I used to work at a popular sandwich chain. Due to poor pay and poor management, there was a revolving door of employees. Nobody stayed more than a few months (including me). Of course, some were… memorable. This one woman in particular takes the cake.

I showed up for my opening shift at 8:00 am, and I saw an unfamiliar car parked in the employee section. I thought it was odd but didn’t really care until the woman in the driver’s seat rolled down her window and began literally yelling at me.

Woman: “I’ve been here since six am!”

I was a little confused and surprised by her attitude and volume. Also, there was a convenience store literally next door where she could’ve gotten food. I wondered why she’d been sitting here for so long, but I was tired and honestly didn’t really care.

Me: “We don’t open until nine, ma’am.”

Woman: “No! I don’t want a sandwich. I want to work! I’ve got to feed my kids! I haven’t eaten in three days! I work for [Chain] all over the state! See, I’ve got a shirt!”

She pulled on her shirt to show me the uniform while I stood in the parking lot, dumbfounded. Was she asking for a job?

Me: “You’ll need to speak with my manager.”

I began walking away from the crazy lady, and she got out of her car and followed me into the shop. (The door only locks from the outside so she could simply waltz in.) My manager was already there and looked at me, confused. Before I could say anything, the woman continued her tirade of, “I need a job! I haven’t eaten in three days! I need to feed my kids!” My manager gave me a look that said, “I’ll handle it.” I headed to the back and began my opening duties.

Over the course of an hour, I heard my manager talking to this woman, saying we didn’t need her help, we had full staff for the day, etc. She didn’t stop, and eventually, my manager gave up and allowed her to work! At least the woman showed that she indeed knew what to do and didn’t need training. After a couple of hours, my manager came up to me and said she was leaving! I was stuck with the crazy woman.

Not even an hour after my manager left, this woman told me she’d been fired from another chain restaurant for stealing food! She literally used those exact words. She justified it by saying she was “too good of a worker,” and her manager was scared she was going to take his job. When I asked her about the stealing food part, she said that the last chain would allow her to take home food just before it went bad and he used that as justification to fire her. I’m sure there’s more to the story, but I said nothing.

We also get a free sandwich per shift. Being that she hadn’t eaten in three days you’d think she would’ve eaten the free sandwich. Nope, she called a friend to come to get it, and she took it out to her friend’s car where nobody could see them and out of sight of the cameras.

The next day, I showed up for my shift and she was there again! We had one too many people, which my manager said was not allowed, so someone had to get cut. I checked with my other coworkers. They said they didn’t want to lose hours and would put up with the crazy lady, so I said I was going home.

She started giving me orders! She was saying I needed to do X, Y, and Z, and then I could go home. I’m usually non-confrontational, but I gave this woman a look that said, “Ex-f******-cuse me?” She told me she was training to be the manager. Based on her previous behavior, I was 100% convinced she had just decided this herself. The actual manager was also not there, so there was nobody training her.

I left without saying anything or doing as she’d “asked” because I don’t get paid enough to put up with her BS, and the actual manager had said we could get in trouble if too many staff stayed.

Over the next two weeks, this lady over-prepped the kitchen so badly that there was no way we could use everything before it went bad. Conveniently, she offered to take it home since “we shouldn’t waste food.” She “messed up” a suspicious number of sandwiches, which she would then give to her “friends.” These “mess-ups” almost always included some of the most expensive meats, and she always delivered the sandwiches to her friends’ cars.

She refused to use the guards when slicing meat and veggies and cut the tips of her fingers multiple times. She then told the manager she needed worker’s compensation until they were healed. She refused to do anything that didn’t involve over-prepping food or making sandwiches that she could mess up.

After three weeks, she was fired.

Welcome to what has been dubbed the “Kramer Chronicles!” (The name has been changed.)

At my work, we have multiple drivers for our semis. Two of our drivers retire and we bring in a couple of new drivers. Both of these drivers are pretty young and don’t have much experience, but that’s not really an issue because everyone has to start somewhere.

One of them has learned to be cautious when driving, especially with the snowy winter we’ve been having in Minnesota this year. He drives a bit too cautiously at times, but he hasn’t had any accidents or gotten stuck. His slower driving and cautiousness have helped him learn, and he’s doing well.

The other guy is pretty much the opposite. He may be young and inexperienced, but he continues to drive faster than he should, especially in crummy weather, and he’s caused a lot of damage.

Here are some of the issues and some things Kramer has said to me about them.

1) He backed into a car in the parking lot. It wasn’t even parked in a spot that would be considered in the way when semis back up into docks. He caused over $10,000 in damage.

