Everyone wants to get ahead in life, especially at their workplace. While some rely on their hard work and dedication to grow, others choose to have it made easier for them by kissing right up to the boss. From praising, bribing, and even foot massages, these are some of the craziest and far-fetched things people have done just to get ahead.
1. Doing Him Right
I used to work at a restaurant and one of the servers was having an affair with the general manager. I'm pretty sure she was literally a butt-kisser. She was awful to work with and a total snob. She got paid more than everyone else and she didn't have the minimum wage that servers got. Her paycheck said she was a cook and she made an extra $2/hour plus tips.
She always got the "good" section of the restaurant. It was a seat yourself kind of place so some sections were consistently better than others for tips and she refused to pull her weight or help anyone when they were busy but would expect help from others when she was busy and even when she wasn't busy she'd expect people to help her like bus her tables or make her drinks for her which was part of the server's job.
And she was allowed to do that because she was literally doing the boss in the office during work. And that's how everyone knew.
2. Try Hard
I work with a woman who threw a baby shower for a manager's wife—who was not even her manager—in our office. Meanwhile, her equally pregnant "friend" in the office was invited to the party, but received no shower of her own or even an acknowledgment from the suck-up. The funny thing is that everyone hates the manager, so nobody really stayed longer than they had to.
She also tries to call us out for not getting gifts for the manager on national Boss’s Day, as if him being paid more to screw things up for us isn’t enough already.
3. Piece Of Cake
This other girl my age was desperate to get ahead in sales. She lived with her equally well-educated boyfriend and when you would ask her stuff like, "What does he do? What's he up to lately?" she would give vague answers. It gave the impression that he wasn't pulling his weight in their relationship. She started dressing like the president of sales and followed her around at all times.
The girl would find out gossip and relay it back. Average butt-kissing. The weirdest thing is that the sales president had dietary restrictions and in general was obsessed with healthy eating. She was very thin and never ate. The president would enter the kitchen and comment on people's food. It was awkward. Salesgirl started eating veggie sticks and nothing else. Then all of a sudden, she had a "gluten allergy".
It was primarily a women-run company as we worked in an interior design-related field. We would have these meetings complete with donuts, cake, etc. The sales president would say how good it all looked and wouldn't touch it so everyone got the idea and also wouldn't touch the food. I got fed up one time and cut a huge piece of cake in front of everyone and sat there to eat the whole thing during the meeting. It wasn’t as delicious as the suck-up’s reaction.
The sales president and the salesgirl looked at me like I broke a huge unspoken rule and like I somehow didn't read the room. I got laid off a year later and the salesgirl is second in command there after five years. I have a way better job where no one cares if you don't have a work-sponsored eating disorder.
4. Delivery Gone Wrong
Part of my job is delivering children's books to some agencies to hand out. One month our executive director didn't like the book that came in. There were a couple of lines she felt were inappropriate. She asked me not to deliver them and she would order new books. This is where my eager-beaver co-worker made a massive mistake. She noticed I didn't deliver the books and took it upon herself to do it.
The executive director doesn't care for her, and she was trying to get on her good side. Even worse, she thought she could make herself look good by making me look bad. I thought she went to lunch; had no idea she was out there trying to do my job. She came back and proudly told others that she did my job and maybe now the director will be pleased. So, I let her dig her own grave.
She came to my desk and angrily said, in earshot of the director, "I just went and delivered the books that you never delivered. I shouldn't have to do your job on top of everything I'm already doing for this agency". I just looked at her and said, "Well that was dumb". She went to the director next and told her that she delivered the books since she saw it hadn't been done and asked if there were any other tasks she could do for her. Well, she got what was coming to her.
The director was fuming! She was planning on returning those books so she could order different ones. They weren't labeled with our logo yet either, which she would have seen if she checked. It's required that we put our logo on them. The director tore into her for overstepping her boundaries and trying to make me look bad. She tried so hard to kiss behind and it backfired big time. And I was praised in front of her for listening.
5. Mr. Wrong Guy
I had a long-distance relationship with this guy for a while that was, in short, extremely boring most of the time, and insufferable the rest of the time. We were in our mid-20s but being with him was like dating a crotchety old man. He happened to work at Target and took extreme pride in it, solely because it wasn’t Walmart.
