20+ Petty workplace dramas that got the whole office gossiping: 'Patricia stole my stapler and is denying it'

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jan 14, 2025 3:00 PM EST

Workplace drama has been heating up at these jobs, and workers are excited to spill the tea. 

There's nothing that livens up a dreary Tuesday in the office like a little drama between coworkers, or a disagreement between management that the whole office overhears. Normally, your work life is full of spreadsheets and conference calls. But suddenly, you're transported back to high school, and the whole office is giddily whispering about the drama going down at work. 

Ideally, you want to have a little bit of intrigue during your workday, but you definitely don't want to be in the office where there's a new disagreement or big blowup on the daily. Some jobs have employees with known rivalries, like the secretary who can't stand one of the higher-ups, or a retail worker who will cover shifts only for their friends. At previous jobs, I used to watch as managers would give the best shifts to employees they liked, while putting people they didn't care for on the late-night shifts or "clopening" shifts. Talk about pettiness! 

Next, read about the construction workers who built an entire home backward to get back at their sassy architect boss's directions after he said, "I'm in charge here! You don't have the right to question me."

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  • 01
    Cheezburger Image 10454375424
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 02

    "What is the small scale work drama happening in your office right now?"

    No_Sugar8791 I guess this isn't small scale but fits the drama side; We've just received our pay increase and bonus figures for the year except HR sent a number of letters to the wrong people. Some of whom work together, doing the same job, but with different rates of pay and bonuses. Bedlam.
    via u/No_Sugar8791
  • 03

    Is there something in the water?

    AKTourGirl There's 82 people in my office. 9 of us are pregnant. It's ridiculous.
    via u/AKTourGirl
  • 04
    Zolo49 A project team failed to meet a HUGE requirement in time for a deadline (s ks, but it happens) but didn't tell anybody they wouldn't meet it until right before said deadline even though they'd known for weeks (yikes).
    via u/Zolo49
  • 05
    [deleted] Someone's been eating people's sandwiches at work. They only get the sandwiches too. I'm legit invested in this because i wanna know....why just the sandwiches?
    via u/[deleted]
  • 06
    [deleted] The playstation got stolen. For f Is sake. We used to do an F1 tournament every friday but the playseat ain't no fun without a playstation. I will find out who the f was.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 07
    Robot_Bees Some Jacket that was in the exact Same Spot for about 10 years vanished, people are going crazy
    via u/Robot_Bees
  • 08

    This is a small problem...

    robohyeah There are not enough forks in the staffroom. Some people are getting quite upset.
    via u/robohyeah

    And luckily for them, there's an easy solution that HR could take care of. 

  • 09
    FairieB One of my coworkers came in 3 minutes late Monday of last week and my other coworker has been pissy at her since.
    via u/FairieB***
  • 10
    MOck_duck Someone was pulled in to HR today about keeping their personal life away from work due to lots of recent over-sharing. The air was thick with tension as this person remained silent for the rest of the day.
    via u/MOck_duck
  • 11
    Pantsyo_dog The old manager wrote an list of pros and cons for each employee for the new manager. She left it out where it could easily be read. There are 3-5 cons for each person and 1-2 pros. She hasn't left yet. Everyone now hates her
    via u/Pantsyo_dog
  • 12
    [deleted] Tom and Marie think they're being sneaky with their liasions. They are not.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 13
    eastcoastme I teach. Our team (teachers of the same grade level) is going to send home colored paper note sheets for parents to write encouraging comments to their students for state testing coming up. We want it to be a surprise for the students. We decided to try to see if the office could give us half size
    via u/eastcoastme
  • 14
    manilla envelopes to use. We found out they could! (Very exciting as a teacher to get office supplies!) The secretary went into the locked closet to get us some envelopes. Another grade level team found out that we got envelopes from the office. Now THEY want envelopes because it's not "fair" that we got envelopes and they didn't.
    via u/eastcoastme
  • 15
    That's the drama. Plus, one teacher that basically hates kids and her job and maybe everyone else will finally retire next year (but we all were hoping it would happen sooner).
    via u/eastcoastme
  • 16
    Clokkers I work at a hotel as a housekeeper, part of our responsibilities are taking dirty cups from the rooms back to the kitchens at the end of our shifts, washing them and putting them away for the next person the following morning. Well apparently no one else but me is doing this which means there's no clean cups
    via u/Clokkers
  • 17
    on any floors and you have to spend 10-20 mins cleaning these cups because there's so many piling up. I've complained to my manager, my supervisor, my managers boss and it's still happening. It's laziness and it really annoys me because it takes 2 mins when they're fresh out the room but after 24 hours they're really hard to clean.
    via u/Clokkers
  • 18
    My coworkers use the excuse of 'I have a school run' for everything, they're late? School run. I'm late because the bus was late? Told off. They're not taking the cups to be washed? They've got kids and need to be home. If I don't wash them? There's no excuse you have no other responsibilities which isn't true. It's so unfair.
    via u/Clokkers
  • 19
    CptYoloWaffle Patricia stole my stapler and is denying it
    via u/CptYoloWaffle
  • 20
    Cheezburger Image 10454375680
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 21

    Petty!

