Much as we might try to deny it, who hasn't found themselves dealing with one of "those colleagues" at work?
The sort of colleague where work gets done in spite of them, who doesn't seem to possess any of the basic qualifications their position requires, who uses up all their paid sick days at the very beginning of the calendar year.
The kind of employee where we're often left wondering, "how did they get that job?"
Then, when we actually do a little digging, we might learn the answer to that very question.
Often resulting in our making a surprising, if not downright humbling, discovery.
Redditor LetFreedomRing- was eager to hear stories of why people's seemingly incompetent colleagues hadn't yet lost their jobs, leading them to ask:
"Why hasn’t that “one guy” at your job been fired yet?"
Unfortunate Timing
"He ended up leaving work the day management was going to talk to him about his behavior and got into a severe motorcycle accident."- eatsbrainz
Just Not Possible
"Cuz he’s the boss."- Hotline-Furi
A Little Manipulation Goes A Long Way
"Because his supervisor is in love with him."
"He’s 'charming, charismatic, and everyone loves him'."
"He’s really close to the manager and his mom used to work for the company as well."
"She left a path for him to walk on."
"As my co worker once said, 'he harasses us but gets rewards'.”
Happy Penn Badgley GIF by LifetimeGiphy"If you were ever to meet him, he makes you feel like you’re the king of the world but he’s really scummy."
"He’ll make you believe you’re incredible and valuable but will talk sh*t about you to other people."
"It’s a shame because he’s taken advantage of a lot people and a lot of things at work."
"I thought he was the coolest guy around until I started observe him and his demeanor around others."- Low_Excitement_5339·
A Sign Of The Times
"We are so short-staffed and ratios need to be met in classrooms."
"A body is better than no body, in the eyes of admin at least."
"Some days I'd rather work short-handed than work around a useless/annoying person."
"I end up doing their job anyway."- quietly_anxious
Just The Way Things Are...
'Office politics."- defensiveminded2020
Bored Season 3 GIF by The OfficeGiphy...Rather Not Answer...
"What if that one guy is you?"- dizzyrazor
Nepotism
"Because he goes to my boss's church."
"My boss has somehow hired at least 8 people from his church."- SparklesLuvsScotch
"She’s the boss's daughter."
"In the past 6 months, they have hired over 100 people, 3 of them are still working there."
"Every one of them quit because of her and very outwardly expressed that but no one will fire her."- Reddit
Veronica Lodge Daddy GIF by Camila MendesGiphyDo We Really Want Them To Get Fired?
"The one guy at my job just got fired 3 days ago, after years of doing nothing."
"Now I can't use his continued employment as my assurance of job security."- i_make_potholes
Who Knows?
"I legitimately don't know."
"I've been sending my bosses emails about her dropping the ball on many things and even causing several catastrophic failures for our customers."
"They promise me they are documenting everything and to be patient but my boss has his head in the sand and is not really doing anything."
"I think it's catching up to him though because corporate is starting to look at this office more closely."- CamStorm
"IDK, he sits and f*cking texts WHEN PEOPLE ARE IN LINE FOR THE REGISTER."
"Pisses me off."- Public_Living_3344
Bored Grocery Store GIF by TravisGiphyCharisma Overshadows Many Flaws
"He’s 'nice' and chatty and gets along really well with our customers."
"He will go into an office, not do anything or make something worse than it was before the repair, bill them hundreds of dollars, someone else will have to go in and fix it right and bill them more, and they’ll still request him."
"They’re actually more likely to complain about the guy who went in and fixed it correctly and would have billed them half as much and been done in trip had they started the job."- makenzie71
Fear Of Feelings Getting Hurt
"Because his boss avoids conflict."
"So we get to deal with the sh*t for brains creeper instead of him being thrown out on his a**."- No-Patient1365
Hopefully, Just A Matter Of Time...
"You don’t get fired for being bad at your job, you get fired for making a scene."- sleekandspicy
Fed Up Reaction GIFGiphyEveryone deserves a second chance.
But if people are incapable, or worse unwilling, to learn, is there really any chance their work will improve?
