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 worked in a care home on nights and it was always freezing cold between 2am and 5am so I used to wear a t-shirt under my uniform. A thin striped blouse and I only had one.
One particular night a resident managed to rip my shirt right across the chest and I took it off so it wouldn't get worse. Nobody on the 8am shift asked me about it and I didn't explain as by that time I was busy and forgot about it.
Next time I saw the manager I got a bollcocking about it, showed her the now repaired shirt. I'd managed to see it but it wasn't very neat and was a good 3 inches long. She was pissed off because it was Ghostbusters t-shirt. And apparently I should have the forsight to wear a plain one in case this happened. Oh and my sewing skills weren't good enough either

I used dittos in the visitors book going to a client office as a number of us for the same meeting all arrived together. Big no no with the security man who had made a sign saying "No Dittos in the Visitors Book"!!

I was pulled in for a talking to because I'd left a critical remark about someone's art work on a public forum. The person in question tracked me down via social media and wanted me sacked. Work tried to say I'd broken their social media policy (I hadn't). I refused to accept a warning. It was the final straw though, and I started looking for another job then.

Some years ago when I was a Civil Servant I was supervised by a newly promoted LO1. She spent some time nosying through everyone's annual leave record. She then called me in to see her, and attempted to bollock me for having several separate one days annual leave. (Rather than in 1 week or 2 week blocks). Silly bitch. Still feel put out by that & it's more than 20 years ago!

Teacher. Not using the discipline chart enough. Then for using it too much.... 'Sara was put in the red zone, but little Sara is a quiet as a mouse, can you imagine her getting put there?!'

My TA later reminded me that it was HER that put Sara there a few weeks ago (and I'd forgotten, as I was quivering in my boots after 3 months of gaslighting, confidence knocking and being reported on by other colleagues). Oh, and that meeting was on my last day. What was the point?!

I got told off on a teaching placement because I’d put up a display and the staples were horizontal, not vertical. I thought they were joking at first. That was just one of a thousand stupid things I did ‘wrong’ in the 8 weeks I worked there!

Eating an ice cream just outside the office during my unpaid lunch break on a hot day. Apparently it was unprofessional.

1. Told off for 'not smiling' as I walked across the car park at a private members sports facility.
2. Taking a home made carrot cake to the weekly manager's meeting. Apparently, my line manager didn't eat veg 😊

Had a stupid cow who was mean to me as soon as she found out I was pregnant. She used to say she hated women who let themselves go after pregnancy & she hated other people's children in my presence. We used to go to lunch together etc & I thought we were friends. Anyhoo, fast forward a few years and she announces her pregnancy and you'd think she was the 1st woman ever. Can't stand the two faced bitch and glad I left.

In a faitly junior job, after 2 months unemployed after being sacked for trumped-up reasons, was hailed by the MD in the corridor. He very kindly told me that they'd just received my reference from my last but one employer. He'd been told that the admin suite of programs I'd written had to be rewritten after I left. Then added that he wasn't going to do anything about as it was too late and I'd already started.
On a flexiday I went to the old office. It was true BUT the user had changed the requirements beyond all recognition.
The said MD used to soend 15 mins at the urinals discussing with his cronies who was having the company car that weekend. It was a quango. Tosser.

Not a bollocking as such, but I had once offered to help a very stressed colleague who was 8 months pregnant and snowed under with work. (We worked in the same department but different teams, so there was plenty of similarity in our work.)

I spoke to her because she was clearly overwhelmed and close to tears - I said that I seldom took more than about 15 minutes to eat my lunch, so I could help her for the remaining 45 minutes of my lunch break. She accepted, I did the work, and then afterwards she reported me to my manager because apparently I didn't have enough work of my own to do!

For the record, I had loads of work, which my manager knew, but I was a PA, a very efficient, quick and accurate worker (though I say so myself!) so I often helped other people if they were stuck. Bizarre.

I worked in an off license, cash in hand, not paid min wage. Accidentally took an old pound from a customer and the shop owner had a right go at me and deducted the pound from my wages

Brand new staff nurse - got bollocked in front of the whole ward by senior nurse for arranging the transfer of a patient to another ward - when I was on days off. I explained I was on days off so didn't arranged the transfer and got more of a bollocking and later summoned to the Director of Nursing for a bollocking too. She said i shouldn't have answered back. Tried explaining that if someone's done something wrong, shouldn't the right person be told off - apparently not.

Whilst training, worked on a ward with an absolute tyrant of a sister - awful woman. One of her rules was no sitting down on duty. So I'm feeding a patient, standing up and a visiting tutor tells me to sit down as it's intimidating to stand over someone when feeding them. She's right but I explained Sister 'Tyrant' doesn't allow sitting down on duty. She ignored me and fetches a chair, makes me sit down, stands over me and gives a speech about intimidating patients being wrong. Anyway - there I am, sitting, feeding this lady when Sister 'Tyrant' walks in - goes nuclear on 0.3 sec flat as per usual and as expected, pulls me out of the chair, she's incandescent. No point even trying to explain to her what had happened. And the visiting tutor, who was standing there. Never said a fucking word. Avoided eye contact, the lot. I know she didn't raise it with the Sister 'Tyrant' in private either, as the sister raised it during an assessment and I explained what happened. She didn't apologize - I didn't expect her too.

