Young Professionals Share The Craziest Things Their Coworkers Have Done Without Getting Fired

"How were you not fired for that?!" we often want to know. People do things you'd think would jeopardize their jobs but then end up just being a passing misstep. The things people get away with at work, I swear...

thatonegirl127 asked, What's the craziest thing you've ever seen someone do and NOT get fired?

Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.

Sounds like she needs a raise.

A girl at the place I used to work at sold weed on the property and got caught, only suspended one day.

Everyone is entitled to one on-the-clock meltdown, right?

A co-worker asked to leave early, was told it was busy and she was needed. Proceeded to cuss out the supervisor and stormed out. Supervisor calls her back a few minutes later to write her up for her little meltdown, the co-worker has a bigger screaming meltdown, is threatening supervisor, security has to come and escort her from the building. She walks back in an hour later swearing at everyone, security quickly escorts her out again.

She was back the next day like nothing ever happened, she still works there. She's usually a sweet lady too.

Are you serious? Right in my stairwell?

2 sales reps were caught red-handed having sex, I don't think they even got in trouble. If anything, there were a few jokes about "why would you go in the sex stairwell if you didn't want to see people having sex?" It was a high-stress sales job, a lot of people, myself included, found ways to blow off steam.

Something tells me there's more to this story...

Kid came in an hour late, still drunk from the party he'd attended the previous night. He fell asleep on the floor in the middle of the office. He was sent home to sleep it off.

I was fired two weeks later for washing my uniform wrong. Government work, everybody! Never again.

'It wasn't me' seems to go a long way at this company

Worked shortly at a place that packed wood shavings and there was a guy there that had no sense of safety. Repeatedly drove around the lot at full speed in the tractor hitting vehicles multiple times. Left the handbrake off a truck and it went through a shed, ripped off both doors and launched off a loading ramp. Rolled a semi-trailer because he fell asleep at the wheel. Smashed support struts of a customer's trailer and laughed in their face about it. The worst one was when he backed out of a shed with the bucket of the tractor up and ripped out the central support beam and proceeded to pile up wood shavings all the way to the roof so no one would see the damage then went home for the weekend. When confronted he denied it, myself and everyone else were blamed but we could prove it wasn't us. The shed alone cost $20,000 to repair and as far as I know, he still works there.

Points for creativity, I suppose?

My roommate had a girl call in dead to work. She was too hungover so got her roommate to call her boss and say she died in a car accident. Everyone in her team thought she was dead for 4 days until she turned up the following Monday as if nothing happened. She didn't get fired and works in HR ffs.

After ten years at the same job, I'd check out too.

She did nothing---NOTHING---for six months. Boss noticed and just gave her a brief talk that was basically "Uh, you've been here ten years, you know that's unacceptable."

Welcome to tending bar.

Me actually.

Second day of bartending training the bartender had a family emergency. Manager told me to make the drinks and learn the system fast. I messed up many drinks that day and rung everything up as $3 happy hour special as I did not know the drink system... it was taking me minutes to find one drink with so many people waiting. Owner said he lost so much money but understood The situation. Let me keep the job and didn't ask for any $ back.

Well this is really unfortunate.

Drop an entire pallet of mail into the ocean from a helicopter.

Good job navy helo pilot.

Sorry about that last one. Anyway, being drunk on a ladder is no big deal, right?

Worked in an Amazon-style dispatch warehouse. Guy came into work stinking of booze, got a big stepladder and climbed up it, wobbling. Started calling people out for a ladder match (WWE style). The manager walked in, saw him, rolled her eyes and walked back out.

Everybody gets one almost-negligent death.

Working doing some tree removal. Partner and I have gotten the tree down and segmented, now we're loading it up into the scoop of a front-end loader. We hear him pulling in behind us, guide him in, and when he gets within three feet of us he slams the bucket down on the sidewalk to 'see if it would scare us'. Hearing a deafening sound from point blank and feeling the Earth shake beneath your feet is terrifying. The bucket is well over 6 feet tall across the mouth, his little prank could have killed us if he misjudged the distance.

Hopefully this person got the help they needed.

Dude overdosed on heroin in the meat locker. I got written up the same week for being 10 minutes late when I had an emergency and had to let off-hours maintenance into my apartment.

SHOCKED, I tell you, SHOCKED.

A man brought a male prostitute to the basement office and was caught in the act by a security guard. He was only verbally reprimanded and asked to turn in his key to the basement.

Welcome to Los Angeles County government.

Sounds pretty personal, you mad?

This one kid at my work signed off for 11- 13 hours every shift (we only ever work 8 hour maximum shifts), showed up late every day by at least an hour (he lives a 5 minute walk away from the job site), stole other peoples lunches, and tried to physically fight his supervisor.

Hey boss, I'ma let you finish your tour but...

Guy interrupts my tour to a group of investors and board members to ask me (over the microphone) how often I accidentally swallow flies.

Probably not worth firing someone over but pretty f_cking stupid.

There's a whole lot of blame to pass around for this one.

One of my co-workers who passed 9 pm meds until I was certified to do so, didn't notice that one of our guys had a prescription for 300mg of an antipsychotic medication and that we only had the 100mg pill packet. He was missing 200mg of his dose every single night for a month until I was certified and noticed on my first pass. Her excuse was that she "didn't actually read the med book", she just passed the pills in the box.

A corporate cover-up? Well I never.

Employee at Barnes & Noble stole an excess of 15k embezzling and corporate swept it under the rug and let him quit because customer credit cards were involved. He was allowed to just walk.

Here's how the government can ruin Christmas and get away with it.

My FIL is a postal carrier. He told me a story recently that during the Christmas season, one of his coworkers did a night run and set all the packages in front of the garage of the house he was delivering. Next morning, the person ran over all their packages leaving for work because he didn't see them. I think the damage was over $2000. Dude still works there.

Maybe she's cooking the books and the boss likes having her around.

Stealing money and not actually taking inventory, but writing down some random numbers that don't even align with what has been made for the day. We (other people in management) have written and photographic evidence and the computer system's records for when our boss finally listens or realizes that the record-breaking missing items are the result of her. I don't know how she gets away with it. That'd be my job.