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 got bollocked in the police for all manner of things that would have been illegal or against regulations if I’d done them:
Not removing a child from his father and giving him to his mother when his mother asked me to (no court order).
Not searching someone’s car when I had no reasonable suspicion.
Not driving a victim over to where we’d apprehended some suspects to identify them.
Not signing my statements with my husbands surname even though I had never used it.
Refusing to sign into the computer system using someone else’s credentials.

Also frequently got bollocked for following training we’d just had training sessions on, for trying pointing out to my trainer he was being sexist, for not telling my (lecherous) Chief Superintendent in person that I’d got married he did not expect the men to let him know in person), for not requiring identification from a DCI when letting him into the station (he had assumed that because he didn’t know me I couldn’t know him). In our initial training we all got told off in the inspection one morning for having shoes that weren’t shiny enough and the next morning, a different Inspector told us off because our shoes were too shiny…

I would just roll my eyes (internally), if appropriate, politely point out their mistake, and bask in my feeling of superiority.

The only time I was really pissed off and angry was when a Superintendent came to the debrief after our (unarmed) shift had chased down two guys threatening members of the public with a gun and berated us for not keeping our hats on.

Got told off for being too positive. This was the day after an internal memo went out saying we must appear positive at all times.

Different job - got told off for being too good at my job. Apparently it made the other staff feel they wernt good enough and they felt 'threatened'.

Our organisation spent millions on some custom software, but it didn’t work properly.

I mentioned this fact in internal notes, and was forced to apologise for saying the software that didn’t work didn’t work.

It still didn’t work, and the staff who were supposed to use it all ignored it.

Was taken for 'a chat' because I asked the secretary who was about to go home early sick if she could maybe hold on for a few hours as I was leaving an hour early that day to catch a flight, and there would be no one covering the desk. The background was this particular person was known for being off sick on a v regular basis - most Fridays and Mondays in fact. I know, I know, it's none of my business when colleagues are off sick. Except I had to cover for her and pick up her job as well as my own every single time and there was not a doubt in my mind she was, once again, having a skive.

Got told off for nearly getting locked in for the night at school because the caretaker didn’t check all the classrooms were secure. I was working late, 7pm, as a stressed NQT, drowning and not really being supported. It was my fault apparently. Well-being for staff, zero.

School again, a child had been inappropriate with another child on a play date. Parent of assaulted child had told the head exactly what had happened but this wasn’t fed back to me as the class teacher 😲. It was worrying behaviour from the other child and we should have been aware for safeguarding. It was only disclosed to myself and the family liaison at an unrelated meeting with parents of the inappropriate child. They were shocked we had no idea, they were desperate to get support. The head became aware I now knew so at next staff meeting made a big thing about how peer on peer abuse needed to be reported (naturally) with pointed looks at me and made obvious that I was the bad guy….despite having has no idea of the incident which took place outside of my care and which had been reported to the Head who didn’t inform me so I could be aware of potential repeats or fallouts. 😔I did report to the Head as the lead safeguarding officer who already knew….

And numerous telling off in so many schools for using the wrong coloured pen, using the wrong exercise books when the stock cupboard is empty, using paper photocopied from the one remaining child’s book with pages in to pad out books as no books left and can’t use other ones as the wrong colour and the world will clearly end.

I once got told it was inconvenient for me to go to a family funeral. I said I expect the person who died was pretty annoyed by it too! Went to the wake, but was clock watching as I had to go back to the office.

I got hauled in for a meeting with my boss when I was 19 for having an affair with a married much older manager (not my department).

We'd been seen several times together going for lunch together, going for walks at lunch, car sharing, chatting in passing in the corridor, collected me after a work night out. We were also spotted having drinks one weekened by someone. We were seen briefly hugging outside the day I got pulled in.

I think we had a stalker because we were "seen" alot.

The man in question was my Dad. Do you think he ever got questioned? Nope. He still gets so cross about that now.

I was leaving the hotel business and this female GM was going nuts at me in 2005 in the back office.
It got to the point where I have to serve a gentleman in tears who had overheard, trying hardest not to show it.
Guest walking out speed dialed our head office (swallow hotels in the day) asking for area manager.

