18 Employees Who Saw Their Choices Backfire Hard

Workplaces can be full of unexpected moments, but some people truly stand out for the most unbelievable reasons. In this piece, you’ll find 18 stories of employees who pushed boundaries and turned their offices into pure chaos.

• My manager said I was “dressing inappropriately” for work. I calmly emailed her the dress code policy, showing my outfit was well within the rules. I thought that was the end of it. But the next day, I walked into the office and froze when I saw there was a package waiting for me on my desk. Inside was a shapeless, baggy dress (at least two sizes too big) and a little note: “This might be more appropriate for work.”
  I knew exactly who it was from. That night, I took the dress home, brought out my sewing kit, and gave it a little makeover, turning it into something stylish but still perfectly within the dress code. The next morning, I walked into the office wearing that very dress. The look on my manager’s face when she saw me? Absolutely priceless.

• A coworker waited until the day before a product launch to request a week off. Claimed it was “a family emergency,” but posted photos of a ski trip on Instagram the same day. Someone from another team saw it and mentioned it casually to our manager.
  He didn’t confront her. Just reassigned her future projects to someone else. She came back from vacation and realized she’d been looped out of everything. She left the company two months later.

• In a small town in PA there were a string of burglaries and all the victims worked for the same employer. Come to find out a lady in the HR department used her knowledge of family, living situations, and employee schedules to know when a residence would be empty. © Most-Silver-4365 / Reddit

• Things started going missing from people’s desks. The culprit remained elusive until one day he showed his “brand-new iPod!” to another coworker. On the back, it was engraved with the name of a different coworker who had just had his brand-new iPod stolen. Managers were summoned, he was gone within minutes, and so were all the unsolved thefts. © zerbey / Reddit

• My coworker Tess saw my new outfit and said, “You’re a natural beauty.” It made my day. But a few hours later, I caught her laughing behind my back. “She should dress her age.” Ouch. So I decided to have some fun. The next day, I showed up wearing a classy dress, heels, my hair in a sleek bun, and full makeup. Very elegant and put together. Everyone noticed. Compliments came from all sides. Tess’s face was priceless. I didn’t have to say a word. My style did all the talking, and I wasn’t about to change it for anyone’s bitter comments.

• I worked with a guy who would vanish to the bathroom for 45 minutes and mouth off to coworkers. He made big sales, so they let it slide, until a new female manager called him out. Instead of apologizing, he flirted with her.
  The next day, we witnessed him making inappropriate comments about her, clearly testing boundaries. As the day went on, his behavior escalated, and it became clear he was deliberately undermining her authority. The whole office was divided, with some people defending him because of his sales numbers, while others felt uncomfortable and disgusted. He was finally let go. — Daniel T.

• I worked in a store years ago that was being renovated. Our store manager was caught putting some boxes of floor tiles and buckets of paint in his car to use at his own house. We had a new manager the next morning. © Keefer1970 / Reddit

• A firefighter I used to work with got caught removing antiques from a house while it was still on fire, and stashing them in the firetruck. He was... aggressively encouraged to resign. © swapdip / Reddit

• I worked at a place that required security clearance. One clear rule that everyone is stressed by is absolutely no pictures. A supervisor posted his office setup on Facebook. Canned the next day. © FlanSteakSasquatch / Reddit

• A guy at my old job called in sick... then went live on Instagram from a pool party. With our manager’s niece. He was tagged in the video.
  The next shift, he showed up like nothing happened — got walked out before he could clock in. © han-ella / Reddit

• This happened at my husband’s job. He had a co-worker on his team, had been there for a few months. Apparently, during downtime when he had nothing to do, he would browse the company files on their server, and he came across files that he was not supposed to have access to (he was mistakenly given the wrong clearance).
  It wasn’t anything that was a matter of national security, but it was something that was supposed to be for management’s eyes only. He started telling my husband and their co-workers what he saw. Someone overheard him and reported him. Got called into the director’s (or someone in upper management) office and was fired on the spot. © nofun-ebeeznest / Reddit

• Promotions manager at a radio station I worked for was selling the prize Disneyland tickets to pay for his wedding. Fired the second it came to light. © knitmeablanket / Reddit

• He worked the overnight tech support shift, mostly alone in the office for hours. One night, he took a stepladder into an empty office that shared a wall with the receptionist’s office, which is kept locked. He climbed the ladder and then onto the ceiling to access the next office.
  He jimmied the lock to the drawer and grabbed the box, and tried to climb back out. Except the ladder was really short, and he couldn’t get a toe hold, and he fell, breaking his ankle. He called the boss to say he needed to leave early, so the boss came in and found the place a disaster.
  The next morning, you could see these plaster dust hand prints sliding down the wall above the ladder. It was pretty entertaining. © yarn_slinger / Reddit

• We hired a radiation physicist with an MS. He told us he was going for his Ph.D., and for 4 years gave us updates on how it was going. One day he came in and announced he had gotten his Ph.D., and we gave him a substantial raise.
  Then it turned out that he was never in a program, never got a Ph.D., and had patiently carried out a scam for 4 years. © CalTechie-55 / Reddit

• A guy I knew got fired for being late too much. Union tried to get his job back at arbitration, he was late for that also. © JerrysKid714/ Reddit

• Years ago before cell phones, I had an employee that we caught going into a dark office and closing the door, then crawling under the desk with the desk’s phone.
  He was making calls from there selling long distance services. © CloisteredOyster/ Reddit

• Coworker pretended to have a snake in a box (we’re in Texas) and chased someone who had a severe fear of snakes to the point they hid in their boss’s office (boss was gone on vacation that week), having a panic attack and sobbing under the desk.
  That was not a fun day, and they had me go home once I had calmed down enough, and then fired him, which was a long time coming, so I think they were relieved to have a reason to finally pull the trigger on firing him. © Kylie_Bug / Reddit

• My dad and I both work at the same hospital. He’s a nurse, and I’m in social work. One day, a new nurse saw us hug and spread a rumor that we were having an affair. By the next day, the gossip had spread everywhere.
  Later, the HR called us in. Then, the new nurse came in and started to explain she “misunderstood” our relationship. HR wasn’t buying it.
  Afterward, her reputation plummeted. She started showing up late and unprofessional, and HR issued a warning. Eventually, she was transferred to a less visible role. The gossip died down, and my dad and I returned to work, feeling relieved. — Anna G.

The office can sometimes feel like a stage for unexpected drama. One man shared how his coworker took things way too far after complaining about his choice of hand soap. What started as a small issue quickly turned into a full-blown HR situation.