18 bosses share what went down with the worst employee they ever had to deal with.

Being the boss can be awkward when you realize you're the only one who wasn't invited to the staff group chat or post-work Wednesday night margarita vent session...

While good leaders understand that their employees don't live to work, some hires can be hilariously brutal mistakes. So, when a Reddit user asked bosses and managers everywhere to spill the tea on their absolute worst employee, people who snagged the title or the corner ofice were ready to gossip.

1.

A few years back I made some changes to our employee manual so I put a couple copies in the break room for everyone to read if they wanted. The next day, one guy from the shipping department (who had worked there for over 10 years) walked into the main office and punched another guy who he had been having a little feud with for years right in the side of the face.

Caught him totally off guard, knocked him out of his chair and on to the floor. The shipping department guy then walks out of the office and goes back to his job like nothing happened. Police were called, gave him a citation and I told him to grab everything and he was done.

He got all upset because he had been reading the new employee manual and one part had said if there was a problem with an employee they would be verbally reprimanded, then suspended from work, and if it continues they would be fired. He assumed he could punch the other guy in the face twice without being fired. - fredfenster

2.

I had the f*cking queen of outlandish 'I can't come to work' excuses. Just when I thought she couldn't come up with a new one, she would pull one out. Here's a few:

'I locked my key and my phone in my house and couldn't call or come in all day cause my Grandma was the only other person with a key. She had to work all day so I had to wait.'

'I couldn't come in or call cause someone stole my phone. I am calling from my phone now because someone at McDonald's found my phone and just happened to know my cousin so I got it back.'

'I couldn't come in or call because you know how I bought myself a hide-a-key rock to keep a spare key in? Well, someone stole my hide-a-key rock with the key in it and I accidentally locked my other key in the house.' - godsmackedmehard

3.

Delivery guy for my store told the young lady who was helping to unload the weeks load that 'women should not be working in deliveries. You're too weak and have no common sense.' Such comments seem almost tongue in cheek. Apparently not.

The delivery guy called the parent distributor claiming he should get double pay for having to work with 'a girl' whilst unloading. He also called our store and stated he would simply refuse to deliver again if the assistance he would receive was female.

The man is in his late 30's. The store manager who he partitioned and the distributor director were both females. - GhostxInkxHeart

4.

We fired this kid for being a terrible worker, and told him to leave. He comes back several hours later, to inform us that we can't fire him, because he quit. - LadyCailin

5.

I work at a nightclub, not a boss, but countless times, staff call in sick, or feign ill to get the night off in front of the manager, then a few hours go by and they'll walk into the club, drunk as s*it - and pretend like they had the night off.

Best one was two nights ago, one of the glass collectors calls in sick then I see him 3 hours later swearing and shouting at my manager and the bouncers, next night he still works here - my place of work just attracts idiots. - AliveNKicken

6.

The guy who told me he didn't think women had a 'place' in science. Six months later I was promoted to his supervisor. - sevenlark

7.

I work with someone who forgets that she actually has a shift...EVERY WEEKEND. She will literally be seen across the street with her best friend having coffee every weekend, but won't be working. Truthfully, we should probably let her go...but it's just not in the nature of the company I work for. - [deleted]

8.

I run the vet department of a local animal shelter. We had one vet assistant who thought she had some sort of psychic connection with cats and would leave all their cages open to prove it. We had to let her go after 3 cats went missing. - bluemerle

9.

Had a lady who smelled like a hamster cage, like the sawdust stuff you put at the bottom, who changed my whole perspective on human kind. She was large, breathed heavy, and complained about everything.

She would show up late, when she didn't call in sick she would show up with her lunch in hand. Her lunch consisted of multiple packages of twinkies and a nacho platter from 7-11. But she wouldnt settle for the small section normally reserved to fill with the cheese.

Nope, she would remove the lid and fill the entire lid with nacho cheese. Then come in, bag of twinkies on arm lid of cheese in one hand, chips in the other. Remember she's late but still had time to stop for this crap.

Once at work, she would smoke every 30 minutes, then come back inside and complain about how terrible she felt. Of course, you feel like sh*t! Nacho cheese and nicotine are not going to help. This was everyday, seriously everyday.

Finally she stopped showing up. No warning no calls nothing. I fired her as as a no show with no notice filed under job abandonment and guess what.... she is probably still collecting unemployment. - notmewasthedog

10.

We once had a guy working for us who tried to swat a wasp with a sledge hammer, the wasp flew on his face so he hit himself in the face with a sledge hammer them tried to sue the company for not telling him swatting wasps with a giant f*cking hammer was a dumba*s thing to do in health and safety talks. He lost the case and the wasp got away. - [deleted]

11.

One of my former employees stole ~$10,000 from the charity we worked for. Other than that she was actually an amazing employee! - missspiritualtramp

12.

I had a guy call in sick, saying he'd be off for at least two weeks. He said he'd just gotten back from the hospital, where he was diagnosed with rigor mortis. - Vendrasha

13.

Back when I was a manager at a Pretzel place we noticed when we had this girl on the register that the drawer would always come up short so we were watching her. We were between paychecks at the time and she had mentioned she was broke.

She went on break as we were counting the drawer and we discovered we were $125 short. She came back with new shoes and was talking about how cute they looked and We asked her 'How much were your shoes...about $125?' And I will always remember her shocked genuine look of surprise as she said... 'How did you know?!' - Otakudemon

14.

I was only a team leader so I didn't do the firing here, but back when I worked at an amusement park a 16 year old was hired to work the cash register in my department. On his FIRST DAY, he stole $20 out of the till in full view of another employee (and cameras) and told her to 'just be cool.' She told our manager and the kid was fired on the spot. - secretplan

15.

Girl comes in as a waitress. Would take food out of the window because she thought it was hers and wouldn't bother to wait for the whole order to be finished to check that it's hers. She would take it out to her table and realize it wasn't hers, chuck it, ask for new stuff because 'the cooks messed it up' and f*ck up another waitress' orders by throwing them away.

Then she asked for change for $100. She receive $100 in change to make change for her one table. Instead of counting it out, she hands the entire $100 back to the woman, who leaves with it all.

The girl was $80 short at the end of the night. Normally it would come out of her pay but our boss covered it in the mean time and told her to pay her back. Weeks go by, still hasn't paid our boss back.

My boss gets persistent about it and so the girl goes and talks to her mom about it. 'My mom says we all make mistakes and I shouldn't have to pay for my mistakes' was her response. Eventually it resulted in the girl suing our boss for $80 that 'our boss scammed out of her.'

And then she had a meltdown about working 12 hours a week stating that it was too much for her and why doesn't anyone understand? I'm not gonna lie; I celebrated when she quit. - datass630

16.

I had one yell 'you're not the boss of me' and flounce off to do her nails. Seriously. Man, it was really funny to fire her. - numb99

17.

An underling of mine stole money from me. I caught him and his excuse was 'my old boss let me do that.' I was just so baffled. - GeneralKori

18.

Had an employee play sick for 2 weeks, sending us daily emails to update us on his condition. At the same time, his band was posting photos on Facebook of their road trip to SXSW. - kranzmonkey