Reddit user Tacoma__Crow asked:
"What was the oddest job you’ve had and why?"
Lemons for the Queen doesn't even begin to scratch the surface, honestly.
Weight Ballast
"In small rural town, I (15M) close to 200lbs got a job as a farm Hand expecting to work planting and harvesting."
"I was quite a large athletic lad at the time."
"And I show up for my first day of work and the planting equipment on the back of the tractor was missing some parts."
"So my boss told me to climb atop the planting equipment to make sure it would plant deep enough"
"FML I got hired to be a heavy object, weight, ballast."
"I will never forget my first job as weight"- Logical-Tomato-215
A Google-izer Or Is It Googlee ?
"Googling stuff for people."
"I used to work for kgbkgb, which was this text messaging service where you could text a number, ask any question, and get an answer for $.99."
"This was before smartphones became super huge, so it was a bit of a helpful gimmick back then."
"However, for everyone that we got asking normal questions like movie times, or what restaurants were open near them, or stuff like that, we got A LOT more people asking very stupid things that I would have to Google."
"I have this album of a bunch of weird questions that people sent to us."
"It was an interesting job that helped cover some things when I was in college, but it also had me using Google for a lot of weird sh*t."- -eDgAR-
evan peters google GIF by The Orchard FilmsGiphyOne Day
"I was employed by JC Penney for literally one day."
"I didn't quit, and I wasn't fired."
"That was the term of my employment."
"This was back in 1998 and I was entering my senior year of high school."
"They had a huge sale in the store and they hired dozens of people to cover every department because they were anticipating huge crowds."
"This was not a Black Friday sale, but they anticipated correctly, nonetheless."
"One of the shift supervisors gave me some busy work to start the day, folding shirts or whatever."
"After lunch I was basically asked to walk around from time to time and pick up any knocked over merchandise."
"The last few hours got boring, so one of the other supervisors that I had been chatting with throughout the day invited me to hang out during his break."
"His words were, 'what are they gonna do, fire you?' "
"Good times." - ThePreachingDrummer
Ring
"I was the girl that crawled out of a fake well at a Halloween hay ride once ."
"That was actually pretty fun!"
"Why: I was 14 and after four weeks working Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays all evening I got $150!."
"Under the table of course."- CaseyBoogies
The Ring Movie GIF by Arrow VideoGiphyCorpse Uber
"Transporting deceased people who our county declared John/Jill Does to the proper county or city coroner once they were identified."
"Some obscure state law back in the 80's made it illegal to transport that particular type of dead person while the sun was up."
"Screwed up job, but it paid $15 an hour back in 1985."
"Guess it paid so much because most people were unwilling to do it."
"That was a hell of a lot for a college student to turn down."
"Interesting fact."
"When you hit a bump in the road, with an unprepared corpse, their bodies will gurgle, and sometimes air comes out of their lungs and hits their vocal cords."- Leftstrat
3D Pictures
"When i was a teenager I sold those magic eye pictures at a mall kiosk."
"Y'know the ones you have to stare at for a while till your eyes make out a 3d picture?"
"All day I had to try and help frustrated people try and see the f*cking sail boat."- Reddit
Fancy Title
"My first job was with a temp agency; worked in an accounting office going through boxes of records and making sure there were no staples or fasteners in anything."
"Then the boxes would go to another dept to be scanned onto microfiche."
"I had some fancy title, like 'Accounting Clerk' and was making over $11 an hr., back when min wage was still like $5 and change, so I thought I was living large'."
"A funny part of the story is that I started on a Friday, and came to work in khakis and a polo-Monday I came dressed the same way and got spoke to about dressing professionally because Friday was casual Friday and not normal dress code."
"Lol felt dumb having to wear business attire and a tie when I was in the back in a cubicle pulling staples out of documents."- HalfBeatingHeart
Cutthroat Cookies
"Worked for the girl scouts and ran the cookie sale for a regional area that included a major American city."
