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.

The head of department felt that I, as a maths teacher, could not be trusted to know English,

Reminds me of the English department complaining that we in the Maths department were too nit-picky about pupils' use of English, it wasn't our place apparently. Problem was that if an exam question wanted an answer of 'acceleration', then 'going faster' wasn't good enough, 'lending' and 'borrowing' needed to be used in the correct context and so on. Oddly, the English department were all lovey-dovey towards us when they had set an exam out of, say, 124 and wanted help converting marks to percentages!

Yep number of times I’ve seen senior leaders computer screens left unlocked!
School one here as well
Headteacher pulled me up for overloading the reprographics assistant with last minute photocopying requests. To be fair to her, she then realised the requests had originated from her😂

I'll spare you the details, but in one school I worked in, the headteacher spent 45 minutes haranguing me in a one hour senior leadership team meeting. This was at 4pm on a Wednesday afternoon.

What makes it even more stupid was that less than 48 hours later I walked out of that school for the last time, as I'd resigned several months earlier, and the haranguing changed nothing! One of my colleagues privately said to me later that the head's behaviour towards me was outrageous, and while it was nice to have that acknowledged, the fact that no one spoke up about her bullying was one of the many reasons I didn't want to continue working there.

That sounds nasty, but surely a 14 year old wouldn't be manning a pharmacy counter regardless?

Haha I’ve remembered another school telling off!! Back in 1982npregnant with first child and struggling through incredible nausea and swollen ankles. I had already decided I wasn’t going back to the school after maternity leave as it was so horrid there. So in the last week of term my class was going on a day trip which involved about 3 miles of walking, in the heat. I asked to swap with another teacher who was happy to go as no way could I manage it. I was hauled in and given a dressing down for being basically a useless waste of space.
I took the last week off “ sick” and never went back

Nearly 40 years ago and I went on from there to work at Boots just before my 15th birthday.... not dispensing medicines of course....

That’s appalling! I’m sorry that happened to you. I hope it no longer colours your opinion of yourself.

Even now a 14 year old can work up to 5 hours on a Saturday.

In the nineties , had a paper wall planner. Not shared, just for me. In an office not a customer facing role. Put something cheery on the days I was on a summer holiday e.g. Living it up in Ibiza with a drawing of a palm tree and sun. Someone made a complaint that it was unprofessional.

I was told at an annual appraisal I was "painfully reserved and asked too many questions".

Six months later I had been accepted by the royal navy yelling.my head off on the parade ground and Dartmoor.

Oh bless you, I hope you’re feeling better now. At least if you’ve been in hospital you can show them the discharge letter if they think you were pulling a fast one! I’m guessing that’s why the policy is to phone in, not text, so they can hear it’s you. Re the conference, it’s frustrating when you know your way works best, I’ve had this too! So much time wasted. And as for the email….I’d have done exactly the same, it’s the one who made the error and those bitching who were unprofessional, not you! Good for you for calling them out on it

For authorising a large and incorrect payment to a will beneficiary. The mistake didn't come to light for several months, except the payment was made whilst I was on maternity leave. It was sent under my code as was my file so I was too blame apparently.

Verbal warning because i said I wouldn't ask for the same weekend off as another team member. Another member was a notorious stirrer and told the leader I said she wouldn't let me off because she preferred the girl who was off. It was stupid and pointless and only done to cause trouble. I stopped going into the lunchroom and only spoke when needed after.

I was made redundant from my last job, and during all the (pointless) meetings with 2 managers, who basically went through every thing i did wrong.
Which was nice.
I knew they were getting rid of me, and they knew they were getting rid of me.
So, I don’t know why they dragged it out for about 3 months.

One of my many errors was that i didn’t socialise after work with the girls, so they felt that I wasn’t a team player.

I was stunned into silence. I’m a lot older and (hopefully) wiser now, so, i don’t think I would just sit there and take it now.

I staple diagonally. It's easier to turn the pages over.

Botox?😉

I got bollocked for being a bully the other day

Context-ive worked there 9 years
I firmly believe that everyone should be treated with dignity and respect
I'm not perfect but I work hard at my job-i own up to my mistakes and try to get things right

Last year,a girl of 16 started
Her reputation of being a bully came with her
She's that bad,most of my colleagues had to move schools because of her (one was forced,with her family,to leave the area because of her)

I treat miss bully with respect and dignity,as I do for everyone
She's a lazy madam who thinks her shit doesn't stink and that she's better than everyone
She thinks nothing of bossing everyone around and doing nothing herself

She tried to start bossing me about and I refused to do her work as well as my own

She went scorched earth and ran into the office to claim I was bullying her!

I'm hauled in and spoken to-to which I refused to take and told them to launch and investigation-if they found I was a bully then I'd quit on the spot (I've never bullied anyone in my life)

Thankfully miss bullies true colours are coming out (shes pulled the same stunt on others-this is simply my turn) and I've had full support from my colleagues but its an awful feeling being accused

I mean,even customers have come forward to say I'm not the problem,but work are trying to blame her victims and brush her behaviour under the carpet

Touch of the Hyacinth Buckets there!

Years ago I worked on a ward which had a dinner trolley rather than individual meals. It had been noted on the ward that a lot of things were going missing, foodstuffs from the patients cupboard, cleaning supplies, a hoover, a Xmas tree and the suspect was the housekeeper. A few times food had been found hidden in the kitchen which we suspected she'd put there to pick up before she left and then forgotten.

