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.

Thought of some more. My last business manager hated me. Right from day one she had it in for me (because I'd complained as a customer about the food not being right.)

She made my life a fucking misery. It got so bad I'd have panic attacks if I saw her car in the car park. In short order she screamed at me for:

• having the wrong type of black trousers. Apparently plain black chino type trousers aren't appropriate for where I worked despite them looking very similar to the uniform ones. I had a a GP note so I could wear my own due to eczema which the wool blend uniform trousers made much worse.

• having purple laces in my shoes. She had literally seen me replace the broken black ones with the purple ones - they were all the local shop had in. The lace had broken at work even though they were reasonably new laces. Sent me home because of them, even though I only had a couple hours of my shift left and the customers didn't seem to give a toss about my feet.

• demanded I replace my work shoes as they looked like trainers. They're proper non slip safety shoes, just not her preferred brand. This turned into a huge row because I flatly refused (they were less than a month old and had cost £75!!!) and lost my rag so much I stood in the office and took them off to show her the label on the sole because she just would not believe me that they were actual non slip shoes. I got a warning for "being aggressive" despite the fact that the only person yelling was her.

• customer spilled coffee on me and my neck scarf was absolutely soaked. Took it off to rinse through, hung it up to dry under the heater. Another manager had seen and knew why I wasn't wearing it and was fine with it. She walked in, saw I didn't have it one and pulled me in the office to give me a warning for not being in full uniform. Refused to listen to any explanation from me or the other manager.

• insisted that I go out in the snow, in the dark, to check the outside bins. All the high viz jackets were in use. She screamed at me that I was useless and lazy and told me if I didn't go out I'd get another warning. She wouldn't even let me wear my own coat over my shirt sleeved shirt. A customer saw and made a complaint to head office which Evil Bitch turned back on me and refused to admit that she'd forced me out without proper PPE, despite multiple other staff hearing her little strop.

• used to give me jobs, then come over halfway through them and ask me what I thought I was doing and that I needed to be doing xxx instead. Then she'd do exactly the same again.

She also used to scream my name across the dining area if she felt I spent too long with a customer (despite that being the whole fucking point of my job!)

She wore me down so much that at one point I genuinely thought about crashing my car so I wouldn't have to go into work. I genuinely hate her and hope she gets what's coming to her for the misery she caused.

I worked in a cinema in my late teens, zero hour contract. Each week we had a different rota with a different section we'd be on for the shift - ticket office, popcorn, or 'floor' which was basically checking tickets, cleaning loos and cleaning cinemas between films.

When there was a particularly busy film if you were working floor you might be asked to seat everyone coming in, to ensure no one with standard tickets sat in premium seats and also that everyone budged up so everyone could fit (standard seats non allocated). I was asked to go and seat a film and duly went and did so. When I came back, it became apparent that a different screen hadn't been cleaned in between showings and customers had been let into a dirty cinema. I physically could not have cleaned this screen because I was seating people in another screen, as my supervisor had asked me to, and I also wasn't the one who let customers in either, again because I was seating AS ASKED. Other floor staff should have done it and the supervisor should have checked this. This didn't stop said supervisor taking me up to the big managers office to both give me a bollocking about the dirty cinema! I was so meek then I just took it too, in tears.

Then I left before the end of my shift and didn't ever go back.

Worked in a well known shop that offers ear piercing. Got my ears pierced on the shop floor, fainted and got a bollocking for 'being unprofessional'

I had a disciplinary because some money got lost in the office. It was for a different department and I didn't even know the money existed or was there. But because I ran the office I was responsible. Responsible for money I wasn't aware of being there, ok then ...

@Garysparrowsthirdwife Fast food chain starting with Mc by any chance? 🤔😬

How did you know…?

I worked for a public sector service provider.

New CEO bollocked me in a meeting for not writing a report. I tried to tell him iI had brought it to our meeting.

It ended with him screaming "I just want you to get the fucking work done."

My line manager was delighted and sat back looking smug.

I left fairly soon after - they were seriously bad people.

I got told off for not wearing my ID lanyard.

I came in wearing it, tehn removed it before doing a messy and potentially dangerous task. I even had in my risk assessment that ties/lanyards etc should be removed.

Said lanyard was in my skirt pocket.

Apparently that's how school fail Ofsted inspections...

Posh supermarket (you know the one), generally didn’t take my allocated hour lunch break because I get bored and can’t sit there whilst work needs doing . Line manager drags me off the shopfloor to the canteen for my lunch break AND SITS WITH ME NOT LETTING ME GO BACK TO WORK every day our paths crossed for a fortnight. Then wondered why shoplifting was through the roof (because there’s no management on the floor maybe?). Also got a bollocking for - get this- wanting to help customers (not my job apparently). The list went on and on. I lasted three months, then returned to my old company …my boss at said supermarket advised me to “think carefully if I was cut out for retail”…you mean the 15 years of management before I joined your dreadful “partnership”and the 11 years doing the same (very successfully thankyou) since I left?Horrible business to work for.

