Has anyone ever totally *lost their shit* where you work?

In My Humble Opinion
61

Oh, yeah, I lost my shit today (again).

There is this new employee who has been there for about 4 months. She is VERY BOSSY. Now, she is my equal, not my supervisor or manager, but she treats me as if she is.

I have gone to the boss to complain, have gone to HR, and nothing has been done about her. I am not the only person who has a problem with this new person. In fact, the entire office has complained about her to the boss.

Now, the office is about as dysfunctional as they come. So bad, that a 3rd party has been brought in to “fix” the problems.

Anyway, today, I could not take it anymore. She was bossing me around, and I was standing my ground. I was shaking, on the verge of tears, but so mad that I could feel my blood pressure skyrocket. Finally, she got so frustrated with me because I wouldn’t back down that she hung up on me. I was so pissed that I slammed the phone down (multiple times) called her names (my door was shut), and I told the HR manager that I was leaving for the rest of the day (emotional distress).

This is the second time in a month that I have had to leave the office because of emotional distress. (The new girl, by the way, also left. But she didn’t have the courtesy to tell the HR manager that she was leaving.) What is even worse is that the HR manager has walked out of meetings and gone home due to emotional distress, and is now under medical care for stress.

Any way you slice it, the office where I work is very dysfunctional, and one of these days I am afraid I am going to lose my shit so badly that i will be out of a job, and perhaps a career.

62

I’ve never been one to yell or scream at people. No, I turn the stress inward and let it eat at me, giving me insomnia and making me grind my teeth when I am finally able to sleep. What a riot.

I haven’t worked for a couple of years (I’m in school now). My last job had me on the brink of a nervous breakdown. The two managers I reported to had no idea how much work I had to do and kept giving me grief over how I was falling behind. We were just wrapping up a SOX audit, I was racking up the overtime and absolutely hating my job. I called in sick one day and spent the day chanting “I can’t do this anymore” and wondering what my options were. The moment I decided to quit, it felt like the weight of the world lifted off my shoulders. The next morning I dropped my resignation letter off with HR, returned my keys, gathered my things, and walked out. Two years later I’m still giddy with relief that I’m back in school and I never have to do that job ever again.

So I did indeed “lose my shit”, but I kept it all inside. I’m glad it happened, though. It led me to hire a career coach and learn so much about myself and what my potential is. That was undoubtedly the single best investment I’ve ever made.

My second last job was a choppy ride through below-ground-level employee morale, receivership, and lots of resignations. I stuck around because it was like watching a train wreck. It was morbid curiosity that kept me there until the very last moment. I ended up getting laid off, too. That was also a very good thing.

So I can relate to the stories of stress and low morale and idiotic managers. Been there. You have my sympathies.

63

I’ve lost my shit once. Big shitty company, small department, good boss. Corporate assholes had screwed me on my paycheck 8 weeks straight. So, 11:00 on Thursday when checks get handed out, I’m in the bosses office, he hands me my check, phone rings, I open it, he hangs up the phone, and grabs my check right out of my hand and rips it in half. Checks were written on the other side of the country and flown in.

My paycheck was just ripped in half by my boss, they had apparently overpaid me by 8 hours and even thought they could fuck me out of money for 2 months, I couldn’t keep their money for a week. I went fuckin’ nuclear(nucUlar). I apparently knew more 4 letter words than I thought I did(I really don’t remember much, I was that pissed). I was eventually escorted from the building and my boss was with me in the parking lot and eventually calmed me down.

I had checks that had already been sent and needed that money(MY money) that day. He went over to accounting, pulled out what I needed to cover the checks, plus $100 for spending money from “petty cash” and told me to pay it back when my check showed up. I tried to pay it back, he wouldn’t let me, and I got paid until the end of the day and got to go home almost 3 hours early.

At the same place, one lady who was trying to get fired finally did, she choked the supervisor, trashed the kitchen that we worked in, pulled up all the potted plants in the lobby, dirt everywhere, all the couches overturned. But the best part and I was 3 feet away. The Big Boss confronted the Nut case. Asked her nicely to leave, wasn’t happening. He tried to grab her wrist to “escort” her out. Somehow the conversation ended up…

NutCase: [to Big Boss] HIT ME!!!
BB: Duh, Miss Psycho you need to uh… Duh…
NC: HIT ME!!! M…F…ER!!!
BB: Duh, Ummm, Errrrr, [thinking: I’m not qualified for this, I have an expensive watch, a lot of ties and have kissed a huge amount of ass to get in this position, I didn’t know I would actually have to DO anything]
NC: HIT ME M…F…ER!!! HIT ME LIKE THIS!!!

