I started a new job in a warehouse about a month ago. I get along well with most of the crew, but a few of them aren’t as friendly. One guy in particular seems to have a seething dislike for me, always making snide comments and being extra critical of my work. I’ve asked our supervisor what to do to get him off my back, but he just gives me vague advice like, “You’ll figure it out,” without ever doing anything to actually solve the problem.

One day, I need to use the forklift to get some stuff off some of the higher storage racks. The forklift is parked in its bay, but the keys are not in the cabinet where they’re supposed to be, and they’re not in the ignition. I start asking around to see who has the keys and am told that [Unfriendly Guy] was the last one to use the forklift as far as anybody knows.

I approach [Unfriendly Guy] and wait for a moment until he notices me.

Unfriendly Guy: “What?”

Me: “I’m told you were the last one to use the forklift. Do you have the keys, or did you leave them somewhere?”

With this, [Unfriendly Guy] completely blows up.

Unfriendly Guy: *Screaming* “You came all the way over here to accuse me of stealing the forklift keys? I’m f****** working here! Go f****** bother someone else and get to work!”

Me: “I’m not accusing you of stealing the keys. I’m just asking if you know where they are.”

Unfriendly Guy: “LET ME DO MY F****** JOB AND LEAVE! GO DO YOUR OWN JOB AND LEAVE ME THE F*** ALONE! I’M CALLING [SUPERVISOR] UNLESS YOU GET BACK TO WORK!”

With this outburst, I simply turn around and walk away. [Unfriendly Guy] continues shouting and swearing at me, but I learned a long time ago that it’s not worth arguing with people like him. I check the forklift and key cabinet again, and with the keys still missing, I move on to the next assigned task that doesn’t need the forklift.

About thirty minutes later, [Supervisor] finds me and asks me to head to his office with him. When we get there, one of the Human Resources representatives is also in the office.

Supervisor: “Do you know why you’re in here?”

Me: “I’m going to guess it has something to do with [Unfriendly Guy]?”

Supervisor: “Yes. He says you accused him of stealing the forklift keys and started yelling and swearing at him.”

Me: “I never accused him of anything. The forklift keys weren’t in the cabinet or the ignition, and I was told that he was the last one to use the forklift. I just tried to ask if he still had the keys or if he’d put them somewhere else.”

Supervisor: “Then what was all the yelling and swearing about?”

Me: “I didn’t yell. He started yelling and swearing, and I walked away from him.”

Supervisor: “That’s not what he told us.”

Me: “Check the cameras, or ask [Other Employees]; they were all working in the same area and might have seen or heard what happened.”

[Supervisor] looks ready to keep digging into me and my story, but our HR rep cuts him off and tells me that I am free to go back to work until further notice.

The next day, [Supervisor] comes over and tells me that the issue has been resolved, and to try not to bother [Unfriendly Guy] again in case anything happens.

Me: “All right. If I need anything from him, I’ll come find you to take care of it.”

Supervisor: “No, that’s not what I meant. Just don’t bug him; he doesn’t seem to like you, so you’ll have to work it out.”

Me: “How am I supposed to work it out if I can’t talk to him without him blowing up and you’re not willing to mediate between us?”

Supervisor: “I’m sure you can figure something out.”

Me: “Okay. What do you suggest?”

Supervisor: “I don’t know. I have my own job, so I can’t hold your hand through every little thing.”

Me: “Well, that makes this decision easier. I’m out. I’ll go talk to HR about filing my resignation.”

Supervisor: “You can’t do that!”

Me: “If I can’t work without constantly walking on eggshells around [Unfriendly Guy], and you’re not willing to do anything about it, it’s not worth it to me.”

Supervisor: “What about the orders we need to get delivered? Who’s going to get those processed?”

Me: “You’re the supervisor. That’s your job. I can’t hold your hand through stuff like this. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

With that, I turned around and walked away, straight to the HR office to file my resignation, effective immediately.

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This was some time ago, maybe around the year 2000. The place I worked at was a warehouse — nothing special. I had to get orders to pull, help with some customers in the showroom, help with shipping/receiving, and so on. My coworkers, on the other hand, were all pretty special in their own ways. One of them really sticks out in my memory.

