Your worst work story!

[invaderhorizongreen]

The worst thing I ever had was the 15 propane tanks in my bins at work. I work in a bottle return center and had 3 propane tanks in the glass bin, and one that was in a cardboard box that nearly went in the baler for cardboard. All the rest have been in the garbage, so that is way I always dig through the bags, just in case.

I have also found a butane fuel tank with a welding torch in my garbage that was half filled with butane fuel, management was not thrilled. That is why I am super picky with the garbage and recycling. Recently I had a paring knife stuffed under the door of one of the machines so now I am gonna constantly look under those as well.

Oh I have a small scar from a crowbar as well, I got myself just above my right eye while removing a broken bin part. I got five stitches and have some nerve damage as well, it just makes my eyebrow itch from time to time.

[pineapplecupcake]

Man, I have had some crappy jobs...I once worked for a guy who wouldn't pay me on time. Insultingly, he is a multi-millionaire and owns a beach-side property, but could never seem to get his act together to write my check. I was his personal assistant and met him at his gorgeous home that was full of super expensive art, a wine cellar, and glass imported from Italy. Anyway, one day I finally confronted him about the payment issue very politely, explaining that I had bills that had to get paid on certain days and such and his wife, who was home at the time came up to me and started literally screaming at me. She pointed a finger right in my face and said that I would "never work again" once she told all her friends how horrible I was (for asking for my check on time??). Anyway, I quit after that. No reason to work for psychopaths!!
The other good one was I worked in an SAT prep place as a receptionist. I also had to do a lot of filing and photocopying, but the owner had the photocopier under lock and key. He was really weird about office supplies and he would only give you like 10 pieces of paper at a time, even if he had just asked you to print a 300 page document. I had to interrupt him from meetings with prospective students and families to ask about getting stuff like more paperclips, paper, and the key to the copier like every day. What a waste of time! He also had the worst teeth, they were like raisins *shudder* Even though I didn't like him at all, I wanted to get him some toothpaste or something!!

[Archer]

I used to work at a childrens indoor soft playcentre and i have so many delightful stories form that place lol Seriously the parents in those places are awful. But i have this one story that is forever burned into my mind above all of the kids pooing in the frames and vomiting in the ball pools.

I was working the reception with two hours left of my shift when a dad came over to me, looking quite upset and told me his daughter had been bitten in the frame. Not an unusual thing. The kids were forever doing things like that to each other. Leaving another girl on reception, i walked over to his table with him expecting to see a little kid with a mark on their arm or something. However the little girl was about nine and was in floods of tears which i found odd over a bite. Her dad then lifted her shirt up to show me her back and i could only describe the bite as looking like she'd been attacked by a dog. It was bright purple and red from the bruising with blood running down it and i could see just about every tooth mark. I was so shocked i didn't know what to say. After a moment i ran back to reception and put a call out for a first aider before going back to the family and asking the father if he could join me in the frames to find the child that had done it as obviously i'd need to talk to the parents. He agreed but on my way there i got stopped by another kid, maybe about ten with a bite mark on his arm, though no where near as severe, who was crying because him and his two year old sister had been bitten. I left the dad for a minute and went with the ten year old and found that his sister had a mark on her shoulder like what the other girl had. It genuinely looked like someone had tried to rip her shoulder off. Her mum was just as upset so i told the boy to run over to reception to get the first aider for his sister before i went into the frames.

Straight away it was a lot quieter than it should be in there and i looked around for this child that was biting people. We had three huge frames then so it wasn't easy. Eventually i found this kid surrounded by angry adults. He had to be about five and was swearing at the adults who practically had him cornered. I stepped in to diffuse the situation but i heart rate was through the roof. I genuinely thought they were going to attack him, they looked so angry. I told them to go back to their children and that i'd take this boy over to his parents. I took his hand to lead him away but he was swearing at me and trying to scratch me.

