Funny Work Stories

[Luckyforward]

I'd like to start an ongoing thread about funny things that happen to all of us at work.  Hopefully all will join in because hilarious things happen to all of us daily.  Just a chance to add some continual "jocularity" (Father Mulcahy on "MASH") to TGO.  I'll start the ball rolling . . .

I am a licensed mental health therapist and see a variety of clients daily presenting for a number of concerns.  The first session is to gather basic intake information, and part of the intake is to inquire about drug and alcohol use.  Recently a gentleman responded as follows:

Me: Do you use alcohol or drugs?

Gentleman:  I drink a few beers on the weekend and use no drugs except my prescriptions (which he listed.)

A bit later during the interview I asked:

Me: Tell me about your day.

Gentleman:  I work my 8 hours, come home, eat supper, and then I drink a pint of gin every night.

Me:  I thought you said your total alcohol consumption was "a few beers on the weekend."

Gentleman:  Oh yeah, the beers are on the weekend.  The gin ain't drinkin', it's just for relaxin'

I worked hard to keep from busting it in front of him!  Great story!

Edited December 4, 2019 by Luckyforward

[dralarms]

I install alarms for a living, I was working in North Carolina years ago, installing an alarm in a doctor’s home in the historical district in downtown New Bern. The regulations are very strict and homeowners can’t even paint until they get the color approved from the historical society. Well my brother and I were installing a wireless alarm in this home, it’s a 3 story house and my brother was in the 1st floor closet mounting the panel and I was on the 3rd floor mounting a smoke detector. It had been a particularly bad day and we were both at a breaking point. 
 

Well, all of a sudden I hear him holler “help me, help me, Jerry, help me, oh lord help me” I starting running down the stairs and probably missed an entire flight of stairs trying to get to him. Got to the 1st floor and he’s laying in the closet, rolling around laughing so hard he’s crying.  
 

we laughed for hours and every time things started going wrong one of us would holler “help me, oh lord, help me” and it would take the tension out of the situation. 

[ken56]

Back when I was working for a big 3 automaker in the maintenance dept. we had 'Walt', a millwright who was always doing something that HE thought was  funny. He filled a balloon with acetylene and a touch of oxygen, now this was twice the size of a basketball, and waited for someone to come out of the supervisors offices that were right across the aisle from the work shop. I don't know what he set up to touch it off but he was some distance away and could only see that someone came out of the office and he set it off. OMG it was one of the biggest BOOMS I ever heard and this thing was not but maybe 5 feet away from the superintendent of the dept. when it blew. The man jumped 3 feet in the air and then fell all over himself trying to stay on his feet. He had to have thought he was a dead man. And no, Walt was not fired.

[peejman]

Several years ago we needed a new water line connection for a new piece of equipment at work. It's a typical metal industrial building with 25ft ceilings and all the wiring and plumbing overhead. 

So the maintenance guy figures out which 2" water line he's going to T into, finds the upstream valve, closes it, and moves to the spot for the T commences cutting the pvc line. A moment later there's water spraying everywhere and he's 20ft up on a lift hollering for help.  

Another maintenance guy goes and gets another lift and finds the next upstream valve to close.  He's Intentionally not moving real fast as we're all laughing hysterically. The lift gets about halfway up to the valve, beep, and comes back down. Dead battery. O

So he goes and gets the only other lift, which is twice as big, and takes several minutes to maneuver into place and close the valve.  During the 10 minutes or so for all that to happen, the first guy has wrapped his shirt around the pipe to control the spray and couldn't be any wetter if he'd jumped in the lake. 

After cleaning up the couple hundred gallons of water in the floor, the maintenance guys go look at the first valve.  When doing the initial plumbing, someone ran out of unions and used a ball valve to join 2 lengths of pipe. Except they knocked the ball out of the valve so turning the handle did nothing. 

And who did the initial plumbing?  The first maintenance guy as he worked for the contractor who built the building before being hired.    

Edited December 5, 2019 by peejman

[KahrMan]

I used to work for Tractor Supply Company.  For those not familiar with TSC it like a nicer Co-op.  

In the cattle section we had a display of our cattle prods on the wall.  The farmers liked to see how strong the electrical arc was so we always kept fresh batteries in them.  

 

One quiet Sunday morning a young couple came.  The woman wanted to look at some horse tack.  I showed her where it was and started some other task.  A couple of minutes later I hear a blood curdling scream and a G**DAMNIT JAMES!!!!!  It really echoed through the store.  I turn around and see James dying laughing while holding our strongest cattle prod and his wife rubbing her butt.  If looks could kill I would have to call the cops.   I have never seen a woman so mad.  It was really hard not to start laughing along with James.

[Luckyforward]

1 hour ago, KahrMan said:

I used to work for Tractor Supply Company.  For those not familiar with TSC it like a nicer Co-op.  

