Top Stories

People Break Down The Worst Thing That's Ever Happened To Them At Work

People Break Down The Worst Thing That's Ever Happened To Them At Work
Image by Borko Manigoda from Pixabay

The daily grind in the workplace can be mind-numbingly tedious, but at least there's a sense of familiarity that can be comforting.

But inevitably, there are many factors at work that can contribute to a train wreck.


We all welcome distractions to a certain degree, but there are some dramas better left elsewhere.

Curious to hear from workers who witnessed things heading south in the workplace, Redditor zana-666 asked:

"People of Reddit what's the worst thing that's happened on your job? (serious)"

Warning: some of the comments involve deaths and the descriptions are not for the faint of heart.


People who work in healthcare have witnessed alarming situations like an episode from Grey's Anatomy.

Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands

"I worked at a nursing home years ago and we had a patient with dementia who was ALOT of work - constantly trying to get up, screaming, throwing things, spitting, hitting. We'd rotate staff as a 'one to one' to keep him safe. Well, one shift his sitter got tired of the constant yelling and moving and medicated him from her own stash. Gave him her personal supply of Ativan and Oxycodone to knock him out. It did work (!!) but she was immediately escorted out of the building and lost her CNA license."

Itsjustmeagainmom

Nurse Rage

"Work as a nurse in an ICU. Two of my coworkers found out while on shift that they were 'with' the same guy. Proceeded to physically fight each other in the hallway. Meanwhile there is a patient coding (in cardiac arrest) down the hallway; annnnd I'm not embellishing another patients family set the trashcan on fire in their room during the code. It was a wild wild night shift."

bricktricks

Pervy things went down while these people were on shifts.

Unprompted Art Installation

"I worked at a Barnes & Noble in Florida and some dude came in with a bunch of Polaroids of his junk and hid them in books in the kids area. A kid found one and showed his mom. We had to close down for the rest of the day and leaf through/shake out all the books in the store to find the rest of them."

m011yRadar

Your Underwear Or Your Life

"I work at a high school and a student pulled a gun on one of the teachers in the parking lot after school and made her give him the underwear she had on. He was caught later that day and said he did that because she is hot and wanted to use them later"

mbogan67

Tight spaces are not ideal work environments, but someone has to work in them.

Confined Spaces

"There's sooo many rules about confined spaces where I work. It always seems so harmless but it's very dangerous if you think about it."

"Whether it's an inspection or something that needs fixing in a confined space we need entry permits, oxygen monitors, continues forced air circulation, 1-2 people as intervention if anything goes wrong, safety harness and ropes to pull someone out if anything does go wrong,... All for a seemingly 'harmless' space."

Haimonek

Arachnid Attack

"I used to work in low volt integration, wiring smart homes. Being the lead pre-wire technician, I was in-charge of all pre-wire installations unless a more experienced tech was on scene. Being just 23-24 at the time of employment, I was the one to usually go into crawlspaces and attics since most of the older guys didn't want to do it."

"Over a year and a half working there, I've been bitten by two brown recluse spiders and one black widow spider. I still have a scar of one of the brown recluse spiders who bit me on my side, luckily it was just my side that got bit and I am a healthy young adult, otherwise I could've lost something. The brown recluse has NO antivenom in the entire United States."

ImJustHereForCorn

Bad things may happen at work, but witnessing tragedy will put things into perspective.

The Absent Candidate

"It's not as dramatic, but we were interviewing for a position once and the candidate's husband called to say she'd been killed in an accident on her way to the interview. He actually apologised. It was awful."

MonkeyHamlet

Sad Intuition

"Colleague was absent from work for a couple days and wasn't answering their phone so manager and I went to their home. The building manager gave us a key to their apartment (totally illegal of them, I know), and we opened it to find the colleague dead. Already at the door, I could smell something sickly sweet and I knew in my heart they were dead. We had to wait for the ambulance service to come declare them dead… turns out they were sick for days and didn't contact a doctor or anyone else. Just slowly wasted away at home. I will never forget that first look into the apartment."

Munchkin_Valkyrie

One Incident Too Many

"Had a guy have a massive heart attack between 2 furnaces in remelt department. It cooked him. His skin split like a hotdog on the grill. It was terrible. Also had a guy that had a air pocket in a molten pot. When the air pocket reached the surface it blew out and rained molten metal him. We had to chase him down to get him in the safety shower. Same place had a guy commit suicide in the parking lot because his wife was cheating with someone on her shift."

New2thiskindastuff

Gruesome Accident

"Worked in a steel mill many years ago."

"One day a guy was doing something they've been doing for many years, and the molten steel came into contact with water from improperly dried refractory stones."

"Instant metal explosion that rained down a sh*tload of molten metal on him, he died in less than a day. Skin melting off his body and all the gory details."

