Weird Stuff From The Workplace

[MichaelB]

Working late there was always the possibility the cleaning crew, all women, would walk in the mens bathroom while in use. All they did was check to see if any stall was in use, in which case they stepped out and waited. A urinal being used wasn't enough to stop them, they'd just start their cleaning chores on the other side. Never bothered me, I don't recall anyone complaining.

 

[Mulligan]

My wife worked for a university as a sexual harassment and diversity investigator. She has hours of stories. At one point she was called in to investigate a group of custodians. During lunch they would all go into a dark room and grope one another. One of them finally complained, when she realized she wasn't getting groped as much as the others. Her many stories really put my story about the time my boss requested I send him a report on when I would finish my reports to shame.

I think I would be upset and have my feelings hurt too, if I was invited to participate with 3 other women in a closet and then suddenly be reduced to spectator status.

 

[Arifriekinel]

I have a coworker who very rarely wears any clothes to work, but I work at home with my partner, so maybe that's not so weird.

 

[kgtest]

I was working a web support gig on the phones. Well really for this line I was 1 of 2 part time agents. I received a call from a gal in our Customer Service department... she had an issue with her PC. Let me clarify, the line she dialed (my line on web support) had nothing to do with our internal tech support department she should have phoned.

I first asked her why she phoned me and she said she knew I was sharp. I asked her to confirm she stated her monitor all of a sudden went black.

I hung up the phone and just walked over to her desk. I saw she was in her socks with her feet up... I looked down and sure as $hit she had kicked her shoes off down onto her power-strip.

I told her to relocate the strip, and keep her shoes on. Problem solved.

I realize now why she dialed web support instead of our internal help-desk and took the liberty of reporting her issue to them anyways. Internal Helpdesk let me know unfortunately this wasn't her first time with a blank monitor problem.

 

[robnplunder]

In the very late 1990's/early 2000's when digital photography was only just beginning to get popular, I had a digital compact - and was one of the few people at work who had one of these cool new-fangled gadgets. I spent quite a bit of time running around taking pictures of my co-workers. We were all enjoying the novelty of this little camera.

One day, I was sitting in the little boys' room, "taking care of business". To while away the time, I pulled out my digital camera and started reviewing the photos I'd been taking on the little screen on the back. For some reason, I had forgotten to lock the door, and one of my co-workers barged in as I was peering at the photos on my camera.

We've all been there and either accidentally walked in on someone in the restroom, or been walked in on. This was a bit more embarrassing though, as it suddenly occurred to me that to him, it must have looked as if I was sitting there taking pictures of my John Thomas. He said something apologetic, left quickly, and I jumped up to lock the door. I did briefly consider going up to him later and saying something along the lines of, "That wasn't what it looked like, I was just reviewing the pictures I had already taken" but then the immediate reply would have been, "Yeah, riiiiiiight............".

Aaah well, what can you do

Nah, that's nothing to be embarrassed about. How about that congressman (whom I shall not name) who not only took nude pictures of himself, but also sent to others and got caught. Then, he did it again and got caught again. He didn't look apologetic nor embarrassed on TV, the first nor 2nd time he was apologizing to public. Some have real thick skin.

 

[kgtest]

Another good one, was working construction. A crewmember was hogging the Portable bathroom quite a bit one particular day. Another crewmember gave him the shakes by rocking the portable back and forth while he was in there taking care of business...

He came out mad and a pursuit ensued. The next thing I know I see a blue-chalk line go airborne and hits this fellar square in the mop. The irony in it is this guy had been growing his hair out all summer which only added to the hilarity.

He had to frame up the house with blue hair the rest of the day...and he still continued to have stomach problems.

 

[MooreBonds]

I think I would be upset and have my feelings hurt too, if I was invited to participate with 3 other women in a closet and then suddenly be reduced to spectator status.

If that ever happens, just let me know. I'd be willing to take your place so you wouldn't have to suffer through such an ordeal....

 

[travelover]

I worked in vehicle development at MegaMotors, which meant spending a lot of time in Florida during the winter. One co-worker, upon his untimely death, was discovered to have an entire separate family down there complete with house, wife and kids. I guess he was a Charles Kuralt wannabee.

 

[eytonxav]

When my beloved mega corp merged with another mega corp in a so called "merger of equals" (it was actually a take over with our chairman selling us down the river for his own personal gain), things began to change at our former HQ location with over 2000 employees. They put signs on the rest rooms, saying to please only flush for No 2. Maybe this was their way of saying, get out, we do not value employees from your side of the merger.

