The workplace rumor mill can be one of the best and worst parts of going to work. When you're away from the fray and not involved in the drama, there's nothing like a juicy rumor to spice up a boring Tuesday. But if you're a part of the problem, whoo, boy, look out.
Recently, we asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to share the current drama that's unfolding at their work, and people come through with some truly wild tales. Here's what they had to say:
1. "My coworker (48, male), who I've (43, female) been good friends with for over 10 years, sent me an email stating that he has 'discussed' with me several times that he would like to keep our relationship professional and not personal and that he would like me to honor his request. Mind you, we've both been WFH for the past three years and have seen each other in person maybe four times since COVID."
2. "We all had to go to management-sponsored conflict resolution over the locking and unlocking of a door. I work with skilled-nursing patients in wheelchairs. The policy is that the doors must be locked. However, this makes it hard for people in wheelchairs to get in and out of doors. It became a literal 'war on doors,' where people were going out of their way to either lock or unlock the doors."
"People started reporting each other over whether or not someone had locked or unlocked a door. We all had to go to conflict resolution over doors."
—Robin
3. "Working at a hotel, an ongoing source of drama is in housekeeping — specifically, housekeepers taking supplies off of each other's cart. Nothing will turn a bunch of grown women into children faster than someone taking something off their cart."
"It got so bad recently that the housekeeping manager went on a rampage with a Sharpie and wrote the housekeepers' names on everything. This will resolve the situation for...about three weeks."
4. "During Christmastime, this old woman named Brenda liked to hide behind the Christmas decorations around the office, then jump out and scare people. A girl had such a severe panic attack as a result of Brenda’s actions that she quit. Brenda refused to take accountability for her behavior and apologize."
5. "I used to work at this company, but one of my friends who still works there keeps me updated on the tea. There's a new hire, and she was always making excuses to get out of work, taking sick days, and pretending that she had a sprained arm, of all things. When she was out, everyone had to pick up the slack because they were understaffed. Well, they found her very public TikTok, where she was making rant videos the whole time she was supposedly sick."
"She name-dropped the company and was throwing f-bombs around, saying, 'I hate working here, I hate my coworkers, I should just work at Pottery Barn, for all I care.' Mind you, this TikTok has like 5,000 likes. So my friend casually sent the video to HR...I don't think the new person is staying much longer."
6. "Someone took a shit in the boss’s office, and it was diarrhea. The boss didn’t know who it was but clearly suspected a specific person, and frequently tried to get a confession out of him in very strange and roundabout ways, including asking him what he had eaten the day this took place (in an attempt to discover if he had eaten something that could cause diarrhea)."
"This, as well as several other related incidents, led to the coworker filing a complaint with HR. The subsequent investigation brought to light that the boss has a history of employee harassment spanning decades. He was recently fired."
—Kelly
7. "At one of my last jobs, it was about lunch: where to go and who was driving with whom. One person would literally get mad if someone chose to ride with someone other than them."
8. "One of the biggest bullies I’ve ever worked with (in the veterinary industry, of all places, as if that’s not hard enough) went ballistic because someone ate her Lean Cuisine. I swear she thought it was me, even though I rarely went in the break room."
"She put up all these passive-aggressive signs everywhere about her damn frozen five whole butternut squash ravioli.
"Brit — I wish I had eaten your stuff, because seeing you lose it over that was hilarious! Seriously, though, why are the absolute most horrible people always claiming to be empaths?!"
9. "My current supervisor (still don't know how she brown-nosed into that) is so messy, she began texting our director anonymously, making fake complaints and threats about herself to see what she could stir up to look like a victim and gain sympathy. It backfired."
"She was found out. She still goes around the office outright trying to coax staff into talking about others. I'm sure her days are numbered."
—Brittany
10. "Our chief operating officer bragged to the new batch of interns that she doesn't wash her hands after she pees. This comment was entirely unprovoked — she just decided to share it. But her sister is a nurse, so that makes it okay, I guess?"