BAP! BAM! WHACK! SMASH!!! POW!!!BOOMBOOMBOOM!!

She fucked him up good, it was great, then she ran out back through the cornfield into the woods.

After she got 3 good shots to his face he finally got his spindly little arms up and she got his precious watch. We found what was left of it while cleaning up all the other stuff she had tossed, tipped, thrown and dumped. That was a funny day. She got a couple years probation.

64

Just yesterday I actually lost my shit with an employee I’d never expect to have had a problem with. I went into the break room and he was just being an obnoxious ass for some unexplained reason. He was just annoying the hell out of me and wouldn’t leave me alone. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I exploded in his face and told him to fuck off and never talk to me again. Then he had the gall to tell me that I was overreacting and to take it easy and “lighten up”.

Then I woke up. Turns out it was just a dream.

The guy I got into it with in my dream is a pretty nice guy IRL, and he’s a quiet sort of person, too, so it surprised me that he would be someone I would have a dream about. I don’t even talk to him a whole lot, just one of those guys you say hello to in passing. Maybe I’m just overdue for a vacation.

65

Jjimm, your OP is among the funniest to read! I am still cracking up over the VP and the MD fighting including an real ass kicking!

This sucks. I clearly am deranged. :smiley:

66

One of my old bosses was a meh, whiny boss and one of the worst mom’s I’ve ever encountered and that is saying something.

Of her two sons, one failed 9th grade twice ( TWICE!) before she and her dipshit husband decided maybe something was right about this kid.

Turns out he has a low IQ. Like Forrest Gump level without the cutsyness or personality. The kid would come into our office and sit there like a lump whenever he didn’t feel like going to school, which was ALOT.

All of this parents’ energy went for the other boy who was normal. They just checked out on raising him or helping him at all. It just farkin’ annoyed me.

They were in the process of having their 1950’s kitchen updated. I made a suggestion about " Hey, why not ask some of the construction guys if X can hang our around them for a couple of days and see if he learns any carpentry skills. I bet he would be real good at something like that." I was quite pleased in the positive spin I put on my suggestion.

The look she gave me was like she just had something foul put under her nose, " I don’t want my son working with his hands."

I lost my shit. " You don’t want him working with his hands and he’s going for 9th grade a third time! CLEARLY BOOK WORK is too hard for him! I HOPE YOU LIKE HIM LIVING AT HOME THE REST OF YOUR FUCKING LIFE BECAUSE HE’S GOING TO BE LIVING ON YOUR COUCH UNTIL YOU DIE!"

Yeah. That went over real well. She stomped out ( as she rightly should have) Her parents, who owned the place were glad I said what I did. They had been trying to get her to do something, anything for him for some time. I felt bad for what I said, but I felt worse for her son whom she just didn’t do crap for.
Last I heard, from a former coworker was I nailed it on the head. All he did was walk around town listening to his cd player (it’s been about 10 years since I got an update.) and he was hit by a car. Had to have some major brain surgery.

Where was mom during this…at work. Wouldn’t take the day off for her eldest son’s BRAIN SURGERY.

67

The day after Christmas. The asshole in our office was married to the Boss’s daughter, which is why we had to tolerate him.

It turned out the Boss had had an Xmas day Open House from 1 - 6 p.m. The asshole’s son had shown up at 9:00 and had been told to go home. Asshole was furious and came into the office screaming about how his son had been “thrown out in the street.”

The Boss told hi to “Get the hell out of my office.” Asshole didn’t and the Boss started throwing things. Asshole then proceeds to [i[turn the Boss’s desk over*, right on the Boss’s leg. He then leaves the Boss’s office and goes to his own office, with the Boss still screaming “Get the hell out of my office.”

I had to call the cops to get asshole to leave.

68

That’s awesome.

Please … I have to know … is the asshole still married to the Boss’s daughter?

69

Right after I arrived at my last job I found out why they were in such a rush to get me to take the job, and why the substantially higher salary (compared to the job I had), it turns out they REALLY needed to get rid of the person in the position I was to fill.

