“Queen TMI was a coworker who, for some reason, thought we were friends. She latched onto me like a remora, spilling her guts daily and telling me all about her dysfunctional home life: her daughters, her separation from her husband, her affairs with random gang banger types, her medical history. Sometimes she would cry at my desk. I would hide from her when i saw her coming. One day she told me, “I had an abortion over the weekend.” She drove me insane to the point where people thought I was overreacting. When she was fired I bought flowers for myself.”

“My coworker. He finds a way to talk about his achievements no matter the conversation.

Anyone in the office: hey! How’s it going?

Him: great, not as great as when I found out I got in the top 5% of the class, then got on a journal and moot court, BTW have I told you about my future career plans?”

“This co worker of mine made fun of me for wanting to be a doctor. I never told anyone I wanted to be a doctor, ever. Because I don’t. So now I am constantly made fun of for thinking I’m smarter than I am.”

“I had to share a small office with this guy. For one thing, he always talked at a volume that might be appropriate if you were standing next to a jet engine, and frequently scream sneezed, which made it awkward when I was on phone calls. He was also incredibly nosy and took Dwight Schrute levels of joy in enforcing pointless, minor rules.

He once wrote me up for a safety violation for having my car keys on my desk, because someone could have stolen my car, crashed it and hurt someone. He once tried to go over my division manager’s head when she bought be a new chair because he thought it was not from an approved vendor (it was). Also, everyone hated this guy so much that they would only speak to him through me.

I have never been so happy at someone’s retirement party.”

“I work in an entry-level job where there are only two major job requirements: Stand on your feet for long periods at a time and understand how to use a computer.

My manager has hired 5 women who do not meet these qualifications at all. These women range from ages 59 to 63. It is as if he was actively looking for people in need of back, knee and/or hip surgery when hiring. And all of them struggle to understand the basic functions of a computer, let alone the complexities of electronic medical record.”

“My Craigslist roomy. She goes in everyone’s rooms when they are not home. She takes up the whole fridge. She likes to binge eat in the living room and not clean up the massive aftermath. She guilts us into hanging out with her and CONSTANTLY tries to get us to do things for her. She sends passive aggressive texts. She broke my chair by sitting in it and tried to hide it. She also yells when she is on the phone. And she is always on the phone. She takes things, she lies. She harasses our land lord so they hate us.”

“I work with a part timer(two days a week, where as I’m there 5 days a week) who likes to act as if she’s the manager and tries to tell everyone what to do. She always complains about how “messy” the shop is from the second she walks through the door, yet sits on the stairs all day eating. She’s also very religious, which I have nothing against, but she tries shoving it down your throat at any given chance! F*ck her.”

“I know a guy who lies about LITERALLY everything for no reason. It absolutely bugs the hell out of me.

Some of the lies are so mundane I don’t understand what the point is, then some are very horrific to attempt picking up women. Involving fake deaths of family members and such.”

“A friend from high school always had to have the biggest fish ever and let everyone know he’s the best. If you’re driving a pre-owned Toyota, he’s gonna explain how his spray painted Honda, barely functioning from all the mods done, is clearly the superior vehicle. He let me know I was an idiot for spending so much on tattoos since he knew someone to do it cheaper using only an RC motor.

Eventually I get fed up. Someone was asking where I lived and this started a conversation about if it’s a rough area and Mr. Bigfish had to tell about where he used to live like it’s a crime-infested ghetto he barely survived (I live in that area now. It’s quite nice). I punched him in the chest once and he walked away.

Last I heard, he’s dodging his baby mama and was using products I designed the packaging for. He believes a college education is an overall waste of money and you just need a GED to get a job and anything else can be learned on YouTube.”

“Not sure about most ever, but currently:

I sit next to this middle-aged woman who works in HR and her life is literally the hardest ever. Like it’s just so hard. Everything. Omg everything is soooo hard. Like everything. OMG it’s just so hard. What can she even do?!”

“There’s a woman I work with who will insert herself in any and every conversation that happens within an earshot of her. Literally any conversation. And she can’t stand it if the break room is silent. You can be in the corner of the room quietly eating your lunch and reading a book or looking at your phone, and she’ll walk right up to you and start yapping.

Oh that looks good. Looks like Olive Garden. Is is Olive Garden? I love their breadsticks. Ooh, what’s that book about? Oh I like your shoes. Steve has a similar pair. Have you seen Steve’s shoes? They look just like yours.