He was a butt-kisser and by-the-book know-it-all. I can just imagine how much his colleagues must have hated him. I myself grew to despise this ex, which is why he’s an ex. When he came to visit me, he, my best friend, and I were all sitting around telling each other funny anecdotes. My ex’s anecdote was about how he noticed the new hand dryer in the Target men’s room was higher than ADA recommendations, so he reported it to a manager and they fixed it.
He also made sure we visited my local Target before he left to go back to his town which was three hours away, whereupon he immediately started running about the place, marveling at how different it was from his own Target. He even tried to coach someone at the self-checkout corral about how they might better do their job.
And then he pulled out his Target REDCard to pay for the groceries like it was an AMEX Platinum. I myself am black, but I’m pretty sure I was flush-red with embarrassment.
6. Shower Him With Gifts
My old boss was this narcissistic British dirtbag. Our team of 15 planned to get him a group Christmas gift. Even though I despised him, when I was at the shop on lunch, I found him a Britannia-themed statue for his office which was perfect since he was very obsessed with being British and letting everyone know about it.
I texted my manager a picture of the statue and she ok’d it. Two weeks later at the gift-giving meeting, he unwrapped the statue and giggled like a schoolgirl with glee. I did not take credit for it, as it was a team gift. My manager then announces she has her own gift for him and proceeds to place this large bag in front of him.
The bag contained a bobblehead of Winston Churchill, some Cadbury sweets that were "hand imported by a friend" just for him, and a vintage chocolate advent calendar which she reminded him "was his favorite from his childhood". She must have spent a fortune on all that stuff! Sensing her desperate need for approval, he just smugly muttered "mmm nice".
Then, he pushed it aside. It was so cringey and awkward.
7. Early Bird Gets Nothing
I used to have a guy that was on a temporary contract. He would wait in the parking lot before I got there and would jump out as soon as I did so he could walk in with me. He used to ask, "What do you have for me to do today boss?" Well man, right now I have a "screw off" attitude going on because I don't want to be talked to at the ungodly hour of 4:45 AM about nonsense as soon as I get out of the car. But no amount of sucking up can hide the truth.
Guy ended up getting let go for poor performance, which explains the butt-kissing.
8. How To Crash Your Interview
I was part of a panel interviewing a candidate for a sales job. My boss was a VP and clearly didn’t like the candidate. The candidate’s answers were vague and full of business rubbish that signaled that he didn’t know what he was talking about. I think we were all eager for the interview to be over. Just as we were wrapping up, the candidate focused his attention on the VP and said, "What is the secret to your success? This is clearly a well-oiled machine!"
You could feel the remaining air go out of the room. It was likely that he had read this question in an article called something like "How to crush your interview". The VP glared at him briefly and then ended the interview.
9. Secret Santa
During Christmas, we play Secret Santa with the rule that the gift can only be worth $20 or less. One woman ended up getting our big boss as her Secret Santa—and it led to an embarrassing mistake. Instead of sticking to the $20 rule, she brought an expensive handbag and a bottle of booze for our boss. Our boss, upon seeing how it definitely wasn’t worth $20 or less, had to find out who it was.
He then had to tell her to return it, as it would be seen as a form of bribery in the workplace and obviously did not follow the extremely basic Secret Santa rule.
10. Free Show
During a meeting with about six people around a table, the male boss spilled his drink on his own lap and ruined his trousers. As he got up to leave this male co-worker took his shirt off, kneeled, and proceeded to try and dry the boss’ trousers with his own shirt in a position that everyone immediately understood as totally akin to a…certain bedroom act. But oh, it was about to get so much worse.
To make matters worse, after two or three strokes, we all could see through the trousers that the boss had an instant hard one which he couldn’t hide even if he wanted to. There we were, watching a bad-quality amateur adult movie live in the office. After about thirty seconds of this, the boss looked around and must have seen our faces so he left immediately.
The co-worker just went back to his chair and sat there shirtless as if nothing happened. We’re all like, "Ok, this meeting is over," and start to collect our belongings to leave but then the boss comes back with a fresh pair of trousers in full business mode so we conclude another 20 minutes of the meeting with a shirtless boss-massaging dude sitting at the table.
Honestly, the tension between them was so palpable that I really hoped they had a go at each other afterward.
