Have you ever done something at work that shouldn't be really done and hoped that no one would learn about it? Well, even if actually no one ended up learning about it, it still counts as employee misconduct.
Sounds like a pretty serious accusation, doesn't it? Well, its seriousness actually depends on what exactly you did, but it all still falls under this name. And turns out people can be rather creative when it comes to committing it. So, let's jump in to see that, shall we? Just maybe don't try out these ideas at your workplace.
More info: Reddit
#1
Got sacked by the CEO for sitting on a pile of pallets in the yard smoking. CEO had asked him if he had nothing to do, he replied ‘no not really’. CEO took him into the office to do the paperwork and told HR to sort it.
HR discovered he didn’t actually work there. He was a freelance lorry driver waiting for his lorry to be loaded.
HR discovered he didn’t actually work there. He was a freelance lorry driver waiting for his lorry to be loaded.
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50points
#2
The city of Notfolk VA had a worker who was sent home for disclosing private client information and having a weapon on city property.
They sent her home, then forgot about her. Twelve years later an audit revealed that not only was she still employed, but she had gotten annual raises and healthcare. And she hadn't shown up since the day they sent her home.
They sent her home, then forgot about her. Twelve years later an audit revealed that not only was she still employed, but she had gotten annual raises and healthcare. And she hadn't shown up since the day they sent her home.
37points
#3
I had a 3-month consulting gig back in the 90s… just helping get a pretty sophisticated project over the finish line.
I was contracted, not an employee… but after the three months were up, they asked me if I could stick around “loosely” in case something came up. Sure, no problem. No official contract, but they would just pay me a bit to keep me around “on call”.
A few little things came up, requiring a total of about two hours a month of my time for the first couple of months… and then things tailed off, but the cheques kept coming.
After a couple more months of free money and me doing nothing for them, I called them up to let them know that perhaps this wasn’t necessary to keep going. “No no, it’s all good — we know”.
Six months later, I called them up to let them know the exact same thing, and got a very similar answer.
Periodically, I would get in touch with them and hear the same thing. I ran into a couple of the guys from the company on the street more than once, and heard the same thing in person.
Then, some 2 1/2 years later, the cheques simply stopped coming.
I was contracted, not an employee… but after the three months were up, they asked me if I could stick around “loosely” in case something came up. Sure, no problem. No official contract, but they would just pay me a bit to keep me around “on call”.
A few little things came up, requiring a total of about two hours a month of my time for the first couple of months… and then things tailed off, but the cheques kept coming.
After a couple more months of free money and me doing nothing for them, I called them up to let them know that perhaps this wasn’t necessary to keep going. “No no, it’s all good — we know”.
Six months later, I called them up to let them know the exact same thing, and got a very similar answer.
Periodically, I would get in touch with them and hear the same thing. I ran into a couple of the guys from the company on the street more than once, and heard the same thing in person.
Then, some 2 1/2 years later, the cheques simply stopped coming.
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28points
When you enter a workplace, there are always certain rules and expectations you have to adhere to. No matter what kind of company you work for, it will definitely have its own policies, ethical standards, and legal regulations. And if you want to remain an employee in that place, you have to stick to all of them, but that’s common sense, isn’t it?
And yet, from time to time, a thing called “employee misconduct” happens. Essentially, it’s when an employee deliberately disregards all these standards of the workplace. It can range from something minor, like being late to work, especially on a constant basis.
#4
I feigned incompetence at a bank when rates were raising after COVID. I ran their pricing, nothing got implemented, rates stayed low. You’re welcome, consumers.
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22points
#5
I was a commission apparel sales person…things were ok, but I took a full time buying job to see if I could do both. The new job needed apparel made. I suggested my other company. I issued PO’s to essentially myself at my commission job. It was super clean as I controlled the communication on both ends. It was like sign stealing in baseball. I built a strong product line, sourced it competitive, and made great margins. It’s easy when you play both sides.
Three years. I stopped after the Covid shutdown but I had double dipped enough for three years to pay off my mortgage early and retire. Very high risk high reward situation.
