Work isn’t meant to be fun, but it’s not meant to be a living nightmare either. We all try to find jobs that pay the bills, while also hoping that they can be somewhat enjoyable and fulfilling. So what happens when we have a boss who orders us to do completely unheard of, outrageous, and ridiculous things? Do we stand up for ourselves and refuse the orders? Or do we swallow our pride and sacrifice our immediate pleasure for the sake of our next paycheck? Here are 50 unforgettable stories about people who had to make that exact choice when they were given unreasonable tasks to perform at work.
1. Putting The “Fun” In “Funeral”
At work, I was once "asked" by my boss not to go to my uncle's funeral. I was told, and I quote, "Well, it’s not like he’ll know that you're not there!" I quit that job very shortly after that incident, and I reported the "manager" to executive management on my way out. That guy was a total jerk. And this was by far the most unreasonable thing I’ve ever been asked to do for a job.
2. Fight Or Flight
I was once applying for a commercial airplane pilot job. During the hiring process, I was asked to work for a full two months without being paid, as a "trial" to "see what kind of an employee I would be." The hiring guy said that I needed to do this before he could decide if he was going to offer me a paid job or not. My jaw just dropped. He was somewhat surprised when I turned down this offer.
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3. Singin’ In The Rain
I'm in the navy and I was once ordered by my commanding officer to sweep all the water off of the entire pier area. What’s so unusual about that, you wonder? Only that it happened to be raining at the time. No one seemed to care about that fact, though, and I had to spend hours on this task, pretty much accomplishing nothing.
4. My Bottle Runneth Over
I used to work at a grocery store chain as a utility clerk. The vendor for Sprite and Dr. Pepper screwed up stacking their pallets, so they all fell over, creating a nice pile of broken glass, sticky soda, and wet, messy cardboard. My boss made me clean it all up and told me not to leave the scene even for a second until the job was done.
Somehow, I got it all cleaned up in about two hours. Not bad, save for me nearly getting shanked by some large glass shards on the floor. Honestly, I felt pretty good about it—but I had no idea what was coming. Where it became unreasonable was the very next day, when I got called into the office and written up. By the same boss. Why? Because I had failed to do my other floor inspections during the time when I was cleaning up the mess.
He expected me to be able to be in two places at once. That was fun to contest…
5. Constructive Criticism
I once got asked by my boss to walk over to the construction site next door and ask the builders to stop their construction, as they were being too loud. Not for a specific length of time, just to stop working. I had to ask him what he thought that this would actually achieve. But he insisted that I do it anyway. You can all probably guess whether they listened or not…
6. Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace
The first job that I ever had was in retail. On one occasion, I smelled something funky near my breakroom. I went to check it out—but I wasn't prepared for what I found: A pile of dried-up human waste on the ground. Naturally, I went and told my manager. He asked me why I was telling him about it and not busy cleaning it up.
Turns out everyone knew about it but didn't want to say anything because they didn't want to have to clean it.
7. Down The Drain
A manager once asked me to wrap my arm up in a big bag and stick my hand into a toilet to try and unblock it. I was a waiter and barman, taking food out to customers. I highlighted this point to him, yet he still insisted that I do it. I promptly told him to screw off, and I mentioned the words health and safety. He ended up doing it himself.
On a side note, he was fired two weeks later for making inappropriate comments to female staff members. He was just a terrible guy all around.
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8. The Week-est Link
At work, I was once asked to prepare this whole bureaucratic report before the week’s end. When I asked if she wanted me to wait until next week because otherwise I would get into overtime pay, she responded by saying: "Do it this week, but put it in next week's payroll." Ummm, no thanks! That suggestion made me so angry.
9. Do Your Own Dirty Work
I was once asked to lay off a group of employees for another manager. She begged me to do it, and I initially refused. This manager selected and approved the list of people being let go and was 100% responsible for even needing a layoff. She overhired in her area because she misrepresented her projected needs and let her group's performance fall below standard.
