We've all known that one coworker who tried to show up as late as possible to work, or who looked for ways to take longer lunches or breaks.
Fortunately, most of us weren't in situations where a coworker was actively breaking the law.
Ready to stir up some drama, Redditor Autistic_chickpea asked:
"Redditors of HR: What are the biggest office scandals or dramas you’ve experienced?"
The Origin of the Stereotype
"Normal scandal. The owner left his wife for his secretary. BUT the wife owned 50% of the company and she made him pay through the nose for it."
"He was a total stereotype! The company had become really prosperous, he started working out, and got a really expensive sports car (Lamborghini, I think). Then he dumped his wife, was publicly involved with the secretary, left his company to be run by other people, and ran off to California, married, and had kids."
"He was kind of a s**thead before that anyway."
- LimeSkye
Report It to Someone Else
"The second or third Human Resources lady got drunk at the holiday party and groped a bunch of people, stuck her tongue in someone’s ear, and fondled a guy’s wife."
"The head of HR swept it all under the rug and told all the witnesses and people she grabbed to 'manage it properly.'"
"I quit pretty soon after that. F**k that place."
- SemiAutomnemonicIful
Quite the Miracle
"The receptionist and the land administrator had an affair and she got pregnant. Her husband had had a vasectomy years earlier. The office affair ended, and the receptionist and her husband maintained that it was a miracle from God."
"It’s a small town and everyone knew about the affair. It was a big scandal. The receptionist and the land administrator were both kicked out of the church they belonged to."
"Publicly, the receptionist and her husband pretended nothing had happened and that this was a wonderful surprise. But everyone knew it was not likely to be the husband’s child."
- Binky103
The Story Doesn't Add Up
"I worked in HR for a small fast food franchise. It somehow managed to be wild all the time but the most drawn out was one of the store managers called out of work because she had carbon monoxide poisoning and was in the hospital."
"Of course, we wished her well and that was that for a while."
"Then she disappeared for a few days. She showed back up and said she was having some personal issues. Yadda yadda. Fine."
"Well, then she called and said she had gotten arrested because she was giving someone a ride and they had gotten pulled over and found meth on the other person. Hm."
"We just had a sneaking suspicion so we googled this woman. And she had been arrested multiple times for drug-related charges, including the time that she had just disappeared. Apparently, they were transporting a f**kton of meth to sell when they got busted the last time."
"Oh yeah, and the time she got carbon monoxide? It was because she was cooking meth."
- PrairieBunny91
It's My Job
"I wasn’t in HR, but I was in management, and you would be surprised at how many people actually think this way. These are the type of people who tend to think they’re setting boundaries with their workplace, which would be a good thing, if that’s what they were doing, but they think this extends to what their boss can do."
"You can’t tell me I’m fired."
"You can’t tell me I need to come in on time."
"You can’t tell me what my schedule is."
"You can’t write me up. The only reason you’re writing me up is because someone ratted me out."
"You can’t tell me what to do, I’m an adult."
"That may sound ridiculous but people really do think like this. They actually think they run the show."
"And this is why you should be wary of workplace advice, too. You have some good advice about how to maintain healthy boundaries at work, but if you’re seeing sh*t like, 'Never work for a company that has a disciplinary policy, you’re a girl boss, not a child, YOU’RE in charge not them,' then you should probably ignore that advice."
- Zestfullyclean87
Just Won't Quit
"Oh dear Lord, I am friends with an HR attorney for a large agency. So so many stories but possibly my favorite is one where they walked in and fired one woman for dereliction of duty soon as she showed up for her shift. Like she was horrible at her job and barely performed, she was probational and it was clearly not working out."
"She and her boss left for lunch and when they return, they discover the employee was back on campus and working as if nothing happened. Even greeted them at the gates."
"They were shocked and asked why she was there when she’s been terminated."
"The employee answered, 'I’m working. You can’t just fire me. This is my job,' and proceeds to turn around, ignore them, and keep working."
"They again repeated she’d been terminated and she needed to go."
"She said, 'I reject that. I don’t accept your termination.'"
"She literally had to almost be dragged out. It was quite entertaining."
- Similar_Candidate789
Collection of Affairs
"Two concurrent office dramas that resulted in a mass firing."
"First, my boss (Male, late-thirties), an ex-middle school teacher, hired and then knocked up an 18-year-old he used to teach. This is after he showed up to work a month before with a black eye, a gift from the baby daddy of the other teenage employee he was sleeping with. He was fired, divorced, and estranged from his own teenage children."
"Meanwhile, his office enemy, another department director, was fired for paying her own employee to be her child surrogate."
- Diabolicaldessert
Waste Management
"Not Human Resources but recruiter here. Found out a potential candidate was fired from his previous job because he threw his boss into a dumpster. The dude was 6'5, so yes, he picked his boss up over his head and threw him into the dumpster. Had to admit I'm envious."
- Chewie8291
Pick a Terrible Option
"We had a team building day and the CEO made it so his team won. The three married people (not to each other) had sex in the hot tub."
