Note: This post contains mentions of sexual harassment.
No matter where you work, there's bound to be some sort of workplace drama going down. I asked the BuzzFeed Community if they could spill the tea on what's going on where they work, and sheesh, this gossip is juicy!
Here are some of the stories.
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
1. "I worked at a large, very well-known company. One day, one of the higher-level executives walked past my coworkers and me — and it felt as if the air was sucked from the room. The whole vibe changed, and everyone was giving each other these looks. I asked my boss what the deal was, and she said she couldn't tell me but told me to google his name. I rushed to my desk, and as soon as I searched his name, several news articles appeared. The police were reopening his late wife's unsolved ax murder case, and they were questioning him again because he was still their main suspect and his behavior was suspicious. It was awkward when he was around after that."
2. "I used to work for a nonprofit homeless shelter for families with children, and I was just an intern at the time. It was a small affiliate, and I housed up to four families at a time and worked to get them back on their feet. There were only five full-time employees at the time, so there wasn’t much to gossip about...until there was."
"We had one 'day house' where our offices were and where the families would go during the day if they were off work, and a 'night house' where the families lived and slept. During the day, the families weren’t allowed to be at the night house, but it was the staff's job to make sure the house chores were done the night before. Well, long story short, one of the employees went to the house to show a new volunteer around and caught the case manager having sex with her boyfriend in the overnight volunteer bedroom."
3. "Two years ago, the head of my lab started flirting with me. We became friends and then started hanging out, but eventually we started dating. But we had to hide our relationship because 1) she swore up and down to me that she wasn't gay and I was an exception, and 2) very shortly after we got together, she got promoted and became my direct supervisor. Recently, she broke up with me. It's hilarious because not a single person we worked with ever put it together, even though we were constantly hooking up all over the building. If I had told anyone, she would have lost her job. Now she has no problem flaunting her new boyfriend around work, though. I really need a new job."
4. "I used to work at a hospital where one of the receptionists started having an affair with a local schoolteacher. His wife and daughter had no idea this was happening. He would full-on French-kiss his mistress in front of patients and staff in the reception area and would keep a picture of his side chick on his desk."
5. "I found out the manager who had the job before me would harass underage staff. We had girls as young as 16 who said he would text them late at night and flirt. He was in his late 20s and engaged. If they rebuffed him, he would punish them by cutting their hours or putting them on the worst shift. This was at an aquarium, so we also had a lot of schools visit, and families with annual passes. One young girl applied whose family had had annual passes since she was 12. When she was finally old enough to apply, I had replaced the sketchy manager. She was very innocent and was just so happy to finally work there."
"In passing, she told me that she would often come to the aquarium, and the manager would find her and bring her upstairs to an animal care room —essentially a closet within a large storage area, far from any other work area — and they would hang out and he'd let her help him with the animal care. One hundred percent he was grooming her. Her family was so appreciative that he was 'mentoring' her."
6. "I work in retail. There was a time when a former coworker was caught stealing money from the register. It wasn't a random $20 here and there, but over $750. That made it a felony, so she's in jail now. Definitely been the talk of work for a while. The second one is from another former coworker: Her 16-year-old was pulling her car out of the parking lot and was hit by another worker, who was in her 60s. The woman who hit the 16-year-old claimed her car was hit instead and filed a lawsuit against the teenager and her family. Wild stuff."
7. "The principal at our school went through a divorce. Shortly after, he started spending a lot of time with the married secretary. That blew up around the time he started dating a teacher at the school, who was also the secretary's friend. The secretary's husband found out and confronted them at school. She found another job, while he is still our principal. He ended up marrying, but she took another job because she was tired of the gossip. The teachers still joke about it all the time, especially after the principal applied for a job at the secretary's new job and didn't get it."
—Anonymous
8. "I had just graduated from college and applied for a position I knew I wouldn't get, but I was hoping for the interview experience. I did the interview and didn't hear anything for a month. I then got a call saying I got the job! I was ecstatic but a bit confused. Typically, this position requires two years of experience, and they usually do an internal hire before going external. A few months later, I found out the only other applicant — who was internal — had slept with one of her previous bosses, thereby ruining his reputation and family, and her own."
"She also apparently told horrible rumors about a coworker and her male boss, which the boss's wife found out about. My current boss had no idea of this until it was brought up by his coworker, and he shut it down there. Thanks to her infidelity, I got a pretty sweet gig."