    FrostedFishbone So last October our printer ran out of ink. More had already been ordered but with co id running rampant at the time the shipment. was super delayed. One of my coworkers got really over the fact that she couldn't print the reports in the department and instead had to go upstairs to print
    via u/FrostedFishbone
  • 22
    them. She claimed that since I was the supervisor (I'm not) that I should've be the one to go up and print them despite the fact that it was 4am and my shift doesn't start until 7am. She still isn't talking to me
    via u/FrostedFishbone
  • 23
    CayseyBee Two coworkers applied to be supervisor. One has the right degree but is apathetic to everything. The other has good instincts and is highly motivated but doesn't have the degree. Guess who got the job. Now the go getter is learning to let the apathetic one fail.
    via u/CayseyBee
  • 24
    hardoutheretobun... It's tax season which means we're slammed. In other words, Tom's being a again.
    via u/hardoutheretobunique
  • 25

    This is some real drama!

    MerylSquirrel Minor downsizing means the two of us on temp contracts will have to reapply for a single post at the end of the year, so one of us stays and one of us goes.
    via u/MerylSquirrel
  • 26
    JazzyBee1993 No-one gets along with our boss, so the company hired another "boss" to be our point of contact - he's her deputy. The original boss has started gate crashing Zoom calls, she's calling people on their days off and writing emails saying they're. unprofessional for not picking up (on their day off!) and told a pregnant lady
    via u/JazzyBee1993
  • 27
    about to go on maternity leave that she's not happy about the pregnancy. A WhatsApp group has been made up where everyone is voicing their concerns to the deputy boss and things are getting out of hand quite quickly.
    via u/JazzyBee1993
  • 28
    huggybear0132 Project that company has sunk 5 years of time from 30+ expensive people and 10s of $millions into was unceremoniously canceled. Woopsie.
    via u/huggybear0132
  • 29
    MarioCarter We have a shared spreadsheet, someone keeps changing the filters, but no one will own up to it!
    via u/MarioCarter
  • 30
    WegularTheFourth One of my co-workers handed in her notice. Our boss needs her to stay on for an extra month than her 28 days notice and is now treating her super nice because he needs her to how p stay but you can also see ed he is that she's leaving
    via u/WegularTheFourth
  • 31
    [deleted] We have a jigsaw puzzle on one of the spare desks to give people the opportunity to sit down for 5 minutes and de-stress. However, there's a piece of this puzzle missing and everyone is pointing fingers at each other and trying to work out who has stolen/hidden the piece.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 32
    My two-cents is that it's just a missing piece, but it's fun to sit and watch the madness unfold.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 33
    Cheezburger Image 10454375936
    via Desola Lanre-Ologun on Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 34
    my... Not an office but I'm ragging my boss to hire some help so I don't have to work all summer without a day off again. My mental health will not survive that. Edit: I'm quitting my job since I'm barely paid over minimum wage and I'm just so tired.
    via u/mypitssmelllikesoup
  • 35
    TheMagnificent RPG Manager is leaving and left chaos in her wake, including poor scheduling so people are looking for others jobs including me.
    via u/TheMagnificent RPG
  • 36
    BugabooBear Coworker A put an iced coffee carton in the work fridge. It sprung a leak after her shift ended and made a mess in the fridge. Coworker B recently cleaned the fridge and refused to clean up the new mess. (Fair enough.) It sat for several days and she interrogated multiple people about whose
    via u/BugabooBear
  • 37
    coffee it was. She did not find the culprit. Coworker A meanwhile had a death in the family and hasn't been in the office to even hear that this occurred. Someone else cleaned up the mess and Coworker B has placed passive aggressive signs on the fridge now.
    via u/BugabooBear
  • 38
    Half-God-Half-De... 40 year old woman is mad that those younger than her know what they're doing. better than her and proceed to not listen to them (even if they have been there longer/are supervisors) and is continually ride to them. She also "hates technology" and throws a tantrum the second she doesn't understand how to do something on the computer.
    via u/Half-God-Half-Demon
  • 39
    Shesallthato Return back to office and some people forgot about the dress code so my manager sent out a strong. worded email about it. One of the girls took it way way too personal and confronted my manager about it during our re-entry on boarding meeting. It's only been a week since we've been back..
    via u/Shesallthat0
  • 40
    mi... Our hgv mechanic threw his phone on the floor and said f this job and left. He'll be back and probably get a pay rise He's back in Monday, so he's just had a long weekend off
    via u/micro_rich
  • 41
    [deleted] Working at a bar, stared dating my coworker. We broke up after 4 months and she was very upset. We still work together and 2 of her best friends have also been hired. She's building an army I think.
    via u/[deleted]

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