"Craziest and most stressful job I ever had."
"It seems all cute and charming until you have 30 furious cookie moms screaming at you in your office at 6:30 AM on a Saturday because the truck carrying 5 pallets of thin mints is stuck in a blizzard."
"I had to break up fist fights between parents because someone 'stole' someone's spot outside of a grocery store. It's cutthroat."
"Anyway that job was decades ago and I still have stress nightmares about it!"- Neither-Copy785
episode 19 GIFGiphyKitty Sitting
"Not a job exactly but one awesome day."
"I used to work in the concrete business."
"We once had a job pouring a slab for residential parking and a neighbor nearby had a kitten just a couple months old."
"It would not stay out of the concrete as you can imagine it thought us picking it up and washing its paws was a game."
"Eventually the boss told me to grab the kitten and go hold it hostage in the truck."
"So I spent the next six hours sitting in the truck with a super friendly kitten sleeping on my chest."
"I got paid to babysit a kitten."- Sectaguy
GiphyKept That Swamp clean
"Swamp Janitor."
"Official title was 'invasive species removal technician' but really I was a swamp janitor. "
"There was this invasive aquatic plant that would completely take over swamps and choke out all the native life, so my job was to go in with a rake and pitchfork and literally just clean up the swamp of this devil plant."
"Some parts were cool, watching eagles fish, seeing turtles come up for air and big fish swimming in the water but a lot of it sucked."
"The plant had sharp seeds that would pierce your skin and your waders."
"You'd get leeches, tics and mosquitos on you all day."
"Physically exhausting with lots of sun."
"You'd have to haul the plant matter to giant compost heaps that were full of snakes, for some reason the snakes liked it."
"It was a unique but grueling job."- UniverseBear
bathroom stall GIFGiphySee the Pyramids Along The Way..."
"Multi-Level Marketing."
"Kid told me about a really cool energy drink company back in high school."
"I wanted money."- 992882
Smooth Operator
"A bank was digitizing their records."
"I got paid to remove staples and creases from paper so all their old records could be scanned without issues."
"10 hours a day, just removing staples and creases."- Both-Grocery-7008
Not The Job, But The Clientele
"I'm a host at a local restaurant and I have met both the most mundane and weirdest people ever."
"My favorite story is that a few months ago I had 3 different people, all men in their 40's to 50's, come in one after another say almost the same thing."
'They all said 'can I get a table for [large number here]'."
'I have to say, they were all in different parties, completely strangers that walked in 5 minutes apart with the same line."- f---thezodiac
Lisa Simpson Restaurant GIF by The SimpsonsGiphyHappy, Despite People Looking Down At You
"Shoeshiner."
"15 year old female and I needed cash."
"Would shine shoes at car washes and country bars, usually made $100-300 a day."
"Oddly fun and met a ton of people, got other odd jobs from businessmen like hostess check in at events and functions."- Starlettohara23
Left Them Feeling Blue
"Got a job through a temp agency working at a scrap metal plant."
"Because I wasn't 18 yet, I couldn't operate most of the heavy machinery or the fork trucks."
"So they put me in a side room and had me siev cobalt."
"So for a while, I would run the positive motion conveyor, which was just a big table hooked to a rotary motor so it made all the stuff on it 'hop' from one side to the other."
"At one end, they hung a 1-ton bag of cobalt over the conveyor."
"At my end, I had a metal grating over a bunch of barrels."
"As the conveyor advanced, the dust fell through into the first barrels."
"My job was to pick the big chunks of cobalt off of the grating and toss them into another set of barrels."
"It was hot and humid, and cobalt dust is blue, so every day I came home looking like a damn smurf."- Hephaestus0308
GiphyPaid To Pillage?
"I (14NB) had a gig exploring abandoned places to take stuff out of there."
"It was interesting."
'I didn't record but I explore abandoned places."
"For my job, it was houses."
