"I Still Crack Up About That One": 67 Times People Realized Their Coworkers Were Idiots

I hate mine but I feel it’s important people know what they’re dealing with in the world.

Worked in a deli of a grocery store where we also prepared hot meals, cold salads, wraps, fried food, etc. Peeled/chopped potatoes were stored in water in open containers in the walk-in fridge next to raw chicken in open containers. Oftentimes there were streaks of chicken blood on the floor. Thought that was it? Nah.

So one night at closing, my coworker is sweeping the floor when, without blinking an eye (meaning I fear it wasn’t his first time, only the first time I noticed), he started sweeping off the counters. With the broom. Where we prepped food. *After* it had been swept through chicken blood and dirt and who knows what else. Still thought that was it? Nah. He was training to be a registered nurse - and this was a decade ago, so he very well may be a nurse now. Stay safe out there!

We hired this guy to our help desk and he got WAY too comfortable. He wasn't great at his job, but we gave him a lot of slack hoping he would grow into the role.

We had some weird smell going on in the office for a week while he was out and ended up tracking to a sandwich he left in his desk drawer.

The boss came and wanted to talk to him about it when he returned, and he had his work board open on one monitor and Netflix opened on the other with an earbud in his ear. His boss started speaking, and the guy put his finger up with a "One sec" motion, put his hand on his earbud so he could hear the show he was watching better for a few seconds, then paused the show to say "What's up?"

He was shocked he was fired that afternoon.

6 figure IT job - gave gf his password to keep him logged in while working remotely to go to the store to get pork rinds. She proceeded to mistyped it 3 times before logging back in, which alerted infosec to message via teams and she just straight up said her bf gave her his password to keep him logged in while he went to the store and she mistyped it a few times. Fired.

He got dragged into HR for making racist statements. Listens to everything and everyone agrees that he is sorry. As he is leaving the room he makes another racist statement. Is immediately fired.

Coworker had worked with ratchets for a few years before I joined the crew, one day it was just me and him and he saw me start tightening a bolt with a ratchet

He says "what are you doing? You cant tighten things with the loosening ratchet. You have to grab the tightening one".

I look at him dumbfounded, he never knew the little lever on the ratchet switches it from tightening to loosening

For years he had 2 separate ratchets and told me to never tell anyone about him not knowing.

I caught a coworker attempting to open a vial of an extremely dangerous chemical at his workbench without any PPE. This was a concentrated, powdered acetylcholinesterase inhibitor and if you hear that description and think "banned chemical weapon" or "cobra venom" you'd be wrong but only in ways that don't matter. The normal practice for opening and preparing this chemical is a full face mask and a cabinet, and he was using neither, and came very close to potentially ending himself and others (including me).

At a buy here car lot, the new girl used a customer debit to order pants with sparkley back pockets off Amazon. Had it delivered to her dads. A few days later the customer comes in and knows everything, including that it was shipped to her house. And my coworker? Yeah she was wearing the jeans. It was hilarious. She didn’t get fired for a few more weeks though when she got caught stealing a cash payment.

We laid off a temp and he kept coming back even though he wasn't getting paid. We repeatedly tried to explain to him that he wasn't being paid and shouldn't even be in the building but he had this bizarre idea that if he worked for free for long enough they'd take him back on.

HVAC here. I had a coworker who did side jobs on his own time. We carry phones that are company provided, which is typical.

One day, he and I are talking after packing up on a job and his phone rings, he answered it with his typical side job spiel. His face goes pale, and he hangs up. I ask what happened, and he tells me it was our boss who called him. Answering the phone with his side job hello had just gotten him fired.

While handing me a memo written on the wrong side of a post-it note, she complained that her whole batch of sticky notes was “defective.”.

During an “Open Forum” employees were encouraged to provide honest feedback on a topic. He did. He was immediately fired.

I heard this second hand so I'm not sure of all the ins and outs.

Apprentice was told to flip a lever on a machine, hold it for 3 seconds, only 3 seconds, no more than 3 seconds, and then let go.

Colleague goes around the other side. Tells the apprentice to flip the switch and hold for 3 seconds. Machine powers on, starts grinding and shaking and smoking. Colleague is panicking trying to figure out what's going on. Comes to discover apprentice is holding the lever on and not letting go.

Colleague grabs apprentice's arm and pulls away from the lever, shutting the machine off. He asks why he didn't let go after 3 seconds as told. Apprentice says "I wanted to see what would happen".

Watched a guy try to unclog a full toilet with an air hose down the hole. First thing I heard after the splashing stopped was "pff, ugh, it got in my mouth." I still crack up about that one.

I worked at a fast food place. The fryer caught fire. The boss said "Do NOT throw water on it. I am coming back there." He threw water on it.

I was on opening shift for a retail store. I came in to see the previous day’s takings on a stool in the middle of the (very messy) shop floor. My coworker said they didn’t have time to put it in the safe during closing. I told management and my coworker got mad at me as “I can’t afford to be fired as I have a mortgage”. Well if job security is so important to you, do your job properly.

My now-former CEO once sent an email to all staff admonishing people for using AI incorrectly while obviously using AI to create the email, with the typical bullet-pointed layout but also forgetting to remove an 'insert image here' placeholder.

May not be the dumbest thing, but one I laughed at the hardest; just a taste of why she's my 'now-former' CEO.

Construction crew meeting with our workers comp insurance rep, going over company safety policies in our shop. One guy decides he can't be idle and needs to do some work. Decides to change a broken plug on an extension cord, which by itself isn't an approved repair, definitely not by someone who isn't an electrician. But anyway. Proceeds to cut the busted end off WHILE THE CORD IS PLUGGED IN.

Big spark, shorts it out and the inspector is just like what the hell are you doing?

Steal a co-worker’s coat then wear it to work on another day.

My coworker called out sick and then halfway through the day dropped off the receptionist at the beginning of her shift. This guy was married of course.

Grocery Store. Couple of teen cashiers bought a cookie dough roll for break and thought they could cook it in the microwave? Just put the entire log on a plate and kept going assuming it would eventually turn into a giant cookie loaf? The fire department disagreed but didn't seem too surprised.