Having a terrible day at work can be frustrating, overwhelming, and even demoralizing. Whether it’s a challenging project, an annoying colleague, or just a series of misfortunes, sadly, there are plenty of reasons you might feel like you’re a failure.
But as Sigrid and Bring Me The Horizon sang, “It’s just a bad day / Not a bad life.” And one of the ways to recover is by venting online. So we at We decided to remind ourselves that the universe hasn’t conspired against any of us. From time to time, everyone runs into some (undeserved) adversity.
Continue scrolling to see all the messed-up nonsense people have had to deal with on the job! And when you’re done, see more fails previously posted here.
#1 I Work In Mosquito Control. Everyday I Go Into Vacant Lots, Holding Ponds Swamps, Low Areas, Woodlands And Onto Residence Properties. This Is Typical Of What I Find
I’ve lost my faith in humanity. What we do defines us and this is what we do. We are not stewards of the land or caretakers. We are a blight. We are just vultures picking at the carcass of a dying world.
#2 I Work As A Valet And Make $3.85/Hour And I Received This As A Tip
Getting dealt a bad hand at work isn’t the end of the world. Especially for content employees. According to Annie McKee, Ph.D., who is a best-selling business book author and advisor to top global leaders, from CEOs of Fortune 500 companies to government officials, those who are engaged with their jobs and colleagues work harder — and smarter. But that’s quite rare.
“Far too many couldn’t care less about what’s happening around them,” McKee wrote in Harvard Business Review. “For them, Wednesday is ‘hump day’ and they’re just working to get to Friday. And then there’s the other end of the bell curve — that nearly one out of five employees is actively disengaged. These people are sabotaging projects, backstabbing colleagues, and generally wreaking havoc in their workplaces.”
#3 Sorry Class, My Dog Ate Everyone’s Homework
#4 As A Practical Joke, Some Coworkers Wrapped My Office In Foil. In The Process, My 30″ LCD Monitor Was Accidentally Turned On, And It Boiled Itself
Here’s what it looked like when I unwrapped it.
#5 Got Fired For “Telling The Boss How To Do His Job” When All I Did Was Say “We Can’t Obstruct A Fire Escape”
“Disengaged, unhappy people aren’t any fun to work with, don’t add much value, and impact our organizations (and our economy) in profoundly negative ways,” McKee explained.
“It’s even worse when leaders are disengaged because they infect others with their attitude. Their emotions and mindset impact others’ moods and performance tremendously. After all, how we feel is linked to what and how we think. In other words, thought influences emotion, and emotion influences thinking.”
#6 If You’re A Parent And Let Your Kids Make A Mess Like This
#7 Two Domino’s Workers After Their Shift In San Antonio, Texas Today. All Food Gone In 4 Hours
#8 The Gift That Keeps On Giving
#9 Consequences Of Working In A -10°C Lab Where I Have To Wash My Hands 40 Times A Day
McKee thinks it’s time to finally blow up the myth that feelings don’t matter at work.
“Science is on our side: there are clear neurological links between feelings, thoughts, and actions. When we are in the grip of strong negative emotions, it’s like having blinders on,” she said. “We focus mostly — sometimes only — on the source of the pain. We don’t process information as well, think creatively, or make good decisions. Frustration, anger, and stress cause an important part of us to shut down —the thinking, engaged part. Disengagement is a natural neurological and psychological response to pervasive negative emotions.”
#10 Two Teams Of Builders Was Building A Bike Lane “On The Right-Hand Side” (Mariupol, Ukraine)
#11 2 Hours Into A 10-Hour Shift When A Passenger Asks If I Know About The Stowaway On My Bus
#12 I Work In A Mall With An Indigo Book Store And Found This Yesterday, It Really Pissed Me Off
#13 New Guy Tried To Empty The Fryer Grease Into A Plastic Bucket
However, it’s not just negative emotions we need to watch out for. “Extremely strong positive emotions have the same effect,” McKee said.
“Some studies show that too much happiness can make you less creative and prone to engage in riskier behaviors (think about how we act like fools when we fall in love!). On the work front: I’ve seen groups of people worked up into a frenzy at sales conferences and corporate pep rallies. Little learning or innovation comes out of these meetings. Throw in a lot of alcohol and you’ve got a whole host of other problems.”
So it sounds like having your suspenders stuck in your chair every once in a while can be actually quite beneficial.
#14 They Can’t Pay A Living Wage But I’ll Waste Hundreds On Food Waste
#15 Stayed At Work For The Storm. This Is The Road I Take Home
#16 Got Laid Off Today With Zero Notice, Found All My Stuff Already In A Box When I Got To Work
#17 Over 2,000 Pounds Of Fresh Pork Being Rejected By The Walmart Distribution Center Because The Sell By Dates Occur When Their Stores Are Closed For Thanksgiving
This product will still be safe to eat for the next 15 days but they won’t even attempt to sell it. This will end up in a dumpster today.
