'I told him he couldn't spend 4-8 hours on break': Managers who were paired with the world's worst employees

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
May 1, 2025 11:00 AM EDT

Though some employees are sneaky about it, others are unafraid to tell their bosses, "I just don't want to work." 

One of the most infuriating people to work with is the person whose incompetence makes everyone else stay and work late. If you've ever been a closer at a restaurant, you know this type of person. It's probably two employees and one manager closing, and the manager will tell you both that if you can get all of your chores done by 2, then you can head out. So while you rush around cleaning and sanitizing the store, the other employee is playing on their phone, FaceTiming their friends, or sneaking off to the bathroom to lounge around. 

One manager in this situation reported that they told an employee to remove the nozzles off of the drink machine and put them in seltzer water for the night, which cleans them. I've done this a thousand times, so I know that this whole task takes about 2 minutes if you're fast, or maybe 5 minutes if you're taking your time. The manager shared that an employee spent a full 30 minutes doing this singular task. And since they chose to waste about 28 minutes leaning instead of cleaning, they're making all of the closers stay until 3 or 4 AM instead of 2. It's frustrating for everyone involved when an employee just won't work, and if you scroll below, you can read some venting from other managers who were beyond frustrated with their worst employees. 

Next, read the update on the woman who expected her friend to shell out $2700 after breaking her MacBook. 

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  • 01
    'Had a guy who would call out to work with the excuse, "I'm just not really feeling it today""
    via Fellipe Ditadi For Unsplash+

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

  • 02
    ButteryElbows Wasn't capable of firing anyone, but I did contract work that occasionally involved training new hires. Light construction was involved, as well as the usage of basic tools like mallets, screwdrivers, tape measures, etc. Had a guy come in for his first day on a site in Florida.
    via u/ButteryElbows
  • 03
    Started showing him and a few others the ropes, and after about an hour, let them at it. Everyone was doing fine and then I notice he's just setting things up without measuring first. I remind him I have several tape measures and a yardstick if he needs it.
    via u/ButteryElbows
  • 04
    Turns out he couldn't read a ruler and didn't think that would be a problem in construction. Its just building, right? He did not last the week.
    via u/ButteryElbows
  • 05
    Donkey Talons Not a manager but was once a employee in my younger days. Stayed up all night partying, got a couple hours of sleep. I woke up and knew there was no way I could go to work. I was basically delirious when I called and I didn't even think about what I was gunna say.
    via u/Donkey Talons
  • 06
    The manager answers and all I can think of is, "hey I was on my way to work and I almost sh my pants so I had to turn around."
    via u/Donkey Talons
  • 07
    [deleted] Had a guy who was a bit soft in the brain. I can't recall too much was this was 15+ years ago but I know he was a constant cause of problems for me and my staff. If I asked him to wipe a table (this was in a restaurant with outdoor but covered seating) he'd grab a dry rag
    via u/[deleted]
  • 08
    and just smear things around the table. If I asked him to run a register I had to stay with him or have a lead stay with him as our rather small selection of items on a clearly labeled keyboard was too much.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 09
