Strange things that happen at work

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I work in a psychiatric hospital. That should clue me in to the fact that weird things will always be going on here. I mean, I don’t work on a floor with patients that have been committed, but some of the characters that we get around here are amusing.

For example, I work on a floor that deals with outpatients with addiction. One day, I walked out into the lobby to chit chat with the receptionist. As we sat there discussing the hotness quotient of our IT guy, I noticed something laying on the floor. I couldn’t quite tell what it was, so I finally walked from behind the counter to examine it. It turned out to be a small bag (I would guess it was a dimebag) of pot. We had to call campus security to come and get it, and fill out various reports of exactly where it was on the carpet, and who picked it up. There was only one patient on the floor at the time, so I’m pretty sure it was theirs. Why would someone bring their pot with them to see an addiction counselor? Did he/she stop to buy it on the way to his/her appointment? Somewhat freaky.

Once, we had a power outage during a storm. Again, I was in the lobby, talking to the secretary, betting on whether we would get the cute UPS man that day. The power cut out, and before the emergency generator could cut on, the patient in the waiting room just whispered “Nosferatu!” :eek: What? What the hell is that supposed to mean? The power cut on just seconds after they said it. I made haste getting back to my office that day.

Today I walked into the bathroom across from my office. Nothing too strange, except there was a “Barrel of Monkeys” on the countertop by the sink. Alas, it was just the empty barrel, no monkeys. Otherwise, I was going to take the monkeys out and put them in various places in the bathroom and watch people as they came out for their reactions.

What kind of freaky stuff has gone on at your office?

2

I surf the SDMB all day long, and still my employers pay me money every two weeks!

Freaky!

3

I’m an engineer surrounded by engineers. It’s a non-stop freak-fest here!

:smiley:

4

Not to diminish the strangeness of the event, but this patient may just be a big Spongebob fan. There is an episode where someone is scaring SB by turning the lights on and off. He is afraid it’s the Hash Slinging Slasher, but it turns out to just be Nosferatu. I have a 4 year old. And a 37 year old.

5

I still shake my head about this one.

Last few years I worked in the IT group of a large company, we had about 150 programmers and related IT people. It was a family friendly company, which means that, among other things, they sponsored employee and family events. A nice one was the yearly picnic, which took place at one of the area theme parks, catered and with free passes. We also had two yearly Christmass parties, one semi-formal dance gig, and one during the work day for family. They’d bring in a Santa, hand out nice presents to the employees’ kids. Like I said, family friendly.

I covered all that because I wanted to make the point, in an admittedly longwided way, that although you might not mix socially with other employees you’d still get to know them and their families, somewhat. One of my co-workers, let’s call him Mark, seemed like the most normal guy in the world. Mid-40’s, slightly fat, glasses, wife, 2 kids, and generally just your run of the mill IT nerd.

He worked at the other end of the floor, and I really didn’t mix much with him except for the occasional head nod in the hallway. Then one day I was int men’s bathroom, standing at the urinal taking care of business, when someone comes in and stands at the next urinal hikes up their skirt and proceeds to pee. It took a couple of seconds, for the whole “hiked up the what???” thing to register.

I figured I’d be cool about it, maybe we had hired a scottish contractor, and casually glanced out of the corner of my eye, while pretending to stretch my neck. Holy crap!! Unless scotts have started wearing makeup and lipstick as part of the kilt, this was a woman. A damned ugly woman, yes, but definitely no man. Then she spoke to me.

“Hi, bay”

I nearly strangled little bayonet I was so startled, this was Mark! I could barely stammer out an almost inaudible “Hey, Mark.” In retrospect I know I missed a great opportunity to use the old “How’s it hanging”, retort, but really, I wanted to get out not witty banter.

“Sorry bay, I’d rather be called Mary now.”
“Uh, ok, um, Mar…, Mary. See ya!”

There’s little doubt that if there was a ever an Olympic event for fastest “zip-up, wash up, dry up, get out of the bathroom” and my performance that day was presented for evaluation the sports world would proclaim me as the Babe Ruth of the day.

I immediately ran to the admin assistant, also known as Director of Gossip, and got the scoop. You think the bathroom scene was bizarre, no, no, it gets better. I swear on all that is Holy I am not making this up, this is The Scoop as she presented it, and later verified by Mark-Mary him/herself in an email sent to all.

Mark would occasionally dress up in his wife’s clothing when she was not around, but one day she returned home a little earlier than expected, and how many lives have been ruined just like that I ask you ladies and gentlemen, please, never surprise your SO, exercize that cell phone; anyway, she returned early and caught him. Much fighting ensued, and Mark finally admitted that he was in fact, “a woman trapped in a man’s body…”. Weird enough? No? Ok, he wasn’t just a “woman trapped in a man’s body”, he was a “lesbian woman trapped in a man’s body.”

I know, a lot of guys out there will say “Hey bay, I’ve said many times that I’m a lesbian trapped in a man’s body!”. Maybe you have my imaginary friend, but in support of those statements have you undergone hormone therapy, developed breasts, and started wearing women’s clothing EVERYWHERE? No? Didn’t think so. And I would also bet that you have never then gone to the trouble of divorcing your wife, and marrying another “lesbian woman trapped in a man’s body”.

Mark did all this. It never got any less weird, some days he would wear man’s clothing, and I swear he looked just like SNL’s Pat. But most days he would stick to the skirt, boots and blouse emsemble that he was sporting during the aforementioned bathroom incident.

