the miniature diorama, the burn book, the gun, and other weird items left behind in desks

by Alison Green on November 5, 2024

Need an amusing distraction today? I do.

Last week we talked about the oddest things you’ve found when cleaning out a desk or workspace, and below are 15 of my favorite stories you shared.

However, what is not my favorite is the knowledge that 30 of you — 30 separate people — thirty — reported finding nail clippings left in a desk you inherited. Why?

And yet, even burdened with that information, we must move onward.

1. The diorama

I found an entire, miniaturized diorama of the office, complete with desks, tables, smoking area outside, and hung up motivational posters. The cherry on top was that each person working there had their own figurine, complete with distinctive accessories.

When I found it, the former employee was posed as having his feet up on his desk, smoking a cigarette and eating a miniature Subway sandwich. He had left the position to open a Subway franchise.

2. The statues

We had an intern who drove the whole office crazy with his elitist behavior. After his time with us had ended, we needed to look for info on the computer he had been using, and we discovered a folder full of dozens of pics of ancient nude male statues. One of my coworkers pointed out that *of course* even his porn would be pretentious…

3. The burn book

I was doing a deep clean of a desk I was assigned and found a note taped to the underside of a drawer. It was basically a burn book of every employee the person who had my desk prior worked with. It ended with, “Whoever reads this, you’re welcome!” I agreed with most of it, honestly.

4. The emails

I just cleaned out my desk and found that my predecessor printed out EVERY email she sent, then highlighted them, made comments and annotations in red pen. These were emails she had sent, not emails she received. My favorite one was one she had sent to the CEO telling her she was an idiot … not long before she was fired.

5. The photo cut-out

My manager was fired. When we cleaned out their cubicle, we found a two foot tall cardboard photo cut-out of her manager’s head.

6. The notes

A few months after one of my coworkers was fired, their desk was cleaned out for a new hire. Under the desk we found at least 50(!) post it notes with varying messages, including comments about women colleagues’ bodies, Bible verses, comments about hating management, and “do not get fired again.” Guess that didn’t work out for them.

7. The condoms

Condoms. Lots and lots, with various *ahem* features. I put them in a clear jar and left it on their new desk with a post-it facing outward “Don’t need – free to good homes.” The person was incompetent, unpleasant, entitled and out of the office for a few days.

8. The Fungus Basement

My current company has … the Fungus Basement. Old laboratory space in a damp basement that became contaminated with fungal growth- it’s hard to sterilize fungus away and it wasn’t worth the risk of contaminating newer lab space, so an entire working lab got locked away in a lightless basement being slowly overgrown by The Fungus™. We just heavily sealed all the doors and vents to keep it in there, and I can’t imagine what a horror movie set it’s turned into.

9. The hair

At my first museum job, straight out of grad school, I was assigned a storage closet for event props, catering equipment, and our beer/ wine/ snacks for donor events. It had clearly not been cleaned in many years, and was so full and disorganized it was impossible to close the door. I went in one weekend, with my mom, to clean it out and spend some time with a parent I had not had a lot of one on one time with due to working and school. Was super excited about the day and very energized to clean up something that was irritating me.

But then we found the gallon-sized ziplock bag of human hair. No explanation, no label, nothing. Somehow someone stacked it above the cans of lighter fluid, which seemed to us at the time the only logical place to store a gallon of human hair.

10. The rubber stamp

A rubber stamp saying, “This article is also available in Esperanto.” To my knowledge, we have never published Esperanto-language works, but this stamp was in our mailroom for years until I finally took it to my desk. The actual stamp part is gone, but I’m keeping it to mystify whoever ultimately cleans out my desk.

11. The cheese

I wasn’t there to witness it, but the woman sitting next to me and the company parted ways. Her desk was always covered in opened crisp packets, half-full bottles of pop and other detritus.

My boss had to clear the little drawer cabinet we each had under our desk. He discovered that departed coworker had been storing cheese in it.

12. The quesadilla

A coworker left, and another coworker and I were the only ones left to clean out her desk. Amongst a melange of personal effects, we found a hard copy of our reporting schedule with a handwritten missive at the top. It read, “I am a quesadilla.” It is now my go-to mantra during inane work situations.

13. The pistachios

Pistachio shells. I moved into a cube in a corner after the previous guy had moved on. He had apparently been snacking on pistachios for years, and instead of using the garbage can ALSO UNDER HIS DESK, he just tossed them under his desk and called it good. It wasn’t visually obvious, but as soon as I tried to sit down my feet encountered a ~2 foot tall mountain of pistachio shells.

14. The gun

Wasn’t a desk but a car. My first job out of college was as a car salesman. I’d just sold a car and since it was a slow day I figured I’d help out the lot attendants and clean out the big stuff from the trade-in. Usually it’s just trash, but sometimes people leave stuff like IDs or important documents in the glove box, or CDs or the like.

In this case it was a .38 revolver. I called the guy and he said, “Oh, THAT’S where I left it! Can you hold on to it for me?” So for a few days underneath some sales forms in my desk drawer was a revolver and a set of bullets.

15. The tiny ducks

About two months ago I lost a team member who left for another job. She was a delight.

Someone had taken on an innocent office prank of hiding very tiny ducks everywhere. They were multicolored “rubber duckie” style ducks that fit on the tip of your finger. They were often on top of bulletin boards, water fountains, mundane places but they usually brought a smile.

She was very reserved but always nice and positive. When I opened her drawer to clean out, I found the entire bag of the ducks. I had to send her a text to let her know she had been outted as the duck prankster.

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{ 325 comments }

{ 325 comments… read them below }

  1. Mornington Crescent*

    I knew there’d been a lot of people who had found nail clippings, but I was in no way prepared for there being THIRTY. That’s hilarious!

    1. 1-800-BrownCow*

      Gross is my first response….not hilarious. Like why would someone….errr, 30 someones, do that??? I clip my toenails in the privacy of my own home over a trash can because I don’t even want to touch them at that point (I know, technically I was touching them before they were clipped, but they’re still gross).

      1. Timothy (TRiG)*

        I tend to feel that the best place to clip my nails is outside in the garden, now that I have a garden. At home, that is. I do not have an office garden, and would not use it if I did.

        1. Sarah With an H*

          That’s what I do. Though one time some ants started carrying away the clippings as soon as I was done, which weirded me out a bit

          2. Mad Harry Crewe*

            I like when ants get my discards. I’m not using those bits anymore! Feel free! Have at it! The circle of life and I am but a part of it, using these atoms for a few years and then handing them off to the next borrower.

          4. Bananapants Modiste*

            Which reminds me of when I was combing my (long, red) hair on the balcony last spring – birds swooped in and carried away every strand of the combings! Am visualizing a luxurious nest now.

              1. Reluctant Mezzo*

                When I trim my son’s hair and beard, the bits are pretty short. None of it will ensnare anything.

          5. tjamls*

            I missed the discussion last week, but speaking of ants I inherited a desk with a layer of dead ants in one drawer (as well as nail clippings in another). It was like an ant blanket across the entire bottom. Before that, I didn’t think the person who moved out of the office was particularly messy or gross, but I have no idea how you just go about your life with a dead ant drawer.

      2. SarahKay*

        I feel like Alison’s comment regarding them was hilarious, but their actual existence is indeed gross. What is wrong with some people?

      3. RLC*

        My mom once had a boss who was infamous for clipping his TOENAILS during a meeting with his boss. Toenail clipper was a “golden child” who apparently could get away with odd behavior, no consequences. It was a wildly dysfunctional workplace, in academia.

        1. JustaTech*

          I had a coworker who would occasionally file a nail in our weekly team meeting. Like, I get that having a snagged nail can be incredibly irritating, and at least filing is quieter/less gross than clipping, but like, it’s a meeting of maybe 8 people, and either someone is presenting data or we’re having an active discussion. Can’t it wait 20 minutes?

    2. We Are Everywhwere*

      And what’s worse, if there are — only — thirty (30! — 3-0!)– reported here, how many more are there out there??

