Recently we talked about coworkers throwing tantrums at work, and here are 15 of my favorite stories you shared.
1. The cup
My office kitchen has a dish drying rack next to the sink. We don’t have office-supplied dishes, just people bringing in dishes from home and a random collection of stuff that’s been left behind over the years.
One of our cleaning staff asked a group of us one day if she could put away the dishes that had been living on the drying rack since forever. (Cleaning dishes wasn’t a part of her job, I think she was just getting annoyed with the clutter.) We of course said yes. So she put away all of the dishes into (labeled) cabinets, and disassembled the rack to give it a wash.
Next day, a coworker was LIVID. The cup he used to re-fill the Keurig was GONE! We assured him that it had just gotten put away somewhere, please check the cabinets. He kept ranting as if we hadn’t spoken. “I can’t believe someone would STEAL dishes!” We tried multiple times to explain, to no avail. I later found the special cup in the cabinet labeled “cups,” but if he wasn’t going to listen, I certainly wasn’t going to help him anymore.
He eventually bought a new cup. He made a big deal about the new cup. He labeled it “FOR KEURIG – DO NOT STEAL.” He also reassembled the drying rack upside down “in protest.”
2. The challenge
A person stood up in the office, loudly quit, pointed at a bunch of people while telling them to F-off, and then actually challenged one of my friends to step outside to the parking lot to fight.
3. The destruction
Years ago, I worked in university fundraising; the job was very standard 8:30-4:30 every day; but the expectation was one day a year (literally one) all staff had to plan to work 8:30 am to 7:30 pm for the school’s annual gala. The gala was at the on campus event space and always on a Friday evening.
The date was chosen a full year out and since it was a fundraising event, our entire department was expected to be there. We also got a million reminders about it. It the five years I worked there, only one employee ever missed it and it was because she was in the hospital.
We had an admin employee, D, who requested Gala day off with just a few days’ notice, because she wanted to “try her hand at bartending” at her boyfriend’s bar. Our boss told her no, but he was willing to let her leave at 5 pm (so a mostly regular work day with 30 minutes of overtime.)
Instead she quit on the spot, then while the rest of us were at the gala, she came back to our office (as seen on security cameras) and destroyed every potted plant in the office and stole every stapler and all of the paper out of the printer.
4. The injustice
I’m in HR and I once conducted an info session for staff about the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) so that everyone would know their rights and how to apply for leave. I got heckled and harassed by an older guy who wanted to know if management had bargained this policy with the union before rolling this out. After the meeting, he totally lost his mind at me, having a loud tantrum, and would not let it go that we were somehow limiting people’s ability to take leave. Somehow, he saw me, the new HR rep (female) as the right person to chew out for this “terrible injustice.”
Dude did not understand that FMLA is a FEDERAL law that’s designed to protect employees. And we were in D.C. where the local FMLA is even more generous than the federal FMLA. I remember saying, “Do you really think you will need more than 11 months of job-protected leave in a 24-month period?” But he was incensed that this “change in policy” didn’t go through the union to be approved.
Dude was a lawyer.
5. The “Lost” finale
When the series “Lost” ended in like 2010, many fans of the show did not like the ending. One of my coworkers (I was an intern) was a super-fan of the show and had spent months counting down with great excitement to what was sure to be a thrilling conclusion to her favorite series. She even left early that afternoon of the day the finale aired. to “get mentally ready for it.”
She came in the next morning very upset about the disappointing finale. Someone asked her about it, and she went OFF about how disappointing it was. She then realized that I, the intern, had made a mistake while she was on her PTO the previous day that would cause her some extra work (admittedly, my bad). Instead of talking to me about it calmly, she came over and shouted, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? This is already a hard day for me, I didn’t sleep last night, I am exhausted physically and mentally, and now I have to deal with ANOTHER THING. I should be able to take PTO to enjoy the end of my FAVORITE SHOW without having to worry about work blowing up!”
6. The flat tire
I have worked in secondary education and law and have seen some impressive meltdowns over the years. My favorite was the attorney who got in a screaming argument with the firm owner (note, the screaming was all the attorney). She stomped out of his office, slammed the door, and then rushed out the front door threatening to never come back. Five minutes later, she reappeared. Her car had a flat tire, and the owner ended up giving her a ride home.
7. The mutiny
I was a member of a committee that runs events throughout the year and one big annual gathering. One member of the committee moved to a different country but wanted to stay involved. We tried to make it work but after a few months, it became obvious that the set-up was unsustainable. There were just too many things that needed to be done in person, not on Zoom. They were asked to step aside and informed that they could still volunteer at events when they were home but their role on the committee wasn’t working out.
