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Original poster

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

444 replies

NoEffingWay · 07/10/2021 18:08

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 Hmm.

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 Grin.

OP posts:
Onlyfoolsandhorseswork · 07/10/2021 18:53

I keep getting bollocked for being too cheerful helpful and polite at work
I work in customer care and it was part of my training-i get amazing feedback from the customers but my boss thinks I should be grumpy,useless and rude!
I can't win-every year I get feedback and it's always the same
'Your too good at your job-and we don't like it'

thecatsthecats · 07/10/2021 18:55

Solving a design problem. Client had supplied information, needed us to provide a solution. Manager insisted that there wasn't enough information to solve the issue. I thought there was, and was accountable for reaching the deadline. Solving the issue was manager's personal, doctoral specialism and responsibility.

I worked through the weekend to deliver a solution. Client happy and wanted to take it to users. Manager not happy. I said in email thread, "since it's all we've got, shall we just take it?"

Manager pulled me into office, fucking furious. For years afterwards would refer to it as his work (his only contribution was the part that actually caused product support a lot of issues).

After I went on holiday, the client pulled me aside at a meeting and asked me never to leave them alone with just the manager again Grin

Product, BTW, is now used by over 10000 people a year with my design Grin

jesusmaryjosephandtheweedonkey · 07/10/2021 18:56

I get told off weekly for being too good at my job.
Apparently I make the others feel uncomfortable because I don't need help or advice.

RandomMess · 07/10/2021 18:56

For ringing a colleague at 7.30am to pass the message on I wouldn't be in work as DD was being blue lighted to A&E apparently I should have left her alone in A&E to go outside at 9am precisely to phone manager instead - we were a team of 5!

The same manager made me make up missed 3 hours when different DC was knocked down by a car and I was in A&E with her Angry

thefirstmrsrochester · 07/10/2021 18:56

Got bollocked for not following absence reporting protocol. Should have had the professionalism to leave my 2yo alone in an acute bed after being blue lighted to hospital to make it to a payphone to telephone my bitch of a line manager at 8am to explain my absence. My mobile went flat as when you are getting bundled into an ambulance it’s the last thing on your mind, and when I knew we would be staying in, I text my line manager, also my colleague on the same shift. Line manager refused to accept my text as adequate absence reporting, and bollocked my colleague for trying to explain that I wasn’t ‘absent without leave’, but in hospital with my very unwell child. Tried to discipline me for it as well. JM at RSB, years after I’d left when I heard that you’d been managed out, I bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate you getting what you had coming to you.

TrampolineForMrKite · 07/10/2021 19:01

I was once hauled into the headteacher’s office and bollocked for befriending the kids on Facebook. After some minutes of proper shouting abuse, I worked out that the head had confused me with another member of staff with the same name. Unfortunately there were four of us with this (very common) first name (think Emma or Louise). I like to imagine that he just went on calling the Emmas in all day and giving them a bollocking until he got to the one he needed.

HoneyDragon · 07/10/2021 19:07

I was called into a meeting and bollocked for accruing too much time in lieu. Despite pointing out I was running up a lot as they didn’t want to pay overtime but needed me in to cover a series of absences and staffing shortages. Apparently accruing 4 months of leave plus my holiday entitlement was entirely unreasonable.

bluejelly · 07/10/2021 19:08

For not wearing a short skirt every day (it was the 90s and I meekly said I'd try harder. Should have sued his sexist arse)

Livpool · 07/10/2021 19:10

Having my handbag on my desk - it looked 'untidy'. I only had it on my desk because I had my first episode of sciatica and could bend down

StaplesCorner · 07/10/2021 19:18

One January my Manager told me off for not thanking a supplier for a Christmas gift (which in fact I had passed on to another member of the team) - it was a voucher for a meal in a hotel but I couldn't go, or be in work to write the "thank you" as my father died that day. When I got told off for it after I returned from compassionate leave, I was so confused I had a thought run through my mind that maybe my father wasn't actually dead because otherwise why would this wankbadger be telling me off?

user1471517095 · 07/10/2021 19:20

I got taken into the managers office because I didn't say Good Morning to him as I walked passed him. He gave me a dressing down, then proceeded to tell me he didn't care if I said Good Morning or not!

