we all got em.

1. i used to work at a hallmark store that also had a shelf of dirty magazines, right next to the precious moments figurines. we hired a born-again christian gal who didn't see that we had all these smutty magazines until after she started working for us (she was in it for the adorable duck-handle umbrellas and stuff we had) and we had this one lonely old guy who'd buy a PILE of smut every month on his credit card. so he came up one month and when she rang him up she held all the magazines by the corner with two fingers with an open sneer of disgust on her face. i think a couple of times she actually said "ew"! i sorta felt bad for the guy, truth be told.

2. at the same store, we had another customer who bought all the cat magazines every month -- cat fancy and all that, we had a ton of them -- and she actually smelled like cat pee. you couldn't get close to her.

3. at a nursery once there was this guy who used to go around all the time telling people, "hey, chuck (the boss) said you could take a break." for weeks he'd tell me that and i'd wander off, smoke cigarettes, run to the 7-11, what have you. come to find out at no time had the boss ever said any such thing, dude was just trying to get everybody fired.

4. a friend of mine works at kinko's and she's got some great ones. this one guy comes in every month with a 20-page handwritten letter to george w. bush he wants to get xeroxed and mailed. usually it's about how he's come up with all these different inventions and things that dubya should know about.

anybody else have weird co-workers or customers?

1.  I used to work with a French Canadian guy who hated Celine Dion with a passion.  Everytime someone mentioned her, he always threw in his two cents about how he hated her.  So come Christmas time, when we all exchanged names for gifts ... the lady that got his name gave him a Celine Dion calendar so he could enjoy Celine all year long ;D

2.  One time, he told us a story about how once while he was backing out of his driveway, he accidentally backed over a cat (The cat sustained minor injuries).  Anyhow, along with his hate for Celine Dion, me and my boss played a little gag on him.  For a few days, he had to log into his computer under my ID becuase his password hadn't been given to him yet, so one day, I got into work early, and photoshopped a picture of Celine Dion with cat ears and whiskers.  I made it look like one eye was coming out of the socket and that it had blood all over it's neck.  Then I saved the pic and made it his desktop wallpaper.  When he got to work, and signed on to his computer, the look on his face was priceless ;D

you have to post that picture! too funny.

you have to post that picture! too funny.


Sadly, it's long gone.  It was quite the photo too.  ;D

Ah, good thread. I'm sure I'll be able to contribute to this.

I used to work with this guy who was really weird.  We worked night shift, so the office was like pretty much empty come 9pm.  During break times, and even during working hours, he would constantly do really weird things including walking around like a monkey while making ape sounds.  A few times, he pissed off a few of the young female co-workers with crude jokes that they didn't appreciate.  He was often lectured, and warned, and in the end, he got fired for not doing any work.  It was a data entry job, so it was all about the numbers.  The average was about 100 reports per day.  He was doing roughly 25-30 a day ;D

OMG! i forgot about the toppings guy!

i used to work at a domino's pizza in high school and our manager was big on how you had to count the toppings as you were putting them on. i sorta forgot about that but months later he started muttering whenever he was making the pizzas, really detailed muttering but you could never make out what he was saying. i'd always just kinda try not to look over or listen too closely but i was like, is he snapping, or what? why is he talking to the pizzas? what is he saying to the pizzas? are the pizzas responding to him?

then it hit me -- oh, i bet he's just counting the toppings! so i went up to him and said, hey, i was noticing kinda some talking from here but i guess you're just counting the toppings, right? and he gives me a look sorta like jack nicholson's when he's sticking his face through that door in the shining and sez, "no. DOES THAT DISTURB YOU?"

i never mentioned it after that.

i totally knew that crude guy too. he was actually charming and the women he hit on all day didn't seem to mind much because he really was a nice guy and a charming conversationalist, but he never did a lick of work and was totally fired. he'd always be holding a glass of water or coffee like it was a party drink and leaning against the wall. "hey ladies!"