Incidentally, I heard from the Director of Gossip that Mark had tried to get HR to change his name in their records to Mary, but the HR director took the stand that he would not do it until Mark officially changed his name. AKAIK Mark never did.

Of course it goes without saying that the names have been changed to protect all involved. Well, except mine of course, I am really bayonet, also known as bay.

6

I worked in loss prevention and one night I was called to the office to deal with someone from the cleaning crew and when I got finished someone called me and told me there was a jeep driving around behind the building. Now, I worked for a company that would throw away things people wanted, old computers, video games etc. We had a big caged in dumpter and people kept breaking into it. So the jeep around back was kinda a big deal. I walked back there and it was not a jeep, but hummer. When I approached the driver it was a lady about 70and three teenage girls in the hummer. Apparently, she bought the hummer for her 15 year old grand-daughter and was teaching her how to drive it. That alone is rather scary, but that is not what was really weird. The old lady asked if I wanted to drive it. Now, normally I would just say no thanks and ask them to leave the parking lot, but I was not missing this chance. For about 30 minutes I put that hummer to the test. Jumping curbs, drove up a very steep embankment, locked the brakes up, did a doughtnut (did not think you could do one in a hummer, I was wrong). And all the time, the lady keeps telling me to do more more more, “it’s what they’re built for” she keeps saying. So, it might not be strange, but I bet it will never happen to me agian, it was very very fun.

7

I work in a research lab. That in itself is weird enough, but for the most part it’s pretty uneventful around here. Things are done by-the-book and there’s not a lot of excitement. One day though things just seemed to go haywire all at once. At the time, we were doing a pig study. And not cute little Babe-sized pinky pigs but big, hairy, grunting pigs that probably weighed a couple hundred pounds easy. Outside of surgery, they had three of them, sedated, laying on gurny type tables waiting for their turn. They’d been shot up with dope, and had little face masks on for inhalent anesthetic. Nevertheless, one of the pigs came to. It freaked, jumped off the table, and started running down the hall. Only it was all doped up, so it kept swaying and stumbling, running into the wall and bouncing off with these awful sounding grunts, spraying shit along the way.

I’m a desk girl (thank god), not a tech, so I just got to watch in awe as half of the animal care crew tried to chase this thing down without either A) hurting it, B) getting it so overexcited that it had a heart attack, or C) sliding in its piles of shit. Finally, they get it cornered in one hallway and try to advance on it slowly. By this time, the vet was there with another hypo of dope so all they really needed to do was get close enough to dose it. As the three of them were slowly advancing, the pig bolted and ran right through them. The vet went ass-over-teakettle with a squeal, the two techs stood there gaping, not really sure if they should help the doc up or keep chasing the pig, and at just that moment another tech came out of one of the rabbit rooms a little further down the hall with a whole cart full of bunnies. You can see what’s coming right? The pig barreled into the cart, it bounced off the wall and tipped, and now there were a dozen rabbits running around willy-nilly too. They finally got everything rounded up again and put away but I swear–it was like some kind of bizarre slap-stick comedy routine while it lasted. If I hadn’t witnessed it first-hand, there’s no way I would have ever believed it.
Things have been pretty boring since then though. ::sigh::

8

Where I come from it’d be plenty strange for ANYONE to buy a 15 yo a hummer!

belladonna, I always wondered if that ever happened at animal research facilities. How wonderful!

9

This happened only yesterday.
I work at a weekly newspaper and this time of year, Boy Scout and Cub Scout troops visit on Thursday and Friday afternoons for a tour for a merit badge. Usually it’s about five to seven little boys and a couple of moms. They take a tour, have their picture taken the woman giving the tour dummies up a front page with their photo on it and everyone goes home. A good time had by all - at least all the Scouts, the staff hates it, but how can you say no to Scouts right?

So anyway, yesterday was an especially large group - 20 Scouts about six moms and a handful of baby brothers and sisters. We have a small office, so the troop was split into two groups and while one group was seeing how the front page is being put togehter, the other was with the photographer.

I’m sitting at my desk, trying to at least look like I’m working, when the little brothers start cursing like sailors. One kid, he looked to be about 5 or 6, grabbed an AP Stylebook out of another reporter’s desk and was pretending to read. He just kept saying “The fat asshole told you to fuck off” over and over again at the top of his little lungs. The mom, who was standing right next to my desk, must have heard him clear as a bell - I know I did - yet she did nothing. Nevermind the fact that the kid is rifling through a stranger’s desk, did this woman really think letting a 6-year-old swear in public was acceptable?

After he kept at it for a few minutes, I stuck my head out from behind my monitor and she asked me if the boys were bothering me. I lied and said no, I just wanted to make sure I heard what I thought I was hearing. The woman actually looked at me and said, “Why, are they swearing?”

A few minutes later, I print out a photo assignment and I was walking across the office to give it to the photographer, a route which brings me past the restrooms. As I walk past the ladies’ room - which has a single sink and toilet, no stalls - the light is on and the door’s wide open. Normally, we turn off the light when we leave the room, so my reaction to seeing the light on was to look in the room as I passed by to make sure no one had accidently forgotten to flip the switch. So, I look to the left and what do I see? A Scout, pants around his ankles, business in hand, pissing with the door wide open!!! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? This kid had to be about 7 or 8 years old. Old enough to know to shut the door when peeing in a public place.

Rather than embarass the kid, or intrude on his personal moment any more that I inadvertenly had, I just kept going. I felt dirty for the rest of the day.

Next time the Scouts are coming to visit, I think I’ll schedule an interview.