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Original poster

Ridiculous demands from work

318 replies

marymarkle · 30/01/2019 10:14

What ridiculous demands has a workplace made on you?
I left a job a few month ago that insisted I print off and file every email with clients, even though all emails with clients also had to be saved in files on a server. And it really was every email, including emails arranging meetings.
Surely there must be other ridiculous workplaces out there?

OP posts:
ShirleyPhallus · 30/01/2019 10:16

My workplace doesn’t allow delivery drivers in to the lift to bring parcels upstairs

So when we get palettes of brochures etc delivered it was all hands to the deck for years with all business men and women decked out in suits lugging boxes in to and out of the lift

It’s changed now we have a facilities manager but is madness

Original poster
marymarkle · 30/01/2019 10:54

Just you and me then Shirley?

OP posts:
MrsSpenserGregson · 30/01/2019 10:59

I worked in an office where the staff members were forbidden from speaking to each other.

I learned this the hard way. Walked in to the office on my second morning (it was a small, open-plan office with 10 desks in it, and a room leading off it where the MD and another board member had their desks), called a cheery "Good morning!", and was instantly called into the smaller room to receive a blocking from the MD for being too noisy.

My role was business development, which involved making a lot of phone calls to clients. The MD refused to allow me to work from home, yet constantly berated me for talking in the office when I was making phone calls to clients.

It was just bizarre. Everyone worked silently, in a vacuum, at their desks, and the atmosphere in the room was just miserable. This wasn't an industry that required silence in order to concentrate. It was a firm of chartered surveyors. I lasted less than a year. Wankers.

cowfacemonkey · 30/01/2019 11:00

I have to wait for authorisation to access the Internet every single time. I waste 30 minutes every morning waiting for the office manager to receive the notification that I want to log on and for him to authorise it. Every single fucking morning.

Oliversmumsarmy · 30/01/2019 11:05

Christmas Eve, rest of the building downed tools at around 11am.

Our department head said we had to stay untill 5.30pm
Told us to empty the filing cabinets and check that the filing was in order

Boyskeepswinging · 30/01/2019 11:11

I've worked in many an office over the years so I may come up with a few ... In one of my first jobs we could only use black pens (this was pre-computers). If you used a blue pen the office manager gave you an absolute bollocking. All these years later I still can't work out why it was such a big deal to her Confused It's not like we were filling out specific forms or anything ...

Original poster
marymarkle · 30/01/2019 11:14

cowfacemonkey That sounds like the ridiculous kind of think my old workplace would have done if they had thought of it.

OP posts:
RussellSprout · 30/01/2019 11:16

Told to drive around the country collecting legal documents from multiple sites when it would have been much cheapier / easier to send by recorded post. The documents had no monetary value.

Burlea · 30/01/2019 11:21

New manager and she wanted us to put our hands up if we needed to go the loo or get a drink. I left after a month as she kept bringing in ridiculous rules.

cowfacemonkey · 30/01/2019 11:24

30 minutes five times a week of me twiddling my thumbs costs them £50. That’s £2400 a year on waiting to connect someone to the internet.

Oliversmumsarmy · 30/01/2019 11:28

Burlea

I started in a job like that.

At lunchtime after the supervisor had left the office (I had got up to go to the loo and make a coffee without asking during the morning) I was treated like a hero as no one had the guts to just get up and go before.

No way was I going to do that.

ReflectentMonatomism · 30/01/2019 11:30

ANd people are surprised that the British economy is fucked. That’s a long list of companies that deserve to go bust.

PerpendicularVincent · 30/01/2019 11:44

I once worked somewhere where if your pen ran out, you couldn't throw it in the bin. You had to take it to the managing partner, and if he agreed it ran out then he put it in a tin and gave you another one.

One of my jobs was to go around the office and check that every desk had the same layout of stationery.

There was no talking, no food at desks (no kitchen to eat at - figure that one out) and glasses of water had to be hidden.

Sometimes, family members of the owners came into the office to keep an eye on us in case we tries to talk. A particular low point was when I asked my colleague a work related question, and the owner's dad told me off.

