What's the strangest thing you have been told off for at work?

[NoEffingWay]

I once got told off for leaving on time, I had done my contracted hours, all of my work was done but apparently leaving on time was frowned upon .

The same job told me off when I left 'for only working my 4 weeks notice'. I think they genuinely expected me to stay even after leaving .

As a team of 15 we were told off by 1 member of the team (let's call her M) for mentioning a women who (lets call her Y) had left recently after working for the company for 37 years who we all loved but M didn't ( she worked with Y only 1 year) and we all kept on touch with.
M complained to management that mentioning Y in general chat was bullying and made her feel unsafe.

Received a written warning for booking a holiday prior to checking I could take the time off from work... just because the boss wanted to have that particular 2 weeks off when I wanted to!
** if I'd handed in my notice in the meantime, it would've been moot as I no longer would've been working there!

For carrying my then boss 's shoes into his office after they'd been returned from the shoe repairer. He roared at me 'don't touch my shoes, never touch my shoes '. The whole floor heard. I genuinely think he was psychotic. I changed departments shortly after. This post could be outing! X

A colleague bashed her wrist whilst moving chairs in the dining hall and burst a blood vessel. Her wrist swelled and went purple. My line manager told me off for sending her home 30 minutes before her shift ended because it meant she would have to investigate as I sent an accident form to head office. 😐 Apparently I should have sent her home when her shift ended..

Inappropriate use of headed note paper.

First day of a compulsory redeployment because they'd forgotten I existed and missed me off the redundancy list, I got bollocked in public because I didn't know how to do a specialist technical job I'd only found out ten minutes previously was now my role.

Three months later when I'd taught myself how to do the specialist technical job, I got bollocked for wearing appropriate clothing - trousers, close fitting but decent dark top and steel toecapped boots - instead of a 'nice suit and heeled shoes capable of taking polish'. Further bollocking for replying that if I wore those and got hurt because I was lifting heavy equipment without assistance equipment and dropped it on my foot, the employer would be liable.

Subsequent bollocking for wearing ear filters in a high noise environment because 'it looks like you've got earphones in'. Their suggested solution was not to wear over the ear defenders, it was to take the filters out and have my hearing permanently damaged.

Bollocking for having the copious amounts of filing all nicely stored and unidentifiable in a rainbow of boxfiles, rather than spending £483.72 on 45 iridescent pink and mauve lever arch folders because that's what the deputy liked in her room because she was (her words) 'such a girly girl'.

Bollocking for speaking quietly to the accountant when I'd been instructed to set up a personal eBay account with which to sell company equipment and then 'donate' the proceeds back to them. I went to them with a bunch of documents I'd researched online regarding tax laws, electrical waste regulations, VAT law, eBay terms and conditions and pointed out that this would also leave me personally open to accusations of theft, fraud and tax evasion. I had been obstructive and unhelpful, apparently. The accountant there at the time was completely behind me, but they unfortunately left a couple of months later.

Bollocking for biting my lower lip when in the high noise environment and the manager refused to reduce the noise level so I could hear them. It was so loud that my ears were hurting through the filters. Yes, I was biting back 'For Fuck's sake', but I didn't actually say it.

Bollocking for wanting the lift unlocked, rather than happily skipping up three flights of stairs approximately 359 times to carry each individual item weighing around 26kg. The recommended legal safe lifting weight is 16kg for a woman and 25kg for men and doesn't include going upstairs with said giant lumps of equipment balanced on your chest, completely unable to see anything like where you were going, your feet, the stairs, doors or other people because of their sheer size.

Bollocking for being seen breathing through a window. It was a sarcastic sigh, apparently. No, after the amount of hassle I'd had from them, it was me slowly and silently blowing an even stream of air out from my lips in what I thought was private because I could feel a panic attack rising.

Bollockings for being late when I was early but despite signing in, I hadn't been seen by the manager because they were in meetings. I also got told I hadn't turned up to work and it was noticed during a fire drill - I suggested they checked the Fire Register, as I was the Fire Marshall who took it.

Bollocked for asking if I could take my break after ten hours when I was contracted to finish work four hours previously. Further bollocked for saying I didn't want to work every Saturday and Sunday on top of Mon-Fri for five months, give up my ten days' unpaid but statutory leave and do five eighteen hour days back to back.

I was so glad they finally got around to making me redundant second time round. Most of this was, I'm sure, intended to make me resign during the consultation period. I kept quiet about my plans until after they'd formalised my finish date specifically to deny me one weeks' pay. On my last day, after the money was sitting in my bank account, I told them what I was doing; I'd got a job in exactly the same sector - had they paid me until the end of the month instead of until the 24th, they wouldn't have been liable for a redundancy payment. By doing it their way, my new start date was exactly one month and one week after the enforced finish date. It therefore cost them over five grand to save themselves less than five hundred. I did enjoy seeing their faces when they realised this.

@bloodywhitecat

I was told off for talking to a body. I used to work in a children's hospice and we sometimes cared for children who had died, I was checking on a little one before the family came to spend time with them and was telling the child what I was doing. The nurse in charge told me off for doing it because it was unnecessary and "freaky". The nurse in charge didn't last long in a hospice role and I continued to talk to the children whether they were alive or not.

As a nursing professional, I was trained to always always speak to the patients while we performed Last Offices (basically washing and dressing patients who had died). I always did this and ensured any students or junior staff I was in charge of did this as well. It shows respect for the individual who has sadly died.

