To ask what your most stupid work telling off was?

[BeatleBattleInABottle]

I need cheering up so if you'd like to share the most stupid reasons you've been told off for at work, that would help!

I've just been issued a formal warning for not following sickness procedures. I returned to work today after being off work since last Monday. Literally "Hi, welcome back. Here's a warning". The reason I didnt follow sickness procedures was because I texted my boss each day instead of phoning in. She replied so she received them. Why did I text? I collapsed on Sunday evening and was in hospital until Sunday. TBH they are lucky I remembered to contact them at all for the first few days. I certainly wasn't in a state to talk.

Same job a few months back. I was organising a conference for 350 people. I needed to confirm numbers so sent a professional email to everyone asking thrm to confirm attendance, dietary and other requirement etc. If they hadn't replied by the deadline, I would phone them. Plenty of time to do this. Nope. Not good enough. I had to recall the email and spend 3 days calling people instead. Great use of time, boss!

Finally, last month, I was sent an email bitching about me. They'd obviously put my name in the address, instead of the subject. I just replied "I don't think this was meant for me". Apparently that was "unprofessional" and upset the people who'd sent it! In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have replied, just to watch them squirm.

Yes, I'm stepping up my job hunt.

Ive been a nanny for 19 years, I've got plenty of stupid ones 😂

Most recent one that sticks out was it was very important that baby have a varied diet, great, I'm excellent at that, baby had pasta twice in a week. The telling off was nothing to do with it being pasta (as there were 2 different sauces/meals and mum had cooked one) but the fact that she had the same shape of pasta twice and this was not varied enough.

Or the one where I got a telling off for answering my phone at work by the Childs mother...who rang me...whilst I was looking after her child...it was a test apparently 🙄

Hope you're feeling better btw!

I have no stories to add but hope you find a new job soon.

The sickness procedure and not phoning - I do pull people up on this if they are taking the mick, but in your circumstances you were clearly too unwell to phone.

You were too unwell to phone in!! Good luck on the job hunt

I was once told off, in my performance review, because on Monday mornings my team and I would greet each other and exchange polite pleasantries about our weekend. apparently, as we worked in communications, we should have been very focused and simply reading the newspapers.

1 The greetings were generally quite generic and short - "good weekend?" "Yeah, lots of food, too much alcohol. haha. You?" "Yeah, good, much quieter than yours by the sound of things".

2 By 8:30 on Monday mornings when we arrived at the office there had usually already been half a dozen emails between us regarding press coverage, weekend press etc.

@BeatleBattleInABottle Glad you are job hunting, sounds like you'll never do anything right. Time to move on!

I was once told off for putting something in a directors top drawer, because he asked me to, but apparently I shouldn't have done it because I should have known others might look in his top draw and see it?! Anyway I was junior, early on in my career and cried because I thought I'd messed up big time. Now I'm older and wiser I think I'd dealt with it better and given them what for!

Working in recruitment after uni, we were all so micro managed. I got ‘in trouble’ one day for not helping box up/clean stuff in the office during my lunch break because it wasn’t very ‘we’re one big family’ of me.

Not me but a colleague was once taken to one side by her manager as she had stapled some documents together and the staple was not quite in the correct place.

My headteacher once told me to check my facts before I taught a lesson as I'd told the children that "Vesuvius is on the Italian mainland when it's on Sicily". Apparently a parent had phoned up to complain. I pointed out that, as I'd climbed it in the holidays, I was well aware of its location.

I was once told off, and had a "recorded conversation" for chewing chewing gum on the shop floor of a high street shop where I worked when I was 19. Fair enough except the person who told me off was doing so while she herself was chewing chewing gum on the shop floor.

I once got ‘spoken to’ because in a discussion with a colleague about her supposedly wanting to look for another job when our workplace was being restructured I offered to send her a job bulletin from my siblings workplace that had a number of vacancies similar to the job we did. Despite her saying ‘yes please’ apparently me sending this was my way of trying to push her out. She was a devious cow and had engineered the whole thing as she thought I was competition for the restructured jobs. I think she knew how she was seen by management (lazy and rude mainly) and was trying to manipulate herself into a new job role she was under skilled for. I was planning to leave the department anyway but she didn’t know this. Manager’s manager was very disappointed I left but I did tell her the truth as to why! She was stuck with the lazy one for years after this.

Also in a different job got told once by a manager that it was my job to change a colleague’s mind about me when they’d spent months bullying me with no reason. It was my problem to put a stop to this and not the manager’s to prevent another team member from abusing me.

Mine was when I was a school business manager. It was when the new GDPR stuff came in and the headteacher told me in no uncertain terms that we needed to be on the ball 100% with no exceptions. Noted. An emailed went out to all staff with a reminder of protecting GDPR.

The next day I went to get some printing off the printer that was in an area where it was possible for students to get. On there was a piles of papers that clearly has student names, DOB, health conditions etc. I picked it up, put it in an envelope and onto my desk, followed by an email to all staff (it was a tiny school with about 15 staff) to say what I had found and as a final reminder to protect GDPR. I advised the document was on my desk for collection.

Thought nothing of it until a week later when it was still there so I put it in confidential waste.