11. Mr. Brown Nose
I worked at a place where the CEO painted a lot of her own art and would leave it around the office. There was other art too, but hers would also be splattered around which was all well and fine. The CEO and CFO were giving a tour to some clients. The clients ask about some of the art and the CEO explains that it's hers and laughs saying it’s a little weird she has it up.
The CFO was a notable butt-kisser and was like, "Actually it’s some of the best art up. I would even have one for my home". Well, the truth hurts. The CEO herself laughed and called him a brown-nose. We weren’t a creative studio or designer office. It was a law office. And they were both lawyers.
12. You’re Not The Boss Of Me
I had this co-worker at Target that would go on the biggest power trip for no reason whenever he was on guest services. Guest services are the people usually at the front of the store where you do returns and stuff like that. We all would alternate doing it, and it was usually with a manager. There’s literally nothing special about it besides that it was slightly more tolerable than being on a register.
Whenever said co-worker would be on guest services, he would think he was the manager and was the most unbearable person for the hour he would be doing it. One shift, I was walking to the bathroom, which you had to walk past guest services to get to, and he went out of his way to loudly ask me where I was going in that managerial tone I’m sure you’re all familiar with, as if he was a manager. I just looked at him and kept walking.
He would do similar things like that to everyone, and it was just the cringiest thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve never seen someone become such a butt-kisser just because they did a slightly different role from everyone else for an hour. And everyone did guest services like we literally just alternated throughout the shift so it was all equal.
13. What Is Sleep?
I worked at a digital marketing startup for about a year. Most of the employees were in their early to mid-20s and so was I at the time. And the management absolutely played favorites. Working for late hours was a solid way to get the management to notice you even if your work didn't necessarily need you to stay late. This made people insufferable.
I once got in trouble for leaving at 5:30, even after working a full eight hours and getting all my work done. One morning we were all having a company meeting and one guy mentioned how tired he was since he stayed in the office until 10 PM the previous night. Immediately, this other guy loudly says, "Well, I was here until 11!"
He then literally looked around to make sure the management heard him.
14. Right Hand Man
I had a boss who was into the finer things of life. Good quality clothes, expensive drinks, exotic food, heaps of watches, expensive cars, and all those sorts of things. So, a co-worker of mine, within two weeks of beginning, bought my boss some cufflinks worth hundreds of dollars. But oh, that was just the start of the nightmare. Over the course of two years, this co-worker became known as a yes man.
He never disagreed with the boss at all. He also self-appointed himself as his right-hand man, always telling other people how to do things because that's how the boss would want it. A position officially opened up to become supervisor, which was the second-highest rank of the department. Naturally, my co-worker went for it, telling everyone that would listen that he would get it because the boss promised it. Well, it blew up in his face.
What he didn't know is that the boss was leaving, named a then-supervisor as his successor, who then picked someone who had been working there for about nine months. Needless to say, my co-worker has been acting very distant to the new manager and supervisor.
15. A Good Beating
I was given a "co-worker," a young kid, to learn the ropes of the CNC machine I operated. I had picked up that he was my replacement. Not coincidentally, I had asked for a raise a week earlier that I’d been promised forever. When in the bathroom, the new kid sucked up to our employer, even to the point of bringing in pastries for him until he got promised my position.
I’m sick and tired of this low-wage company anyway, so I educated him in how I operate the CNC, using woodblocks as spacers. As soon as he got the hang of things, I was fired. But I got my revenge. On my way out, I threw away the custom-made spacers that I made. Well it turns out he never replaced them, making $250 in wrong-sized stairs in the four months until it was discovered.
Then he was fired as well, and they tried to sue me. I still love the look on the loser’s face. He looked like a pug, eyes popping out and screaming his head off. I asked him to shut up and get out or he would’ve got a good beating. Most satisfying result ever.
16. No Show
This co-worker was getting married and she talked a lot about her wedding at work. There was another co-worker very close in age who she bounced ideas off of and they became really close over the course of wedding planning and the bride used to call the co-worker her work bestie and make all sorts of references to her coming to the wedding.
Bride-to-be eventually told the co-worker that she would have loved to have her at the wedding but there just wasn't room for her, the number of people had been settled on much earlier, etc. The co-worker understood and took it pretty well. Turns out the co-worker is very well connected to some higher-ups in the office. That’s when she discovered the bride’s dark secret. She was talking to someone who revealed that they had met the bride-to-be twice and immediately gotten an invite to the wedding.