Let me introduce you to the bowling ball lady:


One time when I worked at a bookstore in the mall....the electricity went out and all of the stores had to shut their gates until the power went back on. Well there was/is this notorious slow person that walks around the town (almost always by herself..with no supervision, and she has a habit of collecting pamphlets from every store that she visits...she also makes it a habit to get into trouble sometimes)...anyway, she was always at the mall. So this particular day when we shut our gate, she happened to be standing outside of the store and didn't like the fact that we shut our gate...so, she grabs onto the gate and starts shaking it with all of her might, saying, "LET IN..LET IN". Well...one of my co-workers went out by the gate and the lady was gone...but sitting there was a bowling bag with a bowling ball inside of it.....so, hence the name "bowling ball lady"....it stuck with her ever since.

The story doesn't end though....here are a few other instances of the bowling ball lady.......


It seems like in every town, there is that one notorious person (whether they be a drugged out homeless person, a random slow person with no supervision, or just some oddball) that seems to end up at every function...fairs, malls, parks...anytime there is an event, so to speak...they usually can be found there....and 90% of the time...it is with absolutely NO supervision... That is how it is with the bowling ball lady. It doesn't matter where I go...I always see her roaming around.  She is the type of person who is very intimidating...she is very tall and overbearing....and she yells real loud and makes scenes most of the time.

One time a co-worker was telling me a story about her and a scene that she caused at another store at the mall. She was in line at the Cookie Co...apparently wanting to buy a coke...well, it so happened that they either didn't have coke or it wasn't working properly or something to that nature....and that totally set her off.  She was yelling and she actually hit someone (a customer) who was standing in line...she was mighty pissed because she couldn't have a coke to drink.

Another time...I was at the public library...and who walks in...yep, none other than TBBL (the bowling ball lady).  She was yelling at the librarian and others behind the front desk (but you couldn't understand what she was saying)...apparently she wanted them to call her caregiver or someone...and she kept yelling the phone number at them. They tried to call it...but alas, it was disconnected (how convenient....they disconnect their number and let her out on the loose).  They could hardly calm her down..she was out of control.

Another time...she was getting off of a public bus and someone told me that they were at a red light in their car...and they saw her pissing up against the wall of a historic theater in town.

She would ALWAYS come into the store that I worked at....she would grab like every pamphlet on the counter...and then run back out.


Ah...the bowling ball lady....our town just wouldn't be the same w/o her. ::)

My first job was at a fast food restaurant.  We had two different customers that were really strange.  One of them always ordered a hamburger plus cheese because he didn't like the way we made our cheeseburgers.  The other ordered cheeseburgers minus cheese because he didn't like the way we made our hamburgers.  The kicker is that the only difference in how they were made was where we placed them on the make-up table.

I worked for a distribution company.

This place shipped everything, everywhere.

So anyway, I'm sitting there with a co-worker and we're having a cup of coffee (this is at about 4am) and anyway one of the big shots runs in shouting something or other. I didn't catch what he said but he was really going crazy.
Me and Rich walk out to the main dock to see what the fuss is and we can see all these police officers.

There was a Corba in a small box in one of these crates.
What kind of psycopath puts a Cobra in there? How they managed to find one is beyond me. This crate had come in from Germany and as far as i'm aware there are no Cobra's in Germany. Anyway, that was pretty neat as we all got to leave early due to the safety teams coming in.

Another funny one.

At the same company there were 3 different shifts. 3AM - 11PM, 11PM - 7PM and 7PM - 3AM. I always used to work 3AM - 11AM. So anyway, this one time we're standing around waiting to clock in and this guy stagers around the corner. Now, I didn't recognize him but this one girl working with us did. Turns out he wasn't supposed to get there for another 8 hours but had been out drinking and had decided to go to work. He went to sleep in the cafeteria, about an hour before his shift was supposed to start he got up, got a cup of coffee from the machine and then clocked on and started work. Now, I thought this was utterly bizare behaviour, apparently not. He'd done it several times  ;D
I was all like, WTF, what a life  ;D

It seems like in every town, there is that one notorious person (whether they be a drugged out homeless person, a random slow person with no supervision, or just some oddball) that seems to end up at every function...fairs, malls, parks...anytime there is an event, so to speak...they usually can be found there....and 90% of the time...it is with absolutely NO supervision... That is how it is with the bowling ball lady. It doesn't matter where I go...I always see her roaming around.  She is the type of person who is very intimidating...she is very tall and overbearing....and she yells real loud and makes scenes most of the time.


