Ridiculous work complaints - tell me yours!

[YourFinestPantaloons]

I'm a teacher and Head told me this morning that a parent has complained because she saw me last Saturday night in the local cocktail bar having shots.

Apparently it's despicable that an educator of her child would behave in such a way and lead such a terrible example to pupils - as it turns out, her underage DD was with her (must have been at 11pm IIRC) in the adults-only pub and was 'appalled' at Miss Pantaloons' behaviour

Thankfully my Head is normal and we just laughed our heads off about it. these complaints happen very frequently. A colleague once got a complaint because she was seen with penis paraphernalia in town on her hen do. I think some people think teachers are just robots that turn off at 4pm and have to stay in the classroom over the weekend.

What's the most amusing complaint you've ever got at work?

And from the Head after a letter observation in Reception - not happy with my lesson as I didn’t ask the children what they could to get better at what they were doing. They were playing in the sand tray.

Priceless!

@boqq A teacher drinking on their own time is completely fine.

Who else, in your opinion, should have their free time controlled? Doctors, nurses, firemen, council workers, MPs?

My best one was a customer bringing back mouldy hotdogs… complained that I wasn’t enthusiastic enough about these hotdogs.. I mean they stank and whose going to be enthusiastic about mouldy hot dogs 🤢

Having spent the summer in Spain to help my Spanish I got a job in a local cafe to earn some money before Uni. A Spanish backpacker came into the cafe and had been travelling for some time. I spoke with him in Spanish and he was so glad to talk in his native tongue again and about Spain that it really cheered him up. He ordered more than the one cup of coffee he originally came in for. My manager gave me a warning for speaking in Spanish as she couldn't understand and I could have been telling him anything. So much for customer service

I’ve had a lovely complaint this morning

Customer rang at 8:47pm last night and left a message on our answerphone. He then rang back at bang on 9am this morning complaining that no one had rang him back yet.

Proper ranting and raving, called me incompetent, the works.

He needed to speak to my boss, who is working from home this morning so I need to send her a message and get her to call him back. He just kept demanding I put him through, called me stupid when I couldn’t - because I physically can’t.

Eventually got him off the phone, got boss to call him back.

He complained to her that I was stupid, rude and incompetent why had no one had called him back - he’d been waiting hours for a call back and it wasn’t good enough.

All this before 9:10am

Boss always has our backs and won’t tolerate rudeness or abuse to any of us so declined his custom

I've definitely had complaints about supposed dirty looks. I have RBF which can intensify when I'm trying to concentrate, plus my eyesight isn't great and I'm perhaps squinting. The guy in question was a lazy so-and-so who was well in with a manager who didn't like me from day one and built a team of her cronies around me. She had form for saving things up until appraisals and out they'd come in a disdainful and often shouty torrent. When I actually laughed about the supposed "prolonged catalogue" of dirty looks she barked "I know what you're like" (!) and forced me on the spot to apologise - it was like primary school.

That was one of the biggest nails in the coffin re. that job. My late Mum getting sick at Year End was "inconvenient" yet her aforementioned pet got a fortnight off to take his family to Disneyland at the same time. I flounced there and then - five years down the pan.

Sorry to be a killjoy to the original poster, but I once worked for the Probation Service. It was explained very clearly at our induction that we should immediately leave a pub or restaurant if we saw a service user in the same place.
If we wanted to let our hair down, we were expected to go to a nearby town where we would not be recognised.

Same rules should apply to teachers I would say.

@LoveMyBusPass

Sorry to be a killjoy to the original poster, but I once worked for the Probation Service. It was explained very clearly at our induction that we should immediately leave a pub or restaurant if we saw a service user in the same place. If we wanted to let our hair down, we were expected to go to a nearby town where we would not be recognised. Same rules should apply to teachers I would say.

