The computer that controlled all the doors refused to open any of them, including the door to the room in which it was physically located.
It wasn’t quite HAL 9000 because doors could still be opened from the inside, but control over the computer was regained only with the help of a locksmith.
A company I worked for announced that it had come to management attention that staff were socialising in the office, and that wasn’t allowed. To prevent it the doors would be locked until ten minutes before our official start time in the morning. I showed up at 7:30 the next morning for my shift and the whole team were milling around the front door because they couldn’t get in. Seems like they never delegated a manager to open up for us.
The policy was never rescinded, but they never tried enforcing it again either.
Facebook, 2021?
That was the day the locksmith changed his job title to physical penetration tester.
Boss was arrested for ordering expensive toner cartridges for “store use” and reselling them. He had racked up around 80k and a felony charge.
Also, the absolute horrors that occurred in another job’s bathroom were biblical.
Christ.
You reminded me that I had to waste like an entire hour of my day a couple of weeks ago convincing my boss that yes, we absolutely can eBay off the four or five unopened toner cartridges we have lying around here for a printer we no longer have. It’s fine. Just let them go. We can use the money for some other operational expense. “But already paid for them and that means we’ll take a loss on them.”
Sure, genius. Versus what, exactly? Leaving them mouldering on the supply room shelf until the day the sun burns out? An 80% return is better than 0% return.
I was working part time as a software developer while a grad student and was assigned under a full time employee. We were the only ones working on that project. I came back after the Christmas break to be informed I was the new project lead because the full time employee i was working under got fired after he sexually assaulted one of the female employees after getting drunk at the company Christmas party.
Congrats on your field promotion
I saw a dude lose a hand because they ignored everything about passing through the water tight doors when they were moving.
Holy fuck that’s terrifying
what line of work?
Crewman on a cruiseship. I was basically room service/janitorial. The guy who lost his hand was one of the kitchen people for one of the several restaurants onboard.
What’s it like to actually work on a cruise ship? I always wondered
My experience may be a little different than most; the ship I was on, for the time I was on it, was not actually in service yet. I boarded in Bremerhaven 2 weeks before construction would be finished and it started making its way to Hawaii. I fell down some stairs carrying some shit on our way across the Atlantic like 2 days before we got to NYC and I was going to be out of commission for 2 months, so they let me go. The only passengers we had were some bigwigs from the company.
As for fringe benefits and perks? I was averaging 16 hour days and you don’t get days off so I didn’t have the energy to do much other than sleep by the time my shift was over. But you only work 5-6 months periods, you get room and board, and since you’re not really spending anything you earn, by the time you get off to go back home, you’d have a pretty nice sum in your bank account. I had 1 month of paid training and was only on the ship for about 3 weeks, and when I got off in NYC, I had almost $10k.
My place of work used to have a fairly large “data entry” department until they… did… something to make that job kindof unnecessary. They laid off pretty much all of that department. And I’m told the boss who was over them before they were laid off returned to his office to find a sizeable human shit directly atop his desk.
Another story. My own boss (actually my boss’s boss) was a massive asshole. Committed the team to a completely unreasonable deadline in conversations with the C-level folks above him, and then threw temper tantrums when the deadline wasn’t hit. He turned the daily standup into a 7:30am (in-person) daily demo to prove we were making progress and weren’t… I dunno… slacking off or whatever. Many a temper tantrum was had in those demos as well.
I quit and made no secret of why. After I left, I heard through the grapevine that in a meeting with the CTO, the asshole boss accused the CTO of being incompetent and said that he was gunning for the CTO’s job. The CTO, sensibly, told the asshole boss to do not pass go, do not collect $200, security will escort you out of the building and we’ll ship you your personal effects from your office.
And then I quit the place I’d gone to and went back to where the asshole boss had been and I’m still working there. Definitely would not have considered coming back if he was still there.
Ok. One more story about the other place. They switched from one chat provider to another. But they never actually shut down the one they were migrating away from. Several folks never left the old chat. When it was discovered that on the old chat service, said folks were trading really really inappropriate holocaust jokes, the whole office got a talking to in very vague terms. It wasn’t until like a month later that someone explained to me what had precipitated that.
