Insane Co-Worker Stories

As I enter my sixth month as a self-employed consultant working alone in a basement office, I've started remembering some of the co-workers I've had over the years that were insane.

I'll start with Frank. Frank was our general manager, and therefore it was his responsibility to make sure our location ran smoothly. Frank usually kept to himself except when he need to snap us back in line. Frank never smiled, never joked, never went out to lunch with anyone. Then one week Frank was all smiles and even a bit chatty. We'd see him in the main office area just grinning from ear to ear, usually feeding papers into the shredder. This wasn't odd, as our insane owner demanded that we use shredded office paperwork as packing material in shipping. So by Friday the office was abuzz about the "new" Frank and how nice it had been to finally see a different side of him.

Monday rolls around and we notice Frank's office is still dark and locked. Odd, Frank is usually on time. Calls to his cell phone go unanswered. By noon we were worried, but nobody had keys to Frank's office. We ended up hoisting William up and over the office wall to get the door open. As William opened the door we were amazed to see.....nothing!!

Frank's desk was empty except for his computer monitor. Nobody had ever seen the desk top before due to the usual mountain of paperwork associated with Frank's job. It was all gone, not a scrap. All the desk drawers: empty. The computer: erased. The entire wall of filing cabinets: all empty. Frank had nuked the office from orbit. Then it all clicked. We had watched Frank shred THOUSANDS of documents the previous week. Everything needed to run that location was gone. Luckily our payroll came out of a different location, but everything else was just a big hole of "I don't know".

We never saw Frank again. We heard he was still alive, so we were glad about that. Frank's store keys eventually showed up via FedEx (on the company FedEx account of course). I always pictured Frank climbing into his quad cab dually on that last Friday and driving off into the sunset, cackling the whole way.

Anyone else want to share?

I millwrighted with a recovering junkie. Even after being off heroin for two years he was still a bit "touched"

If he placed a tool down and you moved it 6" in any direction there was simply no way he could find it. No matter if it was a clean workbench with just a pump, two bolts and his ratchet or a cluttered mess under a process tank. He would go into rage mode, start shouting, scream about needing a meeting and storm out for the rest of the day.

He was also kind of a dick so we moved his tools a lot.

My coworker pisses and E36 M3s outside. Oh wait, that's my dog.

I just started working from home last week...

I used to work in the oilfields in Nigeria doing seismic exploration. "Teched in the head" was pretty much a job per-requisite. And I do not leave myself out of the group.

Jumper K. Balls wrote: I millwrighted with a recovering junkie. Even after being off heroin for two years he was still a bit "touched" If he placed a tool down and you moved it 6" in any direction there was simply no way he could find it. No matter if it was a clean workbench with just a pump, two bolts and his ratchet or a cluttered mess under a process tank. He would go into rage mode, start shouting, scream about needing a meeting and storm out for the rest of the day. He was also kind of a dick so we moved his tools a lot.

A male engineer in a company I used to work for got fired one day for hiding out in a women's bathroom and taking pictures of the female users in the next stall over the top of the partition. Until that happened, I never would have suspected the guy was anything other than a real-life Dilbert extra.

Of course we have to remember Nitrous Fogger Jr. and Cut Off Sleeves

Well, most of my old work stories involve ME breaking the status quo, but I do have one I really like.

A former co-worker of mine had been...touched by Jesus you could say. Very much born again. Now, I'm no theologian, but I was raised Catholic, I'm a professional grade troll, and I remember the most insane stuff possible. So, I have enough of the bible under my belt to make trouble for this woman. And boy did I ever. Before you crawl down my gullet for lambasting those down with the Jesus, I'm cool with it. This woman was.... special.

She didn't believe in dinosaurs.

I forget the exact context of THAT particular conversation, but it came out during what I liked to call "Come to Jesus Friday" About 4pm on every Friday, I lost all semblance of giving a berkeley at work, and everyone knew it. I had no on phone time left for the week, my paperwork had been done since about Tuesday, I was either going to shop eBay, go smoke, or troll this woman. Most of the time, I trolled this woman. These conversations got so legendary, the office used to gather outside our cubes (we were housed next to each other) at about 10 to to get a good seat. My boss let them happen. He thought they were berkeleying hilarious.

One particular co-worker stands out in my experience. He had all sorts of tricks.

After people started noticing flaky debris in their coffee, we found out he'd been boiling eggs and sweet corn in the coffee pot.

Another story involved him getting a call from his (at the time, pregnant) wife at work after she'd run the car out of gas. Overheard at our end: "Ok, where are you?" "What's the mileage on the car?" "Alright, I'll bring out another gallon." He was trying to figure out the gas mileage..

The best, however, resulted from sharing too much information: "I think my wife's diaphragm gives her toxic shock, because every time we have sex, she throws up."

mndsm wrote: This woman was.... special. She didn't believe in dinosaurs.

