Hey Pandas, Tell Me About Your Craziest Day At Work (Closed)

Working for conservative organization back in '06. A golf course was violating a bunch of rules and was polluting a creek that fed into a major waterway that the local salmon population relied on. Instead of following the rules they opted to pay to have the creek moved. Yeah.
So, we had to dig the trench for the new creek, plant the banks of the creek so it wouldn't get choked out by invasive species from ground disturbance, slowly drain the water from the old creek, while pulling out and measuring every living thing in the creek and acclimating them to the water temperature of the major waterway we moved them to, the driving over there, and releasing them. We had a crew of five for this job.
The last day we did the draining and moving of the creek life, mostly salmon, lamprey, and crawdads. We had to measure in centimeters each creature, record the type and measurements, then transfer them to five gallon buckets, then transport them to the major creek in an exact amount of time. We worked out an assembly line sort of deal, we always worked together so we knew how to be efficient. I was on fish grabbing duty, pulling them out of the creek. We thought we were mostly done after a pretty intense 9 hours, but then as we drained the last pool of water at the end of the blocked off section of old creek, the water level dropped and the water started churning. The salmon had been sneaky and hidden from us there, there were around eight hundred of them, and not enough water to keep them covered and oxygenated.
Our whole assembly line went to hyper speed, one person recording numbers as three of us eyed sizes and grabbed fish tossing them into buckets and shouting out the lengths. The last person ran the buckets to the truck, drove them over to the other creek as fast as possible, water temps be "dammed" (pun intended), and drove back to grab more buckets and drop of water filled empties. We got every single fish into the major creek alive in the end, but it was crazy, just chucking salmon around and shouting numbers.
To this day when I see a whole salmon in a grocery store I can tell you it's length accurately within a centimeter or two and have to restrain my self from shouting it out. Doesn't work with other fish for some reason.

I have too many as I was in the catering trade for 38 years, front and back of house, so some of the stuff I've seen and been involved in is quite literally unbelievable even though it's true.
One that stands out though, is back in the 1980's I was working as Deputy Manager in a smallish hotel in the West Country (UK) that had 25 bedrooms, a Restaurant and 2 bars - 1 public and 1 cocktail / lounge, this is in the days when pubs / bar hours were 11am - 2.30pm through the week and 12pm - 2pm on a Sunday before re opening for the evening service.

So, it's a Sunday at about 12.30 and our usual crowd of customers - mostly older chaps are now in their usual places in the public bar, reading the Sunday papers.
I get a call on reception from Bernie the barman (ex boxer, Londoner, good guy), asking me to head through to the public bar, which I do. On arrival, Bernie pulls me to one side and informs me that one of the old chaps, Eric, isn't moving, and having quietly checked, doesn't seem to be breathing - so I take a wander over to where Eric is sitting and he looks to be asleep with his newspaper folded over his chest and his half a beer on the table in front of him (his 'usual' seat was right in the corner next to the bar so fairly well sheltered), on closer examination - by surreptitiously checking for a pulse (and the slight whiff coming off Eric), it was fairly clear he was dead.
I was 25 at the time and wasn't sure what to do, so I went back to reception and called the hotel manager, explained the situation and asked for advice, he took a while to answer but finally told me to leave him where he was and to then call for an ambulance at 1.45pm (remember, we closed at 2, additionally the nearest hospital / ambulance was at least 30 minutes away).
Took his advice, cleared the bar as fast as we could after 2 and waited for the ambulance which arrived at about 2.45.

The ambulance guys confirmed that Eric was indeed dead but were slightly bewildered that he seemed to be in the early stages of Rigor Mortis, they whisked the poor chap off to the mortuary and we breathed a sigh of relief as none of our other customers twigged that anything was wrong !!

As a post script to this, Eric's wife decided to have his wake at the hotel and came in regularly afterwards for lunch and a chat with many of the staff.

Many other stories from this hotel, which would seriously stretch credibility - one being, the couple who bilked after 4 days and the very young policeman and I who found 8 empty bottles of Scotch, takeaway containers gently rotting in the wardrobe, a very blocked toilet, filthy bed sheets oh and a 12" (obviously used) dildo under one of the pillows (all of these had to be put in evidence bags - we drew straws as to who would pick up the dildo ; he lost), they were caught later that day sleeping off their boozy session in the local park.
Don't miss those days one little bit !!

I was working a sports game. Sold out stadium. 30,000 plus people. We run the most popular stand, people love chicken tenders. I'm the lead, and I'm already exhausted. Haven't had anything to eat or drink in 5+ hours.