It was a ward of 26 beds so on a Friday we'd have so many pieces of fish delivered, 4 to a box and also other options. This Friday I heard the patients complaining that only a few people had been served and they'd run out of fish, I asked the housekeeper who also served lunch and she said they hadn't had enough delivered. I asked why she hadn't phoned through to ask for more as the food arrived a few hours before lunch, should be checked off as all present by the housekeeper and if anything missing, more requested. She mumbled something.

I phoned the food delivery people who said they'd double checked before sending it and all the fish was present. I went into the kitchen, the housekeepers bag was on top of a large brown open box with bin bags in it, we'd found food in here before. i lifted her bag up and lo and behold, 2 boxes of fish were there.

I went to tell the manager thinking we'd caught her red-handed and I got a bollocking for touching her bag, that she could now accuse me of going through her bag so they wouldn;t do anything about the food she'd hidden!!

Second one was when a Dr said he couldn;t attend our Christmas lunch as hewas teaching the Alpha Christian course at his church. i said something along the lines of it being Jesus birthday so of course that was more important than a works do and he came to me the next day to say he was upset I'd mocked his religion! I didnt think I had and was mortified i's upset him. He then gave me a Christian book as a Christmas present..

I was working for a shop whose staff are known as 'partners'.
I got my period unexpectedly, wearing grey trousers, so very obvious what had happened. I didn't realise until my female colleague told me to 'sort myself out' as Aunt flo had arrived.
I left a fully staffed shop floor while clinging to walls so no one saw my ruined trousers, to the toilet where i quickly sorted myself and changed into new trousers.
I was gone for about 6 minutes (which i thought was impressive for an unexpected event/clean up), and my FEMALE boss was waiting for me in the toilets to yell at me for leaving the floor unattended!!! Despite me holding the evidence of WHY I had to leave the floor, being backed up by my colleagues who had told me to go, I was given a warning for leaving the floor AND not realising that my period was due.
I left soon after.

When I worked at my son's nursery I went in to his room one evening and found he was absolutely soaking wet from water play. I'm talking everything from his top to his shoes.
I asked a staff member why he was wet, she didn't know (but another staff member did) but just changed him anyway.
Next morning I got told off for upsetting the staff member because I was rude to her by wanting to know why my son was wet. I said I wasn't rude at all and if it had been a different parent who complained staff would have been told off.
Manager said it needed to think about my communication skills and arranged for me to go on a course about it. I left that nursery taking my son with me.

Not quite a stupid thing, but I got left in another country after an argument with my boss about bonuses and/or incentives. I guess his reaction was the stupid /ridiculous bit.

It was 1996 and I was only 20. Flew over in boss' 4 seater to open a little satellite office. Did the interviews and employed the staff and I would be doing the training in the following few days. We would then fly back home.

That evening, at dinner, we got into a heated argument over bonuses. The company was notoriously bad at retaining staff and I thought their salaries and incentives could be better. I grew up in a household where lively debate was encouraged and I thought we were just spit-balling ideas 💁. Boss did not appreciate this.

The following morning I was told by the hotel reception that my boss had left. 😮 He did get his PA to book me a commercial flight back later in the week, but I was to go ahead and train the staff and set up the new office and then come home.

I did it and it's still one of my proudest moments.

Funnily enough, that boss and I I ended up getting along very well, but it took a while.

Context - my old office car park used to have some spaces for staff, one for visitors and one for customers. The one for customers was nowhere near the entrance they had to go to, so they frequently parked in the staff spaces.

got moaned at by my boss for parking in the customer space, because there were no staff spaces left (because a customer was in one!). Got made to move my car.
Went out…. A customers van was in the only staff space not occupied by staff. So I parked in the visitor space.

got moaned at by my boss for parking in the visitors space. Got told to move my car again. Not a space to be found, so I parked at the end of the row blocking in all the other sales spaces, and told them if they wanted me to move again, I was going and not coming back.

Same boss also sent me an email saying how ignorant I was because I’d not said goodbye to him when I left for the day. I’d said a general bye to everyone, same as I did every day. Same as EVERYBODY did every day!

I had a job in a preschool when I was going to college to studying child development.The head teacher and I got to be good friends and even took a weekend trip together. Toward the end of the school year I was assigned to work on a Saturday to deep clean the classroom. I was all by myself even though the other class had the head teacher and the assistant working together.I was given no instructions as to what was expected. It turned out that part of the job was sorting through items in the basement and getting rid of unneeded things. This I learned from the other 2 people who were there.I did the best I could, not knowing what was needed or not. When I finally got to cleaning the classroom half the day had gone by. I think I did a decent job considering I had no help and I put in 8 hours on a Saturday.On Monday morning the teacher informed me that she found dust on a high shelf.I don't know what she was standing on to reach it but on Saturday I couldn't find a way to reach it.Anyway, she informed me that I could go home as I was no longer needed. When I got over the shock I got to thinking
that she had become less friendly when I told her I was getting married. She was 10 years older than me and didn't have a boyfriend. The only thing I could come up with is jealousy. Maybe?

Verbal warning because I didn’t immediately tell the manager that 2 of my colleagues were moaning about another staff member in the staff room.
Another person told the manager and I was given the warning as I was in the room.

A manager of a very well known supermarket threatened to give me a red absence sheet and I would be subject to a disciplinary if I was absent again.
I had cancer and had been off having operations, I had just told her I would be off again in a couple of months for radiation treatment that involved me being in an isolation room then away from my children for a fortnight or id irradiate them.
This had been my only absences in the 5 years I had been there.

I told her there would be no red sheet on my return or I would sue the company and go to the press.