'He just... wouldn't work. Just wouldn't. This was in a research lab': 15+ insufferable coworkers who made the workplace environment worse

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Feb 15, 2025 8:00 AM EST

In every office environment, someone is bound to get on your nerves. Ideally, it's an employee that you do not have to interact with much. Perhaps it's someone who isn't on your team or even in your location. This is, of course, the best case scenario. You only have to make conversation a few times a year at company events, but you can otherwise keep your distance so as to maintain your sanity. However, the worst case is when it's someone you need to collaborate with daily. 

These employees understand the trials and tribulations of having to work with entitled, incompetent, and altogether aggravating coworkers on a daily basis. You know who we're talking about… the kind of coworker who makes the simplest task feel Sisyphean. Keep scrolling below for this collection of toxic coworker stories, along with some commentary from yours truly. 

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  • 01
    "It was kind of like working with a child" TAY
    via Austin Distel

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

  • 02
    Sirnando138 Hired a cook on a good recommendation. He was just fine the first two weeks. Then I noticed food going missing. Then supplies started going missing. Then a customer told me that he had been adding auto 30% tips his food purchases. When I looked at the books,
    via drlqnr

    Most sneaky coworkers don't show all their cards from the start if they can help it. Things began to get fishy, so to speak, for this cook two weeks after he started working at the restaurant…

  • 03
    I saw that he had been adding 30% tips to ALL the credit card sales. And the cash rings were off from what should have been sold. I fired him that day.
    via drlqnr
  • 04
    The next day he came in and apologized. Said he was on drs and was going to rehab. I wished him well. Then next day he tried to break in after close and was caught. Idiot.
    via drlqnr
  • 05
    [d... 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
    via drlqnr
  • 06
    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
    via drlqnr
  • 07
    doing any experiment related to the one he was planning, because he didn't want to have to share credit for anyone. He wouldn't clean up after himself, wouldn't pick up things from the floor. He actually called
    via drlqnr
  • 08
    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
    via drlqnr
  • 09
    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 people in her 30+ year career that she'd ever fired.
    via drlqnr
  • 10
    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.
    via drlqnr

    No one enjoys a know-it-all, just like no one enjoys a chatterbox. Now, what happens if your coworker is both of those things? Let's just say it's about as unpleasant as it gets…

  • 11
    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
    via drlqnr
  • 12
    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 the moment. It was both amazing and the most annoying thing I had ever had to deal with.
    via drlqnr
  • 13
    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.
    via drlqnr
  • 14
    I eventually left, but I even remember having a nightmare where he was the bestman at my wedding.
    via drlqnr
  • 15
    ill... This guy named Daniel I used to work with at McDonald's in high school. He let everyone know he worked out and enjoyed being on the football team.
    via drlqnr

    Maybe what Daniel says to his players on the football team is appropriate, but in a workplace environment, it qualifies as too much information.

  • 16
    He had this thing about taking 5 a day. He would walk by on his way back from the toilet, chest out, shoulders back and triumphantly announce "that's sh number 3!"... Daniel.
    via drlqnr
  • 17
    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 drlqnr

    This manager clearly comes from the Pleistocene era of acceptable workplace behavior…

  • 18
    [d... 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.
    via drlqnr

    This coworker may be insufferable to the person who shared this story, but her consistent and committed disobedience regarding the workplace's scent-free policy is kind of iconic.

  • 19
    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.
    via drlqnr
  • 20
    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 the Chanel Bandit.
    via drlqnr
  • 21
    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.
    via drlqnr
  • 22
    She quit right after she was caught. None of us were sad to see that cedar scented psycho leave.
    via drlqnr
  • 23
    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.
    via drlqnr

    This lady needs to get better at gossiping. She seems to be asking people to connect all the dots back to her…

  • 24
    She would try to frame people for sh 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 drlqnr
  • 25
    Redwood_soft_boy Back when I worked at a restaurant I was friends with the bartender, chill dude.... right up until they made him manager and that small amount of power and increase in pressure made him so angry all the time. He
    via drlqnr