[Coworker] was very smart, but it was just book smarts; he had no common sense whatsoever. Our supervisor best described him as such: “You could ask him what time it is, and he’d tell you how a watch works.”

One day, I got to work and [Coworker] didn’t come in. After a couple of days of not being at work, he finally showed up, but he had to utilize his bike and the public buses to get from where he lived (about fifteen miles away) to work. I didn’t really care about his reasoning for being out a few days and riding his bike now instead of driving, but he wanted to freely share his experience with everyone at work.

He liked to visit a local bar by his residence — roughly a two-block distance. He usually parked by the bar, had a few beers, and drove home. He was leaving the bar on Friday, and he’d had a few drinks — nothing out of the norm. As he was walking to his truck, he spotted an unmarked police cruiser nearby. He approached their car and started telling the cops in that they couldn’t be parked there and all sorts of other things I can’t recall. He told us that after he told them he lived nearby, the cops told him to just walk home and cool off. They told him to walk home and come back in the morning to get his truck. He mouthed off to them some more, and instead of listening to them, he approached his truck. They arrested him for DUI. He was held over the weekend until he was arraigned on Monday. Then, he had his license revoked, he had to get a lawyer, and so on.

Now that [Coworker] couldn’t legally drive until he could get his license back, he was using the city bus system and his pedal bike to get to and from work. As smart as the guy was, he really was pretty dumb.

One morning, I got to work and it was just pouring rain outside. The downpour didn’t deter [Coworker] from coming in. He still biked to the closest bus stop, put his bike on the front rack of the bus, got off at a bus stop about a mile from work, and biked the rest of the way. When he got to work, he was dripping wet, soaked to the bone.

He reassured us that he had dry clothes to change into in his backpack, which he had wrapped in plastic to keep it from getting wet. It sounded like he’d thought of everything. Off to the restroom he went to change.

A couple of minutes later, out came [Coworker], and he was in his speedo-looking underwear and a dry shirt — nothing else on, just his underwear and shirt. He proceeded to tell us that he’d forgotten to pack socks and pants, so he had to wait for his wet stuff to dry off more before he could put it back on. He then proceeded to walk around the warehouse without pants on and try to work!

The warehouse manager made him go put on his wet pants and told him he just had to deal with them being wet and that he couldn’t parade around the workplace in his underwear.

I work in the office space above a warehouse. I come in one morning with some questions for my supervisor, as I’m a fairly new employee, and I wander into her own smaller office to ask. 

On her immaculate desk is what looks like a shoelace, next to a letter from a very well-known company who happens to be one of our clients. I ask her about it. 

Supervisor: “This is a string from one of their garment bags. I have to light one end of it on fire to see what color it is. If I can tell what color it is, I can tell how it should be recycled. The problem is that I don’t have a lighter.”

Unfortunately, neither of us carries a lighter on our person, so we figure we’ll talk to one of the warehouse folks. 

Now, because I’m new, and because of the way the system works, I have to go clock in just like the warehouse folks, which is downstairs. I figure I’ll ask when I go down there. 

One of the warehouse managers is at his desk. I explain what I’m looking for, and he thinks about it for a second.

Warehouse Manager: “Hm. I’m sure we have a few.”

He gets up, and I follow him into the warehouse. I explain why I’m looking for a lighter and he nods. We go over to the far wall where there are several cabinets and shelves with equipment, supplies, and safety items. One of the safety cabinets is bright yellow and reads, “INFLAMMABLE”, and there are other warning signs on it. He opens it. 

Inside, there are three shelves, all of them bowing under the weight of bags FULL of lighters. 

Me: “HOLY CRAP!”

The warehouse manager grabs a random lighter off the top, lights it, nods sagely, and hands it to me. I thank him profusely and head back upstairs. 

I relay that story to my supervisor as I hand her the lighter. 

Supervisor: “Well… if ever there’s a fire, we know who to blame first!”

