People Share An Awkward Moment When A Room Went Sour In An Instant

Under certain circumstances, a room full of happy people can turn sour in an instant. In most cases, all it takes is a single action, statement, or revelation to turn a room completely upside-down. In this article, people from the internet shared the most cringeworthy moments they've experienced, and they certainly do not disappoint:

Pxfuel

#1 In The Nick Of Time

We had to work on a holiday but management didn't, so there was nobody to unlock the building. We waited outside from 7 a.m. until 7:45 and were told that if we didn't get in by 8, we could go home. At 7:55, the manager showed up and let us in. If the manager was a half-decent person and knew about the 8:00 thing, they would've just let us go.

#2 No Snow Day

I used to be a manager at a bank. It was snowing. The bank decided to close at 11:30. I had a teller scheduled to come in at 11. HR made me tell her that if she didn't come in for 11, she would have to take PTO to cover the whole day. So she had to drive into work to clock in for half an hour even though we knew beforehand we were closing.

#3 The Angry Groom

This happened to me at a wedding. After the ceremony and before the reception started, everyone was having drinks and the groom came in, yelling about how an expensive gift had been stolen. He was rushing around yelling and screaming, then after about 30 minutes of all the guests searching everywhere, they worked out one of the bridesmaids had put it in her car for safekeeping and forgot. It really left a weird vibe over the whole reception. It wasn't a great way to start their marriage, with him in a rage.

#4 Lay-Off Spree

I used to be a courier and I had the same clients every day. One of the clients was an online store that had about 50 employees. The store was very successful—it spent around 8 figures to buy a bigger international competitor. The couple that owned the website organized a party with food and music, talking excitedly about their successes and praising themselves... only to go on and fire 90% of the employees in that company.

#5 Pizza Flop

One day at work, we had an hour meeting followed by a planned pizza party as a reward for meeting some safety goals. They'd been telling us all week not to worry about food because they were getting pizza. Well, after the meeting, we were sitting around waiting for the pizza to get there when our boss comes in and tells us there was a failure of communication and no one actually ordered the pizza. If you want to see 50 factory workers go from excited to murder-ready in less than a second, that's what you tell them.

#6 Bad Budget Cuts

In grad school, we were gathered in a room to hear about how the last term of classes in the program was going to be cut due to a new law regarding educator requirements for the state. Everyone was stoked because it was going to save us like $5,000 to $8,000. Then they told us that, due to “state budget cuts,” our total tuition was going to double...

#7 Avoiding Cooties

I worked with a guy who didn’t wash his hands after using the bathroom. He’s put his filthy mitts into the snacks we would bring into the office every dang time. We even tried hiding them from him, but he’d always find them. The guy was well-educated (he had a Ph.D.) and yet he still didn’t know to wash his freaking hands. The silver lining is that I learned to take note when I noticed people’s lack of hygiene so I could avoid their cooties.

#8 The Dirty Pie

We had a relative that we didn't know about. It turned out, she lived about an hour away. We invited them over for a small get together to meet and greet. They brought homemade pie and it was lovely. Due to some issues, they needed our help cleaning up their house. Their house was on the scale of a Hoarders episode with at least one dead cat, but instead of dead cats, we just found dead rats. I sure wish I didn't eat that pie.

#9 Unwanted Toppings

Once, I ordered a bunch of pizzas for a Halloween party and as soon as they came, we opened the lids up and got ready to dig in. We were all drinking and one friend ran into the kitchen and projectile vomited all over. Some definitely landed on the pizza and we didn't want to risk eating any of them... Surely no one ordered those toppings.

#10 A Flight Nightmare

I was on a Chicago to NY flight. We all got on the plane but ended up getting delayed due to a heavy storm going on. About 20 minutes in, everybody was still pretty calm until the pilot announced they were working on getting our baggage loaded because it had been sitting on the tarmac this entire time. The entire plane looked out and saw all their luggage just sitting there in the pouring rain uncovered. Chaos ensued.

