'I was just accused of stealing water': 20+ Mindless managers who leveled wild accusations against their employees

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Nov 10, 2023 5:00 PM EST

From pilfering water to stealing company time, these managers were sure they had the perfect punishments for these "thieving" employees. 

It seems like every workplace has at least one overly serious manager. They're the person who never cracks a smile or a joke. They ignore employees since they're staring at a clipboard or their phone instead. And they love to make workers stick to the rules without fail. 

They can't resist telling everyone what to do, but that doesn't tend to gain them much respect from the people who work for them. These managers probably aggrandize themselves in their minds, thinking that everyone fears them and admires their strict business mindset. Instead, I'm sure all of these employees just mock them behind their backs. It's hard to scare or intimidate your employees into trusting your leadership! 

Some of the things people were punished for are shockingly innocent. It seems like for many employees, these incidents were some of their final straws before they finally decided to leave the company for good. 

Scroll down to read these fascinating stories (and cheer on the few employees who did end up quitting after experiencing such a toxic workplace). Then, one dude was surprised to find their neighbor was leaving them notes demanding they take down their Halloween decorations…on the day after the holiday. 

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    Cheezburger Image 9835449344
    via Arlington Research on Unsplash
  • 02
    Employee's of Reddit - I was just accused of 'stealing water'. What crazy accusation has an employee or supervisor made about you? I'm on a diet that requires me to drink a metric s ton of water (shout out to my friends over at r/keto!) so I carry around a 1L Nalgine bottle at all times. I'm a mid-level manager at a 60 person company. At the end of the work day, on my way out I pass the water cooler and fill my bottle up for the commute home. Yesterday I was doing just that when our office manag
    via u/hammeresq
  • 03
    I thought she was kidding, or at the very worst having a s day and lashing out, she wasn't. Today I get into the office with an email from her to myself, my boss (our CEO/founder), and our HR person saying that I am stealing from the company, that I didn't stop filling my water bottle and immediately apologize when confronted, and that she is officially reporting this behavior and asking to have it documented. Needless to say we all had a pretty good laugh about it, my boss called me in hysteric
    via u/hammeresq
  • 04
    [deleted] "Time clock thievery..." while doing volunteer work. EDIT for details: It was a simple volunteer gig, no major organization and nobody was keeping track of hours for anything, and it was not court mandated. We were cleaning up at the end of the day and I answered a phone call... The supervisor got all Р and "Get off the phone! That's time clock thievery!"
    via u/[deleted]
  • 05
    DazeLost I was working retail at Best Buy at the time and they had me working in MP3 players/Cell Phones despite the fact that DVDs/Video Games were really more my wheelhouse. But I worked where they told me and I did my job well. During Christmas season, it got really busy so everyone was running around helping every department. I was hanging out in my own section when a woman comes over, asks about some headphones, and I help her. She then asks me if the Dance Dance Revolution Madcatz (?) mat
    via u/DazeLost
  • 06
    and showed her a slightly more expensive (but better) copy of a Konami mat with a game. She thanked me since she didn't even know it needed a game and went off. My department manager comes up behind me, tells me to meet him in the breakroom in five minutes, and -rips- in to me. He says that the department with the best revenue gets bonuses (only true for him, not for the rest of us below him) and we shouldn't be helping customers in other sections get more expensive things. He says he'd be shock
    via u/DazeLost
  • 07
    Come January, I get fired by "department manager recommendation." So, when you go to Best Buy, know that all the departments have their own agendas with you.
    via u/DazeLost
  • 08
    iambeaker I had an employer of mine write me up for stealing trash. In reality, at the end of my shift, one of my duties was to gather all the trash. Often times, I would pick through the trash and sort all the paper, pop cans, and water bottles in our company's recycle bin. We had a special promotion with our trash company in which our company would get money based on the number of pounds we recycled. It ended up being $1500 per month AND we didn't pay our trash bill. So long story short, I got
    via u/iambeaker
  • 09
    stopped, the following month, our manager that she had was p to pay a trash bill. She called the trash company and the company told her that the past 2 years she didn't pay for trash because our company would recycle so much, we would get a $1500 check AND free trash service. My boss thought that the checks were a bonus for her. Anyhow, the district manager was reviewing the write ups and saw I got written up for stealing trash, so he called me up and asked me what was going on. I told him the s
    via u/iambeaker
  • 10
    The next day he flew in to talk to my manager. He asked my manager what happened to the $20,000 that she got from the trash company. Apparently, she tried to pin it back on me, and our district manager promptly fired her. After escorting her out, he called me into the office. He told me what happened in that meeting, and offered me a promotion to Assistant Manager.