When "that employee" is your boss, then the question is ultimately irrelevant.
Curious to hear from the types of people strangers online prefer keeping a distance from, Redditor KnownNormie asked:
"What type of person could you never be friends with?"
Some people like in the following examples should be put in their place.
Too Many Theatrics
"Someone who constantly makes everything dramatic."
– Anxiety_Ridden_Camel
Space Hoggers
"Someone who obviously doesn't care about anyone's boundaries."
– Jay4025
Embracing The Dark
"Guilt Trippers"
"Those who think its cool and edgy to be negative about everything."
– Stormflier
How can people who think the world revolves around them expect to maintain or gain friendships?
All About Me
"Self centered people."
–needtofreemyself
The One-Upper
"Yeah, that gets old really fast. I am a reformed one upper. I would also interrupt people. I was hard to take when I was younger. I didn’t learn to STFU until I was forced to take a sales job and discovered just how crap I was socially. The last twenty years I’ve gotten a lot better and now enjoy listening to other people’s stories more than telling my own."
– MobileAccountBecause
Not My Problem
"The one who always blame others."
– Reasonable-mcArdles
We could all benefit from personal growth.
They Wait For Life To Happen
"Someone who doesn’t want to learn more about life and its intricacies. I only want friends who think deeply about things and can have varied conversations on religion, politics, the world, and all of life. This life is too vast and insane not to seek depth in it.
– Glass-Philosopher302
Don't Take Life Too Seriously
"Someone who is always serious and can't take a joke. As well as someone who gets offended on the behalf of others."
– HoarderOfPaper
These are hard "no's."
You Can Bet Your Life On It
"a serial killer."
– LongjumpingReturn555
All Creatures Great And Small
"Someone who doesn't like animals."
– InterestingMall8958
It's complicated to categorize exactly the kind of person I would prefer to not to be friends with, but I know that one of my biggest pet peeves that can jeopardize how much effort I put into all kinds of relationships is a person's lack of punctuality.
It says a lot about an individual who is perpetually late outside of an acceptable window between 5 and 15 mins–with a heads up about their tardiness.
If they're always punctual in regards to work obligations and business meetings but very late to meeting up with you for a coffee date, you're clearly not important enough for them to make an effort to avoid keeping you waiting.
And I got no time for that.
Redditor Ecstatictobehere wanted everyone to vent about everything wrong with movies and Hollywood, so they asked:
"What pisses you off about new movies these days?"
I'm exhausted with the lack of originality.
There are too many talented out there for this.
Turn it down...
Race Fans GIF by Formula 1Giphy"The disparity in volume, explosions are so loud that they hurt and conversations are whispers... I stopped going to the cinema and started waiting for them to be available at any streaming service so I can turn it down or up and so I can enjoy it."
hollowntolerance
LOLs...
"Forced Comedy."
ThorHammerscribe
"I have a bone to pick with comedy in general. I felt that ever since the Anchorman era, we just decided that comedy movies were in the line of sketch comedy."
"Create funny situation, let a comedian riff for 20 minutes, take the best take and move on to next funny situation. Which is why comedy movie plots have SUCKED since the early 2000s."
"Sure I love Kristen Whiig, Will Ferral, John C Reilly, Mellissa McCarthy, etc, but damn, I can't help but think that some comedies that have come out int the last 20 years would be memorable if they wrote a funny script instead of making a 120 min sketch show."
ReferenceError
Appeal
"Most movies are getting watered down for the sake of mass appeal. I get why, but it just sucks."
Apprehensive_Set300
"Some say this is a result of streaming platforms. People used to be able to take risks on movie making because if they didn't do well in theatrical release, there was still a chance for it to become a cult classic and make money with DVD sales down the road. That is no longer an option because everything is streamed for free so now making a movie that doesn't immediately appeal to a large audience is a bad investment."
KrispyKremeDiet20
Lost in Translation
"Not just movies but TV shows - they take a book that's got great reviews, make a poor job of translating it on screen and then flip the ending so it's the opposite of what happened in the book. Proceeds to blame the audience when they pan it for being crap."