I'd just got him out of the frame and turned to him to ask him where his mum was as i needed to talk to her when someone came running over at me, screaming and shoved me before grabbing the kid. Then his mum got right up in my face yelling and threatening me. I can be very calm even in situations like this so i tried to explain what had happened but i knew i was sweating and shaking. There were no other staff members around and we were hidden from all other areas of the center where staff would be except for the bar area (but they were too busy slacking off to keep an eye on things even though i tried to get their attention). So just when i thought this woman was going to thump me, the other parents who i'd managed to disperse, came running back over and got between me and the mother and started yelling at her which resulted in her starting to attack them. At this point i ran to the bar and screamed for another member of staff to get me more help, get a manager and call security. It was absolutely insane.

Eventually security came and hauled the kid, his mother and mother's friend from the centre but they were swearing and trying to attack them. I was totally shook up from it all. It had been terrifying even though it was just for a few minutes. The other parents were great about the whole thing and understood, as a centre, there was nothing else we could have done. Though i had to get statements from them all to send to the police. In all i think ten to fifteen children had been bitten in various stages from what i was initially expecting to what had happened to the nine year old and two year old.

It was by far the worst day i had working there and i worked through a lot of things that would have likely made other people quit. Those few moments when it was just me and the mother were legitimately scary as there was no one else there to help me.

[ponycake]

I used to work at a childrens indoor soft playcentre and i have so many delightful stories form that place lol Seriously the parents in those places are awful. But i have this one story that is forever burned into my mind above all of the kids pooing in the frames and vomiting in the ball pools.

I was working the reception with two hours left of my shift when a dad came over to me, looking quite upset and told me his daughter had been bitten in the frame. Not an unusual thing. The kids were forever doing things like that to each other. Leaving another girl on reception, i walked over to his table with him expecting to see a little kid with a mark on their arm or something. However the little girl was about nine and was in floods of tears which i found odd over a bite. Her dad then lifted her shirt up to show me her back and i could only describe the bite as looking like she'd been attacked by a dog. It was bright purple and red from the bruising with blood running down it and i could see just about every tooth mark. I was so shocked i didn't know what to say. After a moment i ran back to reception and put a call out for a first aider before going back to the family and asking the father if he could join me in the frames to find the child that had done it as obviously i'd need to talk to the parents. He agreed but on my way there i got stopped by another kid, maybe about ten with a bite mark on his arm, though no where near as severe, who was crying because him and his two year old sister had been bitten. I left the dad for a minute and went with the ten year old and found that his sister had a mark on her shoulder like what the other girl had. It genuinely looked like someone had tried to rip her shoulder off. Her mum was just as upset so i told the boy to run over to reception to get the first aider for his sister before i went into the frames.

Straight away it was a lot quieter than it should be in there and i looked around for this child that was biting people. We had three huge frames then so it wasn't easy. Eventually i found this kid surrounded by angry adults. He had to be about five and was swearing at the adults who practically had him cornered. I stepped in to diffuse the situation but i heart rate was through the roof. I genuinely thought they were going to attack him, they looked so angry. I told them to go back to their children and that i'd take this boy over to his parents. I took his hand to lead him away but he was swearing at me and trying to scratch me.

I'd just got him out of the frame and turned to him to ask him where his mum was as i needed to talk to her when someone came running over at me, screaming and shoved me before grabbing the kid. Then his mum got right up in my face yelling and threatening me. I can be very calm even in situations like this so i tried to explain what had happened but i knew i was sweating and shaking. There were no other staff members around and we were hidden from all other areas of the center where staff would be except for the bar area (but they were too busy slacking off to keep an eye on things even though i tried to get their attention). So just when i thought this woman was going to thump me, the other parents who i'd managed to disperse, came running back over and got between me and the mother and started yelling at her which resulted in her starting to attack them. At this point i ran to the bar and screamed for another member of staff to get me more help, get a manager and call security. It was absolutely insane.

