Every month, I report the company figures to the senior team. Every month, someone doesn’t have the information for me and I have to chase them, but as I’m not in their departments, they never prioritise it. [Coworker] is the worst; his report is never in the same format twice, and I often have to go back to him for more or correct info.

This month, however, despite chasing, I have had nothing at all from him.

Me: “Hey, [Coworker], could you send me the [monthly report] when you get a chance, please?”

Coworker: “I’ve not done it yet.”

Me: “Wasn’t it due last week? I mean, can you send it over when you do get to it, please? I need it for the 2:00 meeting.”

He ignores me. I’m busy for the rest of the morning, and after lunch, I try to find him, but he is late back. It gets to 1:40.

Me: “[Coworker], could you send that report over, please, mate? I need to prep it for my meeting.”

Coworker: “Oh, I didn’t do it. I figure if you need it, then you should probably do it.”

Me: “It’s a sales report; you’re the senior sales engineer. I wouldn’t have a clue where to start looking for the information!”

Coworker: “Not my problem.”

Me: “Fine. I will have to state that the report hasn’t been done.”

Coworker: “No, don’t do that! Fine, I will send something over.”

Seconds later, he emailed me the nine-page report. I figure he lied about not doing it. But as I updated my slides, I noticed that all the numbers were identical to the previous month’s. I queried it with [Coworker], but he told me defensively that the figures were right!

I finished the report with seconds to spare. I immediately got pulled up by the entire management team about how bad my data was and how I clearly didn’t do my job properly. I had to admit that the sales numbers were provided by [Coworker], and I did query them and was told that they were correct.

[Coworker] was called in for a very awkward half-hour. He kept sticking to his guns of nothing being his fault and being corrected again and again. He let slip that the report he had been generating for the past nine months hadn’t been done properly at all. As it was a senior-level report and shared with investors, they hit the roof.

[Coworker] and I were sent out of the room before the shouting began.

[Coworker] didn’t lose his job, but I think he got demoted as he suddenly took a new job in the company. We have a new senior saleswoman who seems to know exactly what she is doing.

I used to have a male coworker who was a bit… off. One day, he came into work looking very worried.

Coworker: “I’ve got a serious problem. There’s this gorgeous young woman who takes the same morning bus that I do. We’ve gotten to talking, and she’s really nice.”

Me: “What’s the problem?”

Coworker: “I’m married.”

Me: “Dude, are you saying that she’s hit on you?”

Coworker: “Well, no.”

Me: “What do you talk about?”

Coworker: “The weather, stuff like that.”

Me: “That just sounds like polite small talk to me. Why are you so concerned?”

Coworker: “What if she does hit on me? I don’t think I’ll be strong enough to resist because she’s super hot.”

Me: “From what you’ve told me, it sounds like she’s just being friendly. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Coworker: “No, she wants me. I’m sure of it. Oh, God, my marriage will end!”

Me: *Losing my patience* “Here’s a crazy idea. If she does proposition you, say, ‘I’m flattered, but I’m happily married.’”

Coworker: “No, that’s no good. She’s going to come on to me and I won’t be able to say no.” *Sighs heavily* “The only thing I can do is start taking an earlier bus.”

Me: *Giving up* “Good for you, I guess.”

The factory is a noisy, dirty environment. Thankfully, these days, companies understand the need for personal protective equipment. We use large over-the-ear ear defenders. You can still hear, but the sound is reduced. It does make working with others difficult at times.

I approach a coworker; we’re both wearing ear defenders.

Me: “Hey, [Coworker].”

He is completely oblivious.

Me: “[COWORKER]!”

He’s still somehow oblivious. I go over and quickly grab his arm, and he jumps. 

Me: “[Coworker], man, are you deaf? I was shouting at you.”

Coworker: “What?”

Me: “Your jacket was dancing over the mechanism; it could have gotten caught.”

Coworker: “Oh, thanks, man.”

He does his jacket up.

Me: “Have you got earplugs in, as well?”

Coworker: “I can’t hear you; let me turn this off.”

He reaches into his pocket and turns his music off. It’s then that I notice the black earphone cord running up inside his jacket.