They lost their mind. They tried to hack our email address and Facebook page but didn’t get in. They did get into our Instagram and put up a post about betrayal and sabotage but it was spotted immediately and deleted. Then, they took other volunteer’s numbers from the WhatsApp group and tried to stage a mutiny. When that didn’t work, they went completely quiet for months, everyone forgot about it and moved on. Then on the day of Big Annual Event, they turned up to protest.
8. The casting decision
We once had a seasonal employee cause about $3 million in damages because they didn’t get an offer to come back the next year. We’re a large theater company (operating budget in the billions) and this actor came in after closing and took a sledgehammer to the set because they didn’t get cast in the next season.
9. The lemon wedges
At our cafeteria in our office, there are complimentary ice water dispensers, as well as lemon wedges you can take to squeeze lemon into your drink. One day, an employee decided to take all the lemon wedges (several dozen) and, when a cafeteria worker told him to stop, he pointed out there was no rule against it, which was technically correct but completely lacking common sense and decency. When the cafeteria worker again insisted he couldn’t take all those lemon wedges, as it was considered theft from the company, he proceeded to throw a tantrum and start yelling at the poor worker (who almost certainly made a small fraction of what he did and yet still managed to not steal lemon wedges) and had to be escorted out by security.
The next day there was a sign on the lemon wedge holder saying employees could only take two and if they wanted to take any more, they cost 50 cents each.
10. The cards
I was working as a teller at a bank, and we had a huddle with the bankers every day before opening. One day in mid-December, one of the bankers suggested that as a nice gesture, everyone should take one of the bank branded thank-you cards and send it to one our favorite customers to thank them for their business.
And everyone lost their minds.
A teller who had retired recently had left a drawer full of ink stamps, which we could use to decorate the cards. But they were special, so someone said they were the only one allowed to use the stamps. We had to make a list so no customer got two cards. We have to personalize the message. No, it needs to be universal so none of the customers get offended. Well, I’m going to send mine to X. No, you can’t, I’ve known him longer, you can write to Y instead. I made a list of the regulars and now everyone needs to write five cards. You can’t write that, are you stupid?
Three minutes in, the banker just stopped engaging, along with about three people in our 12-person branch (I was one). Ten minutes in, we opened and two people were crying. I messaged my manager asking if I was supposed to write a card. She replied very professionally with a message that boiled down to, “Whatever you want. I’m letting them tire themselves out like toddlers and will tell them to forget about in like an hour.” Two people were sent on (separate) breaks to pull themselves together. Someone left early because they “couldn’t be here right now.”
It’s been eight years and I still think about that chaos regularly. I ran into the banker in the grocery store last month (both of us left years ago) and when I asked him if he remembered it, he said, “Cards are a great idea! I sent one this morning!”
11. The color dispute
I once worked with a woman who was very friendly, but not super professional. She had a big personality. Which could be fun.
But it also meant that once I ended up in a mediation with her and two managers where she cried because I’d said something was pink and she told me I was wrong, the thing was purple – but instead of agreeing with her that it was purple, I thought it was okay to say, “Maybe a pinky purple.”
12. The brief
When I practiced law (2000s) we had one partner who still threw books and staplers at people, but most of them had developed other behaviors to express their displeasure, including one guy who threw a draft of a brief I had written on the floor, got up from his desk, and stomped on it several times.
13. The message
My workplace is remote, and we had to terminate an employee. It took her over a month and several reminders to send back her computer equipment. When it showed up, she’d written “FUCK YOU” over as much of the box as she could. I bet the delivery driver was confused.
14. The preacher
My first job out of college, I was a supervisor at a beer maker, and the stories I have from there were truly whack. I respected when employees at least used creativity and wit to be pains. I had an employee who was angry about a new rule being added to the employee handbook. He spent several hours creating a pulpit on top of a “stage” he had constructed from tables stolen from the break room, and tablecloths made out of banners from the marketing department. He glued the handbook cover page to an old bible and climbed up to the pulpit and began “preaching” about the evils of The Man. This all took place smack in the middle of a manufacturing floor.
15. The resignations, plural
It was my first or second day working at the Hellmouth (an apartment community that was … very special), and this one maintenance worker kept walking in to the office lobby/community lounge and going on really loud and unhinged rants, exclaiming that he quit, storming out … and then coming back in 10-15 minutes later and un-quitting before repeating the entire cycle again. He did this maybe three or four times before HellBoss got back from her lunch (I guess he was warming up?) and then put on one more extra dramatic performance before storming off. Hellboss just kind of shrugged, then had the maintenance supervisor change the locks on the office doors and the maintenance building and deprogram the guy’s key card.
Dude showed up for work the next day and reportedly started crying when he couldn’t get in.
The post the cup meltdown, the “Lost” finale, and other tantrums you’ve witnessed at work appeared first on Ask a Manager.
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