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.

This wasn’t a job, it was an interview for a job that I didn’t get.

Village primary interviewing for a new TA. There were four candidates and we were each detailed off with a pair of year six children, who were to show us around the school.

The school was the sort of place that had been extended over the years and there was a sort of circular corridor route around classrooms and Portakabins.

As we passed a particular classroom where a young male teacher was writing on the board ( We could see in through long windows ) the little girl of my pair of children said ‘ Oh I suppose Mr X has seen me and he’ll come out and chase me. He always does.’
Before I could respond to this surprising remark the male teacher abandoned his class, rushed towards us to the door, the little girl took to her heels and he rushed after her along the corridor.

They ran out of sight and I did not see her again. The little boy left alone with me said awkwardly that he supposed we better go back to the office so we did.
I described this event to the panel of governors who were interviewing me later that afternoon. They did not seem particularly interested in this, or me, and I did not get the job.

Towergate? I work in insurance and have heard things about them.

Worked for a health authority in the early 1990s as a PA and when I started we still used typewriters and everything had two carbon copies (pink and blue) which were filed in ring binders.

When we switched to word processors the MD's PA still insisted on printing off a copy of every single piece of correspondence and filing it in a ring binder.

I've worked in ad agencies my whole career. I've worked in places with free food, free posh hot drinks, free booze, free gifts, free nights out, free coke (not the fizzy kind), a free beach INSIDE the office and free massages.

I have yet to work in an ad agency with a fully functioning HR department.

😱😱😱😱😱

I used to work in a high street shop where they would get deliveries of confectionary that had to be laid out on the shop floor according to a planogram designed by head office. If something arrived on delivery that wasn’t on the planogram then it wasn’t allowed to go out on display, so we would have boxes and boxes of sweets upstairs in the stock room going out of date. Once they passed their sell by date they were then binned.
I once thought I was using my initiative by putting out some of these sweets on a shelf in the confectionary area that had sat empty for a month, so that customers could buy them. I got into trouble with a visiting regional manager because they weren’t on the blasted planogram!!
Better still, on our busiest day of the year 24th december, our entire easter chocolate delivery would arrive. I would then be told to remove all of the christmas sweets and put out the easter delivery. We would have confused customers on christmas eve afternoon looking for chocolate santas, only to find easter eggs in the place where they had been displayed for the last two months. totally bonkers!!

I'm liking this!
When there is a lull in work, and everything is quiet, he should try shouting "Splice the mainbrace!" and see what happens. They might hand out tots of rum and lime juice to everyone.

Another civil servant here. I work 24 per week over 5 days so my working day is 4 hours and 46 minutes. 🙄😄

Yes, I use my mouse with my left hand so that my right is free for writing.

I started doing this because my right hand hurt after using a mouse for a few years.

I then realised that it makes more sense to use my mouse with my left hand.

Not sure what I will do if my left hand starts hurting but it hasn't for nearly 30 years so hopefully it will be ok.

Send her a thank you card.

Dear former colleague,

I just want to thank you for all your valuable feedback from my time working at X. It really helped me refine what sort of role I should look for and I’m now happily employed in a less stressful and incredibly rewarding position. I wouldn’t have considered leaving X without your involved management.

It looks like such a nice thing for you to do, but she’ll be seething.

Years ago I worked in the office of a large electrical distributor. There were a number of in house training courses and we were encouraged to sign up. At the last minute, on my manager's instruction, I had to cancel the time management course 'because I didn't have time'.

I worked for a company that got taken over by an oil company.

New rules included:

Everyone had to reverse park and be facing bonnet out in a work parking space.

Everyone had to file travel plans for ANY journey.

The first was understandable for a quick escape from an oil field about to blow. The second understandable in the oil fields in remote deserts.

Both much less so between Manchester and Crewe. Or in small-town Cheshire.

It was changed...

You have to pick up your phone with the same hand as her?

That is absolutely batshit crazy!
What happens if you don't?!

@PuttingDownRoots you have reminded me of when my then DP was a submariner. He leant me the book "Don't cry for me Sgt Major" which was about all the forces being involved in the Falklands. The descriptions of who won over how to describe the Mess, or whatever the Navy call in, and the RAF etc, were absolutely hilarious. Well worth a read for your DH if he hasn't already. As you were. I'm going off to think of some of my own.