#11 Cold-Free Philosophy

I might sound like a jerk, but I refuse to be around people with colds, friend or not. I'd rather not get one and pass it on to my family. It's selfish going to a gathering with the risk of infecting everyone else. I have a compromised immune system because of a virus. If you're sick, I will NOT be hanging around you for fear that I get sick and it might be the one that ends me.

#12 The Case Of The Peter

When I was little, I used to call my dad’s PC a “peter” cause I couldn’t pronounce the word "computer." Well, one day in class, I talked about how I loved playing with my dad’s peter all the time. Needless to say, the pre-K called my mom immediately. She had to explain I was talking about playing games on my dad’s computer and not playing with his actual peter.

#13 Walmart Woes

Telling them they're all going to be let go just before Christmas... Wal-Mart is really bad about letting their seasonal people go the same week as Christmas, after spending 90 days building them up and giving them some hope of being more than a temp. Also, Walmart hasn't done holiday pay in a few years. They do give you a 15% discount that you can use one of two possible days in the store if you aren't late or absent around Thanksgiving. It's terrible.

#14 Serious Bingo

#15 Creepy Coworker

This is more of a mild story but still very uncomfortable! It was at work during a break—a whole bunch of us were outside talking. One guy asked my coworker if he had any kids, saying that he likes to dress up as Santa for the young ones. So my coworker told him, “I have a daughter that just turned 20”, and he replied with: “Well, she can definitely sit on my lap!” The silence after that sentence was so painful. Everyone ended up going back inside after that. It was super awkward.

#16 A Bridal Mess

The bride threw up all over herself and the dance floor during the first dance. She tried to hold it back, but the groom just pointed her towards the dance floor and she let it rip. It was impressive. There are times when there are reasons to stick to light stuff if you're going to drink at all. Work outings and your own wedding are two of those times.

#17 A Big Rejection

A dude decided to pop the question to his girlfriend... at a work holiday party. She said no. Both parties began to cry inconsolably. All the guys in the room tried to cheer up the guy with their tales of woe. All the women in the room took the woman aside and did whatever the female version of the above was. It went from a fairly happy event to a complete disaster within minutes.

#18 The Hawaiian Promise

My friend used to work for a company that has always promised our IT department a trip to Hawaii for working through a couple of rough years without pay raise. It was a verbal promise that once we were back to profitable, the IT department would get an all-expense-paid trip. Back around October of 2015, they were gathered in the largest meeting room for a meeting with the president. There were snacks, drinks, pizza, etc. It was assumed that it was a celebration for a good year and they'd get the promised trip. It was a mass layoff since IT has been outsourced. All credentials were locked during the meeting and everyone was asked to leave the premise right after the meeting.

#19 Fire The Headmaster

We were discussing road safety with the headmaster. One of the pupils pointed out that there had been a car crash right in front of her just as she had been about to step out onto the road, earlier that week, which had been really scary. The headmaster laughed and asked her what she was wearing and if it had been her fault. There was absolute silence for ten seconds as he squirmed and then mumbled: “I mean, were you wearing a ball gown, or...” as if that had been what he’d meant. Pathetic and excruciating. A 50-year-old man to a teenage girl.

#20 Last-Minute Cancellation

My school did this to me a couple of years ago. It is infamous for never closing due to weather. I checked, saw no closing, dug out my car, braved the tundra all the way there, got inside, went to my classroom and waited... Turned out, ten minutes before I parked, they canceled classes. I was alone in my anger though because apparently the entire class had premonitions and didn't show as I did.

#21 How To Clear A Christian Dance Floor

I was helping to run a Christian disco when I was a teenager back in the '80s. Everyone was happy and dancing until I innocently played Tainted Love. The entire dance floor cleared in seconds because apparently, Tainted Love is a "Gay Anthem." I'd like to know what other songs they were okay with if "Tainted Love" was too gay for them.

