‘Which coworker pushed things too far and ruined it for everyone?’ – 23 people who destroyed their colleagues’ favourite perks

Unless you’re incredibly lucky, there will be some elements of your job that are pretty tedious, so having a few perks that brighten your day – or night – will make it much more bearable. However, there always seems to be one colleague who will push that perk to the point that management take note and shut it down.

They’ve been commiserating about this on the AskUK subreddit after user leekpunch asked posted this:

Did you have that one coworker who pushed things too far and ruined it for everyone?

I used to work at a place where there was a front desk that was a bit lonely. It was often a quiet gig so most people took a paperback book so they could sit there quietly reading while waiting for customers to turn up. Everyone eventually had a shift on the desk.

Then one day, Colin had the front desk shift. Colin was into his sword and sorcery fantasy novels and turned up with one of the biggest books I’ve ever seen. Easily well over 1000 pages. Possibly nearer 2000. Well, there was no way he was reading that subtly on the front desk. The duty manager saw it on the CCTV, went out and confiscated it, and within an hour there was a memo about how reading was not permitted during work shifts.

So, Colin ruined that sweet little time for everyone. What similar stories can you share?

And plenty of people had their own annoying colleagues to gripe about, like these…

1.

‘We had dress down Friday and one guy showed up to work with short shorts so short you could see his arse cheeks. Shorts no longer allowed at work.’
–Thisoneissfwihope

2.

‘Yep worked somewhere with a relaxed attitude to dress code until one prick turned up every day in shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and a straw hat.’
–geese_moe_howard

3.

‘Reminds me of when we had a pizza Friday thing going on where everyone could order their own toppings and it’d all get covered by the company. One dude thought it’d be hilarious to order the most expensive pizza with double everything plus sides. Next week it was ‘only cheese or pepperoni from now on’.’
–GonZoMas

4.

‘Had a job while studying at uni stacking shelves in the local Wilko, mostly after hours so no customers in the shop, and after store closing, we’d all listen to music or audiobooks on earphones.

One bloke would spend the entire shift on a call to his wife, which would’ve been fine, except he’d often stop working to hold the phone up and switch the video on. This eventually got flagged up on the CCTV and we were all banned from using earphones on shift, having to spend an entire night shift stacking shelves in silence.’
–HobKnobRob

5.

‘We are 50% of our time in the office, 50% from home but flexible so nobody really cared if you spent the morning in the office and then went home at lunch to let dogs out or for the school pickup.

One guy would come in for 10 minutes, grab a free coffee and loudly announce he was away, saying goodbye to everyone smugly. Managers now get a report on the number of hours people are working and are told to put people on disciplinary if it dips below.

What’s worse is that guy left for another job, so fucked up a good thing for us all and didn’t even suffer the consequences. Bastard.’
–Da5ren

6.

‘We had an on-site subsidised bar that opened at lunchtime for two hours, and at 5pm. Until a bunch of contract electricians got totally wasted at lunch, obviously couldn’t do any work all afternoon in a rather dangerous environment. So after that the bar only opened in the evenings.’
–DameKumquat

7.

‘This happened before I joined, but at one office they had formal dress code, so suit and tie etc. I really don’t like this and most places these days that aren’t client-facing don’t seem to adopt it. This place in particular we had zero interaction with the public and so to me it seemed entirely unnecessary.

I later found out that it used to be casual dress code, but one guy came in wearing bright Bermuda shorts and sandals every day and the higher ups didn’t like it and so decided it had to be formal from then on.’
–moosebeast

8.

‘Worked in a soulless call centre years ago and management didn’t mind us going to the pub for Friday lunch and having a beer with our food. Well, Roger joined us one week and went mad on shots. Got back to the office and he passed out in the toilets and had to be checked over by paramedics.

Bye bye pub time for all.’
–Little_Pink

9.

‘We had summer bbq’s and Christmas parties at local bars and restaurants, money was put behind the bar so drinks were free for us employees. They were fun. My manager at the time got aggressive drunk, threatened to fight the sales team for ‘making his life hard’ and almost punched the elderly husband of our receptionist because he was intervening for peace.

We don’t have work parties anymore. Fuck you Matt.’
–OverTheCandlestik

10.

‘I worked at a place where the expenses policy was explained to me by the head of finance as ‘just don’t take the piss’. It worked really well and saved a lot of hassle as everyone was sensible.

Then one manager started taking all of his one-to-ones at a high-end sushi restaurant and expensing it, he was going multiple times a week. Shortly after we got an expenses policy.’
–MagicBez

11.

‘We used to have a drinks fridge in the office, free help yourself while you are working. Nice perk. Until more than one person was spotted filling their rucksacks with cans at the end of the day. It was rapidly replaced with a vending machine.’
–AttitudeSimilar9347

12.

‘Used to have an annual dinner dance. One year, the free booze was flowing and all hell broke loose. Two men got into a fist fight over a woman. One of the highest up members of staff got so drunk that she got her tits out and ran around the venue.

No more office parties.’
–ComplexSquirelll