2) He went down a weight-restricted road — he said his “GPS told him to go that way” — even though the road didn’t lead to the customer’s facility. Once he realized he wasn’t on the right road, let alone a weight-restricted one, he came to a T intersection and almost jackknifed his trailer trying to make a wide U-turn. He ended up damaging part of the trailer and the back end of his cab from the turn due to his poor judgment. This was around $5,000 in damages.

3) He told us he almost got stuck going under a bridge because his “GPS” sent him a different way from the last time when he was making a delivery to a customer that he had done multiple times before. The top of the trailer was scraped across the entire length of it as he drove under the bridge. No holes were made, but the top was all scratched up.

4) During a regular maintenance check one morning, he noticed that his antifreeze was low. (A cracked hose was found and fixed later.) He removed the cap where the oil goes in the engine and started to pour antifreeze into the engine. He noticed a second or two after he started pouring antifreeze that he was adding it to the oil and not into the tank where the antifreeze actually goes. Thankfully, no harm came from this eff-up.

5) He needed to gas up one day. We have two gas station companies for which we have gas cards for our drivers. This way they can easily fuel up anywhere they are in the metro area. He came into the shipping office in a bit of a panic. He told me that he was trying to fuel up at [Gas Station #1] nearby because he was getting really low on diesel, but the card wasn’t working at the pump, so he came here to let us know so we could get him a new card. He then left and headed out to the next closest gas station — [Gas Station #2] — and tried fueling up there. He got back and told me that we didn’t have to get a new gas card for him because when he was trying to fuel up at [Gas Station #1] he didn’t realize he was using the [Gas Station #2] gas card; that was why it wasn’t working.

6) A couple of weeks ago, we had upwards of sixteen inches of snow fall over two days. It took a bit for things to get back to normal in terms of good road conditions. Fast forward a week. It hadn’t snowed since the previous week, and roads, parking lots, and driveways were clear. Kramer delivered a load of material to a customer with no issues. The next day, he had another half a trailer of material to deliver to the same customer. He called into work because he had gotten “stuck in their unplowed parking lot” and couldn’t get out.

After a few hours of him digging himself out and the help of a passing tow truck that helped pull him free, he returned to work. He was telling everyone that the parking lot hadn’t been plowed and that was why he’d gotten stuck… but how did he not get stuck the day before when he delivered? Eventually, the truth came out: he had misjudged his turn by a lot, and he’d driven right into a snowbank and gotten stuck.

7) A week later, it had been snowing some, maybe a total of three or four inches throughout the day. Most roads were pretty decent with just some slushy and slick spots. Kramer was returning from a delivery. He was coming down the hill toward our parking lot entrance, and he was going too fast to safely make the turn with those road conditions. Instead of just going past our driveway and further down the road to safely find a spot to turn around and come back, he tried to turn into the parking lot. He couldn’t turn in properly and ended up burying the front end of his cab into the snow bank on the far side of the driveway with his trailer blocking the entrance of the parking lot.

Our maintenance team had to go out with the bobcat, shovels, salt, and sand to help dig him out so he would no longer be blocking the driveway entrance. He told people that his “load shifted in the trailer and it caused his truck to slide.” Upon checking the outside cameras, it was very easy to see that he had been driving too fast to make the turn into the parking lot safely, yet he’d tried to and gotten stuck.

I told our manager that this was bad on Kramer’s end in one of two ways. Either he wasn’t driving safely and was putting others and himself at risk or he wasn’t strapping his loads correctly, which posed danger to those on the road around him. Either way, he should no longer be driving for us.

These are just a handful of stupid things Kramer has done and said over the eight months he’s been here. Based on what management has mentioned, I’m 95% sure he won’t be driving for us much longer once this workweek ends.

I own a small retail store in which we also repair items in the category of what we sell — think like a cell phone store that also repairs phones — but with various items.

I bumped into an old friend at a trade show where I was selling my wares, and we got to chatting. She mentioned she had recently gotten surgery on her arm due to a workplace accident, and the employer (a multi-million-dollar corporation) was fighting her tooth and nail on paying compensation and benefits that she was entitled to. I sympathized, as the reason I opened my own business was similar to the situation she was in. She mentioned she was out of work and trying to collect disability but was also getting pushback.

She asked if I had a position she could work in, and of course, I obliged.