11. "Someone in the upstairs office at my office building has decided that they're mad because the landlord is enforcing parking spot reservations. My office only pays for one spot because we don't have a lot of people who drive in, but we need it when clients come for meetings. Generally, our spot is left alone, and we've never made a complaint, but someone upstairs has decided it's our fault and keeps piling their office garbage in our spot."
"We've caught them at it a couple of times, and one of their employees has yelled at us more than once about how awful we are for complaining to the landlord.
"Pretty sure it's because the landlord has gotten complaints from the people in the adjacent building (a lawyer and a therapist), since the people upstairs keep using their spots because they're in the shade. They also now have several complaints against them about dumping trash outside the dumpster, so there's that."
12. "This might go a bit beyond typical 'petty drama,' but basically, here’s the situation: A coworker of mine had not showered or used deodorant recently, and it was very much apparent. You could smell her from a mile away. Our boss became a bit concerned about her financial situation, but he looked at her social media and learned that she’s basically living in a mansion, so clearly she wasn’t showering because she couldn’t. He had a discussion with her, trying to respectfully ask her to shower or take care of her odor in some way."
"She was furious and told him that showering was a white supremacist construct and she was suing him for racial harassment. And she did! She represented herself in court. She lost, obviously. The really unbelievable thing is that he's Black and SHE is white.
"She was fired, but then she started lurking around in our store’s parking lot. Soon, she would come inside and just sort of look at the employees. Then she began leaving bad reviews of us on Yelp. Her reviews negatively reference specific employees, especially the boss. Our boss is attempting to file a restraining order, but until then, she's ominously walking around our store and criticizing us on Yelp."
—Erica
13. "A woman at my job got fired for dyeing her hair pink, so last week the entire staff dyed our hair pink in solidarity. Our boss is getting so anxious about what to do next. He was incredibly on edge for the first few days, and lately he hasn’t been showing up at all."
14. "A coworker is sleeping with a higher-up, who is married and has four kids. She's slept with a LOT of people here, but this one could get them both fired. They are openly playful with each other, which is sickening. She also keeps flirting with much older, married men here. It's so creepy."
15. "I know that an employee is stealing. I work with fencing and farming equipment, and the stuff can be pretty pricey. I've had two customers tell me the employee offered to give them extra supplies in exchange for cash. Written statements were made, along with major inventory discrepancies, and this employee stated that they receive hundreds of dollars in tips on any given day."
"When our loss-prevention manager had the phone call confronting the employee about the comments made, the employee denied the claims. Loss prevention said there was nothing he could do, since the claims were denied.
"Guess anyone can steal and give away a ton of stuff from our company, deny it, and get away scot-free!?"
16. "Person A wanted to print something, but Person B had just put color paper in, and A had to wait until the job was finished. Now we are in printer wars where A and B aggressively block time slots for when they can print."
17. "I work at an outpatient clinic that's run by a government agency. I have a coworker who is always the first one to show up when there's free food, usually from pharmaceutical reps, but also we've caught her eating food that was left by the clinic entrance, and even taking food out of the garbage and eating it. We're not paid great, but we're certainly not paid so poorly that she should be food insecure, so we decided to google her name to see if there was anything strange going on with her."
"Turns out she was charged with homicide 20 years ago when her roommate was found asphyxiated. Apparently, the police had been called to their residence several times for drunken domestic disputes. We haven't been able to figure out how she avoided prison and is employed by a government agency."
—Anonymous
18. "I have an older female coworker who will, in casual conversation, refer to her vagina as her 'sass.' She’s made it VERY clear that that’s what she means when she says that word. However, during work meetings with people who don’t know that, she will say the word 'sass' as much as possible and glance at those who know what she’s referring to.
"It’s so uncomfortable. I complained to HR. She said I was making it up and I was a bitch. It’s a tense situation."
—Jodie
Do you have some work gossip to share? Tell us about it in the comments!
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.