[Closed] Have you ever had or seen a punch up at work?

Not in the workplace but I've seen fists fly at works nights out.

Must be a story behind this!

I've had to step in before fisticuffs, as it was going that way (office job). Taken a couple of hits myself from punters when working in a bar.

Personally a bit of pushing and shoving, no punches though. A colleague witnessed a fight between rival firms at a "do", plenty of booze had been consumed. It was a black tie event at a top London hotel - Foreign Exchange Traders eh ?

Years ago, former company. We had a tech support guys (bit of an alcoholic it turned out) who decked a customer on an evening out to celebrate the sealing of the deal. Fortunately it was signed by then!

Had a hammer thrown at me back in the day in the late eighties. Was setting piece work rates in a factory and had just announced a rate decrease to a section ( of plasticine mixers). They were not happy. As I walked out of the section a hammer flew passed my head 😯

The senior and another partner at a small accountancy I used to work at had a fist fight in the street - they were very fractious. Unsurprisingly the business went tits-up not too long after.

Yes

whilst on a big job in london about 7 yrs ago, i saw 2 chippies (supposedly mates and well into their 50s) throwing punches and then having a good old roll around on the floor. all because 1 had used the other ones chisel without asking 😯

whilst on a big job in london about 7 yrs ago, i saw 2 chippies (supposedly mates and well into their 50s) throwing punches and then having a good old roll around on the floor. all because 1 had used the other ones chisel without asking

maybe chisel was the name of their gay lover?

I have not seen any punch up yet but I sure want to do it some backstabbers. 😈

Got punched when I told a trainee that he hadn't been promoted to a full time position and would have to remain a trainee. He got sacked on the spot.

Got slapped by a fellow PhD student (and ex flatmate) in our office. He got moved out pretty quick and thankfully has moved city now!

I've offered to explain contact counselling on a couple of occasions but never been taken up on it 😈

chrisdw - Member
Must be a story behind this!
POSTED 1 HOUR AGO # REPORT-POST

Witnessed the transition from "banter" to "personal" with the net result of a broken jaw and instant dismissal.

Punched one of my old bosses out cold one day. Called him into the warehouse and just swung at him as he entered. I'd just found out he had been borrowing my then girlfriend.

No disciplinary action was taken against me strangely 😆

Not with colleagues but with patients. I work on a locked intensive care ward for psych patients. People brought in by cops off their chops on me that or acutely psychotic. Often restraining, secluded and deescalating volatile situations. Scary and a buzz all in one.

Selfridges warehouse Paddington London, circa 1996 or maybe 7. Two guys who had previously been friends going at it on a sunny afternoon over a suspected underweight 1/4 of weed. The smaller guy I thought was going to win punched some metal shelving and it was all over. Good sport, it beat looking down at the huge carp in the canal or smoking spliffs in the 4th floor toilets.

It's normal in a warehouse / sorting office / factory job.

And not necessarily a bad thing, done properly.

I would tend to agree, it alleviates the boredom.

Had a fight with a mate at 3am outside an American beer tent on an old Turkish air base whilst on exercise. Our other mates were cheering us on when an American sergeant ran over and told us to stop. We did but only to laugh at him. He walked away in disgust muttering something about crazy Brits. We then went back inside and bought each other a drink. Cleared the air between us.

When I was an apprentice I used to get a lift to work with a couple of blokes. At hometime one of the fellas was late, so the driver left him to get the bus. Next morning the fella who was late walked round to the drivers side of the car & asked him to wind the window down , he then broke the drivers nose.OOF.

On a works Xmas do some moons ago, our MD got in a fight with his biggest customer over a woman. No word of a lie

Yes, and I've also seen trained guard dogs used to discourage it.

Virgin Retail distribution centre, 3rd party logistics provider at the time. The cause was something occurring externally that was brought into the workplace.

Nearly. It got to finger jabbing in the chest between the technical guy and the sales guy, before the sales guy delivered the immortal line 'if this was a pub type environment, I'd be inviting you into the car park'

The tech guy just p'ed himself laughing and the sales guy left shortly after. Still to this day, if the tech guy and I disagree professionally over any point, one of us always has to say pub type environment.

We used to have a fair amount of race based violence at one of the warehouses.. seems to have subsided now, but not before a group of 30ish individuals kicked shit out of each other one summer evening in the car park.

