41 Workplace Scandals That Completely Blew Up

A young employee whose first language was NOT English made an enthusiastic statement to upper management in a meeting. After some consternation, the rest of the team had to educate him on the subtle difference in meaning between "It's up to you!" and "Up yours!". The team still used "It's up to you!" as a stealth insult years later.

Hubby walked into the windowless equipment room just after 5pm and was surprised to find his single cougar manager and young married teammate in there...just standing around awkwardly apparently...he came home and was musing as to why they'd just be standing around in the dark together. Told him my thoughts and his response was "No it couldn't be that, he's married". Oh sweetie.

I've watched my HR lay off 1/3 of the company to look more profitable on paper.

And then after laying off 100+ staff they gave themselves promotions and pay raises before working with management to deny promotions and pay rises for the remaining staff.

I work in a pharmacy setting, and we regularly fire people for stealing medications.

Pro tip: if you plan to work a medical gig just to steal meds, you'll most likely get caught. If there's anything they strictly keep a count of, it's the controlled medication.

Not me but my friend. At a work christmas party she had a colleague in her 40’s grab her breasts and yell out “SEE, I KNEW THEYRE FAKE”.

It’s been a month since the incident and my colleague had been really uncomfortable at work and complained to the managers etc and they basically told her “you just have to move on”.

The lady still works there and no disciplinary action was taken against her.

I would say it's the not-so-secret alcoholic that keeps liquor in her desk but it's actually the woman who stopped showing up for about 10 months except every 2 weeks to collect her paycheck.

The boss "didn't know" for about 8 of those months and then said if she was fired it would make him look bad. Boss just waited for 2 more months until her project expired.

A few years ago a colleague swapped out the innocent brownies in the kitchen for the not so innocent ones :)

It was an interesting afternoon to say the least.

Senior exec suggested an underlining needed a good slap for not meeting a target in a fairly large meeting. Underling said “I’m on level x in room y. Come down and try and I’ll knock you out!”.

A lady at my partner's work put her baby in a car seat to take it to daycare. She was running late and forgot the kid was in the car, so she drove to work. She parked and went inside. This was in the midwest in the Summer. The kid did not make it. My understanding is that no one mentions it. It's just a tragedy all around.

Came about after I'd left an organisation and found out when catching up with mates from there.

The receptionist had access to a company card to book travel for people, catering, general expenses.

She stole something like $30k. Vouchers, personal expenses etc. Must've been doing it for at least 4 of the 8 months she was there because it was apparently lots of relatively small purchases.

Not sure how she thought that would be missed by finance, or at audit time worst case. As my friend said 'if she had two brains she'd be twice as stupid'.

I used to work for a large insurance company in Colorado Springs, CO - When I worked there they had nap rooms which were used for other nefarious means.
My favorite workplace scandal is when one coworker stopped cheating on his wife with another coworker because he found a new workplace hookup. Work hookup #1 anonymously called the mans wife to rat him out AND security to bust in on him and his new hookup.

Oohhh federal police turned up to a government offices. Internal fraud happens more than anyone would like to think. Was quite a sight when they turned up and arrested an individual in the middle of the day. The code of conduct had quite specific examples of what was deemed fraud.

Years ago I worked at a company that hired a sales guy who was pretty hard-working and definitely put out a, 'I am trying to come back from a dark time in my life' kind of vibe. We all really liked him as a first impression, but we didn't get a chance to know him very well. One day he went out to his car at lunch, drank himself to a point of insensibility, then came back into the office like nothing was wrong. When his boss called him on it, he took a swing at him and missed by a mile, spinning himself around and almost falling over.

He was immediately fired —I don't even think there was paperwork involved. He was only a few weeks into the job— and escorted out of the building. By unspoken rule, no one talked about the incident. Enough time has passed now, I don't even remember the guy's name or really any more about it than I've said.

Worked at Qantas. High level EGM was seen and heard openly berating a low level employee in front of a whole lot of people. Was marched up to Alan’s office and fired on the spot. Apparently wasn’t the first time this person had treated people like this and this was the final nail.

Tech architect had a contract role with a competitor. Got busted when he rolled out the same presentation to them as us and forgot to Change the branding on the ppt deck. Turns out he Had a bunch of offshore guys directly contracting to him doing all the work and was working for a couple of other competitors too. Always wore nice suits.

A self proclaimed 'lesbian' in the office was sleeping with the married supervisor with kids and literally all of us knew and were stepping on eggshells around them for 6 months and they thought it was a secret but it was so blatantly obvious and awkward.

She used him to secure a permanent position and he was moved on.

A woman who had beef with another lady put dog excrement in her Tupperware lunch in the fridge.

I was an admin assistant for a mortgage team and our boss (male) was having an affair with one of the mortgage lenders (female). It was an open secret, they'd go for three hour "lunch breaks" and we'd find her draped over his desk, and it was super awkward when her husband kept dropping by to surprise her, and the other mortgage lender broke down because she was having to pick up the slack. Worse still, the dude she'd been having an affair with *before* our boss who ALSO worked in the building was pissed off she'd stopped banging him to bang our boss and was becoming an absolute liability. It all came out when they tried to blame me for her missing a meeting with a (very important) client because they were "out to lunch" when I had 100% proof I'd scheduled it correctly. He shouted at me in front of everyone, and a few of us went to HR. The entire company ended up getting restructured so he was no longer managing us, she left about a month later because she was pregnant with her husbands baby (allegedly), and they were leaving on a trip around Australia (pretty sure she got paid to leave.

Worst bit was taking the phone calls from their respective spouses and having to lie to them.

A divorced couple worked at my company in separate departments. The ex-husband went to the ex-wife's house to pick up their kids one night and got into an argument with the ex-wife's boyfriend, who was a cop. The cop shot him. The ex-husband died. The ex-wife was not exactly contrite about it.

For weeks or even months after that, the ex-husband's coworkers were on a warpath against the ex-wife and her supportive coworkers. This is in HQ for a big company and there were regular outbursts if those people saw each other in the lobby, elevators, cafeteria, etc. It was wild.

From my first workplace as a college intern: The Director of Engineering was working on a special project and required the PM's admin to assist, every day in his office from noon to 1pm. One Thursday they forgot to close the door completely and as it turned out their special project was shagging each other stupid. They were sent home and told not to come back until the following Monday, by which time management would know how to address the incident.

Monday rolls around and they don't show up. After calling both of their spouses, it turns out that each came home Thursday, made up an excuse to their families, packed a bag and left. Within a few weeks it turns out that their special project also included embezzling $870,000 in company funds and absconding to the Caribbean.