Work.Retire.Die.

In honor of Halloween and the country potentially descending into chaos for a few weeks as we figure out the election, it’s time to talk about the topic on everyone’s mind – fear. The ‘spooks’ or ‘tummy turners’ if you will. And what place is scarier than Corporate America a labyrinth of Excel sheets, meetings about meetings, and open floor offices that make it impossible to do any work but easy to watch your coworker who said they ‘didn’t have the bandwidth to help on this project’ plan their wedding for 4 hours a day.

To celebrate this special time of year, let’s discuss some of the scariest moments in work history.

Power Ranking the Scariest Work Moments

8. Getting asked a direct question on a conference call when you weren’t paying attention in the slightest

Oh fuck, think quickly. Generally a “Hey sorry, have a bad connection, can you repeat the question?” or just throwing a ton of buzzwords at them will get you out of this pickle. Worst case scenario, you can turn on your video and start crying so they feel bad. The point is, you have options.

7. Leaving your office building at the same time as your coworker that you know sort of well and realizing you’re heading to the same train and now will have to commute with them and make small talk for 20 minutes instead of listening to a podcast and decompressing.

Sort of self explanatory. Can we just pretend we don’t see each other?

6. Audibly Ripping Gigantic Ass When You Thought You Were On Mute.

In related news, the ‘Days since drinking too much coffee and sharting my pants a little on a conference call’ tracker is back down to zero in the Content King household. God bless.

5. Coming Back from Vacation and Checking Your Email

How much could possibly go wrong in 3 days, you naively ask yourself? People will see my out of office email and stop emailing me right? They’ll respect my need for time off to properly heal mentally from the prison that is this company?

Obviously, the answer is absolutely not and you are now thrown right back into the hell-storm that you blissfully forgot about for 12 hours on your way too expensive vacation.

4. Going into the office after you blacked out at a work happy hour the night before. 

So, so haunting.  You wake up, still dressed in your clothes from last night, with 11 missed calls and texts from your work friend and a slice of pizza on your chest. You don’t remember a single thing from your work happy hour, but you know in your heart that you did something humiliating. The pit in your stomach grows as you start remembering tidbits from the night (‘did I really rub my boss’s bald head?’ ‘did I talk shit about my team for the whole night or just half of it?’) and your anxiety mounts as you approach your office. It gets even worse when you arrive and your coworker’s make eye contact and smirk immediately.

The important thing to remember is, most people don’t actually care. And remember, it could be worse – you could have to go into the office with a black eye.

3. Receiving this Slack

You were 100% online shopping, shit-talking with another coworker or responding to a recruiter’s email on LinkedIn. Now the entire team knows you’re looking for a new job, but honestly, that might be a good thing.

2. Accidentally Ending a Call with Your Boss by Saying ‘Ok Mom Love You.’

Lot to unpack there so we just won’t.

1. Showing up to the office and realizing you totally forgot the bring your Work Retire Die mugs and stickers with custom slogans and designs to brighten you and your coworker’s days.

I got the shivers just reading that. Man, if that happened to me, I would be so so so upset. I might have to quit my job on the spot.

Luckily for you, you can always buy more mugs, sticker, shirts, and hats plus so much more at our shop. Buy now before we run out of stock and remember – all proceeds go to our credit card bill.