"For my hobby, I did schools, funeral homes, summer camps, hospitals, day cares, etc."- Lonely_Person_1670
Better not have snuck a sip!
"Serving beer when i was 10 years old with my 9 year old friend in the most alcoholic country in the world."- Old-Command-7706
A Sign Of Bad Things To Come.
"So not really a job but when I worked for this restaurant in my home town I got called in on one of my days off."
"I only worked like 3 or 4 days a week, and I was 16 and thought I could use more money."
"So I go in to see about 7 people with my same position there, I was a dishboy, and I was so confused I ask the manager what they needed because they didn't disclose it over the phone."
"They asked me to scrub all the trash cans as if someone else couldn't have done it and it was a very slow day."
They weren't happy about it and just told me I couldn't go home until I did it."
"Now I hadn't even clocked in yet and I was unaware that I could've just left but I was scared of losing my job so I did it and I think I lasted there for another 2 or 3 months before I was like nope I'm done."- nuchiha44
Trash Can GIFGiphyWeird Can Often Be Fun
"Working in an old brick quarry that was now a landfill."
"Collecting and sorting scrap metal for recycling."
"Also operating heavy equipment, a john deere drot and a cat d7 bulldozer."
"Best job of my whole life, so much fun."
"Super dangerous but had a blast 10/10 would do again."- dowend
Okay so we've measured lemons for royalty, been a taxi for dead folks, and been an overpaid staple remover with a fancy title.
You're up, readers.
Got anything that competes with that?
That's what's so great about the proverbial conversation starter, "So, what do you do for work?", when meeting people at any gathering.
Even a job in the customer service industry–like a server or flight attendant–can have amusing anecdotes to share among coworkers because every day and every customer interaction is different.
Curious to hear fascinating workplace stories from strangers online, Redditor sparklingshanaya asked:
"What is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever had to deal with at work?"
Not all workplace environment foster loving and caring employees.
Tony's At It Again
"A drunk guy in his early 60s who was constantly sh*t-faced at work. He’d have screaming matches with my boss in the middle of the office, he’d call me on the phone from his cubicle to ask why he was cc’d on certain emails (they were short emails sent for informational purposes to everyone and I wasn’t even the author of these emails) and my favorite thing was when he would pass out and fall out of his chair. 'Call 911, Tony collapsed again' was like a monthly thing. I really liked my boss and when she left, the new boss kept asking me to finish Tony’s work. I left shortly after."
– Dangerous_Effort3355
Blind Rage
"Worked in HR for a nonprofit that hired people who are legally blind. That was the mission. One day, two employees got into a fight. One was partially sighted and the other totally blind swinging his cane. I had four witnesses to the altercation. But they were all totally blind and thus, couldn’t tell me what happened."
– marabou22
Unsympathetic Management
"As a teenager while working as a cashier at a store, I was robbed at gunpoint by two dudes with guns pointed inches from my face. The store manager and someone from corporate showed up shortly after the police came to show support. Immediately after the police left, both the manager and corporate rep tried to convince me and my other coworkers that also had a gun in their faces to keep the store open for the remainder of the shift (~6 hours). I was literally still shaking from the ordeal, and somehow they felt that I was good to work until midnight as a teenager. I asked to go home, as did everyone else. Management decided to compensate us for the trauma by paying us for the remainder of our shifts but, said that we still had to work our next shifts and could not call out. It's amazing how insensitive some people in management can be."
– ItsEarthDay
The Mystery Pubes
"Call center setting. Someone came to me to complain that there was an inordinate amount of pubic hair on the flat top of the urinal in the men's room. Went to check and there were a remarkable amount of pubes there. Nasty. And clearly placed there by someone on purpose."
"Cleaned them off with a paper towel, washed hands vigorously, and continued on with my day."
"A couple hours later, I'm told the pubes have returned. Not quite as much as the first time, but still too much for the universe to have deposited there naturally."
"I and another manager have our suspicions as to the culprit. We try to catch him, but can't get more than circumstantial evidence. Not enough to confront."
