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Professionals Share The Weirdest Thing They've Ever Seen Happen At Work

The workplace doesn't always have to be a burden. Sometimes the workplace can be a hot bed of crazy with soap opera antics. Often the things we witness at our jobs can haunt us forever. We try to be cool and professional but when you witness crazy, just embrace it. As long as everyone lives.... it's always gonna make for a great story later.

Redditor u/StayCrude wanted to know about the things we've all witnessed at our places of employment by asking.... What's the weirdest thing you've ever seen happen at work?

Along with the CEO...

The CEO and I entered the building early one morning and found a longtime, well-liked employee lying dead on the locker room floor.

His head was surrounded with blood from where it hit the ceramic tile floor and his face so swollen that we didn't recognize him at first.

The guy apparently suffered a major heart attack and died alone. Back2Bach

Watch your Co-workers...

I actually wrote up a whole encounter with my strange russian coworker the other day, but I can't get to tumblr on my work computer. My weirdest counter with him though was I had to go into the lab during lunch and he was in there:

  • with all the lights off
  • wearing nothing but an undershirt
  • lifting a single weight
  • with Let's Grove by Earth, Wind, and Fire at full volume playing from his computer.

Also his desk neighbor has had to make one of his monitors vertical because Igor will change at his desk in the middle of the office. StylishSuidae

There. Will. Be. GOOGLY EYES.

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I work in an office and thought it would be funny to put googly eyes on my coworkers desk one day. Everyone had a good laugh over it and a couple weeks I found googly eyes on all my stuff. It became a game of who could arrange googlys on peoples desk in the most creative/funny manner. It was hilarious.. Then one of the adjacent departments caught wind of the good times we were having and started doing the same. Cue a month later and there are googly eyes EVERYWHERE. It was absurd.

On the drinking fountains, clocks, vending machines, garbage cans, toilets, you name it, there were googly eyes littered all over the damn place. The custodians started complaining that they couldn't keep up with the mess. Visiting customers would look around at the googly spectacle in disbelief of the unprofessionalism. The head managers had to hold team meetings to talk to all the teams about removing all googly eyes and of course since I started it, any time a rogue googly eye popped up months later, I got a stern look from my boss.

The day that I quit there (or get fired, more likely), there will be an unleashing of googly eyes that will be unrivaled. People will be swimming through piles of googly eyes just to get to their completely googly eye covered desks. The vents will be spitting out plastic eyeballs of all shapes and sizes. People will open their lunches they brought from home and gasp in shock as they find nothing but little beady shaky eyes looking up from their tupperware. There. Will. Be. GOOGLY EYES. Jaydeeem89

Those were the days. 

This was in the '80s at a bad software company run entirely by men. Wonder of wonders, an extremely competent and popular woman programmer was appointed to a management position in Development.

The younger developers decided to have a parade. She was of Scandinavian descent, so they made for her a horned helmet and sword out of aluminum foil, and made for her a sedan chair out of a wooden chair with a couple of pieces of lumber under the arms for support.

Then they carried her outside on the chair while she waved her "sword," and paraded her around the parking lot at the head of a long column of programmers wearing fish hats and throwing firecrackers. I never understood the fish hats.

Edit: And kazoo music. I forgot that.

Those were the days. Tall_Mickey

Just Snapped....

I work in downtown Toronto. My job requires that I go to those high end consultancy firms every once and awhile. The big names. You'd know them.

One morning I was walking into the building for an all day meeting. Normal fall day. Cold.

The lobby was beautiful as always. Chandelier. Big glass windows. As I headed over the elevators I looked towards a commotion at the door.

A well groomed, middle aged, man was screaming at the top of his lungs by the revolving door. Naked. Totally. Naked. His suit was neatly folded on a bench and he had just lost it.

Apparently he was a partner at this firm and the stress got to him. He just... Snapped.

Edit: a letter. dried_up_waterparks

Hey Homer....

Giphy

It was a really slow day and I kept getting distracted from the Lord of the Rings fanfiction I was reading by the weird squeaky noises I kept hearing behind me. I finally turned around and there was my manager, a 35 year old man, about 3/4 of the way done with making a balloon animal crown for his life-sized Homer Simpson statue. I asked him to make me a doggie when I was done, and he did--a blue one. I kept it until I accidentally popped it, which scared the crap out of one of my other coworkers. ostentia

Just Dance. 

I was visiting our warehouse which looked pretty standard as all things go. Tall shelves loaded with pallets, conveyor belts and forklifts going to and fro, burly men and women in high vis attire pottering about.