Nevertheless, that little fiasco lasted a few days, and the signs were taken down, but the message sent was just the beginning of the demise of an otherwise wonderful workplace.

 

[W2R]

When you were/are in the trenches at work, have you seen some weird ass ****? Especially if it was funny, tell us about it.

Not really. But then, after a while everything that went on seemed pretty normal, whether it would seem that way to outsiders or not.

There WAS the time when I was working late on a Friday night, and our extremely nutso (certified insane, wildly unpredictable, given hiring preference due to being mentally disabled/insane) administrative assistant very seriously threatened me with a gun for no reason other than that she had somehow got one past security and into the building. Nobody else was around. Scared me silly.

After I extracted myself from that situation I wrote up a summary of what had transpired, and including my demands for a safe workplace, and sent it to everyone clear up to G*d. Middle management was ecstatic since they were already trying to get rid of her. Last I heard she was working at K-Mart.

This sort of occurrence really isn't all that weird any more these days, sadly enough. And it sure wasn't funny.

 

[scrabbler1]

The weirdest thing I can remember from my working days occurred when my company relocated into #7 World Trade Center in 1991 (we moved out of there in early 2001, 4 months before the 9/11 attacks).

The original building was shaped like a trapezoid, so those of us like me who had cubicles near the corners had some odd shapes, especially if we had main support beams near the backs of them. I had a nice cubicle because of this and it included a small gap behind one of the partitions for me to put up a coat hanger and hang up a large coat if I needed to, and it was out of view from outsiders.

One day, it was one of the first days we were in our new location, one of the company bigwigs was walking around the floor to take a look at how we were settling in. Mr. Bigwig happened to see the arm of my overcoat sticking out a little bit from behind that makeshift set up I had put together. He became upset at this awful "display" of my coat's sleeve from behind my cubicle and ordered me to hang my coat in the coat closet down the hall in a common area (a pantry). Stunned at this level of micro-managment, I moved the coat but the next day I returned it to its more convenient location. In the next 10 years, I never hung it in the pantry's closet again and he never came around again.

This same Mr. Coats Police Bigwig also became upset that some of the venetian blinds were not being set at the same level at consecutive windows on another floor, so he ordered that they be made even. A coworker I knew who worked near there evened them out for one day, then set every one of them at different levels (like an ascending staircase) the next day, hoing Mr. (Coats and) Blinds Police Bigwig would return and see it. He never did, unfortunately.

You would think Mr. Bigwig would have better things to do than watch how venetial blnds and my overcoat are hung!

 

[MRG]

The weirdest thing I can remember from my working days occurred when my company relocated into #7 World Trade Center in 1991 (we moved out of there in early 2001, 4 months before the 9/11 attacks).

The original building was shaped like a trapezoid, so those of us like me who had cubicles near the corners had some odd shapes, especially if we had main support beams near the backs of them. I had a nice cubicle because of this and it included a small gap behind one of the partitions for me to put up a coat hanger and hang up a large coat if I needed to, and it was out of view from outsiders.

One day, it was one of the first days we were in our new location, one of the company bigwigs was walking around the floor to take a look at how we were settling in. Mr. Bigwig happened to see the arm of my overcoat sticking out a little bit from behind that makeshift set up I had put together. He became upset at this awful "display" of my coat's sleeve from behind my cubicle and ordered me to hang my coat in the coat closet down the hall in a common area (a pantry). Stunned at this level of micro-managment, I moved the coat but the next day I returned it to its more convenient location. In the next 10 years, I never hung it in the pantry's closet again and he never came around again.

This same Mr. Coats Police Bigwig also became upset that some of the venetian blinds were not being set at the same level at consecutive windows on another floor, so he ordered that they be made even. A coworker I knew who worked near there evened them out for one day, then set every one of them at different levels (like an ascending staircase) the next day, hoing Mr. (Coats and) Blinds Police Bigwig would return and see it. He never did, unfortunately.

You would think Mr. Bigwig would have better things to do than watch how venetial blnds and my overcoat are hung!

Oh the blinds OMG. Megacorp had designers deceide the proper angle, washers were installed to prevent movment outside the acceptable range. Great except for about 3 hours a day, I couldn't see my terminal.

I was supporting Megacorps CICS regions at that time, outages were about $10k per minute. Well somebody installed something that was walking over storage, causing the onlines to randomly fall down.

