15+ Employees who had coworkers with bizarre personalities: 'By the time he was fired everyone in the office was being driven up the wall'

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
May 26, 2025 11:00 AM EDT

There's at least one dude who's just "like that" at every workplace, and everyone just goes along with their odd nature. It's that one guy who cooks carrots and broccoli at 10 AM, even though everyone detests the smell. Why? Oh, he's just like that. Maybe it's the woman who chronically overshares her life with every coworker and client she encounters. How come? Oh, you know, that's just how she is. There's really no excuse for why some people are the way they are… everyone else just shrugs their shoulders and gets accustomed to it. 

At the workplace, you more or less have to tolerate your fellow employees' habits if they aren't interfering with your work. So long as they aren't harming anyone, there's no reason that your coworker can't reheat fish in the microwave or wear the most insane outfits you can think of into the office each day. It's kind of at HR's discretion, and honestly, having at least one quirky, wacky person around can lighten the mood. When you're fretting over a project, at least you can ask your nearest coworker, "Hey, did you hear about what Jim did in the meeting yesterday?"

Check out a bunch of folks below who are close to losing it on their coworkers for their quirks and their strangest habits. Then, see if you agree with this mom who totally banned her 16-year-old daughter from going on spring break with her 17 and 18-year-old friends: "She's convinced the internet will be on her side." 

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  • 01

    "Who is 'that guy' or 'that girl' from your office and what did they do to earn that title?"