9. "One of our fellow cashiers has been dating another employee for about a year. They're the It couple at our store, and everyone adores them. What she doesn't know is that on the days she doesn't work, he's flirting with all the other female cashiers. No one had the balls to tell her until a few days ago. One of our managers finally spilled the beans. The blowup was massive. She slapped him and ran through as many terrible words as she could before she was escorted out. She still has her job after a brief suspension. However, he got fired for making out with another girl in the freezer in the back of the store. Karma for cheating at its finest."
10. "I had a coworker who took it upon herself to make my life miserable. She was transferred from a different store. I was only recently out as trans when she arrived, and she would basically trash-talk me to anyone she was on shift with. And I'm talking for petty bullshit like arriving a minute late ONCE, or forgetting to print a receipt for a sandwich I paid for and ate on shift. But then shit got real nasty when I declined some overtime weekend shifts. I would normally do these, but my best friend got tickets to a drag show for my birthday, and the weekend was free on my end, so any extra shifts were OPTIONAL, not mandatory."
"She basically spent the whole weekend passive-aggressively bringing me up to both staff and customers. Spouting out all sorts of crap, and without realizing who she was talking to, continued to go on about my gender 'delusions' and 'questionable lifestyle' to my partner's aunt and uncle. Karma caught up: She got fired and I guess is someone else's problem now."
11. "I worked at a bank. So many affairs! Nearly everyone was sleeping with the same guy. Office parties were the place to see everything going down. I’d just observe who was sneaking around. A manager was recorded saying inappropriate things, and he was fired. He had a history of being inappropriate before. A coworker stole nearly $300,000 in cash from a night deposit bag. The cameras weren’t working."
12. "My male manager was not a fan of my coworker or me because we were competent and hard workers. He favored the other two in our department, for whatever reason, who were not so competent or hardworking. Things snowballed when a new executive came in who was more in line with my and my coworker's way of thinking. We were on a departmental call, and my manager was calling me out publicly for doing my job, which consisted of communicating with another department he didn't like. I ignored it. After the call, he thought he'd privately sent a nasty message about me to one of the girls in my department — nope. It went to our whole group chat. I called him out in the chat. I screenshotted and reported it and mountains of evidence to HR. He tried to get me fired, all kinds of drama; he ended up rage-quitting. No one was upset."
—Anonymous
13. "I worked in a fast casual-dining chain back in college. Because we opened that location, the staff got to know each other well. I was a waitress, and one day, I had a conversation with another waitress about how she had recently discovered she had polycystic ovary syndrome, and she thought that meant she'd never be able to have kids, which was what she wanted most in the world. Not even two weeks later, she found out she was pregnant, and the only person she'd slept with was a waiter in the same store who was just the worst. He was self-righteous and a chronic mansplainer. Of course, she was ecstatic! Him — not so much. Next thing you know, he moved across the state. She had the baby and soon ended up hooking up with one of the restaurant's kitchen guys. Now they have a happy family together with a few more kids!"
14. "I worked in HR for a large company. It was widely known that one of the women in the department had an affair with a sales executive when they were both married to other people. When it came out, he had to leave the company. They divorced their partners and married each other. Then, when I was there, she started having an affair with the director of HR (again, both were married), and they got caught on a business trip, but this time it was just sort of brushed under the rug. The department kind of just moved on from it and they stopped seeing each other, although it caused all sorts of tension and questions about favoritism, and basically blew up the department for a while."
"Around the time that I left, I noticed that one of the customer service directors was hanging out in HR a lot, for no reason. He worked in another building. Cut to a year later when I met up with my work friend, and she told me that he and the woman were having an affair, divorced their spouses, and were now marrying each other. This woman was so smart and so kind, and it just blew my mind that she kept having affairs with her bosses and coworkers."
15. "My workplace gossip story is from a retail store I used to work at. One of the guys who worked there had contracted chlamydia when he lost his virginity. Another girl I worked with had contracted chlamydia and told everyone she got it from having a threesome with two random guys. She lied. The other coworker had given it to her unknowingly, but why make up such an elaborate lie to hide the truth?"
16. "I work in retail, and my married colleague is having an affair with a manager. She got promoted most likely because of this (he would have put her name forward). It's been reported by other people, but nothing was done because it would be up to the management in the store to take action. So if they're all in on it, then nobody gets disciplined. I personally think one of them should leave, as they make it so obvious what's going on between them."
17. "A friend of mine told me about one of their coworkers getting into a relationship with their warehouse director, who then got very controlling and abusive emotionally. When she told the company what was going on, they told her they would take care of it and she would keep her job, but then they fired her a week later to sweep the whole thing under the rug. It upset everyone she worked with — it was some serious drama that went down."