At first, everything went great. [Employee] caught on quickly to how I operated the store and was excellent with customers. About a month into the job, I started to feel quite comfortable and gave her a key to the store for emergencies. I have a young child, and as a single parent, sometimes things happen (such as an ill babysitter or ill child) and I have to close for the day or end up coming in late. She took the bull by the horns and would cover for me on days such as that. It was a blessing!

Two months in, [Employee] asked me if she could have a week off to take a mental health vacation. She was still fighting with the compensation board and disability board, so I understood. She asked for a pay advance, and there was no reason not to give one, so I sent her off with a week’s pay in advance. I wasn’t well off financially, but I have a bleeding heart.

She returned a week later seemingly much happier, and all was well… until payday. I had given her $800 in advance, and her hours and commissions for that week were a net of $840, so she received the remaining $40. She came in the next day with a horrible attitude and made a few snide comments throughout the day, but we were incredibly busy so I couldn’t address it right away.

After the rush, I sat her down and asked what was wrong.

Employee: “I don’t work for free. How dare you only pay me $40 for all the hours I worked last week?!”

Me: “Oh, gosh, now I understand! Remember when you left on vacation, I gave you the $800 advance? So, last week was thirty hours, and you made $240 in commissions. That’s $840. Subtract the $800 advance, and that’s $40.”

Employee: “Um, no. That was a gift. You told me it was a gift.”

Me: “I’m so sorry, but no… See, we wrote it down on your payroll sheet for that week, and here is this week’s based on the hours and sales you filled in.”

Employee: “This is so stupid. I can’t afford to live on $40!”

Me: “I’m sorry, [Employee], but that’s what we agreed.”

She still didn’t seem to understand entirely but accepted it, and we moved on from it.

A week later, [Employee] didn’t come in on time to work. I sent a text but heard nothing back until 1:00 pm when she called me crying. She said her boyfriend had been in a horrific car accident and was in surgery as we spoke. I was immediately forgiving, expressed my condolences and well wishes for him, and told her to take as much time as she needed off work.

Two weeks later, she returned to work in a rotten mood. I checked in but didn’t want to push. Then, she asked for her pay for the last two weeks.

Me: “Oh… well… you didn’t work the last two weeks, so there is no pay.”

Employee: “What? You told me to take as much time as I needed, though! I thought it was paid leave!”

Me: *Visibly frustrated* “I’m not sure when or where that was ever said or even implied, but no, you don’t get paid when you’re not at work. I have a child I need to take care of. I can’t pay you for time you haven’t put in.”

Employee: “Well, I was in a pretty difficult situation, as I’m suuuuuure you can imagine! I need money for bills!”

Again, my bleeding heart took over, and I gave her a $500 advance, but I made it CLEAR that it was an advance, and we both signed a contract stating this.

Over the next week, [Employee] showed up HOURS late and/or left HOURS early, if she showed up at all. I’m talking about showing up at 10:00 and leaving at 1:00 in the middle of a rush. In total, she only netted five and a half hours and did only $24 in commissions. She was to be paid $134, leaving her owing me a balance of $366 from the advance.

The following Monday, I was immediately met with hostility again over her inability to pay bills because I “didn’t pay her”. By this point, I was done with the games, and we had a very serious conversation about her future, if any, working with me.

She apologized profusely as soon as the phrase “may have to let you go” left my mouth. She explained that she was struggling with her mental health, her boyfriend was using a wheelchair still, she was behind on all their bills, their electricity is due to be shut off, etc. I gave her another chance, and she asked for the rest of the week off, which I agreed to.

Cue the insanity. [Employee] showed up the following week in a different car and then bragged to me and a customer how she’d”only” spent $4,200 on it. She showed off her new shoes that she’d “only” paid $110 for. Honestly, her attitude had done a total one-eighty. Long story short, I let her go that week after discovering she was pocketing some money from the till after a customer accused her of shorting their change.

I was so confused about how, since she’d started, the store had begun struggling financially and how she’d suddenly changed her tune toward the end. I went through the receipts, finances, customer database, and everything that night, and I found that for every hour she worked, she would write down two hours. For every $100 in commission she made, she wrote down $200. I was missing over $2,500 in stock and parts from the storage room, including a $400 machine reserved for special repairs that was rarely used so it was pretty much ignored until I needed it. You get the picture.

I attempted to confront [Employee] but found that she had blocked my number AND blocked me on all social media. The next morning, I awoke to a bombardment of one-star Google reviews and both comments and messages to my social media pages calling me a crook and a bunch of horrible names, all from friends of [Employee]’s. According to her friends, I verbally abused her, never paid her on time if at all, owed her over $3,000 in wages, was manipulative, cheated my customers with inferior products and shoddy work — you name it.