No one wants to be part of a layoff, on the receiving or giving side, unless you're a total sadist. I also really believe if you are laying your people off, you need to at least have the guts to do it yourself. Period. I wound up doing it in the end. But only because everyone in the building already figured out that something was happening.
They could tell based on her behavior, and it seemed excessively cruel to postpone things once everyone was on edge. I felt like the Angel of Death that day. People couldn't even make eye contact with me as I walked the halls because if I stopped at someone's desk they knew they were losing their job. My people were terrified, and I still feel terrible about how that day went down because I couldn't say anything until it was done.
Layoffs are horrible, and this manager hiding from her responsibility made it even worse. Fortunately, my boss agreed with me on this and he eventually fired her for it.
10. Movie Night
Back when I was the manager of a local movie theater, I had just got done working fourteen hours straight because someone had called in sick. I tried to submit payroll to accounting, but the fax wouldn't go through. I asked the accountant to go to the office, about two blocks away from her home, and see if she could fix it.
She said that she was too tired and that I should instead drive the fifty miles myself to hand-deliver it. I ended up doing so, because if I didn't then my staff wouldn't have gotten paid. However, I made sure that there were about eight nasty emails sent afterward to various higher-ups in our organization. A few weeks later, I quit that job to become a busboy. Single best career move I've ever made.
11. Can’t Catch A Break
The most unreasonable thing I’ve ever been asked to do at work was to not have to go to the bathroom. I wish I was joking, but I'm not. My boss recently told all of the employees that there will be no more bathroom breaks. Considering we already don't get a second break and some of us don't get a lunch break either, I don’t know what they expect us to do. I also don’t think this is even allowed…
12. The Garden Of Eatin’
I was once working as a deskside technician for an IT company a couple of years back. One day, when things were quiet and we didn't have much to do on the job, my boss had me drive over to his house to pick grapes for several hours from a plant in his personal garden. I am quite certain that this was not part of my job description…
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13. Tending To Her Needs
I used to work as a bartender. On Good Friday, at 9:00 at night, a lady in the bar had the nerve to ask me to tell another customer to quit swearing because it was Good Friday. I told her as nicely as I possibly could that we're all adults and that I simply wouldn't feel okay with telling another paying customer to stop swearing.
My boss saw the conversation and then me walking away while the customer had a sour expression on her face. He asked me what that was all about, so I told him. He actually had the nerve to tell me that I needed to go and ask the guy to watch his mouth. Now, keep in mind that my boss was a cool guy, so I could generally speak openly to him.
Not the best bar manager, he was a banker before and got the job because he was the owner's friend and had just gotten tired of banking. So I responded to him like I wish I could've responded to her. Which was something along the lines of, “If the sanctimonious crazy woman is so freaking worried about swearing on Good Friday, then what the heck is she doing in a sports bar drinking?”
I added that I would literally walk right off of this job and quit on the spot before I would impose some random person’s will on another paying customer, who was just minding his own business and having a good time, all because of one individual’s personal beliefs. To which my manager said: "Good point. Screw her!" And that was the end of that little incident.
14. A Shortage Of Supplies
In the early 1990s, I worked at a well-known US depot for office supplies. One time, for reasons I never really understood, an edict came down that a certain class of inventory was to be destroyed and discarded. That meant that perfectly good merchandise was to be taken out back and literally smashed to pieces with a hammer, then thrown into the garbage bin.
This merchandise included tons of perfectly good office furniture, lamps, computers, printers, copiers, fax machines, and some other random bits here and there. The most amazing part was that they made clear to us that under no circumstances was this stuff allowed to be given away, sold, or otherwise allowed to survive and benefit anyone. It was absolutely infuriating.
Several of our employees begged and pleaded with the bosses to be allowed to buy some of the things before they got destroyed, but nope. They insisted that it was better to destroy it and get nothing in return. And they were not interested in considering any other alternatives. It wasn't a huge number of items, but it was easily at least $10,000 worth of stuff.
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15. Room For One More?
