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.

Years ago we had to go to a team do for OH's work. It was two days and partners were expected to attend. Nice posh country house with good food so I was in. OH's meeting was in the house and 'lady's' were being entertained by a visit to a stately home with lunch and cream tea. (There were a couple of male partners and I think they just wandered off).

We arrived in the evening before the first day and had a quick meal and went to bed. I did have a nice dress for the evening but as it was a trip out I'd asked OH what I should wear and he just said it was up to me. So we went down for breakfast (very nice) and head man notices I'm in a pair of slacks and top, OH is in t-shirt and trousers with slippers. He came over and gave me a dressing down because all the other ladies were in smart dresses or skirts. OH looked at me and then at him and said 'well I think she's drop dead gorgeous with a cherry on top don't ever talk to my wife like that again' and then kissed me, told me to enjoy the day and walked off. A bit weird, he normally wouldn't say boo to a goose. He complained to the head of establishment and I received an apology.

Strange thing is OH had absolutely no need to be there as far as his work was concerned.

After realising the store freezer was broken I delegated the new lad to empty the lot into a freezer in the warehouse..
Irate call from my manager next day reciting the wastage from the previous night..
New lad had offloaded into a fridge.
Apparently I should have checked he knew what he was doing.
He was 20 and didn't know a fridge from a freezer.

He left soon after as he said he just didn't 'gel' with any of the staff!

Working at an american summer camp, as admin. The place was run by a mother and her son. I would have my breakfast at 730 with the domestic staff, before the campers at theirs at 8am.

One day the son pulled me aside and said

'my mom has decided to allow you to have breakfast with the campers at 8am'.

Those exact words. I wasn't happy cos the 730 breakfast was peaceful and the domestic staff were my friends. But I turned up at 8am for the next week. One day the mother wandered in and summoned me over.

'why are you having breakfast now? You should be in the office now!'

I told her what her son had instructed. She called him over and he DENIED IT RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE. So I got in trouble. The whole place was awful and I counted the days till I left.

Smelling clean. I was brand new, arrived to a meeting with a room full of new colleagues I'd never met before. A senior staff member walked in, demanded to know who was "stinking of perfume", sniffed me and ranted at me that she would become ill because of me.

I wasn't wearing perfume, or anything heavily scented and I'm still unaware of what the problem was to this day. I had washed my hair a couple of hours before the meeting and all I can think of is that I smelled freshly washed and clean. Nobody has ever been made aware of any allergies or asked officially to avoid wearing scents to work.

At my previous job, micromanaging control freak owner didn't trust us working from home so we had to do a report accounting for every minute of each day in great detail. To be submitted last thing Friday.

I agreed to do a couple of hours meeting at the weekend for a client, who wasn't available during working hours. Salaried, no overtime payments. I was happy to do it.

I got an absolute bollocking for submitting my report Monday morning so I could include that meeting.

I never worked a minute over my contracted times again, and you will note I said my 'previous' job.

😂😂

You deserved a bollocking for that.

I got told off for having too much to say in a meeting about new work that I would be doing. I had a lot of questions but was told to shut up, by my boss. So I did. Then at the end of the meeting my boss told me off again, for not saying enough.

I once got told off for not knowing that Carol could be a mans name as well as a woman's name (I'm not from England which my boss knew)

My manager at the time had handed the account over to me on the first day telling me that a new contact had taken over at the customers end and her name was Carol and could I set up a meeting with her.

Which I did by speaking to Carol's assistant.

Apparently my boss was very angry when a man turned up instead of a woman and it was all my fault, even though we had both made the same assumption.

Also at a different place (I had a run of a few years during the recession of crappy managers who could be extra crappy because there was such strong competition for jobs it was hard to move)

I got told off for getting to work 10 minutes late. I was never late, ever, but on this occasion I was late because the bus had to take a long detour because roads had been closed due to someone being shot in the town centre (where the bus station was)

I had to go through an official meeting to explain why I was late which was documented for HR (first time late and only 10 mins made this ridiculous in the first place)

I got asked very seriously by my manager what I was going to do to ensure that it didn't happen again. They were not happy when I answered that given I was late because someone was shot and died I thought that their question was in bad taste as clearly there was nothing I could have done to have avoided the situation.