I’ve had a couple mainly due to patients being late.

1. 1.45 appointment (15 min check up) hadn’t turned up by 2. Took in next patient who was waiting. was off next day, but came back to a pissed off fax and a ranty chat - asked what they expected me to do? Wait? Checked CCTV and patient actually turned up at door at 2.10 and was seen by someone else at 2.30 - so basically less time waiting than he’d been late. Luckily I was the manager by the following year.


2. the best one was my first year of working, I hadn’t done my PQE’s so wasn’t qualified to practice unsupervised. Christmas party day, we’d shut an hour early, all the staff had drinks in the basement and we’d left the shop to go out for dinner. One of the clinical assistants remembered she’d left a machine on, so I said I’d go back and switch it off. Just locking up and some bloke comes up saying that he has an appointment. I explain we’re closed and he gets really riled…a passer by had to get him to leave. Anyway, I bloody get hauled in to the office the following day, even after pointing out that I was unqualified, drunk, we were shut and he was aggressive; I got a warning and my lovely (late) father came in the next day to say that he would take them to court unless they removed it (which they did).

I managed for several years afterwards and in fairness to managers it can be difficult tl
understand who is in the right and who isn’t. But you need to apologise if you’re not.

Same job in a dental practice

verbal warning for getting my ears pierced

verbal warning for not wearing tights

putting up a calendar too early - apparently that’s bad luck. Didn’t know that was a thing

getting in trouble for not booking a patient in during lunch hour - if I had I’d have been in trouble for booking patient in during said lunch hour

Boss ( a dentist!!!). went utterly mental because I didn’t bring cake in on my birthday - this ‘breaks tradition’

same boss asked me to ‘have an affair - as dentist x down the road tests out his dental nurses between the sheets’. Obviously I said no

Wasn’t sorry to leave
dental practices can be much more ‘interesting’ than you’d imagine

This was just before covid I got q bollocking for wfh too much. I wfh because I didn't trust my manager, her slime ball of 2nd in charge and didn't trust the gullible hr manager. I was the top performing person and there was no reason for me to be in the office.

Oh how funny it was when lockdown hit and they had to just leave me alone.

When I was about 21 I did some temping for a company owned and run by a really posh guy. He pulled me up on using the the American pronunciation of lieutenant instead of British i.e. leftenant instead lootenant. He really tried to belittle me in front of the rest of the staff and made out he was staggered I could be so thick. I wanted the ground to swallow me up.

They get promoted to get them out of the way and so end up as managers!

My boss is constantly furious about everything but some recent humdingers include:

• no I'm not committing fraud on your behalf
• no I'm not becoming your Sugar Baby's own personal IT help desk
• no we can't filter job applications by how attractive the applicants are
• no I can't make the Google Street View car visit any quicker

My last day is Friday ☺️

Not a bollocking, because I hadn't done anything wrong, but I was called into a meeting room by my manager and asked to explain why I had been seen leaving a particular pub at midday when I was supposed to be working.

I was doing community visits in a rural area and one of my clients wasn't home when I turned up. I was busting for a piss and miles from the nearest public toilet so I popped into the village pub to use the lav and get a cold drink (it was a boiling hot day). My manager was delighted, and said she knew I wouldn't have been drinking in work time, but refused to tell me who the snidey sneak who reported me was.

Some people are really pathetic.

I was the manager, one staff member asked me to buy her a washing machine on company expenses so she could wash her uniform. I said no. She filed a grievance against me.

This thread is amazing.

I sat right at a huge sheet glass wall on the 6th floor and it got the sun all afternoon. I adjusted the blind so that I could see my screen and wasn't cooked alive.

My boss called me into her office later that week (that's how long she'd stewed on it) to say I 'wasn't a team player' and I was to consider the comfort of others as well as my own by asking the other 50 people on my floor if I could adjust the blind.

Same boss didn't let me take unpaid time off to take my father to his chemotherapy appointments...

I don't work for her any more.

In my first week of a new job, for which I had had no training and just expected to crack on, the meeting I was leading was interrupted by my manager bursting in to tell me I'd missed a deadline the night before that no one had told me about and wasn't on the calendar and I had 30 minutes to get the report done. The meeting was due to go on for another 70 minutes and we had some important clients in the room 🙃. I started looking for a new job pretty much straight away and they still, 2 years on, haven't found my replacement.