For the love of god woman. Go away. You’re ruining my break.”

“I have a guy like that who I work with, he’s assigned to work the desk and just disappears, leaving the register and a bunch of sensitive information unattended. To make matters worse he also spends half the day talking to his gf instead of helping us when it gets busy. Plus he’s 28 so he doesn’t even have the excuse that he’s still young and immature.”

“There is a guy that hangs out at a local tattoo shop and won’t stop talking and telling stories. People tolerate it because he lost his wife and is lonely. It’s really not that bad, just sorta bothersome. When you’re getting ink you can’t exactly leave. The shop I go to is open concept.

We call him the punisher. He thinks it’s because he’s a badass or something, but it’s really because he actually punishes people.”

“I grew up with a kid down the street from me who was a complete brat. He constantly insulted people, loved gross, rude, mean and sexual jokes from a young age. He idolized Beavis and Butthead. He taught his dog to hump things on command and he’d tell the dog to hump people for his own amusement. He would talk about stuffed animals having genitals and then try to rub their crotch in your face. He was the kind of kid who played pranks on other people at slumber parties.

Last I heard, he was arrested for burglary.

You ruined so many good moments, Nathan.”

“My husband and I were friends with this couple. The woman was an artist. She really was a working artist and made a living from selling her art and teaching. She was quite good in my opinion. We have one of her pieces in our home that we paid $1500 for. We love it.

Her husband was a realtor. He, I and my husband all had the same interests, which did not interest the wife at all.

We’d trade having them over for dinner at our house and then we’d go to theirs. If we went to theirs, we had to have a tour of her studio to look at her new work every single time. Then we’d spend the first part of the evening hearing about her new shows, new galleries, etc. Her, her, her.

After dinner, we’d sit in the living room and the conversation would usually turn to things she was not interested in because we’d already spent 1.5-2 hours talking about her interests.

Her husband, I and my husband would be in the middle of a conversation and she’d just butt in and try to change the subject. We’d listen to her for a few minutes and make small talk and then we’d gravitate back to what we were talking about.

She’d interrupt again and again. Even if we were talking about something other than our specific interests, if we weren’t talking about what she wanted to talk about (i.e. her) she’d keep trying to control the conversation.

When they came to our house, they’d bring their young daughter and she’d try to make our teenage daughter “play” with her so they didn’t have to watch her. Our daughter is a good person and she’d spend a couple of hours with this kid, but then she’d want to go do her own thing. The wife was constantly telling her daughter to “go find” mine and I’d have to shut it down.

I finally stopped having them over to our house because one night, we’d had dinner and were having dessert in the living room. It was chocolate something. Their daughter finished her dessert and then she walked over to the only white chair in the room and wiped her chocolate mouth on the cushion. She was 8 years old. I jumped up to get some cleaning supplies to try and get the chocolate out before it set.

Neither parent ever reprimanded the child, apologized or offered to help clean the chair.

Our relationship ended after we retired and put our house up for sale. The house sold quickly but we didn’t close for 2.5 months. I had planned to let all our friends know we were moving and where once everything was settled.

The week before my husband retired and a two weeks before we closed, he had a heart attack. I had to worry about him, get us packed, and moved during that last week before closing all by myself. I didn’t actually get everything out of the garage before our noon closing time, but the buyers were very understanding and I was finished by 2pm.

About a month after that, I get an email from the wife complaining about how I didn’t use her husband as our realtor and how by not doing so we’d cost them money. I’d already told them numerous times that we don’t mix business with friendship. We’d even told them a story about buying our first house through a “friend” and what a disaster it was.

That was five years ago and we haven’t spoken to them since.”

“At my high school, they set up wifi for us to use. However, in the terms of service, it said that by signing in to the network, the school had permission to search the phone and look at its contents. I did not sign in, and have not to this day.”

“I signed up for a gym membership on a whim and got sketched out when they initially charged me 250 instead of only the 90 for the month. I went home and legit didn’t sleep because I was so mad I went through with it. I called and asked the next day to see if I could cancel and almost everyone I spoke to said either no it was impossible or only if I moved to an area that didn’t have the gym. I checked the contract and you could cancel within the first 2 weeks and I was only 3 days into the contract. You bet your a** I cancelled so fast.”