When the higher-up found out the lowly co-worker hadn't been invited, they didn't want to go and convinced a whole bunch of other higher-ups, who also barely knew the bride and had gotten invites, not to go either, because the bride was clearly using her wedding for networking. The bride-to-be got a pretty bad reputation as a suck-up after that.
It was extra weird because we work in a pretty tame white-collar office where you don't need to be a crazy networker to have a successful career or rise in the ranks. Like I know in some industries you kind of have to invite your boss, but this isn't one of them. Plenty of people don't invite anyone from their work to their wedding and no one really cares.
17. Can You Hear Me?
I used to work at a huge investment bank on a trading floor. For context, the building occupied a block in NYC and the trading floor was the size of the entire footprint of the building. It was a five-minute walk there and back to go from one end of the floor to the other. The managing director had a trading station right in the middle of the floor and me and another lowly underling had our trading stations way on the edge.
The MD had a booming voice and was actually quite funny and would just yell stuff out. Whenever he said anything even remotely amusing the dude next to me would just stand up, cup his hands around his mouth, and unironically fake laugh at top volume. After six months the MD moved floors, and as far as I know, they never ever spoke.
This dude was kissing a behind that was six levels above him and making all three hundred traders on that floor shrivel up and die inside even faster than they already were. I quit that job and now live in a cabin in the woods.
18. Donuts For Everyone!
Another receptionist at my work is a huge butt-kisser. She calls herself head receptionist when she's really just a part-timer that doesn't do her job right. And she will constantly have "meetings" with the bosses and take credit for things other people do. The most recent example is when a client brought us donuts and left them at the front desk.
I was in a room but heard the conversation between the client and her about the donuts being a gift. Then I heard her walk to the back and announce to our boss that she ordered them donuts because they work so hard.
Public Domain Pictures
19. Office Of The Apes
I worked in a newsroom and one day noticed that underlings would laugh extra loud at the editor in chief’s jokes. After that I couldn’t fail to notice it. It really began to bug me and I felt like I was in the chimp enclosure at the zoo and the beta chimps were all trying to get the attention of the alpha chimp. The boss probably thought his jokes were actually funny.
I was glad when I got retrenched.
20. The Greatest
This loser at my work was just promoted because he is a butt-kisser. He constantly jumps over people to perform a task, but only when the manager is around and all that kind of nonsense. But one thing he does is way worse than anything else. Our manager has a dry erase board on his door for messages and this guy actually wrote, "(Manager’s name) is the GREATEST".
Literal cringe. I hate this dumbo, and I respect my manager less for falling for it.
21. A Gift From Tiffany’s
My boss is actually the butt-kisser. She once sent me out to get her boss a birthday card and gift, which was all fine and good as it meant an escape from her for an hour or so. The card was nothing out of the ordinary, but the cake was very fancy and not like your typical office birthday cake. I then had to swing by Tiffany's to pick up the bracelet that was the actual gift, just from her to her boss.
Expensive gifts to colleagues, let alone managers, were not something that was ever done there, and it wasn't even like it was a bank or anything high end so it seemed horribly out-of-place and blatantly butt-kissing.
22. Valentines Came Early
Somehow, Canada's largest airline had this completely unqualified secretary screening the applications for pilot positions. She would determine who got interviewed and who got put to the bottom of the pile. Some guys would send her chocolates and get an interview two days later, where others had waited years. Others would send her flowers.
It was close to felonious the way she got bribed, and there were a lot of examples. She was finally heavily demoted for her actions, but she should have been fired.
23. Sit Down, Be Humble
My manager is the head of our engineering department. He takes credit for everything when reporting to directors and over promises on results and timelines without knowing how long things actually take. We had a financial year-end meeting, and I am in charge of compiling all production figures and creating a clean report.
I even went out of my way to produce some stats to see how we can evaluate ourselves and improve what we do. This loser starts presenting this thing with me in the room saying, "I this" and "I derived it like that". But karma came for him in the end. The director asked him a question about one of the datasets and he did not know what to say so he sat there blank.