Worked at an absolutely soul-crushing gig after a new micro-manager took over and the next gig was slow coming. The micro-manager didn’t like one smart but blunt underling correcting him so he took away the OT and standby the underling had depended on - and us; the underling was smart as fuck - and financially ruined the underling by timing it right after a new car and house purchase based on that 10 year financial history.
Underling attempted suicide-by-hanging in front of our main dev area.
Company had counsellors for a whole day, and the micro-manager immediately focused on how unstable someone must be to commit to suicide instead of on how awful a workplace it must be.
An employee was angry about an unfair policy and was being punished for not complying, and in his anger he threw a chair. This was before my time, but security had to escort the employee out of the building and he was fired on the spot. That story still circulates even though it’s been over a decade.
At another workplace some employees were caught having sex.
At another workplace a manager and employees were running a drug operation out of a drive-thru.
There were other things, but honestly humans are so predictable, they’re usually:
- fucking one another
- threatening, fighting, or trying to kill one another
- trying to get high or stay high
- stealing, cheating, or otherwise trying to enrich themselves
So a lot of the stories are of one form or another - employee who always came in extremely drunk and worked her shift drunk for years, only fired after some violent incidents and indecent exposure because of excessive drunkenness.
One employee was homeless and sleeping on the roof of the store, he was caught climbing down one morning.
Another guy was peddling drugs outside the store.
Another employee was stealing stock from the store after hours and was fired after getting caught.
Anyway - poverty is fun, y’all!
At another workplace a manager and employees were running a drug operation out of a drive-thru.
They really wanted to be Gus Fring so badly
honestly I think they just wanted to make money - it went for a while without being caught
I’m a manager at a small laid back warehouse. It’s not uncommon for coworkers to all go out as a group for drinks from time to time.
A subordinate and I became genuine friends at one of these outings and hung out for a couple of months. They caught feelings, I didn’t reciprocate and backed away from social time with them outside of work. Fast forward a few months and they tried to kill themselves in the parking lot one day after I said I didn’t want to hang out with them anymore because of our work dynamic.
I don’t go to work hangs off the property anymore.
That’s awful, I’m sorry that happened. Also just be aware that’s a classic dv abuser tactic.
Absolutely. I had a stalker once. Was terrifying, and that sounds just like what they do.
Pharmacy got robbed with a crossbow back when I was managing a Shoppers Drug Mart in the bad part of town back in the day.
Literally got medieval on yo ass.
Did he have an accomplice with a halberd behind him? :o
That situation could have got so much worse if there were a mage in the party.
Not super crazy and this was a long time ago, but there was a guy who was just around 3 months with the company who was causing a ruckus.
We only knew about it because he went live on social media while he was at the reception floor of the building claiming the company was engaged in fraud or something. It wasn’t intelligible to be honest and I couldn’t really understand what he was specifically accusing them of. I think he was fired on that day, and he went live shortly after he was told. He also claimed he was not being allowed to leave, but I think the reason was he refused to give up the company mobile phone that was issued to him, claiming it contained evidence and he wanted to take it with him.
I never heard anything about it since, and I don’t know what happened to the guy and if the claims were true.
we hijacked a conference room on a shared floor for a week and built a three-phase high-voltage line in there by hunting around the building for which sockets were on which phase, then plugging them into industrial transformers.
Okay -
- 1, that’s awesome;
- 2, for what purpose?
- 3, is it normal for buildings to have 3-phase in split into different single-phase sections? That feels like you could get some iffy stuff from wildly different loads on the different phases.
we were recording the magnetic fields generated by a high-energy short circuit. we hung a mouse trap from one of the lines, with a lead going to one of the others, so that they fused together when it sprung.
it is normal here, yes. larger appliances get three phases, and single-phase outlets are split between them as evenly as possible.
Sounds like an industrial setting, they typically get three phases. Probably also explains the desire.
Did you build Tesla coils or something? Were there intentional sparks involved?
no, and yes. i’m not going into more detail for fear of doxxing myself but basically we wanted the waveforms generated by a high-voltage short circuit.
later tests involved help from a power company and actual high-voltage lines.
