Many years ago, I started working for a minor company, and pretty much everybody warned me that [Coworker #1] (among others) was a major moocher. “Don’t ever loan him money!”

After a month or so, I’d confirmed that, and I’d also learned that [Coworker #1] was a MAJOR pest.

The next time he hit me up for a loan “until payday”, I “reluctantly” let myself be convinced.

He should have known better.

I started reminding him of the loan several days before payday. On payday, of course, he didn’t have the money. By a week or so after payday, he flinched when he heard my voice, and he was actively avoiding me! It was marvelous!

A couple of months later, a female coworker that [Coworker #1] had a crush on came over to my machine, obviously irritated. [Coworker #2] seemed rather surprised that [Coworker #1] didn’t tag along all the way over there. I wasn’t surprised in the slightest!

She made some disparaging remark about him, so I asked if she wanted him to go away.

Coworker #2: “YES!”

Me: “No problem!”

I stepped around the corner.

Me: “Hey, [Coworker #1], about—”  

[Coworker #1] disappeared so fast, I swear there was a sonic boom!

[Coworker #2] was staring when I came back around the corner, laughing.

Coworker #2: “How did you do that?!”

Me: “Magic! Say the magic words, and the annoying little git disappears every time!”

I eventually explained things to [Coworker #2], and she thought it was hilarious.

And it turned out that there was someone else who had done the same thing I had. We were amazed that [Coworker #1] never paid either one of us off to make it stop.

Our story begins when I decided to go for a factory job. I wanted out of retail — the global health crisis and people’s ever-growing sense of entitlement was the last straw — so I thought, “Factory work! No customers, no stress, just an easy job.”

Wrong-o.

The factory itself was a very bad atmosphere. To put it into context, four of us were hired on the same day. In two weeks, I was the only one left. One quit before the end of the first shift. It wasn’t a nice place, and [Coworker] made darn sure of it.

[Coworker] — who is our bad colleague in this story — was horrific. It started when I was happily munching my lunch. Ten minutes into my break, they came in and told me:

Coworker: “You’re in my seat. You need to move.”

I didn’t want confrontation, so I moved my stuff. Bear in mind that the staff room was empty; they could have easily sat anywhere. Nope.

From that moment on, they were just a horrible person. They would stand with their sidekick and watch everyone else clean up at the end of the day and complain about how everyone was doing it wrong. They even told me I was using a squeegee wrong, and even though at one point I was in the middle of using it, they ordered me to go around, collect all the squeegees, and put them back where they should be. Okay. No one’s finished with them yet, but sure.

On another occasion, I was standing talking to a colleague for perhaps thirty seconds when [Coworker] stormed over and told us to stop talking and start working. They then went back to their little sidekick to have a moan about how we were slacking. A boss told me what to do. [Coworker] told me to do something else, and when I told [Coworker] that I’d already been given orders, they stormed up to the boss to demand why I was already being given jobs.

The worst part for me was by far my quiet nature. I’m not a shouter, and I quickly found out on my first day that I was expected to watch a reel of discarded plastic on one of the machines and yell across the factory to get someone to come and replace it. Every time it started getting full, [Coworker] would come and give me an absolute earful about how I should be doing my job properly, watching the reel, and yelling for someone. I couldn’t. I couldn’t yell.

So, it got to the point where I’d be a massive ball of stress and anxiety staring at this reel, desperately trying to get anyone’s attention to come to replace it. And when it did get too full, again [Coworker] would come and tell me off for it, despite the fact that I was just trying so hard to get someone’s attention. I couldn’t pause the machine, either, to get someone, or else, once again, [Coworker] would flay me alive for it.

[Coworker]’s constant berating, gossiping behind my back to their friend, and ordering me around got too much. Already dealing with mental health problems, I ended up signing off work for several weeks, and when I did go back, I was terrified.

Enough was enough when, one day, we were working in the absolute sweltering heat. A young lad who was working with us was sweating buckets, which was understandable; he was moving heavy trays around. At one point, he said he was off to get some water. And [Coworker] yelled after him:

Coworker: “Get some deodorant while you’re at it!”