In the cattle section we had a display of our cattle prods on the wall.  The farmers liked to see how strong the electrical arc was so we always kept fresh batteries in them.  

 

One quiet Sunday morning a young couple came.  The woman wanted to look at some horse tack.  I showed her where it was and started some other task.  A couple of minutes later I hear a blood curdling scream and a G**DAMNIT JAMES!!!!!  It really echoed through the store.  I turn around and see James dying laughing while holding our strongest cattle prod and his wife rubbing her butt.  If looks could kill I would have to call the cops.   I have never seen a woman so mad.  It was really hard not to start laughing along with James.

Shocking!!

[Steelharp]

When I was on the road with Tammy Wynette, we were working at Radio City Music Hall in NY in the 80's. There was a lighting cue in a theater like that where she finished one song, took a bow, the house go completely dark, she sat on a stool, got handed a guitar, and the spotlight was to open on her. Now, she was in a completely different position than she was in when the place went black.

So, our light guy is asking who has the most experience. One of the guys in his gruff NY accent says, "I been runnin' this spot for 45 years." Moose tells him he's got the cue.

He explains to him what it is, he says, "Yeah, yeah I got it." So...

Stand... bow... room goes black... handed guitar... stool... sit... and the spot opens "POOF," right dead on the center of her face. Perfect.

It's quiet in Radio City Music Hall, and everyone hears this quiet scream from up in the lighting rafters... "FU**ING A!!!!" Priceless.

[10-Ring]

On 12/3/2019 at 8:36 PM, Luckyforward said:

I am a licensed mental health therapist and see a variety of clients daily presenting for a number of concerns.  The first session is to gather basic intake information, and part of the intake is to inquire about drug and alcohol use.  Recently a gentleman responded as follows:

Me: Do you use alcohol or drugs?

Gentleman:  I drink a few beers on the weekend and use no drugs except my prescriptions (which he listed.)

A bit later during the interview I asked:

Me: Tell me about your day.

Gentleman:  I work my 8 hours, come home, eat supper, and then I drink a pint of gin every night.

Me:  I thought you said your total alcohol consumption was "a few beers on the weekend."

Gentleman:  Oh yeah, the beers are on the weekend.  The gin ain't drinkin', it's just for relaxin'

I worked hard to keep from busting it in front of him!  Great story!

In the spirit of that: unfortunately I wasn't in the office when this happened but the story was relayed to me by a co-worker.  Employee #1 had recently declared that he stopped drinking.  He come in one day saying how hung over he is.  My buddy says "oh I thought you quit drinking?" To which he replied "I quit drinking liquor, beer ain't drinking."

Personal account- I was working as an electrician's assistant for a company years ago.  I was pretty new and didn't know everyone yet.  I got paired up with a guy to go with on a project for about 3 days.  He calls me and asks if I would like to share a room.  I wasn't making much and the company allowed us to keep per diem that we didn't spend, so I agree.  We get to where we're going, get in the room and are chit chatting and whatnot, like a couple of normal guys might do.  Then he pulls out his laptop and asks "you like to look at porn?"  I tell him that I don't want to watch porn with him.  He proceeded to casually watch porn and smoke cigarettes in the non smoking room the remainder of the evening.  I got my own room the next night.  

Edited December 5, 2019 by 10-Ring

[Luckyforward]

When I was in high school, I had a summer job in a warehouse.  It is the first time I ever used a forklift andit took me a bit of time to get the hang of it.  On the very top of a very high rack was a pallet that no one could get down because it was a bit far back on the shelf for the forks to reach.  I was told that the pallet contained a box full of paper plates, so I didn't think it a great deal would matter when I dropped it.  Being the young newbie that no one took too seriously, I wanted to prove myself by getting that pallet down all by myself.  I got to work early and practiced getting the fork lift in place and positioned.  Check.  Got the forks under the pallet.  Check.  Was able to get the forks to the end of the pallet.  Check.  I was ready to strike and prove my mettle!  Everyone went to lunch at Noon, so at 11:30 I got the fork lift as close as I could to the rack that held the pallet so I could strike as soon as everyone left.  When the warehouse was quiet, I struck!  I got the fork lift in position and carefully raised it,  The forks went right in, and I got enough lift to bring the pallet down.  What I did not know and could not see was a broken piece of wood sticking out on the back of the pallet, so when I started to come down, the wood hit the rack and flipped the pallet.  Down it fell about 12 feet and hit the floor.  And 5,000 ceramic coffee cups exploded through the box, of course all broken.  (Paper plates?)  I went into a panic trying to fix it, but I had no defense.

When my boss came back from lunch and I explained what I did, he laughed so hard!  And I started laughing with him and offered to help clean up.  I was sure I survived this huge mistake.  He was kind enough to tell me that I didn't need to help clean up, because I was fired.  He also stated what a joy it was to work with me, because I was the dumbest employee he ever had . . .

Such is life! 

Edited December 8, 2019 by Luckyforward