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People Describe The Dumbest Thing They've Seen A Coworker Do On The Job

Incredibly Satisfying Revenge Stories

Incredibly Satisfying Revenge Stories

The Worst Restaurant Experiences Ever

The Worst Restaurant Experiences Ever

People Share The Worst Adult Tantrum They've Ever Witnessed

People Share The Worst Adult Tantrum They've Ever Witnessed

When A Day At Work Turns Into A Nightmare

When A Day At Work Turns Into A Nightmare

People Divulge The Most Unethical Thing Management Has Forced Them To Do At Work

People Divulge The Most Unethical Thing Management Has Forced Them To Do At Work
Alexas_Fotos/Pixabay

It's no secret that businesses will cut corners to increase profitability however, there is a line-a big red line that should not be crossed. When it comes to safety or ethics cutting costs should not come first. Almost everyone has had on-the-job experiences where bosses have asked them to do something that didn't sit right with them.

One job I left after being pressured to break my own morals was *surprise* working retail. It was a mall jeweler and we were closely tracked on how many credit card apps we sell in a day and they wanted us to sell a minimum of several hundred dollars to customers per visit. We were given guidance on how to sign people up for the credit cards without actually telling them it was a credit card. It went beyond sales tactics into straight-up dishonesty, we were also encouraged to take advantage of people who may not understand what we were doing and to put pressure on the vulnerable.

Grandma comes in looking around? Tell her you just want to help her save by making her a "member" and need some info, get her into a credit card and then max it out by guilting her into buying hundreds in things she doesn't need because her family will love her so much more for the gifts. It just felt gross.

Right before I left there was a region-wide legal issue that was being investigated. Turns out employees-encouraged by their managers-had been opening credit accounts under customers' names and charging expensive jewelry to them without their knowledge just to reach sales goals and the commission. We weren't supposed to talk about it but it was a company-wide issue not a unique experience.

Bad as it was it was still minor compared to some of the stories below that are outright dangerous.

Redditor Inner-Housing1927 asked:

“What's that one blatantly illegal or unethical thing management forced you to do at work??"

The responses confirmed what we already expected...bare bottom morals.

"The building itself was also a literal death trap.”

“Worked at a little drive through coffee stand. Boss was incredibly cheap. Wanted me to use about half the grounds necessary to pull a good shot. If a cup fell on the floor I was supposed to rinse it and use it anyway (I did not). That kinda thing.”

“The building itself was also a literal death trap. The fire marshal came out for an inspection one day and straight up said they hoped I wasn't inside when it caught fire.”

“The electrical system was overloaded, and the appliances were all situated between the main workspace and the door, thankfully the drive up window wasn't too high so I probably could have jumped if need be. The nail in the coffin though was that they wanted to bring by stock at the very end of my shift and expected me to clock out before putting it away if they were late.”

“I refused so I'd constantly be harassed about how they were poor small business owners and I needed to understand (they weren't poor by any means). I eventually found a better job and quit but they told all my former coworkers they'd fired me for stealing.” caffeineandsarcasm

Dangerous infrastructure...

“Pass a concrete strength test that failed two of the three data points, but the third was high enough that the average was fine. The very small footbridge broke. They got sued, I quit.”​ sandh035

Good advice: “Take notes of the bad things they do and keep dates.”

​“I worked maintenance a plastic molding company. We had a grinder that would destroy plastic chunks turning them into tiny pieces. Well the hopper where the plastic is added has a huge sign on it saying ‘don't lean in’ right on the front near the opening.”

“There was a request from a worker asking for padding because he would hurt his stomach when he leaned in. When I told him I was not going to do it, he glared at me telling me, ‘sometimes you just have to get over yourself and do what you're told.’”

“When I put my two weeks in, the plant manager asked my reasons, I mentioned that as one of them. PM told me he and the safety manager told the maintenance manager that was not to be done. The MM was fired in the middle of my two weeks.”