Then it happened. A fryer broke just as half time began. Crowds of 200 or more people are gathered around our stand. I'm shouting "CHICKEN TENDERS ARE DELAYED, IT WILL BE 30 MINUTES OR MORE"

People look me in the eye. They order 12 chicken tenders. People are getting angry. I'm worried they're going to become abusive to my staff (we're all minors by the way. High school students). We're basically raffling these tenders off. We shout we have an order, people surge forward, and whoever grabs it first gets it.

It was like a war zone. I almost passed out several times. At the end of the day, we all laid on the floor. I slept for 14 hours after that.

I should mention that none of us are paid. We're volunteer workers.

Oh boy. Last year, second to last week of school. We got kept in our classrooms for half an hour after the bell because someone got blood everywhere in the hallway, and the teachers started dancing around the lunchroom.

I can never look at the principal again after seeing her fail at the running man.

Must have been that day the vibrations of some nearby building activities made the ceiling of the central lobby fall down. Fortunately no one was hurt, but there was no way to get from building A to building B and since reception was based in the lobby, nobody could visit the company. 500+ppl in the office.

Hmmmmm...the craziest day for me would be during school pictures. You have the girls looking so pretty, hair curled, wearing their prettiest dresses. The boys wearing their suits, hair slicked to the side. Now this is where it starts to get crazy..like it never fails it always happens this way. On picture day or dress up day the students are served breakfast that consists them to have syrup. Yes Syrup....and then PE is scheduled for some classes on picture day. PE teacher is understanding, he changes his activity up so kids dont get their hair messy. Kids tend to get syrup on their clothes for the little ones, trying to wipe the syrup with out leaving a huge smudge. I learned to keep Tide to go in my desk due to this. To this day kids are still getting served syrup on picture day.

I was working the maternity ward in a San Fernando Valley hospital in 1968-69 when a young woman came and in to give birth. She kept talking about "the family", and "Charlie".2 days after her release the infamous Tate/La Bianca murders occurred. She was one of Manson's girls.

I used to work the bar at a pub/nightclub. During the Six Nations (for our US friends, it's like the Super Bowl but with Rugby), two opposing rugby teams from different towns decided to come in to watch the match on TV. Unfortunately, the drinks turned them pretty damn nasty, pretty damn fast and within half an hour, they were brawling and absolutelytrashing the place. We did have bouncers but there were only two of them against 20+ drunk, very angry powerhouses. It was goddamn chaos! Half the regular patrons fled, there was booze and bodies flying everywhere and someone tried to walk out with a keg during the chaos. Someone's head even ended up being shoved through a window! These guys were just totally brutal. A friend of mine on the bar beside me got glassed in the face (luckily it didn't break), the cigarette machine was picked up and physically flung by one of the rugby pads at another and someone even got thrown down the length of the bar, like in the movies. My manager, Elaine, was this tiny, 5"2 goth woman who was severely undernourished due to an eating disorder but she was also one of the hardest, most badass people I've ever met. Me and my mate were cowering behind the bar, trying to stop her eyebrow bleeding when suddenly, Elaine quite literally leap frogs over the bar, ran up to some drunk, raging dude who was easily 6" and leapt onto his back. She wrapped her legs round his waist and just began ruthlessly punching him in the head, all the while screaming "Get out of my bar, ya f*****g runt!!!". Serious damn respect for that woman lol.

Not work, but school.

I was doing the same thing as always, when my class went silent. I took off my headphones and looked around. My teacher turned to a classmate, lets call her L. Our teacher asks us,” did that sound like a gunshot?” L nodded. I could feel my heart get faster. Our teacher sprinted out, and L says,”Okay, everyone stay quiet. A few people made jokes, which is a common stress reaction. I am hyperventilating at this point. Minutes pass. Our teacher doesn’t come back. Now we are all worried, but an alarm didn’t go off, and that kept me from fully freaking out. When she came back, she told us she had asked her husband, and he said someone slammed a locker twice. L said she knew it wasn’t in the building, but maybe it was outside because it wasn’t too loud. I agreed.

No real danger, but something I will never forget.

Guess where I live?

So I have had two:
First one while still working in the office I was having a conversation with a coworker about an incident I had over the weekend. I was standing right in front of her cubicle and no one else was a part of the conversation. One of our other coworkers said loudly to me to get to the point of my story. I replied with no one was talking to her and she replied back that she was tired of hearing my voice. I once again replied back to her telling her loudly no one was f****** talking to her. This caused management to walk over to see what was happening. Prior to this day me and the person where friends. However she is someone who complains about the company not doing things for us, but not participate when they did and just complained about everything. She is really one of the most unhappiest people I have ever meet.