Eventually security came and hauled the kid, his mother and mother's friend from the centre but they were swearing and trying to attack them. I was totally shook up from it all. It had been terrifying even though it was just for a few minutes. The other parents were great about the whole thing and understood, as a centre, there was nothing else we could have done. Though i had to get statements from them all to send to the police. In all i think ten to fifteen children had been bitten in various stages from what i was initially expecting to what had happened to the nine year old and two year old.

It was by far the worst day i had working there and i worked through a lot of things that would have likely made other people quit. Those few moments when it was just me and the mother were legitimately scary as there was no one else there to help me.

Oh. My. Freaking. God. Insanity. I don't even have words. I just read this with a shocked face the entire time. You don't know if they ended up suing the batshit woman or if she got her kid taken away? Holy crap, how could a kid have such aggression that he bite other kids as hard as he can?

[Archer]

I literally don't know anything that happened further from it other than they were banned from our centre and we had their photos up for about a year in the staff room saying that they were banned from the centre and if they did appear we were to call security. It was honestly the most stressful day i ever worked there just because it kept getting crazier and crazier. Kid hurting other kids and parents yelling at the staff weren't anything new, but the level of aggression of this family and the way they responded to people trying to explain what had happened was just insane. I had a few shifts after that where i was terrified in case they'd come back.

[gold.standard]

I worked at a mcdonalds for about two years. The usual rude customer and drama was a daily thing. But there have been quite a few events that really stand out.

There was a three month period of the sewage pipes in the building blocking up and over flowing, so all three bathrooms would be flooded and unusable. But what was worst was, somehow with how the pipes worked, it also flooded the kitchen. How the owner let it go on that long that our kitchen was being flooded with 1-3 inches of poop water, I'll never know.
 There was this one customer in particular that would get very very upset if his order was wrong. One of the first big events was, his order was wrong, he got angry. He then left the store and shot out an employee's car window.
He was banned from the dinning area for that. Of course they still let him go through the drive-thru for some unknown reason. Which leads to my personal nightmare. He comes through drive-thru, I'm working the second window, I had him his food, and of course, something is wrong. He immediately freaks out and throws the sandwich back in my face and is screaming. It took everything in me to just stay calm, walk away and get a manager. He was finally completely banned after that.

Theres also all the schedule drama too, that's always fun. So one manager in particular would change the schedule after everyone already got their hours for the week, with out telling anyone. So many people got in trouble for that, and that's part of the reason I got fired. How am I supposed to show up for work when my own schedule is being changed behind my back? Same manager was also scheduling people for 5 hour and 45-55 minute shifts so they wouldn't have to give anyone breaks.
I'm so glad to not be there anymore.

[Princess Lala]

I have a NEW one just-in. Im emotional right now, it JUST happened but I almost got FIRED just now because in MY own department I had a group of teenagers throw boomerangs while OTHER customers were on the salesfloor.  I yelled at them, "EXCUSE ME PLEEAASE STOP THROWING THINGS!" and they ran off so I chased after them and asked them why was it so fun to throw things and make a mess at Walmart in the dead middle of the night. So they started laughing, they thought it was sooooo funny so I had them go pick up boomerangs because, well other people were complaining about them and they are TEENAGERS and they should know better. I told them to leave my department and if I saw them again, im calling security. Well they went and told my manager and I got a b*tchfest saying what i did was wrong. I stood up for myself, and stated next time this happens Im just going to let customers run around hitting other customers with projectiles and let her deal with it. Then I stormed off and left. So i will try again tomorrow, im just sitting here waiting for my hisbands shift to end so i can go home for the night.

EDIT: my manager knows my side of the stpry and told me if they are still around she is calling the police LoL maybe more people complained about the boomerang brigade? BUT at least my employment issafe....  its apparently PROM NITE here which explains all the stupid people

[Nebula Light]

I worked at a mcdonalds for about two years. The usual rude customer and drama was a daily thing. But there have been quite a few events that really stand out.