#22 Shame On You

Back in high school, there was a classmate of mine whose father had died. The circumstances of his death were tragic enough (he died the same day my classmate was born) that all of the school knew about it. One day, we were messing around—nothing too rowdy, just cracking dumb jokes the way 15-year-old kids do, and our French teacher singled him out and said: "Your father would be so disappointed by your behavior." The class became completely quiet, and my classmate froze staring at the teacher in utter disbelief. Then, every single one of us started shouting at the teacher. She even went to get the principal, which turned out to be counterproductive for her, because we were the best class of our school, and the principal didn't doubt our word for a second.

#23 No Witnesses

I was at a really fun party which turned sour when one of the people in the room punched his pregnant girlfriend for no apparent reason. He mysteriously fell down a flight of stairs about 20 seconds later, with no witnesses to what happened. Funny how that often happens to a jerk who hurts his significant other while others are around. 100 witnesses say he hit her, but no-one knows why he fell down all those stairs... multiple times. Serves him right.

#24 Dumb News

The whole company, 60 people, gathered at a product unveiling and cheerleading event where we were expecting "surprising" news. Everyone was excited, thinking they were all getting bonuses. Instead, we were informed that the least senior and biggest jerk was promoted to partner. Everything went completely downhill from there.

109th Airlift Wing

#25 A Big Moment

I walked into the school library to see the video after having just heard from a breathless teacher that the Challenger exploded. There was a teacher on that flight and several grades of science classes had been in the library watching it live.

#26 Inconsiderate Boss

The President of our company got completely plastered at our Christmas party. His speech started off funny because he was slurring hard. Then he started talking about how he came from nothing and became something. He said that if it wasn't for us working so hard and keeping our clients happy, he wouldn't have been able to accomplish building his mega-mansion for him and his family, nor would he have been able to afford his new Benz. He later followed up by directing us to "drink up and enjoy, because due to budget cuts, the future Christmas party and bonus budget are canceled." Many of my coworkers relied on that bonus. No one was impressed.

#27 The Spartan Challenge

I went to a very innocent G rated animated movie. It was me and my boyfriend but the rest of the theatre was 98% of young children and parents. Every single trailer leading up to the movie was a graphic trailer for a horror movie. We're talking jump scares and Annabell doll stuff. A lot of kids got freaked out and started crying. Their parents had to take them and leave the theatre before the movie even started. On the bright side... I got an almost child-free theatre. It was like a Spartan challenge... Only the strong remained. And they were quiet kids.

#28 Verdict: Coraline Is Terrifying

I went to the Coraline opening weekend with my kids. They were a little older, but there were really little kids all over the theater. The Other Mother showed up with needles for sewing up your eyes and you could have heard a pin drop the place. It went so silent. Fun fact: Coraline almost didn’t get published because the editor thought it was too frightening. Neil Gaiman had her read it to her daughter, who said it wasn’t too scary, so it got published and years later the daughter admitted that it was absolutely terrifying but she didn’t want to tell that to her mom. So yes, Coraline is absolutely too scary but once upon a time, a little kid lied to her mom, so now it exists.

#29 Boom... On The Floor

This happened at my work Christmas party one year. The guy was dancing, and boom... on the floor. A room full of nurses and a couple of doctors, and they did CPR (the right way) until EMS came. One of the nurses told me later that he was dead before the first person laid hands on him, but they had to try. It was awful.

#30 Just In Case

My wife put together little baskets in the ladies' room of her sister's wedding with all sorts of "just in case you need it" stuff. Hair ties, pads, deodorant, some mints, some combs, floss, etc. There was maybe $40 worth of lady stuff so everyone would be comfortable the idea to take only what you need. Within 30 minutes of the reception, someone had taken absolutely everything. We suspect the groom's family. Mostly because 1) Our family is small and 2) Half his family came in T-shirts and jeans... to a $30,000 formal reception.

#31 Bad Food

I wasn't actually involved in this, I saw it on YouTtube. On Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, there was a scene where a customer had some lobster or crab, and then he fell seriously ill and basically stayed in the bathroom until the EMT came. All the customers just stared in silence and were probably thinking, "What? Oh no, what did he eat? Did I order the same thing? NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE."

