Things Toxic Coworkers Did That Made The Whole Office Go Silent

Workplaces have professional standards to maintain, or at least they should. While it's great to have fun in the office, there are some things that are appropriate during leisure time that aren't OK at work.

But some people never seem to get the memo.

Reddit user MommaOnHeels143 asked:

"What’s something a toxic coworker did that made the whole office go silent?"

Scheduling Tragedies

"Coworker lost his elderly mom and dad in the same week, one expected soon anyway, one not so expected. Took a couple of weeks off compassionate leave to organise everything and grieve."

"The timing was horrendous for the team, but these things aren’t exactly scheduled in are they‽‽ Manager moaned but it is what it is, sorry for your loss and let us know if you need anything is the only correct response."

"On his return, toxic manager commented in his first meeting back to work that both parents going in the same week was convenient because he wouldn’t need more time off in the near future leaving us in the sh*t."

"This is the same manager who a few months later told an employee to maybe give up trying when she took a week off following her 3rd miscarriage. Moaning she had time off for the first 2."

"He was let go shortly after. Because this is just 2 examples of how toxic he was."

~ dcpb90

Breaks‽‽

"Supervisor stormed into break room while everyone was having a 15 minute coffee break. Told everyone off for taking a break and talking too loudly."

"If that’s not bad enough, we had a part time/casual employee who would come in to do a specific task when needed. Sometimes she’d be there 2-3 days a week, sometimes we wouldn’t see her for a few weeks, all depending on demand."

"She showed up about 2 minutes before the boss came and freaked out. During the freak out the boss singled her out, saying that everyone had so much free time to take coffee breaks then we probably didn’t need her to come in on a casual basis and that she should look for another job."

"Everyone went silent/dispersed from the break room. A few minutes later the part time/casual lady held back tears as she went into his office to give him her time card for the previous week."

"No one was upset when that supervisor got transferred."

~ elasticball123

Vindication!

"A principal in my district will, as retaliation, move teachers at his elementary school from their preferred teaching position—the one they have all their practical experience and accrued resources in—to a position they are certificated to teach but have no practical experience in."

"It's not that the previous position no longer exists—he either hires a new teacher or 'rewards' a favored teacher by giving them the position (thereby ostracizing them from other staff)."

"He did it again this year."

"The same day the news went through the district, I got an email from a non-district, teacher-advocate publication titled, 'Why Do So Many Toxic Principals Fail Upward?' that talked about the phenomenon of principals and admin engaging in bullying, retaliation, and sexual harassment toward employees (and, in some cases, even students), only for them to be transferred elsewhere in the district when their behaviour grew so egregious it could no longer be ignored."

"Basically, the article said the same thing is happening in education that has happened in police departments and with countless other employers: the sector is responsible for investigating itself. There is no independent community investigatory panel they must submit concerns to."

"And, of course, for the management class, HR prefers transfers over accountability. A transfer is simple—move the offender to a different department, hope they're out of sight, out of mind."

"Accountability means paperwork as contracts are terminated, jobs are posted, and potential candidates are vetted and interviewed and eventually hired. Accountability means explanations to the public. Accountability means potential lawsuits."

"Accountability is expensive, time consuming, and embarrassing, especially the longer they turn a blind eye to the toxic asset."

"So toxic managers in every field fail upward because they suck so bad that nobody wants to work with them, but HR doesn't want the black eye that comes with admitting they hired and maintained a toxic asset."

~ CimoreneQueen

Fixing What Ain't Broke

"I worked in corporate marketing/sales. We worked on commission based on marketing campaigns that we created."

"Last year we got a new boss who decided to 'restructure' our commission, effectively cutting our pay by about 25-30%. Morale became quite low."

"A month after this happened, she called us all into a meeting. She then showed us a chart for the past year where we had ALMOST TRIPLED PROFITS FOR THE COMPANY. This was met with stunned silence."

"'Hey guys,' she said, 'where’s the enthusiasm?! Aren’t you happy with these numbers?' Flat, dead silence. The outrage was palpable."

"I wanted to say something, as I’m sure others did, but I didn’t. I just found a different job a few months later."

"To be clear, the pay cut had not gone into effect yet at the time of the meeting—the charts reflected the past year. So we tripled profits for them and their reward was a pay cut."

"The pay cut did not influence the profits since it happened after. That profit was all us and our hard work."

~ Reddit

Why Is No One Volunteering?

"I worked for a company that brought in a new CTO. After a month or so he realized that because of a labour code loophole, we were getting 1.5x pay for working overtime, but the company only needed to pay us 1x."

"So he called a meeting and told us that 'to stay in line with the law' they were cutting OT pay."