The CIOs office was on my floor, he stopped by to see how I was doing. I pointed to my unusable terminal, explained I'd be working on the issue in a few hours due to the blind situation. He politely thanked me, walked off. I heard his voice bellowing on the phone, about 10 minutes later there were 3 nervous maintenance guys removing washers from blinds.
Thanks for that memory,
MRG

 

[happy2bretired]

My last few years of work I was constantly having hot flashes and kept an old circular government issued fan close to my chair. One day I smelled something burning and called the service people to check out the smell that was getting worse by the minute. They came and checked out outlets, up in the ceiling...trying to find the source. My FAN... Sometimes I would have it set on high, then low again according to heat tolerance. I had had it on high and the plastic bag from the waste basket flew out and into the fan...stopping the blades...the motor was a just A LITTLE HOT! That was a good fan, I had to say goodbye to it when I retired.

 

[Midpack]

May not qualify as a story, but...

I graduated from a Big 10 school up north, but my first job was in a very small town in Texas. On my first day at work, while touring the lab associated with our process & quality engineering group, I noticed a sign on the wall that said simply:

We don't really care how you did it up North.

Sorta set the stage for me right away. Turned out I fit in well and thoroughly enjoyed that first assignment...thank goodness.

 

[Chuckanut]

This same Mr. Coats Police Bigwig also became upset that some of the venetian blinds were not being set at the same level at consecutive windows on another floor, so he ordered that they be made even.

I had an administrator who got upset once about the same thing. All the blinds had to be at the same level even though harsh sunlight came through some windows whiles others were just outside the sun's rays.

Years ago at MegaCorp we moved into new offices and the first rule was no photos in the cubicles except for those of the immediate family. We had a Mexican-American fellow working there who put up a photo of what can only be described as Hollywood's image of a Latino gang - switchblade knives, chains, bandanas, gang symbols, nasty tattos, etc. He was never questioned about it. Another guy had a photo of his wife (maybe? maybe not?) in a dress slit up to here and cut down to there.

 

[brewer12345]

Years ago at MegaCorp we moved into new offices and the first rule was no photos in the cubicles except for those of the immediate family. We had a Mexican-American fellow working there who put up a photo of what can only be described as Hollywood's image of a Latino gang - switchblade knives, chains, bandanas, gang symbols, nasty tattos, etc. He was never questioned about it. Another guy had a photo of his wife (maybe? maybe not?) in a dress slit up to here and cut down to there.

I think I would have put up a picture of my "eccentric uncle":

 

[tryan]

I had a tech support guy in a office for a SW problem on my PC. So I leave and go to the cafe for some tea ... come back and I "catch" him cleaning out the change in my desk drawer. Had a hand FULL of pennies stuffed half way into his pocket. All I said was "wow" and he ran away.

So I call the anonomous tip line and leave his name, my name and what I witnessed. 2 days later he was canned. Apparently tech services had been trying to figure out who was stealing office supplies (including unopened OS and SW packages) from the department for months. Crimes solved.

 

[Walt34]

I've been trying to think of some that would be safe to tell and still protect the uh, innocent.

Here's one. I worked in a police department and as one might imagine when things got too slow a group of creative, energetic, young men are going to find things to do. The pranks were endless. The telephone on the desk staffed by the (usually) female desk clerks had a red button that immediately connected to the 911 call center.

On one especially slow night at about 3:30 AM one of the guys decided it would be funny to wake up the desk clerk who was clearly having trouble keeping her eyes open. So he left the station via a door she could see, walked down one level through the parking garage and entered via the basement door there. In his locker he had a couple of dozen bottle rockets and brought some of those upstairs via the stairway at the opposite end of the station.

Silently moving to a room adjacent to the office where the desk clerk was he laid them out on the floor aimed through a doorway at the unsuspecting desk clerk, and lit the fuses. The poor girl immediately punched the 911 button and informed the dispatcher that the station was under attack. It took a while for the chaos to clear and the laughter to stop.

The night shift commander was not amused.

 

[Brat]

Years ago I worked for a company that often had revealing advertisements but in the office the only pictures of people who were scantly clad permitted in cubicles had to be under the age of 2.

The EEO Feds came to audit and I was tasked with taking them on a tour. I told them that the only thing they would see that bordered on obscene were our ads. They smiled, took the tour, and at the end complained that they couldn't find the naughty ads.

