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.

Omg I think you might work at my place!
Or is an obsession with staple positioning a common trait?

Not turning up to a 9am meeting at our main office, 40 mins away from my office

it was Monday morning, the email sent 10pm Sat night (worked mon-fri) and I had turned my computer on at 8:50

i wax threatened with a disciplinary meeting so I asked to arrange it at a time my union rep could also attend… it was never spoken about again.

same organisation I was hauled in by my line manager and big boss (both usually nice people) and told that another staff member had made a lot of disparaging comments about my work, attitude and laziness. I asked if they felt the same? Absolutely NOT but did I want to make a formal complaint about said person?

we where about to face a round of redundancy and she had been there for years - they wanted to sack her. She was a hateful human but I refused!

Not answering a call on one line when I was talking to a customer on the other.
There were two of us doing the same job, manager had removed the 'privilege' of answering the phone from my colleague that morning.
I was expected to show her how to use the phone properly because manager was playing us off against each other.
I didn't do this because I was already taking a call so she told me off and arranged for another manager to come in and discuss our performance with us.
The other colleague took early retirement, she was so sick of it all.

Many moons ago I worked in a small but very busy office. One day I was called in to the boss's office because she saw that on one particular day I'd only answered 10 letters instead of the 40-50 that was expected. I was confused but went back and checked - that was the day that we had answered every single letter in the pending pile so there were no more to answer! I'd spent the next few hours sorting the filing cabinets and archiving old files, all with the agreement of the office manager.

Yup I had this too.

Staples being vertical is obviously very important.

(Christ, I worked for some absolute losers!)

I said my colleague and I were in my classroom together, I never said the other person was there too. So don’t know were you got that from !
Nosy went past and looked through the corridor window so we stopped talking and then she came in and commented we were ‘whispering’
She needs to know everything that is going on, and hates it when she doesn’t.

Nurse here. I once had a temporary manager who hated my guts for some reason. She was always trying to interfere with my shifts, telling me I wasnt doing a good enough job.
Once told me off because a patient had complained about me....then refused to listen when I told her the patient wasnt talking about me but somebody else.
She was just a total bitch.

What she didnt know was that my best friend worked on the ward she was eventually going to so every shifts end I would visit her and tell her about all the bitchy, horrible things this manager did. Im sure she got off to a really great start when she moved up there!LOL😆

But scalding accidents cost millions in compo a year so you were actually potentially saving them a big payout and using some initiative.

After making a reasonable suggestion at work about something fairly innocuous, I received an email from my manager in capital letters:

"STOP THINKING! THE MANAGERS WILL DO THE THINKING FOR YOU."

Good luck with the job hunting.

Yesterday I was told that I wasn’t to format my paragraphs on my letters so they look neat as it’s so 1980s to do so and the world has moved on,

so I made the letter his way so the right hand side text looks bloody messy and said - here is your letter I made it look ugly. Lucky we do get on very well.

Not me but my colleague. We were due to have a Very. Important. Meeting one morning, where we were presenting to clients. She sent me a text in the wee small hours to say she was in hospital, very apologetic but her waters had broken (she was 26 weeks) and she was in labour. I said, don't worry about work, I've got this, focus on you and the baby, sending you our best wishes and so on

Our boss was FURIOUS, she was unprofessional, letting the team down, blah blah blah. I said you do realise that Amanda is 26 weeks pregnant and has gone into labour? The response -"And???"

Some people are unbelievable 🙄

Oh 😂😂so many , but most memorable was when I worked in a cafe as a student and got told off for binning furry, mouldy strawberries. I was told it was “ very wasteful “ and that the fur bits should be cut off !!! Another one working in a nursery, picked up a young child who’d fallen and was crying - shouldn’t pick them up as a. Health and safety b. “ they’ll expect to be picked up all the time “! ( it was a temp agency job and I did not return!)

Not me, but a colleague.

Call centre. We were allowed water and mints at the computers. Colleague got a rollocking for having lime Tic Tacs! FFS!

Got pulled up for giving too much customer service to a customer. I said, if I didn't put that effort in, you would have lost a customer with a large account.

Eating kitkat in office as others were on diets. The others went for Chinese on Tuesdays macdonalds on Wednesdays and fish and chips Friday. I had jacket potato tuna & sweetcorn & went to gym at lunch but obviously my fault they were overweight!
they also complained that my pony tail swinged when I walked round office fast. Local Public sector job after years of private practice never again

I think a bit of common sense is needed here. Friend's brother was in a RTA on the way to work. He was unconscious, had emergency surgery (can't remember what/where). His wife rang his work saying he's in theatre receiving surgery following the crash on the way to work. Not good enough according to his employer. He lost a day's pay which he managed to get back from the sick note stating the date of the crash was the start date of the sick note.

