"She was livid and screaming." 16 bosses share the worst thing they've ever seen at work.

The corporate workplace can be a jungle. There's no doubt about it. 

We all have a story of a work situation that has thrown us for a loop – a heated conversation with a colleague, an arrogant client or a manager from hell.

But a group of people who would have plenty of stories to dish on are bosses. They see the workplace often from a bird's-eye view, meaning they have to get across all the dramas going on. And often, bosses are the ones tasked with having to fix the problem and deal with the fallout. 

Narmie Thambipillay has been in recruitment and the small business space for over 14 years, and from her experience, bosses can often be facing multiple worst-case scenarios throughout any given day. Of course, it's important to acknowledge that employees face their own set of struggles too.

As Narmie shared with Mamamia, often it's the most bizarre of circumstances that make for the funniest stories. 

"As an employer, there are obviously a lot of personalities in the workplace, and they all have a number of quirks. However, I have to say that one of the worst things I've ever witnessed is a person cutting their nails at their desk. The conversation that I then had to have with that person was even more cringe-worthy and needless to say not one that I ever want to have again with anyone."

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We asked 16 bosses to share with Mamamia the worst things they have witnessed in the workplace – from fights, wider company issues, disaster employees and everything else in between.

Here's what the bosses had to say. 

"We had to fire her the next day."

"One of my team members was slacking off more and more regularly. It got to the point where she was doing nothing. When I asked what was going on and how her work was going, she started lying and saying her computer wasn't working, nor was her internet and she would be on and off for the day. I decided to look up her Instagram account and she was stupidly posting photos and videos of her living it up at the beach – not doing her work. When I confronted her about it (as I was her manager) she suggested that she was working at the beach on her phone. We had to fire her the next day."

"She was livid and screaming."

"We had to let go of one of our staff members because she was too erratic and not getting her work done – ultimately, she was a liability. When we sat her down with HR and explained that she was being made redundant, she was livid and screaming. She stormed out of the office and began packing her bag with exaggeration, stomping feet and a few curse words. I had to keep a straight face and remain calm on the outside, but on the inside, I was so unnerved."

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"I told him not to bring his affair to work." 

"I witnessed a fellow member on the board of our company having an affair with his executive assistant, even though I knew both were married. I had to take him aside and tell him to not bring his affair to work – he could f**k up on his own time, not work time. The confrontation sure made things awkward..."

"Letters started arriving under the office door."

"A senior team member brought into what seemed like a reasonably successful tech start-up, I was privy to things the rest of the team weren't seeing or that I needed to shield them from. After a few months, the cracks started to show – the business wasn't making money or paying suppliers, and the owner was spiralling. He campaigned with me to stay on and sacrifice my salary for a few useless shares in the company, and letters started arriving under the office door about building seizures because of unpaid rent. Eventually, I had to tell the staff what was going on and we all high-tailed it out of there!"

"It was mutually agreed that he could no longer do his work."

"One of my colleagues – who reported to me – was clearly not coping mentally with things that were happening in his life outside of work. As a manager, it was one of the hardest things trying to be there to support him emotionally while trying to keep a professional boundary. In the end, we offered him extensive support including HR assistance, a private/external counsellor paid for by the company and mental health leave. He is now doing better one year on, but no longer works at the company as it was mutually agreed that he could no longer do his work. It was quite devastating to watch on, but it made me realise that being a manager is a very multi-faceted role."

"It almost makes me want to go back down the career ladder."

"Although I have the fancy title at my workplace and sit on the board, I'm often left doing a lot of admin and managerial tasks – I don't really have the room to be creative and work on my own projects like many of my colleagues do. And I'm starting to not love my job as much as I used to. It almost makes me want to give it up and go back down the career ladder."

"Having to do that broke my heart."

"I'll never forget being in this big meeting with the heads of the organisation before we went into lockdown for COVID-19. We had been informed that many jobs were becoming redundant and it was up to us to share the news with our respective teams. Having to let go of four of my team members was devastating – of course mostly for them, but also as a manager, having to do that broke my heart."

