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.

I worked for a well known charity in an admin office, the office manger insisted on keeping the blinds shut saying she hated natural light. We weren’t allowed to wear perfume of any kind (apart from boss orange) as she had ‘perfume sensitivity’ and we also had to avoid strong smelling shampoos etc. I once got a bollocking and accused of spraying perfume…She also decorated the office with her tat - think gothy figurines and pictures, postcards etc. all over every wall. Her grownup children were in another country, she had the most disturbing habit of hiring young 20’s staff and then choosing one to be her work ‘son’ or ‘daughter’. Absolutely mental.

Mrs D went to HR for advice. Our dept HR advisor isn't as senior as my manager and bends over backwards to suck up to her (as to appear part of the Exec team) so Mrs D has now been asked to report to HR every day before starting her job and to report when she leaves - how demeaning is that?! My manager has convinced HR that Mrs D is 'problematic'.

It's so crazy that nobody can see that in the last 6 weeks she's had problems with 3 separate members of her staff.

I may be wrong but I've also heard that she's a friend of the CEO. She mentioned that they worked together at X.

I worked in a civil service department - not in UK - and the working day started at 9.30. At 10.30am the entire effing building would leave their desks, troop about 200 yards down the road to a couple of pubs and have coffee and biscuits. Whole thing took 45 mins bringing you pretty close to lunchtime. Some people did it in the afternoon. It was insane.

😂😂😂

My manager says that mental health problems are “all in your head” and won’t accept team members dr notes for these. She insists on using the wrong chemicals in the glass washer so we have rampant ecoli in it and she’s been told many times it’s not ok. Our bin store has visible bacteria growing over the floor.

Yes!!! She’s an accountant, I’m an accountant, we’re all accountants!!
How did you guess? Was it my description of our dull clothes and dreary office?

No matter she’s brightened up the place now with her highlighters, so many rainbow highlighters.....They’re everywhere.

I used to work in a clothes shop where the managers loved harassing the shop assistants (SA).
They would stand a short distance away from an SA, watching, frowning and crossing their arms, waiting for the SA to do anything they could be told off for. Then they would move off to another part of the room and do that to someone else.

Some of the things they expected of us included:

• SA must greet every single customer who walks through the door, using a friendly but loud voice. Other customers already in the store would look round thinking we were mad
• If you have a customer talking to you, you are somehow also not allowed to have any unfolded clothes in your vicinity at the same time. You are supposed to fold whilst talking to the customer, even if the folded item is on the row or two behind where you both are standing, you should go to it while talking and fold it. No of course this won't put the customer off 👀
• Do not ask where specific items are or how to do a specific task or else you will get a disciplinary. You will not know about this consequence until it happens to you.
• Stay in the shop and find other things to tidy, even if you have finished your shift and your section. No one is allowed to leave until everything is tidy.

That's just prompted me to find out if you can change the Teams ringtone. You can. They're almost all as bad as each other but I've changed from the Default to the rather more jaunty "Ripple".

If you want to change it, click on the 3 dots next to your initials/avatar then the cogwheel icon for settings. Click on calls and you should be able to choose your ringtone.

My boss insists on printing out all her emails, the whole trail including the bit at the end that says 'please consider the environment before printing this email' One sided as well!🙄And then I'm the one who gets accused of using too much ink and paper...

Short or non existent breaks in a 12 hour day. Typing this from the loo. Long7 day weeks. One week leave a year. Have to be available 24/7 that week by phone or email.
co worker can be a grumpy bollox.
self employed with husband!

How beautifully civilised 😁

In an old job there was a part time member of staff who regularly emailed about ridiculous things such as a missing snack from the staff room, or her coffee mug being moved. I was relieved when I left.

Most people at our firm have a three month notice period (mine 6 months!) Officially a shorter notice period can be negotiated but the bosses always say no and enforce it. Cue three months of completely unengaged employee turning up late, doing barely any work whilst being paid in full. Oh and chatting to contemporaries about their great new job and higher salary (guess what happens next!)

I worked in an office where you weren't allowed to talk. It was hell. The lads used to secretly play games to make the days go more quickly. One was who could disappear to the bathroom for the longest. Or who could sit there doing no work whatsoever for the longest.

Worst job I've ever had.

I wish i had the energy to tell you about my job. Its batshit. All men at the top and then me - they are vile ladder climbers, suck ups and generally egotistical maniacs. I am pretty straightforward, if i have a problem, ill tell you. They all make up stories, lies about me and other junior colleagues and turn everyone against each other. GROWN MEN.

A batshit lerson.

Years ago I worked somewhere where things were put in polypockets. I completed a body of work; my boss had approved it but it had to go to someone on another team for final approval. She was my grade but had a different job and delusions of grandeur After a week, a couple of days before the deadline, it came back as not approved. My boss was a stunned as I was, so arranged a meeting with the other person. She told us there wasnt enough information for her to check - as she saidthsat she flipped through the folder and waved at one pocket as an example. My boss just quietly took the folder off her and removed the contents of the polypocket and spread papers out on her desk. The numpty had spent over a week just looking at the cover sheets.

I used to work somewhere where you had to bring your own pen to work! They wouldn't provide them, I thought they were joking when they told me.

That's also not entirely batshit. When DH worked at a big chemical company (and he's heard of others likewise) they had rules about stairs etc. This was because 'working time accidents' are rightly a big deal in those companies, and they'd found that most accidents at work were actually due to daft things like stairs.

When I first started my current job there was a chap who insisted on being the one to take notes at every single meeting, and often produced them for non meetings that he thought should be meetings . He’d write every one in the exact same style, very very formally. So we’d have a brief conversation in the office , and an hour later minutes would pop up on our email saying “Mr Bloggs proposed that we change to Tetley tea bags in the canteen, this was seconded by Miss Smith. Spend from petty cash approved by Mr Bloggs, to be actioned by Mrs Jones by close of play Friday the 31st.”

I used to work in a place where everyone was known as Mr , Miss or Mrs Firstname and you had to use this at all times. It was like 1935 there. In the ( open ) office we had to say ' excuse me Miss Sophie , have you got those invoices for Mr Paul? ' etc.
Quaint for about ten minutes.

We had a new member of staff start and her desk was in an office of seven people. On her second day we came in to find that she had come in early, moved her desk to face the wall and stuck mirror tiles along the wall to enable her to watch the office. It was quite unnerving to look up and see her in the tiles, staring at you. She didn't last long.

Clever, @Iloverockntroll (and/or I spend too much time on mumsnet…)!

I love this! 😂

Yep. I worked with one recently. She had a more rigid MO though and tended to pick off women. A colleague left due to her consistent bullying, gas lighting, micro managing harassment and as she slammed the door behind I said (and predicted) that I would be her next victim. I was right and left 6mths later.

I should thank her though because I’ve got a much better job now, far less workload and stress and a huge pay rise.