Since nobody can prepare for the unexpected (just the way they can react to it), it isn’t surprising that workers worry about other things.
“One could argue that today’s employees are as equally stressed as their predecessors, but for different reasons,” said Jodi Chavez, president of Atlanta-based Randstad Professionals, a segment of Randstad US, which provides finance, accounting, HR, sales, marketing, legal staffing and recruitment services. “They fear having their jobs outsourced to another country, have anxiety about how best to work alongside new technologies such as automation and robotics, have increased financial pressures with rising student loan debt and late retirement, and feel pressure to be ‘on’ and answering e-mails 24/7.”
#18 Absolutely Shattered
#19 At The End Of Shifts, We Split The Tips Evenly. We Had More Than 50$ Of Tips And My Coworker Had To Leave About 10 Minutes Early She Ended Up Taking All But 2.50$
#20 I Collect Carts At Walmart. Please Stop Being Lazy And Return Your Cart To Where It Belongs
#21 OMG I Won I Won I Won
In difficult times, you need to find an internal reserve of energy and hope to help you make your way through. In other words, you need to tap into your resilience.
“Like so many other human traits, resilience can be woven into the fabric of one’s being (nature) and/or it can be learned (nurture),” career and business coach Marjie Terry said.
“One’s natural disposition may lead them to always look on the bright side or to look for the silver lining. For others, with an accumulation of life experience, they develop a resilience perspective and realize that, as the old saying goes, what doesn’t break you makes you stronger. They develop an ability to recognize that it’s important to keep going even when life hands you challenge after challenge—they develop perspective.”
Sometimes, there really isn’t much else we can do but endure. And laugh!
#22 Something Went Wrong With The Line Painting
#23 Paint Truck Breaks Long-Standing Speed Record – Hits 88 MpH
#24 Colleague Definitely Drew The Short Straw On Email Naming Conventions
#25 Sgt. Vanderheiden Got His Suspenders Stuck In A Chair Yesterday, But Some Helpful Friends Came To The Rescue
#26 Guy At Work Dropped So Much Oil We Got Invaded By The US Government
#27 Girlfriend Works At A Local Target And Had A Family Stroll In And Do All This
#28 Coworker Found A Surprise At The Bottom Of Their Cup This Morning
#29 When You Have A Long, Active Day Surrounded By People, Then Get Home, Take Off Your Work Pants, And Just Stare At The 6″ Tear Straight Down Your Back End
#30 Last Night Someone Tried To Steal A Car From The Dealership I Work At
#31 I Finished Rolling My Silverware After An Eleven-Hour Shift, Only To Have The Drawer I Loaded It In The Break And Fall To The Floor. I’m So Done With Today
#32 5 Minutes Into My Maintenance Shift I Get Called Up To The Public Bathroom, This Is What I Found
#33 Can’t Get Into Work This Morning Because The Closer Didn’t Realize They Took Home The Core To The Door Lock
#34 I’m A Night Custodian At A High School. This Is What The First Day Of School Looks Like
#35 Colleague Stepping On A Wet Concrete
#36 Coworker Drove A Forklift Over A Can Of Oil
#37 Fresh Refurb At The Pub I Work At And Someone Decided To Write A Review Of The Paint Job
“You didn’t sand or undercoat these doors!”
#38 Bought Myself A Little Chair For When I Have To Program Robots For Long Hours At A Time At Work. Someone Over Capacity Borrowed It On The Off Shift
#39 I Literally Just Got Home From My First Day Of Work
#40 I Live In A Tiny Town (Less Than 10,000) And There’s Only One Road In And Out. Whenever There’s An Accident, Traffic Gets Jammed. It’s My First Day At My New Job
#41 First Day On The Job As A Pool Attendant And Some Lady Thought It Was A Good Idea To Dump An Entire Chocolate Fountain Into The Sink
#42 Testing Out Our New Printer. Left The Room For 5 Minutes And Came Back To This
#43 A Colleague Tipped Over 7 Crates Full Of Wine Bottles
#44 My First Day As A Delivery Guy At Domino’s
#45 When You’ve Had A Bad Day At Work, Just Remember Someone Else’s Work Day Is Probably Much Worse
#46 This Is The “Black” Coffee I Just Ordered From The Vending Machine At My Work. Good Morning To Me
#47 Spilled Half A Pot Of Hollandaise On The Floor At Work. The Majority Of It Went Underneath The Cooler
#48 Cleaned My Glasses Too Hard. I Am At Work, Don’t Have A Spare Pair
#49 On My First Day As A Janitor Assigned To This Area Of My School, The Rain Flooded Everything
#50 Key Broke Off Inside The Lock To A Very Important Work Door. Wonder How Much Trouble I Am In
#51 Amazon Employees Who Worked Over 10 Hours On Easter Sunday Were ‘Lucky Enough’ To Potentially Win A $2 Snack Pack
“Thank you all for coming in on Easter Sunday! We are going to run a contest for P2. Anyone picking over a 310 rate will be entered in a raffle for a snack pack (water/soda and a candy or bag of chips of your choice). Good Luck everyone and THANK YOU!!!”