As a matter of fact I normally got to work about 40 mins early every day to ensure I wasn't on the last minute. If I had got the bus that got me there 5 mins before my start time I would have been far more than 10 mins late.

Which my boss knew, but apparently wasn't good enough for her, and I was told that in case anything happened again like that in future I should start getting the bus that left half an hour earlier than my standard one, and I should wait around at work for an hour and 10 mins just to be on the safe side.

The previous month I had been one of only 15 staff members (out of 50) who had made it to work in the snow. I got told off by the same manager for wearing snow boots as I had to walk part of the way in, and told that unless I changed into proper shoes (in a call centre not customer facing) I would be sent home to change into proper footwear.

A worried colleague tried to lend me some spare shoes that she had under her desk, that were a size too small and would have crippled me and I was told I had to wear them.

I told them if they wanted me in proper shoes they could send me home to get them but that given the snow it was highly doubtful I would return before the end of my (4 hour) shift.

They decided as a huge favour to me that I would be allowed to stay this one time but if I did it again I would be sent home unpaid.

Half an hour later the directors sent an email around to thank everyone who had managed to get in in the bad weather and to confirm that until the snow had cleared everyone was allowed to wear whatever they liked to come to work if it made it safer for them to do so.

My manager came over and tried to claim that she had emailed the director to arrange a personal discretion for me, but I later found out that someone had complained about my manager bollocking me when the staff levels were so low because they were worried no one would turn up the next day if they might get into trouble for something so petty.

I left a month later taking a pay cut because the manager was so toxic.

Oh and they sent out a daily toilet times email out to the entire floor with a chart of who had the most time on the toilet
Imagine being such a power hungry inadequate!... Sad little bastard.

Years ago my line manager asked for a 'hard copy' of some data. I printed it all off and gave it to her. 'What's this?' She asked. 'Oh, you said you wanted a hard copy of the data...', I replied.

She looked at me like I was an idiot and said 'Yes, but I call soft copies 'hard copies'. I say it the other way around'.

Alrighty then!

I was once told that the boss didn't like how my arms looked in meetings.
Same place, I was told I looked intimidating and could I stop holding the large knives..... I was the cook!

Boggling how arms could look intimidating (and solely in meetings, at that).

Unless they were pumped up like Popeye's?

New to the role, was told loudly and angry by a PA, in front of the team I worked for, that I should have consulted with her before making booking flights, etc., for my manager because her boss was attending the same conference (unbeknownst to me). I'd just done as requested by my manager. Which is what I told her.

With the benefit of many more years experience I'd ask more questions if asked to do the same again.

This is a job where there were two positions going when I was interviewed. My preference was for the PA position. I was offered and accepted the PA role.

Turned up to reception on my first day and no-one was expecting me. Explained who I was due to work with. Hurried, flustered calls followed. Was told I would be working for someone else but they were abroad on business.

Later learned that the woman who'd shown me around at interview had been given my job. I thought at the time she was a bit 'off' - not someone I naturally warmed to. She was the one who'd 'told me off'.

Found no IT arrangements had been made so I couldn't start work until day three. Realised the place was a shit-show behind the surface gloss. I handed my notice in and worked it. I should just have walked out rather than spending three unhappy months there. I still cannot believe I so meekly accepted this cavalier treatment. Glad I am not the same woman these days. I found my voice.

Set fire to the managers paper... Whilst he was reading it. Worth it just to see look on his face. Had micro managing nutters by the bucket load, the coke head who made some really nutty choices and people ended up redundant.

This reminds me of a similar call:

Manager: is that Ralph?
me: yes, hi what’s up?
manager: you planning on coming in today? Or just skiving?
me: er…was planning to after my colposcopy appointment which I booked a half day’s holiday for? And which has been on the work calendar for at least three weeks?
manager: oh ok ha ha!

Actually, that’s no very funny Mr Manager. As if I wasn’t stressed enough.

Set fire to the managers paper... Whilst he was reading it
😁

I worked for a large organisations with several branches, and I worked in the central office overseeing communications and social media.

There were all sorts of random social media channels managed by the different offices and branches, and staff within those. Think for example about a Facebook page called “James Street charity shop in Lincoln”. A lot of them were inconsistent and used old branding so I was tasked with identifying them, deciding which ones to keep and finding people to manage them in an official capacity.