I was once asked to teach an English class for new immigrants in the closet of the local library. The librarian did not clean out the closet before the class; the custodian had merely shoved a few desks into it. When there was another class in the library proper, I had to close the closet door so that we couldn't hear each other.
We could hardly breathe with all the dust and lack of ventilation in that tiny room. I quit this job shortly after that incident and I subsequently reported the school to the Office for Civil Rights for discriminating against non-English-speaking students. Being forced to teach a class while cramped inside of a dingy closet remains the most unreasonable thing I’ve ever been asked to do on any job.
16. Reviewing The Instructions
I was once asked to conduct my own employee review. Yes, you read that right. My boss was too lazy to do my department's reviews, so he told me to do all of them for him. Including my own. I told him to screw off. He said he would take me to Human Resources if I didn’t comply. I told him that if he did, I would be sure to bring along the email where he asked me to review my coworkers, which was part of his job.
After that, I got a great review and he bought me lunch.
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17. Crossing The Line
Back when I was studying, I worked part-time in retail. My boss was a terrible guy. On one occasion, he wanted to talk me into helping him commit insurance fraud. When I refused, he threatened to fire me if I told anyone about it. This incident was too much for me to deal with and I ultimately quit my job a week later. I will not be missing that guy any time soon…
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18. Above Your Pay Grade
When I was 18 years old, I worked part-time at UPS and also part-time at Burger King, which was more of a way for me to eat for free every day than anything else. This was in 2000 or 2001, so the minimum wage was still something like just $4.25 or $5.15 per hour. I really wasn't making much more than that at my job at Burger King.
One night, I'm working the drive-thru window when a visibly intoxicated couple comes into the dining room and orders some food. My manager was working the cash register, and one other guy was there "cooking" the food. The couple ordered a bunch of deep-fried stuff and we didn't have enough chicken tenders on hold, so the manager told them it would be a couple minutes while the tenders and fries cooked.
No problem, they were going to use the restroom anyway. The restrooms were down a hall and the doors faced each other, so we didn't think anything of it when they went down the hall together. After a few minutes, their order comes up and they're not back yet. So we bag it up and leave it under the heat lamps while we wait for them.
Two minutes quickly turns into five, and I'm busy on the drive-thru window this whole time so I pretty much forgot about them. An indeterminate amount of time goes by. Probably somewhere between fifteen minutes and half an hour. Finally, my manager asks me if I had taken care of that order and given the couple their food.
I told her no, they never came back for their food after going to the bathroom. She goes into the women's room and doesn't see anyone. Then, she opens the door to the men's room. That’s when things took a turn for the worse. I heard an extremely loud dry heave from my station at the window, which was at least a good twenty yards away.
My manager then came charging in from around the wall that separated the dining area from the work area, and it looked like she had just seen a ghost or a dead body. I asked her what was wrong and she just shook her head, telling me that she would take over the drive-thru window because I had to go and clean the bathroom immediately.
I geared up with my elbow-length gloves, goggles, dust mask, and slickers, not knowing what kind of a nightmare had been unleashed in that stall that I was about to walk into. Nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared me for what I saw in there. It looked like they had hooked up a colostomy bag full of mostly-liquid poop and semi-chunky vomit to a paint-sprayer and then blasted every single surface in there with the disgusting mixture.
The stall was totally encrusted. The door handle had poop smeared all over it. There was vomit in the sink, next to the sink, in the trash can, next to the trash can; just freaking everywhere I looked there was poop, puke, or both. I didn't even make it three steps into the room before my gag reflex reminded me that it existed.
My eyes were watering, my stomach was doing somersaults, and I was choking back my own barrage of puke when it hit me: Hey, screw this! "Nope. Not a freaking chance," I heard myself say. I choked out through gasps of air, "Not a freaking chance in your wildest dreams am I cleaning that up. Call HazMat." I was half-joking, not thinking that my manager would actually expect me to clean that up.