Years ago at a place I used to work the Production Manager told a painter on the shop floor that he was being paid off at the end of the week. Cue pee'd off painter with a full 20 litre bucket of paint. You can guess what happened next

Funnily enough all the following pay offs were done in the manager's office!

Last week, our Boss kicked a female worker on her ass for being late, she turned round and slapped him one, then asked if he wanted some more.

As a 19 year old working on a farm, got head butted and sparked out by the owner of the farm for blowing a tire on a tractor, my nose has never been the same since 😉

Not quite a punch up and a bit long-winded but here goes.

Many years ago went on a 'team building' exercise with a free bar. After the meal had a good time chatting and drinking with colleagues - mostly a great bunch to work with and as we were spread all over the country, we didn't get together very often.

At the end of the evening was with a bunch of the commercial managers. After a while their senior manager (a known bully) joined them and without any ado or provocation told me to eff off. When I didn't he proceeded to repeat himself several times getting nastier about it. Getting a bit sick of it I told him to shut it or join me outside. He didn't respond but looked for support from his team to add weight to his eff off. They declined.

At this point I decided to go to bed, leaving with a few of his parting shots following me - he fancied himself a bit of a wit. I returned to his table and gave him some choice words including suggesting that whatever he said I wasn't really bothered as when I went to sleep I would be comforted by the thought that as he was 30 years older than me and would most likely be dead long before me... I was met with stunned silence.

Went to bed thinking that I would be sure to be disciplined for threatening the idiot and may even lose my recent promotion.

Next morning bumped into the senior director whilst being served breakfast. He told me he had received a complaint about my conduct... After those chilling words he clapped me on my shoulder and said it was time someone stood up to the bully and well done!

The bullying senior manager then came over and instigated a mutual apology mentioning that I had hurt his feelings...

No, but a collegue (ex-rugby league guy) once told the FD that if he didn't sort himself out (some internal non-promotion/payrise issues) he'd have his legs broken - the FD went white as he knew my collegue meant it.

as a 10 or 11 year old boy I had a paper round, I had also on this particular day a bag of them snappers you throw at the floor. I was delivering some guys papers happily snapping my snappers when a grumpy man in his late 30's early 40 came out and punched me square in the stomach hard enough so that I was sick. he apparently thought that i was doing damage with the little paper snappers. I waited and waited until I was old enough for a fight on this bloke I waited about 6 years, went back to his house knocked on the door and he answered (I knew he still lived there) I asked him if he remembered the incident and what he was going to do about a angsty 17 year old on his doorstep that he had punched 6 years previous. he punched me again and closed his door. rang his door bell again he came out gunning for me managed to get a swift boot to the front of his knee and he went down like a sack of spuds. I looked at my work for a few seconds with great satisfaction and then was promptly arrested. They guy didn't press any charges and apologised to me and explained that he had been an alcoholic for many years and he was sorry for punching me as a child on my paper round. wish I'd told my dad at the time he punched me as a kid, but thought my dad would take the other guys side.

[i]our Boss kicked a female worker on her ass for being late[/i]

She rides an ass to work? No wonder she's late!

I called someone a 'prick' in a meeting a few years back. He was.
Apart from a roadrage in the car park, that's about the nearest I've seen. Hmm, why do they only involve me..?

[i]what he was going to do about a angsty 17 year old on his doorstep that he had punched 6 years previous. he punched me again and closed his door.[/i]

not quite the response you'd hope for, I expect 🙂

Two colleague's banter progressed to outright insults and a strained but bearable relationship between them escalated to hatred.
One day at work person A sent a snotty text to person B who was at home, person B phoned up and they argued.
Person B hung up the call but then arrived at work about 10mins later and punched person A in the face....person B never worked here again.

I thought it was funny anyway.

A few. First ones were at a fairly well known recruitment group every single year at the Xmas parties. Too many competing companies with some fairly large egos in one place so it was inevitable. After 2-3 years the CEO sent an email reminding people fighting at the party wasn't allowed; it stopped nothing.

Xmas party at my last job, bloke drank a bottle of JD in his hotel room, got a bit lairy with someone who worked for me and ripped his shirt. When my boss stepped in to calm the situation down he chinned him. Bloke woke up the following morning and asked his mate in the same room "Did I do anything daft last night?". He was invited to resign to avoid the inevitable firing and possible police involvement.