When all of a sudden a song broke out over the PA system and every single person started dancing. Their expressions didn't change, they didn't stop what they were doing or where they were going, they all just danced as they went about their business.

A few seconds later the music stopped and they resumed normal existence. It was so bizarre. Like they had been brainwashed to respond to the music and didn't recognize their own conditioning.

Turns out that's all part of their ergonomics program. Every so often the music starts up and they're meant to move about as a form of stretching. obscureferences

Look Out Below! 

My old office had these giant floor to ceiling windows that would get washed every month or so. One month the window washer was outside the window I faced with a long pole to wash the second story windows. He let it fall away from the building too far and it hit a power line right in front of us. We all thought we had watched him die, but he ended up getting into the ambulance unassisted to go get checked out. taylaj

Don't Shoot!

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Coworker came in and found a chunk of his desk missing. After investigating we found a bullet, and a bullet hole above his desk. I ended up on the roof patching the hole.

No idea who decided to shoot our building in the middle of the night. fievelm

Don't Scream....

I worked in a small office. There was a front lobby area with a conference room off to the side. It was separated by a door from the rest of the office. So I'm sitting at my desk, just working, and I hear screaming from the front lobby area, like straight up someone is being murdered screaming.

Everyone in the office area is freaking out, assuming there was a robbery or something horrible happening in the front. I hear someone shrieking for help, so I'm like okay this is clearly not a dangerous situation, it must be a medical emergency or something like that. I tell one of my coworkers to call 911. I proceed to open the door quietly and walk towards the lobby.

I do not see anyone, even the receptionist, but the screaming is still going on from inside the conference room. I slowly open the door and find about 8 people on top of the table, including the owners of the company and a couple clients. I'm just staring at them, seriously confused about what I just walked into.

I look down and see a tiny little field mouse hopping around in circles around the table. I picked the little guy up and became the hero of the day. 911 dispatched a couple of police officers over a tiny mouse. My raise that year was substantially higher than usual. raven_darkseid

"the manager asked me to rotate the eggs."

Giphy

While working at a supermarket, I was walking through the dairy department and saw a fellow employee over by the eggs. As I got closer I could see him with a carton open and he seemed to be turning each egg. After doing the whole pack, I asked him what he was doing and he responded, "the manager asked me to rotate the eggs." I facepalmed and explained what they actually meant, to which he replied, "that makes a lot more sense."

For context, in the grocery world, to rotate means to make sure the earliest dates of expiration are towards the front of the shelf. reystreet21

Not with it....

In a creche/daycare. One of the moms dropped off her baby & when handing him to one of the staff she kissed the staff member on the face and said "love you" and went off to work. Phoned a couple hours later to say "I've just realized what I did this morning. I'm so sorry, I was half asleep and I guess I'm so used to handing him to my husband" we had a good laugh. Ajoc27

Mid-Cheat....

I watched the neighbor get caught by her husband mid-cheat. This was the last home hospice job I did. The clients bedroom was at the back of the house and had a large window that faced the front of the neighbors across a dirt road. We were sitting mid morning drinking a cups and watching the birds in the low hedge when we saw a naked man suddenly sprint across the side yard into the old garage followed by the just as naked wife and a few seconds later the husband.

Lot of screaming follows then the naked man took off across the field and disappeared into the orchard. Several minutes pass before we see the wife dash over to her car, still naked, get in and drive off.

My client, who was quite a spitfire of a lady her entire life, turned to me very deadpan and said "I'm glad I lived long enough to see that". We didn't stop laughing the rest of the day. DeadSheepLane

Not a Word. 

When I had an internship in an office, the second highest boss opened the door without knocking, stared at us aggressively, walked towards us and offered a box of chocolate marshmallows. Then he went out. He didn't say one word. Early2000sRnB

WELL DAMN!!!!

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One guy did a spicy wing challenge at lunch. Later that afternoon he was on the floor of his cubicle moaning and crying and saying DAMN so many times (Very loudly) We tried to call an ambulance but he was adamant that he was going to be fine. DeeMountain

in the same hedge......

Worked at big outdoor activities center a few summers, there's lots of behind-the-scenes areas where the public can't see. Saw a new guy (who was definitely some friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend 'favor' hire from someone higher up) not know where the toilets were so just take a poop in a hedge behind scenes. He proceeded to makes really crude moves on all the women and I later found him receiving oral sex from a guy in the same hedge. He was asked to leave. XyloArch

Damn Frog....