I would hope that a teachers “clients” aren’t generally potentially violent criminals

I was out with a group of school Mums and we upped into one of the Reception teachers on her Hen Do - loads of other teachers with her as you might expect. We were invited to join and had a great time
It was never spoken of at school by anyone

@Macaroni46 I’ve had similar complaints in my teaching career as well, especially if I got a new job mid year. “ You teachers shouldn’t be allowed to change jobs mid year”. Even when I explained I was on a short term contract to cover maternity leave or sickness etc. Apparently, according to quite a few complainers, teachers should only be allowed to leave a job in July.
The sandpit complaint was one of the straws that broke the camels back!

@SameToo
Must admit to crying (25 years ago) when I asked for vegetables as my side dish and they brought out a salad leaf with 5 cold green beans on it. Tbf I was 2 months pregnant and had hormones racing through my body. And I waited til the server had gone before I cried.. Still makes me laugh to think of me sobbing over the green beans 😂

I've had a similar complaint to alloalloallo's - potential client I had given free advice to previously phoned at 7.15 a.m. and by 8.45 a.m. was making a formal complaint that I hadn't returned his call. Office opened at 9.30. When I pointed that out politely, he said we were being snooty because he was potentially on legal aid and wouldn't have treated a privately paying client that way. As I told him, if we were snooty about legal aid we wouldn't be offering it at all. I'd already made it clear that his case didn't look strong, so he went off in a huff claiming that his rich relative had just given him thousands of pounds to pursue it and my rudeness meant that the firm had lost out on it. I restrained myself from commenting on his rich fantasy life.

I used to work reception in a hotel which offered package deals with tickets to a theme park a few miles away. A lot of these bookings were made through third-party agents. One woman came to the desk with a legitimate complaint about her room which I apologised for and resolved. She then complained to me about the bus service to the theme park- because the website she booked through said there was a bus service from opposite the hotel, she thought it was included in the package. I was sympathetic (she wasn't the first person to do this, we did raise it with the agent) but suggested she direct her complaint to the agent- the bus was unconnected to us or the theme park, and so I couldn't comp her ticket or anything like that. So far, so reasonable, but she seemed frustrated, like she'd been gearing up for an argument and didn't get one. Then, as she was walking away she turned and shouted, "And nobody told me it was Easter!" I must have looked puzzled because she clarified, "I've probably paid more because it's Easter!" Well, yes... but she booked the dates through a website with no human interaction, so who was going to tell her? She even had kids with her who were on their Easter break from school...

@LoveMyBusPass

Sorry to be a killjoy to the original poster, but I once worked for the Probation Service. It was explained very clearly at our induction that we should immediately leave a pub or restaurant if we saw a service user in the same place. If we wanted to let our hair down, we were expected to go to a nearby town where we would not be recognised. Same rules should apply to teachers I would say.

As the next poster says, I assume this was for your own safety and that of colleagues. You don't want to give manipulative criminals any leverage they could exploit.

Tricky to require people to live and socialise away from their place of work, though. I once knew a psychologist who worked with mentally ill criminals living in the community. He lived a few miles from the base for his service, but the clients probably lived all over the place. He was a bit shaken once to be standing stark naked in the communal shower at his gym and have another naked man say 'Oh hello, Dr X!'

I was given a very public dressing down as soon as I walked into the office on a Monday morning because I had failed to share on our social media channels that a company we supported had been live on BBC Breakfast News over the weekend. When I pointed out that I neither knew that they’d be appearing and that I was doing something else at 7.30am on a Saturday morning i.e. sleeping, I was told to share the link to the broadcast on the BBC website. I replied that the link is only kept up for 24 hours, when it is replaced by the next broadcast. The director went ballistic and said that the company founder had shared the link on his private Facebook page and we could share that. I replied that I didn’t think it was appropriate to be sharing private Facebook posts from corporate accounts, even if I could see his post (which I couldn’t - it was private), and furthermore, the link was most likely dead by now. This was, in his words, “totally and utterly unacceptable”. So I was blamed for not sharing something I didn’t know about, didn’t see broadcast and could no longer access. He made me cry. What a wanker.

The fact that I had secured them half a page of coverage in the Sunday Times the previous day was immaterial.