But I don't know what you do if scum owns the company these days. I've known people (customer) try and leave reviews saying staff must hate working for you/contempt for staff but I doubt they get much listening room.

I got bollocked for looking glum and not being able to lie convincingly enough to staff at other sites regarding site closures - my job was to assess physical site resale risks, not to lie to staff about management decisions.

Cried all the way home and had to hide the car keys from DH who was all ready to drive back in and punch him.

Fortunately, the way he treated me was picked up by senior management and his career was stalled (which apparently was my fault). I got a move out to a new and much better role.

I bet their faces were a picture when you pointed out what your relationship was

This is potentially outing but who cares - about 20 years ago, my boss used to make the team have lunchtime meetings once a week. As they were 'lunchtime' meetings, we used to eat our lunch. I was asked if I could suck my twiglets, as they were too noisy. From then on in, the whole team brought twiglets to our lunchtime meetings every week and we crunched away😂😂

As the Head of Department I had a pre-Ofsted observation by a member of the Senior Management team, a PE teacher. I was teaching a lower set Year 9 class and chose to do a lesson involving the use of compasses, my Department said I must have had a death wish. I demonstrated how to bisect an angle and a line using compasses and they then practiced, one of the aims was accuracy and presentation. Afterwards the PE teacher told me I had wasted too much time, once they'd done it once I should have done something else, she refused to see that the practice was necessary to pmrove accuracy.

When I was a newly qualified solicitor I was told at my first appraisal that a partner had complained that I dressed like a secretary - I wore a suit with a sleeveless top underneath it in the summer because there was no aircon and my roommate refused to open the window. I always wore the jacket for client meetings but he clearly didn’t like me sat in my office in a sleeveless top!

I now chuckle about this because the last law firm I worked for had dress for your day so I mainly wore jeans and a smart top! Now, I work in-house for a large company, permanently from home. So I wear tracksuit bottoms most of the time. That crusty old partner would have a coronary!

On two year end appraisals the fact I'd taken a lot of sick leave was formally noted (negatively).

One year I'd had a fortnight off for meningitis (hospitalised). The next year I'd had a ruptured spinal disc and had worked for months in increasing pain before getting surgery - about 5 weeks off total.

But my manager was one of those people who never got ill, and who viewed illness in others as a moral failing.

Oh another one - former headteacher at previous school sent me an email, bollocking for having gone home. At 7 p.m. And in fact I hadn't gone home, I was still photocopying and setting up for the following day.
I know a teacher doesn't really just work 9 till 3pm but every day I was at work at 7 a.m. (as the Head would be in the staffroom to check who was in early) and every evening I went home after 7p.m. as he kept tabs on that too.
So grateful to be working in a much more wellbeing friendly school now.
After I handed in my notice, I was regularly watched in the staffroom by his PA who checked that I wasn't talking to anyone. I wasn't allowed to speak to anyone about my new job, or even to tell anyone I was leaving. This wasn't me just being paranoid, the Headteacher told me this himself.
Err - my post was advertised in a national newspaper and on the school website.
Barmy.

Very early in my career I was put in charge of dishing out a set of car parking passes for staff for an event. Big event, we were hugely busy. The list I inherited from my predecessor was numbered 1-100ish with a name next to each pass. I sorted the spreadsheet by name so it was easier to find each person and changed the numbers accordingly. I was hauled into an office to be bollocked because apparently the list was sorted by ‘rank’ so that our big boss and his henchmen would get passes 1-5. I thought they were joking. They were not joking. Big boss had complained about having pass 72 instead of pass 1. I had to collect all of them back in and redistribute them.

My boss giving me a bollocking for something he had done but would not take responsibility for.

Not taking my scheduled flight back from US to UK on 12th September 2001. The fact that all flights (domestically and international) had been cancelled in the US due to 9/11 was beside the point.
As soon as the airports opened a few days later, I and all other travellers went and waited to get on a flight, unsurprisingly it was chaos with people sitting and sleeping on floors hoping to get called. I waited about 36 hours till I managed to get a flight home and went back to work the next day.
As I was new I had only accrued enough holiday days for my week vacation and not any extras I was told I’d have to take it unpaid, until more senior manager overrode it as exceptional circumstances.