I was salesman of the year in 2018-20.
Three years. I stopped after the Covid shutdown but I had double dipped enough for three years to pay off my mortgage early and retire. Very high risk high reward situation.
I was salesman of the year in 2018-20.
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22points
#6
I worked at a call center where you could force your system to crash and it would just keep you in whatever status you were in at the time as far as the dialer was concerned. So you crash it when on a call, be it an answering machine, disconnected number recording, whatever and just walk away for a while. The system just shows you're on a long call and doesn't serve you another one.
We had a guy who would come in, knock out a sale, do this and go smoke or get a coffee or whatever. Come back, re-engage for a bit, maybe make another sale (the guy was a great salesman) then do it again. He worked probably 2 honest hours of an eight hour shift.
After a few weeks of this, his manager caught on. Talked to HR and the decision was made to terminate. Manager goes to tell him *hey HR needs to talk to you* and the guy says he's just on his way to an appointment over lunch and he'll come see the manager and HR as soon as he gets back.
Comes back from lunch with a doctor's note putting him on leave.
We had a guy who would come in, knock out a sale, do this and go smoke or get a coffee or whatever. Come back, re-engage for a bit, maybe make another sale (the guy was a great salesman) then do it again. He worked probably 2 honest hours of an eight hour shift.
After a few weeks of this, his manager caught on. Talked to HR and the decision was made to terminate. Manager goes to tell him *hey HR needs to talk to you* and the guy says he's just on his way to an appointment over lunch and he'll come see the manager and HR as soon as he gets back.
Comes back from lunch with a doctor's note putting him on leave.
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21points
Then, it can be serious, like bullying or damage to company property. The final level is gross misconduct, which would be violence, theft, and other criminal behavior.
Besides these theoretical and rather common examples, sometimes misconduct happens in more creative ways. That’s what today’s list is all about. As you will see in it, people can be very creative when it comes to misbehaving at work, as stories range from pure entertainment to kind of worrying stuff.
The reason why employees tend to commit misconduct can vary. From impractical company rules to personal reasons, for example, burnout. At the same time, the punishment for that misconduct can vary too, usually depending on the type of misconduct it was.
#7
I was friends with a guy in the 1990s who was a federal worker, and I won't say which department, but he worked with a department you have heard of. He was part of a contract with a union, and within months of being hired for the equivalent of a director's position, they rearranged how direct reports worked, and he never got any employees. The previous guy who had his position had retired, so he didn't really know how to do his job, and with no underlings to help him, he was kind of stuck. BUT, his contract prevented him from being fired. So the union said, "just show up to each Foobarbaz meeting and do what they ask you to do and we'll figure it out. We're always looking for new people to help out."
The Foobarbaz meeting was quarterly, and then after one year, they changed it to annually. They never asked him to do anything or help out, and he stopped asking after 3 years. Because of his contract, he had two things: one, annual pay raises. Two, a small and modest budget, the minimum any division has since he was division manager, even though his division was squeezed out, but not eliminated because it still had a manager (him). I don't remember his budget, but it would probably be the equivalent of $6k in 2025. And, of course, if he didn't spend it, it got flagged as surplus, which was a no-no. All government logic.
So what do you buy when you have $6k you MUST spend in the early 90s to a techie before the internet? He set up a multiline BBS. And ran that thing for I don't know how long (possibly until 2000). He was only available during work hours to chat, and boy, he wanted to chat. He was so bored. Sometimes, he'd invite one of his users to lunch. I had lunch with him a few times at his work (they had a cafeteria in the basement of this building). I visited the BBS, which was a 386dx2 or something, a real powerhouse full tower monstrosity, with 4 modems and a "big" (for the time) 19" EGA monitor. He connected via null modem to a terminal on his desk.
His biggest gripe was how BORED he was.
The Foobarbaz meeting was quarterly, and then after one year, they changed it to annually. They never asked him to do anything or help out, and he stopped asking after 3 years. Because of his contract, he had two things: one, annual pay raises. Two, a small and modest budget, the minimum any division has since he was division manager, even though his division was squeezed out, but not eliminated because it still had a manager (him). I don't remember his budget, but it would probably be the equivalent of $6k in 2025. And, of course, if he didn't spend it, it got flagged as surplus, which was a no-no. All government logic.
