'She was finally caught on camera': 20+ Employees who got stuck with the worst coworkers ever

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Oct 29, 2023 11:00 AM EDT

What's the opposite of a work wife or work husband? It's a work nemesis, as these poor professionals can attest to. 

If you have friends you're starting to not get along with, you can stop texting them or inviting them over. But with your colleagues, even if they're really annoying or irresponsible, there's not a whole lot you can do to avoid them. Maybe you and Dave from finance don't see eye to eye on politics, but you'll still find yourself working on a spreadsheet with him while rolling your eyes. Or perhaps you have a chatty Kathy colleague who can't stay on topic and steamrolls every conversation, but you still have to put together a presentation together. As long as the employees aren't breaking any rules, the other employees are left to deal with these annoying few people. 

Check out the absolutely wild stories people shared of the coworkers who are as weird and irritating as they come. It's a surprising array of industries, from offices to retail to an ear doctor's office. Then, this food service employee was tired of being told to label food correctly for an upcoming audit, so he got creative with the label names. 

Advertisement
  • 01
    Hand - 렁
    via MedicAlert UK on Unsplash
  • 02
    Hair - What's the worst coworker you've ever worked with?
    via u/drlqnr
  • 03
    Font - inu_yasha My coworker likes to initiate conversations, then does long pauses where you go to say something back, then he cuts you off and keeps talking. He has entire conversations almost entirely by himself. He also likes to make changes to my paperwork before its turned in.. ends up riddled with spelling mistakes while he tries to make the content look smarter. Fortunately its all electronically stamped with who made revisions.
    via u/inu_yasha
  • 04
    Font - litkat16 I had a manager once who dumped trash on my desk my third day there. She said it was to remind me that taking out the trash was part of my job description (it wasn't, I was a research assistant at a mortgage firm)
    via u/litkat16
  • 05
    Font - Melissa-Crown Context: I work in a hospital as a nurse's aid and my department focuses on transporting patients around the facility for tests and room changes. I work night shift and this person started their shift at 6 am. There was this lady I worked with that just had the nastiest attitude. Normally I can get along with most folks but this person just brought the whole room down with negative vibes. Nothing was ever good and she always had bad shifts. One thing she did that upset a lot
    via u/Melissa-Crown
  • 06
    Font - our office. The big thing to remember here is that even the lengthiest xrays take maybe 10 minutes at the very most (2-5 mins on average for the scans). Every morning we got xrays to do and I had to send her back down to return patients to their rooms after the xray technicians called right as she got back to our office. The instances of leaving patients were common so I informed my boss several times in-person and email. Apparently she had an attitude with every other department we worke
    via u/Melissa-Crown
  • 07
    Font - One day she had abandoned a patient in the ER waiting room when they were waiting for a ride home and told no one so security had found a patient just sitting alone for 15-30 mins without supervision. It took this and a year of recorded evidence for this person to finally get fired. When that happened it's like a dark cloud lifted and a lot of people were relieved. Oh and she tried to get various employees around the facility to sign a form to argue against her case - one person signed.
    via u/Melissa-Crown
  • 08
    Font - SylkoZakurra I have several bad ones but the one that drives me the most crazy is a lady who creates problems just so she can solve them. Ugh. She takes a simple job, finds the one tiny issue, blows that up and freaks everyone out and then "solves" it so she can be the hero. Just take the 1 minute to fix the issue in the first place. It would save the literal hours she spends working everyone up so she can be their savior.
    via u/SylkoZakurra
  • 09
    Font - mutantandproud95 Not necessarily a "co- worker" but my old supervisor literally told me not to think, even if it's wrong that I do things her way, and not to ask questions because I should already know what to do. I had just gotten the position
    via u/mutantandproud95
  • 10
    Font - systauroo I worked at Starbucks for a year (one of the very worst years of my life) and while I was there had a coworker named Eric. I was at the till the day Eric came in with his resume, and there under his name he had typed "architect of imagination." Eric was an aspiring writer, but he had trouble stringing a sentence together. He couldn't be on the machine because he couldn't remember how to use it or how any single drink was made.
