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.

I once had a half hour telling off by a senior manager for wasting my work time getting myself a glass of water.

I was told off as a first year student nurse by the nurse supervising me for initiating CPR on a patient who arrested right in front of me, pulling the emergency buzzer as I ran to him. Apparently I should have waited for someone to respond to the emergency buzzer ‘in case I did it wrong’

I brought it up with the critical care team who backed me up and pointed out that you can’t really do it wrong because you can’t exactly make their condition any worse, and that if it had been a random person in the street, I would have been completely alone in my efforts. I think the supervising nurse felt guilty that she was not in the room herself and wanted to deflect! That was a shit placement by all accounts 😬

Got told off for doing nothing whilst waiting for a lift (I was a hospital porter).

Is her name Seth Milchick by any chance? 😄

I realise rhis is a very niche comment but hope someone gets it!

Singing too loudly 😬

Oh gosh, I have been a healthcare student too (ODP). There is a saying that nurses eat their young and I think it applies across the board with healthcare students.
A qualified member of staff watched me do a surgical hand wash ready to scrub in to an op. When I started drying my hands off, she demanded to know who taught me how to wash my hands and that the order was all wrong.
I went by the order shown on posters and got an A* for my handwashing/gowning OSCE. That woman was a total bitch to me for my whole placement.

A female friend of mine got told off for being “too confident” at work. Would they have said that to a bloke? Not sure. She was a supervisor and happy to hand out instructions and apparently her supervisees didn’t like it…

I used to be a babysitter for a nice hotel (4 stars country house apartments kind of thing). I had the MANAGER ring me one day to give me a bollocking because the guests I'd babysat for the night before weren't happy that I'd left a (washed) fork on the dish drainer, and the packet from my ready meal in the bin in their apartment. I was booked from 5-11pm! It just seemed so petty for them to complain about that, and ridiculous that the manager should have a go at me about it too.

I used to work in a team of two. My colleague scrambled a file and uploaded it to our system which resulted in a GDPR breach. It didn’t come to light until the following week and our (useless) manager came at ME all guns blazing. I pointed to the date it was uploaded and calmly explained that as I was in Greece at the time, she’d have to take it up with my colleague. She sheepishly admitted that he’d denied all knowledge and insisted it was me! Prick.

Being asked by a SLT if I'd worn a crop top the day before because someone told her I had..um no I said I'm 44 and I feel like they're for youngsters.God knows.

A partner I first worked for insisted on having all the holes punched in the same place so that all the papers lined up exactly in the file. But more terrifying was the partner who had piles of papers all over his desk and no computer. His office always looked like there had been a burglary.

Going home 10 minutes early after a ten hour shift with no break no lunch. We called our senior manager Cruella . Such a bitch

I used to work for a magazine, for one editor in particular. It was a bit like The Devil Wears Prada. I got bollocked for not being able to book a flight to an airport that didn't exist. I'd been to the city myself and explained the correct journey, but she just wouldn't have any of it. We were also supposed to always be in office before her and got looked at at if we weren't. Her arrival might have been anything between 7am or 11 so the expectation was that we were supposed to be psychic.

When I was a trainee teacher my mentor wouldn’t let me plan my own lessons, I had to use his, couldn’t deviate because he had to supervise the lessons so knew everything that was going on. One night I was rushed into hospital so obviously rang in sick the next day. He contacted the uni suggesting they failed me because I hadn’t sent PowerPoints as cover for that days lessons from my hospital bed…. His PowerPoints that he had already sent me.

I was told off recently for asking someone to sign in to our (secure) office building, because it ‘made them feel unwelcome.’

Got asked to write a press release my boss felt she should have written.

Ended up walking out my job because she made my work life hell afterwards.

Went on to much better things though so I should really thank her. She liked to call herself 'the velvet steamroller'. She was just an enormous lump of a bully in reality.

I had a vile work mate who would send me vile emails just to me so I would reply politely but cioy in everyone so they could see what she had written

I got told off for leaving on time. Office junior on minimum wage in early 00’s and at 5.15pm I would log off, gather my stuff and leave.
I did notice everyone else stayed later but they were all higher than me so assumed it was to do with their hours.
I was called into the managers office after a few weeks and told that although my finish time was 5.15pm, I should be aiming to stay til 5.30pm to look keen.
A couple of months later I was then told they were extending my list of jobs, which would require me to work longer hours, but that I was privileged I was being asked to do this (this was after I asked if my longer hours would be reflected in my pay, to which the answer was no).
I refused and got sacked. The company was in the local press a few years later for poor employment issues, with several people coming out of the woodwork to complain at how they had been treated.

I phoned in sick I was 18 first job I got through a YTS work placement. I had swollen glands my neck was couldn't speak constantly coughing. I was working in a kitchen so obviously not hygienic to be coughing my germs while preparing food. I managed to get a doctor's app on the way to my app I bumped into a friend also going for an app.

I was seen by someone from work with my friend so they assumed I had pulled a sickie. I got a verbal warning even though I said I would go in the next day and they could decide for themselves. So I did and was sent home. My friend found out she had, had an ectopic pregnancy. She was rushed into hospital that night to have her fallipian tube removed.

A colleague complained because, at the start of the day, we needed workers, but I was chatting with another department for 10 minutes. I did this because I knew we would need some of their workers to complete our department’s tasks for the day. When I had a chance to explain this to my colleague, they just responded that I shouldn’t be talking when we had tasks to complete. So I asked if the two of us could do the tasks ourselves, and they said no. At that point, I said how else am I supposed to get the help we need without those conversations and got .........

I had the opposite and was told off, in a conversation that made me cry as this was just one criticism, for never asking my boss how her weekend had been when she came in on a Monday. I was usually in at least half an hour before her and often on the phone when she got in. She was also a nasty bully and the job made me feel physically sick. The last thing I wanted was to think about her beyond a work capacity, or to make faux jovial chit chat.

Someone called me into the office to 'have a word'

Apparently there was a wee wee smell coming under the toilet cubicle partition

Crazy boss once told me I had to watch my facial expressions

I was just 🤔

Also worked at Boots in my teens on the 'reception' desk as it were

Boss told me I wasn't 'setting it on fire' as much as I should have been

Really??!

Oh my goodness, this sounds so familiar - were you in the South West? A recruitment company tried to tell me off (non sales role) for not working beyond my hours voluntarily even though it would take me below the minimum wage. I should have wanted to do it apparently.