30 Times People Made Complaints About Employees That Sound So Insane But Are Actually True

As the saying goes, one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch

Maryjane

• Published in Weird
• September 9, 2023

Despite all the work spent on hiring and screening new employees, a business may still have a few poor workers who may have performed well in the interview but poorly on the job. A manager can step in early if they spot cues that a new hire might not fit.

A corporation might suffer greatly from bad employees. Even good employees can become stressed and unhappy in a toxic workplace due to their inability or unwillingness to fulfill their duties and their general indifference to what is happening around them.

This can result in even lower productivity and an increase in absenteeism. Additional onboarding, coaching, and training may be used to address poor employee conduct, but if such measures are ineffective, there are clear grounds for termination.

One bad apple, so the saying goes, can spoil the whole bunch. It's interesting that employees experience the same thing.

Some of these slackers are rather adept at hiding their flaws, but not all of them are. The reddit question, "What's the most insane complaint you've had about an employee that turned out to be completely true?" prompted a flood of responses from Reddit members.

The most notable responses from that discussion are shown here.

1. This is horrible

2. What!

3. This is messed up

4. Terminal illness

It continues...

5. Horrific

As an area manager for a chain of electrical stores, one Saturday I got a garbled voicemail telling me: 'store manager', 'deputy manager' and 'sales manager' at a certain location had shrink-wrapped 'a sales guy' to a wheely-chair, put him in the back of the delivery lorry -unrestrained- and done doughnuts in the car park so the poor lad was getting smashed into the walls & bulkhead with no way to protect himself, as all limbs were confined due to the dozens of layers of shrink-wrap. One of the 'warehouse guys' was in the back filming the whole thing on his phone...

Until I saw the video and the absolute state of the poor sales guy, I really thought I was being pranked.

He ended up with 2 broken arms (one broken in two places), 1 broken ankle, severe bruising almost all over and a bleed on his brain.

Horrific.

6. Stalker

7. Stealing

8. Bank story

9. Stamp card

10. Mall security guard

Just remembered one that was super bad. Security guard at a mall. This coworker, probably late 30s-esrly 40s, was a really weird dude. Pretty sure he was barely functioning autistic but also down right gross and would frequently take people's left over food out the trash and eat the rest if they didn't finish. Anyways one day this dude finds a woman smoking outside one of the doors and it's a no smoking property. He bold face lies to the woman about what he can and can't do and threatens to give her a 500$ fine for violating fire safety laws unless she sucks his d**k. She asks for an hour to think about it and asks for his number to get in touch with him. She gets his number and immediately goes up to our camera room and asks for the big boss and tells him what happened. By boss, understandably doesn't believe her at first. She then calls him on the number she got and puts it on speaker phone. She asks him to explain the offer again before she decides to follow through. He explains it all again while boss man listens quietly in the back ground. Boss man picks up the phone and yells at him that he's fired and to drop all his stuff off and that he'll be arrested in the spot if he ever comes back.

11. Popcorn

12. An intern

I just fired an intern because he thought it'd be funny to smack one of the girls on the a*s. Upon further investigation, she had been having anxiety coming to work because he would ask all sorts of ridiculously inappropriate questions. For example, he asked her if she had a good weekend. She told him it was a good weekend or some plain answer and he then asked her if it was because she f****d her boyfriend a lot. Needless to say, her anxiety was warranted and we fired him as soon as we could. The mood in my group seems a bit more relaxed this week...

13. "None of these will beat the guy who worked at the local pinata factory who was caught f*****g the pinatas. He was caught on CCTV and fired. He later sued them because he claimed they rigged the pinata to f**k up his d**k."

14. Large scary dude

15. Employee

Had an employee that was actively robbing local banks on his days off. I believe he hit 8-9 different banks before he got caught. Found out about it during an early am FBI raid of the employee locker/break rooms done in conjunction with a raid on his house. To say it was a shock was an understatement. He wasn’t even top 20 of my list of potential felonious employees.

16. "She was peeing on the chairs in the office. No, she didn't have any sort of health issues. She just didn't feel like walking to the bathroom. AFAIK she still works there."

17. "So I worked retail and we got this guy named something like Gus."

My boss tells me, "Hey this guy's got anxiety, go easy on him OK?" And so I was like, okay that's cool I get it I can relate. I do everything I can to help him make sense of the infernal godforsaken hellscape that is retail.

It continues...

18. Dispatcher

19. Coworker with a stench

20. "I've got a lot of these. Customer complained employee was stealing. Didn't believe it, at first.The gayest man I've ever known was stealing Playboy magazines. No idea why. Got caught with them. Multiple copies of the same issue. Fired."

It continues

21. "Once had a co-worker selling shrimp from the dumpster. Picked them out after brunches. Popped a few on a skewer, and sold them in the bars that night. Got caught in a bar with the manager, and the CCTV caught him dumpster diving. They had him arrested."

22. "I was the head night auditor at an upscale airport property. Had a youngish night auditor who put a room into out of order status and let his friends in to party and have an orgy that he joined during his lunch break. He got caught because of a noise complaint. Police called, he was fired and blacklisted from being hired back."

23. "We had to terminate an assistant manager for walking by other employees and farting near them and walking away. He was warned about it first and kept doing it."

24. Student discount

A chain restaurant here does student discount of 30% off. One of the waiters, who was a student himself, would use his own student discount whenever a table paid full price in cash, and keep the difference for himself.

Only got found out because head office emailed the manager to check why one student had eaten at the restaurant 5 times a day for the last few weeks.

25. Jewelry counter

26. "That a employee took a women’s phone number from her account at the store we worked at and called her. I never thought anyone was that stupid."

27. "Local hardware store had an employee jacking and putting it in a coworkers' coffee. True story. People found out and he was arrested."

28. "my friend used to work in HR at this holistic wellness place and one of the staff members who always had one of those reusable straw cups was literally dRINKING HIS OWN PEE OUT OF IT like during meetings and everything!!?!??! she quit pretty soon after."

29. "While working at a well known hardware store, had a coworker build a hideout in the insulated aisle. He would disappear for hours while clocked in, no one knew where he would go. One day he's being escorted out, apparently a manager found him sleeping in his hideout."

30. Nasty worker

Bad employees, as they are commonly known, can have an impact on businesses of any size and in any sector. Although they initially make an impression during the interview process, underperforming workers now pose a severe threat to your company. 

Do you have your own employee story to share? Drop them in the comments below.

Maryjane