There was a three month period of the sewage pipes in the building blocking up and over flowing, so all three bathrooms would be flooded and unusable. But what was worst was, somehow with how the pipes worked, it also flooded the kitchen. How the owner let it go on that long that our kitchen was being flooded with 1-3 inches of poop water, I'll never know.
 There was this one customer in particular that would get very very upset if his order was wrong. One of the first big events was, his order was wrong, he got angry. He then left the store and shot out an employee's car window.
He was banned from the dinning area for that. Of course they still let him go through the drive-thru for some unknown reason. Which leads to my personal nightmare. He comes through drive-thru, I'm working the second window, I had him his food, and of course, something is wrong. He immediately freaks out and throws the sandwich back in my face and is screaming. It took everything in me to just stay calm, walk away and get a manager. He was finally completely banned after that.

Theres also all the schedule drama too, that's always fun. So one manager in particular would change the schedule after everyone already got their hours for the week, with out telling anyone. So many people got in trouble for that, and that's part of the reason I got fired. How am I supposed to show up for work when my own schedule is being changed behind my back? Same manager was also scheduling people for 5 hour and 45-55 minute shifts so they wouldn't have to give anyone breaks.
I'm so glad to not be there anymore.

Ah, I'm super sorry you got fired over that, but good thing is that you don't work there any more! Fast food is not fun, to say it nicely. Your story reminded me of one of the first jobs I took. I used to work at a Hungry Howie's (pizza joint) and people were scheduled just so that we could not get breaks. How they got away with this was because the store would experience dead zones, when no customers would come in for like half an hour or so. But it usually was not like that. My break was using the bathroom. I would pack snacks and hope I had a minute when the manager was not looking so I could take a bite of a granola bar. I have blood sugar problems, but not medically diagnosed, and I would get in trouble if I went back to eat because I felt lightheaded/tunnel vision.
Often times, there would be mess-up pizzas that would keep employees from starving. We were welcome to those, but only if given permission. Once, after a rough spell of doing multiple pizzas, we went and ate some bread for a few minutes. I had taken a few bites of mine, then was told to get back to work or do something while I ate. How..are you supposed to do something while you eat??

My manager was also super creepy. He would hit on younger girls and he was a well middle aged man. He made me very uncomfortable, and I was fired from the place because I forgot I had to work on thanksgiving.  I recently saw him at the job I have now, and when I told him I had worked there for a year, he seemed surprised. I am so, so glad I don't work there any more.

[MiRaja]

I'm a server, I mostly block out any of the doozies from my memory because they happen so often. . .

That said, my boss is a nightmare.  Any misogynist who says women are hormonal creatures has never met my boss, who, despite being male, is known to have crazy, ridiculous moodswings like none other.

I can take customer's and their attitudes, because I only have to deal with them a half hour to an hour at a time.

My boss on the other hand?  Yeah, no.  'Bout done with this, if only I could find a new job.  Got yelled at several times today alone, which is the reason why I am drinking so much tonight.   

I have never been written up in all my life, I AM a good worker, even if I come off as a total jerk online, I don't let it show in my professional appearance, however, I got wrote up for putting our very large tea urns on the floor to wash them, because when they're on the counter, 5'2 me cannot wash them out without seeing what I am doing, because on the server counter, the tops of them are nearly 6'0 over.  But yeah, I got wrote up for that.  So, torrential rain or shine, we have to run them outside of the restaurant now, out to the docks, and rinse and scrub those things with cold water, because cold water is all that comes out of the hoses outside.  Super sanitary, dude, unlike me using the near-boiling hot water from the industrial coffee makers. 

