"A colleague of mine dialed into a meeting of 2-3 managers plus about 25 sales reps only for everyone to suddenly go quiet and for one person to tell him the meeting was cancelled and he could drop as they, the sales reps, were just chatting sales stuff."
"He pretended to hang up and stayed on the line."
"They were basically planning a mutiny because they didn't like that their regional manager was a woman."
"They had a whole strategy for how they were going to cause a massive f*ck up that would cost the company a ton of money and look like it was her fault so she would get fired."
"The dumbwads even did a little 'are we all in agreement' roll call at the end."
"We worked in a call center so his end of the call was recorded."
"Within a week every last one of them was fired and within a month they were replaced."- InternetWeakGuy.
Season 6 Nbc GIF by The OfficeGiphyWalls are not always soundproof.
"I was looking for a place to rent."
"Met the property manager and she walked me to the unit."
"It wasn't the best neighborhood and my mind was already made up as I was walking around the property with her that I wasn't going to go through with it."
"But the lady was very nice and friendly and I figured I'd at least take a look inside the unit."
"It was small and dingy."
"I looked around and told her nicely that I'd think about it and then walked out."
"After the door closed, I could hear her screaming: 'No, you f*cking won't!'"
""F*ck!'"
" Oh, I'll think about it and let you know.'"
"'Ah! F*ck!!"'
"Certainly glad I did not rent."- SweetDee72.
Overheard at the office.
"I once worked as a secretary in an office that, for some reason, got butt-dialed a lot."
"During one such occasion I got to listen in while some gentleman from New York absolutely roasted one of his employees."
"'Well what the f*ck do you expect me to do?'"
"'Honestly, Tom, honestly, if it wasn't for the fact that I'm sleeping your sister, you would be out of here right now'."- BabySuperfreak.
"Here, kitty, kitty..."
"I left a client a voicemail and thought I hung up but in fact I proceeded to talk baby talk to my roommates cat for several minutes while it was recording."- Incontinento
"Another season, another reason..."
"I used to work at a call center that took orders for a lot of different things."
"I took a call from an old lady one day."
"She told me she was 89 and her husband was 92."
"She ordered a generic brand of 'the little blue pills'."
"As she was hanging up I heard:"
"Little old man: Did ya get'm?"
"Little old lady: I sure did."
"Little old man: HOT DAMN I'm gonna get some now!"
"Little old lady: *giggles*"- Shenaniganic.
You'll do this, or else...
"My mother-in-law [MIL] had a new boss who hated her."
"She was about three years from retirement, and she felt like he was trying to push her out early so she’d loose part of her pension etc."
"She asked me to check her answering machine while she was gone after her mother died and let her know if anything important came in, and to water her plants."
"The third day or so I’d been there, there was a message from this boss giving his condolences."
"Then you could hear the click where he thought he’d hung up but must have placed the receiver just wrong and was still on the line."
"He ruthlessly made fun of her with his wife for the next five minutes before saying 'Oh, sh*t!' and hanging up."
"She was at a really low point in her life, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her or leave the message on the machine."
"It would have absolutely crushed her."
"But I did record it, and then I deleted it from her machine."
"Then I called that a**hole and told him what I had, why I wasn’t telling her RIGHT NOW, but absolutely would if needed in the future, and told him I’d better hear nothing but how wonderful work was going for her and how well she was treated until she retired."
"I told him I didn’t even understand what a piece of sh*t you had to be to talk about someone like that behind their back, and especially at such a time in their life."
"And that’s exactly what happened."
"She had a wonderful last few years and figured that her mother dying had opened him up to treat her kindly and with respect."
"That was twenty years ago and I never told her and never will."
"I wouldn’t want to ever take those last few years there away from her."- skbiglia.
"You talkin' to me?"
"Not a crazy story but I had just finished talking to a client over the phone, we say our goodbyes, then I hear her ask 'are you wearing pants today?'"
"I wasn't sure how to answer that but I figure she was jokingly asking because everyone just started working from home due to covid."
"I just replied 'Yes'."
"She then burst out laughing trying to explaining that she thought she had already hung up and she was actually asking her husband that question."
"We laughed about it for about 3 mins before we actually hung up."- lexisauce.
A dissatisfied customer.