I will call her Nancy (mostly because her name really was Nancy). Nancy had loud, screaming arguments with everybody. When I say everybody I *mean *everybody: her boss, her subordinates, the receptionist, the people in Finances, the coffee lady, the parking attendant, the people in the other branches, the people in the foreign offices. Everybody.

She had a really short temper and a massive inferiority complex. My ex-boss convinced her that by training me she’d be transferred to a better, newer, position. She never had a bad word for me and treated me with respect (lucky me), but as soon as I was ready to take over she was transferred to the equivalent of “office in the bathroom and her red stapler stolen”. Since she had not being officially demoted (they made up a bullshit position) and her salary remained the same she had no “real” reason to make a claim to the Labor Dept. After a massive blow-out, which I couldn’t unfortunately witness she walked out.

Our was a niche business, and word spread out fast. Nobody (in our line of business) hired her after that.

70

I used to work for a small mortgage brokerage with a very relaxed office atmosphere. We had a Christmas party, and since I didn’t have a BF, I took my best friend as my “date”. One of the brokers, who was a totally skeezy guy and MUCH older than my friend, took a shine to her and started hitting on her. Hard. She put up with it for awhile, and then turned to me and pretty much ignored him for the rest of the evening, which was really the best she could do.

Come Monday, this broker pitched an absolute FIT over my friend’s behavior, how rude she was, what a bitch she was, etc. It was amazing. Of course, this guy was a total asshole and everyone in the office hated him and no one was particularly sympathetic to his “plight”. Eventually he got fired, which was pretty incredible considering that the brokers were technically all self-employed. You have to be amazingly obnoxious to get fired from a job you’re self-employed at.

I know I’ve told this because it is definitely my low point as a professional person, but once as a teacher I lost my shit the point that I kicked a student. He wasn’t MY student - he was an obnoxious kid who had nothing better to do than stand in my doorway and yell at me and my actual students. Telling him to go away didn’t work and after about five minutes of pointless back and forth, I finally just reared back and kicked him in the shin. Yeah. It worked. I was pretty sure I was gonna get kicked (ha!) out of the Peace Corps for that little stunt, but no one gave a shit. My colleagues told me not to worry, he deserved it. Um, okay.

ETA: I forgot an important detail - he was like, sixteen and bigger than me. I wasn’t abusing a helpless little kid. But it was still really, really wrong and I am totally embarrassed about it.

71

When I was in grade school, we had a nun who used to just randomly start screeching incoherantly at someone, for no particular reason. Once, I remember we were working on something in small groups (I can’t even remember what the class was – religion, English, etc), and someone was using White-Out on his own notes. She just FREAKED and started flipping out and screaming – and shaking the bottle of White-Out. No one could figure out WHAT the hell her deal was.

72

A few years back I was doing the closing shift at a different Wendys than I work at now. We were crazy busy, shorthanded (always the case there…), and getting absolutely pummeled all night long. The guy on fries (relatively new-maybe a couple of weeks in the job) throws down the fry scoop, storms out back, and takes off his shirt and hat, throwing them at me as he stormed out. “This job sucks!!! I have a masters in engineering! I can do better than this!!” The amusing part is that he was maybe 17…unless he was a Doogie, I doubt he had a master’s degree. He came back the next week begging for his job back. He was denied.

73

Did you attend grade school in Goldsboro, NC by any chance? I had one nun who, though otherwise apparently even-tempered, tended to throw books and scream when the kids didn’t do things fast enough to suit her. I remember one day when we were finishing math and proceeding to religion; the girl next to me didn’t put her math book away fast enough. The nun stormed over, threw the book hard enough that it slammed into the front wall of the classroom, and started screaming at this girl to take out her religion book. This was also the first teacher that required us to turn in everything written in pen; she didn’t approve of the use of ‘eraseable’ ink pens, and I recall a few times when such pens would be taken from students and thrown in the trash.

74

Nope, Pittsburgh PA.

She was just really, really weird. Most of the other nuns were really cool, but this one was just nuts. (Oh, and when the lights would blink, she get all freaked out, because it was a message from God)

75

The Boss’s dauther is now the Boss and still married to the asshole.

76

Its always funny when someone is literally kicked in the ass. A friend once pointed this out (years ago) by demonstrating it. And its true!

(Uh, use with discretion.)