Stupidest bollockings you’ve had at work?

[TimeAtTheBar]

I got called into a meeting with my bosses boss yesterday to address a complaint from a member of my team that I had disappeared off for half an hour last weekend.

…I took just half an hour of my one hour paid break and left another manager in charge.

Apart from the fact I am SO DONE with this particular job, this could have easily been resolved without a face to face meeting which I found intimidating and overkill.

To make me feel better, tell me about your stupid or unfair bollockings please; because I am still raging about it a day later.

I mean literally called into a meeting with my line manager sat there with a notepad and his boss asking the questions.

Because I took my allocated break during an 11 hour shift and a report of mine complained.

…in fact took HALF my break!

Also, sorry for multiple posts, but I’ve made a typo in my OP and it’s an UNPAID break.

My boss asked me to arrange a bouquet of flowers for someone who had a big birthday coming up. I sent a note around to staff asking for contributions but after a week I had got £3.28 as this person wasn’t very well liked.
Boss asked me how it was going and when I explained lack of funds he told me to take money out of budget. The problem with that is that we were working for a public sector organisations and using public funds for staff benefit is quite understandably a no no, I could have been disciplined if this had been picked up by audit.
So I went around the staff and shook my collection envelope under their noses until I had enough for a decent bouquet.
When boss asked about money I told him I had sorted it all out without using public funds and he went mad at me. Not because I had asked staff but because I had disobeyed his orders and undermined his authority.
This was nearly the last straw and I gave my notice in soon after.

Not quite a bollocking, but definitely ranks as stupid.

I worked in a school that did unannounced observations for performance management. Didn't mind as I'm fairly competent and it removed the news for all the lesson plan shite and data that you sometimes have to produce in the old days😁.
Having completed the obligatory break duty and arrived back my classroom, settled the GCSE class I was teaching, I took a swig of my tea (made before break duty - so it could cool down to drink!). Thought nothing of it

Went to get feedback and judgement ( it was back in the days of judgement for those in the know!) Headteacher told me she would have graded it outstanding except for the tea drinking, deemed 'unprofessional' in an observation lesson. Yep teachers are not human. Had a 5 lesson day as well. Honestly - my jaw dropped.... Went and applied for a job closer to DH not long after.
School later got shut down under her leadership... She was an Ofsted inspector as well, so god knows what other shit she pulled.

One manager was furious with me because I couldn't travel 5 hours on a train with morning sickness - I was happy to drive the journey (controlling the smells and temperature I was being exposed to made a difference at the time). She tried pulling me up on a disciplinary for it - thankfully the senior leadership team told her she was being ridiculous.

Didn't stop her from being a complete arsehole the entire duration of my pregnancy though...couldn't work out if it was me she had a problem with or my pregnancy.

Delighted she was deselected from the role in a restructure and disappeared from the organisation before my return!

They have no right to tell you off for taking a break that you’re entitled to, with someone else left in charge. I hope you defended yourself robustly. This sounds like victimisation- the team member complaining, the line manager not telling them to do one, the meeting with 2 managers and note taking. Something similar happened to me a few years ago and I ended up leaving. Shame because it was a good job. But I was basically being bullied and it was too much.

Been pulled into the managers office for suggesting to a colleague that instead of standing gossiping to another colleague for 30 minutes they might try doing some work

I took class into the playground last summer on a nice day and we used chalk to play some games and such to practice times tables. In a school playground. My HT gave me into trouble as apparently I had allowed them to graffiti the school grounds. Just for clarification there was no ride drawing or words or anything - literally different arrays and diagrams showing the 6 and 7 times tables.

Not me, but a 21yo I work with suffered a stroke recently. Management actually wanted to discipline her for unauthorised absence the day she fell ill. The same threat was made to a colleague whose appendix ruptured, because he'd recently been off with Covid that also needed hospital treatment.

The company are notorious arseholes though.

We got a new senior manager at work who had a real bee in her bonnet about us all not working hard enough. She banned everyone from eating at their desks - even eating a slice of toast while reading your emails wasn't allowed and we had to record these as unpaid breaks on our timesheet. Then she announced that we could only listen to music (through headphones) while we worked if we didn't change tracks, as that would steal valuable seconds from work time. If you wanted to change the song you were listening to then you had to take a 30 sec unpaid break to do it. This ridiculousness lasted for 2 whole months before covid hit and now we all work from home and are free to do whatever we like 🤣.

I once had a manager who shouted at me for not doing something that she hadn't told me to do (it was outside of my normal duties). When I pointed this out, she shouted at me that it was my job to make sure she told me everything she needed to tell me. It was after that that I started to look for another job.