“On a positive note, I was asked to list off the reasons why I quit in the legal hearing when the MM sued the plastics company for wrongful termination. Advice for everyone. Take notes of the bad things they do and keep dates.” yankstraveler

“notifying them that what they were doing was extortion...”

“Fortunately I wasn't dumb, so I refused. But I had worked for a bakery for five years before receiving a better offer at competing bake shop. I was polite and gave them two weeks notice, they turned around and told me I wouldn't receive my last two paychecks until I signed a NDA.”

“I didn't say a word in return, just calmly walked out and went straight to the department of labor. Sent them an official form notifying them that what they were doing was extortion, it was a class four felony, and they had two weeks to send me my paychecks or I would see them in court. They complied within three days.” Inomsbacon

Window Cleaners Share The Best Things They've Ever Seen | George Takei’s Oh Myyy

Some fishy business practices...

“My first ever job as a teen was at a small fish and chip shop. There was a bit of cod that was getting a bit smelly, so my boss threw it in the bin. A couple of hours later after the evening rush, I was washing up at the sink next to said bin.“

“My boss came out, reached in the bin and dug out the cod. He rinsed it very sparingly under the tap I had running, before going out and dipping it in batter and serving it to a customer.”

“I was a very timid 16 year old at the time and I asked him why he would sell that, he just shrugged and said ‘we didn't have any other medium cod’. The shift after that I was making the pea fritter mix ready to be battered.”

“We used to use an ice cream scoop to get the mushy peas into a ball shape. I accidentally dropped a whole scoop on the sticky floor, and he told me to pick it up and squish it back into a ball. Um, no. I left the next week and went to work in a shop.​“ Comfortable_blanket

Heavy equipment with only three wheels...

“I was told to run a remote overhead crane with only 3 wheels. it carried large coils of rolled-up aluminum for Ladle Treatment. The aluminum would swing and cause the missing wheel area to bottom out, causing more swing and making it worse."

“This was moving over my coworker's heads. The foreman told me to keep doing it... i called the safety team and they came up and said 'hell no' another foreman came up and ordered me to run it but have everyone clear the area...ok that's sorta safe I guess but killed production."

“The 2nd foreman later 'reminded' me that I hadn't filled out the daily safety inspection. Well, don't mind if I do. Red section 'if anything is checked in this area do not operate' let's see...missing wheel, check. mechanical problems, check. The first foreman sees what I'm doing and says 'the wheel is on order it's just not here yet.'"


"'OK what's that got to do with this liability checklist I was told to fill out?' Back to the checklist, oh look a write-in section. 'INOP crane ordered to be run by 3rd foreman' signed me 'Smartass Steelworker' the 3rd foreman was the 2nd guy it was 3rd shift."

"What he didn't know was he didn't comeback to my area for the rest of the night and the checklist was picked up by the General Foreman in the morning when I got off. I came in that night to a sh*tstorm."

"he safety team had lost its mind, that paper I filled out went directly to OSHA. That missing wheel showed up in record time and they had been down all day fixing it. I showed up and it had just been certified by the millwrights." BlueFalconPunch

Petty...

“I was asked to cut off a doctor from getting new clients in an effort to get them to quit, while at the same time lying to them about why they weren't getting new clients. I was asked to do this twice with two different doctors.”

“Before I left I told the doctor in question (the other one had already quit) what I had been told to do. It didn't go well for them. Seriously, just grow up and fire people you don't like. Don't do this.” Gigglekittens

“he said he didn't care, it's how he made his profit...”

“At all butchers I worked at, they had me re-label almost anything that had a short date. This was to give it a longer date. The worst one was the chicken, which would be frozen, defrosted for selling.”

“If it didn't sell, back in the freezer it went, then back out the next day to thaw and sell. Re-labelled. I confronted the owner about this, and he said he didn't care, it's how he made his profit. Safe to say I quit a month later.” CrysisRegrets

A dangerous combination...