"I worked in sales, inbound call, and had a pleasant conversation with a customer who politely declined the offer and told me she was going to look elsewhere."
"We said our goodbyes, nothing out of the ordinary."
"Really sweet lady, had called in with her husband."
"As soon as she thought she hung up, she slammed her phone down and starts yelling at her husband."
"'F*ck [company name], are you f*cking shitting me right now?'"
"'$350 a f*cking year?'"
"'I’m not paying that much for this g*ddamn piece of sh*t [product] how the f*ck could that b*tch pitch that with a straight f*cking face?'”
"I gave her the decency of hanging up myself after that but she was 100% in the right being pissed haha."
" Inbound means she called us to update, not the other way around for those confused."
"I said she was justified because the company sucks."
"It was exactly what she called in for, just with a price increase she wasn’t expecting."- sh*ttysoprano.
Caught Red-handed.
"I called a service provider who was supposed to order certificates of good standing from a state and they were late in sending them over."
"They told me there was a delay at the state’s office and gave me a new estimate."
"They forgot to hang up, and I heard them telling their coworker that they’d completely forgot to send in the time sensitive request in the first place."
"Never used them again."- a_little_wicked
"I had a job where I was in a position to write-off a substantial phone bill, which the customer said was because her mother was dying overseas and she had dementia and needed to hear things in her voice to believe anything, including doctor’s instructions."
"She was heartbroken and sobbing about how if she had the kind of money to pay this phone bill, she would have just gone back to her country because the flight would have cost less."
"She was right about that."
"I wrote-off the entirety of the phone bill, she cried like a jilted lover in a rom-com and said people like me are angels from god etc."
"After I wished her a good evening and she thought the call was ended, she says to someone in a perfectly normal voice ‘Well, that worked!’"- aardvarkyardwork.
Michael Buble Gotcha GIF by bublyGiphyBut seriously, who says no to free wine?
"I was a wine club manager."
"I got an incredibly irate call from a man whose daughter had signed him up for a wine club, demanding we cancel it because it was a waste of her money."
"It caught me off guard as he somehow got my work cell, not the main club line, and I was out on a work errand."
"I only answered it because I thought it was my boss."
"So I’m holding 2 heavy packages, with the phone on my shoulder, while he’s screaming at me about how he can’t believe we let his daughter, a 30-something-year-old woman, spend this money etc."
"He was having a full-on tantrum."
"She signed an agreement to receive a shipment from us."
"I explained to him that it was her account."
"SHE would have to talk about me about making any changes, and noted she could send the wine elsewhere if he didn’t want to be the recipient."
"I was calm."
"He asked how long I’d been at the company."
"I told him about a year."
"He ended the conversation, but my hands were still full and he didn’t hang up."
"He then proceeded to brag to whoever was in the room that the 'girl' he’d been on the phone with had only been at the company about 6 months and lied that he had me in tears."
"Daughter did not want to cancel, sent the wines to her sister, and told me he was ex-military and an opinionated guy."
"Nice way of saying misogynistic a**hole I guess."- doodleywootson
Happy Hour Reaction GIFGiphyUm.. I can hear you...
"Not hanging up, but my friend, several years older was asking my to cut vinyl names for jar candles for a friend."
"I was asking about the size she needed."
"She just kept saying 'the bath and body works candles'."
"I'm not sure what size they are."
"She then asks her friend about said candles."
"Friend's friend repeats 'oh they are the bath and body works candles'."
"They keep saying this like I'm supposed to magically know what size these jars are."
"You know how you move the phone to the side to talk with someone?"
"I get the impression this happens."
"My friend goes 'It's my friend [Used_Dragon fruit], she can't afford those, she won't know'."
"I tell her, that I actually I stopped using bath and body works products over 10 years ago because they give me migraines."
"We've barely spoken since."- Used_Dragonfruit_563
So glad to know you're there for me...
"I called one of my relatives and spoke to them about a certain issue that I was experiencing and 'after' the call they said 'Jesus Christ I don't have time for this'."- SeanConneryIsMaclean
GiphyAlways wise to double check...
"It was more so muting/not muting and I was the person who forgot to do so in this case."
"So we were in a breakout room in one of my online classes last year, about 5 people including me."