@LoveMyBusPass

Sorry to be a killjoy to the original poster, but I once worked for the Probation Service. It was explained very clearly at our induction that we should immediately leave a pub or restaurant if we saw a service user in the same place. If we wanted to let our hair down, we were expected to go to a nearby town where we would not be recognised. Same rules should apply to teachers I would say.

No, they don’t. Completely different job, different clientele, different risk factors.

I worked for a theatre.

Man rang to complain that cilla the musical was misleading as it hadn't had Cilla Black actually in it. Had to apologise and explain that she was dead.

He still didn't seem to see the issue 🤦🏼‍♀️

Had a man complain because the thing our office posted to him hadn't arrived yet and he was leaving to go on holiday the next day. I explained to him that I have no control over the speed of the post office and he made a formal complaint about me

@Redredwiney

I’ve had two.

The first was when a colleague had disappeared and I asked the lady who sat next to him where he was. Turns out she had made a bullying complaint against him and he had been suspended, and she then complained that I breached confidentiality by asking about him. I obviously had no idea. I was then investigated by HR for breach of confidentiality. Fortunately it wasn’t upheld because I had no clue but my upcoming promotion was on the line!

The second was when someone told me our HR rep was pregnant (we were talking about who is currently pregnant). I mentioned that to someone else later in the day and she went to congratulate her. When asked, she obviously said she heard it from me. Again, I was investigated for breach of confidentiality. The person who told me she was pregnant wasn’t even thought of.

That all happened in the headquarters of a Christian church and charity…a horrible place to work.

Oh I can relate to this. I got accused of breaching confidentiality all the time at a former work. Apparently daring to open your mouth in that office to do anything more than ask if anyone wanted a coffee was instantly a confidentiality issue.

@AnnaMagnani

Back when I was a very junior doctor I found a very angry family all complaining about me on the ward - apparently I had told them their relative was dying in a callous manner in the corridor.

I and the ward sister were baffled as the patient was quite well and ready to go home the following day.

Eventually we figured out a relative had stopped me in the corridor, asked me how the patient was, and I'd said 'he's OK, he should be going tomorrow'

Going HOME, FFS, home. Not out in a box.

When my Dad was in hospital, we turned up at visiting time to find an empty bed. When we asked a nurse where he was, she said "he's gone." To a different ward, luckily, but she could have phrased it a lot better.

Used to work for a popular kids stationary brand where you got a stamp for every purchase over £5 on a loyalty card and when the card was full you got a free gift. Lovely offer. One dad came in every week with his daughter so filled his card very quickly, she was delighted with her free gift. We obviously then kept the card. Dad went apoplectic. Apparently the fact he came in so often meant she should now get a free gift EVERY time and what kind of place was this and “get me the manager now you stupid little woman.” Actually I was the manager.

@Crystalgirl90

Also a teacher! Parent complained to the head because apparently I personally have lost 3 of their child's cardigans? They were not named, said child has no concept of being responsible for their belongings and I have a class of 30 children with the exact same uniform. Yes... it's totally my fault! 🙈

I once had a parent complaining that a child had lost their jumper. Was it named, because that always helped? No, the parent never named school jumpers, but she could identify it by how it felt so would know it when she felt it.

I directed her to the large grim bin of long lost property and left her to it.

I used to work in a pub and had many silly complaints but one that stuck was a lady that had ordered fish cakes. She ate the whole meal and then decided to ask for her money back when I was collecting the plates because the fish cakes were "too squishy". She didn't get a refund.

I don't think bare cleavage belongs in an office. It just doesn't.
V neck doesn't necessarily mean bare cleavage-you're thinking of plunge necklines. I wear v necks because I can't bear anything close to my throat, but you certainly can't see any of my C cup cleavage.

When my Dad was in hospital, we turned up at visiting time to find an empty bed. When we asked a nurse where he was, she said "he's gone." To a different ward, luckily, but she could have phrased it a lot better.

A former colleague turned up to visit her dad, to discover that he was dead and the hospital had failed to inform them. It added extra distress on top of their bereavement.