One Monday morning, at 8AM, there was a frog in the lobby. Not a small frog either--a big frog. The front doors were still locked and it was Monday morning, so we had no idea how the little guy got into the lobby. He would've had to have hopped all the way from the back of the building to get to the lobby. justalurkerkthxbai

Death's Door. 

A coworker (in a cotton mill) had a heart attack and died right there on the floor.

the supervisor roped off the area around him and worked continued.

EMT, Coroner, Police were all doing their job as we worked around them. Wrong_Answer_Willie

Sands of Time....

Giphy

I work in a kindergarten for kids with special needs. One kid kept going for a quiet place few times a day, and we figured he just needed some time alone. This was outside in the playground where there was a little treehouse in the back behind some trees. On the third day of this happening I went to see what's up and encourage him to talk about why he needed time alone.

I found him sitting on the ground eating one big spoon full of sand after the other. We're not just talking baby eating sand here - more like a medium sized kid shoveling sand down his stomach like it was his favorite food. So yeah this little boy probably ate A LOT of sand during those three days and probably longer.

He's fine now - 2. Grader now - kicked me in the butt when I saw him in a grocery store a week ago. jac0bk

We See You. 

I worked the cameras at a casino and there was a kid (old enough to drink) who was given a free room to stay in because he was about to drive drunk. Instead of taking the room, he checked in, walked out the back exit, ran down a hill, ran full speed along the highway, army crawled his way up to his car, got in, drove off the parking lot, and was pulled over immediately. Benjaminbuttcrack

REDDIT

weirdest thing seen at work

College Professors Share Their Funniest 'I Don't Know How You Made It Out Of High School' Experiences

Image by Foundry Co from Pixabay

Now that college has become a standard requirement for so many jobs and careers, there is a massive push by high schools to get their graduating students accepted and enrolled at an undergraduate college.

On the whole, that's undoubtedly a great thing. A more educated workforce will be prepared to solve the most complex issues facing human beings in the next several decades.

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college

911 Operators Describe The Most Unnerving Calls They've Ever Received

Image by Gianni Crestani from Pixabay

*The following article contains discussion of suicide/self-harm.

The person on the other end of a 911 call has a truly remarkable job.

For those who don't play that professional role, we hope to never encounter the 911 call interaction. But if we do find ourselves making that call, the moment is an anomaly in our lives.

The chaos, the panic, the racing heart, and the desperation are all emotions we, ideally, don't experience on a regular basis.

But for the operator on the other end, our call is one in a long line of calls they've received all day, and all the workdays before that one.

It's difficult to imagine being embedded in those uniquely urgent, emergency moments all the time.

Some Redditors who are on the other end of that call shared their experiences on the job.

WhimsicalxxButcher asked, "911 dispatchers what has been your most creepy/unnerving call?"

For a few, the most unnerving moments were the calm callers.

There was something just so eerie about how level-headed the faceless human being on the other end could be through such a desperate, tragic moment.

Almost Clinical 

"I had a friend who worked as a 911 dispatcher and he always said the worst call he ever had was a ~20 year old kid who committed suicide by mixing a bunch of chemicals together in his car to produce hydrogen sulfide gas."

"He said that the most unnerving part was hearing him calmly listing off the chemicals, the type of gas produced, and the effects of hydrogen sulfide on the body (namely the almost instant death it causes at high concentrations)."

"He ended the call by providing the address of the parking lot he was in and saying that nobody should approach the vehicle without hazmat equipment."

"Apparently after that there was a whooshing sound as he dumped the last chemical into the mix, and then the line went dead silent aside for a quiet fizzing noise."

"I know that call screwed him up because he almost never talks about stuff that happens to him on the job. He quit a few months later to go into construction management, and frankly I can't blame him."

-- iunoyou

Planned Out 

"A woman called me, saying she was going to kill herself. She was gassing herself. Gave me her name & address then said she was just going to lie down and 'go to sleep.' And stopped responding to me."

"I kept the line open, trying to get her to speak to me, and eventually heard officers forcing their way in to find her body. I guess she just wanted someone to find her body."

-- mozgw4

Before It Set In 

"When I got a call from a 6 year old who got home from school and laid down to take a nap with his dad. His dad never woke up."

"The kid was so calm when calling it broke my heart."

"I ended up leaving dispatch shortly after. I was good at compartmentalizing the job for the year I was doing it, but it would've broken me in the long run."

-- tasha7712

Other 911 operators were unfortunate enough to receive a call from the very last person they wanted to hear from: a loved one.

