What's the stupidest thing you've ever seen a coworker do?

I worked at Boeing for 20 years, so I have some prime examples of recto-cranial inversion, but the all-time winner in my mind was the old farte who used to love to go around grossing people out. He'd invariably do the "pull my finger" routine, things of that nature. Well, he pulled it one time too many, ripped off a foul one, then got the strangest look on his face and waddled out of the room at high speed! Oops, a little payload with that missile, eh, Frank?

Damn foul old man!

I worked in the kitchen of a nursing home (I was still in high school), I asked my co-worker what time it was. She turned her wrist to check her watch.... but she neglected to realize she was holding a full glass of milk in that hand.

It was very comical to see that.

...if you've never done it yourself. ;)

The kitchen gave the girls at a Bot Mitzvah(?) pork pepperoni pizza rolls. Ooh, we had to do some fast talking, we wait staff did. :D

Also they ran out of noodles at the kid's buffet, and I got read out by this old Jewish matron--she sounded like a drill sergeant.

..started to flail away wildly into the air, and when we convinced him to settle down and put the knife away, he stuck it into the front pocket of his jeans, but forgot to fold it.

And he stabbed himself in the hip.

Ouch.

this guy got stopped by the police for trespassing on private property and he told the cop "you ain't got nothin on me redneck."

He never came back to work...

Pizza blues:

Witnessed employee pull out "thick pan" pan out of 600 degree oven with bare hands.

Employee used pasta sauce on pizza bench

Grill Employee used pasta bambourine with 1" of sauce coating it as receptacle for Fryolator filtering.

Manager used boxcutter knife to open beverage syrup boxes(it's written at least 50 times on each side of the box to not use knives to open these things.), thus causing boss to eat the price for 6 beverage boxes.

Employee used hot water to de-ice walkways. In about 2 minutes there was a sheet of ice extending 6-10 feet around entire store.

;)

It was disgusting and it was the Manager that took the Underwear back and put them back out on the Shelf at Bloomingdales.
I buy that brand of underwear but I will never buy them from Bloomingdales ever again.
I went nuts when she put them back out and they were dirty in the seat. I always look for a sealed pair of Jockey Underwear now before I buy them.
I walked off the floor and quit that day in utter disbelief and disgust.
It was a Christmas job and at the time I didn't need the money.

How disgusting!

It was the Clinton days when money was plentiful and the store was packed with people because it was Christmas time.
I had a fit because you just don't do that.

This woman walks up to me and she told me that she wore the panties and they didn't fit right so she decided to bring them back. I told her you can't return underwear that it was against the health code. She had a fit and asked for the manager and I got the manager thinking that she wouldn't take them back and if she did she would toss them out.
The whole line watched everything go off and they were disgusted. I wanted the Manger put them back in the package and put them back out to sell. I took them off of the shelf and walked off the floor and gave them to the human resources dept.
Every time I buy panties I think about that scene. Always wash the underclothes that you buy.

Coworker told the big boss that he takes the bus to work every day. Truth is that the asshole drives a pre-owned Lexus. The big boss uses a separate entrance so he didn't know.

Seen 'em come and go. Stupidest? Support the Madness of King George - and lose their jobs anyway.

He was a spacey sort of guy, and he would always lick them before putting them on a report. Everyone noticed it and laughed about it behind his back. I was the supervisor, and I had to explain to him that he didn't have to lick them because they were self-stick. It was not easy to do this without bursting out laughing, but somehow I pulled it off.

in a federal government office building, no less. I saw the cops lead her out of the building in handcuffs. I don't know what federal prison she went to.

We worked landscaping and maintenance at a large shopping mall. We'd also use the truck for hauling garbage backs from the outside receptacles. In the summer this attracted a lot of bees. Lloyd figured he could get rid of the bees by swamping the bed of the truck with gasoline. We had to warn him, from a distance, that gasoline was flammable.

is when I was working in an overlay company, there was this always-stoned guy working there. During break, he went to sleep on a stack of about 30 1 1/8" plywood panels. After break, another employee took a fork lift, picked up the stack with him still sleeping on it, raised it about 15 feet in the air, and began spinning around in circles. The sleeping guy woke up, and began yelling at the fork lift driver to go FASTER! The fork lift driver did so, but fortunately began lowering the forks slowly as he did it. When the forks height got down to about 6 feet, the whole stack of boards slid off the forks, half-burying the stoner beneath them. The idiot had to go to the hospital with a back injury. I don't remember how they explained that one.

stupidest thing i ever saw. i couldn't believe ANYONE would be that stupid.