Boy, was I ever wrong. She immediately said, "Listen here. If that bathroom isn't clean by the end of your shift, then don't bother coming ba-" She didn't get to finish the sentence. I had already thrown my hat and shirt on the floor. "Sorry, Jill, but you don't pay me nearly enough for this garbage. I can find another lousy minimum wage job tomorrow. Good luck with that debacle in there!"
And with that, just like the phantom pukers, I was gone.
19. Soul Train
The most reasonable thing that I have ever been asked to do on a job was to train a guy, who was making more money than I was, to become my boss. Why on earth would I want to do that? It was so awkward and disrespectful that it made me strongly consider just quitting on the spot. Some people really need to learn how to keep their employees happy…
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20. Got It In The Bag
The most unreasonable thing that I was ever asked to do at work was to "hide" my breast milk after pumping it. I had the audacity to once carry it from the room I pumped it in over to the freezer area as if it wasn't a bag full of shame milk. This offended my boss very greatly, and he immediately stormed right up to me to make this demand.
21. Picking Up The Pace
I used to work in a food processing plant back when I was in high school. The job sucked. It was hot on the lines and the place smelled horrible. One time, I got told by my boss that I had to go outside and pick up cigarette butts from the sidewalk area where the other workers went outside during their breaks to smoke.
I wasn't a smoker myself, and I was pretty annoyed at first when I was asked to do this, but I quickly realized that being outside and picking up nasty and dirty butts off the ground was actually more enjoyable than working inside on the lines. Enjoying this ridiculous task so much made me have a serious self-reevaluation of my job that day.
22. Breaking The Rules
At my job, when working overtime or even a regular eight-hour day, our break is only fifteen minutes long. And it’s timed down to the second. We are also expected to only use the bathroom during these timed breaks. So we spend our only break of the day running back and forth to the bathroom and trying to beat each other out in getting there. That’s not my idea of a darn break!
23. You’re The Real Hero
I used to be an army officer and, at the time, I was also a company commander. Not only was I instructed to assist in the sweeping of an assault case "under the rug" but was ordered to appoint as my top sergeant for the company a man that I had relieved of his duty position and assigned to a desk job due to a pattern of inappropriate conduct with female trainees.
To everyone’s surprise, I refused to comply and instead actually got the assault victim the medical and mental assistance she needed. The perpetrator was still assigned to the post by higher command and, less than two weeks after the incident, I lost my command for creating a work environment so hostile that I had apparently "lost the confidence of the sergeant."
I still don't regret what I did, even though it eventually cost me my career.
Pikrepo
24. Full Of Poop
I was once asked by a boss to clean up a bathroom full of disgusting human excrement, despite the fact that my training had specifically stated that I was not to clean that kind of stuff but rather close off the section and leave it for a manager to deal with. This particular manager didn’t seem to care about that policy and forced me to do the disgusting deed.
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25. Needle In A Haystack
Oh, where do I begin! I was once ordered by my boss to rake up some pine needles off of the ground. Actually, I was ordered to rake up "all of the pine needles." This job was on a campground. A campground named “Pinewoods.” A name which very accurately describes the scenery and atmosphere of the campground. Let’s just say that was a very long day for me…
26. Knocking On Wood
I was once told to get onto a forklift that had a loose piece of plywood thrown on the forks, without a harness, and an air hose put into my hand. I was then lifted about twenty feet into the air and told to clean the rafters of the woodshop up. After about five seconds of spraying, the dust cloud got so thick that you could barely see anything. It was extremely dangerous.
27. They Have A Beef
I used to work in a restaurant that was above a golf shop. Across the street was a ski area, and the guy that owned the restaurant where I worked also owned the seasonal snack bar and restaurant in the chalet at the bottom of the ski slope. He had a big chest freezer in the chalet where he kept a bunch of meat that he used for both restaurants.
Don’t ask me why or how, but some doofus had accidentally turned off all the electricity when the ski slope was shut down for the season. This included the electricity that was used by that freezer. My boss didn't discover the mistake for almost two months. When he did, he came up to me while I was working one day and told me, "I have an unpleasant job for you to do, but you have to do it."
