Ever been accused of something ludicrous at work?

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Inspired by a current thread.
I was once accused , by another regional admin, of leaving to do the school run every Friday. She emailed the GM and cc'd me in. All because I wasnt avaliable on to take her call on 2 occasions.
I didn't get into trouble because -
I was office based in sight of our GM.
My DC were both in Uni at the time.
The reason I wasnt at my desk was because this was the era of manual tape computer backups and 3pm on a friday was when the secure storage came to collect them.
...and as it turned out SHE was the one sneaking out early !

This is utterly disgusting. I don't blame you for handing in your notice.

Watching porn at work.

I was like 😮 WTF? Of course I haven’t.

What had actually happened, one of my bosses , some colleagues and I were talking about a show that was happening at a local theatre - comedians “roasting” each other - and I looked it up on my computer (in front of him)

My other boss (his wife), checking my internet history later, saw ‘roasting’ and decided I was watching porn - despite the fact that it was clearly from our local newspaper’s website - not known for pornographic articles. Didn’t bother to click on the link or anything to check, just screen shot it.

We had the most awkward meeting where I had no idea what she was talking about and she showed a screen shot of this link she’d seen. We ended up hunting through my internet history, finding the entry she was talking about. Clicked on it, taking us to the local newspaper article, My other boss suddenly remembers us all talking about it and me looking it up. She got all huffy and stormed off. Never did apologise

Accused of having an eating disorder as they "never see me eat at work". 🙄
Intermittent fasting.

I was hauled into my managers office because I was 'too happy'. We were mid-merger which was making everyone miserable but I was just merrily getting on with work which apparently was a mortal sin. Turns out it was just a really grumpy woman who was bffs with the manager. She also complained I was always browsing the internet (sometimes I had to Google how to do things on excel) and singing (entirely possible but just tell me to shut up?!)

Stealing from petty cash to pay my car insurance - I couldn’t drive and didn’t own a car.

Performance managing a guy who just couldn't do the job. In a meeting with him, HR and my boss. Following the meeting he wrote complaints about us all. The main one against me was that I had pushed my hand in his face to stop him talking - except A) it was mid COVID , the 4 of us were in a massive meeting room and all about 10 feet apart so impossible unless I was Mrs Incredible and B) everyone else in the room ( myself included) completely missed it happening.

It didn't go further

I was accused of being 'over emotional' because I got pissed off the company offered a pay rise for further roles then retracted them once the jobs were accepted... TWiCE!
I was accused of timing my pregnancy to get Christmas leave.
And I was accused of being homophobic because I mentioned I was going to a friend's wedding and looked forward to seeing the dresses she and her wife to be had picked as they had similar tastes.
Ridiculous.
Vowed never to work for a big corporate business again

I was told off for throwing paper balls in overtime. Apparently my miserly colleague saw me do it and told my boss who wasn't there. Which is funny because I also wasn't there. In fact I was 100 miles away on a trip with my mum, didn't work that day (not to mention not actually being in the habit of titting about throwing stuff at work) and I had the photos to prove i was miles away. They could obviously also check ID pass entry and the computer systems etc if they really wanted. Apparently I was seen though so still had to be told not to muck around in the office. Although I obviously wasn't seen, since I wasn't even there I was a lot younger then so didn't fight the ridiculousness of it.

For refusing to work Christmas Day. I worked in the control room of a water company and it was expected that from time to time your shift fell on a religious or bank holiday. I had every intention of doing it.

It was the final straw in a long list of issues. I handed my notice in the following day....AND left a week before Christmas!

I once had a 4 page (tiny handwriting with no paragraphs) complaint made against me. Amongst the many allegations was that I 'treated him like he was my toy poodle".

He didn't report to me but to a manager who did, so I didn't have a lot of dealings with him other than monthly all departmental staff meetings.

Unfortunately he withdrew the complaint when the investigator assigned contacted him to set up a meeting for more information. So I never did find out what he meant.

As far as I could recall I've never one asked him to sit, stay or roll over, and his work performance wasn't enough to warrant being called a good boy.

I was accused of gross misconduct for posting on Facebook that I had made 2 people cry in 1 day. Someone else made a comment about work but it was me who got investigated.

The 2 people were my parents after telling them inwas pregnant. I had been told at 16 I couldn't have children so it was a huge shock. I was 7 weeks and had to provide scans and medical evidence to back it up. They still tried to discipline me whilst i was signed off sick by their own OT (hg and pgp) and again whilst i was on maternity because I didn't turn up to meetings and trainings which funnily enough I knew nothing about.

I resigned rather than go back there!

Stealing a passport to be clear I was a cleaner in several office buildings it was vastly under quoted timewise so I literally ran the job start to finish these people were FILTHY they literally got the clean desk clean floors loos and kitchen no extras like windows etc I simply didn't have the time they were also disorganised they left out company checkbooks computor passwords payroll passwords car keys signed insurance documents (just fill in the name and file) documents it was ridiculous and they decided I had stolen a passport....I demanded a supervisor come with me as I was no longer comfortable working there they said no no keep working there they just want their passport back I said that's impossible because I've not taken it the supervisor came out to work with me all the time saying good grief how do you do this in the time? Why are they so messy? How do they even know a passport is missing in this mess? and comments like that I never worked there again last I heard they struggled to get anyone to take it over

I could have taken so much stuff from there (I didn't though obviously) and they decided I took a passport seriously wtf do you do with someone else's passport?