#52 My Car Exploded On My Way To Work
#53 I’m A Videographer And Today I’m Working At A Women’s Conference. As There Are Only Women Here They Converted The Men’s Bathroom Into A Second Women’s Bathroom
The only problem is that there is one guy here. Me. And I really need to pee.
#54 Had A Wardrobe Malfunction While At Work (Retail), Had To Improvise A Solution
#55 My Coworker Put Straight Printer Ink In One Of My Gloves At Work. This Will Take A Week Or Two Minimum To Come Off
#56 Complaining About A Place That Makes Donuts Smell Like Donuts. Has To Be The Work Of A Karen
#57 This Happened On My First Day On The Job
#58 Paint Disaster At Home Depot
#59 When The Boss Thinks He’s A Comedian
#60 My Work Doesn’t Allow You To Use A Toilet As A Toilet
#61 I Came Into Work Today To Find One Of Our Office Shelves Collapsed
#62 So I Was Heading To A Job Interview And Accidentally Spilled Coffee All Over Me Just Before Interview. Not The Best First Impression I Suppose
#63 Coworker Opened Pressurized Milk Line, Blew His Hat And Hairnet Off
#64 Coworker Came Out Of Work Yesterday To Find This On His Car
#65 Last Year Our Work Holiday Party Was Pushed Back Until The Last Day Of January On Zoom. Guess Who Was The Only One To Dress Up For The Costume Contest?
#66 Finding This First Thing In The Morning As A Start To Your Work Day
#67 Was Washing A (Very Sharp) Greasy Piping Tip At Work. Slipped Right Onto My Finger Before I Could Stop It
#68 Dumped 17 Buckets Of Drywall Screws (25 Lbs Buckets) From About Fifteen Feet In The Air. I Was Told By My Coworkers It Looked Like Black Hail When It Fell
#69 Up Late Working. My Cat Jumped Up On My Desk, Vomited On The Calculator I Need To Use, Then Jumped Back Down
#70 Dropped My Ravioli Taking It Out The Microwave At Work
#71 We Were Supposed To Get Our Annual Raise But This Is What They Gave Us Instead – PB&J Day
#72 I Just Walked In As A Taco Bell Cleaning Captain. Apparently, An Employee Brought In Her Kids On The Night Shift And Made A Mess
#73 I’ve Been At Work For About 10 Hours And I Haven’t Eaten Anything Since I Got There, I Finally Got A Chance To Order Some Fries From A Nearby BBQ Shop… And I Dropped It
#74 This Happened When I Tried To Leave My Office
#75 My Friend Went To Get Into His Work Truck This Morning And Found That Someone Drilled A Hole In The Gas Tank And Stole All Of His Gas
#76 The Bathroom Ceiling At My Work That Nobody Can Fix Till Tuesday
#77 Well This Happened At Work Last Night
#78 Coworker Left A Couple Shop Rags In The Engine Valley When Doing Intake Gaskets. Now He Gets To Replace The Engine
#79 Coworker Was Driving Pizza Sauce To Another Store And Someone Cut Him Off
#80 Stop Putting These Stupid Stickers On My Pumps! I Don’t Get Paid Enough To Remove Them
#81 Shoelace Got Caught On Something At Work
#82 At Work Wondering Why I Felt A Draft Down There. My Favorite Jeans Have Given Up The Ghost
#83 5th Day Into My New Work At Home Job, And My Chair Breaks Like This
#84 A Conveyor Belt Failed
#85 Starbucks Is Over An Hour Late On The First Red Cup Day. These Are All Abandoned Drinks
#86 Coworker Accidentally Breaks 40+ Plates
#87 The Button Of My Trousers Fell In Toilet, While At Work
#88 Getting Dressed In The Dark Only To Look Down Upon Getting To Work
#89 Made An Enemy On My First Day Of Work
#90 A New Vet Clinic Opened In My Town And Today His Parrot Escaped And He Tried To Bribe Her Down For 40+ Minutes
#91 Came Into Work To Find That Someone Had Broken Into The Pizza Hut I Work At Last Night
#92 I’m Never Pooping At My Job Ever Again
#93 My Work Only Has Small Gloves
#94 When You Take The Wrong Leftovers Container To Work And All You Have For Lunch Is Baked Beans
#95 2-Hour-Old Brand New Off The Shelf Red Wing Boots Disintegrated. Cost My Friend A Day Of Work
#96 The Sink At My Work Randomly Exploded And Almost Killed One Of My Coworkers
#97 School Has A Serious Leaking Problem, My Teacher Lives In The Fear That The Plastic Will Break And Spill On Her