That same employer had a blue collar workforce in one division that employed a lot of Asian refugees. Their bathroom stalls had graphics to ask them not to stand on the commodes.

 

[Koolau]

Wow, where to begin!? When I joined Megacorp, it was at an ancient manufacturing site which was JUST beginning to hire research/development/QC types. My first lab was in an old production building (functioning steam pipes overhead and bare concrete floors.) Typical noise level was pushing 80 dbA. Needless to say, it did not look or feel "professional" - even compared to some of the old labs I was used to at my university.

Most of the technical staff was made up of long-service production operators - all male ca. 1970. So, as EEOC, et. Al. regs, etc. came into play, female staff were added to the lab(s) and to the production areas. The stories (personally witnessed as well as related to all willing to listen) would fill an entire thread.

After a few years, we had achieved some semblance of professionalism at the site (which led to a somewhat "us and them" situation - but that, too is another story.) By then, there were upwards of 250 professionals on site with perhaps another 1000 production workers.

At one of our quarterly meetings (more or less required attendance by all "professionals") our "big boss" as we often called our plant manager, was waxing philosophical about why Megacorp (upwards of 20,000 folks at the time) had not made "plan" for the quarter. He mentioned a number of belt tightening measures that would be instituted at our plant site. Nothing surprising: Restricted business travel, freeze on equipment purchases, moving approved purchases into the next quarter or year, curtailed team-building and on-site education courses, etc. etc. The USUAL. He finished with this: From then, forward, a log would be placed at all copy machines and each person making any copy(s) would be required to state the business reason for EVERY copy (including spoiled copies). The boss, not usually noted for his humor received a spontaneous and uproarious outburst of laughter which continued for many seconds - until the big boss's glower finally made the very last chuckler realize - HE WASN'T KIDDING. When you could hear a pin drop. He stomped out.

The new provision lasted about 6 weeks. We assumed that cooler heads had calculated the cost of documentation was far greater than the frivolous copies being made. Heaven knows, there are eight million stories at Megacorp. This has been one of them.

 

[Brat]

OK, I have another. . . .

While working for USDL I had occasion to audit a lumber mill. They had started hiring women in the production area so constructed a ladies' toilet... but provided a peep-hole from the men's toilet. When that was discovered there was a huge to-do. I don't know how many guys were fired or how they settled with the women but it wasn't pretty.

Then there was an HR Manager in a heavy manufacturing company who when asked why there were no Blacks employed said, "We hired one once and he didn't work out." To which I retorted, "How many Whites have you hired who didn't work out?"

 

[Letj]

At MegaMotors, we had foot washers and also sink nose blowers. Evidently in some cultures, rather than use a Kleenex, you turn on the water in the sink and blow away. At the risk of being culturally insensitive, I found both practices .

It's more a poverty thing than a cultural thing. In many poor countries there's no money to buy toilet tissue. Imagine having to buy kleenex and paper towels.

 

[MRG]

Oh the stuff that happens in the lumber industry. I worked as a 'skidder' for a couple of years. Thats the guy that drags the logs/trees out of the woods after there cut. Think I was 17-18, not wise to insanity.

The insane guy that was the 'cutter'(fells the trees) was supposed to help getting the logs in the wire ropes, so they could be pulled out. He didn't do that, so he'd get way ahead of me. To kill time he'd go back in the woods to smoke a 'special' cigarette.

After that he thought it was funny to fell trees as close to me as possible. Not funny to me.
MRG

 

[haha]

At MegaMotors, we had foot washers and also sink nose blowers. Evidently in some cultures, rather than use a Kleenex, you turn on the water in the sink and blow away. At the risk of being culturally insensitive, I found both practices .

Just walk down any city street. All kinds of mucus,-nasal, bronchial, and who knows what all on the sidewalks. I'd prefer they blow, hack whatever it in a sink somewhere. I'm sure not going to be tempted to go barefoot anytime soon. Come to think of it, I don't think I have ever seen anyone on a construction site with a handkerchief or Kleenex.

Ha

 

[brewer12345]

Just walk down any city street. All kinds of mucus,-nasal, bronchial, and who knows what all on the sidewalks. I'd prefer they blow, hack whatever it in a sink somewhere. I'm sure not going to be tempted to go barefoot anytime soon. Come to think of it, I don't think I have ever seen anyone on a construction site with a handkerchief or Kleenex.

Ha

Ah, the pleasures of a center city abode!