14 Strangest Workplace Stories You Won’t Believe Happened

Every workplace has its quirks - strange coworkers, weird rules, and unexplained happenings. But sometimes, the bizarre goes beyond office gossip and enters the realm of the downright unbelievable. From haunted desks to mystery employees, these workplace stories sound too strange to be true, yet they happened.

• My boss was out of town, and I managed a tea shop near a Starbucks years ago. This kid came in (foreign) and said he was supposed to start today. We were hiring, and I trained him etc.
  My boss came back two days later and had no idea. The kid was in the wrong place, but he stayed with us. Hired on the spot without even applying. ninetiesluddite / Reddit
• I used to be the front-end manager at a supermarket. One night, I had to head back to the deli for some reason. As I made my way through the kitchen, there was a bucket of rice on the floor that they used to make the rice dishes we served at the deli counter.
  To my surprise, two rats about the size of my hand jumped out of the rice and scurried under the oven. I told the deli manager the next day, and he just brushed it off. Said he was aware of the issue. I'm 99 percent sure they still used that rice. BearJ**KnowsBest / Reddit

• A new temp started in our department, but no one could remember hiring her. She didn’t have an email, a desk, or even a last name. She just showed up, answered calls that weren’t ringing, and left at exactly 3:17 PM every day. One afternoon, she turned to me and said, “They’re watching now,” then calmly walked out the door. No one ever saw her again, but her coffee cup still appears on random desks every morning.
• If I ever see that my old chef is working at a restaurant I'm eating at, I will walk out. I once told him that a big pot of stew that had been left in the fridge had some mold floating on the top. He got a spoon, started stirring it up, saying, 'I can't see any mold.' No, because you just stirred it into the mix. j-c-s-roberts / Reddit
• A new hire showed up, claiming he had worked there five years ago. He acted like he still knew everyone, reminiscing about the old office layout (which was accurate) and bringing up inside jokes, except no one remembered him. When he mentioned sitting at a desk that no longer existed, IT checked the records. He had never worked there.
  A week later, he quit without explanation. Later, the truth came out he was an old colleague’s ex, obsessed with her. He had learned everything about the office through her and somehow convinced himself he belonged there.
• We had an ongoing mystery in our office, someone kept stealing lunches from the fridge. Not just taking a bite or swapping, they would just disappear. People started marking their names in giant letters, putting notes that said "I have licked this sandwich," and even spiking food with hot sauce to catch the thief.
  One day, our boss walked in, mid-sentence, took someone else’s burrito, and just started eating it. No shame. No hesitation. Just took a bite like it was his. Everyone just stared, speechless.
  When someone finally called him out, he just shrugged and said, "Well, I assumed it was for anyone." He had been the office lunch thief the entire time.

• Every day, my coworker brings the same homemade sandwich for lunch. Same bread, same filling, same container. One day, he opened his lunchbox and found an empty container. No crumbs, no wrapper - just an empty box. He swore he packed it himself. We laughed at first, assuming he forgot. But then, his sandwich reappeared on his desk three hours later, untouched. No one saw who put it there. He hasn’t brought lunch since.
• Working at a computer repair shop. One guy left his laptop to get it fixed. We opened it up to replace the hard drive and saw it was infested with roaches. We all freaked out and had to put the laptop in a sealed plastic bag. The worst part was how offended and angry the guy was that we didn’t finish the job. Final_Distance_9275 / Reddit
• I work in IT, and one day, an employee called me in a panic because her printer wouldn’t stop printing. When I got there, it had already spit out hundreds of blank pages. No print jobs were in the queue, no one had sent anything to it—it was just going. I unplugged it, and it finally stopped. As I was leaving, she laughed and said, “At least it wasn’t printing messages this time.” I did not ask her to elaborate.
• I had a coworker once become so in love with our boss that he tried to sneak into her house at night. They never dated or anything, but he knew where she lived and tried to break in. Luckily, she had an alarm system and he was deterred. tippytoemaster / Reddit

• One day, I leaned too hard on the vending machine, and it slid back, revealing a hidden door. Naturally, I stepped inside. It was a fully furnished office - someone’s been working there. The whiteboard had a list of our weekly projects, but in handwriting that wasn’t mine, my boss’s, or anyone I recognized. Suddenly, my phone buzzed with an unknown number, I picked up and heard: “You shouldn’t be here.” I ran out. The next day, the vending machine was bolted to the wall.
• We had a recent college grad who would use his corporate card for personal purchases. He figured that the company would just keep deducting from his payroll until it was paid off. He was fired after three months of constant reminders to stop doing it. CBus-Eagle / Reddit
• Worked at a café, and one guy paid with actual gold nuggets. We thought it was fake, but nope. The manager took them to a jeweler and got them appraised. He was literally paying for coffee with real gold.
• My boss today got a rose from a 'secret admirer'. When I say a rose, I mean a fantastic flower arrangement centered around a massive rose. This thing must have cost at least £50.
  The thing is that my boss tends to keep between 3 and 7 women on the go at one time, besides his wife. As far as we know, none of these women know about the others. He spends most of the working day on the phone with them, arranging meet-ups.
  He is now in the position where he doesn't know which of his women gave him this rose, so he can't thank them for it, but one of them is going to be very, very unhappy when he doesn't. overk*** / Reddit

Workplaces are full of surprises - whether it’s haunted desks, mystery employees, or office drama. One woman was shamed for not wearing a bra, while another faced insults over her weight loss - only for karma to strike back. From the bizarre to the downright petty, the office is never boring.