Please tell me batshit things about your work.

[TheLightSideOfTheMoon]

I am unwell and hunkering down with MN and TT for the day.

I’ve just started a new job (today is a day off), it’s all new, I’m not settling in as well as I’d like (I’ve gone from a tiny place to a HUGE one) and I’m kind of hyper-focussed on different work practices right now.

Funny stories will cheer me up.

I’ll start.

At my new work they use poly pockets/polywallets UPSIDE-DOWN!

They go in upside-down and they slide the paperwork upwards into it.

I find it so, so weird. Each time I look at them I’m like, WTAF?

Anyway, that’s mine. Please share yours. Entertain me with batshitness. I beg you.

Within the last 5 years I have worked somewhere where I dictate letters onto a cassette and the secretary types them, I check for any errors and annotate corrections on with a pen, secretary then reprints it, I then sign and then it goes in the post. And the blank cassette is returned to me to refill next time.

We’ve had the same company intranet for over 20 years. A couple of weeks ago it was changed to a completely different and not intuitive layout. No guidance was given on how to use it, but a demo webinar was booked in almost two weeks after the launch. Today the launch was postponed to a date two weeks from now. We’ll have been using the new intranet for about a month by the time we get the demo. One of the biggest companies in the world and we have a lot of different resources that we rely on intranet links to access. Bonkers, utterly bonkers!

I worked somewhere similar. We used to call them 'the disappeared' 😀
One day they were there, the next gone and never spoken of again.

That’s how I worked in law firm late 90s/early 2000 although not seen it for years. The upset if a tape snapped and you lost everything or Partners would jump queue so everything on your tape out of date. You used to dictate punctuation too.

I thought my branch of government had its challenges but this has made me view my org and colleagues with major appreciation for not being mad or awful.

My first job out of uni was probably the worst - small family business. Job paid £12k (entry level in early 00s). The vile woman who ran it insisted on me having a six-month probation period (with a week's notice for either side), yet when I handed my notice in a week before the six months were up, she screeched that I was "leaving them in the lurch" and refused to pay my remaining holiday pay. Thankfully the accountant was a wonderful lass who went to screechy woman's husband (who I got on well with) and got him to sign it off. Thank you lovely Begoña, wherever you are these days. Vile screechy woman said/did many other things to me and my colleagues but we all drew together and supported each other. I speak out now and don't care if my card is marked. Too old for that shit.

I did a temp job for a very formal firm of lawyers a few years back. It was unwritten policy that everyone signed emails to each other (internally) with a X.

So so odd. But strangely very sweet.

Can confirm!

ive worked in the building/ construction side of this kind of thing

My personal favourite is that, if you need to have, say a high voltage power line moved because you want to build some council houses. The law said you have to competitively tender the works. The law also says it is highly illegal for anyone other than those directly authorised by the owner of the power line to do anything to it.

I’m not totally sure of exactly how it works, but There is an exemption permitted in this kind of case but tor a brief and rather glorious time, whoever was in charge got cold feet about the legality of using said exemption so we were both compelled to and expressly forbidden from tendering the works..

Many years ago ( well the 90s ).

Our bosses would tell all the secretaries to wear something short and sexy when they were entertaining clients!
A women was promoted to associate ( shock horror! ) and when entertaining clients her job was to collect the coats.

Neither of these are funny, obviously, but imagine trying that on now.

Ah someone on a post was going into her new job, in pink with all her new pens etc, you either read it too, or she works with you.

Good luck to her anyway 😊🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

This thread is ace!

Once worked for an absolute megalomaniac owner of a small firm as a copywriter. He was rude, racist, misogynistic and hired all of his dim witted children into director posts (excl. marketing). He was utterly vile to the point that all these years later (I was 22) I find the thought of him completely repugnant.

ANYWAY, he wanted high end marketing (think slick social media campaigns, TV ads, etc) with enormous income as a result, but the marketing budget consisted solely of the salaries of a marketing director and me. Needless to say, he got frustrated with our inability to generate millions of pounds with absolutely no money to spend on actually marketing the firm. I was there for three weeks before he got the marketing director to fire me on Boxing Day and then fired the marketing director about 6 weeks later. I never thought my response to being fired would be unadulterated blissful relief. Luckily, I walked straight back into the job I had left 3 weeks earlier.

On a post yesterday on here

Back in the day when we got paper payslips, our boss used to insist on handing them out personally rather than putting them in our pigeonholes. We had a new secretary who wasn't aware of this, so when they arrived she put them in the pigeonholes. The boss took them all out and handed them round herself.

I’ve worked in a college like this. Very weird. We used to joke when returning from summer break who would have disappeared this time. Gallows humour and all that.

I’ve worked in a college like this. Very weird. We used to joke when returning from summer break who would have disappeared this time. Gallows humour and all that.

For those of you hating Teams then check out together mode next time you have a meeting with webcams on.
i discovered it during a meeting recently and it entertained me the entire time! It basically puts everyone in an auditorium layout and looks ridiculous 😁

We supposedly work as a team but people won't help others out, even if they're not busy, unless a manager asks them. Ironically, if we all worked as team then we'd probably leave early instead of late as the tasks aren't difficult. Just a place half full of jobsworths and lazy gits.The managers wonder why there is such a large turnover.Really?!

I did some temping in a call center, I'd worked in a few but this one they went around all of us listening in on the calls all day. Two ladies

One day they had a power cut and one long term member of staff ran out of his chair to take a break.
These two ladies publicly mocked him for being so keen to have a break.
I tolerated a few days and left. They begged and begged my agency to have me back, i was so good in the phone etc.. I made it clear to the agency I could not work in such a micro managed environment with someone listening into my calls all day.
I also said I could nt work in such an openly bitchy environment

I can't believe some of those behaviors are legal??

@BerylWiddicombe I still dictate onto a cassette tape and my PA types up my dictation for me to check and mark up with a red pen.
We have a dining room for the directors.
After big meetings they have a catered hot lunch in the dining room with a choice of three wines, before going back to their desks for the afternoon.

Our IT Helpdesk will only take help requests via an online system. That means that if your IT issue is that you can’t get online, you have no means of contacting them for help. If the email system is down, they notify all staff. By email.

@BitOutOfPractice throughout this whole thread I'm most intrigued with what the prohibited items were that you had to smuggle from your colleagues drawer?! 🤣

We're not allowed to drink alcohol at our Xmas Parties. New company rule.

@PuttingDownRoots I'm not sure I would have enjoyed leftovers from a grot bag quite so much.

My take on it is that by having their own language, they develop a culture and identity - reinforcing that its more than just a job and is a part of who you are. This means you're far more likely to do whatever you are told in dangerous situations without pausing to question, and it makes you more able to work away from your family etc for many months on a regular basis- because the job is not just a job.

Watching my dad adjust to civilian life after 30 years was tough going, but as it was he ended up working as a civilian contractor for another countries navy and volunteering for a maritime charity - so never really left it all behind!

Many years ago now but when I worked in a pharmacy whilst I was in sixth form I used to
be paid in cash. They’d put my pay in a prescription bag on the shelves with all
the medications and I had to go and look for it.

I think we work in the same place! Our office IT support guy sits a couple of desks away but can’t help with issues unless I raise a ticket. We can however submit requests by phone but we don’t have phones, only MSTeams (which is no good if you laptop ain’t working) so every new starter has to be told to put the IT Helpdesk number in their mobile and those of us with work mobiles often lend them those who don’t so they can call IT!