    They're all fun and games when they're at your level. Then, as soon as they get promoted, they begin to reveal their true selves…

  • 26
    screamed at me that I was "sh at my job" because I didn't do a thing that I've never been asked to do before. He made me miss my last bus so I couldn't get home, it was pitch black outside and I cried on the bench outside the restaurant. Worse working day and worst co-worker.
    via drlqnr
  • 27
    It took me a long time to get over that and realise I wasn't a sh worker, he was just stressed and didn't know how to handle it I suppose.
    via drlqnr
  • 28
    Bel... he was a complete utter moron, he was incompetent in every way, but the icing on the cake was when he tried to put one of the pickup trucks into gear with the wiper stick and called me an idiot when I told him it was the wrong lever
    via drlqnr

    To be fair, I would be this incompetent if I had to drive a pickup truck for work…

  • 29
    [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
    via drlqnr

    While it's not scientifically proven, it feels pretty much objectively true that the coworkers who are most likely to make enemies are the ones who are so nice they simply cannot be trustworthy.

  • 30
    nice when she REALLY needed something done which just made everyone dislike her.
    via drlqnr
  • 31
    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 drlqnr
  • 32
    WIN ANNAPOLIS, MO #CUSTOMER OBSESSED Proof ALL HANDS 4/24/2019 اتو HUNGRY YOU SMART HUMBLE BRAZOS 80
    via Austin Distel

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

  • 33
    ThePhilosophosa... I work with this guy that tries to convert people to his religion every day it's super annoying
    via drlqnr
  • 34
    davidmitchellseyes I've had a bunch, but Bag Salad was the worst. It was my job to train her on a position only I knew how to do, and they lied when they said I would definitely be involved in the interview process. I'm still not sure
    via drlqnr
  • 35
    why they did that. No hyperbole, but I crushed that job, exemplary reviews every year, and positive relationships all around. I didn't need or want the help, but they said they were hiring her for the "anticipated future workload".
    via drlqnr
  • 36
    It's been so long I don't even remember why she got that nickname, but it really suited her somehow. - She was gluten free, and whenever food came up at all in any conversation she could overhear she would bring that up. And she spoke in this confused, sing songy way, like,
    via drlqnr
  • 37
    "ooooohhhh! I'm not shuuuure if I can have that, do Twizzlers have gluuuuuten? I'm gluten free!!" - She didn't understand how to take messages, reply to or forward emails, or print anything.
    via drlqnr
  • 38
    - She spoke to herself all day long, in this half whisper lip smacking way like, "hmm, ok, if I just copy, oh no, maybe move it but I um, oh, ok, maybe I'll hmm" And would then turn to me with buggy eyes waiting for me to acknowledge her rather than just asking.
    via drlqnr
  • 39
    - Her nose whistled with every breath, but when she breathed through her mouth she would smack her lips or tongue. - She loved Big Bang Theory, and would regale me with with the plot lines of episodes she'd watch,
    via drlqnr
  • 40
    including, "and then the one, the Sheldon? Goes bazinga and oh how I laughed! Goodness it's soooo funnnnny! Hee hee!" - - She felt the need to jump in on every conversation she was able to overhear. If I was talking to a friend about a trip or something..
    via drlqnr
  • 41
    Me: "Man, Chicago was great, I hope I can go again someday" Her: "Oh! I never went to Chicago, but my uncle's friend did in the 80s and he said he had fun! He used to have a garage where he built
    via drlqnr
  • 42
    widgets and one time his wife crashed their car in the city they lived, was it Town A, Town B? I'm not sure but she was really nice, this one time...".
    via drlqnr
  • 43
    hated her. I know it sounds like a woman out of her depth who was just trying to fit in, and that's true. But some people just grate, and she grated every last nerve and ounce of patience I had. I tried, I just couldn't hack it, and I quit that job two months after she started.
    via drlqnr
  • 44
    Ke... 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.
    via drlqnr
  • 45
    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 drlqnr
  • 46
    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 drlqnr

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terrible coworkers workplace-stories work stories toxic-workplace work coworkers workplace funny work stories toxic-work-environment
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