I forget which one...

well, vonnegut is slightly insane anyway, so maybe so.

...he was a short-order cook, and his watch slipped off his arm and into the deep fryer. He made an instinctual graf for it, and fried his hand.

if i had not been waiting for an order in the kitchen as a waiter, i would have never believed it.

Damn that is dumb.

We were driving down the street and there was a woman staggering around the road and even stepping on to it. She didn't look like a drunk or anything, she looked like she may have had heat exsaustion. As city workers I thought we should stop and see if she needed help. My co-worker wouldn't stop the truck so I had to radio the police department..I hate that guy.

...at a little gourmet market. There was of course lots of delegating of tasks--large and small. One day I asked an employee to wipe the counter by the coffee machine. There were crumbs and little puddles of water and coffee. We had just purchased a little hand held wet-vac for the store and it seems that everyone was enamored of the damned thing because this particular employee gets the wet-vac, finds an electrical outlet and proceeds to start vacuuming the crumbs, water, and coffee rather than simply using a wet cloth like a normal human being. I think I might have snapped at her and told her to put the wet-vac away and just use a cloth.
Sometimes it seems people will go right for the "toys" to do the simplest thing.

I used to manage a Dunkin' Donut shop at the Rockaway Mall in Rockaway Township, NJ. I had a new kid on his first night of work. I told him that there was a mop in the back room, soaking in a bucket of bleach. He was to rinse & ring out the mop, rinse out the bucket, fill the bucket with hot water and a cup of ammonia, and start mopping the floor.

When I heard him coughing, I went into the back room to check on him. Seems he decided to cut out a few steps, and simply poured the cup of ammonia into the bucket of bleach! I got him out of there and told him that what he had done by mixing ammonia and bleach was create a poisonous gas. His reaction? "Cool....."

He worked a few more days before he quit......

We all had to step outside while they aired the bldg out.

I barely remember that Dunkin' Donuts. My first job was at Hillary's Ice Cream in the food court. I remember once that people broke in over night and stole a shit load of ice cream and a couple cases of snapple. I always thought that was the dumbest theft ever, until my best friend and her accomplish broke into My Favorite Muffin and took muffins "just because." In any case, alarms were set off somehow, mad dash ensued, kiosk employees aided them in their escape.

The Rockaway Mall is a fucked up place.

During the Christmas Holidays.

One was watch someone I quite disliked walk out of the door of a C-130 Hercules. Unfortunatley, it wasn't airborne at the time, but there was nothing outside the door to lower him to the tarmac, so he fell about 8 feet and broke his leg, in front of about 40 people...

The other classic was a guy I still work with sometimes. He was told to move a 10 ton truck from one side of a lot to another during a lunch break. He took his lunch tray and his backpack, which contained a laptop and camera, among other things, and set them down right in front of the front wheel of the truck for some reason. He then went to start the truck up, but forgot to check if it was in gear or not. Of course it was, and as soon as he cranked the starter, the truck lurched forward about three feet, instantly squashing his backback and his lunch. The best part was when he jumped out of the cab, because he was flailing his arms like a maniac, shouting "MY LUNCH! MY LUNCH!". Hee hee...crazy Teamster!

another guy on the same job as the truck guy drove his wife's Saturn to work one day. He was going on and on about the dent-resistant polymer body panels. Of course, he had to demonstrate...

So he wound up to kick the door of his wife's white car, except he kicked the very similar looking white Oldsmobile parked right beside it, which happened to belong to our company accountant.

I was a Combat Engineer in the Army. One of our jobs was to teach infantry how to lay mine fields(yes i know mines are immoral and i am long gone from the military). One time I was teaching this Platoon of grunts how to quickly lay small anti personal mines.
The technique we used involved using a sledge hammer to make holes in the ground then we placed the mine in the hole. After demostarting how to use the sledge hammer to make the holes, I ask them to practice using small inert(dont go boom) mines while i taught their sergeant how to record the placement of the mines.
As I was doing so I hear my men, who were overseeing the grunts, burst out in laughter. The grunts were taking the mines, placing them on the grund, and using the sledge hammer to drive them into the ground. keeping the straightest face i could, I ask their sergeant to correct the mistakes his men were making. He looked at me puzzled and then said 'should they be arming them first'

In the field artillery, we sometimes burn left-over powder increments to get rid of them. Because of the hazards involved, many of us had not done or seen this before, so we attracted quite a crowd. We stacked the powder bags as indicated in the field manual, laid the ignition trail, moved everyone away, and started the stack ablaze. The resulting inferno was much more intense than we had expected and we quickly realized we need to move farther away. The battalion chaplain and his assistant had shown up and parked his jeep quite a distance from the burning powder but still too close. The high heat from the conflagration actually melted the plastic side windows of the jeep. Needless to say, we got a good laugh although the poor Chaplain probably got his ass chewed out.