Then I just spoke up and explained how I did it. I could see some other people around the table were choking up. Best feeling ever.
24. Coffee Lover
My supervisor is always trying so hard to be best friends with management where I work. There are many examples to choose from, but this one makes me cringe the hardest due to the sheer expense. My manager is a big lover of fresh coffee. So my supervisor spent a small fortune on a fancy coffee machine for herself, even though I remember having a conversation with her about how she can't stand the taste of coffee.
She comes to work every day with the branded travel mug that came with the coffee machine but, instead of having coffee inside, it's extremely milky tea. I asked her about it, and she uses the machine for hot water. Like just be yourself, people would like you more!
25. Fake Fan
My colleagues and I would always eat lunch at the cafeteria as a group. with our female boss included. There was an unwritten rule that we shouldn’t talk about work so we usually talked about music, TV shows, or activities we did or would do on the weekend. While talking about music, my boss said that she enjoyed listening to trance during workouts, and this girl said she totally did it as well.
Then someone asked the boss what kind of music she liked, and she started saying things like country music for long road trips, Jack Johnson to unwind and relax, etc. She proceeded to specify situations and connect them to music genres or artists, and, at each example, this girl would totally wholeheartedly agree that she did the same as well. Me too! Me too! She kept saying.
She continued doing this to the point that the boss noticed—so she set the butt-kisser up for a total fail. My boss started to joke that she really enjoyed NIN and the Beastie Boys for her quiet moments while reading a book, and the girl said another "Me too!" So then the boss asked what her favorite Beasties song was, and she couldn’t name one or even mumble a tune.
It was obvious she had no idea what kind of music that was. Needless to say, everyone in the office bought her a Beastie Boys CD for her birthday, including our boss. At least she gave them to the janitor, who was a massive BB fan.
26. No One Likes You
This one particular co-worker of mine is almost insufferable with his behavior. Constant trumpet-blowing with his lackluster work, endless comments about how much money he has while degrading other team members to get some kind of moral high ground and get in good graces with the management. What's more cringe are his posts and interactions on the team member WhatsApp group. They are really fake or cheesy things that definitely are not his character at all.
Basically, he did everything to degrade someone and look better at his job. He thought he was important after one of the managers recently left and he applied to take the advertised Duty Manager role. Well, he was in for a surprise. He was shut down almost immediately and apparently one of the night managers straight up told him that they did not want him to work nights due to nobody wanting to work with him.
27. E For Effortless Acting
I’m a former retail manager. We got a new district manager and we heard that he was going to be visiting us, but it was supposed to be a secret. We all put in a little extra elbow grease and were on extra high alert to try to make a good first impression. While none of us had actually met the DM before, our company had an internal social media and we had looked up his profile.
We were also in between store managers at this point, and our operations manager really wanted the job. He was also way less slick than he thought he was. The DM finally walks into our store, picks up a random item and gets in line at a cash register. The operations manager rings him up personally and lays on the customer service thick, acting like he didn't know who the DM was.
My department was on the third floor, and the DM made his way up there. I greeted him with a, "Hi boss," and he asked me if I greeted all customers like that and I let him know that I knew who he was. We walk on my floor for a while and he asks me to take him to the office. We get down there, and the operations manager is at the store manager's desk.
When he sees the DM he says "Oh, hello sir, was there a problem with your purchase? I'd be happy to make it right if there is". The look on his face was priceless when the DM replied "Do I look like a moron? Have some integrity. Also, that isn't your office".
28. No Place Here For Meanies
My co-worker was a jerk. She was rude to anyone she viewed as beneath her in her imaginary organization chart and would kiss the butt of anyone above her. She was rude and condescending to me, literally every day. It was the pettiest stuff. She made fun of the lab coat I wore, the jokes I made, the food I ate. My alma mater. Just about anything.
You could tell she had been bullied as a kid and was never the opposite because she had no tact or wit, and her insults were weak and cringy. Well one day, she had the audacity to say that I wasn't a real chemist because I don't work with solvents or do extractions and I took it personally. She said that I wouldn't be able to perform an SOP for pesticides, which was dumb because SOPs are literally Standard Operating Procedures and are written to be reproducible by anyone, within reason.