    I used to work inside sales at a hvac company just outside of Toronto. There was a guy there named Stan. Stan was money. He tried so hard to be social but didn't quite know what he was doing, which often lead to hilarity. Here are a few examples of Stan being Stan :
    via u/koosh12
  • 02
    • After not getting a . promotion after his review (there were no positions for him to move into nor was he anywhere near qualified) he created a petition to have our sales manager fired and went around to everyone in each department and asked them to sign it. Nobody signed it except for him.
    via u/koosh12
  • 03
    I miss that guy sometimes. He made work ah I of a lot more interesting. So Reddit, tell me stories about that guy or girl in your office that spices things up a little for better or worse.
    via u/koosh12
  • 04
    EDIT #1: Another Stan story. Stan and I were at a co-workers place with a few other guys and were having some beers, some smoke and watching a hockey game. It was 2nd intermission and Stan was a wreck, he doesn't handle his smoke well. He was making samosas in our co-workers oven, and decided he wanted to make himself a cesar. He took the cap off the clamato, turned to talk to me about something and while talking to me started to shake the
    via u/koosh12
  • 05
    clamato juice... with the lid off. Juice everywhere, but he cleaned it all up and had a mound of paper towels on top of the stove. The oven dings, his samosas are ready. He opens the oven door, but needs to clear off the paper towels from the stovetop so he can put the cookie sheet down. He stood there staring at the situation for well over a minute, totally confused as to how he was going to get out of this pickle. I gave him a plastic bag to
    via u/koosh12
  • 06
    put the dirty paper towels in, so the stovetop would be cleaned off, problem solved. "Good idea, thanks man" says Stan. Nope. Stan then used the plastic bag as an oven mitt and picked the hot cookie sheet out of up the oven with nothing but a thin plastic bag between his hand and the hot metal. The bag instantly melted to his hands and he burned himself pretty bad,
    via u/koosh12
  • 07
    smashing the sheet against the wall. Samosas everywhere. We had to take him to the hospital but we were all way too drink to drive so we all walked 15 mins to the ER.
    via u/koosh12
  • 08
    [….. I used to work with Brian - about 230 pounds of pure software geek. He had a full beard like Grizzly Adams. Baths and showers were not on his list of important things to do. Once we flew him to the client site to help solve a pesky problem. I reminded him to dress for the
    via u/[deleted]
  • 09
    occasion. I greeted him at the front lobby and was shocked to see him with a collared shirt that had never been ironed, and his tie TIED DIRECTLY TO HIS NECK! Not under the collar, just wrapped around his neck. When I mentioned it to him he said "if that's my only problem then we're in good shape".
    via u/[deleted]
  • 10
    missnixon Working in an open concept office where we used an instant messenger to communicate. One day working late, it's only myself and That Guy. He disappeared for 20 minutes then came back, but I didn't notice much. He types to me
    via u/missnixon
  • 11
    "Hey do you like my haircut?" and I look over and he has just LOCKED eyes with me after shaving his head with a razor in the bathroom.
    via u/missnixon
  • 12
    SamuelLChang Used to work with a guy who was an excellent engineer but frequently subject to fits of rage when things didn't go well with what he was working on. Picture the scene: typical cubical farm with engineers hard at work and the only sound you hear is the sound of tapping on keyboards. Suddenly, the sound of hysterical angry
    via u/SamuelLChang
  • 13
    cursing and someone slamming their keyboard on the desk repeatedly. Everyone leaps to their feet in alarm like a coterie of prairie dogs scanning the room for the source of the noise. Almost at once, everyone realizes that it's just Tim having another tantrum, smiles at each
    via u/SamuelLChang
  • 14
    other and quietly sits back down. Later our secretary walks over to his office with a new keyboard, puts it on his desk without a word and then walks back.
    via u/SamuelLChang
  • 15
    p4warrior My good friend Paul works in the warehouse at our company. He's gotten into every sort of trouble imaginable: he tipped a towering stack of construction materials over the back of our yard's wall, he slammed the forklift into one of our delivery trucks when he dozed off, he's gone to the wrong construction site a hundred
    via u/p4warrior
  • 16
    miles away from the intended delivery site. But he's a genuinely good- hearted guy, and the company's had mercy on him. He's still with us. Tons of funny stories always coming out of the warehouse from this guy. The highlight: Paul's an Iron Maiden fan, and he's always singing while he works. Well, one
    via u/p4warrior
  • 17
    day, Paul decides to sing a parody version of "Caught Somewhere in Time" with the clever lyrics of "Caught With Shaft in Hand." So he's just belting these inappropriate lyrics out as he moseys over towards the will-call counter. Who should walk in but one of the sales directors, giving a tour of the warehouse to a new (female) salesperson.
    via u/p4warrior
  • 18
    Paul rounds the corner, contiuning the chorus with, "CAAAAUGHT WITH SHAAAAFT IN HAAAAAA...." and bumps into the sales director. He plays if off like nothing happened, shakes his hand and the hand of the new employee, who are both giving him odd looks. To add to the hilarity, when they finally depart, we notice his fly's been down the entire time.
    via u/p4warrior
  • 19
    m... Our guy only recently got fired. One of the conclusions we had eventually reached about him was that he was completely incapable of feeling empathy, which is not really the best person to have as your main customer support representative, but that was what he had been hired to be. He was mostly frightening in that position because he never stopped
    via u/michfreak
  • 20
    smiling or being cheerful, even if the customer was freaking out at him or he was bored out of his mind. This in itself doesn't call for alarm, but he was a strange dude: • On his second week in the office he found out that there weren't any dentists that provide ozone therapists in our city, so he took two days off and drive to a
    via u/michfreak
  • 21
    nearby city in order to get his teeth ozoned • He would ask "How was your weekend?" in the most interested voice you could imagine, inflection perfect with Tobias Funke asking "How ARE you?" You could tell him, sure, with him exploding into laughter at every event that happened, no matter
    via u/michfreak
  • 22
    what it was. If you asked him how his weekend was, he would be extremely sure it was a great weekend, but then wouldn't be able to recall exactly what he did. Ever. • After a month of working there he started complaining that our insurance company, which he wouldn't receive
    via u/michfreak
  • 23
    benefits for until he had been there for three months, didn't cover his ozone therapy. • He kept a steamer- crockpot-thing in the breakroom and steamed a mixture of carrots and spinach every single morning which he would then eat out of a bowl at around 10am. The smell was atrocious and
    via u/michfreak
  • 24
    everyone complained about it the first day he did it, until we found out someone was making that horrible smell on purpose. He called it borscht for unknown reasons, which our Russian salesman nearly flipped out over every time the word came up. • He was kind of an idiot when it came to
    via u/michfreak
  • 25
    support, as well. We have a support ticket system that handles all of our clients for all of the different services we offer. He actually had copypasta that he was putting into every single ticket with a lot of idiotic troubleshooting steps that didn't apply to 75% of our clientele.
    via u/michfreak
  • 26
    When someone called in to report our support center was down, he asked them to submit a support ticket about it. • He overall was a bit of a know-it-all, being very good at selling clients things that they didn't need and would later complain they spent thousands of dollars on. By the time he was fired, clients would call
    via u/michfreak
  • 27
    in and immediately ask to be forwarded to sales, even for stupid support issues, just so they wouldn't have to talk to him. He's not as bad as some people's "that guy", but by the time he was fired everyone in the office was being driven up the wall. Our number of support tickets submitted this past month are at 50% of what they
    via u/michfreak
  • 28
    were last year, after a steady increase for the rest of the year, and I'm fairly certain it's his fault.
    via u/michfreak
  • 29
    Cheezburger Image 10509438208
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

