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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To challenge you all to name a stupider co-worker than mine?

184 replies

BossyBitch · 02/10/2017 19:24

I'm a project manager and have recently had a new person join the team. They need to be given various user accounts and access privileges, and there's a system for requesting all that.

I delegated the task of requesting all the stuff to one of my team supervisors - he might not be the brightest crayon in the box but the whole procedure consists of filling in a web-based form, uploading a passport picture and hitting the 'submit' button. What could possibly go wrong, right?

Imagine my reaction when I got an e-mail requesting that, in my function as the new joiner's manager, I supply a passport picture ...

... as opposed to the phone snapshot of an actual passport that my genius co-worker had sent to them!

And, no, he wasn't taking the piss, he actually is that bloody thick! Angry

Please tell me there's worse out there!

OP posts:
Nettletheelf · 02/10/2017 21:30

Why was the sample-toting medic stupid? Irritating possibly, but I'm not seeing why he was stupid.

Idrinkandiknowstuff · 02/10/2017 21:33

The Burger King/ Wyboston thing is an old joke, it’s appeared in various forms in a few places.

To challenge you all to name a stupider co-worker than mine?
glenthebattleostrich · 02/10/2017 21:34

My boss phoned me in a panic because he'd put the wrong fuel in his car. Had to call the AA, get the car towed and fixed. It was the third time he'd done this.

Another time (pre mobile phone bans) he told me he had to go as he was about to crash the car (no one was hurt thankfully).

This man was the transport manager, responsible for a fleet of a few thousand vehicles.

SoPassRemarkable · 02/10/2017 21:34

Because anyone who is trained in venepuncture should know that retrospective labelling of samples is majorly risky for the patients and against hospital policy.

SoPassRemarkable · 02/10/2017 21:36

idrinkandiknowstuff

Maybe they were winding me up then, I swear they said it happened to them!

highinthesky · 02/10/2017 21:37

BossyBitch?

No shit!

BMW6 · 02/10/2017 21:39

I used to work for HMRC and for a while was training new staff.
One asked me "this job doesn't involve maths and stuff much does it?"
The same girl couldn't work out 10% of £100 even using a calculator - she kept jabbing at random keys...... Hmm
Shows just how effective our competence based recruitment was.

She didn't make it through the probation period.

NewLove · 02/10/2017 21:39

Why was the sample-toting medic stupid? Irritating possibly, but I'm not seeing why he was stupid.

It's a major cause of patient samples being mixed up.

A humous vid indicating how lethal it can be

Original poster
BossyBitch · 02/10/2017 21:39

Okay, so Sunday Times Person, while obviously a bit bonkers, sounds kind of brilliant! I want to meet them! Grin

OP posts:
SoPassRemarkable · 02/10/2017 21:41

I also know someone who was training to be a midwife who received a baby at a section. Procedure for this woman required a paed to be present at the birth. Student midwife took the baby to the paed at the resuscitaire to be checked over as it wasn't pink and screaming.

She put the baby face up but head up to the wall on the resus. They're meant to go in feet first so that head is facing into the room so the doctors can work on them if needed. Paed looked at the student and said "other way round". Student picked the baby up and turned it over face down on the resuscitaire.

She told me this herself and was laughing at herself for being so daft!

fakenamefornow · 02/10/2017 21:41

Has Teresa May posted yet?

londonista · 02/10/2017 21:43

Fake ... 😁

I’ll look out for “asking for a friend”.

Starwhisperer · 02/10/2017 21:50

Very DM friendly thread that could, I assume, get OP in hot water at work. Who's the thicko now?

FridgeCut · 02/10/2017 21:53

I once had a lecturer that used to project onto a whiteboard and then annotate it. Except for one week, the whiteboard had been moved (it was a great big thing on wheels) and he didn't notice and wrote on the wall. He only realised when he went to rub it out. Now that was a bad day at work.

GabsAlot · 02/10/2017 21:55

not a work thing but a waitress

asked for a wine spritzer-sorry dont know what that is

its wine and lemonade

yes she brought a glass of wine and a glass of lemonade

onceandneveragain · 02/10/2017 21:59

witchend - I agree. I passed my driving test aged 17, then renewed my passport a few months later, using the same photos. Ten years later I had to renew my driver's license photocard and did it online "Oh here's an option to just use my passport photo, that's much easier and cheaper than going to get some new photos done, great."

Except now it's come back I have realised that my driver's license (which I use as my main form of ID - not so much for alcohol any more sadly but just for anything that needs photo ID and/or address) will have my 17 year old face until I am 37!

Incidentally I then had to renew my passport a few months later and it wouldn't let me do it the other way round, so I have aged on that!

Nettletheelf · 02/10/2017 21:59

How could the anonymous OP, posting about anonymous colleagues, possibly get into hot water at work?

ps HAHAHAHA at 'has Teresa May posted yet'.

Longdistance · 02/10/2017 22:01

I trained this new guy. He was just awful. It was a customer service position, and he was.

Every day was like his first day. We tried everything with him to support him, but it just wasn't happening.

One day we were talking about how to deal with customers, and to include some small talk. You guessed it, he googled small talk Confused

This is a guy that had a finance and business degree, who didn't even know what an ISA was...erm...

He did eventually get the sack, but not without putting up a fight. He thought he was doing really well Confused

MCBeatsandGrindah · 02/10/2017 22:02

fake now that would be outing!

"Has anyone else mistakenly called for an election? Can't just have been me?!"

londonista · 02/10/2017 22:04

Nettleleaf, yes I thought the same. Some people failing to grasp the whole ‘anonymous’ thing.

Unless OP has been thick and used her OWN NAME as her username ... who could you be so stupid Ms Bossy Bitch?! Grin

TroysMammy · 02/10/2017 22:05

In work with a cold a co-worker was doing the tea run. I put some ribena in my mug and said "could I have some hot water in that please?"

She gave me my mug which just had hot water in it. She had emptied out my ribena!

ememem84 · 02/10/2017 22:09

I needed to print some documents once and asked colleague to collect from printer and start putting them together for signing.
She came back and said that the printer was out of paper. I suggested she put more in.

She sat at her desk for a while and when I asked about the paper she said it was ok she’d printed some “new” pages from word....new blank pages.

Judydreamsofhorses · 02/10/2017 22:13

This isn't especially funny, but I realised I had lost a student's project which should have been in a box with the rest of his class's work. I went through every single file for every other module in case it had ended up in the wrong place, then got all my colleagues (four people) to do the same with their student work. I was frantic because it was a hard-copy only submission. Eventually one of my colleagues found it, in the box it was supposed to be in. I was NOT popular.

Bluelonerose · 02/10/2017 22:15

When I worked in a shop a co worker once asked me why we always held notes up to the light.
She had been doing it 6 months and had no idea why.

Alloftheboys · 02/10/2017 22:18

Company was making 400 odd staff redundant at our offices. They'd decided that they could get people to do the same job cheaper 80ish miles further north.
Went up with a few others to train out replacements.
One girl asked "how many 0's in 1000?"
Another bloke stole an iPhone (when they'd just come out) from one of the other trainers. We found it on him when I called my friends phone. It had been missing for about 30 mins and was well hidden in his stuff so we didn't believe him when he claimed he was going to hand it in!

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