Meanwhile, I have a coworker who still has a job, who, since being hired since December, has missed over 10 shifts.  6 of which have been in the last 2 weeks.  I sure wish I could thumb my nose up at a job for 2 weeks and still have it.  Meanwhile, shifts have been cut because it's been slow, but she still gets shifts, and we've hired yet another girl, who is actually ( so far ) competent, which means if she's smart, she'll find something else.  One of my other coworkers talk in perpetual baby voice, and any time I say anything, she has to shoot me down, or complain to someone else that I actually talked, which, given her attitude, I try my best not to talk anymore except to my tables.  It's really quite depressing, quite frankly.  I only still work there because I need a job, and I've just been passed up over and over in interviews because someone else has just been a smidge better than me.  All my interviews; yes, have been good, but always someone better.  Please have some hopes for me, I had an interview last week, and will be calling them back Tuesday or so, to see if they want to hire me or not.  :/ 

[Juliepants]

I've worked as a Healthcare Assistant/Carer/Auxilliary Nurse for 13 years, mostly with elderly people but other age groups too. So as you can imagine I have many stories of various bodily functions and being beaten up by old people. (You've not lived til you've been bitten by a 90 year old!!)
Interesting but gross stories include
"The One that Looked Like a Christmas Pudding",
"The One That 'the Dog' Did",
"The One I Caught", and,
"The One I Stepped In"!!
I've got so many stories I could write a book, which I've decided would be called, 'From Bumholes to Plugholes- the Life of a Carer'.

Jules x

[Harmonie]

I can't say I've ever had it *really* bad. I'm an overnight stocker, so it's pretty rare for something to go wrong anywhere near the level of the stories in this topic (thankfully, I'm not on maintenance, because they have had stories. xD) especially since my store is in a safer area.

My stories are mostly annoyances:

Evening workers. This has been a consistent issue for a while now... This lady who works my aisle and the surrounding aisles during the evenings really doesn't know the first thing on stocking (either that or she's been given terrible instruction). For quite some time items had been getting stuffed in my aisle, and I mean it was BAD. She would stock entire cases in the wrong spot (like all across the aisle!), knowingly doing so so she shoved them into the back. Not to mention, she stocked laundry detergent in the toilet paper aisle... >.< When she did put items in the right spot, they are stuffed, as in she puts up way more than it can hold. She'll stuff an entire case in a spot right next to where it goes that is empty (but of course, the product that goes there comes in that night for me to stock. Inevitably).

She's probably in her late 50s/60s and seems sweet, so I can't just blow up on her... But I did find out it was her one time because she left her cart in my aisle when I came in. She went to go help some customers in another department... I went to go stock something, and notice that I couldn't put it up because it was stuffed well beyond sense... I think "I know someone's doing this... Maybe I should check her cart?" And there it was... An empty box of that product... >.> I wanted so badly to put it back in the box and send it back... (which she has left her carts behind before and left, and I did go and retrieve the empty boxes she was supposed to get rid of and put the products back in them and send them back lol) I found out that night I really should have... Because I didn't even notice, but the product she had stuffed... There was another box of it on her cart, and when she came back she stuffed it as well...

I was like... 

It took every bit of restraint to not even say anything to her... lol. BUT once I found out who it was, I DID go to the manager about it... Who acted like she would do something about it, but a month later, nothing... The lady is still stuffing the aisle next to mine, and the man who works it is about to lose his mind. He knows it's her, too, because I told him... He might not be so nice... xD

For those who work in a job like this, you probably realize how bad this is... Her stocking those boxes that can't go up tells the computer that they can go up, and then more is ordered. When I clean it up, that box that she stuffed goes back to the back, and more and more boxes just keep on stacking up in the backroom, meanwhile the boxes in the back are sent out to me every night like they're supposed to go up... *screams* You'd think management would care about this kind of thing?

Otherwise, customers can be really annoying, too. They very rarely give me any kind of attitude, but they have the tendency to always be in the way. lol. But the most annoying I've dealt with are groups that decide to come into the aisle, not shop and just stand around having conversations. On two different occasions I have had a couple of middle aged women come into a part of the aisle, stop and have a conversation for over an hour... They're not even pretending to shop, so they can't be helped... They just want to talk. How incredibly inconsiderate can people be? It's no problem to stop and talk, but they just need to do it somewhere that's not in the way? They see me... They know what I'm there for...