After six months of putting up with her nonsense, I had enough. So, I went to HR. My co-worker was reprimanded and the owner of my lab told me that he considered her actions a fireable offense but as we were in the middle of an audit which she was handling, he had to keep her on. At the Christmas party, my boss explicitly referenced, though not by name, how saying your co-worker is not a chemist is bad and that we all should be proud of traits that make us great and work on traits that make us bad. She left right after the speech.
A few weeks later was the owner's birthday. We have a tradition where a card is put in the breakroom and everyone can give best wishes to the birthday person and sign. My co-worker wrote the most long-winded message to the owner about being so happy to work at the company and be mentored by him. It got really sappy. She said that she looked forward to working with him "for years to come". He fired her that Friday.
29. Worked Their Magic
One of my co-workers knew the branch manager was obsessed with Magic: the Gathering so he pretended to have connections with someone at Wizards, where he got "free cards". It turns out this guy was actually just buying the cards. One of my other co-workers saw him buying a booster box at a Walmart nearby. He was literally bribing the boss for favors with Magic cards that he paid full price for.
The sad thing? It literally worked. Everyone knew this dude got preferential treatment. When he messed things up, the manager would always cover for him. He got promoted to a position he definitely didn't deserve over someone else who was way more qualified. We even tried letting the boss know that he was just buying the cards at the Walmart nearby, but he didn't believe us.
So yeah, a few thousand in Magic cards got the butt-kisser raises worth 5x that.
30. Jackpot
As a blackjack dealer in a casino, I had a floor manager that hated me. The feeling was very mutual. One day I was secretly shopped and received a 100% score with some outstanding personalized comments on it. The higher-ups were so impressed that the head of Table Games came down from on high to give me $50 worth of cash gift cards which were unheard of, because we normally got $5 buffet vouchers.
This all took place in front of the floor manager who hated me. This guy reaches into his pocket and hands me a card for "an entry into a drawing for a $10 cafe credit," and tells me I did good. The loser used my 15 seconds of fame to make himself look good to the dept head. It was the last straw for me. His lame move backfired when I handed it back and said, "No thanks, I know you don’t mean it".
The Deputy head hauled my butt upstairs and asked me what I meant. I didn’t need the job, so I unloaded every single instance of harassment, HR investigations, and backed them all up. He was suspended and he was not invited back when the casino reopened.
31. Hired For Personal Needs
The girl my boss hired to help me and that I had trained, started having an affair with the second in command. For the next year, I got to watch her feed him fruit with her mouth while doing almost nothing all day. She would go on two-hour lunches, get a raise and promotion, while I had to continue to take the load of the work she was initially hired for.
32. At Least We Got Our Jobs
There’s one thing that drives me crazy at my job. I heard so many people trip over themselves to say, "We are just so thankful to have jobs" at the beginning of 2020 when my old company was slashing benefits, pausing raises, conducting layoffs, and requiring 12-hour shifts, all while the members of the executive team were taking Zooms from their second homes.
Literally, any complaint or negativity was met with that line. There were a handful of times when leadership got called out on a lie or a hypocritical statement and some middle manager would spring into action to defend them. Having a job is great. But don't sell out your dignity so some rich tech bros can get richer. Glad I got out of there.
33. Boss Baby
One of my co-workers is the biggest tool I have ever met. I have worked part-time for the company for seven years and met hundreds of people, none of which I disliked. Sure, there were people I would not hang out or even talk with outside of work, but at work, I got along with. That is, until I met him. This kid is on another level and I can actually say I hate him.
The first day on the job he comes in and acts like he owns the place. Two guys were working on this project and he comes over and says, "Yeah, good job on this part. This is how I want this done around here". Both these guys are in their 30s, been with the company for years, and just stand there looking at him like he is stupid.
He always called himself the smartest person in the department and goes on about how he is going to run this place. And because he finished his bachelor's a year early he considers himself a genius. Also because of his degree, he thinks he understands the inner workings of running a business perfectly. This kid lectures on efficiency all the time yet he is on his phone 80% of his shift or talking.
Everyone hates this kid. Department managers, full-timers, and even vendors from outside the company can't stand him and talk nasty behind his back. He is clueless. Six people reported him to HR and our rep doesn't like him either. They had a meeting with him but nothing changed. The whole reason he can act like this is that he is friends with our corporate district manager's son.