    via u/iambeaker
  • 11
    [deleted] I got accused of stealing a salad. I worked as a cashier at a grocery store while in high school. Because they had scheduled me 6 1/2 hours, I only qualified for a 15 minute break, not a 30 minute. So I spend the first 8 or so minutes of my break on the phone with a mechanic working out issues with my car. I then run back to the little cafe near the back of the store that has a salad bar and make a quick salad, which you weigh and price there. By this time I had about 5 minutes left on
    via u/[deleted]
  • 12
    So I stand at the cafe register for a good minute, and no one is to be found. I quickly eat my salad, and then take the sticker up to the front registers to pay for the $1.99 salad. I go back on the clock, and about 20 minutes later I am called into the office. They say a situation has occurred, but don't tell me what. They said they are sending me home for the day. So I come back in the next day for my shift, and they call me into the office again. In the office is the store manager, the assist
    via u/[deleted]
  • 13
    trouble. They accuse me of stealing the salad because "despite purchasing the salad, as our records do indicate, you consumed the salad before the purchase." I explained to them how the cashier at the cafe was nowhere to be found, and how if I wanted to eat during my break at that point, I would have had to eat it back in the cafe and then pay for it up front. They tell me to go home, and that they will contact me tomorrow regarding if I keep my job or not. I left in tears, but then got really a
    via u/[deleted]
  • 14
    [deleted] I worked in a souvenir shop at an amusement park. It was the fourth of July, one of the busiest days because of the park's fireworks show. We were also understaffed. The shop was just inside the gate, so it would get swamped just before closing, as people bought the stuff they didn't want to walk around with all day. I was left alone in the shop just before closing time running the cash register as people flowed in. It was utter chaos. While closing out the register that night, it was
    via u/[deleted]
  • 15
    The manager simply could not fathom that one person manning a swamped store can't prevent theft because not all the displays are within sight of the register. I think it must have been a team effort, with one or two people getting my attention in one area while the other walked off with the toy, but I didn't say that because I really didn't know when or how it happened. Ba accused me of being in on it and looking the other way while a friend stole it so we could profit later. I didn't even know
    via u/[deleted]
  • 16
    tallguy10 I used to work at a retail store and I had a beard. One day my boss told me to get rid of my beard so I came back the next day with a mustache. I was then told I had an attitude problem.
    via u/tallguy10
  • 17
    Whoosh BulletTime. Last night my manager called me stupid and uneducated for not cheating a customer out of fifteen dollars due to a computer error. She thought it was obvious I should lie about the error and garner another whopping 15 dollars for the struggling hospitality industry. Today I go in for a meeting to get scolded for not lying, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to burst into tears.
    via u/Whoosh BulletTime
  • 18
    9 WhatsAMaWhoosIt. When I worked at circuit city, I had an 80 GB iPod that my dad had given me because he no longer needed it (it was practically brand new). Even when I first plugged it into my computer, it came up as "Richard's iPod". Well, one day it's in my purse that I kept under my counter while I was working. It goes missing. I couldn't undestand how it had gotten stolen, it had been one of the slowest days ever. Nonetheless, I was pretty freaking bummed out about it. This happened during
    via u/WhatsAMaWhoosIt
  • 19
    Fast-toward a few weeks later, my coworker tells me my recently-left for another job dept manager thought I was the one stealing iPods and that he got into my purse when I wasn't looking and took it to check the serial number, but never gave it back because I was flipping out and causing a bit of scene walking around asking everyone if they'd seen anyone take it. I was so f P
    via u/WhatsAMaWhoosIt
  • 20
    buoyancy_compensator I worked in retail as a cashier at a pet store for a long time, and occasionally when there was nothing going on I would just grab a couple tennis bal s and juggle them to keep myself amused. I'm pretty good at it, can do 3 in all sorts of weird ways without looking at it or thinking about it so I converse with customers perfectly normally when I need to, and most of them find it funny (if I didnt think they would I'd stop before they even made it close to conversation range
    via u/buoyancy_compensator
  • 21
    Cue a day such as that, I'm bored and juggling while I watch the front door. Family comes in with little kids, they laugh at the juggling and come talk to me for a little while about reptiles (and juggling) while I try to teach one of their sons (5 or 6 years old) how to juggle because he asked me to. Good times were had by all, they walk off and do their shopping with their little son trying to juggle the mini tennis gave him. Immediately get called into the back by the assistant manager who (w
    via u/buoyancy_compensator
  • 22
    customers by juggling and not giving them my full attention. I respectfully (perhaps sarcastically, no promises) disagree, and when he looks to the other manager in the room to back him up you could just tell the guy was completely uninterested in getting involved, and he basically had nothing bad to say. Assistant manager continues to lay into me a bit more, says he's going to work with me on not being disrespectful like that and if it continued we'd have to have a talk about my employment, I l
    via u/buoyancy_compensator
  • 23
    Month later, new store manager gets hired, walks to the front with the assistant manager and sees me juggling. Assistant manager gets the look like he's about to rip me a new one, but the store manager laughs, compliments me on my juggling, goes and grabs his own tennis and starts juggling too. Ah man, the look on the assistant managers face...priceless.