On my first teaching placement I had a bully of a mentor. She used to shout at me all of the time. One time I caught up with her on the corridor and asked her a question about the fruit that we were using to make a fruit salad with in our DT lesson. She shouted "This is not an appropriate conversation for the corridor" and stormed off.

I still get angry about her now, I used to drive home every night and imagine crashing my car into a ditch.

Long time ago i worked at a bank in the admin department, i was one of only a few members of staff who would answer the phone before work officially began at 9am

one morning at about 8.50 one of the big bosses rang to speak to my manager, i answered the phone correctly giving my name and department, the big boss asked to speak to the manager and as I recognised her i said I’ll just put you through

spoke to the manager and said ‘i have helen on the phone for you’ and put her through

manager called me in half an hour later as the big boss had told her to discipline me for not asking who was calling….even though i had recognised her and put her through

obviously I didn’t get told off as it was bloody stupid but i always asked who was calling for every caller moving forward , and i never answered the phone before 9 again….cos im petty like that

Got yelled at for not actioning a document.

I’d never heard of the document.

It was a mostly male office with one other woman my level. Eventually I worked out that boss had left this mega-important document on the chair of this other woman, who was (a) not me and (b) away on holiday all week.

I explained this to him. He told me off for not taking responsibility.

I don’t work there anymore…

My manager gave me a bollocking for refusing to take responsibility for a project he’d passed to me the day before and which couldn’t be completed by its deadline.

I resigned.

Jesus! I though my boss was bad but some of these are truly horrific!

In parent teacher conferences I used the word wee too much. I got called into her office and everything. Honestly was gobsmacked.
in our nativity this year we banned phones so I took photos of each child in their costume. I got told off for wanting to send the photos home because it would set a precedent. I got hauled out of my classroom to tidy a sink because a meeting was happening in a completely different part of the building.
Horrible woman who took it as a point of pride that 7 KS1 parents said their children were scared of her.

Worked within support worker role shortly after graduating uni. Another colleague had allegedly said something inappropriate and offensive in the staff room during our break and was disciplined for it. I hadn’t heard what had been said as I was having a conversation with someone else at the other end of the room. I was later called into a management meeting for not challenging the inappropriate comment. I explained I hadn’t been privy to what had been said as I wasn’t within earshot, I was then told off further for not listening in on other peoples conversations and being alert to them potentially saying something offensive that I could then challenge them about… another time I was called into a management meeting for calling an ambulance for someone had overdosed and was all but dead when the paramedics arrived. Apparently because the paramedics had given them naloxone, it had rendered their heroin useless and meant they’d have to offend to get the money to score again. Somehow it was my fault that they’d now be committing crime to fund their drug habit. I was further told off when I pointed out that the other option for them was death…. Another meeting I was called in about was for giving CPR to someone and I had used my pocket CPR mask rather than doing mouth to mouth without the mask (which is the whole point of the masks in the first place). My manager felt it might’ve caused offence that I didn’t give mouth to mouth without the mask. Also got a talking to for buying a service user a sanitary towel from the machine in the toilets because I didn’t buy her a tampon as well- she asked for a sanitary towel and I’d paid for it out of my own money. Apparently I should’ve purchased both incase she was too embarrassed to ask for a tampon. The service user hadn’t complained about this. Management just gave me a bollocking incase she was too embarrassed to speak up about that as well.. another time I took someone to get a food parcel and apparently took too long to come back. I explained it was because the person was coeliac so had been able to choose items they could eat rather than being handed a generic bag of food… I was told that beggars can’t be choosers and I should’ve just made them take a generic bag because it’d wasted valuable time…

A group of colleagues put in a joint grievance about the ridiculous things we kept being told off about, but one by one they all ended up being sacked for various equally ridiculous reasons. I left before I was dragged into it, and on my leaving do one of the managers demanded I get them a drink from the bar. I ordered him a tap water and when he asked where the alcohol was, I told him beggars can’t be choosers. Wanker.