To ask for stupid reasons you've been told off at work?

[chailatte123]

I once asked a member of the Senior Team if she had dyed her hair.
Apparently this was very rude.

I was temping as a receptionist for a advertising agency after leaving uni. One of the directors came to me asking about an email I hadn't actioned or sent (iirc). I told her I didn't remember this and asked when this had happened. She replied and I explained I hadn't been working there then. I had only started x days ago and it must have been the girl before me but that I would search for it. I searched and said I couldn't find it. She was adamant that I had messed up and was wittering away in a spaced out kinda way.

A short while later I got a call from the recruitment agency telling me that that was my last day. I can't remember what they said to me but I made sure I told them what actually happened. I didn't want the crazy bitch scuppering my rep with them.

OMG. Is it not possible to appeal these things or make a counter complaint?

I bought a big tin of chocolate biscuits and put them out in the staff room with a note saying they were a thank you to everyone for making me feel welcome during my first week on placement when I was a trainee teacher. My class teacher mentor took me to one side and told me off for this telling me it was an “inappropriate” thing to do. She was a vile woman and bullied me relentlessly during my placement.

I just got full body cringe! Why the heck were they emailing their poem around?

😂

I did appeal it, my boss asked me to rescind it because it made him look bad
it’s a pathetic company and I’m in the process of leaving.

I was told off for knitting in the staff canteen, during my (unpaid) lunch break. I was a student nurse, and was told by the Theatre manager that knitting during my break, in uniform, was unprofessional.

Considering the things I say and do at work, especially when I'm tired, I'm surprised I don't get told off. Did get told off when the safety manager noticed I wasn't wearing safety glasses in a promotional video about the company but that was a very good reason to tell me off (I had just come from a company where we were trusted to use glasses when necessary on our own judgement to a company where they have to be worn at all times and hadn't adjusted yet)

Something stupid I got told off for, when I worked in a university dining hall where staff were split between kitchen and dining hall. Dining hall manager was short staffed one shift and demanded one of the kitchen servers go and work for him instead and I told him no, none of us were going to help him as then we'd be short and its not our problem he didn't have enough staff. He got angry and had a go at me but the chefs backed me when he tried to complain to them.

'Pappy'? Odd word choice.

That particular comment isn't rude to make at work, agreed. But I'm guessing you probably wouldn't ask someone you work with whether they'd had their hair dyed or lips done? Or comment on, say, their weight?

You could have said something neutral instead, that can’t be misinterpreted, like: ‘your hair looks lovely.’ I know that’s not what you meant, but it’s a much safer option.

Can you see how your comment might be seen as offensive, as it’s not complimentary at all and it sounds like you’re suggesting her hair colour must be fake?

A colleague criticised me (unfairly) in an email to someone in another dept, blaming me for an error that was actually hers. I don't think she realised that she'd used the general office email rather than her own work one. I saw it & then told her that it was unprofessional and unwarranted and not to do it again.
She then complained to our boss that I'd spoken to her. Boss called me in and said I should have spoken to her (boss) not colleague, and that was just colleague's way (and essentially I had to put up with it). I generally liked the job & worked different hours to obnoxious colleague so I stayed.

Colleague handed in her notice (unrelated) about a year later. Boss was gushing how good she was for giving extra notice. I filed the resignation letter. She'd given the statutory one month but it included the 2 week closure for Christmas. So she only actually worked 2 weeks of the 4.

Boss just thought the sun shone out of her for some reason. It was very odd.

I once got told off by HR for saying I was loyal to the private school I worked at! My jaw nearly hit the floor. (I no longer feel any loyalty to the place!)

What does ‘pappy’ even mean? I’ve never heard it before, and can’t find it on Google.

First job after uni - my dickhead of a boss gave me a public telling off for dressing too nicely (he thought the shirt I was wearing under my lab coat was silk - it wasn't and it'd come from a charity shop). I did not take it well. 23-year old me took no prisoners. 😂

Same here!

‘Pap’ is that sort of sloppy textured stuff, so baby food is very pappy

Cambridge English dictionary gives one meaning as "soft and mushy" so perhaps PP meant it in terms of people who are not robust/resilient.

Or possibly she meant to say "sappy" which means silly/embarrassingly over-emotional.

It's neither rude nor odd.

What a rude and odd thing to say.

I've complimented men at work on new haircuts / hair colours. Men need little confidence boosts too, I don't think they get enough small compliments as women give each other. There was a cute experiment where men were given bunches of flowers to say thank you, and they loved it, said they felt really special.

I work casually at a school. There was a man in the lobby waiting to be buzzed through. We'd been emailed not to buzz visitors in on our cards, so i waited. He was waiting for his kid, who came out the other door, he went right out and I buzzed in. I got chapter and verse from reception about not buzzing visitors in or opening the door if they were still in the lobby. All of which I hadn't done.

Was told the colour of my car was offensive to the director - and I was to park my car (brand new and not a scrappy rust bucket) at the far end of the car park out of sight of the main gate. After doing so, I then got reprimanded for parking the car the wrong way round - it was parked to it could be driven straight out of the space going forward, and then told off for parking the car at the far end off the car park and upsetting gate security!
As a cleaner, I did get my revenge by shutting the directors toilets as ‘ out of action’ and managing to out a stop to his morning coffee routine - always with a smile and unarguable reasons for a month.

I was working in London and got told off for having a Northern accent. The same accent i had at the job interview.

Old fat cow? Wow.

I was shouted down because I won a large profitable bid, on my own because I couldn’t reach the any of the senior management team to ‘run through it’. (A process they’d implemented for the good of the business)
micromanaging at its best.
25yrs under my belt, if you think I’m so incapable after that, get rid of me.
although I expect her outburst was due to her own incompetence … I have dependents otherwise it’d have been worth slapping her temper back into her mouth & loosing my job (& I despise violence entirely btw )

Stapling documents. The boss apparently could only cope with staples that were staples horizontally in the corner and not diagonal. One of many things she moaned about. She was batshit.