I've only seen one fight actually at the office and it was over a football match. Chippy Scot, chippy Englishman and 7am beers during the Japan/Korean world cup didn't mix. Fight was over quickly, both were fired (ostensibly for the fight as the company tolerated 7am drinking for some reason).

wwaswas - Member
what he was going to do about a angsty 17 year old on his doorstep that he had punched 6 years previous. he punched me again and closed his door.

not quite the response you'd hope for, I expect

ha ha no it wasn't, taught me a lesson though. if you're gonna fight, fight, don't run your lips like you're going to fight.

Not a punch up but my colleagues kidnapped a director and held him hostage.

but I do work for a French company, so its just an everyday kind of thing.

Yup, I was the bosses son (plasterer) so got all the crap they were afraid to say to my brick outhouse Dad. I spent most of my apprenticeship referred to as "the yid" cos "your old man pays jewish wages." I was always able to scrap and liked my boxing and rugby but kept myself to myself, pretty much because I was unable to open my mouth in front of about 5/6 of the 10 man workforce without getting verbally abused or slapped about.Anyway excuse for the following given....
I was 18 and we were harling a building and one of my main protaganists was chatting up a skull faced female in one of the flats through the scaffold. His mate was making remarks about the young lady's beauty and vitue,so lover boy threw a mash hammer at me,for laughing. He missed,so five mins later I was on the level below when he emptied a bucket of cement/PVA grout on my head. I went down and got my head in the big water drum we filled each night. I then threw his piece bag in the mixer,and as he came down to sort me out with a big smile on his face I crossed from the mark of being a wee laddie to being willing to go ahead with somebody 10 years older than me. I won; my old man paid for it not to go to court,then paid him off when all the details came out.I served my last two years with another firm. Dundee is a small place so I used to enjoy asking him if he wanted to try again for about the next ten years,then became the bigger man.

I've had a 'client' throw a bin through a window and come through the gap with a sword..

No one tried to fight him, the company owed him money, we got it out of our own accounts pretty sharpish.

I'm a lawyer. I would absolutely love to see a fight at work. Ideally one involving my boss getting walloped repeatedly in the face with some sort of axe.

Probably won't happen. 😐

Yes me, but I was on the end of the punch.
Long story, redundancies, me handing them out, bloke with anger issues..

Yagetit?

One of our consultants had a row with a customer at a christmas jolly, punched him in the face. The customer is still a customer, the consultant is no more.

When i was doing my apprenticeship, quiet,shy and honest me,(still the same now) we got locked into the college workshop by a lecturer and told to look for a part of an expensive tool, 30 mins latter and still looking i found it, took it to lecturer who accused me of stealing it.

I point out i hadnt, he called me a liar,and a thief,i poked him in the chest,pointing out i was neither, and he got angry, he then punched me, so i punched him back, he fell into a bin of waste and got stuck,another rather tougher lecturer walked up and said whats happening here,i toldhim where to go.

He went for a walk. With no further comment

Few days later lecturer got suspended and took early retirement.

[i]I then threw his piece bag in the mixer[/i]

Good story! What's a "piece bag" ?

We've had a few front-ups here over the last few years - but only during our Monday lunchtime 5-a-side games! All mates (well, colleagues) afterwards.

Piece bag contains your lunch,flask etc...in in some instances a lot of part mixed sand and cement

piece = lunch

Oh yeah only one Ive seen was working at the Sanger Centre, the 5-a-side lunchtime footy league was taken quite seriously
one time the head of the Puffer Fish Genome team decked the head of Chromosome 17* Sequencing team over a bad tackle.

*cant actually remember which chromosome it was

While at Uni I worked in the Co-Op at the end of our road and hated the job, but needed the money, however on my last day (just before my final exams) an idiot I worked with kept going on about covering me with flour, I made it pretty clear that I wasn't in a very playful mood and that it would be a silly idea. Later in the evening I was walking towards the office when he decided to try and ambush me, I knocked him out and the bag of flour he was holding landed on his head! I did feel a little bad, but finished the shift and passed my exams with no further repercussions.

I knocked a man out cold by lobbing a Melton Mowbray 50ft across a chiller once..

