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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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To have left him stuck in the cellar?

534 replies

FreddysTash · 02/05/2019 14:13

We have a new starter at work who is a pain in the arse. He’s shadowing me and constantly disappears and is always off exploring rather than doing what he should be doing. This morning we were in the office and he asked me where he should put clinical waste. I told him we put it in the cellar but that we didn’t have time to do it now as we had to go out of office. He said he’d be quick. I said no because it takes ages to get down there, he’d need codes for the lift down there, and two different doors. He grabbed a pen and paper and asked me for the codes. Getting frustrated I wrote down the codes and told him to be really quick and off he goes.

15 minutes later he’s still not back so I check time and decide if he isn’t back by half past I’d do without him. Half past came so I packed up and headed to my car. I’d just set off when I got a frantic phone saying he was stuck in one of the rooms in the cellar. I told him to repeat the code he had and it was right so I said he’d just have to keep trying. I drove off. 5 minutes later he started ringing again. I ignored it. All in all 4 missed calls. I rang him back and he admitted he was in a different room and that’s why the code wasn’t working. I told him I’d be back at lunch. It was 9.45 at the time. He started getting irate saying it stunk down there, it was freezing, pitch black and the wind was hammering on the fire doors. I left him until 11. AIBU as he got stuck because he went where he wasn’t supposed to go?

OP posts:
DecomposingComposers · 03/05/2019 22:51

What he did once down there is up to him.

What the OP is responsible for are her actions

Giving him the codes

Leaving the site without checking on his welfare or alerting another member of staff that he hadn't returned and so she was leaving without him.

TheGrey1houndSpeaks · 03/05/2019 22:51

He couldn’t have wandered into a room he didn’t have the codes for, that’s the whole bloody point.

AuldJosey · 03/05/2019 22:52

Ye, but if he's a Russian spy, he needs to explore. That's his real job. He's just the post-boy undercover.

TheLastNigel · 03/05/2019 22:56

Well of course you were being unreasonable OP, but I'll admit to a sneaking admiration of you at the same time ( though I'm glad he didn't get hurt or anything, which could have happened and would have been awful)

Orange6904 · 03/05/2019 22:58

Is it the Dreadfort? Is Ramsey Bolton alive?

TatianaLarina · 03/05/2019 23:18

Giving him the codes

Again, he’s not a 5 year old. He has his own responsibility to use the codes sensibly.

Leaving the site without checking on his welfare or alerting another member of staff that he hadn't returned and so she was leaving without him.

He could have alerted a member of staff himself. He chose not to.

Perhaps the men you know are immature imbeciles and you expect to take mother them. I expect men to be intelligent and take responsibility for themselves.

DecomposingComposers · 03/05/2019 23:22

Did OP know that he had his phone on him before she left?

Did she know that he had a signal in the cellar before she left?

Did she know that he was safe and well and not collapsed or laying there with a broken leg when he went AWOL?

No she didn't. She just decided that she wasn't going to wait.

And it is nothing to do with mothering anyone. It's about exercising a duty of care - something the OP didn't do.

TatianaLarina · 04/05/2019 00:03

Lying not laying. OP didn’t know before she left that he was stuck in the cellar. All OP knew was he had wandered off and not come back. He could have been in the toilet or on his mobile.

It’s not her responsibility to supervise another adult.

If he does not have the maturity not to get himself into a pickle he’s not responsible enough for this job. Which is of course why he didn’t alert his colleagues as he didn’t want to get sacked.

GnomeDePlume · 04/05/2019 00:10

I am guessing that this was a prank which went wrong. The details given by the OP are the most positive and explanatory spin which could be given to the events which actually happened (which suggests that the reality was worse). The OP stopped posting because she's sat at home trying to work out just how deep the trouble she is actually in.

