My old machining lecturer used to work at a machine shop/factory as a machinist. They would work large blocks of aluminum down to saleable parts.

The factory manager would give them a bonus but take off money for every part in their scrap bin.

My lecturer was good but never got the full bonus, unlike his coworker. 

[Coworker] always got the full bonus, even with the new, difficult jobs. The funny thing was that [Coworker] didn’t even have any experience, and to talk to him, he seemed utterly clueless; the guys didn’t like him much.

That was, until the police turned up and took [Coworker] away. It turned out that when [Coworker] made a mistake, he cut a bit off at a time until the massive block of metal turned into dust and chips. 

He cost the company thousands to get a bonus of £50.

I work at a gas station next to an interstate with a terrible coworker. It is important to the story to say that this employee is black, and this is her weapon to wield with abandon.

This story is a common occurrence over a period of several months.

Me: “Hey, [Employee], I just finished [task #1] and [task #2]. I’m off to [task #3]. Will you do [task #4], please?”

Employee: “Oh, so you make the black employee do all the work! This isn’t the plantation days! You’re just being racist!”

Me: “No, I’m giving you a task because that is literally one of your jobs, and you’ve been sitting there filing your nails for twenty minutes.”

Employee: “I have a better idea. How about you do that while I man the registers?” 

Me: “Because you work under me, not the other way around, and if you’re not going to get a lick of work done, you might as well go home!”

She then usually storms into the back, and then she’ll parade out with a smug expression and huffily plant herself back in the same spot she has been in.

A few minutes later, I usually get pulled into the back by the shift leader and the store manager. I explain the situation. The cameras are checked, complete with audio. The store manager gives a halfhearted shrug and sends me back out. Then, I go back to my tasks.

The employee then smirks at me.

Employee: “So what did they say to you about your racism?”

Me: “Nothing.”

Employee: “Nothing?!”

Me: “Yep. Not a thing.”

Then, she sat and fumed silently.

The store manager never addressed either report. I have enough imagination to have at least ONE guess as to why her behavior was never addressed, but no proof.

Finally, after several similar interactions, [Employee] got angry that I was not being reprimanded, despite her many “reports.”

She stormed back into the back and I could hear her yelling at the store manager through the closed door! She actually demanded that I be fired immediately, in so many words. Customers could hear her and asked what was going on.

She finally slammed open the office door and stormed out of the store entirely; the manager got fed up and told her to clock out and leave.

She ended up quitting a day later, citing the store manager being racist to “believe the white employee over the black one!” Never mind that her behavior was recorded on audio and video.

To everyone’s utter disgust, she reapplied for the job within a year, and despite everyone’s objections, the manager hired her again. Her behavior hadn’t changed. It took everyone on staff threatening to walk out, leaving the store manager alone with her with literally no other staff on payroll, before he fired her permanently three months after her return.

I work in a coffee shop. It is late at night. I was supposed to have gone home hours ago, and my coworker and I have been rushing around by ourselves all day on a busy Friday. So, I am very tired and feeling a little loopy when Yet Another Car pulls into our drive-thru. Deciding to mess with my coworker a bit, I press the inter-employees channel button on the headset and pretend to answer the drive-thru.

Me: “We’re sorry, [Store] is closed forever. Please go away and never come back.”

My coworker’s eyes grow huge, but he sees me laughing at him and we both crack up. Just then, though, the car in the drive-thru pulls forward.

Suddenly, I’m not so sure which button I pushed. I approach the window, worrying about being screamed at and cussed out, but… nothing. The driver says nothing about my antics, just calmly places an order, and it occurs to me that I must have taken too long to respond to the drive-thru so they decided to order at the window. Even so, I have sworn to never pull a stunt like that again.

This is before cell phones were a thing. It’s before email, as well, so a lot of business is done over the phone. Call waiting exists but is expensive, so two phones for one desk are not unusual.

Me: “Hello, can I speak to [Employee], please?”

[Supplier] on the phone speaks with a strange intonation, which I later make out to be between seething and laughing.

Supplier: “[Employee] is no longer working for [Company].”

Me: “Oh, did she leave? I spoke to her yesterday and she didn’t mention it.”

Supplier: “That is because she didn’t know it then.”

Yep, definitely an edge in her voice.

Me: “Oh. Well, I…”

Supplier: “Yeah, you see, she has a boyfriend, and I suspect he is married, and she calls him at the office. It is the first call she makes every day and the last, and in between again a few times. They are long as well, which means I have to do her job on top of mine while she has sickening dialogs with her boyfriend.”

Me: “Not nice, indeed.”

Supplier: “So, yesterday, I got fed up with it. I had a phone call and another on the second extension, and then her phone started ringing which she ignored whilst continuing to exchange sweet talk with her sweetheart, and it became too much, so I jumped up and disconnected the call. She became mad, jumped up, as well, and slapped me in the face.”

Me: “Oops.”

Supplier: “The best part was that one of the higher-ups just passed by and wanted to know what happened. So, we were called to the office, we told our side of things, I got a faint slap on the wrist, and she was sent packing.”

Me: “But now you need to do all the work.”

Supplier: “Not a problem. I am used to it anyway, and now, as a bonus, I don’t need to listen to her phone sex anymore. And they are going to replace her! So, what can I do for you today?”

In my company, there’s very little overlap between what the different departments can do. Order Admin can’t process anything for Accounting, Accounting can’t run RMAs, the Returns department can’t work on customer account info, etc. For the most part, this isn’t an issue, as we’re a fairly small company for the amount of business we do and communication is wide open.

Except for [Sales Guy].

[Sales Guy] seems to think that the Order Admin team does… everything. We get notice of customers sending payments, he forwards it to OA. Customer says a product is dead and needs to be replaced, OA. Vendor sends an email saying there’s a factory delay and we won’t get product until next week, OA. No number of reply emails about who to actually send these notices and requests to seems to permeate his skull, nor do statements that HE is the contact with his clients, so if something needs to be said to them then HE needs to tell the customer, not us.

The final straw comes this morning when he comes storming over to us in his usual “bull in a China shop” mode, letting out an exaggerated sigh while waving a piece of paper in the air.

Sales Guy: “Who’s doing this one?”

Me: “I don’t know which one ‘this one’ is. Let me actually see the paper?”

Sales Guy: *Hands me the printout* “They already said they want this on their account, not on their credit card.”

Me: *Already doing searches* “I don’t see anything in the order or any emails to us saying that.”

Sales Guy: “I already forwarded it over to Accounting!”

Me: *Pauses* “Wait a minute, you’ve spent the last two months sending us everything but requests to change something in an order, and then the one time you have an actual order change, you send it to someone else?!”

[Sales Guy], of course, got instantly indignant and started a big argument in the middle of the office, and both our manager and his had to get involved. The line “Do you really want to end up having me check every email before you send it?” may have been said by his manager.

In the end, peace was restored, and he hasn’t again started sending emails to all the wrong departments.

Yet.