I used to do dispatching for night-shift security for a large computer-related company in a western state in the U.S. (sorry for vagueness).
One foggy night/early morning as we were nearing the end of our shift, one of the patrol guys calls in from his vehicle and says he found a dead cow on one of the roads that ran adjacent to company property. Our building was surrounded by fields that sometimes had cattle on them, so we figured one must have gotten loose somehow and got hit by a car, probably because it was so foggy and hard to see. The officer was on his way back to dispatch anyway, but 3 minutes later, as he’s on his way back and on another road (the company site was several acres), he calls in again to say there are MANY LIVE cattle all over the road and running into one of the parking lots in front of the main building. Turns out they all busted a fence and escaped, and were now freely running around the campus. We have no idea who they belong to, so we call the head of security (who was on his way in as by now it was like 6am), then call the cops to see if they can tell us who owns the land the cattle escaped from.
Meanwhile, other people who work in the building are arriving for the day, and they are calling in to dispatch saying they cannot leave their cars because they’re surrounded by cattle. The herd (we later learned it was about 100 head) split into several groups, and started blocking the entrances to the building, and people were just afraid to get out of their cars with them roaming around. The fog made everything worse because you couldn’t see very far across the lot before you were suddenly up against a herd of spooked cattle.
Eventually we got ahold of the owners, and they had to come out to the campus with horses and literally round the cattle up with lassos and herd them back into the fields. The cops came to redirect traffic on the highway to avoid the worksite entirely while our patrol assisted with the Jeeps. It was utterly ridiculous. Thankfully the only casualty was the 1 dead cow.
With the fog this sounds like some amazing zero context photos. Did you get any photos of the Cows of the Fog that you can share?
I agree, that would have been fantastic. In my head, it looks absolutely beautiful and crazy
This was over 20 years ago, and I have no pics, sorry!
This is the story I came to this thread for. Amazing! Thanks for posting!
The company I used to work at sometimes rented out their conference room to other companies for large conferences.
One day some people rent the room, and start bringing in some suitcases. Thinking they might have some involved presentation, nobody asked questions. A few more people came and went, until suddenly the police raids the place.
Turns out those people robbed a museum a few weeks earlier and tried to sell the stolen historical art pieces in that conference room.
Now that is definitely a crazy thing.
They never show that part in the heist movies. “Nice work boys, we’ve pulled off the job! Now, we just need to book that corporate conference room…”
I won’t say this is the craziest thing that ever happened, just the first thing I thought of. I once had a short-term contract job at a place that didn’t have a sink in the office so to make coffee you had to get water from a drinking fountain in the hallway and dump it out/wash it in a bathroom sink–which was already gross enough. Also, whoever took the last cup was supposed to make the next pot–but the boss would never make a new pot, just wait until someone else did.
One day after I’d been there a couple months, one of the employees went around telling everyone “Stop drinking the coffee unless you want to drink <boss>'s backwash!” She’d seen the boss walk up and grab the coffee pot, dump his leftover cold coffee out of his coffee cup into the pot, pour himself a new cup and put the pot back. He was too lazy to go dump his cup out in the sink or fountain.
And that was the end of making coffee in that office. People would buy it elsewhere or bring a thermos.
Oh! And another thing that happened when I worked there was someone killed themselves by jumping off the roof. Funny how I remembered the coffee thing first.
I think the coffee thing was just out of band its the most prominent story to tell.
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Open up new area for increased storage.
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Bear.
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Girl did dabs for first time on break with gf she was trying to impress. Came back and slapped the manager and got taken away by ems. Showed up next week to no repercussions.
Retirement home kitchen server. This is who feeds your grandma.
Went to the bathroom for 3 minutes, came back and my co-worker had been arrested for
gooning joggers that morningpublic masturbation.EDIT: This guy would park his car, start jerking off, then ask women for directions. That morning someone recognized him, and he freaked out and drove away. He got sober after that and turned things around.
when will the oppression end
I’m afraid to lookup what “gooning joggers” means.
Worked at an absolutely soul-crushing gig after a new micro-manager took over and the next gig was slow coming. The micro-manager didn’t like one smart but blunt underling correcting him so he took away the OT and standby the underling had depended on - and us; the underling was smart as fuck - and financially ruined the underling by timing it right after a new car and house purchase based on that 10 year financial history.
