THIS MONTH, IN association with Sprite Cucumber, we’re celebrating all the times you stayed as cool as a cucumber. No matter what was happening around you. We want to hear your most amusing disaster stories – and we’ll be sharing the best ones.
If you don’t have at least one story about a co-worker whose mere presence sent you over the edge or an anecdote about a colleague who nearly brought the company to its knees, consider yourself very, very lucky.
And while you’re at it, spare a thought for the rest of us whose working lives have been spent biting our tongues, narrowing our eyes and silently questioning how the bloke beside us actually landed himself the gig.
By the looks of things, office rage is alive and well in most of your lives, and you had no trouble recalling a misdeed of misguided colleague.
As frustrating as we’re sure it was for you to re-live the memory, you guys did it and we went ahead and cherry-picked the best.
Oh, and hats off to you for keeping your cool because Christ knows we wouldn’t have been able.
So, without further ado, here are the best of the worst… if you see what we mean.
1. What a way with words he had.
I once worked as a groundskeeper (yep, just like Willie.) Anyway, one of my jobs was to clear the grounds of cigarette butts, and a bloke from the same department saw me do it one day, and christened me The Butt-Picker. And that was my name for the entire summer I worked there.
2. A little forward-thinking wouldn’t have gone astray here.
I once worked in a warehouse and this idiot put a pallet of stacked boxes on the wrapping machine but he never reversed the pallet truck so when the machine started rotating, the pallet (and the truck) was still attached and it got jammed straight away. Our supervisor said in his 17 years working there, he had never seen anyone do something so ridiculous.
3. It’s a cliché for a reason.
We worked in an open-plan office and the kitchenette was along one wall and one of my colleagues actually thought it would be OK to microwave fish. She actually did it. I know it’s not exactly a cardinal sin, but the smell floated throughout the entire office and turned everyone’s stomach.
4. Delightful.
Many moons ago I worked with a guy who told us he knew when women had their period because he could smell the pheromones. Another shared that his piles were so bad he was getting an op to remove them.
5. Gorge.
This one time my new coworker was too afraid to ask how to use the coffee machine and she just drank gross dregs for like a month and thought she was the height of continental. Lol
6. This beggars belief, lads.
We got a box of chocolates into our little office one Christmas and that evening it was just myself and a co-worker doing a shift and she disappeared for about 15 minutes. I didn’t think too much of it, but when I went next door to use the photocopier I found her crouched behind the copier, eating all the chocolates. She hid so she wouldn’t have to share them with me. She was 43.
7. No seriously.
I once worked with someone whose excuse for a prolonged absence was that he got locked in his porch… for three days.
8. Oh, have mercy.
I had a colleague who prepared a slide deck for his presentation. On each slide, in various positions, there was an inspirational quote, in additional to the bullet points and pictures. Upon further examination, each “quote” actually had his own name at the bottom.
9. Nobody likes wordplay off the new guy.
Years ago, a new person joined our office and told me he once worked as a pilot. I mentioned this to our boss who seemed surprised and brought it up with both of us one lunchtime. The new guy confirmed he had been a pilot and explained he to used work for a construction firm. Naturally, the boss was confused as to what a construction firm needed with a pilot. The new guy told him when he arrived at his previous firm, he was told his job was to ‘pile it.’ Pile it here, pile it there. The boss thought the new lad was gas and thought I was an idiot, and I had it in for both of them for the rest of my time there.
