12 People Whose Jobs Come With More Plot Twists Than a Thriller

Work isn’t always predictable. Some people clock in expecting a normal day, only to find themselves in situations straight out of a movie. From unexpected promotions to shocking secrets, these stories prove that jobs can be full of surprises. Here are 12 employees who found themselves in twists and turns they never saw coming.

• A new client came to our salon asking for a new short cut and a new color. 3 hours later, she saw the result and started crying: “This is horrid! I won’t pay a dime!”
  The manager came. The moment he saw her, he went pale. He grabbed us, pulled us aside and locked the door. He shouted, "You idiots, don’t you watch the news?’’ He said, ’’Immediately call the police. This woman has been missing for 2 weeks!’’
  We did, and it turned out to be true. The woman suffered from a nervous disorder and had disappeared from her home weeks ago without telling anyone. She experienced episodes where she couldn’t remember who she was.
  Thankfully, she was soon reunited with her family, who had been desperately looking for her in a town miles away.

• Someone has been stealing things from everyone’s desks in our office. I set up a teddy cam on someone’s desk (with their permission) to find out who was doing it. Turns out, it was the owner of the company.
  I confronted him about it in private. Over the next 2–3 months, most of the stolen items started reappearing, and the stealing eventually came to a stop—or at least for the most part. Occasionally, something would still go missing, but not nearly as often. © Golden_Moth / Reddit

• At a previous job, we had an HR manager get fired right after returning from maternity leave. She was replaced by the guy she had trained to fill in for her while she was gone. She then sent a company-wide email with the pay rates of everyone, from the plant manager on down.
  It was complete chaos. A lot of pay rates were wildly different in management, supervision, and maintenance. There were talks of work stoppages, slowdowns, and even threats of unionizing. I believe this one act led to the eventual closure of the plant. It was a crazy time. © Buwaro / Reddit

• I found a French fry in my pocket the other day. I don’t know how it got there, nor do I remember the last time I ate fries. I told one of my coworkers about it, and he asked if I ate the fry.
  “Well no... I threw it away.”
  [serious] “What a shame.”
  He then proceeds to pull a COOKIE out of his pocket and eats it. An unwrapped cookie with lint all over it. Who carries a cookie in their pocket?! © plainalmonds / Reddit

• I worked at a library and was helping clear out old books when I found a thick envelope tucked inside one. It was full of cash—thousands of dollars. We checked the records, and the book hadn’t been checked out in over a decade. No one knew where the money came from.
  The director called the police, and after an investigation, they traced it back to a former employee who had been stashing stolen library funds in random books. He had passed away years ago, completely unaware that his fortune was still sitting on a dusty shelf.

• I’m a security guard at a warehouse; I do night shift. One night, during my routine patrol, I noticed a van parked oddly close to the loading dock—unusual for that hour. Approaching cautiously, I saw two men loading boxes into the van. They claimed to be late-night couriers, but something felt off.
  I radioed my supervisor, who confirmed no scheduled pickups.
  When I confronted them, they bolted, leaving the van and boxes behind. Turns out, they were former employees attempting to steal valuable electronics. Thanks to a gut feeling and a timely call, we prevented a major theft.

• I worked at a mid-sized company for years, just doing my job quietly. One day, the CEO suddenly resigned, and to everyone’s shock, they announced that I—someone with zero executive experience—would be taking over as interim.
  Turns out, I was the only person left who wasn’t tangled up in some massive financial scandal. I spent six months cleaning house before they hired an actual CEO. The best part? I got a huge severance package just for surviving.

• I work in education. My former chairman allowed a female employee to embezzle money from the school. I found out and blew the whistle. I assumed the woman would be fired, and the chair would be demoted. Instead, she was asked to resign and given a severance package, while the chair kept his position due to his status as a coach.
  He then proceeded to make my job very difficult for the next five years until he finally gave up the chairmanship to someone competent. The woman was both his work wife and mistress. © mikeymikeymikey1968 / Reddit

• I’m an IT at a big company, and once I got called to fix a VP’s “frozen” laptop. I rebooted it, but something about the error logs caught my eye—someone had been remotely accessing his computer every night. Turns out, his assistant had installed software to monitor his emails because she thought he was planning to fire her.
  He wasn’t, but she got fired because of it. To this day, he tells people I “hacked” his computer and saved him from a data breach, but really, I just clicked through some error messages.

• They sent out an email stating that one of our coworkers is no longer employed with us, which means they got fired. They’re not supposed to tell us why, but one day, the assistant director approached me and asked if the fired coworker was still in a relationship with a certain client.
  Someone had mistakenly told her I might have information about it, but I had no idea. My department didn’t even work with that client. So now I know my coworker got fired for dating a client. © Hob*TheDinosaur / Reddit

• I was an HR director, and one day, I got an email from corporate saying I needed to lay off five people due to budget cuts. I pulled up the list and saw my own name on it. Confused, I called the higher-ups, who confirmed that yes, I was supposed to fire myself.
  They expected me to conduct exit interviews for the others before packing my own desk. I made them do it instead.

• I worked as a nurse at a hospital where a doctor was always pushing certain expensive procedures. One day, I noticed he kept prescribing them to patients who didn’t need them. I reported it, thinking it was a mistake. HR called me in, but instead of disciplining the doctor, they asked if I “really wanted to make trouble.” I quit.
  Six months later, the doctor was arrested for insurance fraud, and my former manager pretended she had no idea.

Who seems like an ordinary colleague could be hiding shocking secrets and unexpected dangers. These incredible true stories, shared by people who uncovered unsettling truths about their coworkers or boss, prove that you never really know who you’re working with.