StrangeRoboMemory
Member
I've always been interested in weird stories from people who have had unusual jobs: the overnight gigs, the clients into strange stuff, the odd things you have to deal with, the unconventional office situations, the bizarre conversations that can only happen between co-workers at 3 in the morning.
I would love to hear some tales from people who have had strange jobs where strange things have happened. Share some of your best and weirdest anecdotes!
For my part, while I was in college, I worked at a limo/luxury towncar service in South Florida. I was a dispatcher who had to manage the drivers, checking in with them, calling client reps, etc. We had a few drop-ins and random passengers, but the bulk of our clients were business groups that were flying in for a conference or corporate meeting, so we did a lot of airports pick-ups and taking people out to fancy restaurants and clubs. A lot of "I might need a car if I miss my tee time" kind of folks. The office was pretty insane: I was there for almost four years and a lot of strange things happened, here are a few of my stories:
- The owner of the place loved dogs, and rescued them. The only issue was that the dogs actually lived at the office, and at Peak Dog we had about 12. The office wasn't huge, so you were constantly stepping around the dogs as they barked, yelped, had sex with each other, and ran through the halls. You'd often be on the phone with clients and the dogs would be barking their heads off. "Is that...a dog? Do I hear a dog?" "Yeah, um...the window's open, sorry..." The lead/alpha dog was extremely small, blind, and deaf, and she would careen through the halls, screeching, as a dozen other dogs ran behind her, tumbling and falling over each other.
The dogs only ate human food, so our office freezer was filled with these rotisserie chickens that were only for the dogs. A co-worker ate one once and was nearly fired. To this day, I can't eat rotisserie chicken, because I associate it with dog food. If the office ordered food for the staff, the dogs got first dibs; when we'd get pizza, the dogs would get the first pie, and we'd have to wait until they were done before we could dig into our own grub. The dogs would immediately barf up the pizza after eating it, of course, which sent the office owner into fits of laughter, at which point she'd have the janitor come and clean it up.
- The office owner's ex-husband was the head mechanic. He managed all of the cars and ostensibly kept them running in top shape (they were constantly breaking down, though). He was a real strange guy who was big into "freeballing", i.e. he wore high-rise daisy duke jean shorts with no underwear, so his balls were always dangling out. He was always talking about how free and clean it was. I would just tune these conversations out and remind myself that I needed to pay my rent in a couple of weeks.
One day, I heard him scream "COMING THROUGH!" and he came hurtling through the hall and ran into the bathroom. I was suddenly hit by a horrible smell and we all looked over the office divider and realized that he had left a trail of shit all through the hall. He had pooped himself, and without any underwear to mitigate this humiliation, it had seeped right out of his daisy dukes and plopped out. It was one of the worst things I've ever seen in an office, I have no idea how this guy wasn't ashamed to show his face around there again. He came out of the bathroom like it was all good and the janitor cleaned it up. The mechanic didn't even have the basic courtesy to help.
- When I worked the overnight shift, one of my co-workers was a former gang enforcer who was really into Dungeons and Dragons. He would get completely baked right there in the office (I didn't partake, honest) and we would talk about how to best create a great pen and paper system. We eventually designed this game called Gangsters and Alleyways and had all of these stats and ideas written down in a series of notebooks. There were a lot of profiles of the characters who lived in this universe, with bios, stats, etc. This co-worker was eventually nailed for some serious drug possession charges, and the cops found all of the Gangsters and Alleyways notebooks in his apartment. They believed that the character profiles were about real gang members and they thought that they had hit the mother-load that would allow them to really take down all of these guys. I had to actually testify on this guy's behalf that it was all for a fake game and "Jackson Biggs, Ronin Enforcer" wasn't a real person.
- The drivers and staff would constantly take out the limos and bring prostitutes and tons of drugs back to the office. I was always opening a door and seeing some crazy shit going down. I was usually the only one working at 3 in the morning, while everyone else was off getting coked up out of their minds and hooking up with these old prostitutes.
We had this crazy driver who had been in the mafia back in Romania, and he would turn some late nights into this weird mafia fever dream. I'd walk into the back office and he'd be siting at the office owner's desk, with a huge stack of cash, cocaine, and a gun in front of him, and a couple of prostitutes on either side. Other drivers and staff would be lined up to get drugs, etc. He'd look up at me, smile, and say, "Well well, what can I do for you, my friend?" while gesturing to everything. I would just laugh, get the hell out of there, and try to make sure that I didn't put my fingerprints on anything.
- One of my co-workers was an amateur pornographer and he filmed a one-man webcam show in one of the back office rooms. He would edit all of his porn on the work computers; I sat right across from him, so I'd turn around and suddenly WHAM! he's in the middle of fine-tuning a video of him and his wife going down on another dude. I was more amused than anything, but a lot of other people in the office were pretty annoyed by it. One day, he told me that he had some real nasty legal dirt on the office owner, and she let him do whatever he wanted.
- One night, a co-worker went out to have a smoke, but he didn't come back for over an hour. I went outside - it was about 3 or 4 in the morning - to see where he was at. I found the poor guy laying on the ground about a block away, covered in red. He was moaning and shaking his head and looking down at his chest. I freaked out and ran over to him - the office was in a rough neighborhood, and there was a shooting every five or six months, I mean real chalk outline kind of stuff - and checked out what was wrong. He wasn't shot...he had just been paintballed to hell. I had to pick him up and drag him back to the office - he was a big dude - because he could barely walk. The paintballs had given him an internal bruise around his ribs and he was in real pain. We later found out that this paintball gang had been terrorizing the neighborhood for weeks, just driving around and blasting people.