Many years ago when I was a new teacher, a pathetic colleague looked inside my students' exercise books (why?) and reported me for teaching witchcraft. WTAF? I was teaching Macbeth. I know this doesn't sound true, but it really happened, the complete jerk. The Head did not take this complaint seriously.

Working in a crappy office job in my early 20s, helping to clear out their stationary and conference packing materials room before an office move (something I shouldn't have been doing anyway under my job description). Before we even start to clear, everything had been stacked precariously on rickety shelving units or in piles.

A particularly mean office manager flounces in to check on progress, and in doing so crashes the door into one of the shelving units - causing a large box of equipment to topple down on her. I'm sat on the opposite side of the room dutifully packing staplers into a cardboard box, just as shocked as she is... She accused me of setting it up as a prank and stormed out!

She later complained but changed her story to me throwing the box at her (??) She was more or less laughed out of the room.

The pettiest ever was a woman who was the same grade as me, went into my files, which she had no reason to do, and complained to the manager that if I had tried to call a client and they hadn’t answered the phone I’d left a note saying ‘called x at x time, no answer, message left on answerphone’ and she thought the note should be ‘called x at x time, voicemail left’ it literally made zero difference, the information wasn’t collated anywhere or used for anything, it was purely if a client complained we hadn’t called them you could look in the file and say ‘we left you a message on x day’. And the manager actually talked to me about it??? She got sacked in the end and she deserved it.

Had a co worker try and get me in trouble for bullying, as I didn't want to be her friend.
She was one of those who gave off 'my shit don't stink' vibes, so I avoided her from my first day.

I didn't speak badly of her, worked cooperatively, but she was upset that I wasn't "trying to integrate" when what she really meant was I had made friends quickly with some of the others, but not her.
She was most put out when my boss said we were there to work, not to socialize!

I was constantly criticised for underperforming. Apparently I was only at 98% and it wasn't good enough.

Then I was put on a disciplinary for poor quality work in some quarterly returns. This went on until someone else pointed out that I hadn't even done the work because I was actually on leave when it was done. They listened to her where they hadn't listened to me. And I got an apology from my head of department made in front of the whole team.

I left sometime after that. But it was utter shit.

Someone working in the same building accused a colleague and I of racism, because we thought it was unprofessional that he smoked weed in the grounds of an children's educational facility during working hours, and that he kept bringing new partners to work.

He was not of an ethnicity stereotyped for smoking weed or sleeping around.

Employer refused to investigate to find out the facts. Colleague and I both quit.

Last I heard they had to replace us 2 with 4 roles, and 3 of them had left within a year.

I was accused of using the works phone to call my brother in the US when they received the phone bill with lots of long distance calls costing a fortune.The time of the calls was just after 9am and I pointed out that it was the middle of the night over there. It turned out that one of the directors had got a Thai bride and was using the work phone to call her every day, but didn't tell anyone.

I was accused of leaving the building to take my lunch break (true), and arriving and leaving on time (also true). Office job in a bank, not client facing, not in the least bit service critical. I had no words, left soon after, but not soon enough.

I'm trying to imagine how that meeting went 😂

Once got hauled over the coals for answering the phone when I was obviously eating.

I was eating.
I was on my lunch break, sitting at my desk, eating my lunch. Phone on divert.

Some high up was trying to get hold of me, and somehow got switchboard to override my phone divert, I answered the phone, answered the query, hung up and finished my lunch.

High up complained to my bully of a boss and got told off for eating and answering the phone and not to do it again. So from then on I left the office at lunchtime. And yes you guessed it - got told off when I wasn't available over lunchtime.

You just can't please some people

I was accused of racism. It really upset me that her lies could end my career. Thankfully I had an email trail that showed she was lying plus my director was a witness. She accused 8 separate people (all people who were great advocates for equality and truly awesome people). But there’s no smoke without fire so I wonder if people who don’t know me still believe the lies.

I was hauled in over American politics

It was about the time abortion was made illegal and my male teenage colleague was winding my manager up about how women shouldn't open their legs in the first place (he was an idiot and has now left)

This wound her up and she started telling him to do one and to grow up

So of course,he started on about how women should live in the kitchen,where they belong and she lost it

Just as I walked past,heard a bit of the conversation and quietly agreed with her but said that she might want to shut the conversation down as it's not really appropriate at work-if I heard her,customers certainly could and I walked away

A few days later,I'm hauled in and was told never to discuss american politics again at work or I'd be in trouble-it had been such a non conversation,I didn't even remember having it

Another one was my (one of those 'my shit doesn't stink' and a bully) manager

My ds had come to see me and she took a dislike to him for no reason at all

She called him a 'mucky black wog' to his face and we both complained

I was hauled in and told not to 'rat on her like this again','she wouldn't say anything so foul' and 'to stop rocking the boat'

A big deal was made about how he'd asked for a fresh milkshake as the syrup had ran out and his shake had no flavour-could he please have a fresh one?

Apparently he had no right as a paying customer to request a new one and should have put up and shut up

I laughed,stood up and walked out-I left them in the crap as they couldn't retain staff for long (wonder why?)

I heard she was quietly 'let go' a few months later-she'd been shagging the male manager and his wife and her husband found out