'My coworkers have talked about "the cabinet incident"': 20+ Workers who had memorable meltdowns

Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor

May 29, 2024 5:00 PM EDT

Deep breaths everyone, deep breaths. Sometimes that's all you can do when The Circumstances happen to you in the workplace. The higher your stress level is at work, the sooner you'll snap, as these ex-employees know all too well.

On the r/AskReddit subreddit, u/Flaxmoore was curious about the "most legendary work meltdown" people had ever witnessed. There were more than 7,000 responses with stories from numerous different industries. There were a fair amount of stories from the call center sector, a notoriously unpleasant job at the best of times. Customers are calling to complain, and working with these already angry callers is a full-time job for these folks. Most people only last a few weeks or months before they have a full meltdown in the office, or just can't bring themselves to go to work each day.

Other people witnessed meltdowns over seemingly small things, like one dude who smashed his keyboard over technical issues. The little things build up to big problems over time, and stress-reduction techniques can only do so much. Scroll down to check out the rest of these stories.

After that, read about the tech employee in the 90s who was working the jobs of four people before walking out, writing, "I hadn't even reached my car when the pager started blowing up."