Then at a call centre. Lost my voice, severe tonsillitis. I had to leave a phone message on the sick line. My ex wasn't allowed. I struggled to get a word out, It sounded like squeaks. They paid me as could see my number come up on the display.

Years ago I worked as a secretary. Every day all incoming and copies of outgoing correspondence was put in a folder and passed around the management and clerical team for them to read. It was then returned to the secretaries for filing. One day the top boss needed a letter which had been sent around the previous day but it and that day's folder couldn't be found. He absolutely read us the riot act for losing it and made us stay behind after work to go through every single file in the filing cabinet (probably a thousand or so). We still couldn't find it and he was spitting blood, threatening disciplinary action etc. The following day we were very surprised that it wasn't mentioned, until one of the other managers quietly informed us that the folder had been in the boss's desk drawer all along! Obviously we never got an apology. However, a couple of years later, he was forced to retire early due to some very questionable business practices. Karma

I think I’ve mentioned this before: I was screamed at by my unhinged boss because I’d allowed our photographer on site (to take photos of the new solar panels being put on the roof for the company magazine) on a day when our CE had not had her hair done. Apparently the CE saw the photographer in the car park and was mortified that he’d seen her in such an unkempt state (she looked no different than any other day!) I was told that it was a good job she was wearing her lipstick or I’d be out on my ear. Both my boss and the CE were totally batshit, I left not long afterwards, my replacement lasted two days.

I worked as a receptionist in a car garage and was newly pregnant and felt so sick every time I stood up almost like vertigo. Anyway I got asked to decorate the Christmas tree in the showroom, this would take me away from the reception desk for the mechanical garage.
I had customers all afternoon and only had 5 minutes to decorate the tree. I quickly ran through and started decorating before I needed to go and be sick. This was Friday afternoon and 9am I got pulled into the office and hr were there aswell. Hr had travelled 3 hours to give me a warning because I didn’t do as I was asked by decorating the Christmas tree!!! Even she found it crazy!! I left for maternity leave and never went back!!

Mine would have to be linked to also not following absence procedures. The first we had to give at least 1 hours notice before a shift started, I gave 5 minutes. That was because as I was about to put my son in his pushchair at 9 months old he started chocking on something his brother aged 3 passed him. I was too busy on the phone to the ambulance and saving his life to think about work. When I realised on the way to the hospital on blue lights as his oxygen levels were low my manager said my excuse was not good enough and she expected me in. I asked if she could hear the siren and when she said yes told her that we would be passing the store in about 60 seconds if she would like me to wave on the way past as evidence. Apparently that was insubordination for speaking back to her.

About 7 years ago, a former colleague slipped on the ice as she stepped out her home to go to work 20 mins before started. Broke her wrist. Got told off for breaking it with little notice. Do we need to give warning if we decide to break a bone or something?

After Uni I worked for a subsidiary of Airtours. The training was in Spain and we all had a great time. The course manager gave me good feedback in general but warned me that I would have to be careful "not to frighten any old people"
I have no idea what I was doing that would be so traumatic for pensioners and i was too gobsmacked to ask
I was there for around 6 months and I think all the old people were ok

Another one I just remembered.
I worked in a hotel and our Christmas party was a +1 situation. I was single so took a (male) friend. I talked about said friend in the office and when a few people queried it I explained that we were just friends.
After a shit load of alcohol me and friend ended up snogging on the dance floor (and shagging later in my room)
A few days later I was called into my line managers office and told that the General manger wanted me fired because I had lied about the person I brought to the party just being a friend - to be clear I WAS allowed to bring a boyfriend, the issue was that I had (truthfully at that point) said that the person I brought was just a friend. The General Manager hadn't even asked but had been in the room when I said it.
I told them all to F off and left
Been married to The Friend for 23 years now!!!!

I was given a telling off by my boss that my hair was falling out on the desk and another member of staff had complained about it. She forced me to clean it up. It was literally one hair on the desk next to 10 blonde hairs - I took a photo and threatened to go to Acas if they didn't make every blonde member of staff clean up after themselves.

I was ‘sacked’ because I talked too loudly in the office… my immediate boss (long standing company senior employee) was not consulted, it was done by the Accountant and Manager of the day.

Ironically a colleague and I a couple of days beforehand had gone to buy takeaways for lunch about 15 minutes away from work. The manager was inside with the woman who came to clean the desk phones every few weeks and who wasn’t his wife.

no warnings, no discussion with my supervisors. Caused a bit of an uproar in the office I was told.

Except it's not funny really. That mother!!!!