LOL! If you gotta be crazy, it's better to be this kind of crazy:

At one of my former jobs there was a 'reorganization', and the vice president of the company got fired. Shortly thereafter they caught him out in the parking lot, slashing the tires on the president's car.

I have so many crazy stories. The military is a melting pot of all types of people. Here are a couple:

When I was a young enlisted man, in my first shop, I was the lowest ranking person. One of the guys who was one rank higher (E3 to my E2) was a total dick and was on a power trip from hell. He had gotten there about a month before me. Since he enlisted for 6 years, he graduated tech school as an E3. I was a 4 year enlistee so I graduated as an E2. Nobody liked him. His last name was Brown. I called him "Browneye" because he was always sucking up to the management. This guy thought he was America's greatest weapon but was a huge dumbass. He was rooming with a college football player who apparently stole his credit card and ordered a "male enhancement" pump. A few months later, he didn't show up for work. We had no idea where he was or what happened. Apparently, he was busted by an undercover agent in a child porn ring. He lost his clearance, had all of his electronic devices seized and was locked up for about 18 months before getting kicked out. After he was released, he had the nerve to show up at our unit's annual picnic. The cops were called and he was escorted off the premises.

Another guy I worked with got kicked out because him and his buddies broke into his buddies former employer, which was a comic book store. He stole a strategy guide. What they didn't know was that the store security camera caught everything. He didn't show up the next Monday because he was in jail. He got the boot as well. He forfeited his career for a $12 book

I got some good stories.. But can't type them at work.

I've had so many crazy/stupid co workers I could write a book.

One guy lied on his application about his age...I'm not sure what the point of that was but he also lied about having a driving license. We worked in peoples homes, and he was really creepy. One day we are working in an attractive school teachers home in the basement. She is standing at the top of the stairs telling me something and I look over to see him going through her dirty clothes. He picks up a pair of her panties and puts them over his head and face. I couldn't believe what I was watching. I walked outside and called the boss who didn't believe me. Nothing else was said about it that day. The next day the boss pulled me into his office and told me that the guy told him that morning that I had done it...Uh, no. So the boss started checking on the guy and found out all the lies on the application, it turned out he even used a fake name. I never found out but I'm thinking he was on a sexual offender list.

That's just one of the crazy ones.

Well, I did also work with a woman who ate those biodegradable cornstarch foam packing peanuts as a regular afternoon snack. If a box of those got shipped to the office, she would stash it under her desk.

This was the same woman who complained that a full-size fridge wasn't big enough. In an office of 5 people. 2 of whom went out for lunch every day. Surprisingly enough, she wasn't overweight.

Oooh, you guys reminded me of another one.

We had a co-worker. We'll call him "The Shocker", as we'd nicknamed him that. He was a contract employee. Called in sick EVERY WEDNESDAY. We never really did figure out why, but we had our guesses. Among his brilliant traits were listening to Linkin Park's Crawling on repeat for 10 hours.... a day...every day. There was also his cat, Princess Buttercup (really). One day, we're slaving away in cube land, and we hear him make a personal call (bad idea). his end of the call was BEGGING someone to pick him up so he could go check on Princess Buttercup, as he hadnt seen her in a while and was worried (Apparently his car was busted)? his words and I quote "Pleaaaase? I'll buy you a chicken sandwich!" Referring to the chicken sandwiches at Mcdonalds. I about fell over. We caught him multiple times making drug deals on company phones (Buying... in a mental health and substance abuse facility). There was ALSO his obsession with the show, Charmed. He had his cube COVERED in pictures of Shannon Doherty and whoever else was on that show, though we're pretty sure he was gay (We'll get to that in a second). He'd renamed his claims manual "The Book of Shadows" after some book in the show. After he FINALLY got fired (It's berkeleying impossible to get canned there) we looked him up to see if he had any claims. Boy did he ever. A whole HOST of STDs and drug issues.... all on the state dime.

I've never had a crazy coworker (ok, one was a crazy cat lady, but apart from her weird stare and what would happen if you started talking about cats, she's a pleasant and normal person).

My dad has a guy in his office right now who has serious OCD. Unfortunately he's not a savant and he makes serious screwups, but that's beside the point. This guy puts berkeleying labels on EVERYTHING. You know how some people have almost-too-nicely organized tool-walls? Everything is like that, ON CRACK.

There are instructions on everything on how to use those things. Not just things where instructions might be helpful, but everyday things like paper towel holders, door bells, light switches, even doors themselves and under what conditions they should be open. Everything in the offices and factory workshop is like this. It's kind of nice for the tools and spares, but then you look at the shop sink and see instructions on how and when to wash your hands (and of course "SOAP" on the soap bottle).