There was one area in particular where there were about 12 social media pages for the one area so really only 1 page was needed. I contacted the area manager and said what I was tasked with doing and gave context, I said it’s great our local volunteers are helping our social media and they still can, as they do a great job, except we will be amalgamating the pages into one local page.

The area manager replied, copying my manager in, and said “yep great just tell me what I need to do and I’ll brief the volunteers”.

My manager - a total cow on a normal day - called me into a meeting with another manager, showed me the email I sent and asked me what was wrong with it. I was and said I genuinely don’t know.

Apparently, I should have pitched it in a way that made the area manager think it was their idea. Not just go in and tell them we are doing it regardless. Even though we are the corporate team and the manager said it was a good idea, I was absolutely wrong not to make him think it was his idea.

I asked how the actual fuck I was supposed to do that, and was told I work in communications and it’s our job to ‘spin’ things.

I got my handbag and left for the day and my manager was utterly bemused as to why I was pissed off.

I left shortly after

Once got a call off IT dept technician, let's call him Jeff, as follows:-
(Voice sounds annoyed)
IT Jeff " Hello Shadypines, this message you have sent me, what are you talking about? I don't understand."
Me " I haven't a clue, I didn't send you a message about anything"
IT Jeff( sounds more annoyed) "This message, I don't understand it.."
Me " Sorry, I don't know what you are talking about, I haven't sent that message."
IT Jeff (now sounds really really angry) " I don't understand this message!!!"
Me (thinks).FFS calm down Jeff. This went round in circles for about 5 mins, only reason I didn't tell Jeff to fuck off with his attitude is that he was normally a very nice calm man.
Turns out that he had been sent a question by someone else and by the wonders of our wonderful IT system he thought it was me.
I detest workplace IT with every fibre of my being.

Sometimes workplace IT issues are good - an ex colleague was emailing questions to our technical section, and finally an answer came back along the lines of “I’ve got no idea - I’m a pilot not a chemist”. They got chatting and ended up as a couple.

When I was still a fairly junior lawyer my utterly batshit and terrifying boss made me go to an event in her place. It was cricket at Edgbaston. our firm was hosting a number of guys from one of our main clients. She looked at the guest list and sneered that no one important enough was going so she sent me instead. I have no interest in cricket, was pregnant and couldn't even enjoy a pint and I was expected to make up the missing day of chargeable time later that month.

I went along, made the most of it, chatted to the client chaps. Ended up sitting next to one really nice older man who turned out to be the head of the department specialising in our field of work. We got on well and arranged (his suggestion) that he come and visit our office next week as he had a number of new matters he thought were suitable.

I told boss on Monday and she hit the roof almost spitting with rage. "If I'd known he was going to be there I would have gone myself. Don't you dare think you're getting any of this new work!!!"
I was astounded as was the young trainee solicitor I shared a room with and who witnessed it.

I was once pulled into my bosses office to be told she didn't think I knew what I was doing, as she'd noticed me not doing anything much when she'd walked past me very briefly. I explained to her what I had been doing in detail, why I had been doing it? and why I hadn't been doing what what she thought I should have been doing. (I was doing something I've been doing day in day out for 10 years) It was the most bizarre conversation with her ranting at me, saying I didn't look like I was doing anything, so in the end I agreed with her because I didn't think I'd get out of her office otherwise. Two weeks later she called me in to her office for a "catch up" and told me how excellent I am at my job. Yes, I am. I'm so good it looks like I'm not really doing anything, obviously!

Got told off by my utterly batshit manager because my DMIL died unexpectedly.

She refused my application for compassionate leave (DH was an only child and off work sick at the time) because and I quote "Your father has dementia and you'll want more time off when he dies."

She wouldn't let me take annual leave because "You have to use that for nice things."

The director overruled her and gave me compassionate leave. I only wanted a day off to register the death and a day off for the funeral.

I got pulled up for being off sick (first time off unwell in 2 years) when my work actually send me home and told me not to come back till I felt better.
While with the same company put in a holiday request weeks in advance which was authorised then got pulled up and asked not to request holidays when people may be off sick?