"After a third iteration, I've had enough. And so call all the male staff into the board room and address them as a group that the disgusting behavior had to stop immediately, because there would be grave consequences for whomever was caught doing it. I make sure to make eye contact with the main suspect multiple times during the meeting."
"It never happens again."
"Still boggles my mind that I had to deal with that crazy behavior, but you know...call centers."
– Plumpuddingdog
People who work remotely from home are spared some of these encounters.
They Were All The Rage
"A coworker screaming at me for leaving food to rot in the shared fridge. It was my first day there and I hadn’t even unpacked my belongings yet."
– idontdigdinosaurs
Hungry Coworker
"Had a coworker eating other peoples lunches instead of bringing her own, or just take one or two things. She'd sneak in the breakroom before breaks."
– neuro_25
Working Solo
"Jobs would be so much better if there were no other people."
"Maybe i should be a fisherman. But i like fish. No fish has ever yelled at me on my first day of work. :("
– HardCounter
Big Words
"I was 'counseled' for a good hour because I offended the other ladies in our small office by...get this.....I used big words that they didn't understand. Not bad words. Big words."
"The ridiculous/sad thing? The job was for a book manufacturer and at any given time there were several dictionaries being printed."
– AxlotlRose
People share their workplace drama dealing with interesting customers.
The Librarian
"I work at a library. The amount of people who don't bring their library card with them and then refuse to give me ID so I can look up their account is baffling. I'm just trying to prove they are who they say they are."
"Also a mentally ill lady once told me that Osama bin Laden wanted to steal shoes from the artist formerly known as Prince."
– cihojuda
Overdue DVD
"Yep! Fellow library employee here. The people who act surprised when I ask to see their library card! One guy got ANGRY when I told him he owed 30 cents for a late DVD. He kept insisting 'I turned that in!' Left the desk, marched over to the DVD stacks, found said DVD, came back, plunked it on the counter and insisted 'SEE, I turned it in!!!' I took a deep breath and said 'sir. That’s not the issue. We know you turned it in. You turned it in a day late.' He pauses, says 'oh…' and gets his wallet out."
– helianthus_0
Customer Thinking They Were Playing A Midway Game
"I had someone throw a drink at me through the drive-thru window, which is an unwise thing to do to someone standing in front of a shelf of other drinks waiting for the customers behind you."
"Close second: we had a guy that robbed our gas station for like a month with a finger gun before he finally got caught. Everyone knew it was a finger gun, but you have to comply when someone robs the store so.... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"
– JAHNOOSKA
Bizarre Request
"I work at a pet resort/spa. I’m checking in this lady’s dog at like 7 in the morning. Real sweet lady, she has an Australian shepherd. But before I take the dog inside to his kennel for the groomers, she asks me to tell the groomers to separate whatever hair they shave off him into separate ziplock bags based on color and texture. Turns out she makes jewelry out of her dog’s fur. Later in the day I bring out the dog along with probably 7 little baggies of hair and the lady was very excited. She gave me a fat tip so I didn’t complain but that’s by far the weirdest request I’ve heard in all my time working there."
– snailsforbreakfast
The Missing Bullet
"I work in the funeral industry, so I get to deal with new ridiculous things on a near-daily basis. For example, today I had to look for a bullet in a body bag, because the list of personal effects of a deceased that we got from the medical examiner included 'ammunition x 1.' This person was going for cremation, and bullets in a crematorium are a no-no for obvious reasons."
"So, we looked and looked, inside the body bag, inside the clothing, pockets, shoes, under the body; I even shone a flashlight into the hole that used to be the deceased's face to see if it was maybe still in the head-ish area, but no. So after 20 minutes or so of thoroughly searching this poor dead person, I called the MEO to see if they had the bullet. The girl who answered the phone checks with the morgue and comes back to say 'yep, it's here, we always take and keep the bullets!' Great! Then WHY list it on the personal effects sheet with everything else that is still with the body??"