There's a guy like that in my hometown.  His name is Stan (or "Stanley Steemer" as I call him because he's always pissed off about something), and he's a short old little fat guy with a greasy head of hair and the thickest beard you ever saw.  I see him just about everywhere I go, wither it be downtown, uptown, the mall, the bus.  He's everywhere, and seemingly a little crazy too.  One day, he gets on the bus, and apparently his headphones for his walkman had just broke, cause he kept hitting the railing with his fist, and cussing and swearing. 

Another time, he gets on the bus, and starts talking to random people about his hatrid for Garth Brooks and how if he ever met him, he'd conceal a weapon in a newspaper, go up to him for an autograph, then take out the weapon and  BAM ... bye bye Garth  :o  ???

He's been banned from several stores because he never shuts up.  He yammers on to everyone ... whether it be employees while they are busy working, or customers while they are busy shopping

Honestly though, it's always fun watching him in action, cause you never really know what he's going to do, and/or what other people do/say to him when they get pissed off by the things he says ;D

Back when I was a senior in high school (1988-89), I had a job at a local Italian restaurant bussing tables and washing dishes and doing various other odd jobs. The restaurant made their own dough for the pizzas and pasta, and they had this huge walk-in refrigerator where they had these trays full of freshly made dough. They'd put the dough in the cooler for a day or so to let the yeast ferment so the dough would rise, and sometimes they'd have me and another person go in there and "punch out" the dough to let the gas from the fermentation process escape so the dough wouldn't blow up.
  Well, one day they sent me and another guy into the cooler to punch out the dough, when a light bulb suddenly went off in my head. "I just got a crazy idea," I told the other guy. "You know what the by-product of fermenting yeast is, don't you?" "No, what?" he asked. "Alcohol," I said with a wicked grin. "Oh, really?" he replied. So I went up to the first tray, ripped open the pocket full of fermented yeast gas, stuck my face right up to it and sniffed it as hard as I could. He did the same thing on the next tray, and we took turns doing this for about 5 or 10 minutes until we had finished popping all of the trays of dough. By this time we had definitely caught a good buzz off the fermented alcohol, and when we walked out of the cooler we were both giggling like madmen.
  For some strange reason, on subsequent trips to the cooler I couldn't quite repeat the effects of that first experiment, but for the rest of the time I worked there, whenever I'd see this guy we'd always say to each other, "Just say no to dough!"

Back when I was a senior in high school (1988-89), I had a job at a local Italian restaurant bussing tables and washing dishes and doing various other odd jobs. The restaurant made their own dough for the pizzas and pasta, and they had this huge walk-in refrigerator where they had these trays full of freshly made dough. They'd put the dough in the cooler for a day or so to let the yeast ferment so the dough would rise, and sometimes they'd have me and another person go in there and "punch out" the dough to let the gas from the fermentation process escape so the dough wouldn't blow up.
   Well, one day they sent me and another guy into the cooler to punch out the dough, when a light bulb suddenly went off in my head. "I just got a crazy idea," I told the other guy. "You know what the by-product of fermenting yeast is, don't you?" "No, what?" he asked. "Alcohol," I said with a wicked grin. "Oh, really?" he replied. So I went up to the first tray, ripped open the pocket full of fermented yeast gas, stuck my face right up to it and sniffed it as hard as I could. He did the same thing on the next tray, and we took turns doing this for about 5 or 10 minutes until we had finished popping all of the trays of dough. By this time we had definitely caught a good buzz off the fermented alcohol, and when we walked out of the cooler we were both giggling like madmen.
  For some strange reason, on subsequent trips to the cooler I couldn't quite repeat the effects of that first experiment, but for the rest of the time I worked there, whenever I'd see this guy we'd always say to each other, "Just say no to dough!"