And he snitches to this guy about stuff going on. It's bad enough he is a tool and a snitch, but it's even worse that this DM listens to him even though he does nothing. Thank God I am leaving that job soon.
34. Pretentious Puppy
My current boss is an absolute jerk. He's a gaslighter and pops his temper at anything remotely incorrect. But the worst thing is what he does when his boss is around. He fake praises the work we do and treats us like his best friends. He'll also pass our ideas off to his boss as his own and acts like a puppy, rolling over for belly rubs whenever his boss tells him he's got a good idea.
If my wife wasn't pregnant and I didn't need the money I would have burned my bridges long ago and told him about what I think. The only saving grace at the moment is that one of the lads has just handed his notice in because he can't stand the boss's nonsense and will be having an exit interview. I definitely cannot wait.
35. Just Like Steve
I’m currently in a Zoom meeting training for a job. Our personal team leader is very young, and this was his first job. He loves to talk about himself. It’s now getting to the point where you can see other team leaders are getting annoyed with him. There is a kid in my cluster and I had to stay overtime to complete some documents.
The entire time this kid is the only other person staying in the meeting and he just keeps saying, "Wow Steve you are just so good at your job, I want to be like you, Steve". Of course, Steve loves to talk about himself so he just talks and talks and talks while I’m sitting here like guys let me get my freaking work done. It’s been two weeks and that guy just kisses his butt all day every day and it's cringe-worthy.
36. I’m Just A Tour Guide
I applied to go to a private middle school when I was 10, and I still can’t believe how much the application process brought out the worst in people. When we had an on-campus tour with the other applicants and their parents, people were going so far to kiss the tour guide’s butt that the parents were literally writing notes on paper as if they were going to be quizzed.
I saw kids ask unnecessary questions just to show that they were good at certain subjects. At one point a kid stubbed his toe and swore, and then was like, "Oh my god, I apologize, I didn’t mean to say that!" It was some of the cringiest butt-kissing from both kids and parents that makes me never want to apply to a school again.
37. Spreading Positivity
At an old job, we had an app for group communications and a guy that had just been promoted to assistant manager would put out inspirational messages randomly. They were so cringey, they’re unforgettable. You would get a notification from this app and open it up to read something like, "Hello everyone, I hope everyone is having a terrific day! Let’s try to come to work with positivity and good energy! Remember, what you put out into the universe is what you get back, so let’s put that positivity out there and attack the day with that mindset!"
The worst part was that his personality didn’t match up with the messages. He was relatively cool in person, but was clearly putting out these messages to look good for the owners.
38. Turning Tables
I was in a group interview once where I was one of probably 12-15 people. Group interviews are pure gold for butt-kissing. In that interview, we had a guy that tripped over a table and knocked it over because he wanted to be the first one to shake the interviewers’ hands. The interview had a lot of, "and if you pick me then I will bring this talent to the company," kind of rubbish.
39. He Got It
I don't remember the exact context, but the boss had sent out some email about the office doing well and some guy replied to all accidentally, thanking the boss for his exceptional leadership and dedication and some other nonsense like that. Me and my cube neighbor audibly groaned. The thing is that we are an engineering services firm.
The boss in question is the regional office manager and at the end of the day, we do well based on the execution of the engineering packages and the practice manager's ability to sell more work. The regional office manager doesn't get work, instead, he manages the finances of the office. Mr. Brown-Noser is a low-level manager now. It doesn't mean much, but it puts him on the path to a cushy job down the road. Not to mention fat bonuses.
40. Bum Snorkeling
The worst bit of bum snorkeling I’ve ever seen is someone going to their new boss’s house to put up their Christmas Tree.
41. Keep Them Fed
At my job, there was this guy who kept buying his direct supervisor lunch. Every day. One time the supervisor asked him why he kept doing it, to which he responded, "The king's got to eat". Everyone in the immediate area cringed super hard at that, including the supervisor.
42. Give Me Your Brains!
A co-worker of mine would talk up the boss during meetings. "Mrs. Boss, you're the smartest person I've ever known! I wish I had some of your brains".
43. Here Comes The Choo-Choo Train
A colleague tried to feed the manager during lunch saying, "just one more bite, please". Both of them were female but still, I was so embarrassed to witness that.