      1. Didi*

        At least one more! A guy I worked with used to clip his nails at his desk. IDK where he put the clippings, but it’s a safe bet that at least some ended up in the desk.

        2. anon for this one*

          Another one at a former job of mine, I’m sad to say. Not as sad as on my first day and discovered the drawer full of them, though.

      2. Can't Sit Still*

        I regret to inform you that, while I missed the original question last week, I have found fingernail clippings while cleaning out desk drawers many times over my career, across all levels, roles, and industries. Oftentimes, they leave the clippers behind as well!

        It’s not something you become accustomed to finding and it’s utterly revolting every single time.

        1. Strive to Excel*

          It’s one thing to find the odd fingernail clipping. That’s gross in the way all body bits are but it’s something you find.

          It’s a whole ‘nother thing to find DRAWERS FULL of the stuff.

    3. Another Anon*

      Trying to logic this out, the best I can come up with is that they don’t want to make mess, so they open their desk drawer to catch the clippings. Then they get too lazy to empty the drawer into the trash.

      At least, I hope it’s that simple, because any other explanation is weird and creepy.

      1. TQB*

        When you use clippers, sometimes the nail gets stuck in there. You toss the clippers back in the drawer and it falls out. I swear, I have NEVER clipped into my drawer (EW!), and yet I routinely clean out a little pile of clippings from the section where i keep my nail clippers!!

        1. Frank Doyle*

          Protip: you can tap the clippers on a hard surface before you put them away to dislodge the clippings.

        2. Nail clipping confusion*

          But why are people clipping their nails this much at work?! I truly don’t understand. I have medium length nails and if they break at work I just use a nail file to smooth out the rough edge so it doesn’t snag. I don’t even keep nail clippers at work.

          1. Mad Harry Crewe*

            Mine sometimes develop a weak spot or the start of a tear just above the quick, and it’s not always safe to leave it or rip the whole thing off. I do always keep nail clippers at my work desk specifically for dealing with those situations, but I don’t ever just sit around trimming my nails at work. That would be weird.

          2. dawbs*

            I work a not-office-job (part of my job is office-y, so I have a desk with clippers in the drawer) where I end up doing things that break nails ALL the dang time.

            (Think of the things a kindergarten teacher probably breaks nails on–that’s not my job, but same hazards. Opening a bag of snacks for impatient preschoolers, beating those instant ice packs, scrubbing gross things, prying apart legos (NO, don’t let them use their teeth!), shelving books, moving rocks, rescuing toys from playdoh, etc. All those things, and those are the non-identifying ones–my own days are weirder than that; chipped one today trying to open stamp pads)

            I have freakishly strong nails that grow fast, but kids create hazards and I probably pull out clippers to salvage a nail weekly.

          3. Azure Jane Lunatic*

            Until I found glass nail files, I found the texture of almost every nail file I encountered intolerable. I’ve got weak nails, sadly, and in cold weather they break constantly.

            1. allathian*

              Yes, me too. I clip my nails because I find filing tedious and unpleasant. I also find the sound far more jarring than the clip-click, especially when using an emery board. The steel nail file I have is better than nothing, but I’ll only use it if I can’t find the clippers and if my nail isn’t torn.

            2. SimonTheGreyWarden*

              Conversely, using clippers on my nails is painful to me (I don’t know why) and I exclusively file my nails.

          4. Seeking Second Childhood*

            I used to work with someone who REGULARLY clipped his nails in his trash can. But it was a cubicle warren so we ALL heard it, multiple clips on all 10 fingers.

            I went to ask him to do it in the bathroom and he said no… quite probably because he had his hands down inside the trash bin.

            I was quite glad when he changed jobs.

          5. JustaTech*

            I keep clippers at work (heck, it’s a full mini manicure set I got at a product show once), because I work in a lab so having a snagged nail is a hazard to your gloves, which makes it a safety thing.

            One time when I was working in a clean room (full bunny suit) a coworker broke her brand-new acrylic nail and it started bleeding inside her glove. I hustled her out of there so fast! (To keep the product safe from her blood and her safe from our product.)

            But all of those are emergency one-offs, not your general personal upkeep.

    4. Judge Judy and Executioner*

      I was on vacation last week, or it would have been 31. At a place I used to work the nail clippings were found in the desk of a former director. I will never understand why someone would not just throw these away? Really, no one should be clipping their nails at work unless it’s to deal with a single hangnail.

      1. CatWoman*

        I worked with a guy who clipped his EVERY SINGLE DAY (my desk was just outside his office). At least he didn’t leave them in the drawer when he left, though

        1. Worldwalker*

          How fast did his nails grow??? If I clipped mine every day, I would be clipping somewhere near my elbows in a year!

        2. Can't Sit Still*

          I worked with a guy who did the same, but we could hear him clipping away on the opposite side of the office!!?! How, I don’t know. He gave 20+ people the heebie-jeebies daily.

          He was a lunch thief, too.

          1. Casual Fribsday*

            I’m legitimately curious now, about the Venn diagram between office nail clippers and lunch thieves. They both seem to stem from a complete disregard of their impact on other people…

        3. Enai*

          Wasn’t that a plot point in a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode? Your coworker may be a demon trying to pose as human…

    5. AnonAnon*

      I had a coworker that did it and left them allllllllll over his floor. Meetings in his office were atrocious.

    6. Unkempt Flatware*

      This would be my villain origin story. Right then and there, I’d transform into evil.

    7. Lisa Simpson*

      I did not reply to last week’s post and my husband found a drawer full of nail clippings, so that’s 31.

    8. No eye deer*

      Nail clippings are a big taboo in my culture. People will go to great lengths to dispose of them far away from where any human will come into contact with them. I never realised how grateful I had to be for that until now.

      1. Strive to Excel*

        I can’t help but wonder how many myths of “we keep our nails/hair/blood whatever burned/washed/ritually rubbed with herbs” originate from some mother telling her kid that the boogyman will get him if he doesn’t clean up his nail shavings. Certainly there’s links between purity rituals in many belief systems and modern day CDC/household cleanliness advice.

    9. Corvus Corvidae*

      I have a coworker who clips her nails at her desk. Someone used to share a cubicle with her until the day they got hit in the face with a toenail.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Ok, I admit that I may have occasionally clipped my fingernails in my office when I was new to the workforce and at least 10 different flavors of unprofessional. But toenails??

        (Also, I clipped into the trash, or onto my desk and brushed into the trash. I wasn’t saving the trimmings for later!)

    10. Khatul Madame*

      After reading this site for years… it’s almost not weird anymore. Just, y’know, routine gross.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        At least it’s not cups of urine emptied into the kitchen sink or poopy toilet paper being set on fire, I guess?

        Honestly, I’ve donated my hair a few times, so the “ziplock bag of human hair” doesn’t even gross me out.

    11. AliceInFunderland*

      I drew the short straw when a coworker left & I found fingernail clippings…and many beard hairs too! This guy was in the habit of pouring a bit of water from his glass into his hands & then scrubbing his face with it. WHILE SITTING AT HIS COMPUTER. Tried my best to sterilize for his replacement, probably one of the grosser work related tasks I ever had.

      1. I Have RBF*

        I used to work IT Help Desk. One of our tasks was to take turned in computers – laptops, desktops, keyboards, etc – and rehabilitate them for the next person, or if they were past expired, clean them up for sale.

        People, we had gloves. We needed those gloves. We used things like Clorox wipes and rubbing alcohol. Plus canned air to blow out the crumbs.

        We had numerous keyboards encrusted with who knows what, including beard hair, food, and… mystery substances. Pointing devices, too. If the keyboard was a standalone and too gross, we just pitched it. We couldn’t do that with laptops.

        Whenever I leave a job now, unless I’m really, really angry with the help desk folks, I just clean up my own gear.

        1. Enai*

          When I wrote my bachelor’s thesis, the physics department gave me a shared office complete with a computer, in addition to lab access. When I finished and went to IT to turn the computer back in, they let me keep the mouse and keyboard, because they had learned the hard way that those particular items should usually just be thrown away instead of cleaned. Especially since this particular IT department bought cheap mice and keyboards worth less than the employee who would’ve cleaned it made per hour.

