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 first flight as cabin crew after training I ended up crying in severe turbulence.

I got concussion on my first Cabin Crew flight. Hit on the back of the head by a huge overhead door that was propped open.

As I had forgotten to put perfume on I stopped off at the M&S open nearby, nipped into the beauty hall and sprayed some tester perfume around my neck area and in my hair. Unfortunately I only realised when I got to work and got in the mirrored lift that the perfume contained glitter. I spent my first day in a new job looking like a disco ball 🙄.

I was asked to do some research for a colleague ... who promptly forgot about me.
I spent 8 hours on one thing and the shocked look on her face when I presented a basically expert pile of about 80 pages of research was mortifying. Now I know about 10 pages is more than enough.

I thought a permanent marker was a dry wipe marker. The whole class just watched and smiled.

I was asked by one new colleague how long it had taken from interview to start date. She was lovely and friendly and there had been a number of HR cock ups so I explained this as I said it had taken 8 weeks, even though I'd made it quite clear I could start immediately as I'd been made redundant from my last job.

One lady also in the office started defending HR, saying they'd had management problems etc. Not taking the hint, I pointed out they'd breached the DPA by accidentally sending my employment contract to someone else and vice versa, then lied about it, and how that didn't make a good impression for new starters.

Turned out the second lady's daughter worked in HR. She wasn't my rep, but the damage was done. It took months for the other lady to warm up to me, even though I got on with everyone else - so well I'm still there 5 years on. Second lady has since retired.

Not me but one of our new hires laid down in the staff room and went to sleep. She actually slept during her introductory session. I woke her up and told her to leave.

Not ideal.

My first day of a retail job, I was asked to go upstairs and sort out some stock as we had a big sale on, I was supposed to take a walkie talkie up with me incase I needed help or wanted to leave the stock room as i wasn't allowed keys yet.
unfortunately I forgot, 30 mins into sorting stuff out I was desperate for a poo, as I was too scared to leave I found a carrier bag and done a poo in the corner.
I left two weeks later the manager was a nutter.

I took the wrong tooth out!

I had started at a dental practice and taken over the treatment plan of a patient. The treatment plan was basically to take impressions of the patients teeth, these would be sent to a laboratory to get them to add a tooth onto the patient’s existing denture, then I would extract the tooth. Simple, done it loads of times before but because I’d never met the patient before I didn’t realise they had more than one very loose tooth so as I took out the impression a tooth came with it - and not the one that was ment to come out! My face was a picture behind the patients back but apologised and got the lab to add 2 teeth to the denture instead of 1.

@Hobnobsmakemehappy you poo-d in a bag in the stock room but left because your boss was the nutter?!

Arrived for first day in big corporate to find that the admin person
(who was not in that day) had signed me up for every access code and system (and there were many) with a misspelled and rude variation of my surname. It took weeks to sort out and get me onto the drives etc I needed.
On the first day my boss took me out to lunch and told me that she was extremely ill with stress and would not be around for the next few weeks.
The week she returned they made her redundant.

Broke the shop front door at closing time. Glass everywhere and me going F U U C C C K!!! Boss was good about it (it was really his fault) but was joked about for years.

@accountant222

Good for you.

Last two jobs - first one, I had to do my training in a different store to the one I'd be working in. Store got 'held up' by three spotty teenagers with a trowel. Turns out that tactic had worked for them the week before but no one thought to tell me 🙄 However, sleep deprived me (first day back from maternity leave) assumed it was some kind of ridiculous joke or test (store I was going in to was in a rough area) so laughed at them. One of them legged it, but the other two were so confused they carried on trying to get behind the till, so I grabbed the nearest one and finally someone realised what was going on 🙄 police were called. Set the tone for the rest of my time there really, I should have got out then, I stuck it out for 15 months.

Second (current) job - boss turned up an hour late, then fucked off for 5 hours once he'd shown me where the safe keys/till stuff were and a brief description of how the till worked. I stuck it out because I had taken the job against my husbands better judgement and I didn't want him to be proven right 😳 anyway, it's turned out to be the right decision, I love my job and while my boss is a disorganised idiot at times, he is very family orientated and is generous with time off over holidays (such as Easter & Christmas - unheard of in retail!!), and will say thank you for what he considers extra work (and I consider 'work'!) with the occasional bottle of wine/bunch of flowers/tickets for me & dh/kids to various things.

Zombie thread but thought I would bump it as its a timeless good un

Called 'Cynthia' 'June' and 'June' 'Cynthia'.... No one corrected me for a whole week!
(Names changed and all that.)

I was sent into the saleroom to get a feel for the business (it was an auction house) and decided to copy the other viewers. I pulled a drawer open on an antique chest and the knobs came off in my hands .

I had an upset stomach in the only toilet in a firm of solicitors and blocked it. After panicking behind the locked door I had to confess. My final view before I left was the head partner with his arms in marigolds tackling the blockage. I was 18 and it taught me a lesson about pooping, flushing and then using toilet roll but never together

Staff meeting in the staffroom before school, the Biology teacher, very particular about her appearance, she stood up and stepped over my bag on the floor, she caught her black tights in a metal bit and ripped one leg to shreds.

@DinosApple

Called 'Cynthia' 'June' and 'June' 'Cynthia'.... No one corrected me for a whole week! (Names changed and all that.)

I was sent into the saleroom to get a feel for the business (it was an auction house) and decided to copy the other viewers. I pulled a drawer open on an antique chest and the knobs came off in my hands .

I once worked with someone who got married to a Mr Seed but I always called her Mrs Bird, or it may have been the other way round!

I got a very, very good job: it was a career defining moment. The night before my (now ex obviously) boyfriend went out drinking.
I got no sleep as he never came home, no one knew where he was, phone dead.

He’d been arrested for getting his knob out in a bar shitfaced.

I fell sleep during my induction day.

@Troubleinstore

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.

I sympathise completely

but that's hilarious 😂

I’ve had a few first days as I did locum work for a while.
Turned up at one place the usual 30 mins early (so I could work out who everything worked before first patient turned up). 30 minutes later, the door was still locked, no one else was there - apart from the first patient.
At 9.30 patient 1&2 and I went to sit in Costa.
By 10.15 we’d all given up and gone home!
Never did find out what happened.

Second one - was contacted in linked in and at the time only had a Monday free. Met with HR agreed to do a regular Monday clinic. Turned up following week, had good day and at the end said ‘see you next week’ to the staff. Turns out there was a massive communication issue and they thought I was working full-time. I was fully booked every day for the next 2 weeks!

Was 30 minutes late because I kept going round and round the town with no idea how to get to the place I'd been once for an interview.

Parked in the wrong part of the car park and got a sweary note from the office whose space I'd stolen.

Cried in the car because it just wasn't the right fit for me. I left within the year thank goodness.

On my worst first day. Everyone was whispering and crying in corners. I eventually found out that one ladies husband had passed away suddenly that weekend and another would-be colleague (who had family also working in the department) ended up in an irreversible coma. Unrelated but both devastating.

Mine was retail too - local sainsburys to be exact. I was only in my early twenties working part- time while studying. Anyway I was given a 10 minute induction and just expected to just crack on on a very busy shop till. She literally showed my how to scan an item, never even touched on the lottery, cigarettes, pay point. It was 5 o'clock aswell - a very busy time. I felt totally over whelmed.

It was full of locals too who all the other staff would chat to, I really hated it when I first started.

Anyway to cut a long story short I got the hang of it pretty quickly and ended up been a pretty decent job I liked the staff and customers. I stayed there till I finished Uni - and was actually sad when I left!

Hang in there OP first days are ALWAYS hard!