I walked out after a month and they were in shock that anyone could possibly want to leave.

PerpendicularVincent · 30/01/2019 11:47

Also, I once went out to buy liquid soap for the bathroom. I was told to buy blue to match the towels, but they didn't have any, so I bought white.

Boss made me take it back and we had no soap until blue was restocked.

JarndyceVersusJarndyce · 30/01/2019 11:51

I once had a boss who told me to get my long hair cut short as she didn't like long hair Confused
I left soon after.

NameChanger22 · 30/01/2019 11:52

I worked for a bank once as a temp. I was told that I wasn't allowed to use the drinks machine because that was only for permanent staff. I have no idea why, it wasn't a free drinks machine. Temps had to bring their own drinks or go without.

TheLightSideOfTheMoon · 30/01/2019 11:53

I worked in a nursing home where they were too tight to buy us disposable gloves.

We had marigolds with our names on which we kept and re-used.

About three weeks there. Is closed down now.

Dowser · 30/01/2019 11:53

Good lord...just bizarre

OwThatsGottaHurt · 30/01/2019 11:55

Wow these are madness!

In my last job I worked for the CEO. Multi billion £ company. Had to tell him I was pregnant. I got a bollocking- it was a bad time for the company for me to be going on mat leave, did I know how babies were made? Was it an accident- ( he assumed that as I was unmarried- he was v old school!) - let him know next time so we could plan the timing better next time. So many laws broken!

Nothisispatrick · 30/01/2019 11:55

I wouldn’t have even lasted a month in these places tbh.

I work in a primary school and pretty much everything has to printed, such a fucking waste of time. Schools could save an awful lot of money if they brought themselves into the 21st century.

WhatNow40 · 30/01/2019 11:57

I was a team manager in one place and got told off for buying blue pens from the stationary catalogue. Black only.

I appealed to HR. I had a member of staff who was dyslexic and found writing in blue rather than black helped her. I felt it was a reasonable adjust to a bizarre and bonkers rule. I lost that fight.

Theunreasonableone · 30/01/2019 12:00

New manager and she wanted us to put our hands up if we needed to go the loo or get a drink. I left after a month as she kept bringing in ridiculous rules.

What the actual fuck?! I can't believe that people like this actually exist in society and get to positions of management.

BaronessBomburst · 30/01/2019 12:05

I work in marketing and communications. I have no sound card in my computer so can't check over the film clips in our company library to see if any are suitable to use. I also can't pick any narrators for the film we've just made. (Needs to be in several European languages.)
Various websites and links are blocked, including a radio station we needed contact details for, and despite needing product photos there is only one computer in the whole building where you can upload the camera card. This has a different login procedure and I can't log into it.
I could go on.......

TheLostTargaryen · 30/01/2019 12:07

Worked as a commis chef at 16, technically part time as it was only evening shifts and weekends all day when the restaurant opened and there was no holiday pay and you couldn't take time off. It was closed every Monday and for two weeks after Christmas so time off was your Monday's and of course the daytime hours every day. My family booked a day trip to a theme park a two hour drive away and I asked a friend to come. I booked the day off two months in advance. That was fine. I reminded them a month in advance, then two weeks, a week and then daily. Day of the trip and Boss called me every 10 minutes to ask if I could come in. He got his wife to phone too. We'd set off at 6am to get there for early VIP opening and he'd been calling from 8am. He told me if I set off back now I could be back for the lunch service. I repeated no. I didn't drive and my family weren't cancelling a very expensive day out just so I could go back for £2.50 a fucking hour (less than NMW at the time)
This happened with most employees days off.

AlsoBling2 · 30/01/2019 12:09

Temped in an old school accountancy firm once. Filter coffee was for partners only. Everyone else had to have instant. Boss liked me so kept giving me a nod and a wink when he asked me to get coffee for him with a " and you can have one for yourself too" like it was this huge treat.

To be fair, everyone was extremely nice. Just stuck in the 40s!!!

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