BREAKING: Workplace Declares Employee Missing After He Disappears with Shire Gazette Annual — Found Hours Later in Accessible Toilet in Hysterics

Sandy Shores | Editor-in-Chief | Sutherland Shire Gazette

27 November 2025

TAREN POINT - A local workplace briefly entered crisis mode yesterday after a senior employee vanished for nearly three hours, only to be discovered locked inside the office accessible toilet in uncontrollable fits of laughter - clutching a copy of The Sutherland Shire Gazette Annual 2025.

The incident began at 11:23am when colleagues noticed 42-year-old project coordinator Daniel Swift had failed to return from “a quick bite” in the lunch room. CCTV footage later confirmed he was last seen heating leftover butter chicken for his protein snack, while flicking through the Gazette Annual “just to see what all the fuss was about.”

When he failed to attend the midday squad check-in, coworkers assumed he’d lost track of time. But by 12:45pm — after he no-showed a client lunch in Miranda - concerns escalated.

“We launched a full search,” said his manager. “Meeting rooms, fire stairs, even the smokers’ bench. Nothing. He’d evaporated.”

It wasn’t until 2:08pm that a junior employee heard muffled wheezing behind the accessible toilet door, followed by what witnesses describe as “ferocious knee-slapping.”

Security forced the door open to find Daniel on the floor, red-faced, teary, gasping for air - the Annual open at the Nippers article.

“He kept pointing at the hose-pipe line and yelling, ‘IT’S TOO REAL,’” said one shaken coworker. “We genuinely thought he was in trouble. Turns out he was just reading page 41.”

Paramedics assessed him briefly and confirmed the only condition present was “advanced laughter fatigue.”

Daniel apologised for missing the client lunch but insisted he “had absolutely no control over the situation.”

“I meant to skim it. Then I hit the Trevor chapter and… that was it.”

Management has since introduced new protocols, including banning the Annual from meeting rooms and requiring employees to clock out before consuming satire.

As the HR lead put it: “We support humour in the workplace — just preferably not the type that triggers missing-person alerts.”