When he lifted the lid on the freezer, the shock of how bad it smelled literally made me vomit right there on the floor. I could tell that my boss was close to hurling as well, but he had already been exposed to the horror once already, so he was prepared this time. He told me to put it all in garbage bags and take it out to the dumpster in the back.
He tried to give me a little pep talk and told me that dealing with the smell and the slime was really nothing more than "Mind over matter." He then looked me square in the eye and told me, "I don't mind, so it don't matter!" Wow, that really helped...not! But I was fourteen years old and already living on my own, so I needed that job. I did it.
28. Two For The Price Of One
Once a week, my boss makes me go down to the nearest Carvel ice cream store, order an ice cream cake, and then sit down and eat it with her so that she doesn’t feel as bad about eating it herself when she is supposed to be on a diet. She says she can't fit into her clothes. I guess she wants me to not fit into my clothes either…
29. Painting An Ugly Picture
When I was about sixteen years old, I got hired to do cleanup on a paint factory that was over 100 years old. They had very big paint thinner tanks on a hill behind the plant that were gravity-fed into the factory and had clogged. The boss wanted us to physically climb down into the tank, which was waist-deep full of paint thinner, and then remove it all with five-gallon buckets.
Yes, that’s right. He wanted us to insert our bodies into tanks of toxic chemicals. This was a while ago back in Newfoundland, and safety gear didn't exist on the island yet. We all refused to comply with this instruction and instead spent the rest of our day hanging out on the roof. We all got fired a few days later, and we all regretted nothing. He seriously could have killed us.
Sadly, I am still worried to this day that some of the other stuff we did there will probably show up as some strange form of cancer at some point in the future.
30. Tanking
I had a customer ask me to come outside and fill their propane tank during a thunderstorm, with no power. They were absolutely perplexed when I politely told them that I could not. They got mad and told my manager, who looked at them like they had three heads and came from another planet. They didn’t let up however, and after much arguing my manager promptly told them to leave.
He was awesome.
31. Thinking Inside The Box
I was making twelve dollars an hour as an office temp at a government office. My boss filled a box full of pepper spray, flares, and flashbangs. Then she labeled it "toiletries" and told me to take it to air cargo and send it on a passenger flight to one of our sites. I didn't want to face a potential prosecution for causing a mid-air accident.
So, I took the stuff for myself and distributed it to other projects within the same government department. A few weeks went by as they tried to determine what had happened to their stuff. Finally, my boss came into my office and said, "This is theft of over $1,000. We'll have to get the federal authorities involved."
I told her, "You can't do that without implicating yourself in a far worse crime. You should just forget about the whole matter." She was fuming at that point. Just about a week or so later, they suddenly canceled my contract with the temp agency and hired me directly at $24 per hour plus benefits. That was definitely not the result I had expected, but I’ll take it!
32. A Leaf In The Hand Is Worth Two In The Bush
I once had a friend in the navy who spent his shore tour at Camp David. On one occasion, they had to prepare the site for a visit by President Bush, and my friend was instructed to rake up every single leaf off of the ground. Keep in mind that Camp David has dozens of acres and hundreds of trees. But that's not even the worst part...
When Bush arrived, he immediately looked around and said, "It's autumn, where are all the leaves?" When he went inside, my friend had to redistribute every single leaf that he had just raked up thanks to that remark.
33. Sad New Year
I worked in IT back in 1999. I was required to show up at my office to be on duty at midnight on December 31st, to standby for when the computers turned over at the stroke of midnight to January 1, 2000. The fear was that the whole computer system would fail, the Millennium Bug fear. My boss called me repeatedly to ensure that I was at my desk.
Of course, nothing happened. The people I worked for were all morons and I had to miss out on the biggest New Year’s Eve of my lifetime.
34. Not Very Secure
I work security at Walmart. I once got yelled at by a boss for letting a guy get away with swiping a package of pork meat and a block of cheese. Why did I let him get away, you ask? Because he pulled a knife on me and was about to stab me if I didn’t let him go. I was not prepared to sacrifice my life for a few dollars worth of food. But to my boss, that was not an acceptable response.