#32 Calling Him Out

I was in a sales meeting at a car dealership I used to work in. The sales manager is an avid drinker—functioning, but still a drinker. The new salesman has to make a delivery of a car he sold a few days prior. The sales manager tells him he'll follow him in his car and give him a lift back, to which the new salesman asks: "Are you sure you're okay to drive?" Everyone went silent.

#33 The Awkward Text

We were all laughing about this guy who wouldn't quit messaging my friend. He was literally stalking her in real life, like coming to her job, etc. We were making jokes about his Facebook profile when she accidentally clicked on messages and saw this bible of text, explaining how she was the reason that he hadn't ended himself yet.

#34 So, So Close

In high school, we were told that if the power was out for more than 15 minutes, we could go home as it would be hazardous to have students in a poorly lit school. Cut to us counting the minutes when power was out and packing our bags at the 15th-minute mark. As we were emptying our lockers in the halls and getting our jackets on, the power comes back and the Principal, blocking the exit, yells at everyone to get back to class. The collective groan and shouts of displeasure were something else.

#35 A Useless Exercise

I used to work for this new performance hall in NYC and one morning during our morning meetings, one of our managers thought she was being unique and uplifting by ending our meeting with forcing us to say: "One thing I'm grateful to [company name] for is...." All 30 of us were pretty happy to just start the day since it was a beautiful day out, but that soured our mood really quick. A bunch of people got hostile with answers like, "The wonderful health care we are given," (we have none) and "The magnificent hours" (they're terrible).

#36 Family Feud Gone Wrong

That time my boozy aunt started getting on my teenaged cousin’s case about his pants sagging and gave him a wedgie by “helping him” pull them up during a fairly formal holiday dinner. He chased after her to give her a wedgie back. She was wearing a skirt and nothing under it. My cousin managed to pull it up over her head while making contact with deeply disturbing parts of Aunt Janice. Every fork in the place just froze while my aunt was standing there too tipsy to understand why her skirt was over her head. My cousin stared in horror while whispering audibly, “But... no.”

#37 The Gasping Gamers

When the Playstation 3's price was announced in a 2006 E3 keynote. Everyone there (Games media, journalists, etc.) was super hyped because yay new playstation. Then, they revealed the price and everyone in the room literally gasped.

#38 Stadium Silence

Not a room, but a stadium. Michigan Stadium with roughly 110,000 cheering their butts off on the verge of beating Michigan State for the first time. All we had to do is get a clean punt off and we'd win, but of course we muffed the punt. MSU recovers, takes it and scores for the win as the 110k people once going ballistic with excitement, turned to dead silence. While I’m still bitter, I’m amazed I got to witness such a contrast.

#39 The Water Bottle

In 2007, Mars Volta played at White River Amphitheater. They got through about four songs and then quit in a rage on stage. Turns out, the guitarist was having speaker issues and someone threw a bottle at him. He smashed his guitar on the speakers and walked off mid-song. The lead singer said, "This is what you get when you build an Amphitheater on Indian burial ground. I'll give $10,000 to anyone who brings me the head of the jerk that threw that bottle at us!" Security ran out to escort them off and we had a full hour and a half wait until RHCP came out. That stuff was sour.

#40 The Selfish Commander

Not exactly a room, but our plane landed home after my company spent a year in Iraq. Our company commander previously told us to tell our families that they shouldn’t come out to the tarmac to welcome us back because “it would be a circus and you’ll just see them later anyway.” Stepping off the plane, who are the first and only people we see? Our freaking commander’s wife, three kids, parents, grandparents, brothers, and numerous cousins and friends.

#41 Mother Monster

It was a party for the cast of a musical I was in during my senior year. We were all having a great time and we decided to watch a video of the performance that the host's mom managed to record (she had permission to record the show). In the middle of the recording, you could hear the host's mom whispering while recording. It was obvious she wasn’t aware the phone picked up her voice. She was talking about how her son deserved the leading role, not the guy who was actually casted. She was basically heckling his every move during the show. The party ended pretty quickly after that. The poor lead guy was really hurt. He wanted to go to school for theatre but that event really discouraged him.