    k2leternal Guy stole lottery tickets but his way of doing it was exposing the barcode that the terminal scans to see if it's a winner, if it wasn't a winner he put it back. If it was a winner, he cashed it out and filed it away with HIS paperwork. Now it sounds kind of clever but we do lottery counts every morning, not to mention the fact that people who buy
    via u/k2leternal
  • 10
    lottery would immediately notice if the barcode was already exposed. When I saw this, I immediately check the camera and saw him from multiple angles doing this. He then also threw the winners in the trash after he cashed them and left the trash in the the can over night. Called the cops, they had all the evidence they needed. Arrested him and I
    via u/k2leternal
  • 11
    guess some poor soul took pity and posted his bail. He then texts me to tell me he quit. I told him it's hard to quit a job when you were officially fired while sitting in a holding cell. He was there for two weeks. Moral of the story, don't be _idiot. a
    via u/k2leternal
  • 12
    cspotphantom Equipment Lead in a manufacturing environment. My team did maintenance on the machinery. I had a guy who would come in and immediately hop on Craigslist. While everyone else was checking their emails and preparing for the shift this guy would online shopping. He literally spent hours every shift paging through Craigslist. If he
    via u/cspotphantom
  • 13
    wasn't doing that he was watching YouTube videos that either consisted of strongman competitions or attractive women working out. I repeatidly caught him lying about work he never did. He talked trash about every other employee and would frequently get into screaming matches with his wife over the phone. He screamed at me when I told
    via u/cspotphantom
  • 14
    him he couldn't spend 4 to 8 hours of a 12 hour shift on break. When I'd try to correct his behavior the typical response was either "I don't give a sh" or "What the f are you going to do about it?" He even went to my boss to complain when I gave him a poor annual review. Unfortunately, despite a mountain of documentation and repeated requests, I was not allowed to fire him because
    via u/cspotphantom
  • 15
    the company was so short handed. Since he wasn't doing ANY work it didn't really make any sense to me. When I finally quit he had been there for almost five years and hadn't received a single raise, promotion, or bonus. To this day he blames it all on me.
    via u/cspotphantom
  • 16
    ica... Not a manager but had an incredibly dumb coworker freak out and quit on day two. I'm/we are tree planters. We plant trees in the woods. Pretty self-explanatory, you'd think people would expect to get dirty and wet when they live and work outside for several months in a row.
    via u/icarus14
  • 17
    This lad did not get the memo apparently. So we walked into the block, about 3km through swamp/muddy logging roads, and its been raining heavily since yesterday. This lad had a small swamp/depresion on his piece with some water in it. Categorically refused to get his feet wet. His foreman (boss), who is my buddy, comes by and asks
    via u/icarus14
  • 18
    "Why are there no trees in your swamp? Do you need help?" "No, but I don't want to get my feet wet" complete confusions on the foremans face || .this is what we do......were tree planters....now please plant your swamp!"
    via u/icarus14
  • 19
    Dude flips out on his foreman (who is a really nice and very hardworking guy), throws his shovel, and while the foreman is trying to de- escalate the situation, this absolute unit walks off his piece, walks 3 km's back to the main road through the swamp, hitchhikes back to camp, gathers his tent, and leaves!
    via u/icarus14
  • 20
    Blew eveyerones mind. Day two man, apparently its a toughie
    via u/icarus14
  • 21
    [deleted] Sent out a new contractor hire to install a 24x36 shelf. Simple, put the shelf into the shelf hole. He brought it back because it was too small and he needed a 36x24 shelf cut so it would fit properly.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 22

