Reddit user u/Autistic_chickpea recently asked, "Redditors of HR: What are the biggest office scandals/dramas you’ve experienced?" Here are some of the wildest responses:
1. "Security footage showed my manager rummaging through a computer he had no reason to be on. IT checked out the computer, and they found he deleted some security footage, so they recovered it. He was fired for having sex with one of the employees at work. She was fired, too."
2. "My female boss was having sex with her male boss in the parking garage. Working late and her cellphone off, my boss's husband came looking for her and found them in her car. A fight ensued. I got the story from the garage security guy. My boss and her boss both had black eyes the next day at work. I didn't get to see what the husband looked like. Both bosses continued their jobs like it never happened."
3. "Someone got fired, and they smeared their shit all over the bathroom on the way out. From then on, people had to be escorted out by security."
4. "I found out a potential candidate was fired from his previous job because he threw his boss into a dumpster. The dude was 6'5", so yes, he picked his boss up over his head and threw him into the dumpster. I have to admit, I'm envious."
5. "An outbreak of herpes at a branch office. Most of the staff at this office were engaged in a web of affairs that would most accurately be described as Genital Musical Chairs. I fired the HR rep for this branch office because she was involved in the affairs. I also fired two who were on probation for other poor job performance, and the rest resigned. The handful of staff members who were not involved in the affairs was transferred while the branch office was closed."
6. "A department director was fired for paying her own employee to be her child surrogate."
7. "I am friends with an HR attorney for a large agency. There are so many stories, but possibly my favorite is one where they walked in and fired one woman for dereliction of duty as soon as she showed up for her shift. Like, she was horrible at her job and barely performed; she was probational, and it was clearly not working out. My friend and her boss left for lunch, and when they returned, they discovered the employee was back on campus and working as though nothing happened, even greeting them at the gates. They were shocked and asked why she was there when she’s been terminated."
8. "Normal scandal. The owner left his wife for his secretary. But, the wife owned 50% of the company, and she made him pay through the nose for it."
9. "I worked at an ad agency where the HEAD of HR sent a companywide email and attached an unsecured Excel spreadsheet containing everyone in the company's salaries. It was a wild 24 hours or so after that, and several people walked when they found out what co-workers and peers were making over them, and it put some pretty nasty pay-related inequality on display. She was NOT fired."
10. "Not a huge thing, but two of my employees were having a fling, I guess. One day, one of them left their volume on when they accidentally had their phone read out loud, 'What to do when you love them but they don’t love you.'"
11. "We had one employee that was a real 'go-getter.' He was very professional, his numbers were always good, etc. Since our most senior rep wasn't interested in changing her hours to take a position, we were certain that this guy was going to get it. There was a big meeting at the main office to make the announcement; all of us were sitting around the table....and the big boss finally opens the door and comes in, followed by the manager, followed by HR, followed by assistant manager...followed by two police officers. They arrest this employee. After he'd been led out in cuffs, we got the story. Apparently, money had been going missing from the safe. A little here, a little there. They had been investigating for months and finally got the proof they needed. To say that we were ALL shocked was an understatement."
12. "A guy I hired (and fired a week later due to poor performance) got caught robbing a bank a few weeks later."
13. "The person that was in charge of all of our purchasing (raw materials, equipment, tools, etc.) was fired two months ago because there was $500k worth of purchases on the company credit card for tools that are nowhere to be found. It now makes sense that he was able to afford the same model of Tesla as the owner of the company even though he was an hourly employee that only worked, like, five hours a day."
14. "One of the founders was having an affair with the head of human resources."
15. "I feel like I’ve been waiting for this moment for almost a decade. One time, I had to do an HR investigation because somebody talked about somebody else’s dog. As in their canine. In the end, it was determined that someone had, in fact, talked disparagingly about someone else’s dog. It was advised, moving forward, to refrain from making disparaging remarks about people's pets. I wish I was joking."
16. "I once worked at an office where someone allegedly was fired for microwaving their socks in the break room."
17. "Back in 2000-ish, one of my coworkers had a giant crush on a guy in the office. Eventually, they started dating, then one day, his fiancée showed up to confront him...as did the three other women in the office he was with. He was due to be deployed in two weeks, almost the perfect crime."
18. And finally, "VP of marketing who was divorced with a young daughter and his number two who was married with two kids were having an affair. Okay, not a great situation, but sometimes, people end up together after working together for so long, and they got messy. Here’s what sucked: The woman’s husband found out, and he proceeded to copy-paste rather explicit messages into EVERY SLACK CHANNEL for our company the same evening."
What's your workplace scandal? Tell me about it in the comments!
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.