    12. mreasy*

      Well now I’m kind of proud to be one of the 30 (moved into the CEO’s old office and…top desk drawerful).

    13. JoJo*

      Make it 31 people. I had the same thing happen to me once. It looked like several years worth. I’m still trying to figure out why.

    14. am i a hero*

      I am an American-born child of immigrants, so very accustomed to cultural norms of the US. I once had an immigrant coworker of a different but geographically similar ethnicity. He’d been in the US a long time and had gone to grad school here, but had come as an adult.

      At some point I realized that the occasional sound of nail clippers was coming from him. I decided that I was the only person who would be able to approach this topic with him because of our similar age and similar background. So I messaged him and said “you know Americans generally don’t clip their nails at the office”. He thanked me for letting him know.

    15. Grizabella the Glaimour Cat*

      Someone seriously needs to study this phenomenon of leaving piles of nail clippings in desk drawers. Because who knew it was THIS common? If there are upwards of 30 examples in this commentariat alone
      (counting the ones that have been added in this thread), how many more than there be 9ut there?

      I’m not sure what kind of researcher should do this, but it needs to be done. Anyone need a dissertation topic for a PhD in oh, say, cultural anthropology maybe? *hopeful, inquisitive look*

  2. Juicebox Hero*

    I hope #8 realizes that someday, random objects, everyone’s favorite snacks, and all the half and half are going to vanish mysteriously. Shortly after that a coworker or two and a neighborhood child are going to go missing and the rest of the staff is going to suit up, grab their FungoBlasters, and venture into the depths of the FungoLab in order to rescue everyone and the Triscuits from the grip of the evil mutant Humungous Fungus.

    Please remember to record it all and post on Youtube.

    1. I take tea*

      I also thought that it really sounded like the beginning of a horror film. I think it would be very interesting to see how it looks now.

        2. Waltzing Matilda*

          Same! Mushroom employees are going to start wandering out of the threshold any say now.

      3. Audrey Horne*

        I’m envisioning some kind of ‘The Last of Us’ Scenario happening when it finally is unsealed.

      4. Grizabella the Glaimour Cat*

        I was just thinking it sounded like a setup for a horror movie, or a Stephen King story. Or a horror movie based on a Stephen King story based on this nightmare fuel!

      1. WFH4VR*

        I love Agent Pendergast! Alas, I think the most recent book is the last. He and Constance seem to have defeated the evil through time-travel and are living happily ever after. (uh oh, is that a spoiler?

    4. Not A Raccoon Keeper*

      Same line of thought, but I went down the Little Shop of Horrors avenue. Let’s just hope it finishes with the theatrical ending and not the director’s cut (where Audrey II takes over the planet).

      Although given the knowledge of yesterday’s election outcome, maybe it would be for the best.

    6. Reluctant Mezzo*

      The plumbing underneath my house looked rather like that till I spend a bunch of money to have it all torn up and replaced. Now my water bill is regularly less than $20!

    7. great book btw*

      I cried laughing at this one. Do you want “The Hacienda?” Because this is how you get “The Hacienda”!!

      1. great bookS btw*

        oh shoot, no, I mean “Mexican Gothic.” I read them right after each other and can never keep the plot points straight

  3. BuildMeUp*

    #7 – You’d think OP would be happy this coworker isn’t passing their genes on to anyone!

      1. Election Day Jitters*

        I think it’s just an unpleasant thing to find at work, especially from a colleague you don’t particularly like. It invites you to think about their sex life, which most of us don’t want to do with coworkers.

        2. SarahKay*

          I (female) once had a male co-worker object to me keeping tampons in my desk drawer.
          He suggested it would be equivalent to him keeping condoms in his desk; I looked at him incredulously and suggested that only one of either condoms or tampons was reasonable to use, and thus, store, at work

            1. Zephy*

              A disturbing number of men equate tampons with sex toys, presumably because they go inside you. That’s, um, not what we’re using them for, guys.

            2. SarahKay*

              I mean, he was married with kids, so I would have assumed he knew that periods are not voluntary…. but since he clearly still though they were gross, *shrug* I got nothing.

        3. Retired Merchandiser*

          Missed this thread last week, but I used to find all kinds of stuff deep in shelves. Usually it was food products (packaged chicken, anyone?) or empty packages from shoplifting; cosmetic items and razor packs were two favorites. But the absolute GROSSEST thing I ever found was a condom. That had been used. And I PUT MY HAND ON IT!! Gag. I had to go sterilize myself after that.

        4. KateM*

          My question was more about why was it so ahem-worthy that they had different features. That seems to me a pretty innocent thing compared to having condoms in the first place – aren’t there multipacks where each one has a different feature or something?

          1. Leigh*

            I suppose it adds another layer to the intrusive thoughts you already don’t want to be having about your co-worker’s need to store these things at work..

    1. 1-800-BrownCow*

      Agreed. Like, did the person act out fantasies with their diorama? It almost sounds like it since they portrayed themselves with a Subway sandwich. Yikes. But also, I’m kinda impresssed.

    2. Miss Muffet*

      I thought, how do you even follow this? It’s brilliant! And then I literally guffawed at the second one …

    3. Worldwalker*

      As a model builder and miniatures painter, I find it absolutely awesome. I want pictures! I want construction details!

      1. Will's Mom*

        I am not a model builder, but I DO like to create miniature items. It would be fascinating to me to see that diorama. My second job used to be at a non subway sandwich shop. WhenI left there, I did create a small scene that featured a sub sandwich, chips, a cookie and a drink. I gave it to the GM as a going away present. It is my understanding that he still has it, 10 years later.

      2. restingbutchface*

        I will pay actual money for photos of this diorama. What an absolute legend. I hope you put it on display, OP!

      3. Jamoche*

        I worked in a building once with a large lobby that hadn’t been updated since it was built in the 60s – very stylish, so this was a good thing. They also still had the original architectural model of the building. I snapped some pics when I worked there – I’ll put the link in a reply

    5. amoeba*

      We have made something similar for a doctoral hat (I’m German and we, ahem, go overboard with the arts and crafts on those – google it if you like, it’s great!)
      The top of the hat basically had a complete diorama of our labspace, with all the people etc. in it. It was amazing.

      I probably still wouldn’t make one without a special occasion, but I love it.

        1. Not A Raccoon Keeper*

          Thank you for sharing this, it’s adorable and I’m sad that’s not the case at my uni (where doctoral hats are already themselves over the top, no diorama needed)

    6. froodle*

      Did anyone touch the little figure of themselves and then get magically trapped in the diorama for eternity? because it seems like the sort of thing where you’d touch it and get transported to the empty miniaturized version of your office for eternity.

  5. RunShaker*

    My office is kind of stuffy. I’m dreaming of #15 and wonder if I could get away with it. But there’s cameras and not sure how that would play out. :))

    2. Monday*

      I recently bought 120 glow in the dark tiny plastic dinosaurs (about 2cm long each). I’ve been taking a few to work on my in-office days and lining them up along the top of the water fountain. They usually disappear the same day, lol. I’m not sure if people are keeping them or what, but I hope it’s amusing at least one other person as much as it is me! :D
      (The three lined up on the top of the elevator button enclosure have been there a couple weeks, I think people just haven’t seen them)

    4. AnReAr*

      This is actually a big thing where I work. It’s a community college with lots of tech programs so there’s a lot less formality in our culture though. But it’s a great community builder, everybody enjoys seeing the collections on desks and finding new items tucked into hallways and classrooms. And many enjoy being the one to do a ‘new series drop’ so there’s not just the same few people buying them. It started with ducks but expanded to a variety of mini figurines. For example, this year there’s dinosaurs and last year I put out some miniature potted succulents.