MissionSorbet2768
Blah
Bored Season 5 GIF by The OfficeGiphy"Lack of originality and a reliance on franchises."
811545b2-4ff7-4041
Enough with franchises and reboots. Lord.
Some light please!
jerry cant see GIF by HULUGiphy"How dark they are. Like literally dark. It's difficult to see what's going on, especially for those of us with vision problems."
Raloris
Break it Down
"For horror and mystery, everything having to be explained."
"A movie like the original Alien would be lambasted by online critics if it were released today, for the simple reason that by the end of it you know next to nothing about what happened. What was the creature? What was the derelict? Why did the company want it, really? The movie has stood the test of time precisely because it avoided answering those and other questions."
stratarch
Too Much Redo
"The overuse of cover songs. Recently been a lot of classic rock songs covered by an artist who recorded a slowed version of it. Just saw the trailer for the new Ant Man. It also does this."
bromygod203
"This has been bugging me lately. They do it in commercials too. The cover is slowed way down with a melancholic, reverb-heavy voice. Extra points if you take a classic 'happy' song and add minor chords to it so it sounds threatening."
fairygenesta
Too Many Cooks
"A lot of movies feel like they were written by a marketing department. It feels like they got 10 execs in a room and everyone wrote down ideas, characters, plot-points, etc that they know will sell - and then tried to organize them into a narrative structure."
"There's no vision. There's no plot progression. Its just one random event next to another random event, and characters delivering sh*tty one-liners. Like writing madlibs. Even B-movies from the 80's and 90's have better narrative structure and story-telling than half the new movies out today."
Ganglebot
Giveaways
Cybill Shepherd Applause GIF by SHE'S FUNNY THAT WAYGiphy"Trailers. They're always about 4 minutes long, give away the entire plot, show all the best scenes and jokes and basically ruin the movie before you've even watched it."
IJustStoleYourWaifu
Do better filmmakers.
We're watching. Sadly...
Redditor zabalansu wanted to know why we cheat, so they asked:
"Why did you cheat on your partner?"
I've cheated. Because I knew it was already over and I was too much a coward to admit it.
Bad Ideas
Tom And Jerry Reaction GIFGiphy"I was drinking and doing a lot of drugs... it honestly turned me into a careless piece of crap for a long time!"
Keone_710
You First
"I cheated once, and it was because she'd cheated on me. I'd already been cheated on before so it was like: 'Well: this time I'm getting revenge.'"
"I didn't feel any better. Made me feel almost as shi**y as I thought she was. She was angry as f**k, but I can't honestly say it was any different than any of the other gals that get pissed off when you break up with them. Haven't cheated since."
"If you're getting cheated on, don't demean yourself by sinking to their level. Just give 'em the boot."
JAHNOOSKA
Craiglist People
"Because I truly had no idea what a healthy or functional relationship looked like. My parents were married for almost 30 years and had already started the cycle of cheating on each other well before I was born. My grandma used to tell me stories of being friends with my grandpa’s girlfriends 'because she just wasn’t toxic and jealous like other women.'"
"In the relationship where I cheated, I was being treated like garbage. Financially supporting us both even though I was ten years younger and a waitress, enduring a lot of abuse from a very broken man. I felt trapped in the same cycle I had watched my mom and my grandma live, I didn’t really know better."
"A guy at work started paying attention to me, and I loved it. He was sweet and poetic and romantic, committed to helping his sister raise his niece, was out of the house and working instead of drinking my paycheck away and punching holes in my walls. A little harmless work flirting quickly escalated and before I knew it, I was having a whole a** affair."
"I started to prepare myself to leave my boyfriend for my affair partner, when I found out that my boyfriend had been cheating on me with anyone he could find on Craigslist (including stealing money from me to pay sex workers). Any guilt I felt for cheating evaporated right then."
"I threw all my clothes in a trash bag and drove to my affair partners house, ready to start our new life together. He had another girl over, basically admitted that a lot of what he had said to me was because he thought I would never leave. All in all, it was a mess. If you’re unhappy in your relationship, do the work that will either fix it or get you out. That new person is flawed too. They won’t fix you or fulfill you, only you can do that."