"My job is weird as hell, y'all."
– SleepySpookySkeleton
Broken Toilet
"Had someone complain that the toilet he used wouldn’t flush, and when I asked which restroom/toilet he made it clear they used one that was blocked off with an out of order sign and he removed it (it’s a sticker you put over the latch) to use the toilet. I told him that that toilet was out of order because it wouldn’t flush, even specifying something was wrong with the flow regulator. He then asked how he was supposed to know that, to which I replied the out of order sign that was on the door. He then got quite angry, giving me reason after reason why he had to use that specific toilet and how it wasn’t his fault he used a broken toilet, culminating in him asking to speak to my manager. I then told him that I was, in fact, the facilities manager and was the one who handled anything involving the cleaning or maintenance of the building. He then nearly shouted 'Fine I guess I’ll just f'k myself!' and stormed out of the building; I assume because he realized he wasn’t going to get a refund because he left a massive sh*t in an out of order toilet, which he wouldn’t have no matter what anyway. It’s a movie theater, not a perfectly operable toilet emporium."
"Either that or teenagers in suits throwing bananas at the movie screen, one of the two."
– kenpobiscuit13
I worked in retail once when I was 16, selling video games.
During one shift, I had a kid who leaned over the counter and grabbed a Nintendo video game and ran off with it. I contacted security and they managed to apprehend the young teen. Later, the kid's mother came into the store after being asked to pick up his son from the mall, and she chewed me out for accusing him of stealing.
That same shift, my co-worker said she was going to take a break. I didn't know it was going to take an hour. I also didn't know she was shopping inside the mall with her boyfriend–who was the manager of our store and was cognizant of the fact that she was still on the clock. Meanwhile, I was in the store by myself and I had to improvise when dealing with a return transaction.
It was my first day on the job. It was also my last.
I endeavored never to work in retail again after that. So far, I've managed to avoid it.
DuPont chemical was one such company that caused grievous harm to an untold number of people through corrupt business practices. A compound used in manufacturing their Teflon was found to cause cancer and other issues in rodents decades before they did the studies to show similar in humans. Thousands of people have been affected, drinking water contaminated, loss of live stock, and irreversible environmental damage has been done.
However, it took an extended period of time between worker complaints of the toxin and action being taken. Although there have been monetary payouts, the company still functions making their products today just now hiding as a subsidiary of the Dow Chemical Company (DowDuPont).
Sometimes the corporate corruption runs too deep to be fully resolved. Redditor Chillay_90 wanted to hear other workers all too common encounters with serious corruption.
They asked:
"What's the most corrupt thing you've witnessed your employer do?"
They fled the country…
“At the first company I worked at the general manager had all his personal expenses paid by the company. His wife also had a company credit card and was paid a salary but she didn't work. The company paid for things like their groceries, house mortgage, car payments and family vacations.”
“The kicker is he wasn't the owner of the company. He had a creative accountant that hid these expenses but the owners became suspicious and they hired an auditor. It took them about 4 years to figure it out. He was fired and his family fled the country so I am not sure what happened to him.” optoph
She was a Mc-A**hole…
“A few years ago I was working/living at a McDonald's in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The area manager decided to ‘save’ the store so she became very... involved... in its day to day micromanagement. One payday morning she made an announcement that, because everyone kept coming in asking for their checks and bothering her, she would be giving them to us when she felt we deserved them.”
“I called the local Department of Labor, who referred me to the state, who referred me back to local, who then told me they just didn't care and weren't looking into it. It eventually resolved itself anyway when she handed checks out the next day.” twistedlemon732
Do not work for free!
“I've had a couple that try to pressure you to work off the clock, without actually asking you to do so in order not to get sued. Suckered some people into doing it, if they complained after the fact they got canned. And by that I mean they got all hours cut until they were forced to quit so they couldn't file for unemployment."
