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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:
StillCoughingandLaughing · 05/05/2019 09:37

Nope. She didn’t send him down there she just stopped blocking from going down as he’s an adult with free will.

He might have free will, but he didn’t have the authorisation to go to the cellar until the OP gave it to him by providing the codes. Not giving him the codes would not have been denying him his ‘free will’ 🙄 It would have been ‘doing her job properly’. She could and should have said ‘I can show you when we get back - right now we have an off-site appointment to get to’.

This won’t end well for either party. The OP shouldn’t have given him the codes and let him disappear off to an unfamiliar area. The trainee shouldn’t have pushed for them and should have just followed instructions instead of going exploring - something he’s already been warned about; hence he didn’t ring someone else. Despite posts on this thread suggesting he was ‘left trapped there for hours’, he called the OP at 9.45 and she was back by 11, despite having initially said she’d be back at lunchtime. This suggests she either had to cancel or curtail other appointments.

I’m intrigued by the definitions of both ‘cellar’ and ‘clinical waste’ in this context. Some posters seem to be imagining a rat-infested Victorian sewer, with barrels spewing acid onto the skeletons of those who never made it out. However, this is a room with strong enough phone signal for the trainee to make several calls. The clinical waste was just sitting in the office, and the handling procedure seems to be ‘just chuck it in the cellar until they collect it’.

NaughtToThreeSadOnions · 05/05/2019 09:56

What do you think the point of reviews are?This has to be the daftest aibu of the day

No she doesnt when i sarcastically said "you mean the op is dangerous" she replied with no i dont.

If she understood sarcasm she would have understood it was sarcastic and ironic and i understood what she mean i was just disagreeing with her.

When i pointed out i was being sarcastic and ironic she replied they were different thing. No shit really??! At no point did i imply they were the same thing
It is her and you that are trying to insult my intellegence by tginking your both so clever i need explaining too that your both so clever.

I knew she meant what she said i
didnt need her to point that out i was being sarcastic. She was the one who thought i was actally trying to misinterpt what she meant. (I do disagree with her yes) nor do i need to be told sarcasm anx irony are different at no point did i say were they the same she seems to think i do.

NaughtToThreeSadOnions · 05/05/2019 09:57

Agh wrong quote at the top of my reply

GnomeDePlume · 05/05/2019 09:58

I am wondering what type of area has no code to get in but needs a code to get out.

This is what makes me wonder if this was some sort of 'prank' on the new boy which has now gone wrong.

OP's attitude to this man seems to be that he is an imposition and that she is not suited to having someone shadowing her.

Workplace bullying is humiliating to the victim which may explain why he didn't call others to assist. Equally he may have worried that they were on the 'joke'.

Wavyheaded · 05/05/2019 11:04

You were unreasonable and a bit of a bully. He's new, he wasn't meant to go down there, yet YOU gave him the codes anyway and allowed him to go. You knew he was stuck down there, and so he has every right to report YOU.

MaryPoppinsUmberellaHandle · 05/05/2019 17:57

This says much more about you, OP, in your obvious lack of patience and tolerance for new starters, who also have to shadow you than it does about someone you describe as 'a pain in the arse' who is learning the ropes, trying to follow procedure with clinical waste, but who is also being overly pushy at the same time.

If we look at the facts, the new employer was if your story is reliable, clearly pushing boundaries, and should have been dealt with appropriately. However, your reaction instead, was to try and teach him a lesson, leaving him (in your words) 'stuck' in a cellar, where you'd only been out for 5 minutes when you got the first call, and then ignored more 'frantic calls'. You then leave him until 11am knowing he was 'stuck'.

Excuse me if I and many others on here don't believe any of the backtracking rubbish that you have since come out with.

YA Definitely BU!

Deadpoet · 06/05/2019 09:14

Not good. I get you’re frustrated but what if there was a fire? An emergency evacuation? What you did was just bullying and plain nasty. If you didn’t want him to go you shouldn’t have given him the codes.
If that was me you’d be in front of HR

MyKingdomForBrie · 06/05/2019 15:47

Of course she knew! She just wasn't engaging with your bitchy way of trying to make your point.

NaughtToThreeSadOnions · 06/05/2019 16:45

But she was engaging mykingdom

She was very quick to tell ne both that sge meant what she said and that sarcasm and irony were different things

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