40 Times People Saw Clueless Colleagues Make Unbelievably Stupid Mistakes They Won't Be Forgetting Any Time Soon
Putting the wrong person in a position of professional authority can ruin things.
Some coworkers make small mistakes, and some manage to turn an ordinary workday into a story everyone remembers. The Reddit thread behind this article is full of the second kind, with people sharing the most jaw-dropping blunders they have ever seen on the job.
The replies range from funny to alarming, and they show how quickly a bad hire, poor judgment, or simple carelessness can create chaos in the workplace. In a few cases, the mistakes were so serious that they could have ended much worse than they did.
Here are the wildest coworker stories people could not stop talking about.
Where it all began
xk543xHere are people's replies, and they’re all shockingly funny.
Some of these stories get worse the more you read them.
1. The story of the guinea pigs
PumpkinsDad, pezibear2. The health and safety officer
tallbutshy, 27707
3. You can't just wander off when you're watching over children
jackleggjr
That is not the kind of mistake you can shrug off.
4. Hey, you're fired!
barto5, bdulbosit Melikuziev
5. All we did was fire him
BigZombieKing, OrnaW
6. Such negligence
kingcrimson881, Markus Spiske
7. How could you?
HeavyMetalSasquatch
8. Wait, what?
FormerWordsmith, evan p. cordes
9. This shouldn't be funny, but WTF...
Shubabi, emkanicepic
10. Working at a landscaping company
RosenBrtt, doctor-a
11. I wonder what was actually cleaned up, though
Mr_Frible, Charles McGowan
12. Working in radiation protection tech
LtDirtyBear, Dan Meyer
13. What our chief accounting officer has been doing...
zachm26, startupstockphotos
14. She was not hired full-time
daughtcahm
15. He never considered a better way to do this
eljosho1986, slgckgc
And if you’re wondering who’s to blame for office tension, the coworker who missed the deadline after being covered up, then got exposed
16. A new employee helped thieves load all the building materials
Clear_Suspect2987, stocksnap
17. That is a life saved
overengineered
18. He didn't last long after that
Visible_Love_1955, Stephen Phillips
19. Oh my goodness!
atot806, 1338433
20. Oh, it's baby-safe
TomoyoHoshijiro
21. Hiring someone for his Rolodex
remembering_things, pexels
22. Jerry's work needed to be redone
ONSFishing, Michael Casey
23. They both ended up in the hospital
Onwisconsin42, craig hellier
24. How to get fired quickly at a job...
OhAces
25. How could she have mixed the two up?
Yaboijustlikesgoats, uillermo Casales
26. How can someone be so dumb?
allthefishinthelake, Bonnie Kittle
27. The things that people do
AnnamariaHarvison
28. That is one heck of a team-building exercise
the_real_grinningdog, Colin Mutchler
29. A place that is notorious for having bad recruiters
One bad decision can snowball fast in the workplace.
punkwalrus
30. The watch commander refused to launch the rescue boat
IllustriousYear2381
31. A new senior engineer messed up
theysocool, Dylan Ferreira
32. Walk around for four hours with a rifle
not-gandalf-bot
33. What the machine did to him...
gogojack
34. Cooling down hot oil with a big bucket of water
Ohiolongboard, Blue moon in her eyes
35. Our completely incompetent project manager
lydriseabove, osseous
36. All his time was set to the wrong time zone
nokatydidnt92
37. That new person was uncomfortable
Flat-Cold, Annie Spratt
38. So bad
jeffers2286, hans
39. Working at a grocery store for twelve years
DeathBySuplex
40. Lol... What!
ofErrol-Flynns-Ghost, Robert Ruggiero
Obviously, putting the wrong person in a position of professional authority will astound you with the wondrously short-sighted things they’re capable of. Sometimes it’s simply because a new employee doesn’t understand how things work, but other times it’s due to someone failing to use even the most basic common sense, which results in perplexing, amusing, and sometimes life-threatening workplace blunders.
Have you witnessed any other blunders made by your coworkers that you’d like to share with us? You can leave your thoughts in the section below.
Some workplaces really do run on pure chaos.
Want practical ways to prevent daily chaos, see these practical fixes for handling ordinary situations more smoothly.
