Strangest thing you have ever got into trouble for at work?

[NoEffingWay]

Not 'looking like I was listening in a meeting'- I was actually listening and was able to recite information but apparently that wasn't good enough!

For 'not having a degree'- I was a Saturday girl in a shop, I was 16 at the time.

For 'being tired'-I had a baby at home and was getting up at 4am to look after them so wasn't feeling well rested but was expected to pretend I was energetic .

Woke up one morning with a dodgy stomach felt ok in myself so went into work told my manager as soon as I got in so if I had to run off to the loo she’d know why made it through the day later that evening I got a text from the shop owner saying my manager had called him and told him I’d been to the toilet too many times and to not do it again in future

Me too!!

An after-school job at a toy factory, got told off for writing contents on the packing boxes in too large numbers/letters and wasting marker pen ink.
Told off as a receptionist for a large corporation for looking 'too punky' .

Putting camembert in an empty fridge. Unopened and unripe, together with a couple of other items of food shopping.

I have French family so considered this borderline discrimination 😆

For saying that I am Scottish and wouldn't support England in a football match.

For taking too long on a call; I was speaking with a suicidal person while police tried to get to them. I was on the phone for less than 10mins while the police mobilised and traced him. I was just chatting asking him about his day etc anything to keep him on the phone.
The supervisors giving me grief hadn't listened to the call and even after listening to it back i was told if it happened again I'd be given a warning because the conversation wasn't appropriate

I agree to a 2 week temp job at a call centre. I was told off for not having given notice when the 2 weeks was up.

Being helpful

NC because outing.

I had a complaint raised against me by four people because I typed too loudly. They were in a separate team to me, but sat nearby. I didn't get in any trouble as such, I actually know for a fact that the managers and HR thought it was bonkers, but they had to be seen to be taking it seriously. They christened the situation "Typegate".

Over a six month period, I was given several different keyboards to try and a board was fitted to the side of my desk to try to muffle the sound, but nothing worked well enough for them. I got a flat silicone keyboard at one point which was silent, but it was very difficult to use, gave me shooting pains in my wrists and my productivity dropped by a third while using it. Chucked that after about a week because it was so useless. They complained about that as well.

Eventually there was a big meeting with HR, the managers, me, the complainants and union reps. The complainants were offered different areas to sit in, which they refused. I was asked if I'd be willing to move seats, I refused on the grounds that it felt like I was the one expected to accommodate them and move away from my team while they did nothing to help the situation themselves. Not only that, but no one else in the office of about 70 people had an issue. It was a busy office, of course there were going to be typing noises. In the end it was agreed that the whole department would be moved round so that our teams were at opposite ends of the room.

Two of the managers actually praised me separately for how I'd dealt with the whole thing and told me that nothing about the situation reflected badly on me. It was good to feel supported, but I wish HR could have just told them to jog on and let me get on with my work!

For interacting with a child with SEN. I was 'in his space'. I am an experienced SEN TA and child had accepted me and we were making progress.

For supporting another TA who was with another child with SEN. 'Too many adults' apparently. I was to leave the TA to manage alone. Other TA had welcomed my support and thanked me for it later.

Same person both times.

I'm leaving soon. The LM does not know yet.

So many things with my bullying ex line manager. Not copying her into every email I wrote, then copying her into every email I wrote because there were too many, having too much work to do, not being able to do a specific high level task because I wasnt trained for it and it wasnt my job, having my coat on in an internal meeting in a freezing room, being too sensitive when she shouted at me, not coming into the office when I was unwell, being unwell, not doing work I didnt know existed, not knowing about something she didnt know, knowing too much, knowing other people in the organisation. It went on and on. No wonder I was sick.

When I was 18, started working for an architecture firm just doing basic admin, one of the secretaries and the receptionist (who were besties)took an instant dislike to me for some reason, and they made it obvious.

They decided one day that I had to start helping the receptionist (who was in a completely different part of the building) answer the company phone when it rang, my phone would light up when her phone was ringing, so I did what they said and started answering calls, the next day I got pulled into the secretary's office for answering too many of the receptionists calls as she had nothing to do! I finished my shift and never went back, fucking god awful grown women bullying a shy 18 year old. I'd never put up with shit like that now

Oh and another, when I was 16 I started doing a YTS (remember those!) at a big glass making company in the office working for the MD. This one day I had to write some numbers in columns, the MD came charging out of his office and asked me in front of all the office staff why I had put one number slightly to the left inside the column. The number was still in the correct column just not dead on in the middle! He was awful and just stood looking at me waiting for me to answer, I didn't give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry, I saved that until my dinner break, got on the bus and went home, my mam wanted to ring the company and tell him what she thought but I told her not to. Absolute arsehole of a man

Was going out after work so went into the office after an external meeting to leave some confidential paperwork I had. Got told I was doing it to ‘boost my hours’ and I should have driven home and back taking an hour instead. Office was open, people were still there.