“I was asked to sign off on a plan to immediately start receiving, storing, and using huge quantities of an extremely volatile chemical without any of the necessary infrastructure or procedures to do so even remotely safely. It would have almost literally been a ticking time bomb.”

“It was also all for a new product they wanted to get into the market ASAP which they'd skipped 95% of the design control process for and mostly bypassed both the Quality and Regulatory departments on.”

“When I was pulled into a meeting with upper management about it, I told them that if they were going to actually consider this then I needed to quit effective immediately to avoid implicating myself in what they were doing. Oddly they suddenly started taking my concerns very seriously after I said that.”

“Rather than overtly evil, they ended up simply being a terrifyingly dangerous combination of ignorant, eager, optimistic, and overconfident in their own knowledge.” Stylemys

Working in surgery with no medical experience!?

“I got hired as a secretary for a plastic surgery office. Was told I would be answering phones/scheduling and that's it. I had zero medical experience and told them this. On day 1 I was handed a pair of scrubs and told that I was also going to be a scrub tech as well."

“I was instructed to assist the doctor in surgery (basically I handed in tools, held tools that were attached to the patient, etc). I almost passed out on the first day from shock. I was assured over and over again that it was legal. Whether it was legal or not I'm not sure, but I lasted 3 months and quit as soon as I found another job." JustSuze_393

In the corporate world, one thing seems to trump all ethics and statutes--the dollar. However, when faced with these awful and potentially dangerous situations, it's always best to speak up if you're able.

Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.

illegal

The Worst Cases Of Mass Stupidity People Have Ever Witnessed

"Reddit user AdmirableFlow asked: 'What's the most severe case of mass stupidity you've ever witnessed?'"

A group of people running through the trees in the desert
Photo by Jed Villejo

Humans seem to get swept up in group mentality and ignorance far too often.

Just because 10 of your neighbors jump off of a bridge, should you?

Celebrity fads, diet fads, Black Friday sales...

The masses love to blindly join in on the crazy.

Or the fun. it's a coin toss.

Redditor AdmirableFlow wanted to hear about group mentality that wasn't too bright, so they asked:

"What's the most severe case of mass stupidity you've ever witnessed?"

There is no greater group of followers than people who run every time Apple puts out a new product.

Same phone, just a thousand dollars more.

The Dodge

happy tom cruise GIF by South Park Giphy

"Scientology."

Supersaiajinblue

"The rich ones at the top are just in for the tax dodge. A lot of the ones below them are in it thinking they can shmooze with the rich ones at the top and become one of them some days. So yeah dumb but with a layer of greed involved."

Doright36

Bad Socials

"Before social media, I just assumed people were mostly educated. Boy was I f**king wrong."

"Not only was I wrong, but now I myself feel stupid for believing that for so long."

Vitzdam-

"Up until my early 20s I felt like I was smarter than 90% of the people around me, being generous. It seemed like so many people were just complete morons, and I had this massive smug sense of superiority feeling that I was just more intelligent (and thus better) than most people."

"As I aged, I began to realize how far I'd shoved my head up my own a** and I understood that while I might have been naturally gifted in some ways, there were others in which I was the 'idiot' and other people were capable and intelligent. I felt like a real a** for feeling so much better than others, and I felt humbled."

"And then everything since about mid-2015 happened and I've really started to wonder if maybe I was just right for the wrong reasons before..."

TypicalAd4988

Without Fail

"Maybe not the most severe, but one that everyone here has personally seen at least once in their lives. When at an airport and the gate agent says 'We're about to commence boarding. Please remain in your seats until your group has been called.' And then half the people were waiting standing up and crowding the gate in a scene of utter chaos. Every time, without fail."

-Dixieflatline

Rushed

"The great toilet paper rush at the start of COVID. There was nothing about COVID that threatened the global toilet paper supply, and yet people just started panic-buying it and artificially creating a huge shortage."

