[Coworker] used to work in a different department, but for reasons we were never told, had to quickly change to ours. This always surprised me, as I remember her complaining constantly about our department before she started to work in the other. Either way, we welcomed her, and we all did our part to train her and get her set up.

[Coworker] is what many would call an attractive young woman, and she certainly knew this. She would easily get some of the younger guys to “help” her do her work. When she didn’t want to do even that, she would talk and talk — mainly about herself — stopping them from doing anything, either.

After a few months, the department was way behind on work, complaints started to come in about delays, and we were given a dressing down by senior management. 

This improved things, but not for long. Eventually, they realised that [Coworker] was a major disruption, but instead of disciplining her, they put her with me. I decided what work she did and I was to report back if she didn’t do it.

She quickly learnt that fluttering her eyelashes wouldn’t work on me, and the other guys had warnings not to help her. She did what any reasonable person would do — not — she started taking longer and longer toilet breaks, lunch breaks, etc. to avoid doing any work.

I reported that back and she made a complaint of bullying. When that didn’t work, she requested to change departments again. No one would have her. Then, someone somewhere pulled some strings and gave her a last chance and she changed departments again

She lasted six months before being sacked as “unmanageable”.

My toddler is three. I also have a newborn and am still recovering from pregnancy and labor. Dad sets two alarms so he can prepare himself to actually get up in the morning. I have to get up at the first alarm in order to get both children and myself ready on time.

Me: “Come on, sweetie. Time to get up. Take Dad to work.”

Toddler: “I’m still sleepy.”

Me: “You can sleep in the car. Come on, go pee.”

Toddler: “Sleeeepy…”

Me: “If you don’t hurry, Dad will be late for work.”

Toddler: “I want to go back to sleep.”

Me: “You should have gone to bed when I told you to last night. It’s time to get up to take Dad to work or we won’t have the car.”

Toddler: “Nooo!”

Me: “Either you get up now and come with me to take Dad to work or you’re grounded. That means no TV, no treats, no juice, no playing outside, and no going to the store or the park.”

By that point, Dad was already up and we were going to be late even if she got out of bed right then.

Me: “Short of moving her bodily, I’m not going to be able to get her ready. And I still have to get myself ready and feed the baby and get him ready, too.”

Dad: “It’s going to be too much trouble for you and I have to leave right away, anyway. She’s just going to have to figure it out the hard way.”

Later that morning:

Toddler: “Can I watch [TV Show #1]?”

Me: “No. Eat your breakfast.”

Toddler: “Can I watch [TV Show #2]?”

Me: “No. You’re grounded. You don’t get any TV today.”

Toddler: “Ride my bike?”

Me: “No. You’re grounded. You didn’t take Daddy to work. You’re in trouble.”

Now, when it’s time to take Daddy to work, she gets up promptly. She even goes in to “help” and get Daddy up, poor guy.

I had a young coworker that was just starting out his first adult office job. He wasn’t the best employee out there, but he was contributing, and some of the more experienced employees were working with him on how to settle in and be seen as a higher-level contributor to grow his career.

Then, one day, eighteen months in, [Coworker] just stopped showing up and was not appearing on the company instant messaging system. It was crunch time for the project, and it was allowable to work from home, so most of us just assumed he’d set his IM availability to only appear online to his immediate team so that he could concentrate. But then, his team lead who worked from a different location reached out to those of us who had offices next to him to find out what was going on because he wasn’t responding to her, either.

After a week of this, we got an email from management that [Coworker] had put in his two-week notice as of one week before — he backdated it to when he stopped working — and they asked us to arrange the handover of his badge and laptop on his official last day. My officemate, as the most senior local person, set up a time for [Coworker] to come in to handle all of that. It just so happened that the date was the day after our crunch time was over and we had been granted permission to leave at lunchtime, so the time was set to be 10:00 am.

The appointed time arrived, but no soon-to-be-former coworker. Lunchtime arrived, still nothing. The rest of us were still hanging around because we didn’t want to leave [Officemate] with no witnesses in case [Coworker] never showed but claimed he did and no one was there.

Finally, around 2:00 pm, [Coworker] showed up to turn in his stuff and we got to ask him what he planned to do next. Apparently, he and his brother had decided to become music producers and he was quitting to get started with that. We wished him well while privately shaking our heads because, according to stories he had told us in the past, he was the first member of his family to stick it out and get a degree and also the only one who had not been in trouble with the law.

The next Monday, I got a strange email from my HOA telling us that there had been a home invasion in the neighborhood over the weekend but that we should not be concerned because all the people knew each other and it was unlikely to occur again. I Googled my neighborhood only to find [Coworker]’s photo. He and his brother were listed as wanted for a shooting that occurred during the home invasion in question.

Managers were called, security freaked out, and we were asked to hold onto [Coworker]’s laptop rather than sending it in to be wiped just in case the authorities needed access to it. He was eventually located and arrested, facing multiple felonies. We don’t really know what happened with his case as, one day, it just disappeared from the court calendar. We assume some sort of plea deal was reached.

And then, a year later, some of us started getting job reference requests. [Coworker] was apparently applying to be an office drone with financial institutions and thought we would make good references for him. We couldn’t really say anything about how he had ghosted us as part of quitting his job. All we could really say was, “Yeah, he worked here. Can’t say anything more, but you should probably Google his name.”

I’m amazed at the audacity (or cluelessness) of someone walking out on a job at crunch time, getting arrested for multiple felonies, and then still expecting a good reference.

I work in a hardware store that has a large paint department — three aisles of paint, twenty to thirty shades of every color, and six different grades of paint. I watch a customer come up to the paint desk and say:

Customer: “I need a gallon of something.”

He didn’t specify anything about what he wanted, just “a gallon of something.”

It’s the first day of the three-day weekend for the Fourth of July. I’m the closing manager for the night at my local pizza chain location. The general manager and a manager not quite out of training are also on shift, as well as some other assorted staff.

The new manager has a friend stop by and order a pizza. When the order is ready, the manager takes it to their friend’s car and tells the GM that they’re going to hang out for a bit. We’re not particularly busy, so sure, why not.

As the shift progresses, I notice that she still hasn’t returned to the store. Hours go by. Finally, almost four and a half hours later, my GM — who’s very laid back — finally takes her off the clock.

To top it all off, she comes in a bit later complaining that she wasn’t scheduled off for another hour but was clocked out because someone was nagging the GM about wasted labor. Seriously?!