    via u/buoyancy_compensator
  • 24
    auxium Mine isn't nearly as compelling as others. A year after I started working for a company as a graphic designer (turned out I was also the marketing and web design departments as well) my wife got pregnant with our first child. This was an office filled mostly with middle aged women (I was in my mid-late twenties) and they were all excited, even threw us a baby shower. goes well and my son is born and I take 2 weeks vacation time to be with my wife and child (2 weeks I had saved up). I come
    via u/auxium
  • 25
    where previously she and I were pretty close. This goes on for several months until I learn budget cuts have eliminated my position effective in 6 months from the time I found out. Through my co- workers I found out that my boss was pl I had a baby and that I "wasn't dedicated to the cause". She was also at the budget meeting and initially there were no cuts to our division but she threw me under the bus saying my work was non-essential. So here I am with a young family and staring down the barr
    via u/auxium
  • 26
    were eager to sign me on. Needless to say I didn't do s for the next 6 months and am now happy at my current position and making more moolah to boot. Their company is now in the ser and I poached one of their biggest clients on the way out. tl:dr: I wasn't part of my ex-boss's fascist view of the future since I started a family.
    via u/auxium
  • 27
    bobadobalina A friend of mine used to work for wellknown communications company One day the CEO of the company visited the office. He went into the break room and counted the supplies. He then announced that he could tell from the proportion of coffee to sweetener that people were stealing the sweetener and taking it home. He then ordered the discontinuation of coffee service for all company offices His name was Bernie Ebbers and it wasn't too long after that he was indicted for the biggest act
    via u/bobadobalina
  • 28
    MezzozzeM I know this isn't an accusation that was made by an employee or supervisor, but I figured I would post it here anyway. About 5 years ago my neighbor accused me of stealing his fence. Yes, his fence. He said something along the lines of him knowing that I had taken it, and that he just wanted it back. I still don't really know how to respond to something like that.
    via u/MezzozzeM
  • 29
    Bean Bandit I worked in the stock room of a Gordmans and i was accused of stealing a security cable that goes on jackets... Yeah, what would i do with one of those? Oh and it turns out, our store didn't even carry those cables. It was my phone charger i had in my hand.
    via u/Bean_Bandit
  • 30
    AWhiteStripe42 I worked at Sears, and I gave someone 0% financing for a 6 months(might have been a year, I honestly don't remember) on their Sears card on a purchase. I thought we were running a promotion, turned out we were not. Later, they threatened to fire me for stealing, saying I had stolen the money they might have made on the interest if the person had not made payments.
    via u/AWhiteStripe42
  • 31
    centech Not me but happened to my best friend and I love this story.. He works at a very large pharmaceutical company.. Lets call them.. Jimson and Jimson.. He is at the San Diego office, now in San Diego it hardly ever rains, so very few people have umbrellas.. Well, on the day of the company Christmas party it happened to be raining. In the lobby at the security desk they have a pool of umbrellas to loan out to people that don't have umbrellas. Great! So my friend borrowed one, went to his car
    via u/centech
  • 32
    about 10pm, after leaving the Christmas party, he gets a phone call from his department manager. "Did you take an umbrella?" "Huh?" "Did you take an umbrella from the lobby today?" "Oh.. yeah." "Dude return the umbrella." "Yeah I will bring it back tomorrow." "No.. I need you to go bring it back. Right. Now. You cant imagine the trouble this has caused."