"(We would eventually realize that there was a small uptick in toilet paper sold for private use, as many people were going to the bathroom at home more than at work, but no one realized that at the time and it had nothing to do with the panic - people just started buying more because people were buying more)."

Notmiefault

Seriously?!

Skin Care Girl GIF by Lillee Jean Giphy

"Thousands of people during the pandemic thinking the vaccination made their skin magnetic. What in the actual hell."

MonParapluie

Everybody thought they were about to become a member of the X-Men with the Covid vaccines.

Still waiting on that proof.

Celebrity

"People waiting in Dealey Plaza for JFK Jr. to show up."

ggrandmaleo

"That's the first thing that popped into my mind. and they stayed there for days, didn't they? someone was interviewing people in the crowd and lots of people seemed to think other celebrities were also coming back/out of hiding. Someone was looking forward to seeing Robin Williams."

chrisgee

"You could simply declare the entire MAGA and QAnon movements to be mass stupidity and you'd not be wrong. Propaganda is a helluva drug and under-education is real. Fear and prejudice go hand-in-hand with under-education."

NbleSavage

Schemes

"Anyone who keeps getting involved in Ponzi or MLM schemes."

"For decades the public has been warned on what to watch out for to avoid these schemes, you would assume that the vast majority of people would have learned by now that these schemes are fraudulent and just can't work out. Yet somehow here we are with thousands of these companies still up and running and thriving and even more people being taken advantage of by them."

TheSameButBetter

Open Up

"My local park's playground has a push gate."

"Every time I watch grown adults stare at it for like 20 seconds then go 'I think it's locked is there another one?'"

"To which I walk up and... Push the gate open."

"What annoys me about this is they want to catch an attitude like I'm an a-hole for it."

3ao7ssv8

Challenges

ice bucket challenge news GIF Giphy

"Those public challenges that CLEARLY risk health, i.e., 'the tide pod challenge.' Next time, just let things sort themselves out on their own. We can use fewer idiots in the world."

"The ice bucket challenge was at least kind of cute and DID give ALS a lot of media attention/awareness and raised a lot of money."

LadyVaresa

I liked doing my ice bucket challenge.

Do you have anything to add? Let us know in the comment below.

mass stupidity

People Share The Best Little-Known Movie Facts They Know

movie set
Chris Murray on Unsplash

Easter eggs, bloopers, trivia, behind the scenes anecdotes... cinephiles live collecting them and sharing their knowledge with others.

Some trivia is well known—like Eric Stoltz was replaced by Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future. Other tidbits are more obscure, like Arnold Schwarzenegger was first considered for the Michael Biehn role of Kyle Reese in The Terminator.

Some stories are conspiracy theories or urban legends—like the body in the forest on The Wizard of Oz set.

But what about just film facts? The obscure ones?

Keep reading... Show less

The Weirdest Things People Have Witnessed In A Rich Person's Home

An illuminated mansion at night
Photo by Daniel Barnes on Unsplash

It's no secret that as a person starts to make more money, they may forget how difficult they had it when there was less money coming into their bank account.

Not only are rich people often incredibly out-of-touch with the realities of most people's lives, but what they choose to prioritize and bring into their home is often pretty bizarre, too.

Already side-eyeing, Redditor Jerswar asked:

"What's the weirdest thing you've witnessed in the home of a rich person?"

Love Can't Be Bought

"Rich grandparents had a brand new house built, had a $100,000 splash pad built for their only grandchild who has never visited them at their new house."

- wyoflyboy68

"This reminds me of when my sister built her house. She had a barrier-free ground-floor apartment built in it, so my grandmother could visit. She never did."

- P44

A Separate Hoarder's House

"I had a rich neighbor growing up who'd always invite us over for parties and always insisted on giving us gifts and leftovers. They did this with every guest."