      Anyway, it’s not without its drama– there are some coworkers many think are being greedy by getting one of every item in every color variation. Since it’s an unofficial thing and they also regularly contribute new sets to the game nobody feels comfortable telling them to cut it out. For my part I’ve taken to not hiding ones I get that are limited in number and just giving them directly to fellow players. I still hide the ones that have many duplicates.

  6. Toot Sweet*

    #8: The Fungus Basement. This makes me think of a short story by Stephen King, “Gray Matter,” about a guy who drank some bad beer and turned into a gray blob. I have to wonder if that guy is down there…

    1. Indoor_Kitty*

      Makes ME think of The Last of Us, and that building is going to be ground zero of a new outbreak.

      1. kanada*

        I’m just picturing it like Vault 22 down there. Soon the spores will turn all the workers into willing defenders of the colony.

    2. Kt*

      I’m thinking of Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. This could be the seeing for the science-y sequel….

    3. Grizabella the Glaimour Cat*

      It makes me think of another Stephen King story, Graveyard Shift, about a bunch of guys recruited to clean out the basement of an old textile mill. That part of the building has been abandoned for decades, and the cleaning crew discover a huge colony of rats that have been evolving in very unexpected ways.

  7. 1-800-BrownCow*

    #13 – I kid you not, I am eating pistachios while reading through this list. The kind in the shell. I promise you though that I throw my shells into the trash can, wrapped up in a napkin. Never on the floor under my desk.

    I about spit pistachios all over my computer screen when I got to #13! What are the odds? I haven’t eaten pistachios in months and just happened to grab a giant bag on sale 2 days ago and brought them to work yesterday for snacking.

      1. bamcheeks*

        I loved that book but was super confused he the pistachios being red because they’re not here.

    1. 1-800-BrownCow*

      My now 16 year old son introduced me to conlangs a few years ago, he’s quite fascinated by languages in general. He actually had asked for Esperanto book a few years ago. He’d probably find that stamp quite delightful and happy to receive anything with that stamped on it.

      1. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

        Check out the William Shatner movie Incubus. It’s a movie entirely in Esperanto and it’s fascinating, listening to people speak Esperanto with different accents. At the very least, you can say you’ve seen a movie in Esperanto. (I’ve watched it multiple times for various reasons.)

      2. Timothy (TRiG)*

        I too have been fascinated by languages and linguistics from a young age. The fact that someone had never heard of Esperanto does surprise me, but I suppose there are probably likewise many things that I’m missing that seem common knowledge to others.

    2. Blue Horizon*

      This would make a wonderful useless gag gift for situations where those are needed (a Yankee Swap, for example).

      The fact that it was needed at all. The fact that it was needed often enough to make it worthwhile creating a rubber stamp for it? So many questions.

    2. North American Couch Wizard Society Member*

      I am sort of hoping that #15 OP has assumed the mantle of The Duckinator and continues the tradition, like becoming the new Captain America or Ms Marvel.

    3. Successful Birthday Rememberer*

      Haha! We had office ducks at the other building working for this same company. I just ordered a bag of ducks so I can start the tradition here.

  10. Margaret Cavendish*

    #13, the pistachio shells, gave me a minor ick.

    #9, the hair, gave me FULL ON HIVES. Ugh, ugh, ugh, no thank you.

    And #15, the ducks, is just adorable. I hope OP continued with the tradition!

    1. Wayward Sun*

      My mom used to get bags of hair from the barber shop, which she’d then hang in cloth sachets around our garden to keep the deer away. (It didn’t work.)

      2. Clisby*

        I heard somewhere that human hair would repel squirrels, so when my husband cut off about 6 inches of my hair, I sprinkled it around our garden plot. It did not work.

  11. epicdemiologist*

    #8 just cries out for a cooperative agreement with your local university’s biology department or the environmental health folks from your public health agency. What a great training ground for appropriate PPE, hazmat protocols, sampling techniques, competitive testing of disinfectants…! (Seriously, if it’s not airtight down there, you’re gonna be breathing spores! Not to mention the possibility of dry rot!)

    1. ScruffyInternHerder*

      This one made me squirm and cringe. I was at a project walk once and managed to breathe in enough of “something that I’m apparently quite sensitive to” and was shortly a hot mess requiring my inhaler…

      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Yeah, and it’ll probably escape and start taking over the building, or the fact that it’s in the basement means that when the walls and ceilings start collapsing due to fungus damage means the whole building will fall over. Seriously, that one sounds dangerous. If not structurally, then a public health threat. I would also likely start to have serious breathing troubles if I worked there, not unlike InternHerder above.

        1. Slow Gin Lizz*

          Also, I bet the smell is ungodly. In a major coincidence, I discovered this morning that the somewhat unpleasant smell in my fridge was coming from my sourdough starter, which had become sentient. I threw it in the trash can but not five minutes later my kitchen smelled so bad I had to take the moldy starter to the outside garbage can. And that was just a small amount of mold inside a plastic container. I can’t even imagine what a whole lab full of fungus (or mold) must smell like. Gives me the heebie-jeebies.

          1. Worldwalker*

            I’m glad it’s not just me! I had a sourdough starter that had, I believe, started building weapons of mass destruction. It stank beyond all imagination.

            Last weekend, I was at an estate sale south of Augusta, GA. They’d been hit pretty hard by Helene when it was at tropical storm level. There was a refrigerator for sale, and the fellow running the estate sale warned everyone not to open it — there had been food in it when the power went out. (it was taped shut, too) I didn’t look (I was only there to buy some uranium glass) but I assume they were selling it cheap. Really cheap. Possibly paying people to take it away.

            1. Slow Gin Lizz*

              Wow, I’ve never heard of uranium glass before and am now going down a deep rabbit hole reading about it. Fascinating.

              Also, I can’t imagine why anyone would pay for a refrigerator that was essentially a biohazard. Why would they not just trash it?

              2. Clisby*

                I had never heard of uranium glass until I saw some in an antique store in Florida a few years ago. I guess it’s quite collectible.

                1. Nina*

                  It definitely is – where I live it used to be just junkshop tat but someone caught the buzz and it got fashionable and now when you can find it it’s like $20 for a little candy dish, completely out of reach.

        2. Nesprin*

          Weirdly, N. Crassa cultures are not terribly stinky- the average bacteria culturing lab smells worse.

    3. Hroethvitnir*

      Yeah, as someone who has been plagued by fungi in cell culture (a BUNCH of old cell lines were frozen down with contamination *twitch*), they are really, really just kicking that can down the road.

      Which figures, honestly.

    4. learnedthehardway*

      Yeah – that one squicked me right out. I lived in the basement apartment of a house that had mold issues once. They were replacing all the drywall when I moved in. I was CONSTANTLY sick in that house and eventually had to move out of the apartment, as a result.

  13. Mostly Managing*

    #15, I would have been so, so tempted to not tell anyone about finding the ducks, and just keep it going!

    1. Ducky*

      Not many people found out the bag had been found. Another coworker volunteered to take it over. They have been slacking. Thanks for the encouragement. The Ducks need to continue.

      1. Mostly Managing*

        I love this!
        On a day when there are a lot of less-than-great things going on (at home and at work, it’s got real Monday vibes!), I love that there are random tiny ducks being hidden around an office making people smile. :)

    2. Jen in Or*

      Like the Dread Pirate Roberts–when you leave your job, you just pick your successor and move on with your life.

      1. New Jack Karyn*

        Maybe the mentioned coworker didn’t actually get a new job; maybe she retired and is now living like a queen in Patagonia.

  14. IrishEm*

    Oh god this reminds me of the toenail clippings I found in the OPEN PLAN OFFICE, how tf someone got away with clipping their toenails is beyond me.

    1. Which Sister*

      we have flexible arrival times at my job. plus hybrid schedules. I get there at 7 am and maybe one other person is in our wing. On a heavy in office day. I am not clipping my nails but it could be done.