It's worst in his personal storage closet. My dad showed me the inside once after hours. Everything is in neatly aligned containers made from squarish milk bottles, and he's either carefully peeled the label off of one of the things inside and stuck it on the container, or made a label for it it such as "BLUE BALL POINT PENS." Some individual things are labeled such as ink cartridges (Instead of HP #XX, it might say "BLUE INK FOR HP MODEL XYZ" stuck on each one of a stack of ink cartridges.

My dad said it would be very tempting to go in there and randomize the locations and labels of everything, but he hasn't done it yet.

Not really a coworker so much but when I was a kid (19) I had a fun job as a Dj at a little club. I worked that job after my three waitering jobs starting with a 5am breakfast shift. One nite I fell asleep and my head hit the turntable which was embarrassing. But there was a massive dickhead who used to come in and get drunk and force me to play his mix tape. It was really bad music and he only had the one tape and I dreaded him coming up to my booth. So mostly I said no. And he would fly into a rage and the bouncer suddenly would disappear because no one wanted anything to do with the guy. So I would play the ducking thing to avoid getting my head ground into the record collection again.

One night he got as hammered as usual and made me play his ducking tape and then he got into his jeep and drove it into a water filled ditch a mile from the club and drowned. I celebrated for a week. Is that wrong?

bearmtnmartin wrote: One night he got as hammered as usual and made me play his ducking tape and then he got into his jeep and drove it into a water filled ditch a mile from the club and drowned. I celebrated for a week. Is that wrong?

I'd call it...fair.

I had a coworker who would rub aluminum bars under her arms instead of deodorant. Then one summer day she asked a few of us to look at her new/used car which was "rusting out". We went to look and discovered 2 things: "rust" = mud, and aluminum bars don't do E36 M3 for stinky pits.

I work with a bunch of engineers. Most are normal. The one I worked for when i came here ahd to be OCD. His desk was immaculate. Almost nothing on it except a few odd and ends (a hockey puck I would paly with while he proed over one of my reports. He would label with pens and pencils and store them in the drawer in order of length. He was the only person hear that locked his desk religiously. We used to joke that he would have made an excellent Nazi.

I did CAD, purchasing, inventory, CNC operation, etc. at a custom metal fab shop/boutique trailer fab place for a few years after college. There's plenty of stories of the employees, mostly the weldors, there, from drug use, theft, drug manufacturing, etc. etc. One of our best fabricators was the spitting image of Earnhardt Jr. on meth, you can picture it. His brother also a fabricator there and almost as talented had done federal time for making meth, the prison tats and poorly covered up swastikas on his arms kind of gave it away, but he freely talked about it.

There was the head of sales (there were only ever 3-4 sales folks at any one time), he had 11 or 12 DWI/DUIs between OK, AR, & MO. When I first met him he had a breathalyzer on his Jeep's ignition to start it. He had done some time at one point, but when he got his final DUI, he got sent to state prison, did 7 months of a 2 year sentence. He was a piece of work, but the boss OWNED him, he lived in a rental the boss owned, worked for the boss in a previous job, was making payments to the boss for his Jeep, and was the boss' spy. There were a few occasions that I butted heads with everyone there, but this guy, man did I ever despise this guy.

One of my favorite coworkers was Eric, he was a Mexican, and he told me his real name at least once or twice, but it was hard to pronounce, so he just went by Eric. Eric was a jack of all trades, hard worker, and decent fabricator, but the boss really took advantage of him, boss was a little bigoted/racist, and Eric got the crap jobs, but he took it in stride and did them. We had a 3 day weekend, and when we got back to work Eric was a no-show. Wasn't like him, to not show up. Then one of the other fabricators came in, and said he needed to see our boss, the boss didn't always come in on time. After the other coworker met with the boss, the real story came out. Eric was being deported. This coworker, white US citizen, had gone with Eric to an illegal rodeo (I still don't know what makes a rodeo illegal, gambling maybe?) out in the middle of nowhere over the weekend, and there was an ICE sting with roadblocks set up on the only roads in and out of the place. Turns out Eric wasn't really Eric, all of his papers were forgeries, that he made, and had done time/been deported at least once before for making and selling forged documents.

Wow. I've never had co-workers anywhere near as interesting and bizarre as you guys. Have had plenty that were a bit weird, and several I'd prefer to never have to deal with, but not even any with enough OCD to be notable (which in and of itself may be a bit surprising for an engineering office). Now, stories from college years? That's different...

mndsm wrote: She didn't believe in dinosaurs.

I once met an Anglican priest that believed the world was only a few thousand yrs old … thought that the dinosaur bones were put there by God to cause us confusion … a la the tower of Babel

GameboyRMH wrote:

bearmtnmartin wrote: One night he got as hammered as usual and made me play his ducking tape and then he got into his jeep and drove it into a water filled ditch a mile from the club and drowned. I celebrated for a week. Is that wrong?

I'd call it...fair.

I probably would have called the po-po when I saw him leave and reported a drunk driver