The second one was recent with one of our brokers. This broker likes to call always at the end of the day. He does not give you time to research the answer to his questions, and constantly tells you to hurry up that he doesnt have time. He also will ask you multiple questions before you can even answer the first one. So I am trying to help him and after calling one of our carriers and getting back on the line with him I give him the answer he does not want to hear. From there he was just a jerk. He told me that he knew I would mess it up and how horrible I am at my job, and anything he could think of to say to put me down. I told him that I would get a manager on the phone because I didnt think I could assist him, he went back to his horribly comments for another 5 minutes before I could even transfer him. At that point I was in tears and told my supervisor I refused to assist him further. I even called our top supervisor after my shift to explain to her what happened in hopes that they would do something on there end because he is never easy to deal with when he calls. Sadly, had this broker allowed me to do my job with out having to deal with his demeaning words towards me I would of gotten his issues fixed.

These are some of the craziest days at my job but every day is horrible. We are overworked, unpaid and short staffed and management does nothing about it. I just hate my job.

The whole Covid pandemic was one craziest-day, but the non-pandemic one was when I worked construction to pay for school. Rain pouring, line came down, it's hot and sparky, and a guy on the crew wearing *no safety gear* walks over and grabs this live wire and tosses it aside. We spent the whole day waiting for him to drop dead. Far as I know, he's still alive to this day (2023).

It was about 2 am working graveyard at Cumberland farms (gas station) guy runs in out of breath yelling that he was kidnapped but escaped while they were robbing a house. I called the cops and gave him the phone. Couple officers show up and start questioning him. They don't believe him. They are getting angry but of course they have to at least check his story. So a car heads up the road to the house he said they were robbing. Well he was telling the truth and there's a big shoot out. They believe him now and my parking lot fills with like every cop from 3 city's till they all move on to the crime scene. I wanted to help but all I could do was use my discount to buy them all snacks

I've been working at a wedding venue for 3 years now and the only problems I've seen have been late caterers or missing photographers...until about a month ago:

It was an indoor ceremony and every seat was filled (about 150 total), a coworker and I were sitting in the back scrolling on our phones waiting for it to end so we could set up for dinner. When it came time for the groom's vows I finally looked up because he was talking really slowly and hesitating before every sentence. He looked very sick, he was shaky and pale. That caught my attention, and I closely watched the rest of the ceremony. When it came time, the bride said "I do" without any hesitation, and then it was the groom's turn. After the question was asked, he looked at her and then at the crowd and said..."I can't say I do." What I expected next was a joke..something like "I can't say I do but I can say..." but nope. The audience was in shocked silence and she immediately left the venue sobbing while he doubled over almost as if he was in pain. Two minutes later a bridesmaid came back inside the venue to assure the crowd it would just be a few minutes and they would continue the ceremony. I didn't believe this for a second because there was no way I would go through with it after my fiance did something like that. This happened 3 different times over the next 30 minutes until eventually, they announced they would be serving dinner. Bride and Groom were still outside but we set up 20 tables and caterers served all the guests a meal. The photographer ended up leaving and the tension between the 2 families was very awkward. After about an hour the bride came back inside and went straight into the brides room where she took off her dress, and started getting drunk. The groom was outside in 20-degree weather for the entire reception (which ended 3 hours early because no one wanted to be there, especially the groom's family), and the bride left in sweats crying. It was all a very sad scene and a huge waste of money but definitely the craziest thing I've ever witnessed at work. I wish I could tell you what happened to them after that, but that was the last I ever heard of them. I just hope she at least got to keep the dog in the breakup

not at work but at school
for the last 2 weeks and the foreseeable future leaving out classes for water/bathroom is a privilege

I worked at a home and farm store, we sold everything from clothes to tractor parts, fencing, and animal feed. Due to poorly designed fire sprinkler systems, we had our feed storage area flooded twice when a forklift clipped off a sprinkler head. I spent what seemed like hours on a forklift driving through a sheet of ice cold water trying to move feed and electric grills and clothes away from water. If you've never hit a patch of water in a forklift with 3 tons (2700kg) and realized you were hydroplaning, count yourself lucky. The first time it happened we lost 45k USD in product, the second about 5k USD because the area had been rearranged after the first.