I think you'd have been doing the genepool a favor if you had said yes...anyone who could think you could place a mine by hammering it down deserves the consequences!

This guy was one piece of work. He had somehow failed out of telephone installers school ( at that level it probably consisted of plugging it in). Anyone we all knew that this one day of field duty in basic training they were going to gas us. HE went to sleep and his battlebuddy didn't wake him up.

Soon there after three GI's were standing around when one of the two-man tents started making all kinds of weird noises and movements. Jackson was inside and he had been inhaling straight tear gas. In a panic he grabbed his gasmask and started running downhill. He stepped on the strap that usually went around your shoulders and since he had a death grip on the bag itself something had to give, he did. He face planted into the hillside and now really panicking he started to clear the leaves, he took one last full deep breath of the tear gas and slammed his face into the dirt. He then tried to cover up his head with all of the leaves. It didn't matter his eyes were on fire at that point or at least he thought they were.

Speaking of eyes Jackson also lost his BC (birth control) glasses during this incident. The next day the whole platoon had to go out and look for them. The very audible CRUNCH sound stopped everyone in their tracks.....Jackson had found his own glasses, what was left of them was under his left boot.

And then there was the guy who killed all the goats............

BWAHAHAHAHA!!! I've never heard them called that, but how apropos. I'm presuming that means the standard GI-issue black plastic frames. Having worn glasses myself until I got LASIK, that really tickled my funnybone.

BC, even Brad Pitt couldn't get laid in those glasses....okay maybe Brad Pitt.....

800 volts later he's doin' the fish out of water flop on the floor.

Playing a show in Texas I threw the amp on Stand-by. I was drunk... thinking that Stand-by would stop the flow of electricity. I barely got through that show..

... is to drop them into the deep fryer in a french fry basket.

Needless to say, the resulting water+boiling oil reaction caused the oil to boil over and gush down over the gas burner underneath, with the expected result of a spectacular oil fire that the fire department had to 'foam' out.

Then there was the truck driver who jumped off the back of the truck during lunchtime, only to have his wedding ring catch on the door handle. He staggered into the lunch room, finger 'in hand', asking if anyone had a plastic bag and some ice.

:-)

a :spank: and you know it!

YOU posted a lame copycat parody thread like 5 hours after everyone else! So YOU should get a :spank: :D

The stupidest thing a coworker did in front of me was he took a pallet(sp???) jack and used it like a skateboard and he went up and down the curb (we worked in the garden shop at the time at K-Mart), and, needless to say, the assistant store manager caught him....he got written up. What a fool!

on a computer. This is a $$60,000 a year systems analyst who can't figure out that the great big round black button, conveniently marked "power" as well as having the universal power button symbol had anything to do with turning on the computer.

returning from the parking lot, thought it be cute to step in a puddle. Slipped on the algae growing in it and fell real hard.

me on the computer stories - both users and people who are paid to actually know something about them! That thread could go on for days - people who don't bother to make sure a network cable's plugged in before calling to ask "is the Internet broken?" or people who don't turn a printer on, send 400 copies of the same thing, then call to complain their printer doesn't ever print - you turn it on for them, and all 400 copies start spewing out, and it's some picture from a porn site (they nearly got fired, too). The ones who plug the power strip back into itself, then plug the computer into the power strip and wonder if the computer's power supply is faulty...ah, I could go on for days with that theme. It's one thing when it's ordinary users doing that, but when it's our own staff members, who are paid to know a bit more than that, it's downright embarrassing.

Today :( I put the wrong groceries in a car. I feel so stupid for that.

Watched some ditzy person make a copy of a document before faxing it, so I--I mean SHE--would have a copy of it after it was faxed. In front of a whole bunch of people. Alright, it was me but I was preoccupied, or something.

my co-workers are a pretty sharp group. My boss once told an embarrassing story about a co-ed sauna he visited in Sweden in a conference room with 12 other men (all clients) and one woman (me). I wanted to disappear. Later, two of the guys told me they thought it was inappropriate.

Maybe I don't notice the stupid things others do because I'm too busy beating myself up for the last stupid thing I did.

piss his 400k/yr job away on cocaine and his secretary. His wife didn't like that much. He decided to "pursue other opportunities" according to the CEO.

replaced the sprinkler heads in a medium sized industrial laundry. They have a 10 x 20 x 8 foot steam room the clothes get sent through to unwrinkle them. The room is about 300 degrees. Well, somebody did not replaced and/or did not tighten a sprinkler head over the steam room. The system is recharged with a 60 hp pump. While recharging lots of water pours onto and into steam room creating a gigantic steam cloud and sparks shooting everywhere. Heh.