"They'd had the run of the place until my arrival."

"When I was in my mid-twenties, I left a company to step into the senior management position at the helm of quite a young all-female team, and it was clear they'd had the run of the place until my arrival. There was a particularly cliquey group that would spend their lunch breaks venting about work and the new leadership, and they'd roll their eyes when I tried to motivate them – but they were nothing but lovely to my senior, who was a man. Their behaviour honestly shocked me!"

"It was a hot mess."

"I have always been lucky enough to manage incredible juniors at work, but one employee who I didn't directly manage but had to oversee parts of his shift was super rogue. He would overshare parts of his life that were very NSFW and would go off and work on things that he deemed important when I, or other managers, had given him an ordered priority list. Because he floated between managers, no one really had a handle on his workload and it was a hot mess. The productivity of the team took a nosedive and things had to be escalated to senior management. It was such an awkward time in the workplace because no one could properly take responsibility and it was lots of small weird moments, rather than a big blowout. It reminded me as a boss that you have to keep an eye on slightly rogue behaviour from the get-go, because it will become a big pain in the arse, eventually!"

"The employee had decided to organise it behind our backs."

"I once had an employee not turn up to work – turns out they were on an unapproved famil trip (a work-expense holiday). She had not told us about the famil, nor had we as a company discussed whether the famil would even benefit the company. The employee had simply decided to organise it behind our backs, without our permission. It was then on my shoulders having to tell the higher management team about the situation and stress that it hadn't been my decision but that this employee had acted on her own randomly. It was such a nightmare."

"I still feel like I can't speak up."

"When you're at the top, you can see the company culture problems right up close. Working at a great school, I could see that some of the people in the higher positions of power weren't doing right by their staff, and it made me really upset to witness. I was only very recently promoted to the top – many would assume I would have a bigger voice to stress my grievances, but five months in I still feel like I can't speak up, and that has been really hard to juggle."

"I was met with an eye roll."

"I was managing a local magazine a few years back, and I was running a team of junior writers and interns. One Monday morning one of the interns didn't show up, so I gave them a call to check in on them. He didn't pick up, and I really started to worry for their wellbeing and if they were okay. On Tuesday, he rocked up to the office with zero explanation for what had happened the day before. He then explained that they had been too hungover to come in, so had stayed in bed after a crazy festival weekend. When I took them aside and said their decision had been unprofessional, I was met with an eye roll and he walked back to his desk. I felt so uncomfortable about the whole thing, and I really struggled to make him realise I was in charge and that he needed to show respect. It was the worst."

"He kept slicing the stitches on his hand open."

"I'm in the motor trimming industry, so working mostly with leather and car interiors. On the job, one young apprentice of ours kept slicing the stitches on his hand open just so he could get more time off work..."

"They literally sat on a throne."

"At a previous role, being the boss meant being rolled out to clients to try to get them to spend money with us. There was one particular client who saw themselves as everyone's overlord and literally sat on a throne while you pitched to them. They then proceeded to humiliate you in front of other team leaders and make you compete for the same opportunities."

"She was a troll."

"I own my own baking small business and have to deal directly with customers. When there is only one of you to do all the jobs – it sucks. This customer kept telling me the cake mix I had sent them didn't taste good – it was an uphill battle with her. After countless emails, phone calls and bad reviews from her, we discovered that she had never actually bought a cake mix – she had just been a bit of a troll."

"They slammed their hands on my desk."

"I had a staff member disagree with edits I had made on their work. The employee stormed over to my desk and slammed their hands on my desk demanding why their work had been changed by me. I then calmly explained to them that their original unedited work had points within it that were highly insensitive and immoral. I ended up having to get HR involved to deal with the employee – it was so stressful."

Are you a boss, small business owner or manager? Tell us what's the work thing you've witnessed in the workplace in the comments below!

Feature Image: Getty/Mamamia.

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