@Mumtoone39

Inappropriate use of headed note paper.

We had a new CEO security came into every office and collected every bloody sheet in the building we weren't allowed it for scrap . It was a charity not MI6

For texting my friend at work to pass on that I was sick, i had a very bad cold and laryngitis and couldn't get a word to come out. How can i bloody phone them if i can't speak. I tried twice the operator kept hanging up, cos all she got was a squeak. His nickname was Andrex for a reason (arse wipe)

For not responding to an email that I wasn't copied into. And then for "embarrassing" them by pointing out they'd failed to copy me in.

I was told off for not returning to the office after my 4 weeks notice was over to help train my replacement. In the same job I was told off for expecting the apprentice to be able to make tea unsupervised. Apparently I shouldn't have assumed an 18 year old would know how to do this and should have accompanied them to the kitchen in case they had any questions.

Someone crept up behind me and trickled me in our quiet office so I screamed! Got taken into the meeting room and told off by a supervisor so I told them to stop being ridiculous and then they got bollocked for telling me off and not the creepy tickler, weirdos!

When I was a gp receptionist, a doctor told me he found me very frustrating because I was too kind to patients. He was a lazy so and so. Next time you complain about the receptionists at your surgery, remember whom they have to answer to😂

In 2001 when I was 17 with braces, I worked in a well known retail shop. I got screamed at by the store manager for not wearing the correct white under shirt to match the uniform. It came with the uniform order and I hadn’t been given it. I was so young, I cried when I walked out. I left a few weeks later without notice. Walked past after a couple of months, she had been demoted and was sitting on a till.

When I was 18 and worked in a petrol station, there was a huge deliberate petrol theft. As I was on the till at the time they drove off, I got the blame. Her favourite was the one who authorised the pump. I was 18.

Worked for another large retail supermarket, I got moaned at for being too chatty with customers.
Same store, we had a customer use some really horrible smelling fire stuff. I sprayed the tin of air freshener we kept under the till, already signed off and in the book. Store manager tried to reprimand me for stealing. Wish I had told that one were to go.

There’s nothing worse than working in a constantly critical environment.

Reading everyone’s posts, so many of you were under appreciated and there are some shitty people out there 💐

A colleague got told off for going to the toilet at the wrong time. She was in her 40s and was shouted at across the call centre, by a very young team leader “couldn’t you have waited until your shift ended?” Colleague (very embarrassed) shouted back “No! I’ve had a child you know!”

I had scalded my leg badly on my day off (Friday) and had to go to A and E to get it treated. Phoned in to work on the Monday to say I couldn't go in and why. My manager said "Can't you put a dressing on it and come in?

It was the late sixties and the curator of the Archaeology department complained to my boss, curator of the Geology department, because I had come in to work wearing a tailored trouser suit.
Thankfully he thought it a ridiculous complaint.

2 weeks into a job in a counselling centre a client collapsed on me and started having a seizure. I used to work on a hospital ward so had some clinical training.

I put her into the recovery position, we called an ambulance and I started timing the seizures and logging them for the paramedics.

My manager arrived as the ambulance was there and watched as I handed over the seizures timings to the paramedics. My manager took me into the office and threatened me with disciplinary action as apparently I was “over stepping” my role

[quote Heartofglass12345]@bloodywhitecat I used to be a nurse in a nursing home and we always spoke to people after they had passed away. We would wash and change them and treat them as we did when they were alive, with respect and dignity [/quote]

Thank you for your kindness.

Attempting to change the time on the office clock when the clocks went forward (or possibly back) one hour. Apparently this was a job for the maintenance staff and I would be in trouble if I was caught doing it .

I worked in a secondary school where my manager went ballistic at me for following the safeguarding policy and reporting an issue straight to the safeguarding officer without running it by my manager and asking her permission.
She is easily the worst person I’ve ever met.

@bloodywhitecat
Surely all nurses speak to bodies as if they are alive when preparing them to have relatives see them .
That nurse was seriously weird to tell you off for that .

@bloodywhitecat and @Heartofglass12345, thank you both for your care and compassion. I’ve not lost a child, but I’ve lost my mum, and knowing that people care until the very last is a comfort.

When I worked in a nursery I was looking after a child who was having a nose bleed, had him calmly leaning slightly forward over a sink with a tissue while I pinched just under bridge of his nose. It was time for my (unpaid) lunch break, but I was happy to stay and finish dealing with it. My useless line manager came in and snapped at me that I shouldn’t be there, started flapping around, practically pushed me out of the way and insisted the child put their head right back. I protested but decided it was better for the child if I leave rather than argue with my supervisor in front of them.

Came back from lunch and same child, looking peaky, asked to go to the bathroom where they promptly vomited the blood they had been forced to swallow on the floor at my feet. Poor thing got sent home early. Line manager still insisted her treatment was right.

There were many other things she did wrong, that contributed to me being signed off with stress. I was very glad to hand my notice in.

I once had a manager tell me that I had to wear makeup and heels to work. I asked to see the handbook, as I was sure that was illegal. She got the hump. She liked heels and makeup and thought I was gross for just being clean and presentable.

Same manager hated that I had decent customer service skills, and would do what I needed to do to make people feel good. She ranted once because I was sent a card by a lady that I had helped. Showing her up, apparently.

Working in a call centre and bollocked for using the loo. I was pregnant, I had zero control over the tiny tap dancer abusing my bladder.