I ended up going to the boss about [Coworker], and it turned out that they had pretty much belittled every single person in that factory. They were a bully, simple as. After a meeting with the boss, they were suspended from work and eventually put on another shift away from all of us who they loved to target.

I left that place for a different factory, eventually. The atmosphere is entirely different. Bullies are stamped down on hard, and everyone is so friendly. Given the choice, I would not set foot in that place ever again. I wish [Coworker] realised that bullying and talking down to people really does do more harm than they might have thought.

My father has a managerial position at a large oil refinery. Today, he has a large-scale meeting between all similar-ranking managers from around the site, along with several of their bosses and a few bigwigs.

One manager is missing from this meeting because he has to leave work earlier in the day for personal reasons. It’s important to note that this manager is ethnically Chinese and has the same last name as a very well-known actor and martial artist.

Other Manager: “This might be something we’ll have to bring up to [Chinese Manager] Leeeeeeee!” 

He dragged out the last name into an exaggerated martial arts-style scream while also making “karate” moves with his hands. Apparently, you could hear. A. Pin. Drop.

The manager quickly realized that his “joke” hadn’t landed at all and tried to nervously laugh it off. No one said anything to him directly during the meeting, but there was a new employee in his position by the time the next meeting rolled around.

Apparently, that manager was somewhat notorious for making comments of that type, but he had never really faced any repercussions for them before. However, no one imagined he would be stupid enough to do anything like that in front of so many people or any of the corporate bigwigs!

This story concerns a manager. At least, that’s what we called him. We never really figured out what his job was since it didn’t exist before he was here and nobody ever replaced him when he left. He had decided to move to England with his family and apparently a good chunk of money (which to be honest is how he got the job).

This being rural England and him being foreign, you can imagine why a good chunk of the workforce didn’t like him, which is sad, because there were so many perfectly good, non-crappy reasons to dislike him.

While I was getting some parts from the stores, he sauntered up next to me, leaned on the racking and, with a big smile on his face, said:

Manager: “I’m very disappointed in you.”

Me: “Why?”

Manager: “[Unimportant job that he asked me to do] hasn’t been done yet. Why not?”

Me: “I need to finish welding the parts, and the welder isn’t working right now.”

We’d just gotten a new welder and the right plug socket hadn’t been fitted yet.

Then, he said the golden line.

Manager: “That’s not my problem. I want it done.”

And he walked off.

Not your problem? Okay, I can fix that! So, I sent him an email — CCing Human Resources — that roughly read:

Email: “Hi, [Manager]. You spoke to me about [job] that you want done and I told you we’re waiting on the welder to get set up. You told me that it ‘wasn’t your problem’ and that you ‘want it done’. Since nobody in their right mind would ever speak to a coworker this way, let alone a manager, I assume it was a ‘lost in translation’ kind of mistake and you meant you want to be more involved in getting it sorted. So, from here on, I’ll be sending you regular emails for updates on the progress of the welder and when it’s sorted the progress of [job] so it can be your problem, too.”

I never heard back about it, never saw a new socket get ordered and fitted so fast in my life, and never had a problem with him again.

I run a little workshop on an industrial site. It’s like a row of large roll-door garages with little office rooms inside. It’s our last week before Christmas. I gather the guys around.

Me: “Great few months, guys. We had it tough at the start of the year but really pulled it around. I’ve put a little extra in your pay packet this month, but I’ve also gone out and got you a bottle of something each.”

I have a big box of bottles of whisky and I start to hand them out.

Me: “[Male Coworker], I know you don’t drink, so something else for you.”

Woman: “I don’t like whisky. What did I get?”

Me: “Who the h*** are you?”

Woman: “You can’t talk to me like that!

Me: “What are you doing here? Who are you? This is a closed shop; you can’t just let yourself in.”

Woman: “I’m a paying customer, and I want something other than whisky! It’s disgusting!”

Me: “What? No! Get lost, idiot.”

Woman: “How dare you?! I’ll have you all fired! I’ll write bad reviews everywhere.”

Good luck getting the owner fired or writing reviews on a company that is in an unmarked building. None of the industrial units have anything like a shop front, so what she was doing there I have no idea, but she got back in her car and disappeared quickly afterward.