CONTENT WARNING: Car Accident, Injury, Blood

The brakes on my truck failed four days after I had them replaced at a well-known and popular auto place. Was the failure a fault of the mechanics or just bad luck? Who knows? But my poor truck went from being a perfectly serviceable vehicle to being completely totaled after I couldn’t stop while approaching a busy intersection. I tried very hard to not T-bone a very expensive SUV, but I was an inexperienced driver who wasn’t prepared for the possibility of not being able to stop.

I was on the way to work when my brakes failed. I wasn’t going very fast — perhaps 45 mph — but when I hit the SUV, my seatbelt moved from between my breasts to straight across one. My hand went partially through the windshield, and my airbag didn’t go off. I banged my knee pretty hard on the bottom of the steering column, and the container of scrap copper I had sitting behind my front seats decided it liked my lap better. I was a bit banged up. I didn’t have anything fatally wrong with me, but a day off would have done me a world of good.

While waiting for the police, I called work to let them know I wouldn’t be in. My boss laid into me.

Boss: “You are being unreliable; you should have given more notice! If you don’t come in, you will be written up and then some!”

He was known for being a bit of a jerk. At that point, I was in a lot of pain and irritated.

Me: “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

An hour or so later, I was checked out by the paramedics and my truck was being towed back home. The paramedics suggested that I go to the emergency room to be properly checked out. I had glass in my hand, and I was having trouble standing on my leg. I declined and took a rideshare to work.

I dragged myself into the warehouse, still covered in the blood from my hand and the minor cuts from the scrap copper. I approached [Boss] on the warehouse floor.

Me: “Where do you need me today?”

He turned just a few shades of white before fleeing in the general direction of the nearest bathroom. I later found out he has a thing about blood.

My coworkers, the lovely people they are, immediately brought me a chair and asked me what happened. An older coworker went off to find the boss. A few minutes later, he came back.

Coworker: “I’m taking you to the hospital. You’re excused from work for the rest of the week; I have a letter here signed by [Boss] declaring so.”

[Coworker] stayed with me while I got looked over. He then bought me some fast food, drove me home, helped me plop onto the couch, and made sure I had everything I needed to relax for the rest of the day. He promised to come back in the evening with his wife to help with anything I needed.

Once I recovered enough to go back to work, [Boss] avoided me like the plague until he moved on to a different job a few years later. The story I got from my other coworkers is that his boss ripped him a new one for trying to force me to work after a car accident and that if he so much as looked at me wrong, he was fired.

My injuries included a bruise that covered my breast and most of my torso that took months to heal, deep cuts on my hand that required some stitches and a lot of glass removal, cuts from the scrap copper that were painful but superficial, and a fractured kneecap. When I went back to work, I still did most of my job but my coworkers willingly took up the slack. I got lots of get-well cards, some of the most amazing get-well food, and the prettiest bouquet of flowers from them. [Boss]’s boss gave me a gift bag stuffed with chocolate and snacks, and [Coworker] had his wife help me keep my house clean for several weeks. She also helped me bathe without getting my stitches wet.

[Boss] never apologized to me.

This happened around six months ago. I never directly worked with [Coworker], but from all the stories I’ve heard from multiple departments he’s worked in, there are so many stories too good not to share. Here is one of them.

I used to work in outbound shipping for a major shipping supply company. (I now work in inbound shipping.) I worked the overnight shift and [Coworker] worked the day shift, so we would sometimes meet if I worked overtime. 

He was training to become an assistant department manager. By this point, he had been training for about two months exclusively in outbound, so he should have had a basic understanding of most of the concepts used in outbound. One term we used was a “pull”, also known as a “paperless”. Basically what that meant was if we were fulfilling a customer’s order but we didn’t have that product in the building, but another building did, we would systematically send that building a request to send us that product to fulfill that order (to keep track of inventory for each building).

During [Coworker]’s training for those two months, he was told to stay with the person on that shift that did all that paperwork. He should have known what they were, but apparently, at least once a week, he would ask what a pull/paperless was. It’s like the information did not stick with him. 

It’s like he was like Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates. 

I recently found out he now works in the department that I used to work in on my shift. I’m so glad I never had to directly work with him. I would have gone crazy!