Christmas party, of course. We had an Indian dude join the company. Really nice lad that I got on great with.
There’s a company meal kicking off at 7pm not far from where we work so the entire office (about 40 odd people) decide we’ll get a few scoops in beforehand.
Well this lad was quite small and very obviously not used to drink. He was fairly toasted before we even got to the restaurant. He kept drinking then became belligerent.
Proceeded to puke all over the place half way through the meal. He went out to get some fresh air and the CEO went out to have a chat with him and suggested he head home.
Promptly told the CEO to fuck off and leave him alone.
My bestie was his boss and at that point basically wrestled him into a taxi. The CEO took it well in fairness. It was totally out of character so he kept his job (and his visa which was dependent on the job).
Holy shit that guy is incredibly lucky he got to keep his job. Being belligerent drunk at work functions usually do not end well.
Yeah to be honest I feel like there was a decent bit of social pressure that he felt. The CEO was a fairly hard character in general but the lad in question was well liked. The “fuck off” did shock us all though.
Like none of us would have been surprised if he’d been let go but it would have affected morale generally, laws here are generally worker oriented and he was a good worker, plus the added effect of visa removal has to be part of the decision process.
The guy who wrestled him into the taxi definitely put in a good word too. He’s a good soul.
Edit: the belligerence was only half the story on the negative side. We were all very embarrassed that the staff had to clean up the puke but they were absolute champions about it. I’ve worked as a waiter for a good few years in college and you do tend to just pass these things off as best you can, especially for large groups that are going to leave a solid tip.
I had a roommate in college who was super nice. But every time she got drunk she would black out and become someone unrecognizable. We got into a street fight outside a club once because she ran into a group of girls snorting cocaine in the bathroom and she wouldn’t stop antagonizing them. Didn’t remember a thing the next day.
Some people become someone completely different when they’re drunk
They may not be becoming someone so different, though. Generally speaking, if someone only seems like an asshole when they’re drunk they’re probably just as much of an asshole when they’re sober, just better at masking it.
No idea why this is such a common belief. If you’re masking being a belligerent cunt, then you’re not being a beligerent cunt. The only people whose behaviour I trust are those who care about their behaviour being as such - at least you know they’re fucking trying
If someone gets drunk and calls me a slur, I’m going to believe that even when they’re sober and acting polite they’re inwardly thinking that slur about me. That is enough to make them someone I’m not going to be inclined to trust.
Yeah ok fine this is a pretty contentious point and you make the other side well. I was thinking more ‘being aggressive’ and such rather than ‘revealing bigotism’.
I remember a very similar thing happened with one of our visitors. It was explained to me that some of these folks grew up with very strict parents and just get absolutely CRUNK when they have that opportunity. I can understand that. :)
Yeah definitely. There was an urban legend in the same company about Saudi visitors before my time and they went WILD. Strip clubs, 5am finish, the works.
And yeah yer man just was not used to drink in any way. Poor bastard. I’d say the fear and hangover combo must have been something else to wake up to.
An employee pissed into a co-workers potted plant and the coffee machine’s water tank, right in front of a security camera.
Errrrm…why?
I’d wager it was because they had a full bladder.
Haha thanks dad!
Partly because they weren’t aware of the camera, I’m guessing.
i wonder how many times I’ve unknowingly drank piss coffee
A patient escaped his police escort through a crawlspace above the showers. The whole building went on lockdown (with loudspeaker announcements about not interacting with any naked men you come across) before they eventually found him a mile away, still starkers.
Barring a very specific set of circumstances or two, “don’t interact with any naked men you come across” is probably good advice.
Before my time, but they tell tales of the “Phantom Shitter”. Someone had… issues, physical and/or mental, and would leave streaks of waste both going to and from the bathroom. Very liquid waste. Sometimes stepped in. “Phantom” because initially no one knew who was doing it. They just found the results. Eventually he was found out, sent home for a bit, and then fired when it happened again after he came back.
Since I worked there: Guy came in for an interview. I don’t know if he was already having a bad day or what, but he got upset that his first interviewer wasn’t there to greet him at the front door. It escalated, rapidly, leading to threats of violence, an arrest, and a couple of cops searching his car.