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

  • 30
    Serendipitee I doubt anybody will see this, as late as I am, but I feel compelled to share. Don't discount "that guy" too quickly. An old friend of mine used to share stories about a coworker that would always say and do wildly inappropriate things, much along the lines of the OPS examples and including picking food off said friend's
    via u/Serendipitee
  • 31
    plate in the break room (uninvited, of course). My friend was nice to the guy anyway, despite the annoyances, and considered him a friend. Anyway, long story short, my friend d d suddenly one day after he'd quit his job with "that guy" a while back. The guy was on his facebook friends and ended up producing quite an outpouring of feelings and
    via u/Serendipitee
  • 32
    sympathy with the family and friends of the deceased. He would note every time he drove by my friend's old house or anything, and not obnoxiously, but in a very genuine and caring way. He was very kind and supportive to all of us that were grieving. He obviously was a very caring and friendly individual, just totally socially inept.
    via u/Serendipitee
  • 33
    The moral of the story? Some of those guys are just totally weird, but some are actually really nice people that just don't know how to interact well. Give them a chance and you might make an invaluable friend for life (and death). This guy was far more loyal than the trite "normal" people my friend had worked with, some of which made brief and non- sentimental remarks on his
    via u/Serendipitee
  • 34
    death. "That guy" seemed to be the only one that was really, truly affected by it. tl;dr socially inept nerds have feelings too.
    via u/Serendipitee
  • 35
    RPShep I've got one. Among other things, he: • Insisted that UPS trucks can't go in reverse. We told him that that was ridiculous, but he insisted. He wouldn't let it drop until we actually called UPS to ask. Their reaction was fantastic.
    via u/RPShep
  • 36
    • Insisted that the speed limit inside the facility that we worked was 10 mph while standing next to a sign that said 15 mph. When this was pointed out to him, he said that the sign was wrong.
    via u/RPShep
  • 37
    • Once told us that the Spanish Channel (a US channel by the way) was broadcast from Brazil (a Portuguese speaking country). His proof? His Hispanic wife told him so. She didn't even speak Spanish. He got very angry when this was pointed out to him.
    via u/RPShep
  • 38
    BonesJackson Years ago I worked retail at The Sharper Image. Paul was another sales guy who had really phenomenal genetics. He was in his late. 30s and looked to be in his 20s, contrasted by another 24 year old co-worker who looked 40. Anyway, Paul lived with his (wealthy) parents and aspired to nothing more than going out clubbing after work. He was
    via u/BonesJackson
  • 39
    not particularly smart, but very well-off. One time, Paul apparently lost his cell phone at a club. He didn't bother reporting it or anything, and later got a $4000 bill.
    via u/BonesJackson
  • 40
    We had a dehumidifier for sale on display. On a slow day, we convinced Paul to drink the water out of the dehumidifier. Our manager found out later and just sighed, shaking his head and muttering, "Paul..."
    via u/BonesJackson
  • 41
    GodOfAtheism When you work tech support, all you have is "That guy" in varying ways.
    via u/GodOfAtheism
  • 42
    girlyevil At my old job, there was a girl named Shelly. I had been there for about a year and a half when she was hired, working as keyholder/assistant manager/optician of a very small (2 doctors, 2 opticians, 1 other employee) private optometry practice. The practice itself was owned by a husband and wife - the husband worked
    via u/girlyevil
  • 43
    at the store I was in, while the wife had a store up in NY. She was allegedly a friend of the other employee, a kind of mousey Columbian girl who was sweet, if a bit naive and adverse to working. Initially, Shelly was kind of a Which was fine - apparently they'd hired her on as a manager or something despite the fact we didn't need one, and she
    via u/girlyevil
  • 44
    was trying to throw her weight around. It was annoying, but life goes on. She starts getting really close to the owner of the store, often times going into the office and closing the door for 'meetings' which.. uh, seemed kinda shady, because when you combine that sort of secrecy for the puppy eyes they were giving each other, it's obvious what's going on. From there,
    via u/girlyevil
  • 45
    they got really touchy (we have cameras, not sure why they'd do that) and she started taking money out of the register while the owner gave her permission. For a store pulling in maybe $800 a day, taking $100-200 of that money was pretty ; we stopped getting commission around that time. She was also just really lazy and ride to the customers, so much so that
    via u/girlyevil
  • 46
    we had a bunch of them who would refuse to see her. Giving discounts and good service to her friends is one thing, but charging everyone else like crazy to make up for it.. no. After about four months of this, the owner's wife comes in and asks me point blank what's going on. I tell her it isn't my place, but.. well, it is what it is. Apparently the owner's wife finally called
    via u/girlyevil
  • 47
    some of her old employers, and it turns out that Shelly runs this kind of scam all the time. She gets hired, gets cozy with someone in charge, and then cries assault for money/gifts/etc. She got a bunch of clothes from another store this way, and a BMW, too - which kind of blew my mind. The next day, Shelly got fired because (and I quote), "I'm not paying you to f my husband."
    via u/girlyevil
  • 48
    ju... Makes up computer problems. I sh you not. The latest one is "the num lock key doesn't work". I go over, test, and find that it works fine. I inform her of this. She tells me "No, it's broken. I have to press it to activate it when logging in"
    via u/justgrowingchesthair
  • 49
    "Why do you have to use it when logging in?" "My password has numbers" II I know I could easily enable it all the time in the BIOS, but I refuse to out of principle. She's just such a b about it.
    via u/justgrowingchesthair
  • 50
    Cheezburger Image 10509437696
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