I was working as a domiciliary carer. I was working through an agency but exclusively for one company iyswim. One day the company tried to add an extra call to my list, the house was 2 miles away and I was a walker, and they wanted me to visit the house twice in one day. So an 8 mile total walk there and back twice. I refused and the company said it was fine. The same night I got called into the office and there was the director of the company and my agency manager calling me in for a disciplinary for ‘missing calls’. The company had lied to my agency about what had happened. When I showed my agency the proof they stuck up for the company instead of me? Told the both of them where to shove their jobs and quit on the spot. I was the 5th one to do so that month and no wonder why. And people wonder why there’s a lack of carers, they’re treated like shit

Had to make a database of people working for a certain organisation. Within that organisation, people were split into groups. My database had to reflect this. When I presented the database to my colleagues in a meeting, one of them, the self proclaimed expert, started yelling at me for using ridiculous abbreviations for the groups. She asked where I had got them from and when I told her it was from the organisation's own website, she called me a liar in front of everyone. No-one stood up for me. When it later became clear what I had said was true, she half-heartedly apologised, but our relationship never recovered.

I, whilst speaking to a customer we had a great relationship with about an upcoming event, suggested to them it was worth including something in the invite to the audience to highlight a correct process, as we'd had some issues previously (something the customer had flagged to me themselves and we'd discussed at the time)
I didnt belabour the point or imply that the service users were idiots. I didnt say 'remember we discussed last time' or anything similar. The customer replied with 'Good reminder, i'll include xxx in the invite do you think xxx wording reads okay'
I got bollocked from my manager for being patronising. I asked if there was something in the wording. No. Apparently the patronising bit was suggesting it to her at all, as we'd previously discussed it (3 months prior) so she already knew. I explained the context, was told it still could have been seen as patronising.
My JOB was specialist service advice.
Its been 5 years and i still dont understand what she meant by patronising.

Primary teacher:

Wearing my PE kit to a staff meeting was one that springs to mind.

Not parking my car straight enough within the car parking bay.

Using the photocopier too much - I got named & shamed in the morning briefing.

Not undertaking a duty in the hall during my unpaid lunch hour.

Not me but someone congratulated her colleague on her pregnancy (she'd just got a bit of a podge) we all got told that under no circumstances were we to make inappropriate small talk with colleagues without any context as to why/what had happened.

It was an absolute shit show of a place to work, hence I'm no longer there!

The whole department got a bollocking from a ridiculous young female manager who had a habit of nit picking non stop.
Apparently we were not wearing the right kind of casual Friday clothes so casual Friday would be taken away from us 😆
No guidelines had been given whatsoever and we were all wearing smart jeans and nice tops, nobody was wearing hot pants or a tracksuit.

I was put on a capability thing by a boss who really wasn't keen on me and loads of tiny things were noted so they could find an excuse to get rid of me.
The best one was 'spotted eating ready brek at 8.17am'. For context I worked where service users were offered food in the mornings and we could grab something before starting work at 8.30 am
I left a while after..

Previous job, non-teaching job in a school 8-4 (yeah right) contract.

I came in at 7am to do a little job for a student. Completely not academic-related at all, and actually quite minor, but made a huge difference to this kid's life. Really impactful, for 30 mins of my time. My OWN, UNPAID time,for which I'd left home at 6.15am.

Got a bollocking for not prioritising my actual work. I literally couldn't speak.

OP I hope you are now taking your full, unpaid HOUR every day.

I presume the muppet who reported it got a talking to?

Got an absolute roasting by the Big Boss for 'making derogatory comments about the organisation on the staff transport'. We were all bused in (not in UK).

Was absolutely mystified, & really quite hurt as a) I actually LIKED my job a lot & b) we were a very small group on the bus, all good mates, & had a 'what's said on the bus stays on the bus' policy because a couple of the others tendedto overshare about their weekend partying activities...it was simply bizarre to think that any of them would rat me out, never mind invent negative things I'd supposedly said.

Went off to confide in a friend. 'Oh!' she says. 'That'll be <colleague with very similar name>! She was upset yesterday because Middle Boss had bollocked her for bitching on her bus!'

Turned out Middle Boss had mentioned it in passing to Big Boss who'd then decided to carpet the miscreant himself for good measure, but got the wrong eg Jane/Jayne (not the actual names)...

Taking too many smoking breaks.

I don’t smoke. Never have. Think I was mixed up with someone else.

I let that one go right to the top before pointing out their error.

Not filling in enough of the cleaning record. So I filled in more the next day and got told off for filling in too much!!

When I was a student nurse, I once got bollocked by the Operating Theatre Manager for knitting in the staff canteen during my (unpaid) lunch break. Apparently it was unprofessional. I’m nearly 60 now, and I still don’t understand why it was unprofessional of me to knit on my lunch break where only other hospital staff could see me.

She was a complete nightmare.

Told I was sitting down too much in the classroom......... when I was 7 months pregnant and had sciatica