  15. A CAD Monkey*

    #8 kinda reminds me of “The Epic Of The Impossible Store” from Not Always Right. I think it’s the “we’ll just let it be someone else’s problem” mentality

  16. Another Kristin*

    #9 – The hair is baffling! I ran across a story on Twitter once where a mom saved all of her kid’s hair from his childhood haircuts, made a hair-stuffed pillow, and presented it to him as a gift well into his adulthood. Maybe a similar weirdo worked at your museum and left her son’s hair clippings at work by mistake?

    I shouldn’t judge the hair mom too harshly, my own mother-in-law, who is perfectly lovely, saved all of my husband’s baby teeth and presented him with the jar. Just came over and was like, “oh, I found your teeth, thought you might want them!” Thanks?

    1. Nonsense*

      My mom once admitted to me that she tried to keep our baby teeth but she get so grossed out by anything involving teeth that she always threw them away. I remember asking her what she thought we’d do with the teeth anyway.

      Aaaaaaand then I had my wisdom teeth removed and turned into a necklace. In my defense, 1) my wisdom teeth were the kind of mutated little monsters dentists both fear and respect and 2) I had friend experimenting with resin crafting at the time. So I guess I know what I would have done with my baby teeth if I got them back.

      1. Another Kristin*

        I just feel like there’s nothing you can do with someone’s baby teeth other than black magic

        1. epicdemiologist*

          You can use them to train cadaver dogs! (Dogs that search for human remains in police investigations, after disasters, etc.) Teeth are one of the more easily obtainable forms of human tissue; you can hide them around a field in baby food jars with holes poked in the lid, for example.

        3. Charlotte Lucas*

          I was just listening to a podcast where they talked about how baby teeth used to be considered lucky, and giving kids money for their teeth was essentially buying them wholesale.

      2. Always Tired*

        My mom still has her carefully labeled boxes of our baby teeth. We saw them in high school learning to do makeup at her vanity, and my sister was like “WHY?!?” and I was like “… these are they can do a DNA match on our potential corpses, aren’t they?” AND I WAS RIGHT. I don’t think saving hair would be useful for that, though. Maybe it was a GATTACA situation? Or they were actually weaves from an interactive exhibit about hair styles? I know I’m stretching here, but I need an answer to this.

      3. bamcheeks*

        When I had my first daughter, facebook kept telling me to buy a special presentation box for my baby’s teeth, first hair clippings, and umbilical cord stup. Umm, no.

        2. goddessoftransitory*

          To quote Anne Lamott about the umbilical cord: “I know I’m supposed to feel that this is some big special moment but I can say I will learn to live without it somehow. It looks like something a longhaired cat would get stuck to her tail.”

      4. Jessica Ganschen*

        Honestly, I would have done the same thing if they hadn’t needed to break mine to get them out. However, I also had a supernumerary tooth removed as a young child (between the upper central incisors, called a mesiodens), which my mom saved and I turned into a gothy little choker necklace when I was in my teens.

    2. metadata minion*

      If it was one long hank/ponytail, I bet someone was going to donate it, stuck it in their bag after a haircut, then took it out to get at something under it and forgot it.

      1. Happy*

        This was my thought. I had a ziplock bag of hair in my car for like 9 months before I finally got around to sending it to Locks of Love.

    3. Charlotte Lucas*

      Hair in a museum, especially if it’s historical, tracks for me. Hair is used to make wigs, in good quality china dolls, and was used to make mourning jewelry and art.

      The potential donation angle also makes sense. I’ve donated my hair more than once.

      1. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

        My first thought is that the museum was going to have a workshop on making hair jewelry.

    4. The OG Sleepless*

      I saved the first few of my kids’ baby teeth, but then I had a hard time remembering whose was whose, and then it turned out that one of them had had a tiny cavity. The decay kept on going after the tooth had left whichever child’s body, and it was icky, and then I decided that keeping teeth was just icky in general and threw them out.

    5. Archivoost*

      If it was a cupboard with cleaning supplies one charitable explanation could be that they were anticipating spills of something oily. Hair (usually stuffed into tights [or is it pantyhose in the US?]) is still one of the best methods we have for cleaning oil, and I believe is still used to clean up oil spills.

      But the other comments saying this is par for the course with museums are also deeply correct.

    6. ThursdaysGeek*

      I’ve had one haircut in my life. I was six. My mum braided my hair, put rubber bands at the top, and then snipped them off above the rubber bands, then straightened out the ends for a pixie cut. She still has the braids, and I expect I’ll inherit them when she dies. I just turned 63.

      Also, if you soak those teeth overnight in hydrogen peroxide, they’ll be nice and white, for … whatever you might want them for.

    8. WFH4VR*

      Ewwww! I never saved my kids’ teeth, I thought it was disgusting. But, I have one of my first pony’s teeth that needed to be pulled, so there’s that.

      1. allathian*

        I saved my own teeth when I was a kid! All of them except the one I swallowed by mistake. My parents never tried to make me believe in the Tooth Fairy, so they never collected my teeth. I threw them out in some move or other when they’d dried up and cracked.

        Didn’t think to save our son’s teeth…

      2. SimonTheGreyWarden*

        I have a horse tooth as well! Mine was obtained long after the horse in question had passed however.

    9. Flit*

      I actually have jars of my child’s hair at work, but I promise it’s for a good reason! A media for the mycology lab requires fair hair, preferably from a child, for dermatophyte identification. My kid is actually delighted that they’re helping with testing

    10. SpaceySteph*

      My mother recently cleaned out a closet and asked me and my siblings if we wanted our teeth. I said sure, because I thought my oldest who is in the process of losing her teeth would find it interesting. After we looked at them we tossed them though. Gross.

      With regard to the hair though, I need to know if it was all the same hair or if it was like multiple different colors/textures.

    11. Reed Weird (they/them)*

      I mean, I don’t have kids but I kept my cat’s baby teeth when I found them scattered around during her teething…

  18. Lyn by the River*

    Oh! missed the chance to share about this. Over a dozen years ago I was made interim director after my boss had been let go. This was a very well intentioned person who also had some bizarre behavior for the type of role he was in (leading a nonprofit). After he was let go, I was given access to his email account so I could make sure there were no messages that needed to be addressed and set up his autoreply to redirect people.
    Within the messages I found a memo he’d sent to himself and it included my name, “Jane.”

    “2012 personal goals
    – nurture friendships: go to [international city], [local city], [national capital] etc
    -personal growth: read speculative stuff that ties in with jung, patocka, etc… Read or experience artistic stuff that furthers ability and desire to manifest values…
    -put myself in a position in which me disclosing to [Jane] my feelings for her would be openly received.”

    I made myself assume that there must be some other Jane he was talking about, because… ugh.. I just did not want that kind of drama.

    Within about a week I got a message from him asking to meet. At the encouragement of my board chair I agreed since she said he probably just wanted to apologize (for being a bizarre person? who knows!).

    No, he did indeed want to meet to express his love for me that he’d been nurturing for years. After i pulled myself out of my shock I asked him to stop speaking, said I never wanted to talk about the topic again and that i was leaving, and then left the cafe as quickly as I could.

    He tried to follow up over email and I just said, “look dude, i’m not interested. please dont talk to me about this ever again.” Thankfully, he moved on. I wish him well.

      1. Lyn by the River*

        This one had more of a “doesn’t know social cues” vibe more than creeper vibe. But yeah, there’s far too many of the problematic ones!

          1. Red Headed Stepchild*

            Maybe he gave that vibe but the instant you said you didn’t want to talk about it ever again and he tried to follow up in email he crossed from giving a vibe to disregarding a boundary.

          2. MigraineMonth*

            I would have given full marks for that, except from the memo it sure sounds like he was planning to share his feelings while he was her boss. He just got fired before he could engineer the perfect moment where his “feelings for her would be openly received.”

            Which is, you know, no moment ever.

      1. Lyn by the River*

        She didn’t know about the email i had found — I honestly found the idea of his having feelings for me rather mortifying and didn’t know how to bring it up. I did call her after the cafe meet up and explained what happened and I think she was similarly shocked!

  20. Sociology Rocks!*

    I love the mini ducks so much, that’s such a fun way to be silly and engage with the office without being someone she’s not.

