Workplace Horror Stories Told By Disgruntled Employees
We’ve all had jobs that tested our patience, but some jobs just aren’t worth the paycheck. These workplace horror stories are truly horrendous, from nightmare bosses to customers who thought they were always right. Hopefully these employees all put in their two weeks notice pretty quickly!
Closing Shift
In high school, I got a job working in a family-owned sporting goods/shoe store. The second day, I worked the closing shift with the owner’s daughter.
The register didn’t balance, and the owner said that half of the shortage was coming out of my paycheck because “who knows who was really responsible?” I had only processed two sales, both credit card sales.
I didn’t even touch the cash. 17-year-old me didn’t know that that was illegal, but I did know that it was complete nonsense. I quit on the spot.
Like a Horror Scene
I started working at a by-the-hour motel when I was 14. It was owned by a woman who didn’t bother with hazardous waste procedures. One night, she told me to clean up one of the rooms, and when I opened the door, my blood ran cold.
I walked into what looked like a horror scene. There was blood everywhere, and she had only supplied me with bleach and kitchen gloves.
I was absolutely positive that when I pulled the shower curtain open there was going to be a body in the bathtub. Thankfully there wasn’t, just blood everywhere.
The owner refused to let me report it and I didn’t want to get into trouble for bleaching a potential scene at 14, so I never did call the authorities.
Day One
10 years ago, I was in between career paths and I got a job in a hospital as a telemonitor. I was responsible for monitoring heart rhythms all night and looking for signs of heart attacks or problems.
During orientation, they told us that if they paged “Dr. Strong” to a specific part of the hospital, that meant a patient was being combative.
Being that it was a small rural hospital, each floor would have to send two employees to attend the call. On my first day, a “Dr. Strong” was called overhead and my new coworkers thought “dive in head first” was the way to go. So they sent me to deal with it.
Now, after years at that place, I’ve attended thousands of those calls.
Sometimes they are nothing, and sometimes it’s like Fight Club at work…but the very first one I ever took was so insane, I’ll never forget it.
Me and my co-worker, a CNA named Shawn, were headed down to the ER when a scrappy woman who was clearly addicted to substances decided to go into one of the trauma rooms and rip the morphine line directly out of what I can only describe as a giant Valkyrie of a woman.
She then shoved the needle into her own arm, hoping to get her “fix”. Well, Valkyrie was not pleased to wake up that way. She saw what was happening, stood up, and took all the staff by surprise with her next move—she just started beating the ever-loving heck out of the woman.
But the addict was not going to go down without a fight.
She clambered onto her back like a spider monkey and started wailing on the back of her head like it was a speed bag. Both of them had blood all over them, from the ripped-out IVs and punches to the face.
Valkyrie had a black eye and cut lip, but the addict’s eyes were both swollen shut from the beating by the time we pried them off each other.
We restrained them, called 9-1-1, and gave our statements. Day 1 of my healthcare journey.
Taking Some Time Off
I had an inside hint from HR that there were about to be mass layoffs and my name was on the list. I scheduled my week-long vacation and return date the day before layoffs were presumed to be happening. My boss REAMED me out for daring to take a vacation.
She said I would never advance in the company if I chose such a formative time in a project to take a vacation.
She told me I would never be an executive producer if I went on a vacation before project launch (even though I wouldn’t be able to touch it for the week I was away anyway) and that I would always be known in the television industry as “lazy”. I chilled, took my vacation, and returned.
She was mad and said that she was upset with me for having left.
She said I “made her” take care of my project for me—chewed me out in front of the entire company in the conference room.
I didn’t care, because I had the perfect response to get back at her: “Aren’t you laying off a bunch of us tomorrow? I’m just waiting for you to fire me so I can collect unemployment”. The entire room literally starts panicking all over the place and I went home.