“When I bought my car new 3 years ago, the finance department processed and had me sign paperwork at a certain price. Then they called me 3 days later and told me that their lender fell through and I would actually have to pay an additional $100 a month. I brought in the paperwork with the price I signed for and the keys. Told them they would stick to the contract or they could have their car back with the additional mileage. Apparently this is a fairly common practice at car dealerships. Beware.”

“I had taken some helicopter flying lessons and was considering switching careers to that. So I found a flight school and applied for a student loan. Sally Mae was the only one that would cover it. And when I got the final paperwork, the interest rate was higher than they told me over the phone and the total payment to them was going to be well over $200,000. So I cancelled and didn’t go to flight school.”

“I was looking at a job 350 miles from home, family and friends. Everything looked great. Interview was awesome. I even knew one person there from working with them a few years ago (major coincidence).

I liked it so much, I signed on for a great apartment minutes away from work before signing all the paperwork on my job, because they formally offered the job, but were awaiting my signature.

The day before it was due in, I gave it a passing glance. There were a few giant red flags. I’ll paraphrase as I don’t recall the exact wording.

The job you are signing up for is the only job you’ll have with the company. Though you may periodically get raises, you’ll never be promoted, or allowed to make a lateral move. We need people for this position who are committed to it.”

“My last restaurant job had a non competition clause in the new handbook. I pointed it out to coworkers, few signed, and it was revised in a week.”

“Went to pick up my car from the dealership and it said by signing the paperwork it gave them permission to ‘lend’ my information to third parties. Nope.”

“We were in the process of selling our business. My wife’s car was registered under business. We sat down with our lawyer to discuss what is included in the sale (equipment, supplies etc..) and we clearly told him the car is not included in the sale. Well guess what we receive the typed up contract from our lawyer and he had added the car along with other things. Thank God we read it and had it removed before signing it and sending to buyer’s lawyer.”

“Went to buy a new phone for $200, the employee told me they were closing soon and asked if I could come back the next day to sign the paper work.

The $200 mysteriously changed too $300 while the document was sitting in a desk overnight. Called them out on it and got it from somewhere else.”

“Buying my house. Husband signed the paperwork and I went in later that day to sign. I started to read through the loan application. Mortgage lender said ” What are you doing? You don’t have to read it! Your husband already signed it!” I was like, no I want to make sure it is what I want. Loan was a 250,000$ at 25% . Yeah right! Didn’t sign it and got out of there. Mortgage guy said he was going to take me to court, I said go ahead it would be cheaper then what he wanted me to sign. Took over all the mortgage stuff from than on!”

“I’m a professional actor. Last summer, I auditioned for the local ren faire, not realizing that it wasn’t a paid gig. Found out a week into the rehearsal process. “Oh well,” I thought to myself, “I agreed to this, I should’ve done better research.”

So, about a month and a half later, the contracts come out. They’re standard stuff for the most part: we won’t hold the faire accountable if we get injured, we acknowledge we represent the company and thus won’t do x, y, and z unprofessional things during faire hours, etc. etc. But buried in the middle of the contract is a non-compete clause, which basically forbade the signer from working for any other ren faire or Halloween event within 100 miles for a full year.

The other folks at the faire were a lot less concerned about it, but I was absolutely not okay with that. They weren’t paying me, and I wasn’t going to sign off to not make money in a part of the industry for a solid year. I bailed basically as soon as the contracts were given to us.”

“Negotiated a house rental contract to keep rent fixed for 3 years with no increase. While reading the fine print found out that they snuck in a penalty clause of 9 months rent if I decide to leave before the 3 years were up.”

“Not sure if this counts, but Spectrum (like most big telecom) sent me an email saying that they are increasing by bill by $10/mo. When I called in they tried to convince me I was on a promotional period, which I was not since I was already a customer of three years and read to them my bill and customer agreement with dates.

After explaining to them that they are, indeed, lying to me and being transferred around to three people within Cancellations they miraculously found a way to reduce my bill by $15 going forward. Even though they backed down it makes me sad to think about those who aren’t apt enough, like my grandparents, to notice these moneygrabs and how much money these companies make by pulling this.”

“My HR told me that I did not get paid for jury duty. I talked to my dad and took his advice to review my contract. I replied to HR with a screenshot of my contracting saying I get paid.”

“My employers tried to get all of us to sign a non compete that geographically encompassed the entire globe as well as any profession even closely related.”