    via u/centech
  • 33
    Well.. it turns out that the understanding on the umbrellas is, you return them same day. You are supposed to take the umbrella.. go to your car.. then come back to the front and run in to return the umbrella. Someone who I can only imagine is both a huge b and was having a bad day, needed an umbrella and went to get on from the front desk to find there were none there. She asked where they all were and the security guard, who I imagine was also having a bad day and is a huge p told her 'Well Ce
    via u/centech
  • 34
    entire site, and my friend's boss, and everyone else she could think of to complain about the sanctity of the shared umbrellas being violated. Luckily cooler heads prevailed and nothing came of it, but for a few hours the fact my friend borrowed an umbrellas was treated by many people at J&J as if he had stolen the recipe to the cure for cancer.
    via u/centech
  • 35
    Immamoonkin I used to work for a Kroger in Little Rock, Arkansas as a cake decorator part time. I was never actually trained for the job except how to properly put frosting on the cake or how to make a shell border. Everything else was pretty much self taught. I used what artist skills I have to not only do a shell border, but add art nouveau style borders with it, as well as create custom character cakes for birthdays if our store didn't have the cake kit to make it with. I had created cakes th
    via u/Immamoonkin
  • 36
    ba Is to create grape vines all over it. It sold 15 minutes after I put it on the cooler, so I had to make another. Also, you know those little "cupcake cakes" where they take a bunch of cupcakes and make a character? Yeah, I did goombas and Mario mushrooms from those. After working there for about three months, the bakery manager called me over to the side and told me that the "head cake designer" complained that I was too slow at making the cakes, and because of that, I was now required to sta
    via u/Immamoonkin
  • 37
    I later found out that from other employees that it wasn't that I was slow.. it was because no one was buying the cakes she was making.
    via u/Immamoonkin
  • 38
    SolomonGrumpy Living in Boston at the time, and the city got hit with an epic Snowstorm/Nor'easter. Like the good little worker bee I am, though, I shovel out, and brave the "state of emergency" to limp up the highway to work. "State of Emergency" means that many business (and sometimes the highways) are shut down. An Adult snow day, if you will. When I get there, I just get to work, but my Manager feels the need to castigate me for being 20 mins late. I give him a "you're an interesting specime
    via u/SolomonGrumpy
  • 39
    That night, I had a previous engagement planned. I had already cleared leaving early with my manager, and I'm a salaried employee. When the end of the day neared, I packed up to go home, a whopping 30 minutes early (knowing that I would probably be a bit late, due to the snow - but also knowing that the company is very sensitive about "clocking out early") So I walk out and am trudging to my car, when - you guessed it - my manager comes running out again. He asks me why I am leaving early. I gen
    via u/SolomonGrumpy
  • 40
    but you came in LATE this morning. "you have to make up that time or you are STEALING from the company." I just looked at him. Then I turned around and left anyway. What a small person he was/is. I don't work there anymore. tl;dr: I left for work early, after coming in 20 mins late due to a horrific snowstorm. Manager accuses me of stealing company time.
    via u/SolomonGrumpy
  • 41
    [deleted] I recently got written up for reasons that are unclear to me. Apparently I have become the IT department's supervisor despite never being told this or getting a raise. I got written up for the department not meeting an impossible roll out schedule, 450 computers in a month with two people and no overtime allowed, all with dealing with tickets that come in for the existing systems. To top it off, they went straight to a final written. I had never even got a verbal before this.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 42
    chcor70 I was a chemist working for the govt. For density we used to use pyncometers which were defined volume vessels with a hole for a thermometer and we would perform our analysis on a old balance. We had extra money in the budget so i bought a electronic density apparatus for a new balance. Anyway my team leader who was in his 70s had no idea how it worked and forbid me from using it telling the
    via u/chcor70
  • 43
    lab director i was "making up science with the balances" the lab director walked me into the wet lab and i showed him how this new piece of equip would save us hours from having to do prep with the pycnometers. He laughed and said this is the govt whats the hurry. pretty sad.