Saw a chef attempt to drown a manager in a massive pot of rice that had been cooked then left to cool in the kitchen. Chef was massive, manager was tiny. Argument kicked off between them then the chef grabbed the manager and stuck his head in the pot. Took a few people to pull him off. He got sacked on the spot. He was a total mentalist though. He'd chucked a basket full of chips from the deep fat frier at me once!

On play ground duty years ago, before schools became fortresses, and an irate mother came storming in. She was looking to wallop a kid who had (accurately) called her 15 year old daughter a slag. I intervened to stop the potential fight and got a kick in the nuts for my trouble. Didn't hurt as it was slightly off target thankfully!

Yep, back when I was teaching at a lycée in France. Mid morning break, sipping a lovely coffee in the staff room (Having just arrived at the school, that is. Didn't have any lessons before 1100 almost always!).

Two colleagues, both fairly normal, sober minded folks, started discussing politics. Now, one piece of advice a friend gave me many years ago, before I moved to France, was, "When in France, don't discuss religion. Or politics."

They clearly hadn't received that memo, and about five minutes after their discussion started, the two of them were on the floor, laying in to each other. With the staff room doors wide open, and pupils filing past.

Piece = sandwich, specifically, surely?

[i]wingnuts - Didn't hurt as it was slightly off target thankfully! [/i]

I expect your user name isn't referring to some anatomical abnormality that meant she was on a hiding to nothing in any event?

I worked as a KP in a resturant kitchen. The chefs were all nasty buggers and were downright abusive to everyone. It was terribly hard graft but the money was superb.
There was one KP who they all hated, I'm guessing on account of his skin colour. They were nastier to him than all of the rest of us, they locked him in a fridge, threw eggs at him a lot, poured water over him. They all thought it was a brilliant laugh.

one day they noticed he had long nails and so decided to trim them by holding his hand in the potato rumbler. For those that don't know, that's a bit like a tumble drier with sandpaper on the sides, you pour a load of potatoes in and it spins round and peels them all sharpish.

You don't want your hand in there.

So two of them grab him and hold his hand in there. Me and the other KP walk in on this while they're all struggling. We shout at them to stop (and yes, we had reported their abuse to the management before), the lad just explodes, throws them both off and jumps on one of them, starts punching him repeatedly in the head. Really, really aggressive. Months of pent up frustration and anger coming out in one go.

That chef goes down, other one is starting to panic, looking to us for help but we stand in the doorway, he gets the same from the lad and ends up slumped over a bench. KP grabs his coat, storms past us and was never seen again.

Been sort-of involved twice.

First one was a shirty little temp getting asked to 'leave and not come back', for turning up at the office drunk one time too many. He took a swing at my boss, connected, then seemed surprised as he got grabbed round the neck from behind by me and dragged off the floor and into the lift. May have cranked the headlock in a little too tight as he was only half conscious by the time the lift got down to reception. Security sorted him out the rest of the way and we never heard anything from him, the company or his agency, so I guess I got away with it.

Second was two colleagues and good friends at a bar I worked in who, it turned out, had both between bonking the same girl - a case of her playing them both I think, rather than one going behind the other's back. When they both found out there was the requisite snarling and bitching, and it came to butting heads and shoving. At one particular butting of heads, I decided I was sick of it and added two hands and a bit of momentum and banged their skulls together properly, aiming to knock a bit of sense in. The shock seemed to do the job and they both dumped the daft tart.

wwaswas - much of my body is distorted but not that bit of anatomy!

lot of folk on here seem capable of knocking folk out with one punch

Saw one once it was handbags at dawn with a lot of flailing and not much connecting

Come 'ere an say that. 😉

I used to work with a right horrible little scrote, who suffered from classic small bloke syndrome. A proper gobby little bastard, he was! I worked with him for a few months, during which I saw 5 people deck him, in separate incidents. Including one bloke who was normally the very picture of zen like calm. He deserved it every time. On at least one occasion, some very senior management witnessed it, then denied all knowledge of it when he complained

Seen multiple fights on site between mainly groundworkers and laborers.

One occasion springs to mind, after a night out we were in our local curry house. We knew most of the waiters, however this night there was a new guy who, it turned out, was related to one of the chefs.

Anyway, a few cross words between the new guy and the head waiter and the new guy disappears into the kitchen, only to come out with a massive wok type pan and smacks the head waiter over the head with it, complete with comedy "boinginginginigng" noise. Next minute uproar... the whole staff going at it hammer and tongs. chefs running out of the kitchen with all manner of pans and knives, all the waiters steaming into them. It was pandemonium, chairs flying around, the whole works.