"I remember being annoyed/stressed either with the group or the class or just school in general so I 'muted' myself and screamed."
"Not ear defeaning but definitely quite loudly."
"IDEK if i can imitate that yell now."
"Everyone in the breakout room was like wwhooo wassss thaattt?'"
"And I pretended that it wasn't me and I think it worked."
"But even if it didn't, no one accused me lol."
But is there more to the story?
"Very late to the party here, but I got a really weird butt dial about five days after the January 6th Insurrection."
"I have no idea who the person was, it didn't pop up on Caller ID, and the call had an area code that I didn't recognize."
"It was a five-minute 'message' in which I could hear several people talking at once, both men and women, and they were arguing about blowing up a bookstore in Portland, Oregon."
"They also spoke about 'hanging' some book author that they all disagreed with, and they mentioned the Proud Boys and other seditious things as well."
"The voices were sometimes muffled and they were hard to make out at times, but the conversion alarmed me enough that I called my local FBI office."
"I quickly received a call back from an FBI Agent, who asked me a bunch of questions about the call, the caller, etc."
"He then asked if I could send him a copy of the recording of the call, which I did."
"He called back the next day."
"It turns out that the call originated in Northern California, I forget where exactly, and he asked more pointed questions, and specifically asked if I knew anyone in Cali (no, I don't)."
"He then told me that the voices that I heard appeared to have come from a pod cast."
"Somehow the caller/listener had dialed my phone number and I received a full five minutes of the pod cast to which they were listening."
"The next day, a black SUV pulled into my driveway, and two FBI Agents came to my door."
"One was the Agent with whom I had been speaking."
"He wanted to see my phone, specifically the message itself."
"I had nothing to hide, so I let him dig around in my phone for a few minutes."
"They were really nice and we talked crap for a while, and then they left."
"Of course, I was told that the conversation I heard was part of a pod cast, but now I can't help but wonder."
"If it was such an innocuous conversation/pod cast, then why would two FBI Agents show up unannounced at my house just to look at my phone?"
"I don't know why, but I still have that Agent's number in my Contacts."
"How many people can say that they have the back line of an FBI Agent saved on their phone?"- Ghost_of_a_Black_Cat
fbi fbifam GIF by CBSGiphyNever underestimate the importance of that little click or your phone returning to its home screen.
Neglecting to take note of those simple little things could land you in more trouble than you could possibly imagine.
Reddit user "Whatever12112" asked:
"What is the craziest thing you've heard while eavesdropping?"
To borrow a phrase from my 5-year-old nephew as shouted at the rest of his cousins: "YOU PEOPLE NEED THERAPY!"
Seriously. You do. All of us do. We live in a world with THIS.
We're gonna break this down into two categories - though I'm honestly not sure what to call them. Let's go with Messy and Messier - but this time in a mature audience kind of way.
We'll start with messy.
This Doesn't Bode Well
Giphy"I overheard the photographer for the wedding I was at say 'I took 4 edibles before this and have no idea what I'm doing.' I have no idea how the pics turned out, but there was definitely cause for concern." - Ebony_Aardvark
The Camel Giraffe
"Ok, once in college I heard these morons at the next table:"
"1: I need cigarettes"
"2: what do you smoke?"
"1: I usually smoke Camels"
"2: oh you mean the ones with the giraffe on the box?"
"1: yup!"
"Yes. That was something I heard in undergrad. That was pretty much the whole convo."
"Dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life…." - AelizaW
That's Abuse - Not Romance
No Way What GIF by NBCGiphy"Cute young woman in the bus, a ballet dancer, to her friend:"
" 'Yeah so he got a restraining order against me. So unfair. Yeah I hit him with a bar, but you know, he should have fought back. I wouldn't have minded.' " - LaoBa
"Yeah, there's something wrong with that woman." - Cobrawine66
What Wouldn't Jesus Do?
I Will Survive Jesus GIF by hoppipGiphy"Religious girl threatened to gut a guy because he threw away a bible she put in his backpack to make him 'gayn't'
"For those lucky enough not to know, 'gayn't' means someone who WAS gay who is now NOT gay. The homophobic hellspawn wanted the dude to change his sexual orientation to straight and then threatened to kill him when he threw away a book he never wanted." - Risu-Mies
The Rich Kids
High School Flirt GIF by reactionseditorGiphy"I was in high school and kind of introverted and unpopular, and I pretty much became invisible to people if I sat and quietly read a book."