BeebMommy
"forbade"
"Because my wife told me that she was no longer interested in having sex with me, she didn't want me having it with anyone else, and she 'forbade' me from watching porn (I still did the latter, but we could never discuss it or she'd freak out.)"
"So to get my sexual needs met by someone other than myself, for several years, a few times per year I paid a sex worker for a happy ending massage. This was still cheating, but I rationalized it as the 'mildest form' of cheating possible. No chance of an STI, no chance of an unwanted pregnancy, no emotional involvement. I knew it was wrong, but at the time I felt like it was my best choice out of several lousy choices."
"I realize now I should have just said at the time, 'I want a divorce.' That's where we ended up anyway, and I would have saved myself, my wife, and our kids some needless pain over the years. By cheating on her (and hiding it from her), I made it so much worse when she eventually found out."
"To cheaters on here, I would say: get out of your relationship. If you're cheating, you're clearly not happy. Do yourself and your partner a favor and just end it now, before it all goes to hell."
DivorcingGuy1234
The Worst
maury GIFGiphy"Because I wasn't over my ex and when she came knocking I didn't value my new relationship enough and crossed a line I never will lower myself to cross again. You feel like sh*t for years after it, really not worth it no matter how you try to justify it to yourself at the time."
Secret_Guarantee_277
Getting over and getting under... all stressful options.
A Mess
Steve Harvey Reaction GIFGiphy"Drunk and being hit on by a bendy yoga teacher. Got caught in the same day. It was a sh**show."
Top-Pin-3520
In the Dark Place
"I came here to try and understand what goes on in someone's head when this happens because I've been cheated on sexually and emotionally. Instead I'm just left feeling sorry for the people in this thread. So many people in such a dark place pulling their partners down to an equally dark place. I hope everyone here that has cheated has grow and gotten help. And that they can pursue a healthy and fulfilling relationship after they've grown past that."
"For the people that have been cheated on, I'm sorry all of you went through that and I hope it never happens again. Sometimes it feels like something I'll never fully recover from and other times I refuse to let past hurts ruin the chance of something good happening. So I want the people who have been hurt by their partners cheating to know just because it's happened once doesn't mean it will again and good things can still happen for you."
UmbraofDeath
Rear View
"Because I was too chicken s**t to get a divorce because I was wildly unhappy and too proud to go to therapy to fix the marriage. So I cheated, got caught, and have since been to a ton of therapy and am getting a divorce. Even though I’m happy to have this relationship in my rear view, cheating is my life’s biggest regret."
RecoverSexAddict
That's messed up...
"This was me a decade ago. It was just one time. I had somehow rationalized if I cheated he could then just hate me. That would hurt less than me telling him I didn't love him anymore and I wanted out. He was a good partner, but I fell out of love with him."
"The latter would've been the honorable thing to do. He was going to be hurt either way! I was just doing mental gymnastics to justify my reasoning - really I just liked the attention that I wasn't getting at home. That's messed up. I worked a lot on myself and go to therapy. I'm a much better partner now, and I haven't done it since."
Ok_Adhesiveness_4321
Worthless
Will Smith Smh GIF by The Academy AwardsGiphy"Because she cheated on me first. I don’t ever recommend such a stupid f**king decision. It isn’t worth it, folks. I normally considered myself strong and stoic before that? I don’t have a foot to stand on now. It wasn’t worth it."
BBQSpareRibMoon
Bad Connections
"I felt an intimacy connection with someone which I’d never had before. In retrospect it’s one of the dumbest and stupidest things I ever could have done. It wasn’t at all worth what it has now become. I’ve lost my entire family and have no respect from the people that matter most to me. 10/10 would not recommend and would never do again. I lost it all for something that never even really mattered. I had it all in front of me, I just refused to see it."
WeCanWeWi11
Well, love isn't always forever and intimacy is something we work on every single day.
Do you have similar experiences to share? Let us know in the comments below.