We asked people to share the most unethical things they’ve witnessed at work.
Their shocking stories reveal just how far some companies and employees will go to cut corners, save money, or exploit others.
1. Hard Work, No Reward
“My husband worked at a company for 13 years. They had a huge project, and his boss promised him a big bonus if he finished it under budget and ahead of schedule.
So, my husband worked nonstop, seven days a week, for nine months straight to make it happen.
When the project was done, the boss bought his wife a new car and himself a new boat.
My husband? He got laid off just a week before Christmas.” – Kevin Taylor
2. Credit Card Scams and Promotions, Why I Quit
“I used to work at Nordstrom, and there was a guy on our team who was crushing it when it came to getting customers to sign up for the Nordstrom credit card.
I couldn’t figure out how he was managing to get so many sign-ups, until I worked alongside him one day.
Turns out, he was convincing customers they’d “save money” that day without telling them he was opening a credit card in their name.
It felt super shady, so I confronted him about it. He just walked away. When I reported it to my manager, nothing happened.
In fact, the guy got a promotion for bringing in so many credit card sign-ups!
I quit last year and haven’t looked back.
Places like Nordstrom scare me, not just because they allow shady practices like this, but because employees are finding ways to bend the rules left and right. It’s all so fake.” – Anonymous
3. Why Your McDonald’s Order Is Always Wrong
“When I was 15, I worked my first job at McDonald’s, and the one thing managers constantly drilled into us was to “check the time.”
At first, I had no idea what they meant.
Then I started working the drive-thru and figured it out: from the moment a customer’s order is processed, the staff is timed on how long it takes to go from the order being placed to the customer receiving their food at the last window.
After handing out the food, we were supposed to press a button to mark the order as complete, which would log how fast we served it.
There was even competition between nearby McDonald’s stores to see who could get the best average times.
But to keep our store’s times looking good, managers had us hit the “order complete” button right after the order was taken—even before the food was prepared.
This meant the order disappeared from the monitor, so staff couldn’t double-check it.
Instead, we had to rely completely on memory to fill orders while juggling five or six others at the same time.
Going back to check the monitor was only allowed as a last resort.
It wasn’t until after I quit that I realized this was why so many orders came out wrong.
This process made our jobs a nightmare, and honestly, it was the worst first job I could’ve imagined.” – Kevin Miller
4. When Loyalty Doesn’t Pay Off
“Letting go of hardworking employees who have been loyal and dedicated to the company for years.
Just because their salaries have gone up over time due to their experience and commitment”
– Mike Johnson
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5. Promises, Lies, and Shady Deals
“Telling me I was hired with the promise of a signed contract within a week.
Two months later, I found out none of the workers, except the head chef, had contracts.
Meanwhile, our paychecks were deducted for provisions, pension funds, and taxes, but none of those were ever paid.
In a meeting, the boss claimed contracts were only for ‘excellent’ workers, and everyone else was paid under the table to benefit the restaurant.” – Sarah Taylor
6. Stealing Time, Stealing Wages
“A customer of ours used our time clock software to round employees’ punch-in times to 8:00 am.
Many of the workers, mostly from a Southeast Asian community, would arrive around 6:00 am, punch in, and probably never realized they weren’t getting paid until 8.
The same thing happened at the end of the day, with punch-out times rounded back to 5:00 pm.” – Daniel Walker
7. A Job You Can’t Brag About
“I used to work for a company that developed malware.” – Chris Carter
8. Misleading Families for Profit
“A company I worked for claimed they could “recover” autistic kids by 85% and promised these children could lead full, “normal” lives.
They convinced families to move to our state, often splitting them apart, one parent relocating with the child while the other stayed behind for work or to keep their home.
They helped these families secure funding and pushed for expensive extra services, but they manipulated the results to show fake “improvements.”
Families ended up spending huge amounts of money, only to be misled. Once I realized how shady they were, I quit.”
– Brian Johnson
You may also like reading: 15 People Share the Most Insulting Job ‘Benefits’ They’ve Ever Been Offered
9. Cutting Corners and Cutting Truths
“My brother ran a coffee shop and restaurant, but honesty wasn’t his strong suit.
When the Ghirardelli chocolate syrup ran out for the mochas, he refilled the pump container with cheaper Hershey’s syrup and still told customers it was Ghirardelli.
He claimed his canned chili was homemade and even scolded an employee when she accidentally revealed she’d cut herself opening a chili can.
As for his fish and chips, he told customers it was cod, but it was actually pollock.
Honestly, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the things he’s done.”
– Mark Peterson
10. Dodging Benefits at Employees’ Expense
“The company I worked for decided to cut every full-time employee’s hours down to part-time just to avoid paying them benefits.
They didn’t care about the impact on anyone’s livelihood, just saving a buck.”
– Anonymous
11. Faking Halal for Profit
“A restaurant I worked at used pork pepperoni on their pizzas but told customers it was halal beef.
They didn’t care about lying to people about something so important, just about saving money.” – Ahmed Carter
You may also like reading: 15 People Share the Most Insulting Job ‘Benefits’ They’ve Ever Been Offered
These stories serve as a stark reminder of the importance of integrity in the workplace, and the impact it can have when it’s missing.