"So one time this happened while we were all sitting around during PE (I think maybe we were picking our next unit? Something that involved a lot of waiting in the bleachers, anyway.) A group of the school's wealthiest and most popular kids was sitting not far from me and just started telling wild sex and drug stories."
"And I realized that the rich kids weren't actually better behaved than the "burnout" crowd or the "bad" kids that were always in trouble--they just had more money to clean up their mistakes." - greeneyedwench
"HUGE mood. The wild sh*t I heard during senior year statistics..."
"The best one was probably 'No thanks, I quit smoking on Monday. I only do ecstasy now.' "
"Other tidbits from the same girl include, 'You don't know what it's like to get your stomach pumped' and 'I always know when someone is gay, I can smell it on them.' (the last while I sat directly beside her, attracting no notice despite presumably giving off some kind of gay pheromone.)"
"Honorary mention to the two guys who were trying to decide if putting alcohol up your butt made you gay or not, while one casually licked his fingers, dipped them into a baggie of protein powder, and ate it raw." - Briggsnotmyers
These Are The Worst Job Interviews Ever | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Alright, time to get physical. Let's move on to "Messier - but in a mature audience kind of way"
Just ... yeah...
Back In My Day
dj khaled sip GIF by Apple MusicGiphy"I overheard some old guy say 'there was none of this vajayjay eating back in my day.' " - VaginaChina
"And that's why his wife's tennis lessons always seemed to run late..." - Orange_Kid
"DJ Khaled isn't that old." - monettegia
A Kinky Game
phone GIFGiphy"I wasn't purposely eavesdropping. On two occasions, I arrived at work to find intimate conversations between an independent contractor I employed and his wife as voicemail messages on my work phone."
"They were really graphic."
"If there had been only one of these, I might have considered it something akin to a butt dial. But I suspected they were playing some kind of kinky game with me."
"The guy has since died, so I'll never know." - DWright_5
So... now that we're all uncomfortable, let's get out there and have a great day, okay?? lol.
In this case, eavesdropping was funny. But that isn't always so. There are times when we eavesdrop and end up hearing something that makes us want to wash our ears out with Clorox (don't do this, please).
Here are some of those stories. Appropriate_Ad_8637 asked:
What's the most f*cked up thing you've heard eavesdropping?
Eavesdropping at the wrong time can end up changing your entire view of a person. And then it’s all over.
Valid question.
“Ex thought I was sleeping. She went out on the back patio which was under my master bedroom window that was open. I wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but overheard her talking to her friend about how they were both sleeping with an old man for money and pills."
“Were you the old man...?"
The 90's were wack.
music video loop GIFGiphy“Back in the 90's you could pick up cordless phone calls with an ordinary scanner from Radio Shack. That's how I found out the guy living one floor below me was dealing meth.
Also routinely heard peoples' credit card numbers, sex chats, all that stuff. It was crazy.”
Some parents should not be parents.
“From an open window when I was 19, I overheard my Mom telling my Dad she raised a loser. That still hurts years later.”
“My parents openly talked sh*t about me to family members even if I was around my whole life. Then they wonder why I never bring my son to visit for holidays or anything. I never want to see them again.”
Oh, the things you learn about people through eavesdropping.
I don’t even know what to say to this one.
“I was in line behind two older women at a restaurant maybe 5-6 years ago.
One says "hey, did you hear about so-and-sos son?"
The other says "no, what happened?"
She replies "he ran off and joined ISIS"
What was crazy was they seemed so casual about it. Like that wasn't a crazy thing to hear about your friend's son."
Honestly? Iconic.
Oh My God Yes GIF by A Little Late With Lilly SinghGiphy“Was at a bar, went to the bathroom, and passed a woman talking into a pay phone. She said the greatest sentence I have ever heard. This was over two decades ago, and I still remember it, clear as day:
"Yeah, well every d*ck I suck puts your daughter through college."
I have seriously used that as an example of perfect characterization. You learn her whole life's story in one sentence. It's brilliant.”
Yikes!!!
“Yeah, so a friend of mine got his aunt pregnant.