that is hilarious! what a great, funny story!  ;D

that is hilarious! what a great, funny story!  ;D
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it.  :)

It seems like in every town, there is that one notorious person (whether they be a drugged out homeless person, a random slow person with no supervision, or just some oddball) that seems to end up at every function...fairs, malls, parks...anytime there is an event, so to speak...they usually can be found there....and 90% of the time...it is with absolutely NO supervision... That is how it is with the bowling ball lady. It doesn't matter where I go...I always see her roaming around.  She is the type of person who is very intimidating...she is very tall and overbearing....and she yells real loud and makes scenes most of the time.
I used to drive a taxi about 10-12 years ago, and I'd have to haul people like this around all the time. It's one thing when these people walk into your place of business but it's another thing altogether when you have to drive them around for an hour or two. Looking back, I think I was completely nuts for even having that job, and there's almost no way I'd ever do it again.
    I could tell you some stories but they'd probably take up half the page.

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it.  :)I used to drive a taxi about 10-12 years ago, and I'd have to haul people like this around all the time. It's one thing when these people walk into your place of business but it's another thing altogether when you have to drive them around for an hour or two. Looking back, I think I was completely nuts for even having that job, and there's almost no way I'd ever do it again.
     I could tell you some stories but they'd probably take up half the page.



Oh, I can only imagine how many stories you would have! ;)

8) I have sooo many but..I started working at as a carpet layer from about 17-19....We went into this new house to lay the carpet and as I am surveying the rooms I come upon a Roofer..Taking a dump..on the bedroom floor in one of the rooms!! how Gross!!...Also I worked as a Pizza cooker at 16 at a local joint...You know the huge ovens that the pizzas slide through in..like 6 minutes??....well...usually someone is on the end with a HUGE wooden board to catch the pizza on...I cant tell you HOW many times that person wasnt there....if the pizza broke..we took it out back and gave it to the homeless..( we were in an area where there were alot of them that slept behind our building..)...If It stayed intact...alot.. the manager just put it in a box and sent it out!...Gross!!! :P

My last job in Nebraska, before I moved down to KC about a year-and-a-half ago, was driving a cement mixer. It was one of my all-time favorite jobs (and there's still times I regret leaving that job to take my current one), mainly because most of the guys there were a bunch of jokers and cut-ups and class clown types (so naturally, I fit right in), and we had a lot of fun giving each other a hard time and playing jokes on each other.
   There was this one guy named Jerry who was perhaps the biggest cut-up of all. I swear, this guy was a big, goofy 16-year old kid trapped in the body of a 50-year-old man. He was funny as hell, but also a bit of a buffoon, and he'd always try to "burn" me or play some kind of joke on me.  However, for some reason I could always turn it around and I'd usually wind up getting the best of him.   
   This one day, about 5 in the afternoon, they dispatched me and several other drivers to a job site off this gravel road about a mile west of Bennett, which was a small town of about 500 people. There was supposed to be a total of 8 or 10 trucks in all, and I was the first one there, and I had to wait for the construction crew to show up. After I was there for about 5 minutes, Jerry comes pulling up behind me. We talked for about a minute or two, and then I walked off of the road and into the ditch to take a leak. About 10 seconds after I'd begun, Jerry started repeatedly blasting his air horn to try and draw attention to me or embarrass me or something like that. I turned my head and I could see him sitting there in the cab of his truck, laughing his ass off.
    Well, his mistake was not waiting a little bit longer, until I was almost finished. Little did Jerry know that I still had about a half-bladder left. I stopped peeing, then I turned my head again, shot him a kind of mock dirty look, and then I shuffled over to his truck as fast as I could and peed all over his back tire.