    1. MikeM_inMD*

      I immediately searched the webs to see what kind of mini-ducks I could buy. I’m probably considered one of the least likely in this office to do this, so ….

    2. Generic Name*

      One of my coworkers placed mini plastic ducks around the office on April Fool’s Day. I have several on my monitor right now

    3. Insert Clever Name Here*

      May I humbly recommend that if you do this, you put numbers on the bottom, but skip a number? So if you hide 20, number them 1-21 leaving out #8 :)

  22. LoV...*

    I love pistachios, even taking the shells off is enjoyable. (That wasn’t me though in 13, I can usually get the shells in the garbage).

    1. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

      I have a freelance gig writing about research labs, including renovation projects. I just sent this to my editor and said “I don’t know where this is, but I want the job of writing about the project when it happens.”

  24. Marcela*

    #14 reminds me of a friend of a friend who used to work as a car repo person and was able to keep whatever was found in the repossessed cars. (No idea if that was legal, but it seemed like it was standard operating procedure for that particular organization.) No guns were found that I know of, but CD’s and a really ugly jacket were among the items I recall.

    1. Jill Swinburne*

      My husband bought a used car imported from Japan (very common where I live). When he was doing some work on the interior he found some receipts for Japanese toll roads, a few yen, and a really excellent screwdriver. He likes to imagine some guy in Tokyo still bemoaning and mystified over the loss of that fantastic screwdriver.

      1. Paint N Drip*

        I bought a used truck and the dude I bought it from told me if I found his class ring to let him know. Haven’t found it yet, 5ish years later, but I do still have his number just in case!

      2. Insufficient Sausage Explainer*

        Somewhere I have a screwdriver that some hooligans used to smash open my car window in an outlet mall. I don’t keep much in my car other than a couple of CDs, but as they clearly didn’t share my taste in music, none of those got nicked AND they left the screwdriver behind, so I figured I ended up better off than they did after their vandalism.

    2. CatWoman*

      My Dad worked for a while for a salvage company, towing in wrecked cars. They would notify the owners numerous times of the deadline to pick up their items before the wreck would be sent to the crusher. If they never appeared to retrieve their things, Dad would bring them home. I clearly remember a green set of Tupperware canisters. Also, some of the best cassette tapes ever and even albums (looking at the copy of J. Geils Band’s Bloodshot -on red vinyl-right now!

      1. snarkalupagus*

        My parents owned a repo agency for several years when I was in high school 35 years ago. By law we had to notify the debtors of the repossession by certified mail and hold their personal property in secure storage (for some period, I forget how long the law required, but we always waited 90 days). We sent three further certified letters to each debtor over the 90-day period, and then at day 91 we would clear the stuff out–we were short on secure storage space. Most of it was dreck, some of it was sad, quite a bit of it was…weird (many…marital aids…who keeps those in a car??), a little of it was awesome. I had the best cassette collection ever as well, we had amazing tools, there was a surprising amount of money in loose change…but we also wore gloves and masks before gloves and masks were cool, and there were definitely some bags of stuff that we didn’t bother going through because of the threat of needle-sticks or cockroaches. Strange times, they were.

  25. AVP*

    #8, have you ever read Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation series? I’m afraid you may end up in it if you leave tat lab untouched in the basement.

  26. Theatre Tech*

    We also found nail clippings once at my job, but not in a desk. Instead, they were in the FRONT ROW of one of our theatres, after we had done a matinee that day. It was our theater in the round, and typically a row that gets lit up by stage light spill and is close to the actors… so we weren’t sure how we had missed someone clipping their nails (and we thought toenails, based on the size of the clippings) mid-show, but there they were. Did they wait for the darker cues? (It was overall a pretty bright show, but had its dark moments) Did they bring them in just to dump them on the floor? Did one of the actors notice and not say anything? (Doubtful) It remains a very gross mystery.

  28. I'm just here for the cats!!*

    I don’t know why I didn’t think about this before. about 6 years ago a coworker retired. Lets call them Frank. Frank is a kindhearted person and had been at my workplace for over 10 years. They wrote a very kind and lovely letter for the next person who was to have their office. They left it in a notebook in the drawer. Then Suzie came and got Franks old office and at some point found the letter. She too wrote a wonderful letter for the next person, right after Franks, when she left 2 years later. Another coworker that worked with Suzie, Heather, moved into that office as it was in a quieter part of our area. She did not find the letter until a few days before her last day. She didn’t write a letter but she shared the other 2 letters with everyone. We have copies laminated someplace. Now we have Kate in that office and she was so touched and moved by those letters. We had a big get together with past and present department employees for a retirement thing and she was able Kate was able to meet Kevin. She told them how much it meant to read those letters and that when she had a difficult day she would bring them out. I think its the best thing you can find in a desk!

    2. BlueWireRedWire*

      What kind of messages did they write? I’d love to do something similar, but I have a hard enough time thinking of what to put in an email to someone I know, much less a full on letter to a stranger!

  29. TQB*

    Nail clippers catch nail clippings if you don’t carefully tap them on the wastebasket when done clipping. Clippings fall out in drawer. Mystery solved.

    1. HigherEdEscapee*

      Not when you have a file drawer full. That’s what my colleague found when she moved into her new office. A file drawer, full to nearly the top. The previous occupant had basically been forced to move upstairs with the rest of finance and now we knew why. A giant drawer full of nail clippings isn’t normal. Most of the stories these folks are reporting are abnormal amounts of nail clippings.

  30. Leaving academia*

    We had these hutch style desks in grad school, and sometimes people would store things on top (of the hutch/bookshelf part). One office seemed to just…accumulate things on top of the desk by the door. Random trophies, I think a jar of coins, definitely some generic wall posters. But there was also a Homer Simpson chia pet that people would hide on each other’s desks.

    The file drawer in my desk had a bunch of loose saltine crackers left by the previous occupant (he didn’t actually clean out his desk at all before graduation, but it was mostly stacks of old grading)

    1. Ace in the Hole*

      We had a tradition similar to your chia pet thing, except it was a preserved tortise in a jar of formaldehyde. His name was Winston.

  31. Tea Monk*

    The gun one reminded me of the time I worked at a coffee shop and a cop left her gun in the bathroom.

    1. Perfectly Cromulent Name*

      One of my friends was a hotel clerk and she said you would be STUNNED at how often people left their guns in hotel rooms. Apparently it was a routine, everyday thing.

      1. Elan Morin Tedronai*

        In the military it’d be any or all of seven guard duties, several hundred push-ups, massive tongue-lashings from various superiors and an official reprimand.

        But since the police don’t know about firearms, it’d just be a reminder to not do it again.

    5. Mango Freak*

      This weirdly reminds me of the story someone sent in here of a woman who used a coffee shop bathroom and made audible horse noises and thrashing sounds before running out of the store…but the only evidence afterwards was a foiled-wrapped sandwich in the sink.

  32. Venus*

    This reminds me that I found a couple condoms on my desk one day! Thankfully I was at the end of a hallway and my cube was hidden from view. I quickly found out that a visiting coworker had been given a couple condoms at the airport that morning (weird timing, it was first day of college so the student association had decided to hand out condoms to everyone at the airport) and he had been happily married for decades so decided to drop them off with a younger employee. He’d come straight from the airport so didn’t know where else to put them.

    3. MigraineMonth*

      “I have these condoms I don’t need, I guess I’ll put them on a semi-random coworker’s desk” is quite a thought to have.

  33. Saturday*

    I only have time to read the first one right now, but I’m so glad I did. Diorama with miniature sandwich-eating guy? Amazing!

  34. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

    Once, long ago, a friend had a very abusive boss in a patriarchal boss-secretary situation. When she left, I suggested she leave a tuna sandwich in the back of his bottom drawer. Reader, she did it.

  37. K Smith*

    Decades ago when working in a research lab, I put a small stuffed hippo in a cardboard freezer box, labelled the box ‘hippo’, and put it in the back of our -80C freezer. (Readers, please don’t worry, no research was harmed during this process.)