Me: “What have you done there?”

Coworker: “Oh, I wanted to listen to music, but I couldn’t with these ear defenders on, so drilled a hole for the wire.”

He looks so pleased with himself.

Me: “That doesn’t seem smart. Doesn’t that stop them from working?”

Coworker: “Well, yeah, but I just turn the music up loud.”

In an effort to listen to music, he destroyed his hearing protection and then listened to music at a high volume for seven or eight hours a day, certainly damaging his hearing more than he would have without the protection. Not only that, but he couldn’t hear any warnings, vehicle horns, or fire alarms.

He wouldn’t listen to me, so I had to report it. They gave him a new pair of ear defenders, but he later ripped out the protection so he could wear wireless earphones.

Again, he got caught and was made to pay for the replacement and had a written warning for damaging protection equipment. In response, he did the most grownup thing and quit because he would rather be unemployed than not listen to music.

That was probably inadvertently a smart move on his part, as he was an accident waiting to happen.

There is an operator at work who thinks the rules don’t apply to him. He drives without a licence, ignores instructions at work, and brags about not paying his TV licence or child support. [Operator] is a scumbag, he’s unpleasant to be around, and generally, we would all be better off without him on this planet.

The reason that he still works here is that our boss is struggling through cancer treatment. Of course, [Operator] doesn’t think that this is in any way his problem or that he should make any effort to make the boss’s life easier.

[Operator] is just as toxic and a strain on the business as ever. But only his boss can fire him for his work performance, and I don’t think he has the strength to go through what I bet would be weeks of [Operator] using technicalities to try and get out of it.

I don’t realise anything has changed until [Operator] comes charging out of the office.

Operator: “You can’t do that; you’re not my boss.”

Manager: “Please come back into the office and we can talk.”

Operator: “No, you’re trying to bend the rule and get rid of me based on stupid rules that don’t mean anything. I want to do this here in front of everyone.”

Manager: “Okay, based on the evidence and the lack of any evidence to the contrary, human resources will be terminating your position immediately.”

Operator: “You can’t do that; you’re not my boss! It says so in the company rules.”

Manager: “Your line manager can manage you through your performance. I manage the site and these issues are at site level.”

Operator: “That’s just a technicality, and I’m being fired for what? Bad parking?”

Manager: “Fifteen counts of blocking the disabled bay, despite being told that we have staff who depend on that space, two cases of damage to company property through striking it with your car, and one case of theft of company property.”

Operator: “I told you I was borrowing it.”

Manager: “If you borrow something, you have to have permission and bring it back.”

Operator: “And God, I told you I lost it.”

Manager: “This isn’t for discussion anymore. Please collect your things and leave. I’m told that you need not ask for a reference here.”

Operator: “You don’t know. People will stand against you once I leave; there will be a walkout. How is poor [Boss] going to manage without me?”

Manager: “That isn’t your concern anymore. Please leave.”

He left, knocking things over as he went. Apparently, he tried to stage a walkout by messaging a load of people at work. No one went for it. Even his “mates” were happy that he had left, and the whole environment is far better now. 

Our boss pulled through in the end; he stayed for a few more years and then took early retirement.

Everything is scannable or on a button, I am told whilst training. Everything. I am told. EV-REE-THING. I am competent enough to be flying solo, when I get to an item. It doesn’t have a barcode to scan. It’s not got a button to press on the computer. I am holding the offending item and flag down a coworker — one who didn’t train me.

Me: “Erm, [Coworker]. I can’t find—”

Coworker: “Ah, yes. Life has given you lemons and you cannot make lemonade as the system doesn’t believe in lemons. But there’s a code to force the system to accept the lemons.”

They put in the lemon code, and I am finishing up the transaction.

Me: *More to myself* “I was told everything was either scannable or on a button.”

Customer: “Ah, but the system doesn’t believe in lemons, so…” *Shrugs*

Coworker: “Do they even exist if the system doesn’t believe in them?”

Customer: “Did they ever exist in the first place? Or are they just oranges having an identity crisis?”

Coworker: “Now the real questions are being asked.”

Me: “Do you two know each other?”

They didn’t.