I got a bollocking from my managers manager (even although we were an independent organisation and my boss was theoretically at the top - long story) for allegedly sneaking out 30 mins early after the boss had gone out just before me. I was going to an out of office meeting that was due to run on after my work hours but the managers manager didn’t even consider that. She called me to disciplinary while my actual boss was on annual leave the following week and despite providing evidence in the form of notes taken at the meeting I received a warning for skiving. It was removed as soon as my actual boss returned to clarify that she too had been at the same meeting. I went off on long term sick not long after this never to return again.

I worked in a bank, and we did late night opening one day a week. Two staff members had to be there and lock up etc, if I remember rightly. I was quite junior. One job was to put the bag of 'post' (which was cheques to be sent to clearing, etc) out for the security van.

I forgot!! I totally accept this was unforgiveable and messed all our customers transactions up by a day, plus we had to go through the bag and fast track the big items the next day so lots of extra work. But it was an accident, an oversight.

The manager called me in once it had all been sorted out, and demanded that I promise it would never happen again. I was absolutely mortified and the chances were I would never make the same mistake again. But I couldn't make that promise - it was an accident! I said I would do my absolute best but couldn't 100% promise it would never happen again - and he was furious!

(We never got on after that but he moved to another branch soon after. Funnily enough he sat next to my father at some do years later and was all praise about me - but I know he hated my guts.....).

Call from irate manager:

him: hello
me: hi (sounding as chipper as usual)
him: you don’t sound sick
me: I’m not
him: then why have you called in sick
me: I haven’t

turned out the other 1dontundersstand (person with same first name) had called in sick. IDIOT!

Oh god, I could write a book!!!! Especially within the last few years.

There was Sandwichgate. They moved people around so I didn't have a proper desk, so I was stuck at the back of reception with screens around me. One day I was eating a ham and tomato sandwich innocently at my desk, and got a bollocking for eating there! I didn't believe she could possibly be serious, so soon enough I got caught out again!! I could have understood it if I had been eating smelly food but I wasn't! For a year and a half, I hid my sarnie in my desk drawer, opened it, took a surreptitious bite, and put it back again. No-one was ever harmed by my basic lunch...

Then there was the time I was called "challenging and insubordinate" because I questioned why my flexisheet had to be kept in at unreasonable place when my junior male colleague had his pinned to the noticeboard by his desk...

The 'best' of all has to be the time my manager and I were exchanging emails, although she was a few feet away from me. The initial email had the designation on it but after that I just signed as "Touch" and she signed with just her name. I then got a bollocking for not having put it on my subsequent emails as she had had to look up my extension number to phone me.... you couldn't make it up!!

Before I was a paramedic, I was an A&E admin clerk. The minor injuries bit of my A&E got put out to tender and was taken over by a horrendous private company. I had to go and work for them (tupe transfer, no choice)

I could write an epic post about the stupid stuff we got into trouble for but my personal favourite...

It was decided all staff had to do mandatory CPR training. Bearing in mind, this is a UCC intergrated into an A&E. Staffed, obviously, by nurses, doctors, Paramedics and so on.

Anyway, I rock up to the training and even the doctor who work for us are there- this is basic basic level CPR, not a refresher. Also there is our lead GP who I'd known for years and was previously a very experienced A&E doctor.

The instructor picks on me. Clearly did not sense my "fuck off" vibes. Gets me to stand in front of the class and asks me to do exactly what I'd do if someone collapsed in front of me in the waiting room.

So. I took a deep breath, looked at the lead GP and yelled "ROB!!! SOMEONES COLLAPSED IN THE WAITING ROOM!!!"

Rob laughed. The instructor did not. My boss called me in the next day to bollock me.

Working as a barmaid in my student days in a Working man’s social club (The Workies) Anyone who knows about the clubs will know they are male dominated members clubs, with a ‘Committee’ of club members with Chairman at the head. The Bar, the inner sanctum is/was Men Only. The only women allowed in The Bar were the Stewardess, (Club Manager) the barmaids and cleaners.
Women could use the Big Room (Concert Room) and the Snug.
Bingo books, raffle tickets, blind cards, meat draw tickets were sold throughout the club.
The bar staff could take part in the raffles etc, we bought our books and tickets like everyone else.
One Sunday night I won on the Meat Draw, a line of the bingo and a prize on the raffle. Another barmaid won a full house on the bingo.

One of the Committee men was furious, he couldn’t take our winnings away so he banned us from the bingo. Or he tried to. I was taken into the office with the stewardess where he bollocked me for taking part in the club activities. “It’s members only. You’re not a member. You’re stealing from the members”.

The Stewardess wiped the floor with him. “My staff, my barmaids are employed by the club and nowhere in their contracts does it state they can’t buy ,tickets or bingo books. The members are not affected at all, the staff do their job, they buy the tickets like everyone” .