    This employee was so real for that request

    LimitlessRX "I NEED to go home. Im sweaty." 1 hr into the shift.
    via u/LimitlessRX
  • 23
    hopmonger Had a guy who would call out to work with the excuse "I'm just not really feeling it today". I wanted to tell him to just say that he was sick or just not give any reason, anything would have been better. Took forever to fire him because of corporate attendance policies.
    via u/hopmonger
  • 24

    She has given up

    TwangyCarpet Teacher, not a manager, but I watch my fellow teacher sit and do nothing while her student run amuck, and then she can't figure out why my scores are better. CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT!
    via u/TwangyCarpet
  • 25
    siuilaruin I was not the hiring/firing manager, but I was a manager. A couple of doozies... We had someone who, despite being there for nearly six months, didn't know SH. Why? Because he didn't want to. I personally showed him several different tasks half a dozen times myself, and
    via u/siuilaruin
  • 26
    other managers, and workers who did their jobs, told me they showed him too! One night, before closing, I said, "Hey <name>, make sure you do <thing>." He said, "I don't know how, nobody ever showed me." LLIIIEEEE. I had shown him three days before, for the second time. So I looked him full in the face and said, "Funny. I know I showed you how on Wednesday." He didn't say
    via u/siuilaruin
  • 27
    anything... just went and did it. Another one. He was scheduled for six days of training... and called off for four of them, saying his grandmother was dong. Two weeks later, he used the same excuse. Week four, he showed up to work out of uniform. We had a simple uniform: branded tee, apron, black pants, black shoes, hat. All he had on was the
    via u/siuilaruin
  • 28
    shirt. He had on jeans, no hat, and redneck hunting boots, complete with mud. The MIC asked, "where's your pants?" "Well, they were dirty, and I didn't want to wash them."
    via u/siuilaruin
  • 29
    "Where's your shoes?" "They were hurting my feet, and <store manager> said I could wear my boots." (There's no way in h I she did that.) "Where's your hat?" "| forgot it." She told him to go home.
    via u/siuilaruin
  • 30
    open_door_policy A developer that was assigned to my QA team. He had already been shuffled through 3 or 4 actual dev teams, which is a bad sign. After the fact my director let me know that he had been sent to mine on the off chance that he had been clashing with other devs and wasn't just incapable of working.
    via u/open_door_policy
  • 31
    If you assigned him a task, he'd work on it, but only until he encountered anything that could possibly be interpreted as a blocker. Then he'd surf the internet until someone came by to remove the blocker. He wouldn't ask anyone to help, he wouldn't seek solutions himself, he wouldn't do anything about it.
    via u/open_door_policy
  • 32
    So most times, he could manufacture something to free up his time within half an hour of starting anything. Like, "I don't have access to the right repo." I'd swing by a day or two later, and he hadn't asked for access to the repository, he'd just be idle. After a month or so of progressively shortening intervals between checking in with him to see what the newest roadblock was, I was
    via u/open_door_policy
  • 33
    having to chat with him four times a day. Chatted with my boss about it, and we agreed that he should seek greener pastures. Also, he wore toe shoes. With no socks. That he never, ever washed.
    via u/open_door_policy
  • 34
    [deleted] She just didn't work. She would call out constantly, then after we told her if she called out one more time without being able to give us medical paperwork, she started showing up late and would whine about how "late" she had to say (she was either the first or second earliest scheduled to get out. But when anyone confronted her, she couldn't
    via u/[deleted]
  • 35
    understand why we were so annoyed with her. And then it was extremely annoying just working with her. I had to look over every order because she got maybe every 1/10 orders correct, always forgot what she was supposed to do cleaning- wise. I'd constantly find her sitting in the back, then get annoyed when I would tell her to get her a back up front. She worked for about 2 months just because we
    via u/[deleted]
  • 36
    needed another person before we could fire her. The UD fired her regardless because she called out one morning and blatantly said "I just don't want to work." Then got upset that she was so wrongly fired because she did nothing wrong. | hate pampered rich teens
    via u/[deleted]
  • 37
    TheRealSuperNoo... Had a server walk past me in the kitchen looking for the spice rack while precariously carrying a full cup of coffee on a saucer. I asked him what he needed he and he replied that he had a customer who wanted bay leaves in his coffee. Kid had been a server for a while and was a constant pain, so I pointed out the bay leaves. for him and sent him on his
    via u/TheRealSuperNoodle
  • 38
    way. I did a table check at where the coffee was headed about two minutes later, stopped by the bar and had the bartender pour a coffee and Bailey's first though. The customer was still laughing his a off by the time I made it over.
    via u/TheRealSuperNoodle
  • 39