    via u/systauroo
  • 11
    Font - He couldn't be a support role because he had no way of predicting or understanding what anyone else on the floor needed or even was saying. He couldn't be on register because he couldn't mark a cup and even our most patient customers would inevitably raise their voices at his incompetence. Reliably, he would genuinely look like he was about to cry. I was so torn between rage and pity... he made a terrible job so much harder, but he was just so breathtakingly, pitifully, shockingly dumb. I
    via u/systauroo
  • 12
    Font - One night I was thinking about something particularly vicious I had said in response to something particularly baffling Eric had done, and found myself wondering about his life outside of our store. Was the world scary and confusing to Eric? Did it seem like life was just happening to him? I imagined him standing in traffic, looking vaguely surprised and confused, forgetting how he had gotten there. I looked him up on Facebook and was pretty disturbed by what I found. Eric didn't look awk
    via u/systauroo
  • 13
    Font - expensive-looking clothes smiled in his photos. Several posted on his wall, expressing what a good time they'd had with him recently, often siting a "writing sesh". It felt like I was on a different plane. It felt like I was having a stroke. So then my question became, who is Eric?? And who is scamming whom??
    via u/systauroo
  • 14
    Font - The popular theory in the store was that Eric was essentially a method actor, doing research for a book or script. I came close to asking him about it a few times, but I was so afraid that I was wrong. I imagined myself over and over asking, "Are you a method actor, or are you really and truly this stupid?" It just wasn't something I could bring myself to risk. I wonder about him all the time, actually, and who he might be terrorizing today.
    via u/systauroo
  • 15
    Font - mandz_camz24 When I was an intern, there was this old shrew who would call people into her office (my cube shared a thin wall), gossip, then call those people in to tell them what was said, etc. She would try to frame people for s she did wrong. She was so arrogant. And she refused to adapt to workforce modernization. Example: she refused to learn how to hyperlink in emails, documents, etc. A real ray of sunshine she was!
    via u/mandz_camz24
  • 16
    Font - jellojock My worst co-worker was one I worked with when I was a cashier at Walmart. She approached me and asked me to cash out her paycheck. I was still new at the job and never got training on how to do that function. She was sympathetic, so she walked me through how to do it. Transaction over and done, I go on about my day.
    via u/jellojock
  • 17
    Font - I get called back a couple of days later by my managers and they circled me in an office and accused me of stealing. After tears, video tapes, and telling them what happened they told me that apparently this coworker of mine had stolen not only from me, but several other people that day as well. They just wanted to confirm I wasn't in on the deal. Walmart, and that b for almost getting me arrested.
    via u/jellojock
  • 18
    Font - miken322 The HR manager at my last job had zero training, education or experience in HR. She was argumentative, passive aggressive and incompetent. Toward the end she asked me "Why are you being resistant" and "You're not being a team player." when I was advocating for client safety. I was the second person in less than a year to leave and hire an attorney.
    via u/miken322
  • 19
    Font - [deleted] This is about 15 years ago but the office I worked in instituted a scent free policy. One woman, who was already insufferable, was so offended by it that she snuck in her perfume collection. She'd walk down the halls and spray perfume into empty offices or cubicles when no one was looking or before everyone arrived in the morning. This went on for well over a month or two and we had no idea who was responsible. My coworkers and I started referring to this mysterious person as th
    via u/[deleted]
  • 20
    Font - She was finally caught on camera in the act. She'd left for three weeks vacation and was unaware that we had installed cameras after a break in. Some of us already suspected her, as the Chanel Bandit mysteriously stopped spraying while she was away. She quit right after she was caught. None of us were sad to see that cedar scented psycho leave.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 21
    Font - rosatenena I have a coworker who's very old-fashioned and strongly believes that males and females cannot be friends. Well, it just so happens that my manager and I, a male and a female, happen to get along quite well because of our similar ages and interests. She reported me to the other managers for it and accused me of sleeping with him.
    via u/rosatenena
  • 22
    Font - Zero223344 He would walk in every day like it was his first day with no memory of anything we showed him the previous day. He was only focused for the first 30 minutes then the rest of the time would be on his phone and try to work with one hand which is bad because I work in a restaurant. Can't cook with one hand but that didn't stop him from trying then one day he just stopped showing up for like a week then was confused when he came back and was fired.
    via u/Zero223344
  • 23
    Font - Edit: I'm not sure if he had memory issues or anything like that, at least he didn't tell us or the owner. He did however like to talk about how easy our job was because he'd had four other restaurant jobs before this one. He was only 19, but we didn't make him do anything complicated but he would forget easy things like where we kept burger buns or where buttons were on the register. Also he always left trash laying around after he was done with a job it would be me and my other coworker
    via u/Zero223344
  • 24
    Font - He still comes in every once in a while to watch our Tv, sometimes with friends and sometimes by himself, he never buys anything but he just does it quietly so no one bothers him.
