'On Mondays, I would show up to work on and not do anything': 20+ Workers who couldn't stay professional on the job

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Aug 6, 2024 3:00 PM EDT

Work never ends, so you've got to pace yourself. You can't be taking work so seriously that you burn yourself out. As they say, no one ever lays on their deathbed and regrets not working enough hours of overtime for their ungrateful boss. You'll remember the good times in life, and all those endless hours of work will blend together. Sometimes, you've got to make the fun times happen on your own terms: just ask the people below, who shared their most unprofessional moments on the job. 

More than 6,000 people had moments at work where they were not at their most professional, yet most people didn't get fired for these indiscretions. Who knew how easy it could be to pilfer food from a fast-food restaurant? Apparently, some people took way more than they were supposed to, eating plenty of stolen treats after hours. One person even stole a pricey cat tree from the pet store they worked at! Bravo to anyone who gets away with things like that---with cameras everywhere, it's not so easy to get away with backroom shenanigans anymore. And of course, stealing things isn't the only way people goofed off at work. You can read a bunch of great stories down below. 

Next, this boss was absolutely inundated with emails after he demanded his web developer notify him every single time a customer got a 404 message! 

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  • 01
    '[I] started a late-night baseball league with my coworkers using expired pastries... if you could make a pastry explode, then you got a home run'
    via Lisa Gageler on Unsplash
  • 02
    What's the most unprofessional thing you've ever done at work?
    via u/bluefoot55
  • 03
    [deleted] I used to wear a costume and shake a sign outside to advertise for a Halloween store. It isn't as humiliating as you'd think (most people ignore you) but it's painfully boring. My favorite costume was a giant pickle one because I could hide my head and one arm inside while
    via u/[deleted]
  • 04
    shaking the sign with the other and browse reddit or watch entire movies. I'm so glad Halloween season is over. Edit: I am a female (hence prncess in my un) and I kept my arm inside my pickle so I could hide my phone while looking at it. Nobody wants to buy a costume from a pickle on their phone.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 05
    [deleted] In high school I was a busboy at Outback Steakhouse. Lunch was around 12:00, school was released at 2:30, track practice was over by 5, work at 6:00-10:30 ish. As you can imagine I was starving every time I worked. Cleaning up after people who had
    via u/[deleted]
  • 06
    left food on the table would be torture. Sometimes it would be too much for me and I'd eat someone else's to go box or something. I remember one night an entire macaroni and cheese was left in the bowl and it looked so good. So I snuck it into
    via u/[deleted]
  • 07
    the bathroom, as not to be seen, and devoured the entire bowl. I didn't get caught, luckily. It was too real.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 08
    [deleted] I smashed my elbow on a corner of the board table and let out an almighty' in front of the CEO, the board and a few shareholders.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 09
    nOsolace I used to work in a call centre. I used to patch irate customers through to my firends' mobiles. Good times.
    via u/n0solace
  • 10
    vesnapukanic I worked my second real day at a retail job when I was in my early 20s, was at the cash register one day. Dealt with an irate customer who decided to throw coins at the counter so I had to pick them up off the floor. I asked her to stop, she continued and called me a name at which point I threw all of their
    via u/vesnapukanic
  • 11
    merchandise on the ground from the counter, walked out. Never came back, even to pick up what little money I had earned of a paycheck. Just left the awful customer, the counter and the store to handle itself.
    via u/vesnapukanic
  • 12
    bigeazybreezy When I was probably 18 I was working at a grocery store in the deli department. The produce department office was conjoined with the deli separated by a swinging door. One day, me and the produce guy were prancing each other back and forth and I got the last move in by
    via u/bigeazybreezy
  • 13
    taking the fire extinguisher and kicking thru the door and letting the contents of the extinguisher loose in the the produce office. And BOOM! Within 3 second the thing was empty and the room was a cloud. My buddy was just like and fell on the floor laughing. We cleaned up the powder
    via u/bigeazybreezy
  • 14
    or whatever it is and continued as if it never happened. Never got caught, even though we should've.
    via u/bigeazybreezy
  • 15
    mayonnaise_man I work at a coffee shop, and for whatever reason, we had to stay open all night Black Friday. Sometimes we would go hours without a single customer. So we took the giant cart thing that we use to wheel trash out to the dumpster, and rode it like a scooter
    via u/mayonnaise_man
  • 16
    down the road and throughout the parking lot. It was actually really sweet, but my manager would've been pisssed.
    via u/mayonnaise_man
  • 17
    [deleted] spent an entire 8 hour day browsing this website