“I just made it clear I wasnt playing their games in the first place. First time they tried me I was like 'I n't that working off the clock?' And they were like 'ohhh no no, of course not! We're not asking that at all, just looking for volunteers!'"
"I can't volunteer. Do you want me to stay, clocked in, or go home since my shift is over?"
"Oh well... I suppose you can go home. We'll figure it out"
“Needless to say, they did not like me much after that and made working there a living hell. Cut my hours to low numbers, but not altogether. But I had already asked my old boss if they'd take me back, which they welcomed me back with open arms. Only reason I took the new job was they paid like, 3 bucks an hour more. But obvs not worth it if I'm expected to work for free." Reddittoxin
Warranty scam…
“I was a mechanic that found out that the company was not letting me fix customers cars that had oil leaks when the customers had paid for a 200k mile warranty. The manager would tell the service writer to say that the warranty company declined it and eventually started making me take a photo to him so that he could tell me that the leak wasn't bad enough to fix.”
“The customer paid for a warranty and the company wasn't holding up their end of the deal because it was costing them money. They are one of the most profitable car dealerships in my town and now have 3 dealerships and are expanding.” Idontgetitbrah
Stealing workers tips…
“I was working at a small brewery / bar, and caught the owner dipping into the tip jar at the end of big nights. It was a new place that just opened and was kind of struggling during the off season. We literally had a staff of two bartenders and the owners (husband and wife), so the bar staff would pool and split that days tips.”
“Come to find out that he was taking a cut of the tips because "he worked there too". When I confronted him, I explained that its actually a violation of the FLSA. In fact it's even an exact example listed as illegal things to do with tips. He argued that it was his right as owner and fired me, so I reported him to Dept of Labor.” Rustee_nail
Political and corporate corruption go hand and hand.
“I used to work at a place that was owned by an organization with some political affiliations. There was a rich Middle Eastern investor who owed my employer money. Literally millions from a contract that they simply never paid.”
“It was quite a sensitive issue and one that everyone really wanted to keep out of court. Some negotiations took place and the investor agreed to pay but in return, wanted a spot on the board. Everything was agreed, the guy would pay and then there would be a big party event, with some press, for his appointment to the board.”
“At any rate, a few weeks before this was supposed to happen, the head of my organization became very ill and needed surgery and was gone for several weeks...the big party where the investor would become a member of the board had to be delayed. It turns out, our big boss wasn't actually sick at all and did not need to have surgery.”
“Actually what happened was, the head of the organization that owned my employer was running for political office and was worried about the optics of the whole event (only being able to get this rich middle eastern dude to pay us what he owed by putting him on the board and granting him a bunch of power over the organization) and basically ordered our boss to feign a long illness that would require the event to be delayed until after the election.” mejok
“if they asked you to work extra they would delete hours…”
“Worked in a restaurant that didn't allow employees to work over 40 hours as they did not want to pay any overtime. Instead of you wanted to work extra or if they asked you to work extra they would delete hours off of your time card to keep it under 40. They always asked you when they did that in a kind of hush hushed way so it wasn't exactly without permission but I think it was bullsh*t all the same.” cloudstrife1191
“stolen a combined 400 hours from eight people…”
“Growing up my father always told me to save my pay stubs and time receipts. I ended up working a job in my early 20 's at an airport moving cars. I get my paycheck one day and i realize that it's not right.”
“So i do a little digging, and a lot of math, and i figure out that the company was taking hours from me. I ask around and it turns out that they were taking hours from literally everyone at the job site. After doing more math we figured out that over the six months we all worked together, the company had stolen a combined 400 hours from eight people.” 42spuuns
So you get fired for that?
“Had a job out of college selling yellow pages advertising. A big part of the job was just renewing the old adds in the book and we had to call each business to have them renew their ad.”
“But as the yellow pages book became more and more obsolete more customers would cancel their ads. So the company changed the policy of having us call each business and instead put in a policy that any customer who didn't specifically call to cancel would be auto renewed.”