So what do you buy when you have $6k you MUST spend in the early 90s to a techie before the internet? He set up a multiline BBS. And ran that thing for I don't know how long (possibly until 2000). He was only available during work hours to chat, and boy, he wanted to chat. He was so bored. Sometimes, he'd invite one of his users to lunch. I had lunch with him a few times at his work (they had a cafeteria in the basement of this building). I visited the BBS, which was a 386dx2 or something, a real powerhouse full tower monstrosity, with 4 modems and a "big" (for the time) 19" EGA monitor. He connected via null modem to a terminal on his desk.
His biggest gripe was how BORED he was.
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20points
#8
I knew a dude who managed to build himself a little "hut" in the back of the warehouse. He found a shelf of pallets of things which had not been moved in LITERALLY YEARS (it was all super-dusty etc so it was obvious), a bunch of like, obscure heavy parts for machinery at the other plants etc, which rarely were necessary so they just sat forever.
This guy found a little hole about 6'x8' and brought himself a little folding table, a chair, a radio, etc, and would just go "into the back to get something" and vanish for hours, and then come back empty-handed but the bosses had enough peoploe to keep track of, they never noticed that this one guy was never around, and since he wasn't someone they saw a lot, they never noticed he was gone, self-fulfilling prophecy!
He managed to ghost himself out of like 80% of his job by simply ghosting and not doing his job in a way that people forgot he was supposed to be tehre, doing a job. Really a quite impressive psychological move, but super risky if anyone ever did a roll-call.
This guy found a little hole about 6'x8' and brought himself a little folding table, a chair, a radio, etc, and would just go "into the back to get something" and vanish for hours, and then come back empty-handed but the bosses had enough peoploe to keep track of, they never noticed that this one guy was never around, and since he wasn't someone they saw a lot, they never noticed he was gone, self-fulfilling prophecy!
He managed to ghost himself out of like 80% of his job by simply ghosting and not doing his job in a way that people forgot he was supposed to be tehre, doing a job. Really a quite impressive psychological move, but super risky if anyone ever did a roll-call.
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19points
#9
This was years ago when Amazon just sold books and I worked for a big telcoms company on their head office.
In the room next to my office there was this guy that was responsible for sending out by DHL office supplies etc to all the remote employees and other branches round the country, guy was a very religious Ned Flanders type of guy.
One day the cops came and took him away, turns out his daughter had been running a mail order stationary business for many years and dad was fulfilling the orders via DHL from the company supplies 🤣.
In the room next to my office there was this guy that was responsible for sending out by DHL office supplies etc to all the remote employees and other branches round the country, guy was a very religious Ned Flanders type of guy.
One day the cops came and took him away, turns out his daughter had been running a mail order stationary business for many years and dad was fulfilling the orders via DHL from the company supplies 🤣.
19points
If it’s anything in the small category we discussed previously, it can be handled with a simple verbal or written warning. Yet, if it’s anything more serious than that, again, depending on the scale of it, more significant consequences can be faced. That entails suspension (with/without pay) to even termination.
When we describe these misconduct situations, it might seem that they aren’t such a common occurrence. And yet, that would be rather a miscalculation. You see, according to 2023 data, around 52% of employees tend to be impacted by it in one way or another.
#10
Working remote full-time for three employers at same time.
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17points
#11
Educator who had access to the school's tax-free account number, due to the authority to make occasional purchases that were work-related and duly qualified as tax-free, who went off the rails with it and started using it to make larger and larger personal purchases up to and including some items for a personal home renovation. By the time they were caught they had shirked tax payments on over $25,000 worth of personal purchases that were not school-related. It ended up being a felony that got pled down to a much lesser offense but also resulted in a licensure revocation.
