog wanted to hear all the tea from the divorcees out there by asking:
Divorced Redditors, what is the craziest thing you or your former spouse did after divorce?
I once had a friend who burned her ex's house down when he wasn't home. He had started seeing someone almost immediately, so she thought, lemme set their sparks. Yeah, she wasn't well. Whatever happened to just a quick goodbye?
Swiped
dean winters crying GIF by MayhemGiphy"She removed the retaining clips for my windshield wipers, but put the wipers back on the arms. First storm after I got my car back from her, driver side wiper flew off the car on Interstate 40. Good times."
Sicko!
"He wrote suicide notes and put them in my kids backpacks for them/me to find. Then he turned off his phone and went to a coworkers house to play crib and have drinks.. all the while knowing I would be freaking out searching for him thinking he was in danger or worse. Thankfully my kids didn't see the notes and didn't know what was going on. This was just one of the many, many crazy things he did. Two years out and he just recently stopped showing up at my work and driving by my house at night."
A Sad End
"Died of a drug overdose. To be fair, her drug addiction was the reason for the divorce, so maybe that isn't too crazy."
"That's so incredibly difficult to have gone through. I unfortunately know the depths of this kind of pain, and while I'm sure the circumstances surrounding it are different, the loss that still happened is a tragedy. My condolences."
Bye Girl
"Stalked me for 5 years. Would make fake social media profiles to try to follow me (which I would block endlessly) and would try to find where I worked so she could talk to me. This lady cheated on me with 7 different men 2 months after we were married. I kicked her a** to the curb and made her sign the court papers."
"When we had our day in court she cried in the judges office while I just wanted to get this crap done. After, my dad was with me and he threw 50 dollars at her and told her to "change your freaking last name." Good guy Pops. I haven't seen or heard from her in about 5 years, thank goodness."
- Letharos
Take it All!
skin care spinning GIF by Primal Life OrganicsGiphy"I had an ex-boyfriend go through my apartment and take back every gift he had given me that he could find. Then he went in my bedside table and took the condoms. And the vibrator he had given me."
See now, when I'm out... I'm out! I don't want to see you, hear from you or know you. I wish you well in life, but please live it far from me. Anyone agree? Clearly not the people here. Let's continue...
For the Boy
bicycling father and son GIF by NETFLIXGiphy"All I wanted was custody of my son, I gave her everything else except one of our cars. She fought me through 5 hearings, I won. She never came to see him again."
Dangerous Woman
"My ex cheated on me the week my mom died in the hospital. She spent a year and a half trying to get in touch with me. She would call my old work and make fake accounts trying to message me on FB. It was insane. She later sends a certified letter explaining she was sorry that she did what she did and that she aborted our child."
"Wanted me to meet her somewhere so she could apologize face to face. She already married some other guy that she had children with and was still trying to get in touch with me. I never understood her."
- orstius
Be Gone
"After years of telling me she wanted a child, that she wanted to be a mom, that her life's dream was to be a stay at home mom, she got pregnant with the first guy she slept with while we were getting divorced and put the kid up for adoption even before it was born. This was a long-standing thing with her, she always wanted something (car, house, dog, cat, marriage, etc) and the second she got it she immediately hated it."
The "Actor"!
"Called me and pretended he had been hit by a car while we were talking. He even tried to voice the crowd that had gathered around his "body." God-awful acting, but pretty funny listening to him try to mimic a woman's voice. Points for trying to be inclusive, I guess."
"I think he was trying to get me to re-live my trauma of being on the phone with a friend who actually HAD been hit by a car while we were talking. Too bad he didn't realize that hearing the real thing is worlds different than hearing a dumba** try to act it out."
Money Blues
"I was sending 600 dollars a month to support my daughter because she's the only thing I give a sh!t about. My ex texts me and tells me I need to be sending 1200 a month because she's broke and can't pay her bills and I should feel guilty about it. She left me for another guy while I was on deployment I told her to go screw herself--call my lawyer."
Pop Off
Tom Hanks Drinking GIF by The Good FilmsGiphy"Took the sodas from the fridge as he walked out the door. Dumfounded."
See, I blame Alanis Morissette and her "Jagged Little Pill" album. All I'm going to say is... the secret song. I think she gave people ideas. (I love that song) Y'all, seek therapy if you can't shake people. When it's done, let it be done.
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.