“Then they would purposefully send out the renewal notices late enough that the customers couldn't cancel in time to avoid the following years charges. If one of us did actually get a call from a customer looking to cancel and with time to legitimately do so and we actually cancelled them....fired.” totspur1982
Strangest Things Seen In A Contract's Terms And Conditions | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Knowingly exposed their workers to asbestos…
“I work underground in the mines. One place started having, what the workers found out later, was asbestos type rock in the ore. The company took samples of it and then said it's kind of like asbestos, but it's not old enough to harm you.”
“Later after a bit of more concern from the workers, it was found out that the sample they took came back as inconclusive due to something else. They lied and allowed their workforce exposure to asbestos. I quit after that and found work elsewhere.” Chillay_90
Part of the healthcare conspiracy…
“Work for hospital, largest healthcare co. In that area. There was a situation where a doctor was involved in a law suit and I had to testify to some stuff. At the attorney's office I observed that THE ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORD OF THE PATIENT HAD BEEN ALTERED COMPLETELY. Everyone's notes had been changed. Scared the sh*t out of me. I realized then that no one really has any power except the corporation itself.” mxrichar
Some manual planned obsolescence…
“I worked for a pump company, We repaired all kinds of liquid pumps, from the little sump pumps you drain your basement with to the 2000 gallon per minute sewage pumps.”
“I was rebuilding one of the large pumps and the boss came in as I was assembling it, he came over to the bench and picked up the main bearings and took the seals off of the bearings. Essentially, it keeps trash out of the bearings to extend bearing life.”
“ He looked at me and said, ‘The warranty for a repair is 18 months, that's how long these bearings have to last. I buy the ones with the seals in them because they're cheaper and they look good on a itemized bill. So if these bearings last for 20-36 months, I'm losing money. Pull the seals out of these before you install them.’ I never did, f**k that guy. He was a piece of sh*t on so many different levels as well.” JomadicallyWondering
They missed the part in the Bible about giving away their riches…
“Worked for a Christian ministry that was fully funded by donations and run by volunteers who had to raise their own support. The CEO used donated funds to take his family overseas for vacations, to purchase 50% of a new vehicle whenever he wanted, to pay for golf trips for himself and his friends whenever he felt like it, and to help his children (who were also at the ministry) with house payments. Also forced the volunteers in the evenings to do childcare for his grandkids so that he and his children could go out to lavish dinners on the ministry.” GandalfsFavDwarf
Racism in the workplace…
“My first promotion at my first job included interviewing applicants if the manager needed help and I jumped at the opportunity (which should have been a red flag for a 30+ manager giving an 18-year-old that kind of early responsibility). It was sales and according to her she hired almost everybody 'but if you need to make choices, I tend to skip the black people because they don't do good in sales and don't know that many people'."
“I was f**king speechless, I didn't know what to say though and was afraid of losing my first job. At first, I thought maybe it was a really racist bad joke because English is not my first language but that b*tch was dead serious. I just picked up my materials and set up but I eventually quit and reported her to the corporate offices and BBB after hiring every person that came in for a job that week." s-p-a-r-k-e-r
“we had all been being poisoned…”
“I worked in a restaurant and an employee began having breathing problems on shift. She went to the ER and was diagnosed with carbon monoxide poisoning.”
“The owner didn't think it was from the restaurant (despite the fact that the employee was on shift for five hours and went straight to ER) but after several weeks of complaints from this employee decided to put up a CO detector. She put it out on Saturday morning at open and two hours into the shift the alarm went off.”
“She picked it up and rushed it into the back stating that it was malfunctioning. She refused to put it back out. Two weeks later and everyone was getting sick while at work. The owner denied that anything was wrong and refused to acknowledge that employees were getting sick.”