15points
#12
I have a job title but am not formally in any particular “bucket” of roles, i.e. operations, engineering, sales, support, etc. Additionally, my title on Teams is different from my title in payroll. And for the longest time, I was listed as working in a whole different building (where I have never worked). I complained a couple times, but nobody cared until I framed it as a safety issue.
Everyone knows me, though, so I could never do the clipboard thing. But I wonder if it would help me escape a layoff, if one ever happens, because if they target by function, I won’t show up on any list.
Edit: this is not anyone’s misconduct, just an error that I think is funny.
Everyone knows me, though, so I could never do the clipboard thing. But I wonder if it would help me escape a layoff, if one ever happens, because if they target by function, I won’t show up on any list.
Edit: this is not anyone’s misconduct, just an error that I think is funny.
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15points
Of course, the specific statistics would differ from company to company, but what this data shows is that it is way more common than one might think.
In order to minimize such numbers, companies need to put the work towards employee handling. And it doesn’t mean making the rules harsher, which would likely end up only in bigger percentages of misconduct in the long run.
Most work can be done when it comes to serious misconduct, like harassment or bullying. The company needs to take them seriously, to show examples that such behavior will not be tolerated.
#13
I was hired as a Citrix consultant to migrate a customer from on prem to nutanix cloud. After my half day of onboarding the manager I was supposed to report to had a medical thing and forgot about me for about 6 months. I was expected to report every day remotely at 6am, be on their on call paid each week , and participate in meetings. I soon realized that no one called on me in those meetings so started to just use ai to summarize them and didnt attend beyond logging into the call and off. I literally did nothing for 6 months. Was never at my computer. Used a jiggler. Every week was overtime so about 55 hours a week mandatory for this huge client. Anyways this went on for 6 months. When they finally realized I was not being assigned a thing they ended my contract and fired the dude who was supposed to be managing the efforts and me. He was just auto approving my timesheets. I was thanked for my time and asked to send in my laptop. It was a really nice asus strix laptop. Pretty high end. They still haven’t sent me a label for it a year and a half later. Easiest 175k I ever made.
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14points
#14
Owners installed a camera in the side of the building where line cooks smoked illegal substance, we would be open till like four in the morning and the cooks were not happy about losing there smoke spot, rather than face a revolt the night manager kept destroying the cameras but making it look like rats were chewing up the wires inside. Pretty soon they just stopped buying replacements.
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14points
#15
Ex Brother-in-law worked for a major utility company doing job site safety training and equipment ordering and was part of a hugw construction division. It was reorganized and the new bosses were in a different office in another part of the state and didn't really know much about his job so pretty much ignored him. Consequently no one knew or cared when he was actually working and where so he could take the day off or go on vacation and as long as he checked his emails and voice mail once a day, no one would know. He'd just claim to čbe in the field teaching". He also got them to pay for him to recertify as a paramedic, a very expensive class.
Then he formed a safety training and supply company in his father's name and resold things he bought wholesale to himself and the company at above retail. In addition if there was a "tailgate" class to be taught in some remote location he didn't want to go to khe was a bit of a priss), he'd just tell the requesting person that he was booked that day and to contact the approved vendor (his own company) to send someone else out to do the class.
It was quite the scam and once he was caught after a handful of years, they just basically told him to go away but didn't tell payroll that he had been stealing time so he got paid for several years of unpaid sick and vacation time! Jerk always running the grift and never having to pay.
Then he formed a safety training and supply company in his father's name and resold things he bought wholesale to himself and the company at above retail. In addition if there was a "tailgate" class to be taught in some remote location he didn't want to go to khe was a bit of a priss), he'd just tell the requesting person that he was booked that day and to contact the approved vendor (his own company) to send someone else out to do the class.
It was quite the scam and once he was caught after a handful of years, they just basically told him to go away but didn't tell payroll that he had been stealing time so he got paid for several years of unpaid sick and vacation time! Jerk always running the grift and never having to pay.
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14points
Needless to say, even smaller misconducts that don’t impact other employees directly (like theft) shouldn’t be brushed under the rug either. To deal with them and the previously mentioned ones, companies should strive to clearly communicate their policies and make them easily accessible.