    FarrlL Area manager here. Had an employee who complained about how a Dispatcher spoke to him. I told him not to take it personally, because that dispatcher talks like that to everyone. Take it with a grain of salt, etc. This employee's response was, "Well, I'm SENSITIVE!"
    via u/FarrlL
  • 40
    Same employee often tried to leave work early, and then cop an attitude when he was told no. He would also pass orders to other employees, just so he could get out early. By this time, my boss and I were wondering how much longer the employee would be with us. Eventually, the employee calls me to basically throw a tantrum, exclaim how the job
    via u/FarrlL
  • 41
    is unfair, and be nothing but rade and condescending towards me. So I finally ask him, "So what do you want to do them?" Him: "I'm ready to quit!" Me: "K, if that's how you feel, you also need to let [boss] know." Him: "Oh I will!" (To the context of "I'm going to give them a piece of my mind!!")
    via u/FarrlL
  • 42
    After he hung up, I immediately removed him. from the schedule. Side note: This guy is in his late-30s.
    via u/FarrlL
  • 43
    Aglarond We had a guy in a restaurant I managed that scratched his a in front of the health inspector. Needless to say that was his last day.
    via u/Aglarond
  • 44
    [deleted] She just didn't work. She would call out constantly, then after we told her if she called out one more time without being able to give us medical paperwork, she started showing up late and would whine about how "late" she had to say (she was either the first or second earliest scheduled to get out. But when anyone confronted her, she couldn't
    via u/Aglarond
  • 45
    understand why we were so annoyed with her. And then it was extremely annoying just working with her. I had to look over every order because she got maybe every 1/10 orders correct, always forgot what she was supposed to do cleaning- wise. I'd constantly find her sitting in the back, then get annoyed when I would tell her to get her a back up front. She worked for about
    via u/Aglarond
  • 46
    2 months just because we needed another person before we could fire her. The UD fired her regardless because she called out one morning and blatantly said "I just don't want to work." Then got upset that she was so wrongly fired because she did nothing wrong. | hate pampered rich teens
    via u/Aglarond
  • 47
    HexHasHooks Kevin. What an idiot. He quit because he didn't get a day off that he wanted and if he didn't he would have been fired. After he quit I found out from a neighboring business that he routinely shut the store down and would go to a Barnes and noble to read and eat before returning and closing later on. Hate that kid.
    via u/HexHasHooks
  • 48
    BrotherStarkness Had an employee we called Big Bird because he was huge and wore yellow coveralls. It was getting close to the end of the job and people knew layoffs we're coming (construction). So another supervisor and I were doing a walk-through of the site and we had been wondering where Big Bird was hiding. We looked over
    via u/BrotherStarkness
  • 49
    and saw him standing at the back of a work truck. The other supervisor was p that he wasn't in his work ed area and wanted to m march over and reprimand him. I said wait, while we observe the Biggest of Birds in his natural environment. Big Bird proceed to open a vise on the back of the truck then close it repeatedly for around 5 minutes just to look busy. After the last
    via u/BrotherStarkness
  • 50
    close of the vise he looked over to see us 2 supervisors. staring at him in black shades and hard hats. He proceeded to look startled and then walked around the far side of the truck's tool boxes to hide and pretend to look for tools. My other supervisor was going nuts at this point and I was like just chill this is the best part. Big Bird then peek-a-boo'd around the
    via u/BrotherStarkness
  • 51
    side of the tool box and saw we were still watching him. His shoulders slumped, he knew it was the end. Finally we walked over and I asked Big Bird if today was his last day and he said I guess it looks like it. I told he catch ya on the next one and he sauntered into the sunset.
    via u/BrotherStarkness
  • 52
    Ja... Wasn't capable of firing them, but am a manager. we've had a few crazy employees. One person was the laziest person I've ever met. She literally wouldn't do anything! We keep a very clean restaurant and I always strive for 100% on our inspections. This girl, who I'll just call A, worked
    via u/JapaneseStudentHaru
  • 53
    two jobs. One at my restaurant and one at a McDonald's. The McDonald's she worked at didn't seem to have any sort of health standard because she would constantly violate health codes because she felt like it and would be extremely mad when I told her she couldn't. For example, putting personal food/drink in the produce cooler and spraying
    via u/JapaneseStudentHaru
  • 54
    chemicals near the food. When I closed with her, I asked her to do the easiest thing in the whole store before she left, restock fortune cookies. All you have to do is pour them into a box. The box weighs less than a pound. And you know what she told me? "I don't know who you close with but we don't do that." B I've I literally been working here for 2 years. I'm your
    via u/JapaneseStudentHaru
  • 55
