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.

On 9/11 I had to interrupt my CEO in an interview to inform him that I had given the order to evacuate our New York office which was on the 30th odd floor of the Chrysler building, as per police instructions - bearing in mind at that point we had no idea what was going on. The second plane had just hit the towers as I was on the phone to my office manager.

10 mins later I got a public dressing down via email with every senior manager copied in via email about unnecessary and unprofessional knee jerk overreaction.

Over the course of the next few hours I had to evacuate every one of our US offices which I did following our Business Continuity processes and ignored his spluttering. I worked through the night and the next day as the US was completely non functional, half our HR and accounts team who had been mid air to the states was now in some gym in Nova Scotia. We had to go through the grim process of checking the whereabouts of over 600 staff.

Even when the full horror of the day became apparent I never got an apology.

Readers, I left the company.

I got told off by my manager because I had bought a puppy and therefore couldn't do any extra work at home in the evening - it was my free time and it wasn't part of my contract to work in the evening.

The same manager didn't want me to take the day off for my dads funeral

I got a dressing down in an open plan office by the supply chain director for sending an email that contained employee salaries to one of the subjects which meant they saw their peers salaries. I politely pointed out that the email I had sent had been to him only and that he had been the one who forwarded the information to the wrong person.
no apology

I used to work for a popular Highstreet store that has since gone bust. I was a co-manager of the entertainment section (CD's, DVD's, games ect). We had a lock up (we called it the cage) in the storeroom that required a key to get into.
The storeroom door also had a numberpad lock to get into it.
So one day I left the keys to the cage on the counter by the till. Manager picked them up and put them in her pocket. I was frantically searching for them for the better part of an 8 hour shift. Completely freaking out by the end of it.
Eventually worked up the courage (I was only 19 at the time) to go tell her we would need to copy the master key; when she suddenly produces them from her pocket. After a lengthy telling off and a threat of dismissal she handed them back. Only staff could get past the first door, not customers. Most of them had been there 10yrs plus - unlikely to steal anything.
She swore at me several times. I've never felt soo embarrassed. I handed my notice in a few months later and phoned in sick the last two days of my notice. It completely fu%&ed things up for her. I was soo happy that not long later she got made redundant when the company went bust!

I had a manager remove his glasses and scream in my face about how I was taking the piss because we had all been booked on a fire safety course. My manager and a colleague went on the course in the morning and weren't back by the time me and my colleague had to leave. We tried to call him and ask him how long we would be so I could possibly drive via my house and drop my car off so I could go directly home after the course. He didn't answer.
My colleague and me ( we were travelling to the course together in a company vehicle) made the decision that because the course was clearly long (boss had been gone about 4 hours by this point) it would make sense to drop my car off, otherwise we'd both end up getting home really late. Apparently because I did this I clearly had no intention of going back to work after the course and was therefore taking the piss. I worked extra that day even without having to go back and collect my car, but that didn't matter.

I worked in a café, a customer complained that I had short changed her. I knew I hadn't, as it had emptied the change in the till and I had to go next door to change up notes. My manager then yelled at me in front of a full kitchen and made me apologise to the customer. The customer then says she was wrong and had put the correct change in a different part of her handbag. My manager didn't say sorry at all.

Another morning we arrived to the coffee machine with a massive note stuck to it saying 'broken, do not touch, someone is coming to fix it'.

So we didn't touch it. Manager arrives just before closing and ask why we didn't check the machine because it had been fixed before we arrived and were we all stupid or just lazy.

Staff ‘bring a dish lunch’ in meeting room for someone retiring. I was helping manager carry food upstairs. SHE dropped a cheesecake down the stairs, it slid out of the box, down the stairs and upside down onto filthy old carpet. I said don’t worry I’ll sort it. Came back down, cleared it up and put it in the bin (hospital ward, so bin very unsavoury 🙈). Went back up, she said where’s the cheesecake, I said in bin. She said oh it will be fine, went down and took it out of bin, picked off carpet fluff, bin dirt and god knows what else. THEN PUT IT ON TABLE FOR PEOPLE TO
EAT 😱

When the cheesecake didn’t get eaten and she found out I had warned everyone not to eat the ‘carpet fluff- bin juice- potential bodily fluid cheesecake, she pulled me aside and gave me a bollocking for telling everyone. She said I was being ridiculous 😱

Dragged into the big boss' office accused of asking our accounting providers to delete the previous months records as there'd been an error. They'd called her for authorisation.

I had no idea what she was talking about, who she was talking about or even if what she was saying was possible. It wasn't my area of work at all. I denied it, of course.

'Well, Alison spoke to them this morning and they said you had telephoned them last Friday to request a delete because you'd make a mistake & wanted to cover it up'. She sent me back to my desk to 'think about telling the truth before I was fired' and to go back in half an hour.

I hadn't been in the Friday. I was on leave. I asked the receptionist to let me photocopy the leave book as proof. Alison jumped up & ran into HR manager's office then they both went to Big Boss.

A few minutes later HR manager came out and said it had been a mistake & company got names mixed up. No apology, nothing.

Then Big Boss came out and had a go at me for not going back into her office to tell her what she already knew! That Alison had made the call. Nothing happened to Alison at all.

I left not long afterward after HR manager told me 'You're not being paid to think'.