"They were also hoarders but built a separate house to keep their crap in. It was filled with whatever they bought but never used and even never got out of the packaging it was delivered in."

"They told my mom to take a box of what she wanted, and for s**ts and giggles, she did. It was a knife collection and sharpener set."

- MUSTARDUNAVAILABLE

Unusual Art

"I was at John Waters’ house for his birthday and he has a room set up as a lifelike recreation of a meth lab (it wasn’t a real meth lab, it’s an art piece)."

"He told me that when Bill Clinton visited him the secret service agents were extremely concerned about the room."

- writeleahwrite

Weird Pet Relationships

"One client had a whole separate house on their property just for their dogs. They'd referred to it as the 'dog house,' and I was expecting like maybe a little building in the yard where they kept their toys or something, but this was a fully furnished home with king-sized beds and a huge playroom on the main floor."

"They had a full training and feeding staff to care for the dogs and everything. They lived in their own house and would come over to visit. Seemed like a weird dynamic to have with your pet..."

"One client didn't have a litterbox for the cats, their cats I guess didn't like using the boxes in the basement and they didn't want to put boxes upstairs so they put down pond liner and kitty litter across an entire room in the basement and had their housekeeper run a rake through it daily."

- daabilge

Special Needs Kitty Mystery Mansion

"As a kid back in the Mesozoic Era (I'm old), my best friend and I used to play in a converted racquetball court and lounge under the old West Coast mansion her family had lived in since its construction."

"The stairs to it were hidden behind a closet off of the abandoned servants' quarters. Halfway down the stairs was a wine cellar. A decoy as the actual wine cellar for the home was under the kitchen….. Another staircase behind a rack of dusty bottles led two stories down to our giant play area beneath this."

"At the beginning of WWII, before Pearl Harbor, my friend’s paranoid WWI vet grandfather had dug out the space over fear of Japanese (or German) invasion. Her dad made the giant room regulation designed for racquetball years later. Maybe originally squash. Not sure, but the lounge area was also glassed off above it so one could look down into the court like a gallery."

"It was really neat. Also upstairs in the living room was a wall straight out of an old mystery novel. If you pushed a spot just right, the wall opened to a hidden room. Super tiny and had a button to ring certain other rooms in the house as the home had these already to call for staff. My friend's mom said it was so if someone quickly had to hide, they could alert the household of danger."

"We used to pretend to be on Nancy Drew cases all the time... so fun."

"The family was wealthy, but despite the amazing home, they lived a completely pretentious free life. Normal cars, camping vacations, frugal living as sport."

"But they were philanthropists too, especially supporting organizations like the humane society. One thing about this family’s home was all the cats. I loved kitties but had a mother who preferred her animals well-seasoned. The family had the space so they always had, and were looking to adopt out but often didn’t, at least 20 rescue cats, many with special needs."

"I’m old, I didn’t know how to write that. Special needs kitty mystery mansion really is actually an appropriate description..."

- waltersmama

"Special needs kitty mystery mansion with hidden panic rooms and decoy wine cellars is like, the best possible fever dream."

- ConneisseurOfDanger

A Unique Viewing Experience

"In Naples, FL., I was at a house with a sensory deprivation room. Flat black walls with acoustic dampening baffles, in the middle was a coffin-like bathtub. It had speakers and a flat-screen display in the lid."

"I heard that the room cost over $100K to build."

- frank_sarno

A Christmas Village

"They had part of the house permanently decorated for Christmas and it included a fully decorated Christmas tree that was suspended upside down from the ceiling. Which was pretty awesome."

- lithecello

New Meaning to "Don't Take Your Work Home"

"My wife and I used to babysit for this wealthy couple when they went on ski trips etc."

"Except for the children's schoolbooks, there wasn't a book, magazine, or newspaper in the house."

"The man was a publisher."

- Texbadger349

The End of Laundry

"I knew someone who didn't like to do laundry so she just bought new clothes for each of her 4 kids every week. They were always high-quality or designer clothes. At the time, all her kids were 10 to 16 years old."