    My hope was that someday, someone would find it, and it would bring some amusing confusion into their life, and perhaps a story to tell. I hope one day to see that story here!

    2. Flit*

      I was telling a coworker that I longer question what I find stashed away in a lab, but I specifically am questioning why a can opener is being stored in the same drawer as labels and tape.

  38. Salty November*

    Adding to the car one, I used to detail campervans and once found a rolled up snake skin in a ziplock bag in the glovebox. A couple had found it and actually called to get it back. I also once found a “shewee” and many many pairs of underwear.

  41. Aikaterhn*

    As an undergraduate, I worked in the library of a small, private school. Here are the notable items I found in returned books: bills, an uncashed check, cash, a love note, a squashed spider, and a slice of American cheese

    2. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

      I met someone once who worked in a college library. One of his jobs was ordering replacement copies of damaged magazine and journal issues. There was one dairy management journal that needed frequent replacements as someone was taking them into the men’s room to masturbate, leaving deposits on the pictures of cows.

    3. theinone*

      This is somehow not the first time I’ve heard of American cheese as a bookmark in a book returned to the library, which is very confusing. What are you doing where you have to set a book down, and getting a slice of cheese out of the fridge is easier than grabbing, say, a spare receipt?

      1. Chocolate Teapot*

        The Cheese Incident (as I like to call it) was my contribution.

        From what my boss said, the cheese was in open packets and it might have been a soft cheese like brie, rather than a hard cheddar or similar.

      2. Sharpie*

        My aunt used to work in a library (we’re in the UK) and once had a book returned with a rasher of bacon used as a bookmark.

        I presume uncooked but she neglected to tell me whether it was cooked or not.

  42. It's Marie - Not Maria*

    While I was working in Antarctica, a good friend sent me a package of the smaller size rubber ducks. They are weirdly embedded in our mutual niche hobby, which isn’t the US Jeep thing. They were proudly displayed in my office window, along a main traffic corridor. I left most of them in my office down there, with a printed explanation of what they meant in our niche hobby. It’s my understanding they are still peering out the windows of my former office, and they still get lots of attention.

  43. Also miss the tiny duck prankster*

    OP 15, we work at the same place!

    Unless there’s more than one duck prankster out there…

  44. Quinalla*

    There were all great, but #2 made me laugh so hard as yeah I know too many pretentious jerks and would have made this exact joke LOL

  45. Snoozing not schmoozing*

    #11 and #12 perpetrators need to meet each other. With any luck, it would lead to a cheesy love story.

  46. Maz*

    I love the duck story! Instead of beginning with the story that’s guaranteed to make us smile, I’m glad you chose to finish off with it after all the bizarre and possibly disturbing stories.

  47. Wrench Turner*

    HVAC and facilities guy here. About that Fungus Basement?
    I hate you. A lot.
    You’ve doomed us all.
    Starting with me.
    Thanks.

    2. Lab Boss*

      I mean, another old building I’ve worked in had an HVAC duct system so gross (I’m not sure exactly with what, this predates me) that they just bolted airtight covers over every vent in the building and installed NEW duct runs through the building. The last time I was there the old system was just sitting there, closed, being gross.

  48. Could There Be That Many Sticky Notes*

    #6 – Either the sticky notes under the desk are not uncommon, or we may have worked in the same place. In our case, there were also a double-handful of prescription pill bottles for various painkillers and mental health medications. (The employee in question had been terminated after she physically threatened one of her direct reports and then called a different direct report at home to discuss how everyone was out to get her.)

  49. JPalmer*

    #14’s lack of gun safety drives me up a wall.
    If you LOSE a gun so carelessly, you probably shouldn’t have a gun!

    Fungus Basement is like the premise of a horror movie.

    #15: That’s great. Doesn’t harm anyone, brings joy. That’s proper prank material.

  50. Oh January*

    We have the same ducks (from the sound of it) at my customer-facing office job. The initial culprit was my boss, but we all were so delightfully annoyed by the ducks everywhere, the culprit is everyone in my department slowly taking over the building with it.

    We do have fun.

  51. Wayward Sun*

    #8 reminds me of when I was reading about the history of some of the buildings on the Hanford Site, where plutonium for some of the first atomic bombs was produced. Whenever there’d be an accident and an area of a building would get contaminated, they would just seal it off and abandon it. The phrase “barricaded and abandoned in place” occurred over and over again.

  53. Lab Snep*

    I work in mycology.

    I want to see The Fungus.

    I love The Fungus.

    (Btw, accelerated peroxide kills fungus. Ask me why I had to research that ditty.)

    1. Hroethvitnir*

      Yeah, but not the spores. Not reliably. Big fan of AHP though.

      Leaving it to grow is a *terrible* life choice, but I am haunted by the massive amount of fungal contamination in cell lines from when they were renovating 20 years ago. I just feel like I can never trust my BSC again, despite so, so many cleans (with ahp and proper exposure etc).

    2. Nina*

      Out of interest (HIGHLY relevant to my research right now) what’s the difference between ‘accelerated’ peroxide and regular peroxide?

  54. dreamofwinter*

    Mission accomplished: my election anxiety has been superseded by nightmares about the Fungus Basement!
    Seriously though, fungi have been kind of a thing for me ever since reading T. Kingfisher’s What Moves the Dead this summer.

    1. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

      Is that a good thing or a bad thing for you? If it’s a good horror trope for you, there’s an excellent Silvia Moreno-Garcia book for you. It’s kind of a spoiler, so I’ll only give the title if you want to know.

  55. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

    Many moons ago I worked as a manager for a seasonal music box store, and my particular location had previously been a shoe shop. So in the back room, there was a leftover box of mannequin feet. When we closed down after Christmas and I was packing up the remaining inventory to go back – some to warehouses, some to permanent locations – I put a single mannequin foot in about 2/3 of the boxes.

  57. justice for quesadilla.*

    #12 I am a quesadilla.
    This is not getting the full attention it deserves!! A new mantra.

  58. Recovering Chef*

    Wait. Number 15, are you in North Carolina by any chance? We had a tiny-duck outbreak in our office, and I’ve been so curious as to who was behind it. I know where the ducks originally came from, but their random appearance all over the office was just delightful!

  59. Andi*

    Guys, I found someone else’s nail clippings in MY desk drawer. After I had been in that spot for years.

    I had an office with one file cabinet with a tiny top drawer I used for personal items. I had a comb, a toothbrush, some medications. Because I love organizing my space, I bought a bunch of drawer dividers that were little interlocking cups to hold each item. Then one day I saw the teeniest little nail clippers with flowers on them, and they were so cute I bought them and put them in one of the personal-drawer cups. Let me be clear, I would never clip my nails at work, I just thought the tiny clippers were cute and might be useful for a hangnail or something. I have ~never~ used them, not even once.

    Last year I opened the drawer to grab something else and noticed that the cup holding the clippers was full, like almost to the top, with nail clippings!

    This means someone in my office is waiting until I am out, going into my office, going into my personal drawer, using my nail clippers, and then leaving their nails for me!?! Like a little gift?

    I threw everything in the entire drawer in the trash and haven’t used it since.

  61. Melissa*

    I don’t have a good story. But a colleague of mine recently got badly injured. She will be back at work but it’ll be months from now. So we are all using her office constantly, looking for things in her desk drawers, etc. She has normal stuff in there– lip balm, hair ties etc.– but it has been such a reminder to me not to keep embarrassing stuff in my desk! You really can be out with no notice and suddenly have a dozen people sorting through your stuff.

    1. Waving not Drowning*

      we had a similar that someone was off on sick leave yet again (we have a very generous sick leave allocation – think several months a year), and we needed to look through their desk for missing paperwork. We didn’t find the missing paperwork, but, we did find evidence that he were forging medical certificates. Sick leave turned into permanent leave …..

  63. WFH4VR*

    THE FUNGUS. Oh, please, please, call a schlocky c-grade horror movie producer and give them access!