"Luckily for me, it was my day off, else I would have been a first responder."

koos_die_doos

A Horrific Frequency

"Air Traffic Control. Didn't happen to me, but I was working that day and heard the replay. Couple takes off in bad weather and get more ice on their wings than they can handle. They dropped like a rock and screamed on frequency the whole way down. The worst part is the other planes may or may not have heard it and you have to keep talking to other planes like nothing happened until someone relieves you."

megaPOG

Depending on the job, the everyday mundanity of work can take a toll on your psyche.

But based on the examples mentioned above, some of the best work days are the ones that end with no incident.

When I used to work at a certain amusement park, my coworkers and I heard security personnel talking through their portable radio devices about park guests who were bludgeoned to death by a terrible accident caused by one of the park's attractions.

A miscalculation while docking a large watercraft moored too soon to the dock caused a cleat from the ship's hull to dislodge and fly into the faces of a couple who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Both victims – who were alleged to be on their honeymoon at the time – died instantly from the impact.

My colleagues and I were dancers in between our performances at the theater inside the park. When we heard what happened in our vicinity, we were sick to our stomachs. But the show eventually had to go on.

Women Explain Which Mistakes Dads Make Raising Daughters

Reddit user Bluemonday82 asked: 'Daughters of reddit: what's the biggest mistake dads make with their daughters?'

man with girl on his shoulders

Brittani Burns on Unsplash

"Daddy's Girl, Daddy's Girl, I'm the center of Daddy's world..." ~ "Daddy's Girl" by Red Sovine

A lot has been written about the bond between fathers and daughters.

But there's always room for improvement, right?

And who better to offer constructive criticism than daughters?

Keep reading...Show less
woman making the shushing gesture

Bjorn Pierre on Unsplash

Full disclosure at all times with your significant other, right?

Yeah, good luck with that.

Let's get real—there are things we don't tell our partners for a lot of reasons.

Sometimes you just don't feel like having to explain something that doesn't really affect them.

Sometimes you're protecting them from something that will have a devastating effect on them.

These are probably going to be more that second one...

Keep reading...Show less

We all have that moment where someone we know says something so completely absurd, the only response we think of is 'WTF is wrong with you?'

Sometimes, it's something woefully inaccurate that you can't wrap your head around the fact that someone believes that.

Othertimes, it's something completely offensive and you regret your association with that person.

My college roommate was a girl I knew from my high school. I didn't know her too well, but we had some big things in common, so I figured it'd be fun to live with her.

This girl was half-Korean and talked a lot about racist people. At first, I let her rant, figuring maybe she or someone in her family faced some racism. I faced some myself, and I agreed with most of the things she said about racists. Eventually, however, I realized she was equating the word 'racist' with the word 'white.'

I spoke to her once, telling her she can't use 'racist' and 'white' interchangeably. She agreed to stop doing that, but within a few days, she started doing it again. She was a very bright girl, so I was a little concerned about this, especially since her own dad was white and was possibly the nicest man in the world. Not to mention, this made her and her siblings half-white too. Did that mean they were all half-racist?

I stuck by her for a while, but when she started saying things about what she wanted to do to racist people (once again using the word 'white' instead of 'racist'), I realized I couldn't be around her anymore. She couldn't talk about anything else after a while, and every time she spoke, I wanted to say, 'WTF is wrong with you?'

We did not room together the next year.

Redditors have stories similar to mine (and some even crazier), and they are eager to share.

It all started when a Redditorasked:

"What did the person do/say that made you go "what the f**k is wrong with you?"

How To End A Friendship

"In college I used to kill time between classes hanging out with a guy who was from the same redneck county as myself. We didn’t really have much else in common, but he was nice enough and seemed eager to socialize so I figured why not. I wasn’t overly social myself and didn’t know a whole lot of people."

"One day we decided to go somewhere off-campus, and he drove us. While driving, on an interstate mind you, he proceeds to show me his handgun that he kept in his truck - not in a menacing way, but in a “Ain’t that cool?” way."

"I was not immediately frightened, but I respect firearms enough to recognize we are going like 60-70mph on an interstate in daylight, and nothing good can happen in this scenario. I calmly asked him to put it away because I was not comfortable in this situation at all. He then tells me “Oh it’s not loaded” and presses the gun to his head before pulling the trigger."

"Thank f**k he was right, but still it was a wild and frightening display of reckless disregard for his own life and mine for that matter in the event that he’d accidentally killed himself while driving us. I didn’t hang out with him much after that, certainly didn’t get in a car with him."

– omjf23

"“It’s not loaded” famous last words of many an idiot."

– GloInTheDarkUnicorn

The Worst Kind Of People

"When my dad was in the nursing home, they weren't running certain expenses, like ambulance rides, through his insurance. When I took over his financials, he was tens of thousands in medical debt that shouldn't have ever been charged to him in the first place. He was in numerous collections, and his credit score was tanked."