"What would happen if they liked an item a lot and couldn't find it again? Why not just teach the kids to do their own laundry? Why not hire a housekeeper who can do it?"

"There are so many options, other than spending thousands every month just to avoid laundry. Plus, they rarely donated it. Just bagged it up and threw it out. I never could wrap my head around it."

- coffee-jnky

Can We Be the Trivia Guy?

"I know someone who's worked for a very rich person, probably worth billions. He had more than 100 staff on site, including chefs for the staff...all while divorced and living alone. He had a 'trivia' staff member... someone hired to tell him interesting facts and stories daily. That was his only job."

"Someone else was hired to maintain his shoes. Polish, shine, the works."

"If I didn't hear it firsthand, I wouldn't have believed it."

- mambo-nr4

A Mud Room, Indeed!

​"I used to work as an exterminator, mostly pest control. This had me walking through houses from the poor to the rich."

"One day, I pulled up to a four-story mansion with more rooms than I could count."

"I spoke with the lady at the door and got started. As I sprayed, I noticed there wasn’t much furniture in the house. As I went, I made a game of counting the furniture I could find. Over 50 rooms and the whole building had 13 pieces of furniture."

"Pretty odd, but then I went into the very last room, a mud room right by the door I came into."

"I stopped as I walked in, completely shocked. A huge, full-sized (alive) adult pig stretched from one end of the room to the other, resting on the tile floor. I’m talking five or six feet stretched out across the room. Flies buzzed around its head as it stared at me."

"Suddenly, the lady (who I hadn’t seen since she let me in) said, 'Oh, don’t go in there. She doesn’t like men,' and then she walked me out, paid me, and went back inside."

- Moist-Exchange2890

His Very Own Hot Wheels Garage

"Buddy of mine has a car elevator."

"Instead of just building a bigger garage, he stores his cars stacked onto each other, like some kind of Hot Wheels accessory. It's very surreal."

- SmackEh

Make Yourself at Home

​"My friend's dad growing up was one of the top lawyers in our state. Their house was so d**n big, I got confused (lost as h**l) on all the staircases they had everywhere. They would split in a few places and lead to banisters that had different connections to different parts of the house."

"They had a room just for dishes. Her mom had a huge room for sewing and another for different crafts. They both had an office. Many guest rooms. A small kitchen in one part with a sink, coffee pot, and fridge. Their main bathroom for guests had heated floors and rainfall showers and everything. I LOVED HER SHOWER."

"Her room had a balcony and a table outside."

"They had a pool and hot tub. Horses and a barn and lots of cute barn cats."

"I was very poor and had a messed up situation in my childhood. I stayed there a lot and they would even take me for weeks in the summer because my mother was not there. They are really great people."

" They didn't give handouts or anything, I would literally scoop up horse shit and clean stalls and help with everything for those horses when I stayed. I wanted to help."

"They had a maid, but we still cleaned up after ourselves. Their kitchen was gigantic, and I always loved the fancy pasta water arm over the stove. I had so much fun cooking with her mom and us having the big dinners (Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas) with them."

"They were so magnificent and beyond anything I would have ever experienced without them. I got my first pair of cowboy boots from them for Christmas. Her dad bought me a plane ticket one time out of the blue because I wanted to visit my grandmother. Never forget them."

- xNinjaNoPants

So Much Wasted Food

"A very rich person I know does not eat leftover food. They will cook a feast and after, everything goes straight in the garbage no matter how much is left over."

- duckduckroosebolton

"My husband won’t eat leftovers because he thinks it will give him diarrhea. His family is preoccupied with food poisoning but doesn’t know any of the actual food safety rules."

"Oh well, more for me."

- jendet010

"My brother-in-law’s family does this but they are middle class. It’s such a waste!"

