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‘What’s something a toxic coworker did that made the whole office go silent?’ – 17 times colleagues crossed the line

It’s often said that the worst part of any job is the people you work with. And if the replies to this r/AskReddit thread are anything to go by, there’s truth in the saying.

From inappropriate emails to jokes that don’t land, it seems there are plenty of ways for coworkers to put their foot in it and stun other people in the process. And we know this because MommaOnHeels143 decided to ask this question:

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

Here are the top replies that surely got escalated to HR…

1.
‘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 shit.

‘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

2.
‘Supervisor stormed into the 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

3.
‘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, tone deaf 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.’
-Butcher-baby

4.
‘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, 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 4months and she laughs beautifully”’
-mischiefkar28

5.
‘He made a flippant comment about a coworker “just being fat all along” less than a month after she had a miscarriage. HR got involved.’
-JustCallMeJennifer

6.
‘I started my career at a federal agency and worked with a guy who was extremely troubled and just weird as shit 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 fucking weird.’
-Repulsive_Drawing703

7.
‘The guy who 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

8.
‘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 work flow.’
-firelady1530

9.
‘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