Workplace Facts

The average office worker spends 50 minutes a day looking for lost files and other items.

A man secretly outsourced his programming job to China. He filled his work day watching cat videos, surfing Reddit and Facebook. Before being caught and fired, he made hundreds of thousands.

"Strategic incompetence" is the art of avoiding certain tasks by pretending you don't know how to do them.

A woman with Down syndrome worked at Walmart for 16 years with glowing reviews. When a new scheduling system changed her shift, she asked to keep her old hours because eating dinner at irregular times made her sick. Walmart refused and fired her for "absenteeism." A jury took three hours to award her $125 million.

A TV reporter in the Philippines brought her puppy to the studio because no one was home to watch him. During the live broadcast, she kept the sleeping puppy hidden at her feet — only her upper half visible on camera. Behind-the-scenes photos went viral, showing the little golden pup curled up on the studio floor.

Alice Roque worked at Octapharma Plasma for 19 years. At 74, they moved her to a standing role. Her back hurt, so she asked for a chair - twice. Her supervisor suggested she resign instead. Then they fired her. A San Diego jury awarded her $11.2 million. She hadn't asked for a single dollar in lost wages.

After 31 years at Liberty Mutual, senior case manager Joy Slagel was fired the day she returned from medical leave - over a paperwork mix-up on a Disney social media investigation. A Los Angeles jury awarded her $103 million in December 2025, the largest age discrimination verdict in US history. The jury found Liberty Mutual had acted with "malice or oppression."