    via u/[deleted]
  • 18
    Tondor I worked at a pool, and anytime it got hazy, or looked like it was going to rain, we would have someone go out and bang on the dumpster because it sounded like thunder. Hello, break- time.
    via u/Tondor
  • 19
    ToScared ToGay I was a middle manager with 15 people under me in the IT business. Slow day in the middle if the summer, I decided to throw a poker tournament for all of them. Winner got three days off with pay.
    via u/ToScared ToGay
  • 20
    YourHappiness. I was in between jobs a few years ago and ended up reluctantly taking up a job with a friendwho worked in a call centre. This place was basically targeting elderly folk in midwest and southern states by saying they won a vacation and we needed bank info to deposit their winnings,
    via u/F***YourHappiness
  • 21
    complete scam only your and a grandparentswould fall for. My friends manager sat me down the firstday and went over some selling tactics with me. Real scummy type stuff, ask how wonderful it feel for them to be able to buy thier grandchildren that disney vacation, etc. After the first day I got good at it, like really
    via u/F***YourHappiness
  • 22
    good, talking to them about their family getting to know them and then handing them over to my manager who would in turn empty out the bank account within a few hours. After the first week I felt wrong and my results started to show, my manager said something along the lines of not considering these people, people just
    via u/F***YourHappiness
  • 23
    bank accounts, thats So my next call I dialed a number in montana i think, buddy picked up and I tried my best to pitch my to no avail, he just wasnt buying it. So after a long pause i leanedinto my desk and whispered this into my headset
    via u/F***YourHappiness
  • 24
    "Listen sir, I'm working at an illegal call centre, we rip off bank account info from senior citizens and its making me sick, get a pen I'm going to give you the address of this place, when we hang up call your police department and tell them where this office is, I'm about to quit."
    via u/F***YourHappiness
  • 25
    [deleted] Got in a broom fight.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 26
    ArtsyMNKid Sometimes I would eat a handful of candy topping from the freezer at the fast-food restaurant I work at.
    via u/ArtsyMNKid
  • 27
    [deleted] I used to work at Wendy's, and EVERY TIME I went in the walk in, i would eat like two handfuls of cherry tomatoes. And at night i would take home like, a whole cup of the oreo crumbs that we put in parfaits. I stole A LOT of food.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 28
    xiEmber A lot of unprofessional things happen in the basement cooler when your boyfriend is your manager.
    via u/xiEmber
  • 29
    enigami123 A few years ago I started working as a shipping manager for a local shop that sold imported foods. It was a family business and I was so excited because I was brought in to establish a gift basket program, build the brand, etc. I worked my off. The owners had all the troubles new owners face, but they
    via u/enigami123
  • 30
    were also very nasty people-- kicking out customers from their patio seating because they had visible tattoos (this was in a fashionable area of a very urban city, so many of the clientele would have tattoos but also have a lot of money...) After a few years, I just had to call it quits. The last straw came when the bakery
    via u/enigami123
  • 31
    manager gave me a muffin from a batch that had gotten slightly burned. I saw the owners digging through the trash to find my receipt for it (I typically bought one pastry a day anyways, like clockwork Employees were expected to save all their receipts to prove they weren't stealing). Anyways, instead of just
    via u/enigami123
  • 32
    asking me about it, they decided to bring it up after the fact when I had to pester them for an annual review. The review scored me a "2" in terms of teamwork because they thought I had stolen this muffin. I wrote a resignation email but BCC'ed everyone else at the company as well. Everyone.
    via u/enigami123
  • 33
    Here is the email I sent: It's with a heavy heart that I am resigning from XXXXXXXX. While I regret the abruptness of my departure, I can't justify being part of an organization that has shown how little confidence it has in both myself and its own future. It's mostly due to
    via u/enigami123
  • 34
    recent circumstances (a 2--really?) but mainly the result of a continuing trend, which has repeatedly been towards astoundingly poor and often baffling decision making. I thought we were working towards a collective goal-- towards building something. But I no longer trust that you have a real vision in mind
    via u/enigami123
  • 35
    or how to succeed in making it a reality (success is measuring an area correctly, survival is your current reality). Perhaps when the majority of your staff are either so bitter at your treatment of them (they'll tell you otherwise, but yes-- they really are) or just weary from all the joyless disorganization,
    via u/enigami123
  • 36
    you need to take some real measures to fix it. And maybe not in the slipshod slapdash amateur approach that has become so frequent that you accept their results without learning how to improve upon them. I'm sure you'll find a way to mitigate all of this. His heart wasn't in it. He wasn't the right guy for