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

  • 51
    myofficesucks There's one woman where I work who simply won't address me like a normal person (à la "Hello, Sarah"). Every morning at 7 a.m., it's a new, odd form of address: "Buon Giorno, Frederica!" "Hi, Miss America!" "Buenas tarnes, colega!"
    via u/myofficesucks
  • 52
    Our cubicles face each other and we have name plaques on the outside, so it's not like she doesn't know my name. She just choses not to use it. Oh, and she's one of those "chipper" people, like the "Somebody's got a case of the Mondays" lady from Officespace.
    via u/myofficesucks
  • 53
    BreeMPLS We'll call him "Jerry"... because that was his name. raging coffee breath. spent all day looking up speaker wiring diagrams for his speaker building hobby was incorrect about every work related thing he ever said, ever. ever.
    via u/BreeMPLS
  • 54
    • was so argumentative that he made one of the clients cry. regularly told other team members to "f the off ... f !" for simply disagreeing with them. • nicknamed "fight or flight" because that's what he inspired in others
    via u/BreeMPLS
  • 55
    Last I heard, he was cust srv / tech support for some terrible wage. Good riddance.
    via u/BreeMPLS
  • 56
    OutofStep About six or so years ago my company hired a new engineer who, on paper, was absolutely amazing. His degree, his employment history and his past project list of achievements was one of the most impressive I had ever seen... but holy sh, was he weird! Here is a quick recap of some of the things I can remember...
    via u/OutofStep
  • 57
    . Frequently walked around the office, during normal business hours, with no shoes on. Just his pink socks. Sometimes seen pulling up his shirt to wipe his mouth after eating or to blow his nose.
    via u/OutofStep
  • 58
    • Office had a pretty standard, "don't go crazy with hanging things on the walls" policy. This guy happened to have the end cube of a row, so he had a full wall which he blanketed from floor to ceiling with pictures his kid drew in art class. So imagine a wall with about 120 8x11" finger paintings on it.
    via u/OutofStep
  • 59
    Also, did I mention he glued them to the wall and it had to be repainted when they were removed? • Would play pinball on his laptop during project meetings, sometimes getting tired and laying his face down on the keyboard to take a nap.
    via u/OutofStep
  • 60
    • Once showed up to an offsite meeting at 7am eating creamed spinach (maybe not odd to anyone else, but it almost made me vomit). Later that day we all took a break at lunch to walk around the town we were in for 30 minutes or so. When
    via u/OutofStep
  • 61
    we got back to the meeting, he wasn't with us even though he had been following us the entire time. Two hours later he came walking back in, because he got lost. He said the reason he got separated from us was that he had seen some rose hips growing in one of the local's yards, so he let himself in and proceeded to eat them.
    via u/OutofStep
  • 62
    voileauciel We had this total of a supervisor at my first job when I finished college. She would scream at people in front of the entire office, send out nasty e-mails to people and cc everyone and anyone on them, and then would cry to HR that people misunderstood her whenever anyone would complain about her.
    via u/voileauciel
  • 63
    It didn't help either that her mother was a close friend of her supervisor, that she started her career as a hairdresser (this was an IT department) and that she would often leave the office for no reason at all for hours on end, then come back and scream at us that nothing was getting done. Of course, though, she was the only one with keys to different buildings, and we
    via u/voileauciel
  • 64
    couldn't work on anything without her approval first. The icing on the cake was when I was assigned to set up a new computer lab, told her what I thought would be the best way to do it, had
    via u/voileauciel
  • 65
    the idea dismissed by her completely, and then was fired 2 weeks later because "You don't know what you're doing and have no place working in IT."
    via u/voileauciel

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