- outlawjoseymeow

An Art Enthusiast

"Not weird but a Van Gogh, just chillin' in the hallway. I took a selfie with the flash on, whoops."

- Raccoon_Expert_69

"When I did executive level IT support years back, I found a Monet dangling haphazardly on an office chair in the CEO's extra office (which was unused for storage, and had an extra desktop computer I would sometimes use for quick tasks when on that floor)."

"Another time, I was admiring a Joan Miro coffee table book in his main office, and when his assistant noticed, he showed me into a side room I didn’t realize was there, which had a mini gallery of original Miro drawings."

- spymusicspy

It's amazing what people will spend money on when they have the money to spare. It would be so interesting to see how much more a person would explore a hobby if they had the money to spend.

rich people stuff

People Explain What Happened To The Popular Kids In School

A cheerleader
Glib Albovsky/Unsplash

Being in high school is such a pivotal moment in a young adolescent's life.

They discover who they are and where they want to be. They start making tough decisions about their future and forge bonds with individuals who may continue to influence them as they navigate the world post-graduation.

But as it often happens, we all drift apart due to going to different colleges or embarking on other adventures.

It's not until several years pass that we wax nostalgic about our youth and wonder about the people with whom we once roamed the halls, carrying our textbooks and fixated on inconsequential matters that seemed like a big deal then.

Curious to hear from strangers online, Redditor Just_Suspect5904 asked:

"What happened to the most popular kids in your school?"

The following Redditors opened up about acquaintances that left an indelible mark on their memory.

The Parents Were Wrong About Him

"One of my best friends was from the wrong side of the tracks, poor, had a mullet and wore Metallica shirts way before they broke into mainstream."

"He was extremely popular because he was crazy smart, very talented and driven. Everyone wanted to be his friend and he was very open about being nice to everyone."

"Many many parents were like 'don’t hang out with that John Smith boy, he’s on drugs and a bad influence' (He absolutely was not, it was the Satanic scare of the late 80s and 90s and he liked Metal Music)"

"He worked his as off all his life and is now pretty damn wealthy with a house, wife and kids in California."

"When we chat it up on the phone he is the exact same person I grew up with. Crazy funny and extremely kind."

– Vitaminpartydrums

No Chance For Goodbyes

"Most popular kid in our school was a guy named Josh. Insanely outgoing and friendly, he could befriend anyone he talked to within five seconds, and always did. Active athlete, was on the football team. Straight A student. Very devout church-goer. I didn't meet him until later in high school, where he was part of a Dungeons and Dragons game I joined. Always put on a great time role playing. While we didn't get close, we had a couple extraordinarily memorable times during our senior year of high school, very fun and meaningful times that stood out strongly to me then during a shitty part of my life and are still remembered fondly by me twenty years later. Josh was going places, and he'd make a difference somewhere."

"We lost touch after high school. Three years later he fell asleep behind the wheel of his truck and hit a tree. Died on impact. Found out through another friend who'd kept up with him, and we went to his funeral. I'd never seen a church so packed full of people for something like this, hundreds and hundreds of people. From our school, from his church, from all over life, the church was legitimately full."

"To this day, one of my few true lifelong regrets is letting my anxiety get the better of me when Josh's pastor asked people to come up to the mic and say something about Josh. I should've told everyone of our ludicrous all-nighter digging his truck out of the mud in a forest he'd gone mudding in after an evening school performance where we were all still in khakis and polos, finishing at three AM and somehow ending our bedraggled a**es at IHOP after getting it out."

"I should've told everyone how we found out our DnD GM was moving away on short notice, and we high-tailed it to his place after school and literally ran out of gas in that f**king truck getting there, then flooded the engine refilling it from a Jerry can, stuck with our GM who didn't want anyone coming to say goodbye and ending up late in the evening laying in that truck bed talking about science and philosophy and religion, three teenage dudes waiting for that goddamn f'king truck to get to a drivable condition so we could say goodbye to our friend properly before he disappeared from our lives."