These dispatchers' unique position gave them the unexpected access to a family member or friend at their most dire moments.

No More of That 

"My family member is a long time first responder, and 'retired' into doing dispatch. He heard the address (someone else was taking the call) and realized it was his daughter's house."

"He rushed over there just in time to see them wheeling her body out. Overdose."

"Five months later, he was called to his ex-wife's place because his grandson (son of the daughter who recently passed) had his door locked, lights on, but wasn't responding to his grandma."

"He broke the door down and found him deceased in bed. Overdose."

"He's very stoic after years of all sorts of traumatic situations but my heart hurts whenever I think of what all of this must have felt like. Like sand through your fingers."

-- bitchyhouseplant

Knowing the Address

"Not me, but my grandma. I was sitting in the dispatch office, (very small one only 2 dispatchers including my grandma) but she put out a dispatch that there was a gun shot from my best friends address."

"My heart sank to my stomach and broke later that day. He committed suicide."

-- OntaiSenpuu

When it Happened 

"My uncle passing away. Worked as a small town dispatcher for a year or so. Had a bunch of messed up stuff happen on shift, but this call came in in the still hours of the night. Small town, so not many calls after midnight."

"I answered and recognized the name and address on caller id. Aunt was in a frenzy so didn't recognize my voice. I remained calm and got ems and fire rolling to them, but by my aunt's own words he was already blue."

"I went thru debriefing and mandated therapy for a couple other things that happened, but never really talked to anyone about this. I just try not to think about it."

"That was the call I figured out I needed to find a different job."

-- dangitjon

Finally, some simply had a front row seat to sudden tragedy.

These operators were flies on the wall when disaster struck. They never asked to witness what they witnessed, but sometimes that came with the territory.

A Holiday Tragedy 

"My mom is a 911 dispatcher. Early on she said one Christmas Eve while working she got a call from an elderly lady who's husband had just collapsed(and died) from a heart attack and in the background Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas music was playing on blast."

"The lady was screaming and crying and begging for her husband to wake up but my mom could hear his gurgling in his last breathes. She doesn't listen to or watch Alvin and the chipmunks since."

-- Blueflowerbluehair

What is it About Christmas?

"Christmas night. 911 call with crying child on the other end. A neighbor had run her car over her mom during a domestic."

"The mom crawled to the porch bleeding and the child saw the car coming back. I had her hide quietly in a closet with the cordless phone."

"The 10 year old child was crying and screamed that she hated Christmas. She was afraid of the police when they got there."

"I kept her on the phone until she felt safe enough to give the phone to an officer. I almost fainted after that call was over. Had nightmares for a while."

-- 2FunBoofer

Close to Home 

"Not a dispatcher but I handle radio communications for the Coast Guard. One night I was on the radio and got a call from an 11 year old kid whose boat had started to sink. He was out with his dad and 6 year old brother."

"They had been hit by another boat and his father got knocked unconscious. I remember the entire conversation up until the radio had gone underwater."

"They ended up finding his dad floating on his back alive but the two boys didn't make it. That one really fu**ed with me because my two littlest brothers were around the same age as the youngest."

-- HIRSH2243

A Horrible Clock 

"Another one that stays with me was the man who called in. It was the anniversary of his adult son having hanged himself. He'd now come home to find his wife had done the same."

"That date is always going to be a black day for him."

-- mozgw4


If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/

Again, we hope you never have to use the 911 call in your life. Nobody wants to be involved in a sudden emergency or a tragic incident.

But hopefully, if you do, an operator like one of these thoughtful, sensitive Redditors is on the other end.

emergency

Former 'Gifted' Students Explain Where They Ended Up In Life

Image by Nguyen Dinh Lich from Pixabay

When I was moving on from middle school to high school my parents had me tested for the "gifted" program. By some miracle I passed and was accepted. And then I turned it down. Everyone was irritated. "This will pave the way for any college you want! You'll learn so much!" his path will set you up for life!" Every adult tried valiantly to sell me this merchandise but in my gut I just wasn't buying it. So I "settled" a level below, merely advanced classes. And upon reflection... it was the best choice I ever made.

Redditor u/dauntlessdaisy was wondering how far some in life got by asking... For those of you who were considered "gifted" in school, what are you doing with your life now?
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former gifted students

People Explain Which Things Should Always Be Kept In A Car In Case Of Emergency

Image by Markus Spiske from Pixabay

There's a million things that can happen to you while out on on the road.

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