I was looking on at the entertainments when I realised that I was the only bloody customer left in the entire place... everyone else, my mates included had all done a runner. With the real prospect of my footing the bill if I hung around, I legged it too and left them all to it.

There must have been about 20 guys going at it.

I knocked a man out cold by lobbing a Melton Mowbray 50ft across a chiller once

You are two tonne Ted from Teddington, and I claim my £5.

I attacked a customer at work this year.
(basically he owed me 6.5k for goods, helped me loose my business.)
Last time I saw him he gave me the finger.
I told my employer I'd kill him if I saw him again.
He walked into work, we clocked each other, my boss walked me into the office. It passed.
Then he came back!
I got my pound of flesh, not quite 6.5k of it, but enough for closure.
Later that day my boss said there had been a catastrophic failure with the companies security video system.
Not that he came back or put in a complaint.

lot of folk on here seem capable of knocking folk out with one punch

Conversely, I punched my boss numerous times and he just took it.

Short version is he flipped one day and I just happened to be in the vicinity. Definitely the wrong time to be my usual flippant youthful self - he grabbed me really tight just below the collar of my shirt and despite my best efforts to remove his grip it just didn't happen. The look on his face was quite weird - very red and eyes wide and wild - so I assumed the worst was going to happen and without really leaning in, thumped him. Nothing. Thumped him again, harder this time. Nothing. Two more as hard as I could throw. Nothing. I swore like a bastard at the top of my voice and with a huge tug backwards, slipped out of my shirt, tripped over and landed on my arse. And that's exactly when help arrived.

Never saw the bloke after that - he was sacked for fiddling the books.

I tried to break my ex bosses nose once.

That is one of my biggest regrets in life, the fact that I didn't actually break his nose.

Our gaffer has banned fighting in work time, we have to wait till 5:15 pm now .

When I was an apprentice saw to guys in the machine shop go at it hammer and tongs one had been winding the other up for years ended when one of them cracked the other across the head with a hammer didn't kill him but police and all turned up both got the sack.
Had a boss poke me in the chest when I told him I was leaving to go work for another firm(competitor)didn't do anything just walked out of room,saw him a few months later at a winter beer festive in town waited until he went outside for a smoke then kick the living day lights out of him felt good at the time,but spent next few months waiting for the police to knock on our door so not worth it in the long run.

When i worked the bar at the local wedding venue back home fights wee regular - you just let it happen and made sure nothing got damaged in the process.

One time my coleague was on the recieving end of a double glass to the face over the price of drinks.

Blood everywhere , me and the manager approach said gentleman from either side of the room , sweep him up off his feet and eject him through the door - that side was locked and he bounced - he then ran out the open door.

Police foumd him hiding outside in a bush

Coleague looks like harry potter now. - scrote lost alot of money as he had a damages claim for being slashed by his drug dealer for not paying - think chelsea smile gone wrong. But the extent of it was pending good behavior.

I was once attacked by a work colleague with a strawberry pavlova .....for suggesting he was a sh@t teacher...which he was!

Seen plenty at work, and been involved in plenty. 10+ years as a frontline Police Officer explains that!

Most memorable was arriving first on scene to an 'assistance shout' - two female colleagues had been attacked in a crowded pub beer garden and had sent the balloon up. I ran from my car through the gates of the beer garden to find my way blocked by a large crowd of onlookers - I could see the scrap but not get there to help. In a moment of unusual clarity, I hopped up onto a beer garden table and ran towards the fight, running from table to table, before leaping from the last table onto the suspect. He went down on his back with me on top - it was only later that I saw that I had landed on him about 6 inches from a steel umbrella stand - effectively a foot long steel pole sticking up from the ground. If any one of a hundred tiny factors had been different, I would have unwittingly put the bloke down with the pole coming out through his chest and probably being killed.

Yes, took two years of abuse then snapped, floored the toerag, off he scuttled to the police who came to arrest me, my gaffer at the time sorted it out for me, the said victim left soon after.

Never fisticuffs but I had a stand up face-to-face over a customer issue with the office gobshite a couple of years ago. He lost the argument on points then had to leave my office meekly, which sort of took the wind out of his sails. He's been okay since then.