"I'm nearing forty, and I still regret not saying how great of a guy he was to a short, scrawny, long-haired metalhead weirdo like I was in high school. Because he was. He was going to make a difference. I suppose, given all the people at his funeral, he still did."

– token_bastard

Some failed to make much of an impression enough to stand out.

However, a discourse on cliques was started in the thread.

Unpopular Majority

"My HS graduating class was 952 people, I do not even know who the most popular people were, lol."

– CorruptDictator

"My class was about that size and I remember always thinking that many of the high school stereotypes you would see on TV and film didn't seem to apply at a school that huge. People who might have been the school bully in a smaller school are properly segregated, and people who might have been an outcast in a smaller school could always find a clique of similarly minded weirdos. Popularity was never a school-wide thing because the orchestra people, the jocks, and goths, the potheads, etc. all had their own separate leaders. Also as a result we would often have a lot of cross-clique friendships and mixed parties where most people tended to be generally cool with each other."

– soretti

The Thing About Bullies

"Apparently the cliques happen in medium size schools because my exceptional small school only ever had one kid that could represent each kind of classic clique. I think the school bully trope is strange because from my experience people are a d*ck to different people in different ways that might be considered bullying. Like orchestra kids might have been a group but perhaps there was a bully within that group that picked on other orchestra kids"

– Mediocre_Scott

New York City Does High School Different

"Same. it was 850 kids in my class. NYC. so no 'campus' just a single secure building (one of my schools was actually inside a sky scraper), kids didnt leave to get lunch (without cutting class), nobody drove and there was no parking lot to hang out in, there was no Football team, and just none of the tropes you see in the media. A lot of us worked after school. 80-something languages were spoken. everyone was from somewhere else, so there was no 'new kid in town' tropes. we didn't even have lockers!

"We also don't all go to our 'local'; schools, so the kids you went to school with in Elementary school are a different set of kids than from your Jr High, and are a different set of kids from your High School. And on top of that, you also had your own set of friends from your 'hood/block, so its not like you ALWAYS were with the same kids all the time all through childhood."

"Like on TV, the kids you are in class with, are also from your neighborhood and you hung out with them outside of school, and they were also the same kids you played on sports teams with. in my world, those were always different sets of kids."

"Extremely different from all the Suburban High School TV and Movie sh*t."

– super-antinatalist

People closely examined more about the differences between popular/unpopular demographics.

Privilege

"Small town."

"There are always exceptions, but most kids who were 'popular' were friendly, outgoing, well dressed, and emotionally stable. That happened because they came from families with more money and better educated parents."

"Those parents often provided better mentoring, ensured they went to college, and as a result the kids ended up professionals who did reasonably well for themselves."

– BeKindAndWorkHard

Assumptions

"This is a very unpopular and underreported reality, as the unpopular kids desperately want to believe the popular guys end up working at the local gas station or Walmart once their days as sports stars or heartthrobs are gone. While the nerds go on to become rich and successful exactly because of reasons that made them unpopular in school."

"Unfortunately for them, popularity is often based on social status and people skills. Two key assets in life at any age."

– Kalle_79

Study Shows

"I remember reading a study that says high school bullies were more likely to be successful than the average student from their class. Once again because outgoing people who are willing to have that aggressive personality are likely to be able to succeed more than a passive timid person. If that bully grows out of being a bully they're still going to have that outgoing aggressive personality."

– Tritium10

Misconception

"They're doing fine. Contrary to what Reddit would have you believe, most of the popular kids in schools weren't bullies in my experience. They were kids who for the most part were nice, had a stable home life, and maybe happened to be fairly athletic."

– GoldenFrog14

I managed to keep in touch with a handful of people from high school; therefore, I didn't think about anyone else from my class year.

That's why I never considered going to my high school reunion.

It's because I realized there was never a time when I wondered about how the popular students at my school were doing these days.

Have you?

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