Monty32 · 04/05/2019 00:14

Op keeps on saying he was snooping. Maybe he genuinely has a bad sense of direction and got lost. If the cellar is dark it would be very easy to mistake one door for another. He had already had this happen to him once this week. Maybe op sees it as snooping rather than terrible sense of direction. We don’t know who actually bollocked him for this on Monday. It could have been the op.

The Op stated that he wasn’t back in time and she waited half an hour for him & then left. Maybe he was already lost at this time & trying to find a way out himself rather than embarrassing himself by alerting op to the fact he was lost again. How do we know he was tardy about returning from his task rather than stuck in a freezing, dark, smelly cellar.

Lastly op says she gave him other numbers. Were these stored in his phone or written in a piece of paper the same as the codes which he may have left where the op was. This could be why he didn’t call anyone else.

MadameFireweed · 04/05/2019 00:36

It was a horrible thing to do. Irresponsible, unprofessional, cruel, bullying behaviour. You should be ashamed of yourself.

TheGrey1houndSpeaks · 04/05/2019 00:54

Who goes snooping in a cellar full of clinical waste? Twice!

AuldJosey · 04/05/2019 01:07

The OP did know he had gotten lost as he called her just after she had left.

AuldJosey · 04/05/2019 01:09

@TheGrey1houndSpeaks

A Russian spy. That's who does this sort of thing.

I'm telling you - it's the MI5 building and the dude is a Russian spy - sent in as the post boy - or waste disposal boy.

AuldJosey · 04/05/2019 01:11

Either way - our undercover Russian spy has to appear to be a twit (that's his cover), but we're onto him........

You ruined it when you locked yourself into the cellar of secrets honey.......

TheGrey1houndSpeaks · 04/05/2019 01:15

This reply has been deleted

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MrsBAF · 04/05/2019 01:24

Going against current here. I don't know the protocol but surely OP is not responsible for an adult trainees whereabouts all day
She gave him codes
She double checked
She was elsewhere
He was openly defiant
He was dim and went to a different room
He could have called security

BlueGlassesFrames · 04/05/2019 04:45

Only read the first page, but my immediate thought was "which horror movie is this based on?"
...just me then?

Teacher22 · 04/05/2019 05:33

The man sounds a menace to himself and to everyone else. If he had a phone to text the OP he could have texted someone else for help. If that is the case he did not do so as he knew he was in the wrong

The OP, for her own protection, should have got him out of the cellar - even though the rash, disobedient fool put himself there and deserved to stay ther fo ether short duration he incarcerated himself.

Their man is unprofessional, impulsive and cannot stick to rules. He is a menace and danger to others and , if he stays in the company, will damage the OP’s ability to work and she will probably end up being responsible for his mistakes.

The OP should monitor and record this man’s sorry performance and report his misdemeanours to her line manager and HR. He should not survive his probationary period.

Tolerating the intolerable has become a besetting sin of the current age. People should suffer the consequences of their own weak or bad behaviour.

Teacher22 · 04/05/2019 05:34

For the, not fo ether.

Teacher22 · 04/05/2019 05:35

The man, not their man.

Predictive text. Doh!

GnomeDePlume · 04/05/2019 06:40

The OP will have put the most positive/self-serving spin on the events which happened. It sounds to me like the OP (and maybe others) set the guy up 'to teach him a lesson'. Only it has blown up in the OP's face.

The post about him 'laughing and joking' afterwards sounds like a cover for some fairly unpleasant workplace bullying.

Teddybear45 · 04/05/2019 06:42

I hope he complains about you. What you did OP would be grounds for gross misconduct in my company.

NorthernSpirit · 04/05/2019 06:44

That’s bullying behaviour and just not very nice.

WhiteDust · 04/05/2019 08:06

He's a pain in the backside but you allowed it to happen.
You shouldn't have given him the codes. You said 'no, do it later' and you should have insisted on this.

As for leaving him there, if you really had to go out you should have asked someone else to locate him and let him out.

Your actions were highly unprofessional. Both of you deserve to be disciplined.

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