17 Netizens Share Their Chaotic Workplace Stories That Probably Nobody Can Stand

There are some experiences we have in life when we surely remember thinking: “How did I get away with that!” This also happens when, by chance, we have to live with unpleasant bosses, co-workers, or clientele, who would make any employee want to take their things and run away, never to return. And this is all thanks to the tremendous lack of respect they were subjected to at their workplace.

• My boss was known for being tight with money. One cold winter day, when the heating was once again elusive to a shivering staff who were trying to balance books while still wearing gloves, I told him it was too cold for people to concentrate. His response was to go to his office and return with an old, tattered sweater the size of a tent. He threw it at me from across the room and told me to get on with it. This is the same guy who later painted all the windows to stop us from wasting time by gazing out of them. Fascinating stuff! © NecessaryImmediate93 / Reddit

• I was working in a school as a teacher. During a long holiday, my father had a stroke and needed to be hospitalized. As the hospitalization was in another city, I had to miss work to accompany him. I phoned the school to tell them what had happened and to let them know I was going to be absent. This was on a Friday that fell on a holiday. When we returned the following Thursday, I went to hand in the excuse, and the secretary told me that it was not valid and that I should have handed it in on Friday. She acted in bad faith, as she knew I had no way of getting it to her. She also did not tell me that I could send a photo of it via cell phone message. After a while, I resigned. © Rachel B. Daga/Facebook

• I worked in 2 music schools, and they were horrible experiences. In the first one, they always paid late and incomplete, often missing $20 — $50. The boss claimed that the students’ parents did not pay their monthly fees. One day we were $175 short, and I went to ask why. I was informed that one of the parents had not paid, but the student always attended classes. I received the payment and asked to resign. The boss insisted that I continue working for 15 days for free, until he could find another teacher. I said no and closed the contract. The coordinator spent months trying to get me to come back. I discovered that, with my resignation, some of the students left the school because they did not like how the new teacher taught them.
  At the second institution, the coordinator wanted to control every minute of my life. One day I had food poisoning, and she became very angry, saying that the students did not care if I was sick or not. She told me to take some medicine and get back to work. Eventually, I started giving private lessons, and now I earn 10 times more than what I was getting at the 2 schools. © Lira Silva/Facebook

• Threatened to show camera footage of me talking to a coworker of the opposite sex to my fiancé and ruin my family if I didn’t get enough sales. Quit the next day. To hell with that guy! He ended up getting fired due to a report of SA on a female coworker. © Zealousideal_Ice_775/Reddit

• From so much working for free for others, I promised that I was going to stop being stupid and that I was not going to work anymore without receiving anything. Here, in my city, there are companies that offer a trial period, but it is the biggest lie. They use you and don’t pay you. You work hard and, in the end, you come out worse than you went in. I went through that experience a few times, and I even spent a month working for a kindergarten just to get paid $80. I decided to study to sell cosmetics on my own. Time has gone by, and it’s been 9 years since I graduated. But today, I still have my same loyal customers. © Aline Pinheiro/Facebook

• I worked with a well-known printer company, where some colleagues and I, men and women, were technicians in the printing area. The companies that rented the printers requested that the employees stay on the premises at all times. My supervisor would blatantly tell us, “I don’t accept women in IT, you belong at home.” Imagine what it was like to work in such an environment. When I got pregnant, that supervisor called me over privately to tell me that I should have taken leave to get pregnant because I was slowing down the whole team and throwing them off focus with my pregnancy issues.
  Until my maternity leave, I had to work twice as hard because he didn’t say anything to the men, who were watching soccer games during working hours, while a colleague and I ran around the printing area doing work. He was also offended when I found another job and told him I was going to resign. He called me at home and said he would need me and to please consider coming back. The best thing I did was get out of that toxic environment. © Isabel Fernanda dos Santos/Facebook

