To ask for stupid reasons you've been told off at work?

Me and my work colleague who made up 50% of the admin team were told off for talking, via teams, by a manager who did not work in our office. My colleague (friend) resigned the next working day. I stuck it out for another couple of months.

There was works taking place in the building and something small caught fire, so obviously we were all evacuated. This happened about 20 mins before knocking off time. My boss had been off site, phoned me and asked me to get some docs. I explained we'd been evacuated due to a fire. She didn't believe me, said I was making it up so I could leave early and that I should go and get said docs immediately. She then made a complaint to HR because I refused to go into a burning building.

I got told off for not being “assertive” enough when a client called me. The customer in question fired lots of questions at me and I had to read file notes for answers. Apparently it was my fault they complained, I should have read the notes quicker.

Another time, same company, the boss called me asking why I hadn’t finished a negotiation with clients. It was because I had to leave the office to cover someone else’s appointments 20 miles away. Anyway, they were shocked when I left and have tried to get me back to work for them a few times over the years. Clearly, I was a mug for jumping through too many hoops and no other mug would take it on.

They'd have wanted a doctors note for that basic bodily function and put me on a performance improvement plan 🙄 all this would have been done whilst patronisingly encouraging me to look after myself, make use of their EAP and wellness mental health programmes 🫠 as if 10 000 steps and 2 litres of water would reduce a heavy flow...

I am an academic but work closely with professional services colleagues and some of the stuff I have seen is awful.

A woman on the School front desk whose line mgr would ring every day at 4.59pm to ensure she answered up till 5pm.

Another woman asked to do some manual handling that was not in her job, and did it to pitch in - then got told off for having changed from heels to trainers for it!

I thought if you didn't work Mondays your employer would pro-rate the BHs to avoid Monday workers being disadvantaged or Monday-off workers getting extra leave by accident.

A member of staff who has been there the longest, though IS NOT the most senior......

Several times has told me off for heating 'smelly' food in the microwave at lunch. No staff room - microwave in corner of office.

Jesus.

”I’m fine, it’s just a really bad period and it’s taking me forever to get the freaking blood off everything.”

I reacted by saying are you serious?? And the managers reply was "i have to, it's policy" 🫠 worst place I'd ever worked. If you were at the toilet for longer than 6 minutes they'd ask if you were okay.

Wearing the wrong colour socks (you couldn’t even see them under my uniform anyway).

For allowing the guys at work to paint their bathroom magnolia when we were supposed to be brightening up the staff areas.

I was acting deputy manager so not even getting paid for it. And the actual deputy manager made the decision. And he was a man.

Store manager told me off in front of the entire team for this! I was just dumbfounded, as were the rest of the team

When I was at school I had a Saturday job in a bakery. I got told off for putting too much cheese in the sandwiches.

For being “too thorough”. 🤷‍♀️ and for holding two different colour coded cloths together that were fresh out of the packet and hadn’t been used yet. Nitpicking at its finest.

I used to teach in a small and often overly dramatic private school. A number of us shared one staff work room. A colleague retired and I asked if I could move to his desk because it was in a dark corner where I thought I might perhaps get some work done despite the incessant gossiping. He said fine. So I did. And got absolutely bollocked by management for my temerity! They had apparently reserved it for a new hire. The stupid thing was when the new person arrived they saw this dark, small desk in the corner and promptly asked if they might use the other one 😂.

There are lots of things I like about teaching but being treated like a child isn't one of them.

It was actually a really nice manager too. Guessing she'd been dumped on by someone else earlier...

I was asked to collect water jugs ( about50) using a trolley and return to kitchen...... upon returning them THE MANAGER approached me and admonished me about the way the ,said, jugs were arranged on the trolley....?????WTAF.!!!

I missed this earlier! 😂

I've been chuckling about this all day!

For not making someone very, very senior (think head of clinical services) in the NHS take responsibility for someone who was not their responsibility (because they lived in a different area)
Quite how my senior manager thought that was possible for me to do, as a lowly front line non NHS worker, I'm not sure.

I’ve had a few over the years - all in public sector roles. Does it honestly attract the most awful people who think they are good managers?

The best one was the Head of HR (I worked in HR), who called me into his office and told me that I needed to dress more feminine, so I should wear dresses and high heels! I was quite young and cheeky at the time and responded with ‘When you comb your hair and iron your suit, so you don’t look like a tramp, I’ll wear more feminine clothes’ That was a local authority.

Civil Service job. We worked flexible hours, but I never left until the office doors closed to the public at 5pm. I used to get a lift home from another colleague, but they did get a bit sick of waiting for me to leave as my line manager insisted I find her to ask permission to leave. I’m sure the bitch used to disappear on purpose at 5pm so I had to hunt for her. One Friday, my colleague had to absolutely leave on time, so I just left at 5pm with him. My line manager bollocked me for it on the Monday.

I got told off for going part time and having Mondays off which gave me more bank holiday credit pro rata, than my colleague who didn't do Fridays. It was apparently unfair and greedy for me to have more hours credit and she had formally complained, as she had to make hours up.

I had to do that and got left for six hours by myself once. None of the managers would bestir themselves to let me go on my break (which I normally had halfway through an eight hour shift.) Getting someone to let me go to the loo was a nightmare as well. Fuckers.

For replying to a correspondent using standard lines (because it makes it look like a standard response and isn’t personal), after being told off the previous week for personalising a response instead of using standard lines. Yes, that boss was a bully and I got out of there within 4 months.

For refusing to padlock an emergency exit door when we had hundreds of customers inside. Failing to answer the phone when I was on a break. Coming in wearing something over my uniform (literally just walked in the door, and it was December). Suggesting that storing frozen turkeys (destined for Christmas giveaways) in the gents wasn't the best idea. Actually enjoyed that job, apart from the daft managing director!

During one of our ghastly weekly teams huddles I was reprimanded in front of the whole team for daring to remove a file from an office. The file was for a joint project. I was told like a school kid that I should have copied the pages and put the folder back. I'd been planning on returning it straight after the stupid huddle in any case.

This manager is mostly responsible for over half the team quitting. After this performance the latest new hire handed their notice in. They were with us 12 weeks.

I'm also constantly being reprimanded for daring to show initiative, ask questions, have friends in other teams in the Trust, and just generally still be alive. After 18 years of NHS service this manager, who has been with us 2 years, has made me hate the NHS. As soon as I can leave I will.

My previous job was the supermarket. Due to a combination of being on the sick and then on annual leave, I had to do the compulsory Think 25 (age restriction stuff) twice yearly training/test. It was due that day, which was my first day back at work for 3 weeks. Wasn’t allowed to serve customers until I did this.

I got a telling off from the bully manager that I should have done this before I was off sick. Yes if I was having surgery and required time off to recover, I would have done it my last day before I went for surgery. This was an asthma attack. You don’t plan these.