    via u/chcor70
  • 44
    Deathbyspatzle Work as an editor in television. Did a series for a production company and was told many times by the big bosses how wonderful my storytelling was. After the show ended they asked me to stay and help edit some shows they had been doing for years. Day one of the new gig the show's producer asks me what I think about the new show. "Honest opinion?" I ask. "Of course" she says. "It's too slow, every episode feels the same and I learn nothing about the subject matter. With a little ma
    via u/Deathbyspatzle
  • 45
    interesting show," I reply. Fired two weeks later because my "editorial pacing" is off. I can't prove it but I know that producer whined b about me bagging on her precious show. One of the heads of the company actually had tears in her eyes when she let me go because I was giving her a W look the whole time. Silver lining: next gig doubled my salary and got me an Emmy for editing! S ck it b !
    via u/Deathbyspatzle
  • 46
    DukeEsquire When I was 16, I worked at McDonalds. I always volunteered for the early morning shift of the weekends because no one else wanted it. So, I would show up to work at 5:30 AM to open the store. One morning, I got a phone call at 5:00 AM in the morning as I was getting ready for work. Turns out, the manager was reviewing my timecards because it looked like SIX MONTHS AGO, instead of taking a 30 minute lunch break, I took a 26 minute lunch break, which is in violation of company policy.
    via u/DukeEsquire
  • 47
    I explained that it was because the store was really busy and my manager asked me to clock in early to help out during the lunch rush. The manager on the phone said, "Doesn't matter. You should have known the rules and just because someone asks you to break a rule, you should know better than to listen. We cannot employ someone who knowingly breaks company rules."
    via u/DukeEsquire
  • 48
    And I was fired with less than 30 minutes notice. Turns out, since I had worked at the store since I was 14, I was owed a significant pay bump once I hit my 2 year mark and they wanted to get rid of me before that happened.
    via u/DukeEsquire
  • 49
    yourenzyme I was fired for being late to work. They would schedule me a 12 hour shift during the holidays, Only to have me come back to work 5 hours later. it was a 30 min drive to and from work. So at most, I'd be able to get 3 hours of sleep, and that was if I was lucky to fall asleep immediately. They did this several times. I tried to make it back on time, but I would be anywhere from a half hour to an hour late. I would always get the work done that needed to be done as well.
    via u/yourenzyme
  • 50
    HillTopTerrace Accused of sticking a note on a fellow employees desk that read "you're desk smells like onions." Management deemed this a serious harassment violation because the victim said that she felt intimidated by the offense. A hand writing analysis was done (by management) and I was one of two matches. I did not do it and lost a bit of respect for management that day.
    via u/HillTopTerrace
  • 51
    UwasaWaya I was yelled at, like a child, in front of my officemates, for wearing a sweater. My boss accused me of using it to agitate my allergies and make me sneeze. I have no idea what me sneezing would accomplish to benefit me, but there you have it (mind you, this was in Hawaii, and AC in buildings has two settings: broken and walk-in freezer... guess what ours was set to?). She was demoted a month later and transferred, so the story has a happy ending.
    via u/UwasaWaya
  • 52
    youhatemeandihateyou. I was accused of stealing toilet paper because I had a cold and was blowing my nose in the bathroom after I ran out of Kleenex. That same general manager threw a stapler at my head once. I should have gotten him fired, but I was happy just to leave.
    via u/youhatemeandihateyou
  • 53
    arcanium Many years ago (we're talking late 80s) there was another recession, and I had resorted to the lowest of the low to pay the rent: Data entry. The company used IBM terminals. My job was to take a paper invoice, enter all the details into the computer-based version of the handwritten form, and then send it off to have whatever the next step of the process done. Since this was being done for a single location, there were three or four bits of information that were specific to our location,
    via u/arcanium
  • 54
    me to press a function key when a new form came up to prefill those bits of data and then jump to the first row of text input for a form. My supervisor sees this in action one morning and nearly gave live birth to bovine mammal right then and there. Literally screeching at me that I was doing something illegal, refusing all explanations. The next thing I knew I was being written up for "reprogramming the mainframe computer" and being hauled in front of the VP for our division and the division IT
    via u/arcanium
  • 55
    The IT guy said "This is like programming the TAB key on a typewriter for a form," and then stared at her for an uncomfortable amount of time before simply walking out with the VP. The two of us were left in the conference room staring at each other. All she said was "just... get back to work," before hurrying out of the room. Never had another problem with her again, in fact, I don't think she ever said more than two words to me or looked in my direction again. EDIT tl;dr: Computer illiterate s
    via u/arcanium

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