14 Employees Who Paid the Ultimate Price for Their Mistakes

Mistakes happen in every workplace, but some choices come back fast and loud. These employees learned the hard way, through pranks gone wrong and risks they thought they could hide, that karma has a way of showing up uninvited.

1.

• The first time I ever drove a car alone, I dropped the now-spouse at work, reversed, and scraped up a nice car in the car park. I didn’t realise I’d done more than touch the bumper, but in any case, I panicked and drove off.
  The bloke phoned me at lunchtime and ordered me not to pick him up in the car, because he had spent the last hour swearing to the CEO that it couldn’t have been his car that had done it, as he’d walked in that day. There were only 12 of them in the company, so the CEO picked on him as the only one with a blue car (which was, to be fair, perfectly accurate!) Then had to get the car fixed so the CEO never found out what had happened to his brand new £50k car that he’d collected the day before... © DameKumquat / Reddit

2.

• The heating units in our office building were old and scheduled for replacement for years. The building maintenance guy begged people to stop messing with the thermostat — if you kept both thermostats at the same temp all the time, the building stayed at a reasonable temp.
  But there was a coworker, Brenda, who just couldn’t get it through her head and she’d mess with the thermostats during the workday and then, topping it off, turn them off on Friday. Brenda was told several times to stop touching the thermostats, but she knew better than everyone else, until the weekend that the pipes burst because she’d turned off the thermostats and caused $400k damage.
  She was fired, which was unusual. People with her level of entitlement usually got “go-moted” (given a promotion to go be some other work group’s problem). © jaimystery / Reddit

3.

• Cookies were being passed around the office. Coworker1 was not at her desk, so she got skipped — Coworker2 passed the box of cookies to another lady, who was sitting at her desk. Cookies make their rounds and there’s about half a box left sitting on a desk in the back of our office. Coworker2 sends a group chat message saying they are there if anyone wants one.
  When Coworker1 finally makes it back to her desk like 30 min later, she sees the group chat and starts SCREAMING at Coworker2, for skipping her. Coworker2 screams back. These ladies are both mid-30s, this is a corporate office job.
  My boss gets involved, tries to deescalate. That doesn’t work, coworkers scream louder. Both end up fired. Over a half-eaten box of cookies. © L0STatS3A / Reddit

4.

• I was a railroad conductor and infamously derailed two locomotives in the middle of one of the busiest rail yards on the East Coast, blocking two main lines.
  It costs the RR $millions. I didn’t get fired because there were extenuating circumstances, but it was still my fault. The Train Master and the Yard Master yelled at me for like 4 hours, and I got an unpaid vacation.
  $500 doesn’t seem so bad 😁© nerdburg / Reddit

5.

• One member of staff who was already on thin ice professionally and socially, for many unrelated things, came in on a Monday to find “his” chair gone. There was still a chair at his desk. All of the office chairs are exactly the same.
  He wouldn’t log on until he’d questioned every member of staff in the office and ended up getting IT (!) to check the CCTV. Turns out there’d been a social on the Friday night, all the chairs had ended up in a big group and then just assigned randomly back afterwards. Harmless, right?
  Wrong. The guy went ballistic at the person who’d taken “his” chair and spent most of the day cooped up in the HR room after. Best part of the story?
  Turns out he had scabies, and he hadn’t disclosed, hence his fuss over “his” chair. He didn’t come back to the office, and that chair was quietly discarded. © whirler_girl / Reddit

6.

• I had one coworker who was angry that I got assigned to run a project that she applied for (note: I was assigned, despite the fact that she applied, and I didn’t). She was so pissed off about it that she created a spreadsheet to document the exact times I came into work and every time that I left my desk and came back, so then she could “get me in trouble with my boss.”
  She did this for two months, and then brought the “evidence” that I’d been showing up to work between 8:15 and 8:30am instead of 8am, and was taking breaks closer to 20 minutes than 10.
  My boss laughed her out the door — we had an agreement that I could show up when I felt like it and could take the break lengths I wanted, since she knew I was working a minimum of 60 hours a week and would be there way past 5pm even if I took no breaks. Partially because I had to pick up the slack of the other employees, partially because we got so many contracts in at once, that they were willing to give me what I wanted to get it completed.
  You probably shouldn’t create your own project to get another employee in trouble when you have no idea what their situation is AND you didn’t get the project you wanted to run because you already waste too much time at work and can’t be trusted to stay on task or use fair judgment regarding fellow employee roles.
  Well. She certainly proved their analysis of why she wouldn’t be a good leader true. © Beachy5313 / Reddit

7.

• Boss said they welcomed constructive criticism and if we had feedback, to let them know. Well, there were rumblings of them being distracted and constantly missing important information from us.
  Rather than participate in “water cooler” gossip, I went to them, explained what was being said, and asked how we could improve the situation. They thanked me, but their body language suggested they were extremely upset.
  The next day, it was addressed in a meeting, but not very professionally, and we could all tell they were upset. They didn’t speak to me for approximately three days. THREE DAYS.
  Finally, I asked if everything was okay between us and was told my approach was extremely disrespectful... to this day, I have no clue what I said or did that was disrespectful because no example was given. © PermissionJaded3990 / Reddit

8.