    supervisor. I know what we have to do! Then there's this other guy that we still have on 1 day a week. I'll call him B. B is the slowest person I've ever met. And because he's slow, he often forgets things. Like, I'll ask him to clean and stick the bathrooms and he'll go in, clean one thing, come out and stand there looking brain de d for five minutes
    via u/JapaneseStudentHaru
  • 56
    and say he's done. But he did one out of 7 things he had to do. He was so slow doing that one thing that he completely forgot everything else. And he does this MULTIPLE TIMES. I have to close safe and log cash deposits every night and one night it took me 30 minutes because the money was disorganized and I had to find where it belonged.
    via u/JapaneseStudentHaru
  • 57
    Guess what this guy got done in 30 minutes time? ONE THING. He took the drink nozzles out of the soda machine and put them in sanitizer water. That's all he did. And, after 10 times of telling him to go back in the bathroom and finish cleaning/stocking he still forgot to stock the place up. Like what was he doing that whole time?
    via u/JapaneseStudentHaru
  • 58
    Tro... He over thought every step of the cooking process, I said we served a sandwich, soup, and chips of their choice. Chips, like a bag of chips. Not chipped carrots. Not sure where he got the idea that someone wanted a pile of tiny carrot pieces. next to their Reuben with their french onion soup...
    via u/Trolling_Accepted
  • 59
    Lucky for our restaurant though he had a no call no show, followed by being 2 hours late for his next shift.. don't remember his reason, I fired him on the spot and promoted a different cook to his position that afternoon.
    via u/Trolling_Accepted
  • 60
    rewsa03 In a bar.. girl who held the mop upside down and ran it down the middle of the bar floor, had asked her to sweep the floor! Last I heard she's still working there 3years later!
    via u/rewsa03
  • 61
    Bobillarious Have a guy who pushed himself off of a 4ft ladder. Celebrated doing something right for the first time (it took 5 months, instead of the normal 1 for him to get it down, but we hardly get apps so we make do with what we can get) by slamming his hands into his chest while on top of the
    via u/Bobillarious
  • 62
    ladder. He went over backwards... We haven't fired him, but he doesn't understand why I won't train him on the order picker. Boy doesn't have any common sense.
    via u/Bobillarious
  • 63
    vanilahairspray I was a trainer not necessarily a manager but dear Lord I feel bad for the managers because after the first day I just said I was just not going to teach her, but they had to deal with her for quite a while. I trained her on her first day as a waitress. When she was supposed to write down everyone's
    via u/vanilahairspray
  • 64
    orders she wrote down gibberish to make it seem like she knew what she was doing, but she just didn't know what they were saying. When we pour soup it's supposed to be into a bowl that goes on top of a sauce pan. She poured it onto the sauce pan. Every time I was explicitly not telling her what to do, she went back to drinking
    via u/vanilahairspray
  • 65
    water and watching me work. She constantly forgot which tables were ours. Close to the end of her first day, I decided to try and teach her in a more controlled environment and had her pretend she was serving me. After five hours of shadowing me she still
    via u/vanilahairspray
  • 66
    did not know what to ask past "what do you want to eat?" Management actually did pretty good and didn't fire her. Hear me out. They put her into the kitchen basically doing just repetitive tasks like arranging salads. It worked out.
    via u/vanilahairspray
  • 67
    Kelbright When I worked at a sandwich shop, we had a worker that was referred to as Dumb Nathan by the rest of the shop. Now this job was definitely not rocket science. All the sandwich builds were posted on the line where you could see them as you made it. Yet somehow, Nathan could not make anything correctly. He was constantly putting
    via u/Kelbright
  • 68
    random things on and ignoring the advice of everyone. He was also supposed to be a delivery driver. He once left an order on the hotplate for an hour because no one had put a cookie with the sandwich. He was told from the beginning that the driver was responsible for organizing the full order and just could not understand that just leaving the order to
    via u/Kelbright
  • 69
    sit was not the best choice. He could have asked for help from anyone and they would have showed him where things were again, but he decided he just was going to leave it there. This guy worked there for around 3 weeks with our GM telling us to be more understanding and let him get used to the
    via u/Kelbright
  • 70
    job. We really tried to help the guy, but he was just incapable of learning. The GM finally worked a shift with him and soon after he was told not to come back.
    via u/Kelbright
  • 71
    youngeli Brand new hire (just out of HS) calls out for his first shift post-training. The reason? He has to take his parents to the tattoo parlor that day. They're both getting tattoos. Like, dude, really? You couldn't just say you had to take them to the doctor or something?
    via u/youngeli
  • 72
    nammerx916 A patient was having a heart attack. Instructed the medical assistant to call 911. 10 minutes later, when we ask the medical assistant if she called yet, she stated that she did not... because she did not know how to call 911.
    via u/nammerx916

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