Underling attempted suicide-by-hanging in front of our main dev area.
Company had counsellors for a whole day, and the micro-manager immediately focused on how unstable someone must be to commit to suicide instead of on how awful a workplace it must be.
The computer that controlled all the doors refused to open any of them, including the door to the room in which it was physically located.
It wasn’t quite HAL 9000 because doors could still be opened from the inside, but control over the computer was regained only with the help of a locksmith.
A company I worked for announced that it had come to management attention that staff were socialising in the office, and that wasn’t allowed. To prevent it the doors would be locked until ten minutes before our official start time in the morning. I showed up at 7:30 the next morning for my shift and the whole team were milling around the front door because they couldn’t get in. Seems like they never delegated a manager to open up for us.
The policy was never rescinded, but they never tried enforcing it again either.
Had a guy bring in a sandwich baggie full of hair, put it in front of me and asked “Do those look like crabs to you?”
Nope’d the fuck out of that situation.
Just for clarity… The lad shaved his pubes, lobbed them in a bag then brought them into work and sought your counsel on whether or not he had crabs? Is that right? because I’m rolling around here picturing the absurdity of it.
Before my time, but they tell tales of the “Phantom Shitter”. Someone had… issues, physical and/or mental, and would leave streaks of waste both going to and from the bathroom. Very liquid waste. Sometimes stepped in. “Phantom” because initially no one knew who was doing it. They just found the results. Eventually he was found out, sent home for a bit, and then fired when it happened again after he came back.
Since I worked there: Guy came in for an interview. I don’t know if he was already having a bad day or what, but he got upset that his first interviewer wasn’t there to greet him at the front door. It escalated, rapidly, leading to threats of violence, an arrest, and a couple of cops searching his car.
I saw a dude lose a hand because they ignored everything about passing through the water tight doors when they were moving.
what line of work?
Crewman on a cruiseship. I was basically room service/janitorial. The guy who lost his hand was one of the kitchen people for one of the several restaurants onboard.
What’s it like to actually work on a cruise ship? I always wondered
My experience may be a little different than most; the ship I was on, for the time I was on it, was not actually in service yet. I boarded in Bremerhaven 2 weeks before construction would be finished and it started making its way to Hawaii. I fell down some stairs carrying some shit on our way across the Atlantic like 2 days before we got to NYC and I was going to be out of commission for 2 months, so they let me go. The only passengers we had were some bigwigs from the company.
As for fringe benefits and perks? I was averaging 16 hour days and you don’t get days off so I didn’t have the energy to do much other than sleep by the time my shift was over. But you only work 5-6 months periods, you get room and board, and since you’re not really spending anything you earn, by the time you get off to go back home, you’d have a pretty nice sum in your bank account. I had 1 month of paid training and was only on the ship for about 3 weeks, and when I got off in NYC, I had almost $10k.
A patient escaped his police escort through a crawlspace above the showers. The whole building went on lockdown (with loudspeaker announcements about not interacting with any naked men you come across) before they eventually found him a mile away, still starkers.
First day on a job and a coworker took a pistol out of his briefcase/bag and began cleaning it/wiping it down. It was a small office of 5ish people. I was just basically there to help play a tech support role for some outdated software they were running. My coworker was an older sales rep for the company and he was responsible for hiring me (don’t ask me why). Anyways, first official day I was working he brandished his pistol. I don’t know why. He looked a bit like Kelsey Grammer which bummed me out because I love Frasier. (Shout-out to /c/Frasier ) He had other hangups and ultimately quit a few weeks later.
When he pulled that gun, time slowed down. With all of these mass shootings I just didn’t know what to expect. My mind raced but my body froze. I wish I could say I said something but I didn’t. I kept my mouth shut and pretended like nothing was happening.
People can be so unhinged. That was almost 10 years ago now.
Christmas party, of course. We had an Indian dude join the company. Really nice lad that I got on great with.
There’s a company meal kicking off at 7pm not far from where we work so the entire office (about 40 odd people) decide we’ll get a few scoops in beforehand.
Well this lad was quite small and very obviously not used to drink. He was fairly toasted before we even got to the restaurant. He kept drinking then became belligerent.
Proceeded to puke all over the place half way through the meal. He went out to get some fresh air and the CEO went out to have a chat with him and suggested he head home.
Promptly told the CEO to fuck off and leave him alone.
