AIBU to ask you to cheer me up with your first day at work horror stories?

[roconnell]

First day at my new retail job today. Absolute shit show. Weird colleagues, endless improvement 'feedback' which was just management telling me to smile. I constantly felt like I was in the wrong place and doing the wrong thing. I'm feeling pretty deflated. I hope tomorrow is better.

AIBU to ask you to regale me with your horrible first day at work stories? Please come and cheer me up

My very first office job, on the first day, I was asked to fax a three page document to about 25 different clients. I just got to the end, having never used the fax machine before, or in fact never shown how to use it, and was told “Did you know you are faxing those upside down?” 25 clients received three neat blank pages.

I wore a purple dress. When I walked into the massive shared office I realised it was exactly the same colour as the carpets and chairs and desk dividers. Talk about blending in!!! I was mortified.

On my first day working in a restaurant I took fries topped with cheese and bacon bits to a vegetarian who hadn't eaten meat in 11 years. I didn't know the table numbers properly and got mixed up, and she ate them. She cried, I cried, it was grim. Still not sure how she didn't know what bacon looked like though.

first day of my previous job - In a fabric-warehouse type place - They - the 3 ladies I was working with - set me up working a fabric rolling machine - got told they'd be taking smoke break and they disappeared for 20 min. They came back, showed me the order system, disappeared for 20min, came back showed me some other stuff - you got it...

I left after 3 hours. Never went back.

Sitting at my new desk, with my boss next to me, talking me through some procedures. All is going well, I print out a sheet of instructions (the printer was low down and to my right, my boss was on that side of me) leaned down and over to pick up said paper from printer, chair decided that angle didn't work - wheels slid out from under me, I landed on my backside, the chair still under me , with my boss staring at me open mouthed, me doing the splits so he's looking at me through my legs. I was thankfully wearing trousers. The only thing that was damaged was my pride. Six years ago now and we laugh about it sometimes.

I've got a few.

Stuck in a lift with other people, we were all starting in a new role that day. Lift engineer comes out after 1 hour in there, he prides the doors open, takes one look and shouts for all to hear, "yes it's definitely overloaded!"

Our pops a very large me, one other lady who was quite big and a tiny size 6/8 teenager. We made a spectacular entrance to the training room that had the other 35 people who took the stairs. Only 1hr45mins late.

Another new job, I crashed my car in to another car when it stopped, actually on a roundabout, for no food reason. Was 30 mins late for first day.

And another job, day 3, I was driving and a man ran out from behind a bus and I hit him. He bounced and I burst in to tears. He did star jumps to prove he was ok, as I was imagining looking his mum in the eye. I got DH to leave work, give me his car, and stay with mine to sort out a tow, windscreen shattered, bonnet dented and so on. I was only doing 10mph but he was a big guy. I was 20 mins late.

First day in a cake shop, my very first job, and I trumped behind the counter when no one was there, then the owner walked through and complained the drains were smelling.

Shoelaces I feel I speak for everyone when I say I think it's ok if you want to stop working completely

Not me but my friend on her first day of teacher training.

She gets to school, brill. She tries to sign in, none of the staff seem to have her name on their systems. Thats fine, sometimes happens with new temporary staff.
Gets to lunch time and she has over 10 missed calls from her uni supervisor and messages of 'where the hell are you?'

Turns out she went to the wrong fucking school. Wrong school were actually quite sad to see her leave

In this job I arrived to be told the woman I was hired to provide support to had resigned.

then the owner walked through and complained the drains were smelling

I did a terrific smell once in my boss's loo (he worked from home) there were some builders there at the time and they spent the day ribbing the youngest lad as they thought it was him

I wore leggings under a short dress/tunic. When I got home I realised that those new leggings were much thinner than my usual ones. No wonder everybody popped into my office to introduce themselves, and there was I thinking “but what a wonderfully friendly department this is!”

Big boss ordered me to write something on the whiteboard, and be quick about it. So I did.
A week later we discovered that the pen I grabbed in my haste had been a permanent marker

Walked through the entire floor of head office with skirt tucked into underwear.

Thanks Apocalypse. I've just started my own business actually!! Feeling a bit relieved if I'm honest. Will notify all road users in my area when I leave my house though...

First day on the job. Wrote a couple of letters to be sent out. Passed them to the team admin to please post out.
The next day the admin lady gleefully informs me that the entire team had put in a formal group complaint about me to the service manager as apparently you have to post out your own letters.

Why didn’t they just tell me that?!

First day on the dialysis unit.. training was cancelled as I was the only one to turn up. Got to the unit and was shown round, watched someone fix up the machines and was trying to take it in.

The woman Patient I was talking to suddenly jumped and literally ripped her central line completely out. I hadn't got changed yet into uniform and I just jumped on her chest, putting pressure on her artery that was bleeding everywhere, my mentor had left the room and i was just shouting for help he came back in to see me practically sat on her chest covered in blood crying.

Apparently she had a habit of doing it but he didn't think she'd do it whilst I was with her. No warning no heads up. I completely ruined my jeans and it set the tone for the six months I worked there. It was dreadful!

Oh she was fine btw

First day in my new job; I had flown to the US for training for 6 weeks. They kindly arranged a hire car to be at the hotel for me on arrival so I could drive to the office the next morning. As I get in the car, I'm still parked with engine off, another car reversed into me and totalled the car. Had to go to the new office and say thanks for the car, but unfortunately its been totalled! Thankfully, my UK colleagues had 'form' for this on arrival in the US - one was arrested for driving around a school bus, another had their hire car stolen, another had an accident....

Mine is very small but it's the classic smiling and saying hello in response to another, and then quickly realising they was greeting someone behind me!

My car burst into flames in the car park when I switched off the engine. Thankfully I got out pretty sharpish. Horribly embarrassing but rather than go home as they suggested, as I'd had a shock, I stayed and brazened it out. At least everyone knew who the new girl was . Car was totalled (fuel leak).

On a hospital ward - I fainted.

My first day,first time waitressing,I took the coffee pot away to refill the customers cups(which was bad enough with first day shakey hands)but didn't realise that it hadn't quite finished filling.Hot water dripped everywhere. I completely shorted out the coffee station and the bar lights. Took two days to get it up and running. They didn't know it was my fault,and I was too nervous to own up!

When I started the job I’m doing now, I had to sign in at reception.

This was June and I’d only been married 6 weeks (and I changed my name). I forgot how to spell my new name and my new colleague had to spell it out for me

My first day in a new job about 8mths ago.. very niche industry where everyone knows everyone.. I had been on a ‘career’ break for 4 years and was very nervous going back into the business. Last time I worked, I had a client, did about 30 odd days consultancy for them and thought I had a good relationship with them. First day in new job after about an hour my new boss explained that they had signed a new contract with my ex client. Great! Thinks I, as I know them so well I can help out with that.. but alas he then went on to say the ex client had emailed and basically said they didn’t want me to work with them as they had ‘no confidence’ in me (why they allowed me to work with them over a period of years without saying this i’ll never know..). I was MORTIFIED... spent the day desperately trying to hold it together..

It all turned out well in the end though! I’m now 9mths into the job, had excellent reviews and appraisals and most of my colleagues hate working for said ex client on account of what a complete arse he is.. I think him emailing my new boss on my first day in work slagging me off is pretty indicative of what a knob he is but it still really threw me and upset me for weeks. Annihilated my confidence etc.