Also, one time, when a frozen delivery had been standing untouched in a sweltering warehouse for four hours, the ice-cream had turned to liquid and the frozen chicken had been fully defrosted. I was asked to help unload the truck and put those disgusting items on the store shelves, even though this has nothing to do with my role and the request was completely ridiculous to begin with.
I said no to this request. The deputy manager threw a hissy fit when she heard me say no, and she had to do the whole task by herself. Aside from the fact that the task was ridiculous, I was more than five hours into a six-hour shift and just about to go on my break after being left on my own to run an entire department for the afternoon before she had asked me to do this.
Meanwhile, up to this point, she herself and the other supervisors had all been on a mutual break that they had taken together to hang out for the entire morning while I was left to watch over the entire store. Sorry, but giving someone food poisoning and leaving myself open to get sued isn't part of my job description. Nor is it worth the six-pound seventy-something that we get paid per hour.
35. Floor Show
I was once asked to mop the floor of the walk-in freezer at the McDonald's I used to work in. I raised my concerns with the manager about why this might not work out so well, but I was promptly told to do it anyway. Exactly like I had predicted and warned, the floor immediately froze and the mop immediately got stuck to it. That’s half an hour of my life that I’ll never get back…
36. Trip Of A Lifetime
I once saved up for a trip to France and England. I had two weeks of vacation that I had planned for months. While I was on this trip, my boss called and wanted me to come home early to cover someone's shift. When I reminded him that I was on a vacation in Europe, the boss was like, “Well can't she just catch a flight?"
Right, because interrupting something I had planned for months and spending significantly more money on the extra flight than the $11 per hour that my job paid was totally something anyone would be willing to do! I wanted to pull my hair out. Suffice it to say that I no longer work at this company. I got fired for having a “bad attitude.” I used my time away to go back to school and get a better job that I love, making more money and with much better management.
37. The Immigrant Song
I was once asked by a boss of mine to skip an immigration meeting that I needed to attend in order to be allowed to stay in the country, for a one-hour meeting with a client. Even though I had told them about the meeting and its importance weeks in advance. I informed my boss that if I skipped the meeting I would be ineligible to work in the country in two weeks’ time.
She still harassed me to try and reschedule my federal government meeting. It was just ridiculous.
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38. Less Is More
I was once asked by my boss to take a pay cut so that they could have me work more hours without running into financial difficulties. Yes, they wanted to tack on an extra 16 hours to my work week, including Saturdays and Sundays, while reducing my pay so that I would get the same amount of money for doing significantly more work.
They were very angry when I said no, and then they told me I had no choice. When I told them that I was quitting, they tried to tell me that I couldn’t. They were insistent that I was going to continue to work for them no matter what. They were flabbergasted when I actually didn’t show up the next day. Sucks to be them, I guess!
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39. Dispose Of This Kind Of Behavior
When I was sixteen years old, I worked at a restaurant called Carl's Jr. One day, there was literally nothing to do. We had no customers, and everything was clean as a whistle. So, for no reason, the manager made me stand there and count the disposable cups, over and over again, because we weren't allowed to do nothing.
40. It’s Either You Or Me
I had been offered a job from an old friend that paid triple the weekly wage I was earning at a camera store, for the exact same hours. Plus, it didn't require me to serve customers, which was a huge bonus in my book. So, I handed in my letter of resignation at the camera store. My manager looked me straight in the eye and requested that I didn't quit.
He claimed that if I quit, the owners of the store would be removed from the country. He was 100% serious and maintained direct eye contact with me the entire time whilst I was trying my best not to laugh at the concept of store owners having their immigration process affected by a casual employee resigning. I’m pretty sure that’s not how anything works…
41. Hands-On Approach
I am an officer of the law. I once had an officer on patrol tell me to trace and follow some wire we found leading to a footpath crossing. The wire went into the ground, and he told me to tug on it. I told him he was an idiot and that he should pull on it himself. I was angry to begin with because all of our counter IED training said not to ever touch a loose wire.
