The pettiest, jobsworth bollocks you’ve encountered? Probably won’t top this.

[ermwhatypu]

I was in Morrison’s today. The woman at the till was handing out vouchers on a strip as an offer with 3 pounds off. There were three on each strip that you had to tear off. I had a screaming baby with me and was trying to find my phone to pay. As she handed me the strip one of the 3 pound vouchers fell off the strip onto the till… right in front of the woman. I said I will use that one please, as I wrestle dd back into the trolley. She looks directly at me and says I must hand her the voucher for it to be valid. She handed me the voucher back and I gave it back to her. She then scanned it.

Why are people like this!

I was in the chemist the other day, picking up two separate prescriptions both for my dad. She brought both bags over, asked me the name and address. I confirmed them and went to take both bags. She said oh no, only that one! She held on to the other bag and asked me to confirm the name and address for a 2nd time before handing me the 2nd bag. Mind blowing.

OP, would you have come running to the cashier's aid if she got a disciplinary or dismissal because she was helping you out? Doubt it

Online shopping is available if OP really, really, can't cope with a baby and a voucher at the same time.

The pp who mentioned the EA earlier doesn't understand it properly if they think OP having a baby puts her at risk of sex discrimination at a checkout with a baby and a voucher.

OP - next time just say no thanks to the voucher if you can't cope with handing it over. It's not compulsory to do it if you don't want the aggravation.

Years ago I purchased a badminton racket in Sports Direct and got told I had to have a carrier bag - it was company policy.

Something to do with the security guard on the door being able to tell you'd paid.

Over the weekend I witnessed an incredible sight at my local supermarket. I was going to the customer services till to pick something up. Man standing with a full trolley. Two members of staff back and forth. Something to do with a self scan and manually adding 750 points.
There was supposedly a receipt which was put on the CS desk for them to scan and then the man could pay. Receipt went missing. They come to the conclusion the previous customer must have accidentally picked it up. CS said to man he'll have to go and scan it all again, he said no chance he's already tried to pay 3 times. The receipt couldn't be reprinted. 2nd staff members comes, crawls on the floor looking for receipt which she swears she put there. Shrugs then walks off. Man says 'I'm just going to walk out in a minute' the CS services then walkie-talkies 'JULIE COME NOW HES WALKING OUT!!!'
Man face palms and say 'no I'm not! Dont be ridiculous' realising the CS had took it seriously
Julie comes running for her life 'WHERE IS HE?!' The man is calmly standing there
They have security guards, why don't they call them over rather than 60 something year old Julie 😆
They then decide, after about 10 minutes that the trolley is going to have to be scanned again and walk off with him. The queue has built up longer than anything and understandably people are getting annoyed now. As funny as it was.

I heard a true story on the radio about a woman who suffered catastrophic life changing injuries when she fell in front of a tube. She dropped her bag at the time of the accident and tfl charged a £20 retrieval fee from lost property.
That seemed jobsworth to me but may well have been a good reason

In a more minor example when DD was about 5 she went on a high inflatable slide. She got to the top and then got scared and started crying. I asked the teenager manning the slide if I could go and get her and he said no because it was only for kids. I am less than 5ft tall and was probably not much different in size from several of the kids on it!

I once had a colleague phone me (we WFH) to tell me that I had expanded a column on a spreadsheet too much and I didn't need to do that, that wasn't how they did it.

For vague context, this spreadsheet was a list of sorts and it was our job to collate and provide them to front line staff; I had simply done the standard double click on the column so that all the info in the column showed.

It had no technical purpose and was a bog standard spreadsheet. The colleague also had absolutely nothing to do with said spreadsheet and no need to view it, they had simply been snooping on my work as they had trained me and had never let go of the obsessive need to double check every minute thing I was doing.

I do feel like my jobsworth is worth OP, as this is just the tip of the iceberg 😅

YABVU.

This encounter always struck me as a bit jobsworth.

There was a newish bar in town which also served food , so at lunchtime it was nearly all people going in for a meal. DH had been there with colleagues and said it was quite nice and we should try it some time.

We ate out most Saturday lunch times with DD, she would have been about 10 then, so we decided to give it a go.

Anyway we took our seats and chose from the menu then DH went to the bar to place our order. All good.

A few minutes later a member of staff came over and said "I am sorry I can't serve you and will have to ask you to leave." We looked at him in some bewilderment and my first thought was maybe they had a policy of not allowing children, but there were other youngsters in there.

He then explained "It's policy, we can't serve anyone in a football shirt." Still bewildered - football shirt, what football shirt? Finally we realised that the black polo shirt DH was wearing had a tiny (smaller than a 50p coin) Newcastle United badge on the chest. You would have to be standing right in front of him to even see what it was.

Now I can understand why they would have a rule about this as clearly they don't want gangs of rival football supporters kicking off and starting fights. But did he honestly think that would happen with a 40 something man out for lunch with his wife and little girl? It's not even as if Newcastle is one of the local teams that might provoke comment.

Maybe he was a Sunderland fan 🤣

😂Good point

So their policy was no football shirts and your DH was wearing a football shirt?

There's nothing unreasonable in that. OP must get upset easily...

Well we didn't know that was their policy, there were no signs anywhere advertising the fact. But even if there had been I don't think it would have occurred to us because I would take football shirt to mean the sort based on a teams strip, not a polo shirt with a tiny discreet logo.

What a lovely post.

Maybe I'm jaded by living near Glasgow but if the idea is to not cause trouble then any insignia could be a trigger.

The bit I am confused about is presumably she was giving you the vouchers after you paid for your shopping as that is what happens at Morrisons, so how could you then use it on your shopping?

To be honest when people
Use the term "jobsworth" it says more about them than the person actually doing their job 🤷🏻‍♀️

I've thought of another one.
Years ago DH and I drove into London and parked on the road. DH went to the payment meter about 2 cars away when he got back to our car there was already a parking inspector writing out a ticket!

When I worked in retail we weren't supposed to disclose company policies to the public either so if it is a matte of voucher rules she might not be able to tell you

When my dad opened his car door a piece of paper flew out and he went to retrieve it. He was then given an on the spot fine for littering.

Years ago, I was buying something in the sale (it was still quite expensive, an evening dress). As the friendly sales assistant was packing my bag and chatting to me, her surly supervisor came over and said 'she can't have tissue paper because it's a sale item' and made the poor mortified girl take the dress out of the bag to remove the tissue paper. I just stared at the her.

The day after my wedding we went to a National Trust place for a picnic with family and friends. Of course I hadn't brought my wallet with me, so no membership card. The 2 guys manning the booth were both right misery guts, full of the joys of Spring, and insisted I pay full price. When we asked nicely can't you please give us a break, we just got married, one gloomily replied, 'married. don't talk to me about marriage'. It was the opposite to that scene in Barefoot in the Park where strangers cheerily wave at Robert Redford and Jane Fonda on their wedding day.

😂

My father was working in the Middle East in the 70s, installing early computer systems in hospitals there. He was quite chummy with the Ambassador in Kuwait, who said after a jolly party, "Oh, I'll get my car to take you home". He had to stand outside the car for several minutes outside the Embassy while the chauffeur very, very slowly got out of the car, took the Union Jack out of its little holder on the bonnet, very, very slowly rolled it up, put it in a special little leather case, stowed it in the glovebox and THEN said, "You can get in now, sir".