I had to add another shelf to one of the shelving units at the store where I work. The closing manager, in complete seriousness, gives me the directions of, "so probably the fastest way would be to go get a big piece of cardboard, put it on the top shelf, trace it, then cut it out. Then just go and bring that piece up of the attic and compare it to the extra shelves we have up there." I looked at her and said, "or I can just get a tape measure." Her response, "Fine...if you think that'll be easier." Then she walked away in a huff and didn't talk to me for the rest of the night.

But let's just say that for 98% of the stupid things that occur at work, I am the one who cleans up the mess.

Being the only smart person in any given company is hard work!

He has a complete idiot.

Someone sent their Steak back because it was overcooked so the Chef at a very expensive Restaurant that I worked at took a steak out of the garbage that had been tossed out because it reeked from being spoiled and he shook it off cooked it and served it. He then put a sauce on top of it and the waiter took the food out and the customer ate it. One of the most disgusting things that I have ever witnessed.

I reported them to the board of health.

The restaurant is out of business now but has anyone ever heard of Le Escargot?

:bounce: She: 35, Married
Me: 22, Single.


SIGH:hippie:

But a good friend was working as a safety manager at a military installation in ND. One day, her first week on the job, she had to explain to one of the mechanics why exactly it is a bad idea to store gasoline in an empty coffee can 10 feet away from a welding torch in a hangar filled with aircraft.

In her next position, working for the same military contractor, the mechanical staff who had to work on the 4th of July decided to get drunk and go joyriding in a cherry-picker. Except, they forgot to take the basket back down; it hit a major power line and cut power to a large portion of the California desert.

OK, so I wasn't unlucky enough to actually SEE it happen, but I was just down the road at the studio.
Guy thought he needed to measure a voltage in a transmitter and wound up providing a path for 12,000 Volts at 6 Amps to ground. Blew the paint off the floor where he was kneeling.
And this was the THIRD time he'd been knocked silly doing stupid shit like that. First 2 times it was 35,000 Volts.

He had disabled a safety interlock, that was the only thing that saved the company's bacon when OSHA got into it.

I'm sure this will start a bevy of armed forces stories.

The armourer had just been through and told us a bunch of rifles (including mine) were unservicable and should not be fired.

After we left the range, some jackass chambered a live round (note, we weren't on the range so you're not supposed to be doing that), in one of the defective weapons and discharged it over our heads. We all, of course, hit the deck. He then announced "nothin' wrong with this gun" (it's not a gun - guns are on battleships, it's a rifle).

The problem was, it could very easily have back-fired and blown his head off.

On another occasion, the platoon sergeant sent me ahead to scout, then had the whole platoon open up on my position (firing blanks) - "killing" me in the process. I wouldn't talk to him for two days.

Because we were using semi-automatic rifles with blanks, they didn't put out enough kickback to recycle the weapon, so we had to put a flash-arrester on the front. It was supposed to be wired down. Some people would loosen them off and fire them at people.

We were in trenches minding our own business and we heard something crashing up the hill. My tentmate fired at it, but "click", he hadn't cocked his weapon, so I shot it (with blanks). It was the CO.

Some idiot on the range kept sticking his helmet above the ramparts, so my sergeant told me to shoot it.

I, however, took the cake. I called in an airstrike 30 feet away from our position.

1) The dipshit owner of a company I used to work for pulled this. Geniusboy said to me "I have been doing computer stuff for year. I know what I am talking about".

We were on the phone with Dell, who sent us the wrong mount for a tape drive. We asked over and over what they suggested we do, and they finally told us to drill the mount so the holes lined up. I told
boy wonder we don't need to drill it. Just go get some heavy duty magnets to hold the tape drive, which was right under the SCSI disk array, in place. Off he ran to find magnets.

2) One summer when I worked in a boat yard, a co-worker got pissed at a customer. When we were on the boat for the fine tuning, Dave decided he wouldn't crimp the prop to the driveshaft. So the customer gets on board, pushes us aside (we were supposed to be instructing him) guns the sailboat in reverse out of the slip, and watches his four blade screw fly off the back and sink to the bottom of the harbor.

This is the same dipshit customer who had me sitting 80 feet up in a bosun's seat putting a telltale on top of his mast for $471. It would have cost him $21 while the mast was laying across sawhorses.

Later,
JM