  64. anonymous academic*

    I bought one of those books to write your passwords in, put in all of my passwords as fake ones from the top 10 worst passwords list, and turned it in with my laptop bag as a joke for the IT guy when I left my job. We were work friends and he would know I wouldn’t actually pick passwords like that or write them down.

  65. Boof*

    NGL #8 when I was in college, we had a rice cooker that ended up not getting cleaned and eventually developing a fascinating ecosystem. When it was time to move out we may have just stashed it in the ceiling tiles…

  66. Azure Jane Lunatic*

    My unfortunate discovery was The Soup.

    It was maybe 2015, and I can’t remember if this was someone who had left the company entirely after an illness, or had just become extended hospitalization-level ill unexpectedly. But she had unfortunately stuck a cafeteria takeout container of soup in one of her desk drawers, presumably to take home. Which she forgot. And then she fell ill.

    I was the team admin. Her manager came up to me extremely apologetically: could I please please box up her half of the double cube for the impending internal move. She had tried, but she had opened that drawer, and, well, she was pregnant and Just Couldn’t.

    Armed with trash bags and disinfectant spray, I charged in. It took two tightly tied trash bags before I was satisfied that it wouldn’t stink the building down. It was only a tiny bit of soup, but hot dang, that was bad.

  67. Supporter of WGH office hygiene*

    N 13, pistachios, I’m not sure whether I should be more grossed out by the former employee or the lack of office cleaning. Is the US ok!?? Why do we have to go back to the office for this?

  68. Peanut Hamper*

    People are strange….and forgetful.

    I’m reading these stories and thinking “this is why the good aliens don’t visit us”. Half of them are grossed out and the other half are waiting to see what we come up with next.

  69. Wolf*

    We’ve had someone go on vacation, and forget a whole fresh fish inside his locked desk. He had bought it on the market in the morning, and planned to take it home in the afternoon. I have no idea why he didn’t store it in the refrigerator.
    Once we figured out where the smell was coming from, we had someone break open the desk and throw away the whole drawer.

  70. Literally a Cat*

    Number 1 is… I’m overwhelmed by both really impressed and really weirded out. I don’t know which way to feel. I’m sure feeling a lot about a lot together.

  71. Mockingjay*

    I’ve posted this before; while not weird, I had to deal with disgusting food remnants.

    In one office, when I pulled open the desk drawer, I found that the previous occupant had left a plethora of Hershey’s chocolate kiss wrappers and saltine bits, plus one roach that died from overindulgence of said saltines.

    Another desk with computer setup was so bad I took pictures of the food-encrusted keyboard that I had to use and clean myself. It was unbelievable. It took me three weeks to get rid of the tall pile of empty boxes someone had dumped beside the desk, because no one knew where I could dispose of these. I also had to clean food residue and stains on the chair upholstery a section at a time, at the end of each day so the fabric would dry overnight and I could sit on it the next day (took a week).

  72. The Rafters*

    Not as interesting as many of these. Now former boss asked me to help clean out his desk prior to his retirement. He assured me I wouldn’t find anything suspicious or confidential. I found a draft of his Last Will and Testament. I put it in an envelop, sealed it and told him to take a better look before I returned to the task.

  73. on the couch, with the cat*

    Gah, this didn’t occur to me when I saw the prior post but reading these abruptly reminded me that at an old job, a staffer (not me) who took over an office after someone left found several teeth in the pen/pencil/junk drawer. The departed coworker had had dental issues, but none of us could figure out why they had teeth in their desk or even if they were the coworker’s teeth. One was a cap or crown but the others appeared to be actual teeth.

  74. celestialisms*

    We have someone who does the mini rubber duckies (and aliens, and unicorns… etc etc) here! It’s delightful.

  75. Lab Boss*

    Author of The Fungus Basement here- number one, I appreciate the many new recommendations I’m getting for fungus-based horror stories. But to comfort some of you (and disappoint others) it’s not as dramatic as you’re thinking. I’ve seen it and it just looks kind of mildewey. No rampant growth, no mutating mushrooms, just a lab that they couldn’t keep clean enough to be a good lab.

    1. MigraineMonth*

      …it’s not as dramatic as you’re thinking. I’ve seen it and it just looks kind of mildewey. No rampant growth, no mutating mushrooms…

      …yet.

  76. MagicEyes*

    My Fungus Room story: I worked for an archive that include recordings (everything from wax cylinders and wire recordings to whatever’s new). Part of my job included cataloging tapes that were in the Mold Room. It was in the basement, away from everything else, so moldy things wouldn’t contaminate anything else. It was a little scary, because you had to use two elevators to get down there, both with different keys. I was worried that I would forget a key and get locked in somewhere. Also the light switch wasn’t close to the door, so I had to go into the room to turn the light on, and if the door closed, there wasn’t any light at all. I had to run to the light switch as fast as I could to turn the light on before the door closed all of the way. I’m not sure why I never thought about bringing a flashlight, which of course seems obvious now.

    To bring us back to the theme of weird found items, I did find love letters from the head of a recording company to someone who was not his wife of many years. :-(

  77. Amber Rose*

    I wasn’t online last week so make that 31, because I also have found nail clippings.

    I also found a rubber ducky with a unicorn horn.

  78. beautiful, talented, brilliant, powerful musk-ox*

    We also had a tiny duck prankster at my previous job…and she did move to a different office with the same company just a few months ago, which briefly made me wonder if I worked for the same company at the commenter. But I wouldn’t describe her as reserved (and I don’t think anyone who works with her would, either). How delightful to know more than one duck prankster exists!

  79. BekaRosselinMetadi*

    I haven’t read the comments yet, but I found a pile of nail clippings as well. I thought it was gross but boring so I didn’t send it in. How many entries does that make now? At least 31 but I’m guessing more once I read the comments.

  80. AnReAr*

    I didn’t see the original call for stories but my mom found some cardinal sins faces wall art buried in a drawer behind extra copy paper a year after she moved into her current office.

    The art: https://www.designtoscano.com/products/seven-cardinal-sins-plaques-os69299-fam

    Specifically, the previous occupant (who had retired and moved far away) left behind Greed, Lust, and Gluttony. Actually I was the one who found them, Greed first. It was a little freaky, I thought they were actual stone before touching them. Still just as baffled now as to why they were in there– the previous employee did finance of some kind, and it was a state owned organization so not religious.

  81. froodle*

    Fungus Room, I am sobbing. You’re going to end up in an episode of the Magnus Protocol. One with a body horror warning in the show notes.

  82. Lab Girl*

    Number 8 is just the company being cheap and lazy. It isn’t that hard to deal with fungal contamination, there are tons of companies that will come in and sanitize the whole room, you just have to pay for it and be willing to fix the root cause after.

  83. becca*

    A little bit sad that I missed both the original call and also when the post got put up, so probably no one will see this comment now, but I can’t not share this one: I work in an off-site storage facility for a library. Basically we keep everything that the main library doesn’t have space for, and also everything that people don’t want to get rid of but can’t bring themselves to weed (for example, the adjacent law library brought over their entire collection of microfiche under the bureaucratic equivalent of “the dead of night,” because they didn’t want to weed them for space as they had been instructed to do by library admin. Not sure that any of those fiches have circulated since they arrived here, but there they are.

    Last week I was going through a supply closet, and found a box that rattled when I pulled on it. I took it down, thinking it was probably a box of metal library bookends, and thinking I would put them with the rest of the library bookends, so that I didn’t have random invisible stashes of bookends in multiple places.

    Nope. It’s a fondue pot. Pot, burner, little fondue sticks, the whole thing. Did it belong to a previous employee? Was it donated and never ingested? Was it withdrawn and never thrown out? NO IDEA. It looks at least 30 years old and is in very good shape. I’m going to bring it to our white elephant christmas party in a few weeks.

  84. Seen Too Much*

    I too have had to clean out nail clippings – more than once!

    I missed the question so didn’t get to answer – but the strangest thing I have ever found was a smoke grenade. I was a new employee, so I didn’t know my predecessor. We called the police and the bomb squad had to come in to disarm it. Fun times.

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