    via u/enigami123
  • 37
    the job. He had too much on his plate. But you'd be wrong. My heart was in it, I was the right guy for the job, and the workload rarely bothered me. Maybe one day you'll figure it out. To better days, [enigami123]
    via u/enigami123
  • 38
    betafish27 For 5 years I decided on Mondays I would show up to work on and not do anything work related. It was my chill day where I browsed Reddit and Facebook all day.
    via u/betafish27
  • 39
    ChiefCharmin I tazed myself.
    via u/ChiefCharmin
  • 40
    -eDgAR- I've mentioned this before, but at my old job I used to look for and apply to other jobs instead of working, which isn't that bad but still unprofessional in my opinion.
    via u/-eDgAR-
  • 41
    future_traveller called in and said i'd be late because all my jeans were in the dryer once.
    via u/future_traveller
  • 42
    scubsurf I worked at Starbucks for 7 years. By year 3 I got pretty good at my job. Good enough that on our "secret customer" reviews, I earned the only perfect score (5 stars and 100%) in the last 10 years of that store.
    via u/scubsurf
  • 43
    So on the one hand, I was good at my job. On the other hand, I was bored, and didn't give a , and I got complacent. So... good at my job, but employee. Here's a list of some of the unprofessional did at work: I
    via u/scubsurf
  • 44
    • Melted plastic cups in our oven, to see what would happen. Accidentally started small fires in the oven, also trying to "see what would happen." • Stole merchandise and supplies for my own use.
    via u/scubsurf
  • 45
    • Got 2nd degree burns from molten sugar, trying to make caramel in our oven. • Climbed our 10' shelves with 50lb. boxes on one shoulder while doing inventory. To be fair, our ladder was broken. People nick-named me "Spiderman" for this.
    via u/scubsurf
  • 46
    • Threw drinks at my coworkers while we were working drive- through. Usually we would do this to each other and catch the drinks, then hand them off. Kept things fast and fun. Sometimes people walked in the way of a thrown drink.
    via u/scubsurf
  • 47
    • Started a bottle-cap dodge-ball game that spanned months in our store. All the guys (and some of the girls) would keep the caps from every container they opened throughout the day, and any time we could get away without a customer noticing
    via u/scubsurf
  • 48
    we would launch one as hard as we could at another coworker. When we got off our shifts it was all-out war. • Started a late-night baseball league with my coworkers using expired pastries when they told us we couldn't donate them to
    via u/scubsurf
  • 49
    homeless people anymore. We'd use the bat I kept in my trunk and if you could make a pastry explode then you got a home run.
    via u/scubsurf
  • 50
    quenishi In my teenage years, I worked at a supermarket, in the non- food department. They had a till island, which were 3 tills set into a rectangular desk effectively.
    via u/quenishi
  • 51
    One day I decided to leap over the counter, rather than leave through the door. I failed to be stealthy about it, and a customer looked at me funny. Later found out the customer complained (no sense of fun, I tells yah) and my manager said that if
    via u/quenishi
  • 52
    someone is blocking the door, I should wait... allowed her to believe her invented scenario, seeing as the truth was I was bored enough to think it was a good idea.
    via u/quenishi
  • 53
    [deleted] Not me, but a good friend of mine. Too good not to share. So she got a job at a restaurant a few weeks ago and it was her first service job she has ever had. Apparently two of her coworkers called out leaving her as the only server on the floor on a pretty busy day. Long
    via u/[deleted]
  • 54
    story short she was pretty in the weeds and became a little flustered when some lady started complaining and telling her to hurry up and tell the kitchen to prepare the food faster. Instinctively my friend responds, "How about you eat a ?!" without skipping a beat in a very serious tone. What I would have given to see
    via u/[deleted]
  • 55
    the ladies face. She didn't say another word the entire meal and some how my friend still has her job.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 56
    backattack1 I worked at a chain coffee shop in a large chain bookstore in high school. I used to tell my coworker I was going to do some dishes in the back, but I really just sat in the walk-in fridge and ate pastries from our stock.
    via u/backattack1
  • 57
    Snoogins44 It was a slow day at the ice cream store so I covered my hand in dipping chocolate and hung out in the walk-in freezer until my hand looked like chubs' from happy gilmore
    via u/Snoogins44
  • 58
    myexpertthrowaway During an office move, I put a whole fish into a colleague's moving box. thinking he would find it the next morning. Unbeknownst to me, he was moved into an office that had a locking door. And he went on vacation for 2 weeks. I've never told another soul until now.
    via u/myexpertthrowaway
  • 59
    addicted_to_blistex. Years ago, I was like 18 and I (assistant) managed a pet store and I let a friend/coworker back her car up to the loading dock and steal and very expensive cat tree. She still has it and her cat still loves it. I was young and an idiot and it was not my proudest moment.
    via u/addicted_to_blistex

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