I chose to block and ignore these people, but the damage was done both financially and reputationally. My business went bankrupt a month later.

While job hunting, I met with a friend who worked at a competing store to mine who also happened to be [Employee]’s cousin. He and I grabbed a coffee and caught up… and then he mentioned [Employee]. Apparently, she had gone in there for an interview while working for me and casually mentioned that she had also been doing side work in the evenings and on days off. She said if they hired her, she had a “special machine used for special repairs” she could bring with her — aka my machine. They didn’t end up hiring her as her schedule conflicted.

I asked how [Employee]’s boyfriend was recovering from his accident and was met with the most bewildered look I’d ever seen. [Cousin] said, “Accident? What accident?” So I explained what I was told and mentioned the dates. He pulled out his phone and showed me photos of [Employee], her boyfriend, [Cousin], his wife, and their three other cousins, drunk on a cruise ship, dated THAT WEEK and several days after! [Employee]’s boyfriend was never in an accident.

[Cousin] went on to say that their grandfather passed away last year, and finally, after the family fighting over it, they got their inheritances a week before the trip… to the tune of around $40,000 each. All the cousins (grandkids) took a vacation together and went on a cruise last minute and had shopping sprees galore.

It is years later now, and I’m nearly done with my bankruptcy hit on my credit, but I have struggled immensely since then. It goes to show that not all friends are true friends.

This story is part of our Not Always Working Most-Epic Stories roundup!

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After ten years of working for myself as a graphic designer and marketing consultant, I became disenchanted with having to chase after clients to collect my paycheck and sought a typical nine-to-five job. I interviewed for a position as a marketing manager with a company that I seemed like a great fit. During my interview, the CEO asked me what programs I use to “draw.”

Me: “Uh, I usually work in Illustrator, because vector graphics are scalable.”

Client: “Oh, that’s good. Not many people would understand that or know that.”

He offered me the position and I accepted.

A few weeks into the job, when discussing a project with the same CEO, he asked how I was going to prepare a specific piece of marketing collateral. It included the creation of new logos and would need to be sent to a printer in .eps format. I told him I was going to use Illustrator. He replied in a tone that was a unique cross of amusement, sneering condemnation, and anger.

Client: “No. People don’t know how to use Illustrator, and there isn’t anything you can do in Illustrator that you can’t do in Microsoft Word. Use that.”

I am a female engineer with a fairly androgynous name; let’s call me “Sam”. After twenty years with the same company, I leave to work for a startup. Two years later, the startup fails. My old boss hears I’m looking for work and offers me a job.

My first day back is interesting. A recent hire comes to ask a question. We’ll call him [New Guy].

New Guy: “I don’t know why, but my boss told me to ask you if we have [obscure piece of equipment].”

Me: “We do. Let me show you. Don’t forget to dry your sample before running the instrument. It will catch fire if it runs with a wet sample.”

New Guy: “Wow! Thanks. I didn’t understand why he told me to ask you, but I guess it’s your name.”

Me: “My name?”

New Guy: “Yeah, before I started here, there was a guy named Sam. He knew everything because he had been here so long. For a long time, people kept saying how much they missed him. I heard he’s coming back, so we’ll have two Sams.”

Me: “I am Sam.”

New Guy: “Yeah, but this is Sam. He knows everything.”

Due to circumstances, my boss and I need to leave the building. That leaves [New Guy] alone, which should be fine.

I return to find the building filled with smoke, the doors open, alarms blaring, and [New Guy] standing in the parking lot with the local fire chief.

Me: “What happened?”

New Guy: “I started running my sample and it started to smoke. I unplugged it, but it was still burning, so I pulled the alarm and ran outside.”

I quickly confer with the chief, don the appropriate breathing apparatus, and run inside to grab the equipment. We drag it into the middle of the parking lot and disable the alarm.

New Guy: “Wow! When Sam gets here, he’s going to be impressed. That sounds like something he would do.”

Me: “Again, I am Sam. I used to work here and came back.”

New Guy: “No, this is a different Sam.”

I give up and deal with the fire chief. The engines arrive and begin to air out the building. My boss returns from his meeting as they are removing the fans.

Boss: “What happened?”

Me: “Looks like [New Guy] didn’t dry the sample enough, and the equipment overheated and caught fire.”

New Guy: “And this Sam dragged the equipment into the parking lot. Wait until the Sam hears.”

Boss: “This is Sam.”

New Guy: “But she’s a girl.”

And that’s how [New Guy] ended up talking to Human Resources and Safety at the same time.