• The last company I worked for had an area manager who “saw off” 5 staff members that she “had a problem with”. Then her boss announced that they were increasing the size of the areas and reducing the number of area managers. She had to reapply for her own job, doing a presentation to explain why she should keep it. She quit instead. © Plastic_Doughnut_911 / Reddit

9.

• Normally, I make dinner and whatever’s left over, I bring for lunch the next day. Every now and then I either don’t have enough left over or decide to go and grab something. It seems as if one of my coworkers finds out when I’m going out and asks me to bring something back. Every single time.
  Well, the first few times I told her to Cashapp me and there wasn’t a problem. As the requests became more frequent, I had to “gently” remind her to send me my money. I didn’t want to seem petty about a few dollars, so I stopped asking.
  Once I stopped asking, she kept on, but without sending a payment. By the 3rd time, I purposely asked for my money and specified to go ahead and send it to me before I left. On the way out, not only did she NOT send it, but had the audacity to tell me to make sure they added an extra ginger sauce to her order. Well, I did.
  I went out and ordered EXACTLY what she had asked for, including the extra ginger sauce and when I got back, I placed the “extra” ginger sauce she requested on her desk and proceeded to the refrigerator to get my drink. A few minutes later, she walked by and asked where’d I put her lunch. I told her I left it on her desk.
  She ran and got the ginger sauce, came back to me and asked, “Where’s the rest of my lunch?” I replied to her that it would be easier for her to pay me back for a cup of ginger sauce than for a meal. She never asked me again. 🤣😂🤣😂 © Try*****NotMe / Reddit

10.

• I had a female coworker downright HATE me and refuse to talk to me for literally no reason. My boss stepped in when she realized there was clearly a problem. Turns out, this girl claimed I didn’t say hi to her one morning after she said hi to me.
  I am not that kind of person whatsoever. If I didn’t say “hi” back...it’s because I didn’t hear you. Ridiculously immature. Grow up, you’re almost 30. © Lizzythelizzard122 / Reddit

11.

• I was assistant store manager in retail at 19 after working there for 3 months. One of the older ladies who was working there for about 15–20 years told me she wasn’t going to listen to me because I was incompetent, so I told her to go home for the night and had the store manager remove her from any of my shifts.
  Well the next day her husband was up at the store questioning me and pissed off at me because I was there for only three months and I told him: “I’ve been here a short period of time and got 2 promotions and 2 raises. Your wife has been here 10+ years and hasn’t moved anywhere, so please tell me again who is the incompetent one here.” © Unknown author / Reddit

12.

• Had a bad supervisor from a long time ago that didn’t like for any of us to jump the chain of command when dealing with an issue. He always felt doing so was a threat to his job. At the end of the first year of service, we’re supposed to get a sit down evaluation with HR, which also determines our performance based raise.
  After 13 months, I had to pester the supervisor about setting up my review. He kept telling me HR was busy, but they’ll get to me eventually. After almost a half a year of wait for my evaluation, I finally went directly to HR to ask them why I haven’t had my review yet.
  HR told me this is the first they heard I was up for my evaluation (small company of about 50 people, so not everything was electronic). Turns out my supervisor was lying to me about setting up the meeting because he felt I was going to let them know about all of the times I found my supervisor leaving work early or hiding or anything during a shift.
  I confronted the supervisor about all of this, and his response was to start crying. 40-year-old man crying to someone almost half his age because he felt betrayed I no longer trusted him. He was soon reassigned to a different department. © TRex_N_Truex / Reddit

13.

• My coworker Jane told our boss I was “struggling with tech,” which was ironic, since I’d taught her Excel myself last year. The next day, she confidently presented a new client system to the team. My system. She didn’t mention my name once and wrapped it up with, “We need fresh digital minds leading this.” I smiled and raised my hand.
  I asked which version she was showing, before or after the client rejected the first automation flow. Jane froze and guessed wrong. So I shared my screen, opened the live client dashboard, and walked everyone through the approved fix. The room went quiet. After the meeting, my boss asked me to stay. By the end of the day, the system had my name on it, and Jane was asking me for “technical help.”

14.

• I was 24, working at my dad’s software company under my mom’s maiden name so people wouldn’t treat me differently. Only HR knew we were related. My manager, Lauren, saw us having lunch one day and started telling everyone I was sleeping with the CEO for promotions. She told other managers, clients, even made comments in team meetings. People stopped talking to me. I’d walk into rooms and everyone would go quiet. It was humiliating. I wanted to quit, but my dad told me to wait.
  Two weeks later, he called an emergency all-hands meeting with the entire company. Lauren walked in looking confident, probably thinking I was getting fired. My dad stood up and said, “Before we discuss affairs, Lauren, tell everyone what you did to our client database.” Her face went white. Turns out she’d been secretly copying our entire client list for months, planning to start a competing company with our contacts. IT had been monitoring her for weeks. She was fired on the spot, sued for breach of contract, and last I heard, no tech company in the area will touch her. Meanwhile, I’m still here, and people finally know the truth.

Workplace relationships can be an emotional roller coaster. Small disagreements can turn into tense standoffs, but the way people handle conflict often says more than the conflict itself. Sometimes it leads to growth, sometimes to laughter, and sometimes to stories so dramatic they beg to be retold later.