    via u/Zero223344
  • 25
    Font - elevenghosts I worked with a guy who couldn't learn new skills. When he started he had to learn new programs and processes, just like anyone would at almost any job. He couldn't pick up on it, whether it was where to click in a software to get a certain result or how to fill out a report. Everyone on my team took turns showing him the ropes and it never sunk in. I remember being so frustrated because he could not figure out how to minimize a window. "Top right corner, click on the straigh
    via u/elevenghosts
  • 26
    Font - 3-4 seconds for him to drag the mouse to the corner and then he'd hover around it but never on it. Super nice guy, but impossible to work and collaborate with on projects because so much time was wasted.
    via u/elevenghosts
  • 27
    Font - Mendunbar I worked with someone in retail. He was my boss, and not a particularly bad guy, but he was a control freak who had to interject his opinion during every conversation anyone was having with a customer. This also went as far as him being in the middle of helping someone himself, stopping helping that customer to lean over to my till to "help" me with my transaction even though there was no indication I needed help and had worked there for over 5 years. This "help" would be in the
    via u/Mendunbar
  • 28
    Font - telling a customer they were wrong to have any given opinion on a topic to telling customers that their choice of entertainment they were purchasing wasn't what they were after, even if they specifically came into the store for that specific item. He was also laaaaazzzzy as f! Not a bad guy, but holy h do I not miss working with him.
    via u/Mendunbar
  • 29
    Font - Lufernaal I worked with a guy who'd interrupt any conversation to talk about anything as if he was the expert. And I don't use "anything" as a hyperbole. He truly had something to say about anything, including things he had never heard of or obviously didn't know much about. When the subject being discussed was something in the category of things he didn't know much about, he would slowly steer the conversation away from the original discussion to something he would like to talk about at
    via u/Lufernaal
  • 30
    Font - He was like that Wikipedia game where you start with Star Wars and somehow end up on LGBTQ+ struggles. Not to mention the "conversation" was basically 98% of him just talking non-stop. Everybody else was way too polite and against conflict to say anything, including me, so most people just tried to stay away from him, but he'd follow people around. I eventually left, but I even remember having a nightmare where he was the bestman at my wedding.
    via u/Lufernaal
  • 31
    Font - [deleted] My old supervisor. She was that special brand of "too nice." Laughing was her nervous tic and hoo boy it was CONSTANT. She was incapable of being assertive which is not the best quality for someone whose job is telling other people what to do. The best she could do was be passive- aggressively nice when she REALLY needed something done which just made everyone dislike her.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 32
    Font - Kether_Nefesh I'm pretty cool about eh, people all have their role to play, but one time we had a secretary that would microwave eggs and canned tuna every morning in a bowl. Now... I am not a violent person, but the smell generated from microwaved eggs and canned tuna is down right repulsive by anyone's standards.
    via u/Kether_Nefesh
  • 33
    Font - amyzophie A guy that was on the Keto diet, it's all he'd ever talk about. He once overheard a conversation I was having with a colleague on a particularly stressful day, he interrupted us to suggest I give up carbs in order to reduce my stress levels.
    via u/amyzophie
  • 34
    Font - fetedelamusique I worked with a guy that regularly googled everyone we worked with. He knew information about the apartment we had just sold and told everyone at our department meeting how much we sold for.
    via u/fetedelamusique
  • 35
    Font - WatchTheBoom One of my favorite things about being in the military was that your pre-military status did not matter. Everyone wears the same uniform and you'd never know if your favorite military leader came from privilege or squalor. The uniform, for all of it's drawbacks, is an objectively effective unifier. It levels the playing field. Looking the same as everyone else challenged me to ensure that my work ethic and ideas created opportunities, not some predetermined status.
    via u/WatchTheBoom
  • 36
    Font - I had a peer who was "better" than all of that. He didn't do the work unless it interested him (we didn't do interesting things) and constantly complained that our work was below him. On more than one occasion, he tried to pay for others to do his work for him. His entire point of being in the military was to prove to his father that he could earn something, and sought to accomplish that by claiming he'd already earned it. LL that guy.