Missmissmiiiiiiiiisss · 07/10/2021 19:23

Placing pens “upside down” on my desk

StaplesCorner · 07/10/2021 19:23

Another time, I was a young secretary in a large London bank and I got told off after opening the post for putting junk mail/leaflets advertising things like double glazing and hernia support belts in the bin. Nothing to do with recycling then, it was because the manager liked to receive ALL "his" post. It wasn't actually addressed to him it was just delivered in error but he still saw it as something only he should have the final decision on. So many people in that bank at very senior level doing nothing all day!

autumnboys · 07/10/2021 19:26

Told off by my team leader for calling by the exact same name as everyone else. It was a nickname - her email initials made a short word - but literally everyone else used it. But not me, apparently. She was a bitch.

MadisonMontgomery · 07/10/2021 19:28

For eating a salad at lunch. Apparently it wasn’t nutritious enough. No idea what business it was if my managers as I was eating it on my unpaid break, and I was clearly getting enough nutrients as I was the only person on the team not constantly off sick.

Somuddled · 07/10/2021 19:28

I had a terribly controlling manager, who at her peak told me I had sat in the wrong chair at the start of a meeting. She made me get up and change seats. This was in front of the CFO, in his office. There was less than a foot of space between the one I chose and the one she moved me to. I wish I had ignored her.

ojojojoja · 07/10/2021 19:29

stapling documents in the corner diagonally, rather than vertically.

ojojojoja · 07/10/2021 19:29

addressing the board as "dear all" rather than "dear board" in an email.

WithRosesAroundTheDoor · 07/10/2021 19:31

[quote Lolabray]@NoEffingWay

Seriously.. schools are very much like this. You can’t offer comfort or help a child sometimes but i understand the reasoning with safeguarding etc[/quote]
Thank goodness my current school is not at all like this. We are encouraged to try to turn side on but if a child needs a cuddle we give one.
I can't ever imagine refusing comfort to a child that needs it. Sad

wtfisgoingonhere21 · 07/10/2021 19:33

Get told off if the computer stock counts wrong (nothing to do with us at our end as it's all calculated by her partner at the other end )

Got told off for leaving one yes one cup in an empty bowl

Got told off for buying the wrong milk for staff even through boss doesn't use it and absolutely nobody gives a shit what milk they have

Not allowed to use the hand wash in all communal areas but have to use the cheap gallon of absolute shit that was bought for staff because we waste it Hmm

Not allowed to leave ten mins early but regularly get booked in till after close time.

Expected to do the cleaning of communal areas AFTER work hours on a Saturday when boss isn't in.

That a colleagues new hair cut made her look bigger 👀

Every item of food brought in is scrutinised while we get told how bad for us it is. All whilst boss drinks chemical shakes to lose weight. Hmm

There are far more than this

Eliphanbee · 07/10/2021 19:34

I worked at a multi story venue, and was sent to.work on a different floor. Before it opened the doormen came to speak to me, and wanted a drink. I couldn't open the till, but wrote down what was given
The lady who usually ran that bar came in, and saw the doorman..she shouted at me that I should have given them a drink and written it down. I told her that I did, and she stormed off Confused

Mycatismadeofstringcheese · 07/10/2021 19:34

@insancerre

I got told off for ringing an ambulance for a colleague who was having a miscarriage, I thought she was having an ectopic pregnancy Apparently the parents might worry (it was a nursery)
I got told off for “over reacting” and calling an ambulance for a suspected heart attack.

Apparently I should have known that a 50something man who was struggling to breath and had pains in his left arm was just having a panic attack. Hmm

Llareggub · 07/10/2021 19:37

I got told off for not writing up the notes of a meeting I’d attended the morning my mother died. I went straight from work to the hospital, where I sat with her for 24 hours. I never returned to work.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 07/10/2021 19:38

When I was a third year student nurse, I got told off for knitting in the canteen during my (unpaid) lunch break, by the cow who was the Theatres Manager. According to her, knitting in uniform was unprofessional, and would give the wrong impression to any members of the public who saw me.

cantgetmyheadroundit · 07/10/2021 19:39

I worked in an office of 12 women and we all got on really well. One day I was called in to see the boss because one of my colleagues had told her that when she went on her lunch break, I spent the entire hour with my feet up on the desk, making personal calls Hmm
Never happened, and I thought that my boss would know that about me. She didn't though, and gave me a massive bollocking, despite my protestations.

Never found out who it was either. Still salty about it 25 years later!