I was then hauled into the Head's office as it turns out it was a list of students for an upcoming trip which needed to be sent to the company running the trip. The Head had printed it and assumed it had been picked up and sent when she eventually went to the printer, but as it hadn't, the trip had been cancelled. She absolutely tore me apart in front of other staff members and gave me a written warning for my 'incompetence'. I knew nothing of the trip and even if I'd have read the document, I would have no idea what it was for. Apparently, GDPR didn't apply to her 😂

Anyway, I moved on very soon after this as it turned out the previous school business manager had been a friends of the Head and nothing I did (or tried to correct/make legal!) would be good enough.

I was once told off for sending my-then managers email an email and starting the email with “Hi (first name)”

It was just a very short email in response to something she had asked me.

apparently I should have said “Good morning (first name) as “Hi” was too informal.

it was a ridiculous place to work with a toxic culture where senior managers were bullies and I was so relieved when I left!

When I was a student nurse, I was told off by the Nurse Manager in charge of the operating theatres for knitting in the staff canteen during my unpaid lunchbreak! Apparently it looked unprofessional, and despite the fact that it was an unpaid break, I still had to make sure I was behaving professionally.

I am, to this day, not sure about what was so unprofessional about knitting.

My first manager, who was a real bully, told me off in front of the office for my tone being too casual in an email to one of our authors.

I made sure to copy her in when replying to his response where he specifically mentioned how much he appreciated my email!

I was told in a performance review that my communication skills were somewhat lacking. I'd been there for more than 10 years/working FT for 30 years and this had never come up before, so obviously I queried this. Apparently it was because one day I had passed one of the managers in the corridor and not said good morning. I remain bemused about this... Years ago when I was the junior team member, I used to make the coffees for visitors. I was off for a few days and came back to find a huge pile of mouldy unwashed cups. It was quite disgusting and I was most put out with my colleagues for leaving them in that state. I asked if they could at least give me hand to get them washed up - and it properly kicked off - how very DARE I / not their job / not their fault I was off etc etc. I looked for a new job after that.

As a young employee over forty years ago I was at work but had a ticklish cough. I coughed as quietly as I could. My boss jumped out of his seat and yelled ‘Pritt stick I haven’t got a bloody Pritt stick’. I explained I was just coughing and I hadn’t actually been asking for a Pritt stick (other brands of glue sticks are available). I could write a book about that fella (he’s probably long dead now). Including him following me into the Ladies loo at work because he urgently needed to ask me something.

I was working in a school and the head teacher was more interested in the various animals we had than the children it would seem.
We were given a rota of whose turn it was to feed the animals (none of us had agreed to be a part of this).
I had a whole table of children that I was teaching and said HT interrupted the whole lesson and asked why I hadn’t fed said animals yet. Errr because I started work at 8am and hadn’t even had time to go to the loo yet?
The deputy head later came and apologised to me and I quite rightly, asked which aspect of the learning and teaching the CHILDREN did the HT want me to drop to feed a bloody rabbit and how did they propose the children were going to access that part of the curriculum.
Needless to say, I still didn’t feed all the animals because if I wanted to work with animals and not teach children then I’d have chosen that route.

Thankfully not in this job anymore but I was once called into a formal meeting with my manager...because I don't do tea runs.

I wasn't included in anyone else's tea runs because I'm quite capable of making my own cuppa. It never even occurred to me that I should be asking every member of the team (there were 15 of us!!) if they wanted anything whenever I went to the kitchen. I'm quite introverted and kept to myself anyway. Apparently a few people had complained while I was blissfully unaware of this office culture. This is one of the many reasons I love working from home now.

So I told my boss that at first I wasn’t about something she had done, but now i understood it. She took me to one side to say that was inappropriate. Joke that was

I got told off for sending an email to a manager about a number of people not following the agreed process and causing my team extra work (having already verbally told them weekly for 3 months). My boss said that everything I said was correct and he agreed with me but he had to tell me off cos I put it in writing and could I just say it verbally next time 🙄

I was told off for asking for my pen back. My supervisor didn't have a pen, asked to borrow my pen, didn't give it back. When I asked for it back, I got told off for not having a pen on the shop floor.

When I was 17, I got a ticking off and a lecture about company profits for giving an old man an extra take away coffee cup to hold his drink. The cups we used were a disgrace - no protection from the heat inside at all. The old man was a regular and clearly had been unwell as he was rather frail and jittery.
To make it worse, woman who lectured me had been my Sunday school teacher as a child! Clearly Christian kindness went out the window when company profits were on the line!

Oh I have a great one!

I used to be an assistant PA for a C list celeb. She was an absolute nightmare.

One day I had to arrange for her stool sample to be taken to one of her quack doctors to be tested for ‘her allergies’ (she had an eating disorder but claimed to be allergic to everything under the sun to try and excuse the fact that she would only eat steamed veg)

I arranged for the stool sample to be picked up from her house in a cab and taken to the doctor. Just the sample was travelling, C list celeb was not in the cab with it. I got a ticking off for sending it in a normal cab and not a Mercedes 😆 because apparently everything to do with [insert name here] had to have the VIP treatment. Even her stool samples!

Love these!

I got reprimanded for not getting up the office stairs quick enough when an Exec wanted to speak to me. I was in a meeting at the time and so when my PA knocked on to say the Exec wanted me I had the audacity to explain to the people in the meeting that I had to leave and wrapped up the meeting. Apparently I should have just walked out rather than take the 20 seconds to explain. It took two senior people to tell me where I had gone wrong.