I firmly refused the order and then jogged back to the rear of the formation. I guess he realized how stupid he was being, because I never heard anything about my behavior afterward.
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42. Going Out With A Bang
I worked in my job for six years and, due to a union dispute saying that my job should be a union position, I was going to be let go and my position was to be backfilled with an existing union member. I was already furious—but what they asked me to do crossed the line. I was asked to train this new guy before they let me go.
You have no idea how humiliating this whole experience was. It was by far the most ridiculous thing I was ever asked to do for a job.
Shuttrestock
43. Clean Living
I was doing some man nannying for this crazy lady last summer. She had hired me to take care of the kids, but it was mainly housework. She was an extreme hypochondriac who obsessively made me wash my hands after I touched any surface. I wish I was exaggerating—but it gets even worse. She would also make you wash the bottom of your shoes if you went outside and came back in.
She would constantly be on me for not cleaning the kitchen, but at the same time, I was not allowed in the kitchen while she was in it. So she would literally be in the kitchen, forbidding me from entering, and simultaneously demanding to know why the kitchen wasn’t clean yet! I would have to sit on the outside threshold and jump in the second she left, or else she would freak out.
Then, she would come storming back in and I would have to jump out, followed by being forced to explain again that the reason I wasn't working was because you freak out if I'm in the kitchen at the same time. Then, once in the kitchen, I could only use the sponge and gloves on the left side of the sink, and I was only allowed to touch dirty dishes.
I was never, ever allowed to touch clean dishes once the dishwasher was done. I once had to wipe down every knob in the house with hydrogen peroxide because strangers had done some work and had touched all the knobs. So, the moral of the story is, if you ever become a nanny, get to know and ask around about the mom first!
44. Passing The Real Test
Back in the day, I was a used car salesman for a few years. At one location I worked at, there was a lady and her kids who came in looking for a car. She saw one that she liked, but it had not gone through the safety certification yet. Until a car has its safety check, I legally cannot show it to a customer. So, I went and asked my manager when it would be checked so I could show it.
He quickly scribbled something onto a blank inspection sheet, handed it to me, and said, "Go do it right now." These checks are supposed to include things that you need a trained mechanic to complete, like inspecting the brakes, frame integrity, etc. I told him I don't even check my own oil, so I couldn't possibly do a safety inspection for a car that a customer was planning to drive.
I refused to comply with this instruction. I was then fired the next day, allegedly because, "We had too many salespeople." Knowing what I know now, I would have sued the pants off of them. They broke so many laws and regulations while I was working there that I don’t even know where to begin. Unfortunately, my 22-year-old self was not that wise.
45. A Lesson You Won’t Soon Forget
I was once asked to cover another teacher's class. While still taking care of my class. Even though the other teacher's classroom was in a different building. I asked if I should try fitting all of the students into one room. They said no, and reminded me that this would be a safety hazard. They said I should go to the other teacher's classroom.
I asked if I was supposed to just leave my own class alone. They said no, and reminded me that I couldn't leave my class unattended under any circumstances. What was I thinking?
46. Dog Days
My old boss once brought his dog to work for the day. At one point while it was there, it peed all over the floor in the office. My boss then asked me to clean it up for him. I looked at him and said, "There's a reason I don't own a dog." He tried to argue with me, so I just got up and walked out of the office. Screw that!
47. Bathroom Break
Two weeks after being hired as the IT Manager for a manufacturing company, my boss stopped by my desk and told me that he needed me to unclog a toilet in the men’s bathroom. When I looked at him weirdly, his reply was, "Oh, you're the Facilities Manager too. Didn’t anyone tell you?" I was stunned beyond words and didn’t quite know how to react.
Finally, I told him to give me the phone number of the plumber that they used and called them. If he was willing to pay my hourly pay rate to have me fix a toilet rather than getting one of the ten-dollar an hour shop guys to do it, then he can pay for a plumber instead. This remains the most ridiculous task I have ever been asked to complete during a job.