"A month later he calls another meeting and with full sincerity, not a hint of understanding, asks the full room, 'Why is nobody working overtime anymore? Our ticket queues are a mess'."

~ shaidyn

I Wasn’t Paying Attention, What Did I Miss?

"We were in the women’s bathroom in the morning and a co-worker walked in after extended maternity leave. Everyone greeted her and asked her how her baby was."

"She was smiling at first, but as soon as we mentioned her baby, her face fell, and she went a bit pale. She said it died."

"Before anyone could say anything, another woman right in front of her replied with, 'my baby is gorgeous, she’s just 4 months and she laughs beautifully'."

"The lady who lost her baby has a heart of gold, she put a smile on her face & started polite enquiries after the other woman’s baby."

"I on the other hand stood there at an utter loss for words."

~ mischiefkar28

Attention Please!

"I started my career at a federal agency and worked with a guy who was extremely troubled and just weird as sh*t in general. He did all kinds of crazy stuff, but the thing that kind of shook the whole office was an email he sent out one morning."

"He was evidently dating another employee in a different division of the agency and they broke up, so he sent out this email to like 200 coworkers with the subject line: 'Please Respect Our Privacy'."

"He then rattled off like 3 pages of narrative explaining every detail of his relationship with this woman who broke up with him and it concluded with 'so we will no longer be getting married'."

"I will never forget the morning that email went out and the whole office went silent for like 5 minutes. No typing, no phone calls, no small talk, just a bunch of people trying to wrap their heads around what they just read."

"Nobody knew they were dating, nobody cared if they broke up, it was not ever going to become a topic of office conversation, until he brought it to everybody's attention in the weirdest way possible."

"Then, to make it worse, the woman found out and was like, 'Married? We went out like 5 times!'"

"So somehow this guy thought that casual dating was a guaranteed path to marriage and he had to announce to everybody that the marriage was off."

"So f*cking weird."

~ Reddit

Female Body Inspector

"He made a flippant comment about a coworker 'just being fat all along' instead of pregnant less than a month after she had a miscarriage. HR got involved."

~ JustCallMeJennifer

Racism Is OK, Right?

"The guy sent a racist joke by email and he used the company global address. That went to everyone in Ireland, UK, China, Africa, the EU, Canada, the US and Mexico."

~ Ewendmc

"This happened at my company too! Corporate deleted it very quickly, but most people had seen it."

"We don't have offices in Africa or Mexico, otherwise I might think we work for the same company."

"He was trying to send it to his friend and accidentally cc'd the corporate global distribution email address."

~ LiaLily

Ready To Mingle

"A new hire at where I worked kept talking about how attractive his boss was. Dude, stop... Nah, kept bringing it up, randomly, for weeks."

"And then he just wasn't there anymore."

"Apparently he hit on her in front of some people and that was that. She was married too. The guy was an idiot."

~ summonsays

Sorry, But Could He Not

"One coworker's father had had a stroke. This happened on a Thursday when we were pretty busy."

"The next week, another coworker asked if the father was going to have a stroke EVERY Thursday as it was really disruptive to the workflow."

~ firelady1530

Empathy Is Inefficient

"At the first department meeting following my mother’s death, our boss read through the minutes from the last meeting."

Then she paused and added: 'Oh yeah: I almost forgot. Lisa’s mom died last week. OK. First agenda item?'.”

~ Seated_WallFly

"Usually at my work place, if a coworker's family member died, everyone was free to go to the funeral if they chose.…. Owner made this rule."

"We get a new department supervisor…"

"When my mom passed away, unbeknownst to me, he sent out an email to my coworkers stating that my mom’s funeral was going to be a family-only private affair."

"So none of my coworkers came to my mom’s funeral."

"Some of these people were very good friends of mine and I was very hurt by that. When I got back to work after a few days off, that’s when I found out our new supervisor had done this."

~ NotTheBadOne

Inconvenient Deaths

"I was required to work a weekend (which was not normal for me) and got a call half-way through saying my father passed.

"When I told my coworkers I needed to leave, one of them mentioned they thought him dying was super 'convenient'. I couldn’t look at them the same way after."

~ befree01

Niceness Costs Extra

"I was in a line in the cafeteria, and the lunch lady was chatting about her boyfriend as she was making my sandwich. She was talking about what a great guy he was, and how happy he made her."

"I said, 'I am really happy for you, and I really hope I can meet someone like that someday' and she said, 'You probably never will'."

"You could hear a pin drop in the line behind me. I ended up just leaving without my sandwich."

~ SueBeee

What's your toxic coworker story?