• Me needing to take emergency leave and my boss at that time telling me that “emergency leave just can’t be taken any time you want.” Um, yes, it can be. © MagicalNinja73 / Twitter

• From hell to paradise in less than 3 years. I worked at a computer school, and the bosses and supervisors were so mean that I developed some health problems. One time, I was hospitalized for a week, and the supervisor called my hospital room to ask when I intended to return. She didn’t even bother to ask me how I was doing — there were enough bad things going on in that place to write a book! I cried with emotion when they finally fired me.
  Soon after, I got a job at an advertising agency and the boss was fantastic. My grandmother passed away during office hours, and my boss was the one who took my mother and me to her house. I regretted it when I asked to resign to start my own company, as I enjoyed working with them. In the meantime, the problems at the other evil job continue to this day. Not even in my nightmares would I ever work there again. © Grey Giotto/Facebook

• 7 months pregnant my supervisor took my water bottle and told me I’m probably taking too many bathroom breaks because I was drinking too much water. © Raesunshine642 / Twitter

• Once, I was hired to work alone in a store as a salesperson, where I earned minimum wage with no commission. It was Sunday to Sunday with only one day off a week. I only had 30 minutes for lunch and could not close the store during that time. If I wanted to, I had to eat there, in the store, without even closing the door. It always happened that when I started lunch, regardless of the time, the store would fill up with customers asking about everything and wanting to buy everything, making me give up eating lunch. It was like that for a long time. Until the owner, profiting a lot from my work, decided to open a second store next to the first one. So he did, and hired a friend of his to run it. The difference was that the friend did charge a commission. As expected, he also used to arrive every day at least an hour late, without any warning. At lunchtime, he would ignore the rules, close the store and go out for lunch for at least an hour and a half. He would come back and every 10 minutes he would leave, saying he was going somewhere. The stores were similar in what they carried and when it came to prices as if they were competitors. On average, I sold 5 times more than the other one.
  When the crisis hit, the boss had to close one of them. He closed the less profitable one where his friend worked. In the meantime, he fired me and put him in my place. When I argued with him about what the logic of that was because I was selling much more without commission, he replied that I was not friends with him, like the other employee, and that I could prove what a friend I was by submitting my resignation. That way, if he didn’t fire me, he wouldn’t have to pay my unemployment. In the end, seeing that I was resisting, he fired me. However, he still has not paid me, and the problem is in court, progressing at a snail’s pace because he alleged that the company was bankrupt and had no way to pay me. And the company really is bankrupt thanks to his “friend” and employee. © Alexandre Flotti/Facebook

• When my grandfather passed, I missed a day of work after the funeral. I received the passing news at the firm but to the boss, I lost my job at a wonderful company. © Tiane Machado / Facebook

• I worked in a small clothing store, and the owner would walk around all day. When she wasn’t there, she was watching us on camera through an app on her cell phone. Everything we did, she would ask us if we had done it, and she was skeptical about everything. Once, a customer returned a pair of shorts that were entered into our store’s system. The boss wanted us to check the stock to find the shorts, and then ended up looking for them herself. In the end, the pants were at another store she owned, where they were returned. The worst thing was that she didn’t tell us that she had found them — we found out from a saleswoman at the other store. This was one of the things, among others, that exhausted me. When I resigned, I told her that the reason for my resignation was her. © Raquel Lara/Facebook

• A friend of mine worked as a cashier in a supermarket. She was at the express checkout, which was for 10 items or fewer, but one day, a customer insisted on going through with a cart full of groceries. When she told her that she could not use the checkout, the customer screamed and called the manager. When he arrived, he said to my friend, “You should have helped the lady because the customer is always right.” She explained to him that the line was long and that she could have rung her up, yes, but the rule was only 10 items, and the customer had much more. The manager sent her to the office to sign a warning for having, according to him, mistreated a customer. She resigned on the spot after 5 years of working there. © Josiane Souza Alves/Facebook

Sometimes even the first day at work can be full of challenges.