18. "I was working at an easily recognizable organization that advertises nationwide. To work there, you needed to be pretty professional and put together. Well, my manager needed to hire another person to do what I do. The manager felt great about the candidate and was excited about the interview. The day of the interview came, and she interviewed this person for a bit before bringing her to the floor to meet her potential coworkers. This woman, probably mid-40s, seemed to be nice and put together. Then my manager asked my favorite coworker and me to take this woman to a conference room to help get her up to speed on the project we were in the middle of. Now, this project is huge, will be seen by everyone, and will require a lot of overtime as well as the ability to understand how it all fits together. Well, we started outlining the project, background, and reason for the project. I stopped several times to see if she had questions. She never did."
"This was a huge red flag for me. After half an hour, we were pulled back to our desks, where there was now a security guard. He wasn't introduced, and my manager quickly grabbed the candidate and disappeared into a smaller room nearby. The security guy followed behind and stood in front of the door. Finally, they emerged. The manager returned to the desks, and the candidate was led out by security! Found out later she was apparently really drunk, and my coworker and I had been told to talk to her so my manager could figure out what to do.
"Then we learned that she was so drunk, she forgot where she had parked. But that was moot because this company would never let her drive in that condition. Finally, they get ahold of her sister, and she had to come from another city to pick her up. Ugh, it was a little entertaining until I learned the truth. I hope she gets the help she needs."
—Anonymous
19. "I worked at a pretty big hospital in 2019. A female coworker of mine was having sex with a male nurse in patients' beds. I reported it, but I think they still work there."
20. "I work in a specialty and emergency veterinary hospital. We had a specialist — a veterinarian who has additional board certification and provides the most advanced care to critically ill animals. He was married to the head anesthesia technician, and they have three kids together. We all noticed that he had formed a close friendship with one of the ICU techs, and one coworker even noticed that they 'brushed hands' on the treatment floor, less than 30 feet away from his wife. Someone ended up leaving an anonymous letter in the wife’s purse informing her of what was going on. Felt like I was watching a vet-med version of Jersey Shore where Snooki and JWoww left Sammi the note about Ron cheating."
"When they both came clean, he wanted to leave his wife for her, but the ICU tech was engaged and wanted to work things out with her fiancé. The vet went so far as sending her messages via Slack and was ultimately fired for it. His wife found another job eventually, but in the interim, they had to schedule the ICU tech on opposite shifts so they wouldn’t see each other. They are still married, and he regularly posts on Facebook about how he has the best wife and marriage. Obviously, we all felt terrible for his wife — who is an INCREDIBLE anesthetist — and three innocent children, but it was impossible not to discuss the drama that unfolded."
—Anonymous
21. "I worked at a retail store where the bathrooms were constantly out of order. By law, the company needed to have at least one set of working bathrooms for employees. They had retail workers try to fix the bathrooms rather than pay professionals to fix them. I called the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on them one day and forced them to actually get the bathrooms up and running. When my boss told me that 'someone had called OSHA on the business,' I pretended to know nothing about it and suggested it was one of the disgruntled employees who had quit."
22. "I work for a corporation where we have a generally easygoing and fun working environment with flexible working hours, for the most part. Because of this, people generally tend to slack off, or our bosses will be very lenient about giving time off. Most of us have noticed that one of our coworkers — let's call her Rebecca — has been getting way more time off than the rest of us and better treatment. I recently overheard a phone conversation Rebecca was having where she said, 'Yeah, I can come. Can I bring my boss as a guest? We're dating.' So I guess now I know why she's been getting special treatment. Haven't told anyone yet, as I'm not sure how to approach the situation, but yeah."
—Anonymous
23. "I work at a Subway, and we share the building with an ATV rental company. The ATV place is run by a married couple. The wife and the shop's mechanic have always been great friends, but recently, they hooked up and she moved in with the mechanic and left her husband. However, the husband did NOTHING. I mean, he filed for divorce, but that's all. Like, they all still come to work together EVERY DAY and act as if nothing has happened. On top of it, the husband keeps saying that his wife and the mechanic are just living together but not sleeping together, so he's lying to himself. The husband and wife have a son together, too, who works at Subway. He's a great kid but definitely has a hard time with what's happened. And to top it all off, the mechanic, husband, and wife keep coming and buying cookies from us and offering them to each other as peace offerings. We all see them do it, and it's so awkward."
—Anonymous