    via u/WatchTheBoom
  • 37
    Font - sunnyfleur0330 This girl I work with is overly picky about stuff, everything has to be her way or no way... she does everything louder to make it seem like she's working, but she's not actually getting anything done. She has been caught stealing from other servers several times, but we have no concrete proof. She "accidentally" takes people's tips. She's hacious. f
    via u/sunnyfleur0330
  • 38
    Font - xLiquidx For a few summers in high school and college I worked as a groundskeeper at a large hotel complex. As a seasonal employee, I was paired up with the year-round full time groundskeeper during my shifts and then he and I would work alternate weekends. He retired suddenly when I was at school so by the time I returned for the summer they had hired a replacement. Ed was a lateral hire, having previously worked in the hotel's kitchens. He was in his 50s, but based on his maturity and i
    via u/xLiquidx
  • 39
    Font - didn't pay them much mind since I knew I'd be spending the whole summer with this guy and didn't want to go into our relationship with any preconceptions about him. The first thing I discovered was that he was dumber than a box of rocks. He used words he didn't know the meaning of so of course they didn't make sense the way he used them. Whenever the subject of music would come up, he'd never fail to mention that he didn't like "that rap cr bullsh (fifteen years later and I can still hear
    via u/xLiquidx
  • 40
    Font - (which we used to get around the property) and I'd sit on it, notice it instantly, and stand up and brush the seat off. Wouldn't even get my pants wet. But he'd laugh his as off as if it was the prank of the century. Our golf carts had roofs on them. It only takes one time to bang your head on it in order to avoid doing it again. But not for Ed. The first time he hit his head was a doozy. He had to stand there crouched over for a few minutes to regain his composure he whacked it so hard.
    via u/xLiquidx
  • 41
    Font - went from concerned to confused (how does this guy keep doing this???) to amused. By the end of the summer I would lose laughing my s whenever he hit his head. There was no other way to react than to laugh. If this guy didn't learn the first dozen times he hit his head then there was no hope for him. One time Ed was helping the boss move an extension ladder. They lifted it up and put it on the roof of a golf cart. The ladder was longer than the cart so it stuck out both the front and the
    via u/xLiquidx
  • 42
    Font - ladder EXACTLY WHERE HE JUST PUT IT. My boss asked him if he was ok, but then as his mind processed what just happened he asked Ed how he ran into the ladder he just put there. His immaturity was the next thing I noticed. S jokes/comments at a frequency that made me think I was back in middle school. One day we had these iron stakes in the back of the cart. We were driving around and Ed grabbed one of the stakes and let it drag on the ground (like you would a stick on a fence as you walk
    via u/xLiquidx
  • 43
    Font - ten seconds, then started dragging it again. I again asked him to stop, which he did again and restarted shortly after. That particular day I wasn't in the mood for his bulls so I just stopped the cart in the middle of the street, took the key, and walked away. He ran after me and begged me to come back and that he wouldn't do it again. Fortunately he didn't. My coworkers told me stories about how he was on the days I wasn't there. More of the same. Constantly tripping over stuff, falling
    via u/xLiquidx
  • 44
    Font - I could feel myself getting dumber every day I spent with him. His childish antics drove me insane. By the end of the summer I had had enough. I decided to find a new job for the following year because I knew I couldn't spend another summer with him. Last I heard Ed got injured by getting his arm stuck in the cardboard bailer and couldn't work for several months. How he did that I will never know since you can't turn those things on unless the safety gate is closed so it's not like it was
    via u/xLiquidx
  • 45
    Font - so I don't know what became of him. I was Facebook friends with him when I was in college but got sick of all the candy crush and farmville invitations from him that I just unfriended him.
    via u/xLiquidx
  • 46
    Font - S TypicalRoof2 It's my time to shine! Sorry it's long! About 2 years ago I started work as a receptionist in an audiology clinic. So we do hearing aids and hearing tests. The only thing I knew about hearing aids before I took this job was that my grandpa had one. 8 months after I started - so at this point I have 8 months of experience with anything related to hearing - they hired a new rovic who I would later discover knew nothing about anything. Not hearing aids, not basic you- should-k
    via u/TypicalRoof2
  • 47
    Font - patients, people over the phone, etc. Example: we had one patient who left her hearing aids with us to be fixed. She would call every once in a while to check on them, and I would say "I'll ask the provider to call you and update you", which I did. FOUR MONTHS LATER the same patient calls and I discover the provider had been ignoring me every time I told her to call the patient, and she just straight up didn't call her ever. Another example: she could NEVER, EVER remember to clock in and
    via u/TypicalRoof2
  • 48
    Font - She would have to send in time card adjustments like every day and then complain to me when our boss was annoyed. She didn't know to fill out repair forms so every time we had to send something out, I would have to double check and make sure everything was filled out correctly and legibly- again, she is the provider who is credentialed in this field, and I'm the receptionist who has 8 mos experience with hearing aids. She wouldn't do chart notes for weeks, literally. She would have patien
    via u/TypicalRoof2
  • 49
    Font - patients name wrong, so I would have to double check every chart before putting it back on the shelves. If she didn't know what to do with a patient (which was common), she would just do nothing. So I would have to pick up ALL of that slack, deal with the patients, take their complaints, talk to manufacturers over the phone. There were even times where I had to recommend hearing aids to patients because she just wouldn't. She would constantly forget to have patients sign paperwork. I woul
    via u/TypicalRoof2
  • 50
    Font - would STILL let them leave without signing purchase agreements and medical waivers. She could NOT keep track of the time. She would be going 10-30 minutes over appointment times and I would have to deal with the ped off patient. I would tell her "hey time warning" and she'd say okay and then ignore me. She would keep elderly patients in for her new patient appointments for like 2 or more hours- usually an hour and a half appointment. Sometimes patients would have to tell her they needed t
    via u/TypicalRoof2
  • 51
    Font - And the best: everything that went wrong was my fault. She would blame me for her poor job performance, her inability to retain patients and sell hearing aids, everything. After 6 months of this I finally spoke up. I hadn't said anything up to this point because she was a really nice person apart from work and I felt bad for her. But everyone has their limits, and also our company was starting to zero in on her because she wasn't making them any money.