My last job in Nebraska, before I moved down to KC about a year-and-a-half ago, was driving a cement mixer. It was one of my all-time favorite jobs (and there's still times I regret leaving that job to take my current one), mainly because most of the guys there were a bunch of jokers and cut-ups and class clown types (so naturally, I fit right in), and we had a lot of fun giving each other a hard time and playing jokes on each other.
   There was this one guy named Jerry who was perhaps the biggest cut-up of all. I swear, this guy was a big, goofy 16-year old kid trapped in the body of a 50-year-old man. He was funny as hell, but also a bit of a buffoon, and he'd always try to "burn" me or play some kind of joke on me.  However, for some reason I could always turn it around and I'd usually wind up getting the best of him.   
   This one day, about 5 in the afternoon, they dispatched me and several other drivers to a job site off this gravel road about a mile west of Bennett, which was a small town of about 500 people. There was supposed to be a total of 8 or 10 trucks in all, and I was the first one there, and I had to wait for the construction crew to show up. After I was there for about 5 minutes, Jerry comes pulling up behind me. We talked for about a minute or two, and then I walked off of the road and into the ditch to take a leak. About 10 seconds after I'd begun, Jerry started repeatedly blasting his air horn to try and draw attention to me or embarrass me or something like that. I turned my head and I could see him sitting there in the cab of his truck, laughing his ass off.
    Well, his mistake was not waiting a little bit longer, until I was almost finished. Little did Jerry know that I still had about a half-bladder left. I stopped peeing, then I turned my head again, shot him a kind of mock dirty look, and then I shuffled over to his truck as fast as I could and peed all over his back tire.



hahaa..your description of Jerry reminds me of Dan Connor, from "Roseanne". ;)

hahaa..your description of Jerry reminds me of Dan Connor, from "Roseanne". ;)
Actually, he looked a lot like Mike Ditka.

http://www.pitt.edu/~dpbrowne/bilingual/mike_ditka.jpg

Let me introduce you to the bowling ball lady:


One time when I worked at a bookstore in the mall....the electricity went out and all of the stores had to shut their gates until the power went back on. Well there was/is this notorious slow person that walks around the town (almost always by herself..with no supervision, and she has a habit of collecting pamphlets from every store that she visits...she also makes it a habit to get into trouble sometimes)...anyway, she was always at the mall. So this particular day when we shut our gate, she happened to be standing outside of the store and didn't like the fact that we shut our gate...so, she grabs onto the gate and starts shaking it with all of her might, saying, "LET IN..LET IN". Well...one of my co-workers went out by the gate and the lady was gone...but sitting there was a bowling bag with a bowling ball inside of it.....so, hence the name "bowling ball lady"....it stuck with her ever since.

The story doesn't end though....here are a few other instances of the bowling ball lady.......














It seems like in every town, there is that one notorious person (whether they be a drugged out homeless person, a random slow person with no supervision, or just some oddball) that seems to end up at every function...fairs, malls, parks...anytime there is an event, so to speak...they usually can be found there....and 90% of the time...it is with absolutely NO supervision... That is how it is with the bowling ball lady. It doesn't matter where I go...I always see her roaming around.  She is the type of person who is very intimidating...she is very tall and overbearing....and she yells real loud and makes scenes most of the time.

One time a co-worker was telling me a story about her and a scene that she caused at another store at the mall. She was in line at the Cookie Co...apparently wanting to buy a coke...well, it so happened that they either didn't have coke or it wasn't working properly or something to that nature....and that totally set her off.  She was yelling and she actually hit someone (a customer) who was standing in line...she was mighty pissed because she couldn't have a coke to drink.

Another time...I was at the public library...and who walks in...yep, none other than TBBL (the bowling ball lady).  She was yelling at the librarian and others behind the front desk (but you couldn't understand what she was saying)...apparently she wanted them to call her caregiver or someone...and she kept yelling the phone number at them. They tried to call it...but alas, it was disconnected (how convenient....they disconnect their number and let her out on the loose).  They could hardly calm her down..she was out of control.

Another time...she was getting off of a public bus and someone told me that they were at a red light in their car...and they saw her pissing up against the wall of a historic theater in town.

She would ALWAYS come into the store that I worked at....she would grab like every pamphlet on the counter...and then run back out.


Ah...the bowling ball lady....our town just wouldn't be the same w/o her. ::)










sounds very interssting