“I called OSHA and after an inspection it was determined that the HVAC unit was pumping CO into the restaurant and we had all been being poisoned. The owner was very upset that she had to pay to fix the heating unit and "couldn't believe someone would do that to me" (call OSHA).” noh8tred
“got shocked by 220 volts a few times…”
Shocked Ash Ketchum GIF by PokémonGiphy“I worked for a signage company as an installer, some of the signs had LEDs and required the transformer to be connected to a mains cable. In South Africa its law that if you're dealing with electrics you have to be qualified, obviously no one that worked there was.”
“So like a dummy I just connected the main cable to the transformer for any signs I installed, and got shocked by 220 volts a few times, before I left I saw an invoice to a customer that I just installed a sign for, and the owner was charging the clients for a professional to do the electrician work. All the while I was doing it.” southafricabest
Profiting off illegal baby formula…
“When I was 20 I was working in a supermarket. At the time I was working there there was a global shortage of baby formula (milk powder.) The town where our store was located had a leading formula factory not even 5mins away. So we always had it in stock, and usually more than other stores. Even though we were only allowed to sell people one container at a time. So every once in a while I would walk back to where the freezers and loading area was.”
“And every so often there would be a van parked up by the open doors, where only trucks are allowed to load and unload the carts of products. The van arrived empty, and it left filled up with, you guessed it, baby formula. Followed by this driver wandering through the stockroom to the service desk and making two consecutive transactions because the maximum amount you could pay in one go was 2999.99. I think my boss's franchise was shady as hell.” Highway2022
Someone needed to call OSHA…
“I work in a MNC, and it is mandatory for each factory of the company around the world to share and report to HQ if there is any accident happen. In 2016, there was an accident happened where the finger of an operator was cut and bleeding previously, because the PPE implemented wasn't up to the standard for the task."
“Luckily it was flash wound and not an amputation injury. The factory treated and gave paid sick leave to this operator and reported this accident with action plans to prevent this from happening in the future."
“Few months later, a new plant Manager joined Mr. BA, started with our plant in 2016. He will soon be the most corrupt sob in the plant. Almost every year since 2016 there was at least one minor accident happened, and he will ask his subordinate, the HSE manager to keep quiet and not to report to anybody."
"Every single year he and the safety manager will proudly report to us all that the last accident was in 2016. There was an accident happened during Social Accountability audit, when the auditor was reviewing documents in the office."
"A maintenance guy's arm was sprayed by hot glue and got second degree burn, they will ask the maintenance guy to keep quiet, secretly go to ER, and come back to work the next day (as they don't want a loss time) and surprisingly, the maintenance guy follow this instruction."
"Another accident happened when an operator accidentally had his tip of a finger chopped off by a machine and also, no report. Until today, the factory proudly report every day, it has been 1800 more days since the last accident." beary12345
Higher Ed. had a lot to hide…
“I've worked in higher ed my entire career this far and particularly in some Ivy League schools so yikes I don't even know where to start…I can think of a few examples of students actual civil rights being violated and also someone embezzling over $100,000 from funds set aside for students with disabilities off the top of my head.”
“As corrupt as those things are though, they aren't the worst. I would argue that across the board in higher ed, the most corrupt thing is the coverup. The bigger the university, the more they try to hide these literal crimes to protect their reputations.” Ghostridethevolvo
Corruption everywhere…
“I have a few. I worked for a company who once took our Christmas bonuses and donated them to a family with a special needs child 'in our name'. We later found out that the mother of the special needs child was the cousin of the owner of our company but this was never disclosed to us by the owners. I don't mind giving to charity, but the way they went about this was super sketchy."
“Okay, last one. I had a side job with a small TV station and one day my paycheck bounced. I went to the owner, who claimed it was a mix-up and gave me cash. Then it happened again. I go to the HR girl who tells me that the owner of the station likes to gamble at the casino with the account used for paychecks. Quit then and there." AlanaDev
Perhaps the most concerning thing about these experiences, outside of victim impact, is the fact that most of these white collar type crimes are rarely or minimally prosecuted.
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