#42 False Promises

Once at my work, my boss arranged a Pint, Pizza and Paint Night. The company has no budget for overtime so the bosses promised us that they would buy us booze and pizzas to encourage us to paint the giant store with them. So a big group of us volunteered, just to get there and realize the manager left early. He promised the pizza and drinks would be along shortly. It never came.

#43 The Substitute

In high school, I had a substitute teacher in my science class for four days in a row. When Friday rolled around, there were tons of rumors ranging from mono to her getting arrested. But when we got to class that Friday, she took about 10 minutes of class time to set the record straight. In front of about 30 kids in that class and probably 150 in total throughout the day, she explained that she had a late-term miscarriage. I’ve never seen a classroom go from curiosity to a mix of awkwardness and concern that quickly in my entire academic career.

#44 Out Of Line

My wife and I went to go see a comedy show. About halfway in, the comedian seemed particularly annoyed with one woman in the crowd because she kept looking at her phone instead of paying attention to him. At some point, he essentially stopped the entire show and started to pick on her instead. It started out simply enough: "Look at this woman; her life is so important, blah, blah, blah." Then, she decided to defend herself and started jabbing back, calling him a hack or whatever.

Then he escalated his attacks by calling her curse words. It was so awkward that the entire audience went quiet. Even worse, some people in the audience started taking her side. It got really ugly and he never really recovered. The comedian apologized profusely and said he was out of line. But it was too late. Several groups of people outright walked out. We stayed until the end but it was really uncomfortable.

#45 She Took It There

I was living with a friend and his fiance. We were all watching The Walking Dead when, all of a sudden, total chaos ensued. My friend and his fiance were fighting, but not yelling. Just bickering a little. We were all watching TV when she stormed out of the room. No one thought anything of it—maybe she got a drink or went for a walk. Then we heard it. The sound of a boom.

#46 The Dead Parents Club

We play this drinking game where everyone writes down a card completing the phrase: “Take a drink if...” A good friend of mine and I both lost a parent in the past few years, and she put down: “Take a drink if you’re part of the Dead Parents Club.” We both laughed hysterically, but everyone else (who was not part of the club) became really sad really quick.

#47 Partisan Bickering

I didn't personally witness it, but I overheard a tour guide in Cuba discussing the worst day he'd ever had when the tour suddenly went sour. He was showing a group of American tourists around Havana and it was going well as usual until lunch when someone brought up politics and they realized half the group was strict Democrats and the other half were strict Republicans. Apparently, in a split second, it became a total gong show of them yelling at each other and the guide "didn't know whether to get in the middle or go get some popcorn." Guides there are forbidden from discussing politics for this reason.

#48 Worst DJ Ever

My dad didn't show up to my wedding. I told the DJ to skip the father-daughter dance. He did not. He announced, "It's time for the father-daughter dance." The whole crowd looked at me, shocked with their jaws dropped. Then, he said on the microphone, "Oh sorry—God... No one told me." I hid and took a shot of whiskey, dried my tears and faced the crowd. Worst. DJ. EVER.

#49 Wedding Disaster

Wedding reception. A friend of the groom recognized the bride as someone he had BEEN sleeping with on and off over the last 6 months. She used her middle name when she was with him so when he'd seen the invitation to his buddy's wedding, he had not even one inkling. He tried to just walk away but he a visible reaction to seeing her. One of the groom's sisters caught sight of the whole thing and ran him down like a lion chasing a zebra. When it ALL came out, it was BRUTAL. Needless to say, it went from festive and happy to sour in a nano second.

#50 Inconsiderate Sneezer

At a small gathering, as the lid was lifted on an extra-large pizza, a guy with a miserable cold sneezed directly onto it. Never once in my life have I ever sneezed without having enough time to turn my head or cover my nose. You have to be a real loser to be unable to control your head and just sneeze directly onto someone else's food. Screw that guy.