44. Messed Up
A guy at my job would counteract his bad performance by kissing up to the boss. It helped him keep his job for a very long time…but eventually, his time came. He told someone to screw off on a recorded call.
45. They’ve Got His Name
I still can’t believe this happened. I had a co-worker who named both his children after the boss/owner.
46. All Part Of The Job
I had a co-worker that went to the boss’s apartment to massage his feet.
47. Show Some Respect
Once at work when I had just started out, I called my boss by his first name. My co-worker scolded me after he walked away saying, "No!! You call him Mr. so-and-so". She would also always go out and buy him his lunch. Like, he cut your maternity leave short, and he underpays you, what’s in it for you?
48. Best Man For His Daughter
The worst was a guy I worked with at my last job doing HVAC. He always gave the boss a full report on whatever crew he worked with that day. If you said something negative about the boss, he was going to tell on you. If you were a minute or two late coming back from lunch, he had a picture on his phone with the time stamp.
If you didn't hang something perfectly level or straight, he'd toss a level on it, snap a picture and send it to the boss. He also came in every Sunday and washed all the trucks with no pay, to make sure we kept a good image. I couldn’t believe someone would do all that just for a mediocre job—and then I found out the hilarious truth. This guy was dating the boss's daughter and he was trying to prove himself the whole time.
49. A Way To The Top Is Through Their Stomach
I work for a guy that has multiple companies, hotels, and event halls. Due to the pandemic, one of his restaurants acts like a canteen for all of his employees. They prepare one meal for every day. And that's it. One day I went to the restaurant and on the way, I ran into my boss who was also on his way to have lunch, so we went together.
When we entered the restaurant, my boss asked the chef what was on the menu. The chef told him and directly followed up with "But if you don't want it, I can prepare you something else!". I didn't think anything about it at first, because let's be real here. My boss earned every bit of respect, not only due to his handling of the whole situation in 2020.
He didn't fire anyone even though the event halls and restaurants are basically closed for over a year now. Not a single person. It didn’t matter if it was part-time or full-time. My boss said to the chef that he's fine with the menu and doesn't need something special. That’s when things started to get…uncomfortable. The other guy followed up with "You sure? I can prepare you something! That's really not a problem".
And again, my boss said, "Really, it's fine. I’ll eat what we have". We got our plates and sat down. Not even five minutes later, the chef came over to our table with a plate full of six different meats, vegetables, fries. Food which was worth three to four servings. My boss looked at him, looked at the plate, and just said, "Ok. Just leave it here then".
The second my boss was done with his lunch; the guy ran over and took his plate back to the kitchen. And only his, not mine, which was fine because canteen service doesn't include this anyways and I was not expecting him to clean after me. He came back with coffee. One coffee. When my boss asked, "Can you please bring a second one?" he just glared at me but did it anyway. But it didn’t end there.
Shortly after the coffee, he got a dessert for our boss. And again, nothing for me. Our boss asked him to please bring a second one, because otherwise, it would be rude towards me. But I just declined and said I was full already because I was actually expecting him to spit into it as his gaze said it all. It was overall really uncomfortable for me the entire time.
He jumped through a lot of hoops to please our boss, who didn't want anything special in the first place. And he had this burning hate in his eyes towards me, because I was sitting at the same table.
50. Right Behind You
I had a co-worker in my marketing team who was a lead designer. He was often pretty dismissive of junior-level employees or would try and one-up everyone's stories. Like if you tell him you stayed at a hotel at the beach over the weekend, he tells you he stayed in a penthouse at the same beach for a whole week. He also always tried to be in proximity of senior staff members and would brag loudly if they were within an earshot, hoping they would hear how awesome his life is, I would assume.
One day, a VP from our company had come up to talk to somebody in a pod close to ours. The pretentious designer loudly asked me about my weekend, and I gave him an answer. He responded loudly, one-upping my answer, noticed the VP wasn't paying attention to him at all, then quickly got up and hovered behind the VP while he was talking to the other employee.
Eventually, the VP cracked a joke and the designer let out the loudest, fakest laugh I've ever heard, startling the VP, who up until then was not aware that this guy was standing behind him. VP just got an awkward close-lipped smile, quickly nodded his head, and walked away. The designer came back to our pod, sat down, and started working as if he was never mid-conversation with me. Awkward.
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