They also need to make sure to properly train both employees and their management, and if needed, embark on training for, let’s say, anti-harassment.
Have you ever witnessed or even participated in any creative employee misconduct yourself? How did the company handle it? Please, share your stories!
#16
I worked at a school for low income children where we had had an after school program for homeless kids. It was fully funded and the kids had games, dinner, and homework help. Two of the ladies running it would frequently go around town asking for all kinds of donations, mostly food and gift certificates. None of it was for the kids, they kept it all. They were turned in to the principal multiple times but he did nothing because they are big gift givers of whiskey and cigars to him. Turned in to school district but since it’s something they did outside of school time it was never really pursued. They’re still at it as far as I know.
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14points
#17
I worked for a company a long time ago where production workers clocked in by a machine. There was a case where a guy found an unplugged machine at the back of a shed set at 7:29 am, at that time production started work at 7:30am. As there was a fixed lunchtime there was no need to clock in for the afternoon.
He would come in around 9:30am, clock himself in at 7:29 and then go home, his job meant that he walked around different production departments so his absence was never noticed.
He did this for around 18 months whilst he was growing his own business at home. It was discovered when someone became suspicious that the time he clocked in was ALWAYS 7:29. He got fired with no other consequences because it would be too embarrassing to admit in court that it took so long to find out he wasn’t working.
By this time his home based business was profitable so he wasn’t affected by being fired.
He would come in around 9:30am, clock himself in at 7:29 and then go home, his job meant that he walked around different production departments so his absence was never noticed.
He did this for around 18 months whilst he was growing his own business at home. It was discovered when someone became suspicious that the time he clocked in was ALWAYS 7:29. He got fired with no other consequences because it would be too embarrassing to admit in court that it took so long to find out he wasn’t working.
By this time his home based business was profitable so he wasn’t affected by being fired.
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14points
#18
A guy I worked with would get caught napping in his cubicle every once in a while, when confronted he would just claim it was his blood pressure medication made him feel drowsy. HR gave him wide birth because it was a medical condition.
He always had the little 8 oz Costco water bottles and claimed he had to hydrate because of the medication he was taking.
One day they just canned him and it turned out that those water bottles were filled with vodka and he had been drinking on the job in plain sight for years and in the afternoon nodding off due being drunk.
He always had the little 8 oz Costco water bottles and claimed he had to hydrate because of the medication he was taking.
One day they just canned him and it turned out that those water bottles were filled with vodka and he had been drinking on the job in plain sight for years and in the afternoon nodding off due being drunk.
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13points
#19
Coworker treated business trips like holidays and simultaneously claimed 8 hours overtime per day spent on a business trip. Not super creative but very bold. Was found out eventually, but it seems their supervisor who should have noticed that kind of behavior didn't want to look bad for letting this kind of thing slide, so the coworker in question never faced any consequences for their actions.
11points
#20
Me, again. In our school system, there was a fellow who became the “Specialist “ for computer studies, half-time. This was 35+ years ago. He taught business subjects for the other half of his timetable. In addition, he taught two courses at night school and was “principal of night school as well. 4 jobs so far. Then my hairdresser, who was working on her high school diploma at night school complained that he insisted that students enrol in math first, insisting that it was required. IT WAS NOT. But..he taught it and wanted to be sure of full enrolment. I was really annoyed because I knew that folks starting on the journey of finishing a diploma would have been better served by beginning with just about any other credit, since so many folks have math phobia. Now, here comes the fun part. My daughter and her friends signed up for Spanish because it was not offered at our small school. The parents took turns driving them to the city every Thursday night. When it was my turn to drive, I wandered around the school during the class. There was a lineup of 6 or 7 adults outside the main office. Curious, I struck up a conversation with one. They were there for PRIVATE tutoring in math. You-know-who was in the Principal ‘s office, meeting each adult student for 25 minutes of help on the lesson. Paid for by them! Folks who worked hard for every penny and took the time and effort to better themselves. He would go to his class, get them started on the work, and then slip out to his. side job.
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10points