#98 My Coworker Came Out Of The Back Room Saying “Hey I Made A Dumb Mistake”
#99 Drove To Work Only To Discover My Suit Was Dead. Drove Back To Change
#100 My Work Giving Us Now 2-Day-Old Hotdogs Instead Of Bonus Pay For Working 4th Of July And 4th Of July Weekend
#101 This Just Happened
#102 My Coworker Dropped A Pallet Of Eggs, And I Got Assigned To Go Trough Every Single Egg Box And Inspect Every Single Egg To Ensure They’re Not Broken
#103 Got This Wonderful Error 10 Minutes Before Starting My New Remote Job
#104 I Work At A School. On My Lunch, A Parent Told Me That A Pine Cone Had Fallen From A Tree And Shattered Someone’s Windshield. That Someone Is Me
#105 Someone Incorrectly Assembled The Shelves At The Store I Work In, And Now I’m Lost In The Sauce
#106 Hell Of A Way To Start Off My Graveyard Shift Last Night
#107 Amazon Driver Left This Big Tote With Our Packages In It On Our Porch
#108 Coworkers Make Each Other Valentine’s Day Cards And I’m The Only One In My 12-Person Office That Didn’t Have One Made For Them. Some People Even Have Multiple… Awkward
#109 Trying To Finish Up A Last Minute Job. Don’t Forget To Latch Your Screw Boxes People
#110 Someone Had A Bad Day At Work
#111 My Boss’s Dog, Which Doesn’t Belong At Work To Begin With, Tore Up My Mango Plant, That I Grew From A Mango I Had Eaten
Boss wasn’t present for this, so I texted him to let him know, and all he had to say was “How much do I owe you?”
#112 My Boss Screwed The Only Window At Our Office Shut, So Now It’s Impossible To Get Fresh Air. I’m Boiling At Work
#113 Had A Pen In My Pocket At Work, Looked Down To This
#114 Started My Birthday Out By Spilling Two Gallons Of Unblended Soup Inside A Refrigerator Ten Minutes Into My Shift
#115 60-Liter Oil Canister Exploded, At The Right Is A Freshly Painted Truck
#116 Broke My Finger At Work, Got Fired After The Drug Test. All At The End Of A 12-Hour Night Shift
#117 Rats Ate Their Way Into Our Work Fridge Over The Weekend
#118 My Wife’s Coworker’s Phone Caught On Fire While Teaching
#119 My Manager Made This Mess And Made Me Pick It Up. Meanwhile, She Was Sitting On A Counter Facetiming Someone And Blasting Music
#120 My Shirts For Work Finally Came In… Spelled Wrong. My Name Is Carter
#121 Some Jerks Threw An Entire Jar Of Queso On The Menu Board At My Work And I Had To Scrape It Off With A Chisel
#122 Someone Tried On All These Shoes And Left Them On The Floor
#123 My Tooth Crown Fell Out While I Was Taking A Call At Work
#124 My Lunch For 12-Hour Shift
#125 The Order My Manager Made Me Make After I Clocked Out. I Missed My Bus
#126 Someone Ate My Food At Work So I Put It In The Middle Of The Lunch Room Table And Wrote In 3 Languages To Send My Message
#127 My Bike Got Stolen While I Was At Work
#128 I Baked A Cake For My Work Colleagues For My Birthday, And Nobody Took Any
#129 What Happened On Your Worst Day In Trucking?
#130 On Today’s Episode Of Why I Wanna Quit My Job
#131 Day 3 Of Starting My New Job, I Managed To Slice My Hand Open With A Box Cutter Somehow
#132 Today At Work, A Coworker Crashed A Trolley Full Of Plates Needed For A Function
#133 When A Coworker Forgets To Deal With Pizza Dough He Made
#134 The Office Provided My Favorite Expensive Mexican Food For Lunch. I Dumped It All Over Myself
#135 It Was My Girlfriend’s Limited Edition “Starlight” Flavor Coke
#136 Manager Glued The Volume Button On The Phone So We Can’t Change It
#137 Here’s My Night Shift Dinner For Work At 2 AM. I Was Hungry, But I Guess The Floor Was Hungrier. 5 Second Rule?
#138 How I Found My Bike When Leaving Work Today (I Only Have One U-Lock)
#139 My Coworker Waited Weeks For A Used Transmission For A Hybrid Tahoe. It Finally Showed Up And He Tipped It Up And Water Ran Out Of It For A Solid 60 Seconds
#140 Dropped My Pocket Knife At Work And The Grate Is Welded And Bolted Down
#141 That Person Must Be Having A Very Bad Day
#142 My Coworker’s Breakfast Today
#143 I Got My Box Filled With Ketchup At Work Today