"There was also the VP that was having an affair with his secretary so he beat and stabbed his wife to death and threw the evidence in the company trash."
"Or you could go with the guy that was trying to bankrupt a division of the company so his equity company could buy it. When caught he threatened to kill everyone."
- diegojones4
An Expensive Relationship
"Not HR myself but at the organizations I have been with, HR itself has always been the dumpster fire drama group."
"Here is my best one."
"This was 2016. I am a Quality Manager and was hired by a little capital equity group to go in and try to help out struggling businesses that they buy. Great job."
"I'm working with a pump company, a big manufacturing group that makes pumps for city water suppliers, chlorine mixers, big machines to add chemicals and filter sewer lines, public pools... big stuff."
"On paper, the company should have been profitable, but they were losing crazy amounts of money. Sales were strong, and margins were high, but they couldn't make ends meet."
"We go in and start digging. We uncovered a LOT of s**t, borderline fraud, and just incompetence."
"One thing we found was the HR Manager and the Engineering Manager were going to trade shows, conferences, and trainings together every three weeks or so. We thought it was weird to take an HR lady to a trade show or a conference on pump design."
"We did some digging and found expense reports and airline receipts that didn't match up and hotels near conferences that were canceled or didn't exist. Basically, they were taking romantic getaways to have an affair and writing up close to $175k on company expense reports by claiming bogus business trips."
"Things like a romantic week in Maui, a 4-day weekend at the Waldorf-Astoria in NYC, Skiing in Vermont, Cancun, so many trips to Miami we couldn't even keep them straight, Cottage in Park City, Utah, a dude ranch in New Mexico... it was insane. All with fake conferences nearby or conferences that they paid for but never even showed up and signed in."
"And this is the messed up part. As soon as it all came out, HR fired the engineering manager and was like, 'Oh yeah, that was all his idea,' and then kept the HR Manager on for another year or so."
"And this lady is now an HR Director for a major aerospace manufacturing company!" - Angelfire150
Can't Pick Just One
"My mother was in HR for about 35 years. She has some wild ones, including:"
"The guy who didn’t turn up to work for 2 or 3 days, when it was finally flagged for HR they went over to his house, convinced a family member to unlock it for them (a spare key), and found him face down on the floor of his bedroom having had a stroke (the dude survived)."
"Or the air-con engineer who got blown up while doing some work. His workmate was on the roof and put the wrong rod in the wrong hole, causing an explosion. Fortunately, an employee found him while he was literally on fire in the corridor and dragged him to some showers, saving his life."
"The creep who set up spycams in the women’s locker room, caught him because he was on his own video placing the camera in its hiding spot after they found the cameras, and footage was reviewed."
"There are so, so many more stories."
- Hughesybooze
Caught in the Act
"Security footage showed my manager rummaging through a computer he had no reason to be on. IT checked out the computer, and they found he deleted some security footage... so they recovered it."
"He was fired for having sex with one of the employees at work. She was fired, too."
- Nemo68v2
Consequences
"Guy didn’t come to work because his wife was chasing him with a knife and got arrested."
"She was chasing him with a knife because she found out the early morning of work was meeting up with another married coworker and banging in a relaxation room at work."
"It ended with two divorces, a fine, unemployment, and a new lock on the relaxation room that you had to ask HR for the key to use."
"She also ran over his work laptop and phone with the car after he refused to give her the password to check for more deets about the affair. Those couldn’t be repaired. The MacBook had tire tracks and was bent like a banana."
- GlamourousPickle
History Repeating Itself
"Not HR, tech/software company were tipped off by their bank and discovered a financial analyst was embezzling funds (progressively more monthly for 2 years totaling $500k) he was fired and sued. As part of the settlement the company got his fancy BMW, condo, and his girlfriend’s engagement ring."
"Within about three months, he landed a top government job, having lied in his cover letter and interview, claiming he still worked for the software company. His girlfriend posed as a reference via telephone."
"He got promptly fired and charged. He was sentenced to one year in prison and three years probation."
"In the time between being fired by the government and sentencing, he had landed another corporate job (who were aware of both criminal incidents)!"
- McStau
To say that people working in higher-up positions have seen some things would be an understatement.
But even still, the things people try to get away with while on the clock is startling.
People Describe The Craziest Workplace Scandals They've Ever Witnessed
Oh Gurl.... Really?
Every time I start a new job I make a solemn pact with myself that I will not get mixed up in an unnecessary drama. I will promise to avoid all scandals. And I refuse to bear witness to or participate in any and all salacious nonsenses. Cut to me and two to three weeks later... the main character or important supporting player in a storyline too hot even for Melrose Place.
Redditor u/lanyeweisst wanted people to dish on some salacious nonsenses they came across by asking....What's your workplace scandal?
"I need an Amen."
I've seen it all... thieveing, lying, fornicating in every possible corner of space. And sometimes I was all of the above. I'm just an expert at not getting caught. For some reason though, so many other people feel the need to include me in the drama as a confidant or a witness. "I need an Amen." Many of the people here know of which I speak.