Those are just a few stories...I have plenty of others that I can share, plus some crazy tales from other jobs. What about you all? Tell me about the weird jobs you've had! Crazy situations, weird clients, wild events, insane bosses, late night shenanigans: tell us about it!
I would love to hear some tales from people who have had strange jobs where strange things have happened. Share some of your best and weirdest anecdotes!
For my part, while I was in college, I worked at a limo/luxury towncar service in South Florida. I was a dispatcher who had to manage the drivers, checking in with them, calling client reps, etc. We had a few drop-ins and random passengers, but the bulk of our clients were business groups that were flying in for a conference or corporate meeting, so we did a lot of airports pick-ups and taking people out to fancy restaurants and clubs. A lot of "I might need a car if I miss my tee time" kind of folks. The office was pretty insane: I was there for almost four years and a lot of strange things happened, here are a few of my stories:
- The owner of the place loved dogs, and rescued them. The only issue was that the dogs actually lived at the office, and at Peak Dog we had about 12. The office wasn't huge, so you were constantly stepping around the dogs as they barked, yelped, had sex with each other, and ran through the halls. You'd often be on the phone with clients and the dogs would be barking their heads off. "Is that...a dog? Do I hear a dog?" "Yeah, um...the window's open, sorry..." The lead/alpha dog was extremely small, blind, and deaf, and she would careen through the halls, screeching, as a dozen other dogs ran behind her, tumbling and falling over each other.
The dogs only ate human food, so our office freezer was filled with these rotisserie chickens that were only for the dogs. A co-worker ate one once and was nearly fired. To this day, I can't eat rotisserie chicken, because I associate it with dog food. If the office ordered food for the staff, the dogs got first dibs; when we'd get pizza, the dogs would get the first pie, and we'd have to wait until they were done before we could dig into our own grub. The dogs would immediately barf up the pizza after eating it, of course, which sent the office owner into fits of laughter, at which point she'd have the janitor come and clean it up.
- The office owner's ex-husband was the head mechanic. He managed all of the cars and ostensibly kept them running in top shape (they were constantly breaking down, though). He was a real strange guy who was big into "freeballing", i.e. he wore high-rise daisy duke jean shorts with no underwear, so his balls were always dangling out. He was always talking about how free and clean it was. I would just tune these conversations out and remind myself that I needed to pay my rent in a couple of weeks.
One day, I heard him scream "COMING THROUGH!" and he came hurtling through the hall and ran into the bathroom. I was suddenly hit by a horrible smell and we all looked over the office divider and realized that he had left a trail of shit all through the hall. He had pooped himself, and without any underwear to mitigate this humiliation, it had seeped right out of his daisy dukes and plopped out. It was one of the worst things I've ever seen in an office, I have no idea how this guy wasn't ashamed to show his face around there again. He came out of the bathroom like it was all good and the janitor cleaned it up. The mechanic didn't even have the basic courtesy to help.
- When I worked the overnight shift, one of my co-workers was a former gang enforcer who was really into Dungeons and Dragons. He would get completely baked right there in the office (I didn't partake, honest) and we would talk about how to best create a great pen and paper system. We eventually designed this game called Gangsters and Alleyways and had all of these stats and ideas written down in a series of notebooks. There were a lot of profiles of the characters who lived in this universe, with bios, stats, etc. This co-worker was eventually nailed for some serious drug possession charges, and the cops found all of the Gangsters and Alleyways notebooks in his apartment. They believed that the character profiles were about real gang members and they thought that they had hit the mother-load that would allow them to really take down all of these guys. I had to actually testify on this guy's behalf that it was all for a fake game and "Jackson Biggs, Ronin Enforcer" wasn't a real person.
- The drivers and staff would constantly take out the limos and bring prostitutes and tons of drugs back to the office. I was always opening a door and seeing some crazy shit going down. I was usually the only one working at 3 in the morning, while everyone else was off getting coked up out of their minds and hooking up with these old prostitutes.
We had this crazy driver who had been in the mafia back in Romania, and he would turn some late nights into this weird mafia fever dream. I'd walk into the back office and he'd be siting at the office owner's desk, with a huge stack of cash, cocaine, and a gun in front of him, and a couple of prostitutes on either side. Other drivers and staff would be lined up to get drugs, etc. He'd look up at me, smile, and say, "Well well, what can I do for you, my friend?" while gesturing to everything. I would just laugh, get the hell out of there, and try to make sure that I didn't put my fingerprints on anything.
- One of my co-workers was an amateur pornographer and he filmed a one-man webcam show in one of the back office rooms. He would edit all of his porn on the work computers; I sat right across from him, so I'd turn around and suddenly WHAM! he's in the middle of fine-tuning a video of him and his wife going down on another dude. I was more amused than anything, but a lot of other people in the office were pretty annoyed by it. One day, he told me that he had some real nasty legal dirt on the office owner, and she let him do whatever he wanted.
- One night, a co-worker went out to have a smoke, but he didn't come back for over an hour. I went outside - it was about 3 or 4 in the morning - to see where he was at. I found the poor guy laying on the ground about a block away, covered in red. He was moaning and shaking his head and looking down at his chest. I freaked out and ran over to him - the office was in a rough neighborhood, and there was a shooting every five or six months, I mean real chalk outline kind of stuff - and checked out what was wrong. He wasn't shot...he had just been paintballed to hell. I had to pick him up and drag him back to the office - he was a big dude - because he could barely walk. The paintballs had given him an internal bruise around his ribs and he was in real pain. We later found out that this paintball gang had been terrorizing the neighborhood for weeks, just driving around and blasting people.
Those are just a few stories...I have plenty of others that I can share, plus some crazy tales from other jobs. What about you all? Tell me about the weird jobs you've had! Crazy situations, weird clients, wild events, insane bosses, late night shenanigans: tell us about it!