Loosing the wards Christmas tree.. when I worked on a ward as a nurse another nurse came from another area and explained there Christmas tree was in our storeroom. I was busy doing a drug round and told them to collect it. Fast forward a week and we’re decorating the ward and my managers going ballistic as the trees missing. I explained what had happened and I got a huge bollocking. However we did get it back!!

Once had a large group of colleagues go away for a girly weekend and a few of us were not invited (all women workplace). It was cool, I wasn't really friends with them so wouldn't have gone had i been invited but another was friendly with them and was upset. The Monday lunchtime after they were all talking about it in the breakroom. About an hour later the other lady and I were called into our the boss's office. Some of the group of ladies complained that we were being standoff and not getting involved in the lunchtime conversation and that we didn't "like" any of their Facebook posts from the trip. We were told we weren't being teams players. For not talking about a trip that we were deliberately not included in. Left that job pretty shortly after.

You mean you haven't learnt to shrink your ambulance? That's very remiss of you.

Years ago I was a customer services section manager in a large supermarket. My manager gave me a 'talking to' because I had apparently been very rude to a customer when refunding her for some damaged apples the previous day. I explained that I had not refunded any apples that day, but she said the customer had rung in and the description of the person matched me. I then checked the refund ledger and explained that there was indeed a refund for apples, but it was signed by somebody else, manager asked me who and I had great pleasure in telling her it was her signature. No apology at all.

Got bollocked for eating a tuna salad at my desk as one of the directors hated the smell of tuna. I was made to go and eat it in the car park.

He probably had a point...

My MIL put in an official (and just!) complaint at my business (not linked to me in anyway!)… I got bollocked for it? 🤦🏼‍♀️

A long one…

I worked in a private owned nursery at 18 in my small home town, so I knew some of the parents as neighbours.

One parent recognised me on his daughters first day and knew me as ‘the daughter of the local dealer’ (I had no relationship with my dad - and still don’t).
My manager was nearby and heard. As soon as the parent left she scolded me and said that it was a sackable offence and I’m lucky they’re too short staffed to sack me right now! No concern that the parent was a user though..
She was sacked herself some time after for stealing from the company and although I don’t know exactly what happened I do know that she struggled to get a job after as she had obtained a criminal record.

There was another manager who tried to demote me after many promotions within the same nursery because she didn’t ‘agree with my choices in my personal life’. I wasn’t doing anything illegal or making my personal life public. I was 21 and going to clubs with my friends and having fun.
I did later find out that she just wanted to hire her friend into my position and needed an excuse for the role to open.

I quit on the spot and made arrangements to take the company to the small claims court.
After that they sold their business, and I dropped the case because karma had been served by her loosing her job.

I used to get two trains and a bus to work. It was really bad snow so I wore smart black boots for the journey but had my usual shoes in my bag. Got stopped at the door for my footwear (I am a teacher, arrived at work at 7:45am but didn’t officially start until 8:30am). I explained that I had my shoes in my bag and would swap them when I got up to my classroom in 30 seconds but I didn’t want wet feet. That wasn’t good enough, I had to go home and change. I said I will just change them here then, they repeated the instruction to go home and change. I went home and got “snowed in” so couldn’t make it back. I had planned on waiting around in the city centre and then going back but I realised if I had gone all the way home and back as instructed I wouldn’t return until 1:50 because of cancellations so decided to take advantage.

SLT ended up covering my lessons all day because they left it too late to get supply and loads of staff hadn’t come in. 🖕🏻I applied for a couple of new jobs whilst sat with my feet up and left at the end of term.

Forgot to add, I wear the boots all the time at my new job and regularly get complimented by my new boss for them.

I had the flu and a severe throat and chest infection. I spoke to the manager who said I have to ring them every day while I was ill?? Well lost my voice completely by day three so partner called in and explained. I was told that even though I had lost my voice I still had to call in. Clearly unable to follow the instruction my partner continued to call until my voice returned. So went back to work a few days later and I was demanded to the office for a meeting with operation manager and hr manager for not meeting sickness procedure. After speaking with head of h.r it was soon removed and I just stayed to p.ss them off.

That's nothing. Head teacher allowed a kid back into school who had assaulted me . The same kid then thinking he had the upper hand assaulted me again. Never went back to the school. Sued them.

God, I hope you won?

I once got a minor bollocking for using the phrase 'your guess is as good as mine' to my boss.
Reason? He was senior and more experienced so obviously his guess was way, way better than mine.
Sigh....

It's frightening how many schools are run by incompetent morons.

For not giving students resources that I didn’t know existed because they weren’t in the shared area and had only been shared in a meeting between other teachers teaching the course that I had not been invited to and that I in fact did not even know had happened. It was a weekly meeting that nobody had mentioned to me in 9 months. Even post this they continued to have secret meetings without me and I got berated for letting my class down when I didn’t do the things they discussed in these meetings 🤷‍♀️

I also got told off (different school) for teaching a “woke curriculum” when told to teach poetry from other cultures and using Bob Dylan’s hurricane and Linton Kwesi Johnson’s Brixton Prison as comparative poems about racial prejudice and police brutality and corruption. I was told to be careful about expressing my opinions. I pointed out that racism was illegal and tolerance is one of the British values we’re supposed to teach in schools, so expressing my distaste for racism wasn’t an opinion I was obliged to keep under wraps 🙄.

unsurprisingly I left both of these schools.

This is just ridiculous.
To think these people are responsible for educating dc!