Call HR
Walking past my colleagues door, middle of the afternoon and looked in his office door window.
Saw him absolutely shagging with an intern. At the same time another colleague also stopped, saw the same thing. He called our boss, who came and a small group watched them have to leave the office and go down to HR.
"Warpath"
A divorced couple worked at my company in separate departments. The ex-husband went to the ex-wife's house to pick up their kids one night and got into an argument with the ex-wife's boyfriend, who was a cop. The cop shot him. The ex-husband died. The ex-wife was not exactly contrite about it.
For weeks or even months after that, the ex-husband's coworkers were on a warpath against the ex-wife and her supportive coworkers. This is in HQ for a big company and there were regular outbursts if those people saw each other in the lobby, elevators, cafeteria, etc. It was wild.
"That" Room
I used to work for a large insurance company in Colorado Springs, CO - When I worked there they had nap rooms which were used for other nefarious means. My favorite workplace scandal is when one coworker stopped cheating on his wife with another coworker because he found a new workplace hookup. Work hookup #1 anonymously called the man's wife to rat him out AND security to bust in on him and his new hookup.
Jabs
Years ago I worked at a company that hired a sales guy who was pretty hard-working and definitely put out a, 'I am trying to come back from a dark time in my life' kind of vibe. We all really liked him as a first impression, but we didn't get a chance to know him very well. One day he went out to his car at lunch, drank himself to a point of insensibility, then came back into the office like nothing was wrong. When his boss called him on it, he took a swing at him and missed by a mile, spinning himself around and almost falling over.
He was immediately fired —I don't even think there was paperwork involved. He was only a few weeks into the job— and escorted out of the building. By unspoken rule, no one talked about the incident. Enough time has passed now, I don't even remember the guy's name or really any more about it than I've said.
"Bad Combos"
Now why is it people feel the need to get X-Rated at the office. There seems to be an over abundance of that. That's the usual scandals though, isn't it? Sex and money. That combination will often lead you down the wrong path. Of course just when you think you've heard it all...
The Pooper
A lady pooped in the men's urinal and tried to frame a guy who turned down her advances at the Christmas party.
She informed a manager that she saw the guy go in to the bathroom around the time the poop was laid. However CCTV showed otherwise. She wasn't fired or faced any serious repercussions.
Bonnie & Clyde
From my first workplace as a college intern: The Director of Engineering was working on a special project and required the PM's admin to assist, every day in his office from noon to 1pm. One Thursday they forgot to close the door completely and as it turned out their special project was shagging each other stupid. They were sent home and told not to come back until the following Monday, by which time management would know how to address the incident.
Monday rolls around and they don't show up. After calling both of their spouses, it turns out that each came home Thursday, made up an excuse to their families, packed a bag and left. Within a few weeks it turns out that their special project also included embezzling $870,000 in company funds and absconding to the Caribbean.
Staffing Concerns
When I was in high school, I got a job in a local chain drug store. After I was there about a month, I showed up for work and was greeted by corporate security. Apparently, the entire management staff, as well as the bulk of the store's employees, were fired and arrested as part of a mass theft ring. Apparently they were issuing fake merchandise refunds to their credit cards, as well as voiding cash transactions and pocketing the cash.
They managed to re-staff the store temporarily with employees from other locations, but I went from being the new kid to the senior associate pretty quickly lol. I ended up being there for 4-5 years, and it was great because most of the new part time employees were kids my age. We had a lot of fun.
Tragedy...
A few years back I was working for a national non-profit, one of the ones that's trying to cure a disease.
We all got called into a mandatory meeting first thing one morning, and that meant folks calling in from all over the country, probably 2,000 of us total. We were told that our CEO's wife had been murdered and set on fire. It was tragic.
Couple hours later, they called a second meeting to tell us it was one of our coworkers that did it. That was a mind screw of a meeting.
Turns out the dude was stealing from the charity in a big way, got caught, and the CEO gave him a chance to turn himself in. Instead, he drove to the CEO's house, killed his wife, set her on fire and sped away, crashing into a tree and killing himself.
It was never quite the same at work, CEO left and never set foot in the office or his house again.
A Royal Schemer
Woman in the finance department fell for a Nigerian prince scheme disguised as our CEO and corporate lawyers. Transferred 2 million Euros to the scammers. Police found nothing. Holding that has the most shares of our company was not amused and almost sacked our CEO who is a great guy in general. Investments in new tech was denied and everyone lost their bonus for that year.
Responsible person for the transfer was not fired but lost procurement responsibility. Many in our company said that she was into the scheme.
And these are the Days of Our Lives...
I used to work at a place where two employees who were both married had an affair then divorced their spouses and married each other. Two years later the guy has an affair with a client then he divorces and marries client. Everyone is somehow shocked.
Of course thanks to Covid work scandals seem down a bit. A ZOOM scandal just doesn't seem as appetizing. Heaven knows the amount of homebound craziness we'll all have to share about in 2022! Should be interesting.
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