48. Bringing Out The Animal In You
I used to work at a pet store called Petcetera. I was the only employee in the store most of the time. One day, we had about five customers in line and I was working the cash register. Meanwhile, my manager was calling me literally every minute to keep rudely asking how long it would take for me to finish, as he needed me to help him find some information that I didn’t even know how to find.
So I had to help the ever-growing line of customers while pausing every five seconds to answer the phone and update him on why I was taking so long, slowing my progress down in the process. I had only been working at this store for less than two weeks at the time, so I have no idea why he even expected me to be capable of answering his questions.
Meanwhile, there were customers in almost every department waiting for help that they would never receive since there were no other employees available to help them. And somehow, this was all considered my fault in my manager’s eyes. Even though I had just started, I decided to quit that day. I will always hate Petcetera, and I hope they go out of business soon.
It was by far the worst job I ever had.
49. Burn Baby Burn
I worked at the deli in a grocery store and we had to empty the oil from the chicken fryers. But we didn't have time to wait until they cooled down. So, we had to drain very hot grease and oil into huge buckets and walk those buckets a few yards over to the sink to dump them out. Yes, we actually dumped grease and oil into a sink by the gallon. This place sucked.
Here's the kicker, though: The floor was insanely slippery from all of the spilled oil. My greatest fear in life is being horribly burned, and here I am transporting almost-boiling grease over basically a 4-yard ice rink. I could have gotten badly injured. Thankfully, the last bucket was almost all water. But we didn’t all realize that at first.
When I took it up to the sink and dumped it, the contents splashed back up on me. The whole deli went completely silent for a second while everyone was looking at me, ready to go into emergency mode in case I was seriously burned. But luckily, like I said, it was mostly water. I was really shaken up by the incident and how close I came to having my whole life altered forever.
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50. Throwing The Baby Out With The Bathwater
I’m a retired paramedic. I've seen a lot of messed up stuff—but one moment was worse than all the rest. I was once told to immediately place a freshly delivered newborn baby back inside of its mother’s body. She delivered in a transport ambulance en route to the Weill Cornell Medical Center. She then lost her mind over the fact that her baby wasn't born in a hospital and, furthermore, not born in a good hospital.
As a result, the mother then told me to "hold the baby in with your freaking hand!" I explained that this wouldn't work and that we were having this child on 3rd Avenue. She completely flipped out and started yelling at me like a complete lunatic. Finally, she and I made an agreement that I would say that the baby was still inside her body until we backed up at the hospital driveway.
I guess this satisfied her requirement of her kid being born at a hospital versus next to a dry cleaner’s on 3rd Avenue. So, as far as that kid knows, she was born in the Weill Cornell Emergency Room Ambulance Bay. She will never have any idea how much turmoil surrounded her birth, and how unreasonable a request I was given in the process.
51. Disappear This Miss, Please
I may or may not have carried a heavily intoxicated girlfriend and a large amount of substances out of my boss's house (CEO of a very large company) while she was covered in her own filth so his wife wouldn't catch him as she arrived home from her sister's house a day early. How did this happen, you ask?
My old boss regularly cheated on his wife with any number of women. Well, he calls me one day, because we are friends away from work, and asks me to come to his apartment ASAP. I drive over there, and he's blitzed, and this chick is laying undressed in her own filth mumbling about something. He says he has to shower and clean up because his wife is ten minutes away so please "Get that out of here."
I grab the girl and help her to her feet and cover her up with a t-shirt. As I'm walking her out, he yells for me to grab the party bag. The only bag is a Dopp kit. I grab it, jump in my car and drive off. This girl is blasted! She doesn't know where she lives and is sure she's having a heart attack. So, I calm her down somewhat and reach in her purse and find her ID.
Luckily, she has her current address on it, and I take her home. I drive back to my house and pull into the driveway and remember the Dopp kit. I open it up and there's a LOT of illegal substances in there. I got a steak dinner and a few beers later that week from the boss. Needless to say, I no longer work there.
Sources: Reddit,