My bestie was his boss and at that point basically wrestled him into a taxi. The CEO took it well in fairness. It was totally out of character so he kept his job (and his visa which was dependent on the job).
Holy shit that guy is incredibly lucky he got to keep his job. Being belligerent drunk at work functions usually do not end well.
Yeah to be honest I feel like there was a decent bit of social pressure that he felt. The CEO was a fairly hard character in general but the lad in question was well liked. The “fuck off” did shock us all though.
Like none of us would have been surprised if he’d been let go but it would have affected morale generally, laws here are generally worker oriented and he was a good worker, plus the added effect of visa removal has to be part of the decision process.
The guy who wrestled him into the taxi definitely put in a good word too. He’s a good soul.
Edit: the belligerence was only half the story on the negative side. We were all very embarrassed that the staff had to clean up the puke but they were absolute champions about it. I’ve worked as a waiter for a good few years in college and you do tend to just pass these things off as best you can, especially for large groups that are going to leave a solid tip.
I had a roommate in college who was super nice. But every time she got drunk she would black out and become someone unrecognizable. We got into a street fight outside a club once because she ran into a group of girls snorting cocaine in the bathroom and she wouldn’t stop antagonizing them. Didn’t remember a thing the next day.
Some people become someone completely different when they’re drunk
They may not be becoming someone so different, though. Generally speaking, if someone only seems like an asshole when they’re drunk they’re probably just as much of an asshole when they’re sober, just better at masking it.
No idea why this is such a common belief. If you’re masking being a belligerent cunt, then you’re not being a beligerent cunt. The only people whose behaviour I trust are those who care about their behaviour being as such - at least you know they’re fucking trying
If someone gets drunk and calls me a slur, I’m going to believe that even when they’re sober and acting polite they’re inwardly thinking that slur about me. That is enough to make them someone I’m not going to be inclined to trust.
Yeah ok fine this is a pretty contentious point and you make the other side well. I was thinking more ‘being aggressive’ and such rather than ‘revealing bigotism’.
I remember a very similar thing happened with one of our visitors. It was explained to me that some of these folks grew up with very strict parents and just get absolutely CRUNK when they have that opportunity. I can understand that. :)
Yeah definitely. There was an urban legend in the same company about Saudi visitors before my time and they went WILD. Strip clubs, 5am finish, the works.
And yeah yer man just was not used to drink in any way. Poor bastard. I’d say the fear and hangover combo must have been something else to wake up to.
we hijacked a conference room on a shared floor for a week and built a three-phase high-voltage line in there by hunting around the building for which sockets were on which phase, then plugging them into industrial transformers.
Okay -
- 1, that’s awesome;
- 2, for what purpose?
- 3, is it normal for buildings to have 3-phase in split into different single-phase sections? That feels like you could get some iffy stuff from wildly different loads on the different phases.
First off, instead of using bullets and then manually enumerating then, try putting "1. " at the the start of every item in the list. Don’t increment the “1”.
Around me the only homes without 3phases are older small apartments. Most houses have a 35A 3phase supply, although 63A may become the norm on account of EVs. It’s quite normal to have a 3 phased fuse where each phase is used for something different. Say a fuse box is used for lighting and outlets, but L1 is ground floor, L2 is upstairs and L3 is outdoors.
BTW if you ever move into a house where someone has put outdoors on the same rcd as the rest of the house, then do yourself a favor and get a separate combo rcd/fuse for outdoors. When the rcd trips, it’s always the outdoor usage, and it sucks when all the lights go out, because a gasket died in an outdoor lamp.
From your comments it sounds like this is Europe? In the US, 3-phase residential is rare - usually limited to large apartment buildings.
Usually what we have is a “split phase” system, where it comes in at 240v and a local ground is used to divide it into two 120v legs.
BTW if you ever move into a house where someone has put outdoors on the same rcd as the rest of the house, then do yourself a favor and get a separate combo rcd/fuse for outdoors.
It varies by state, but some states have requiring outdoor outlets to be on a separate breaker or GFCI (RCD) outlet already, for just this reason.
Did you build Tesla coils or something? Were there intentional sparks involved?
no, and yes. i’m not going into more detail for fear of doxxing myself but basically we wanted the waveforms generated by a high-voltage short circuit.
later tests involved help from a power company and actual high-voltage lines.