    via u/TypicalRoof2
  • 52
    Font - She was put on daily zoom meetings with our boss and trainers. When this happened they finally realized why she was making almost zero money (she was suuuuper incompetent obvs), and they fired her. They told her they were shutting down the clinic altogether, but instead they hired a new provider with loads more education, experience, someone who is confident and young and knows how an iPhone works.
    via u/TypicalRoof2
  • 53
    Font - The only thing I got from this experience was a 30 cent raise (at the end of the year) and a major increases in my anxiety med dosage. Also I guess I learned a lot about my job lol. Also the new provider and I are BFFs so my job is much more enjoyable.
    via u/TypicalRoof2
  • 54
    Font - [deleted] He just...wouldn't work. Just wouldn't. This was in a research lab. He was a visiting researcher from another country, and he spent a lot of time asking tons of non-work related questions, to the point of disrupting others' work. In the course of a year, he designed one very basic experiment, and didn't actually do it. Just designed it. He was above doing bench work apparently. He picked fights with everyone doing any experiment related to the one he was planning, because he did
    via u/[deleted]
  • 55
    Font - He wouldn't clean up after himself, wouldn't pick up things from the floor. He actually called me in from another room because he wouldn't take a string- less tea bag out of his mug. Also on a different occasion, because he'd knocked some things off a hanger on the back of the door and for whatever reason wouldn't pick them up. It was kind of like working with a child. He must've had servants where he lived. I don't know how but he was there for his PhD. Boss fired him. He was one of two
    via u/[deleted]
  • 56
    Font - Wolfsleeper My receptionist is the most useless person I've ever met. Ignores the phones while playing on her own personal device. Takes countless personal calls too. Also does all personal business on their work computer from shopping to bills. On any given day will constantly find ways to avoid doing work by getting up and shooting the s with anyone patient enough to listen.
    via u/Wolfsleeper
  • 57
    Font - My personal favorite? Does not take an ounce of criticism whatsoever. Every question or suggestion is an attack or bullying in their opinion. Person has filed countless HR complaints because other employees have suggested this person focus on their work. Countless meeting and time has been wasted trying to appease this person. Their last day is coming in a few weeks and I'm going to celebrate. From the bottom of my heart and ever fiber of being; you
    via u/Wolfsleeper
  • 58
    Font - DeathSpiral321 Jami. Her picture belonged next to Passive-Aggressive in the dictionary. She knew how to stay on the good side of the boss, but treated most everyone else like dirt. She would intentionally ignore your attempts to F communicate with her regarding important work matters, then turn around and claim you were the one being difficult. Whenever you pointed out one of her mistakes (however small), she would throw a temper tantrum like a little kid. Haven't worked with her for many
    via u/DeathSpiral321
  • 59
    Font - scorch762 Oh man, reminds me of a story where I used to work. A girl there used to microwave tuna 3 times a week and it was an old building with windows that didn't open because of 50 years of paint accumulated on the hinges. Me and the workshop manager decided to relocate the microwave to a more ventilated area. Out in the warehouse, by the door. We knocked up a bracket in the workshop and screwed it down over the microwave so it couldn't be brought back to the main wing of the building.
    via u/scorch762

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Tags

opinion ask reddit boss workplace-stories jobs job funny stories retail bosses work coworkers doctor askreddit workplace funny opinions
Scroll Down For The Next Article