This happened 20+ yrs ago, I worked at a hospital in the unit that cared for people in their final stages of life. One of the patients was upset when her family didn't show up for a scheduled visit. I went over to comfort her and knelt beside her wheelchair so I could speak to her at eye level., only to be punched in the face and knocked on the ground. I went head over heels backwards on the ground while wearing a long dress which floated up and landed on my head, showing everyone my colorful underwear! I was also 8 months pregnant at the time, so whoever was looking also got the added bonus of seeing my pregnant stomach.

Not Work, but school

We were doing a dress rehearsal for the school play with the tk, kindergarten, and the autistic kid classes watching us. The play went fairly well, and luckily it didn't matter if we made mistakes cause it was technically a dress rehearsal. Afterwards, we took a group photo, and at that point everyone was really tired because even though it wasn't like late at night a 75 minute play is still a 75 minute play, but one of our leads was especially tired. In fact, he was so tired, he fainted right then and there, on the steps of the stage, and had to go home early.

(Try guessing the play! Your hints are: Dark, 2 braids, and secret! Extra points if you guess who the guy who fainted plays)

Dunno if school counts as work but here we go.

Back around the time of exams, we all got a postponed exam cuz a kid apparently joked that the school caught fire and a substitute was dumb enough to believe it and the kid's friend who was, I think 11-12 at that time, tried to start a fire in the principal's office and accidentally burned all the question paper plus fried the computer. I still remember the celebration in the middle of physics class lol...

I had three instances that were crazy.

The first: Nonstop busy from 9 am until 4 pm. I didn't even get the chance to eat food, or even finish my morning coffee (luckily in a Thermos), not helped by my dumb self deciding not to have breakfast that day. And before anybody asks, no, this didn't happen during around Christmas time. I believe it was a few months after we reopened from the initial lockdown.

The second happened in early December a few years ago, where I was manning the shop by myself. I had customer after customer, and someone who needed help with financing, which I had 0 experience setting up. I got so busy, not only dealing with people who needed my assistance and this financing, that I actually called my boss to help bail me out, because I was so swamped.

The third happened last year. One of our technicians wasn't able to come in, after he slipped on the ice, and hurt his back (no injuries, but he was out of commission that day). My boss, who was out of the province at the time, wasn't able to come in. Keep in mind that this is a job that required two professionals to do (take apart a pool table), and we had only one guy who was able to do the job that day.

When I left a voicemail the client to reschedule the service date, he called back in a way that I could best describe as "Unhinged Male Karen". He said "You guys should have done your best to honour the date" (bruh, I can't plan for someone else getting hurt or not), and threatened to sue us if we couldn't get it done by that week's Wednesday.

I substitute taught in 1995 before beginning my teaching internship. On a Monday morning, I had an assignment at a school I already knew was a zoo, but didn't realize exactly how much of a zoo until that day. The substitute note from the teacher was addressed to a man, who had evidently refused the job when contacted about it. From that moment, I knew the day was going to be holy hell.

When the students came into the classroom and realized they had a sub, it was pandemonium. 30 7-year-olds dancing around the room and laughing. Turns out these kids were so horrible, their (first-year) teacher had actually broken down crying in front of them the prior Friday because she was unable to get them to stop being aholes long enough to teach them anything. It was not her fault, but these kids ended her career. It also didn't help (me) that the teacher next door came into the room and yelled at these kids that they better behave if they ever wanted to see their teacher again. Anyone who isn't an idiot knows that this statement had the direct opposite of the desired effect. These kids were having a grand old time. They knew they had beaten their poor teacher. They cared nothing about ever seeing her again, so they had no motivation to be anything other than demonic.

The principal at this school hid referral forms, and would not allow the teachers to write students up for anything, even violent behavior, which is obviously dangerous to everyone. Because the number of referrals written in a school each year goes into the principal's permanent record for some stupid-a*s reason, the b***h running this place directly violated county school board rules by prohibiting discipline.

A teacher friend of mine had given me a stack of referral forms that I carried around with me to each job, and I wrote 10 of them that day. I had never written any before. I repeat that these were 7-year-olds.

During this day (remember, grade 2 class), I lost count of the number of fights that broke out and other incidences that in any other school, would have required a write up and removal of the student(s) from the room. During a reading group, a little s**t I turned my back on for 2 seconds literally ripped a handful of hair out of my head. I had to part my hair on the other side for months to hide the hole in my hair. I taped it to the referral I wrote on him, and personally delivered it to the school office. I then watched the cow I handed it to toss it. I retrieved it from the wastebasket so I could keep my evidence and told her the school hadn't heard the last of this. Boy was I wrong. I lodged a formal complaint against the school with the county school board, including the handful of my hair. It was never acknowledged, investigated, or acted on. And people are so shocked that a 6-year-old just shot his teacher.