Weird stuff employees were caught doing at work
Click, click, click. That’s the sound you hear coming from your co-worker’s cubicle. You peer over, and realize to your horror that he’s clipping his toe nails. As you watch in disgust, you see nail filings falling to the floor. Stifling a gag, you turn back to your computer, pump up the volume on your headphones and try to go to your “happy place.”
Sure, workers may do some personal things while on the job from time to time — hey, we spend more time at work than we do at home, so sometimes some things need to get done. But addressing a personal letter is one thing, giving yourself a full pedicure is another.
Yet a new CareerBuilder survey found that employees sometimes get a little too comfortable in their office surroundings and decide that nothing is off limits — even if it goes against any type of professional or social norm.
According to the survey, employers have caught employees doing some pretty outrageous things when they should have been working. One boss caught a worker caring for her pet bird that she snuck into work. Another manager found an employee shaving her legs in the women’s restroom (at least she had the decency to do it in the bathroom, right?).
Other crazy-but-true activities employees were spotted engaging in at work include:
- Employee was blowing bubbles in sub-zero weather to see if the bubbles would freeze and break
- A married employee was looking at a dating website and then denied it while it was still up on his computer screen
- Employee was laying under boxes to scare people
- Employees were having a wrestling match
- Employee was sleeping, but claimed he was praying
- Employee was taking selfies in the bathroom
- Employee was changing clothes in a cubicle
- Employee was printing off a book from the Internet
- Employee was warming her bare feet under the bathroom hand dryer
Sure, we all have momentary lapses of judgment at work sometimes. But you probably won’t increase your chances of a promotion because of that awesome selfie you took in the bathroom, no matter how cool the filter.
So let’s all make a pledge to conduct any personal or questionable activities in the privacy of our own homes.