It went like:
Buddy: "Are you sure? I mean, mom is going to be pissed if she finds out. No no no, I'll go with you. For real, we can't see each other again? Wait, no, we can just go away...together, you know. No this it's not wrong. I love you. Please don't."
From what I can surmise is that his aunt was on her way to get an abortion or something and that she's going to leave.”
People Who Made A Lot Of Money From Something Totally Random | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Sounds like a very bad day.
“Years ago I walked by a dude on the street. Visibly frustrated, he was on his phone talking to either his boss, or a friend...who knows.
"...And then it got all caught in the gears, just torn apart, jesus christ blood and guts everywhere! Right in front of the kids! what a bad day to – no, I didn't clean it up! I was late for my dad's funeral!"
I can’t even believe what I’m reading for some of these. Imagine how the people hearing this in real life felt.
I mean, she has a point.
love & hip hop lhhmia GIF by VH1Giphy“I work nights right next to a bar. The conversation that's stuck with me the most was when someone's baby mama found them and started a one-sided shouting match outside the window.
She said something along the lines of, "you've got a million dollars in your bank account and still can't take care of your kids." Saw her running and screaming at him as he got in his car and drove off.”
Well, that’s one way to do it.
“Overheard a doctor I worked for tell a patient to get a pack of Camels and chain smoke the entire thing. He was a pulmonologist (lung doctor) so I had to ask.
The patient he was talking to had a cough for six months, no treatment was helping. She called the next day, said she coughed up a giant ball of phlegm after all that smoking and her cough was gone. Serial chest X-rays showed no active disease. The doctor said he learned this "treatment method" in Canada back in the 60's.”
Poor guy.
Beck Bennett Drinking GIF by Saturday Night LiveGiphy“At a bar a few years ago outside on the covered patio with all the other smokers. One of those places that pumps the music on the patio so loud you can hardly speak to the person next to you. A couple on the other side of the patio were yelling to each other really animated, probably because they couldn't hear anything. When suddenly the beat drops and she yells at the top of her lungs "I just don't love you anymore" and the entire crowd turns to look at them shook.
I seen that poor guy the rest of the night sitting at that table in the corner where he got dumped and everyone heard.”
Rude.
“So I had to rent a car the other month. Went to return it but they were closed on the weekends and no drop box or anything
So I call and explain that I could have returned the car sat morning and saved myself 100 bucks but them being closed stopped that.
The receptionist gets the manager and she okays the refund, great says goodbye and attempts to hang up the phone. But didn't.
She then starts talking to the receptionist about how she didn't want to refund me but didn't want to deal with the situation as I was probably an a**hole who would escalate it up the chain and complain to corporate and she didn't want the negativity.”
Should’ve listened.
“My uncle talking about burning down our family cabin and stabbing his wife…I told my parents and they thought it was just the words of a senile old man. He did in fact burn down the cabin, and he tried to kill his wife. He was at least unsuccessful at murder but he's now locked up somewhere. My family didn't tell anyone that it was him that burned it down so they could get the insurance, as he also owned part of the property.”
Doesn’t work like that.
meditation aura GIF by NETFLIXGiphy“Two 20 something guys in a Dollar Tree were talking about a mutual friend and the one of them was saying how the guy said, "You can think yourself well from any illness, it's all in your head. You don't need medications." (Paraphrasing a bit but yeah, it really was a "think yourself healthy, don't use medications or see doctors" conversation.) I couldn't help muttering "What an idiot" as I walked past because, well, the dude's an idiot. They must've heard me because the second dude started praising their mutual friend as a genius. I just laughed.
Yeah, really try to think yourself well from cancer instead of doing chemo, boys, see how well that works out for you.”
Awkward….
“I wasn't really eavesdropping as it was a loud conversation in an employee break room that I just wasn't apart of. Some elderly coworkers of mine were talking about ringtones and one said something along the lines of, "I don't really use a ringtone; I just keep my phone on vibrate. That way it feels nice if I'm sitting on it."
Maybe this should be a lesson to all of us- to mind our own d*mn business. Because we really don’t need to overhear our roommates conversation about what her date smelled like (Mountain Dew and cigarettes). True story.
Also, watch what you say in public. You never know what’ll end up on Reddit.