I was once throughly told off by a stable yard owner for using scissors with the wrong colour handles to cut open a bag of horse feed. I should have known I had to use X colour instead of Y colour. And I should have hung them up on hook A in the tack room instead of hook B.

Stupid rule, and one which I would have abided by, but it was my first day on the job and nobody had got around to telling me about the Mad Woman's Scissor Rule.

I got a new line manager who liked to show everyone how important he was. He held a team meeting, but I disappeared before it started as my son’s nursery called saying that he had been sick.
Later that day my line manager emailed out the minutes of the meeting, and gave us all a deadline of 24 hours to email back our confirmation we agreed with the minutes (or not). I didn’t reply as I missed the whole meeting (and he knew I had missed it). He told me off for not replying to confirm that I agreed (even though I wasn’t in the meeting) . In my 20 years of working I’d never been asked to do that…

Was called to a meeting to be told off for coming to work in ‘business casual’ and not looking more formal – by two managers wearing T-shirts. Purchased a jacket or two from Oxfam and left shortly afterwards!

A colleague from years ago reported another colleague for spending too much money from her salary on hair extensions!

Another from 18 year ago - reprimanded for losing ten minutes of work to phone the ambulance, then the family of a girl who collapsed with a stroke.

I work as a domiciliary carer. This was not a bollocking as such but we got a snotty email complaining about us leaving CLEAN washing up on customers' draining boards. It wasn't a customer who had complained, no customer has ever made a comment about it as far as I am aware. It doesn't impact the actual care anyone receives.

It's this level of micro managing and pettiness that has made me start looking for new job.

My boss bollocked me once for telling a customer we were 7th in the top companies on a list. She swore blind we were 11th and I shouldn’t be misinforming customers. Yes, boss, it would help if you didn’t bugger off to India for a month and kept up to date whilst leaving me in charge🙄

I left not long after. There were so many issues.

Boss messaged the team on our team group chat on a works app to tell us off for the chat notifications waking him up when he was on annual leave as he hadn't turned the notifications off on his phone! I'm currently working my notice and can't wait to be gone!

I've made the critical error of following school policy far too many times.

In one school pupils were not permitted to wear coats in the building (dumbshit rule) and when my pupils entered my classroom, I politely asked them to remove their coats.
I ended up with an interrogation about the room temperature (cold, but not so cold that I hadn't mangaged to work my PPA in the room before hand). HoD went quiet when I pointed out that it was policy to remove coats.

In another, they were having a uniform crackdown. One pupil had tucked their jumper into their (prohibited) black jeans so I asked them to untuck it so it was less obvious that it was non uniform. I got a tirade which escalated the consequences. It then followed up with a parental complaint and investigation that I was bullying this pupil. HoD remembered a previous detention and my patience in dealing with the previous incident. My department was OK but it was a massive time waste that resulted in a meeting where I basically promised to treat them the way that I always had, rather than the way I always had 🙄

In yet another school, I confiscated a phone... parents came in to reception demanding the phone... reception hadn't got a clue... HoD comes in asking why I haven't handed the phone to reception... I point out that I'm still teaching the lesson having confiscated it 20 mins earlier and have been unable to leave the room to take it down. 🤦‍♀️
At least that time they worked out that the pupil had commited the double offence of using a friend's phone to contact their parent in the lesson and dealt with it.

If you ever fancy being belittled and treated like a disobedient child, I can recommend teaching 😂

When my husband's (well he was my boyfriend of 6 months at the time) cousin came and worked at my company as a maternity cover, I had only met her once so hardly knew her, but turns out she has the worst sickness/lateness record of anyone I've ever known! She would call in sick for at least 2 days every fortnight, and was late for work by at least half an hour 4 out of 5 days! My boss decided to shout at me about it every time and ask me where she was! He kept referring to her as my cousin so I should know where she was or why she was off!!

I was a hospital porter, and was told off by my manager for doing nothing whilst I was.... wait for it..... waiting for the lift to arrive.

A week before the first national lockdown, a pupil was visibly suffering with a high temperature in my classroom.

I followed procedure for first aid and the Covid risk assessment, calling for a first aider to attend and collect the child.

I received a rude email from the deputy head telling me that all first aid requests were logged so she'd been made aware of my call, I shouldn't waste time of support staff unless it's an accident or an emergency, I shouldn't have let the child out of the lesson alone (I didn't) and in her opinion the child probably just had eczema.

It still rankles 22 years later but I was once told off for wearing trousers. I worked at a luxury department store, customer facing. The trousers were very smart. I now work in a job where trousers are worn as standard.

Was once told by a manager that I needed to network more. I work in frontline operations, and I'm not the schmoozing type. It was inferred that by networking I'd get a cushy job. When I told the manager I'd rather climb the greasy pole honestly, he got angry with me.

Not me, but my peer at work. She was told by a manager that she HAD to attend a staff picnic as a staff team building exercise (read: Forced Jollity). The manager had a go at her for that.