Micro managing moron used to write detailed time plans for job that bore no relation to what you were doing and were impossible to follow. Wrote she had wanted a particular job doing at 10am. We couldn’t do it as we’re waiting for borrowed equipment from another department at 2pm. She wouldn’t let it go and we should tell the other department we HAD to give it to us. The equipment was being used to sort a public safety issue. She was a fucking idiot.

Terrible temping job went totally nuts when I got a permanent job that paid double. Apparently I shouldn’t go for other jobs. Offered to leave immediately if it was so awful. I didn’t as they needed me but wish I had.

Buying folders for the office in a competitor's brand colour.

As a naive 15 year old working in a bookshop in the mid 80s being told off by the female HR manager for how I stood at the microfiche as it was 'provocative'

When I worked on a Helpline, I got complained for "Being too cheerful" when they phoned up to complain about our service. This got added to the main complaint report because, apparently, we should not be cheerful in our opening greeting in case someone (like her) was calling to complain.

The complaint was rejected in any case as she was a serial moaner who reckoned the terms and conditions she signed up for shouldn't have to apply to her.

I had this horrible prick of a boss once who called me into a meeting room to say that I’d been using quite a bit of my annual leave just lately (I’d just moved into a council flat on my own as a 20 year old and needed to get it decorated and carpeted instead of looking like a crack den) and she didn’t want my colleagues to be resentful of me having time off. She was the one approving my leave requests!

Not a single person on my team was resentful of me, they were all lovely and recognised I was fairly vulnerable and trying to make the best of a rubbish situation. They were happy for me to be able to make my flat my own and have a secure tenancy. And we all got the same leave allowance, so they’d get their days off too.

I got emailed by my supervisor once asking me what I was doing at my desk. I replied that I was updating and cross referencing some excel files. He replied 'please have a (manual) file open on your desk at all times because I've just had a complaint from senior management asking what you're doing as at seems like you're doing nothing'
Idiot.

I got in trouble once for politely asking a student to stop eating in the lecture (they weren't allowed food in the lecture room). I asked him twice because he didn't stop, but was perfectly polite.

He ended up writing an email where he told me he'd been in the army and knew how to kill people.

My HoD somehow thought it was my fault and his email didn't constitute any kind of weird or threatening interaction.

Not specific to me but our general office. We used to have a office stash of biscuits/treats. Lazy, useless boss was stealing these after we left for the day, like taking whole packets of biscuits home. Never bought a thing.
so instead we kept treats in our drawers and anyone could help themselves (when he was out of the room). He sent an email to complain that the treats box was empty and needed filling up.

We told him to ask HR.

I was sexually assaulted at work-it was on camera,so I could prove my side with no issues (I’d been changing the large bin when he came up behind me and ground himself into my arse)
work where amazing about it-until I found out some of the bitchier women had been talking about me on the managers WhatsApp group chat saying that I shouldn’t have been bent over the bin in the first place
most of the other managers stood up for me saying it was my bloody job!
big boss found out,checked I was ok and that was the end of that-or so I thought
got hauled in a week later,only to be told I shouldn’t bend over bins the way I did so I was partly to blame
i asked what was I meant to do?dance round the fucker?

they took my point in the end but it wasn’t the point-the bloke who did it ended up with a bollocking

(I did complain to hr and I did get an apology from big boss but that’s not the point-I still think he was shagging one of these women)

I once got thoroughly bollocked for not writing envelopes neatly enough back in the day before printed labels.
It was the Bank Manager himself and I burst into tears probably because I was so ashamed of my scratty handwriting. I had to hand write all the bank statements addresses there were hundreds.
Only time I've ever cried because of work!

Putting two 'top' pieces of a toasted teacake on a plate to be served instead of a top and bottom piece

My supervisor actually wrote on the paperwork that she didn't know what she was disciplining me for but would get the details from one of my colleagues later.

It got all the way to a second hearing before a manager from another store was brought in and it was thrown out

Having a body big arse. I've always been comparatively slim on top, so I had to alter waistbands to stop them spinning around. Got hauled into the office to be told complaints had been made that I was wearing 'inappropriately sexual and revealing clothing'. I was wearing a straight black skirt that ended about 3 inches below my knees, the compulsory tights, plain shoes and a long sleeved blouse in a mid-tone colour that suited me and wasn't in any way transparent.

Not eating the food they laid on for a do. No, I am not going to eat pizza, pork pies and sausage rolls to 'make others feel like I'm part of the team instead of thinking I'm too good for their food' when I've got celiac.

Not going to the non compulsory Christmas do. Forty five quid before taxis there and back (17 miles into the arse end of nowhere, no public transport), to watch other people eat the set, wheat filled, menu (see celiac above) and drink beer (see celiac above) to then be stung for a share of other people's additions to the meal I couldn't eat (see celiac above) and their additional alcohol.