"When I complained to the nursing home director, he said, "Well, it's not like he's going to be buying a house or a car!" Then he laughed."

"My dad was paralyzed from the waist down and needed lifelong care, so he was never going to leave the nursing home. Even though he was technically correct, I gave him the "WTF is wrong with you look." Then I complained to HIS boss and he got canned a couple a weeks later. My dad's insurance was fixed pretty quick, too."

– MNWNM

"“Sorry, what was funny about that? Could you please explain.”"

– v3n0mat3

...Seriously?

"MIL told my wife she should divorce me bc I googled whether a lasagna should be covered with foil while cooking."

– Struggle-Silent

"This is my first laugh of the thread lmao wtf."

– koreantrvp

"It actually ruined this entire trip. It was at my BIL’s wedding, which was only close family (siblings + parents) and they had the caterer make a lasagna for an evening dinner."

"Father of the bride was gonna pop it in the oven and asked if it should be covered. I googled lasagna cooking instructions and said yes it should be covered and cooked at this temp. MIL said absolutely not!"

"Me and the father of the bride kinda gave each other a look and he covered it. MIL was furious and texted my wife that I was an a hole and she should divorce me before we had kids."

– Struggle-Silent

Hostile Work Environment

"Boss at old job told the team we needed to ‘get used to a healthy level of conflict, fear and anxiety in the workplace.’ I dipped so fast after that."

– Prestigious-Energy69

"Similarly, a boss told me that I owed him my loyalty because he was paying me."

– Kylearean

How To End A Relationship

"A girl I was with while we were still together just looked at me while I was driving to her house and said.” You know I would get over you faster than you’d get over me” I was like …… Tf did you just say?"

– omega91301

"Huh. And just like that I'm over you."

– Pineapple_Spenstar

"Honestly, that would absolutely do it for me. When I was younger, I would be stupid and hurt and argue. I'm past 50 and I got no time for that nonsense."

– Terpsichorean_Wombat

There Are Other Ways To Stave Off Boredom

"I was DD for some buddies who wanted to go to a particular dance club in Baltimore. They're all hammered, it's too loud and we've been there for several hours. Casually an older woman next to me chats me up and notices my eyes are nearly crossing from boredom. I explained what I was doing there and casually (stupidly) mentioned I'm a bit bored. This psycho BITES ME on the chest! Afterward says "Well ya ain't bored now, are ya??""

– Mike7676

"Well, were you bored after that?"

– DontWannaSayMyName

"I must say, I was not!"

– Mike7676

That Goes Both Ways!

"I'm a man who works with kids, and when I started this job, I was talking to one of my old coworkers about how every once in a while I'll get weird looks for being a man working with kids and my coworker said I deserved it because some men can't be trusted with kids. I was shocked and she went on to say that I did it to myself and deserve to be questioned about it. I immediately stopped talking to her."

– Dolhedew

"What? What in the actual f**k? Doesn’t she know there are women who can’t be trusted with kids?"

– Anonymoosehead123

That Escalated Quickly

"The lady that accused my kids of cutting the line. (They hadn't, I was watching). When I went to ask her what was wrong, she told me to go back to my own country with that sh*t. (I was born in Massachusetts.)"

"The line was to pet dogs at a Renaissance Fair."

– pasafa

Everything All At Once

"While alone with a coworker, he told me that "women in the work place will lead to the decay of the fabric of society" to me. A woman. He also asked me out, got an attitude when I didn't say yes and continues to walk around with huge incel energy. He always complains that he has no one to go home to yet refuses to look at himself as a possible reason."

– Nopeferatu31

"Sounds like they should learn something from the phrase, "if you meet one a**hole, they're the a**hole. If everyone you meet is an a**hole, you're the a**hole.""

– tmpope123

Ouch!

"I told a coworker my wife had died."

"Her response: "You're one of those bald middle aged guys with a dead wife.""

"Me: "Yeah.""

– WalrusCello

"I want to think this was a wholesome thought that came out wrong. An awkward attempt at dark humor."

– ThisUsernameIsTook

*Cringing*

"Had an otherwise normal co-worker who was completely convinced windmills will cause the earth to stop spinning."

– Shadowmant

"WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! GOOD NIGHT!"

– Torvaun

These are all crazy 'WTF is wrong with you' stories, but that last one blew my mind in 'how is it possible people think that could be true' sort of way!

black and red tool box

Tekton on Unsplash

One of the possible wonders of adulthood is home ownership. But homes come with so many things that can break.

And the last thing you want is a nonfunctioning furnace when temperatures dip below zero or no water when you're covered in dirt and grime.

That's what routine maintenance is for—to make sure things work when you need them.

Keep reading...Show less