That is excellent and I wish I had done that at the time - is it too late do you think? I am still angry at what she did and how insidious it was. I am mid 50's, very confident, had virtually the same experience in the niche industry that she did but she literally told me what to think and do. You could not reason with her, she had been there over 30 years and it was her way or the high way despite hiring talent for their experience. She ground me down to such a low level I spent the last month sobbing about it, the other colleague (albeit not truthfully I don't think as she alluded to playing the game to get out asap without serving notice) told HR it was making her so distressed she tried to take her own life.

So, HR had loads of complaints yet she is still there spreading her toxicity far and wide. It angers me so much that people are allowed to get away with it despite evidence and HR depts. They paid off me, the other lady and about 4 other women, it must be costing them a fortune.

This is so weird!! How long have you put up with this for? You definitely need to leave

I work in shopping centre mid mall stalls, the shopping centre's are all ran in very different ways and are their own little kingdom's.
Most managers are ok but a few are very strict, one made all the staff in the mid mall units pay 20p every time they use the toilets, the same for the general public. The management were unhappy when anyone left the unit even for 5 minute toilet break and the guards would come down and give us warnings.
During covid restrictions we had to wear masks but as it was 9-6 sometimes I would pull it down as it got uncomfortable but centre guards would see on the cameras and come down and tell me off even though there was often no one around me for 10 - 20m.

Yes, I have experienced this. Your poor colleagues and you, such a toxic culture.
I watched someone target multiple people. When it happened to my friend she said ‘it will be you next.’ Sure enough, it was then me that was targeted. I quit and found a much better job but can see how those things have such an impact on you.

My first job was as a Saturday girl in a cafe.

Filling rolls in the morning, the filling that always got me was cream cheese and onion. Simple enough, except it was chopped onion, cheddar cheese, and the whipped cream left over from yesterday's puds. Mix and then pound to buggery, I still make it for myself every now and then.

Oh yes and clearing the tables, you trundled down the twin row of tables with a trolley, collecting plates scrapping the food into a clear bucket and rinsing the ash trays in a bucket of water. Which was just disgusting and stunk. While people ate their creamy cheese and onion rolls.

@PuttingDownRoots
Perhaps I should have added a few at the end of my post, I'd hate your DH to get fifty lashes for insubordination or inciting mutiny, because of my joke.

I started my new job on Monday. There's a man In the office wearing slippers.....in financial services

Having recently had an episode of gout myself, I can think of at least one set of circumstances that might account for this.

HR are often there to hide the bodies, not prevent them.

In my current situation watching Mrs D get pushed out of her job, the HR Advisor seems to be assisting the bullying witch of the woman who heads the department as it makes her feel part of the Exec team. I've since learnt that witch is a friend of the CEO. Perhaps this is how these toxic environment are allowed to exist.

My job is outside rather than in an office, I'm a self-employed gardener with a number of clients who I've got to know well. Apart from gardening I get asked to do all sorts and generally just do them as it's all billable. When everything was closed in 2020, I was asked by a client's partner to cut his hair as it was getting unruly and her arthritis meant she couldn't hold the scissors. She asked me by email which I'm really glad of because my reaction was a very loud 'WTF!' and then howling with laughter. I thought about it for a while and emailed her back saying okay, I'd give it a go, then watched some hairdressing videos and got myself some nice new scissors. When the time came, I did my best and it actually turned out pretty well. A regular request is to cut up a cat's 'Taste the Difference' steak.

Other requests include taking people to hospital or picking them up from hospital; doing shopping; washing someone's hair; helping them dress and collecting prescriptions. I'm also a receiver of some very personal stories and have been told 'I've never told anyone this before' on several occasions.

Working for a HR department if we hit our daily target we were allowed to pick something to take home from the treat cupboard containing bottles of wine, tins of Celebrations, Ferrero Rocher, fancy biscuits etc.

I took wine home every day 😎
We also were given gift vouchers in addition to extra pay for working overtime. Job was a piece of piss tbh.