Lastly, cleaning up messes. It's less the messes themselves (which have never been gross like the ones in this topic!) and more the fact that they just take time, which is something we do not have. lol. The worst for me personally are bleach spills (which have so much specific instruction, and can not be kept in boxes until later, because they eat through them!) and then this one time where I was pulling a really horribly stacked pallet into my aisle and it hit and knocked down this stack of 24 packs of Dr. Pepper... Enough said, right?

[Princess Lala]

^Maddie, im an overnight stocker too! ^ͺ^ ive been doing that fpr 3 years now, and I agree! Problems are sort-of-rare. We get customers who are theifs every now and then at about 3am as well as a few drunks LOL but otherwise my job is.... ok.  And thank GOSH im not in maintenence!!!! Our friend is on maintenence (the obe who cleans the bathrooms) and ooooh man the stories he tells me of what he finds in the toilets (and on the FLOOR next to the toilet) SCARE me! D: he will share that stuff on break, like, "oh MAN i just cleaned the front-end girls' bathroom and someone left _____ on ______!" (usually poop, used pads, omg and....vomit!) X'(

[Iris Patch]

I saw the signs things were going downhill and I reached the limit of what they would teach me, so I left my job... friends who still worked there told me that the new boss held a meeting where he devolved into a deranged rant about how horrible Georgia cockroaches were and how they lay their eggs in the corregations in cardboard. He apparently ranted about this for quite a while to his captive audience, complete with mandible hand motions and sound effects. He's also threatened to "kill anyone that bothers him" on occasion.

I'm trying to think of examples of bad things that happened when I still worked there but mostly the weird stuff that happened was just funny and unprofessional, not outright terrible. I guess it was really crappy when they decided out of the blue they couldn't trust us and started nannying us and making everyone take their breaks at the same time every day and completely restricted the freedoms that we used to take for granted. Oh, and I never had a performance review or a raise in 2.5 years, that was pretty bad. New employees make like $1-1.50 less than what I was paid, they're such cheapskates!

[Harmonie]

^Maddie, im an overnight stocker too! ^ͺ^ ive been doing that fpr 3 years now, and I agree! Problems are sort-of-rare. We get customers who are theifs every now and then at about 3am as well as a few drunks LOL but otherwise my job is.... ok.  And thank GOSH im not in maintenence!!!! Our friend is on maintenence (the obe who cleans the bathrooms) and ooooh man the stories he tells me of what he finds in the toilets (and on the FLOOR next to the toilet) SCARE me! D: he will share that stuff on break, like, "oh MAN i just cleaned the front-end girls' bathroom and someone left _____ on ______!" (usually poop, used pads, omg and....vomit!) X'(

I think you typed the wrong name there. lol 

Anyway, that's the exact amount of time I've been working, too! I really hate that it's during the nights, it feels so unnatural... But I like the fact that it's a job where you don't deal with many people... I mean aside from the coworkers and their drama. *sigh*

I think my coworkers and I just don't much care about thief's. Does that sound awful? It's not like we can do anything about them, either way. If the company cared, they'd hire security during the nights.

Yeah, maintenance have had a couple of nightmare stories where I work, but as far as I know it kind of stops there... Our store is shockingly clean, and I've never encountered anything outside of where it was supposed to be in the bathroom aside from toilet paper and paper towels... Seems like people can't handle properly disposing of those, which I don't really understand, but whatever... the lack of pads/tampons and ...waste on the floor is appreciated. xD

[rybett]

There were several teens at Walmart throwing balls around the toy area.  All of a sudden I heard a loud voice say "please don't mess with the balls!!"  Dude working in the area.  As I walked by him I thanked him for that.