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.

It was hard to see any other reason why my boss would go out of their way to make personal remarks about my decent and appropriate clothing. Baffled, otherwise.

I worked in a greenhouse potting plants. We could wear disposable gloves. Sometimes they'd tear on the pots so we'd get a new pair. Otherwise, what's the point in them? Or we'd get hew ones after lunch etc. We were all told we were using too many gloves and banned from them.

Someone then had a reaction to a plant and we were all told off for not using gloves. So we then all had to wear gloves again but we'd have to go and ask for them and write down why we needed another pair that shift.

I gave up and just bought a box of them and replaced them when I wanted but then I was told off because everyone else might want to do that and it would be "bedlum". 🤣

Yes! I had similar. My boss was also "disappointed" but then quickly added "to lose me". 🤣 I was later told off for not looking pregnant enough to justify why I had morning sickness.

TBF she was actually lovely with everything else but didnt understand why anyone would want kids or why anyone would "ruin their career" by not coming back to work 2 weeks after they gave birth.

I've had similar too. We work alongside another company. Customers get confused who does what part. I was told off for saying I'd email a customer contact details for the other company because they'd lost them. Apparently the customer should just google them. Id understand if it was a rival but we work with them.

Because she felt (probably wrongly) that it was inappropriate. What do you suggest she was ‘jealous’ about? If the boss was male, to what would you have attributed his comment? That he fancied you?

I just don’t get it why people jump to ‘jealousy’ as a reason - at least not after they have left school

I had one particularly psycho senior manager. I was in quite a serious situation; an independent review of where things had gone wrong in a social work setting. Thankfully I hadn't been the worker at the time, I had worked with the family a long time before though, and in those situations all professionals/services who were linked are pulled in. I'd never been part of one before and no one told me what to expect.

On the day it turns out that all those directly involved at the time had left the company. So I ended up having to answer far more questions than I'd anticipated. Quite early on, the senior manager hissed to me that I mustn't say anything in that room that she wasn't already aware of. I had never spoken to the manager about this situation so quite how I was supposed to know what they knew about it, I have no idea. I got told off again afterwards by the same manager, for answering questions without checking my notes (I didn't need to because I know dates etc well) and for being 'too helpful'. I asked what they meant and they said that I kept answering the questions. The questions were directed specifically to me and it wasn't exactly a situation where I was allowed to decline!

Interestingly, over the next few weeks a few of the colleagues from other services asked how I was, commented on how well I'd come across, that they thought it was akin to being on trial, and asked about the support I'd been getting. I got none, other than the telling off it wasn't mentioned. Turned out they'd all had prep meetings in advance and extra support in supervision after. Made me realise how much risk I was carrying and how much I'd been gaslit to think it was all my responsibility; I soon left.

Was temping in the city (London)..Hauled over the coals for working 10 or so minutes past 5pm finish . Accused of trying to show up the department manager / angling for her job ! I was on a working holiday from Oz not a career ladder.

Ohhh God yes, @XenoBitch! One of the first things we learned as student nurses was never, ever lend a doctor your pen, otherwise you will never see it again.

This assumption keeps on being made. 🙄Yes, it's fine in some workplaces, but I've definitely worked in one or two where it would be frowned upon. It's about differing workplace cultures, not people 'taking offence at the slightest thing'.

Agree it's very different if someone is a person you'd class as a work friend, than if they're not. I think that's probably why some think it's uptight not to make personal comments, because they're looking at it in terms of what they'd say to their work friends rather than peple they are 'just' colleagues with.

I do think it's only in a relaxed workplace that commenting on the appearance of someone senior to you isn't something to be weighed up carefully, though, depending on the personality involved.

Came up on a report for sickness. I’d had one day all year. Called into a room by team leader who I sat next to and reprimanded about the long list of illnesses, PMT, menopause, the lot. She listed every ailment.
I sat there and took it all in, nodding. Then I quietly said “I sit by you, wouldn’t you have noticed if I’d be away all these times and I’m 20 something and not menopausal?”
She said it’s all here on the report. I said well your report is clearly wrong.
Turned out my one day off had triggered the report and all the sickness of another colleague with same initial and surname had gone on my records.
So much for data privacy!

Fair dos. Thanks for clarifying.

I was told off loudly and publicly, in a busy office, for the outrageous crime of being dyslexic (declared at interview). She told me to get to the doctors for treatment as soon as possible. I was embarrassed.
i pointed out that I had 2 degrees and that dyslexia is not curable, unlike ignorance, then returned to my desk. I left soon after, of my own volition.

I was reading a book. The kids in my class were in silence (top set) doing an assessment. I was not reading the book, I was flicking to certain pages to write down quotes for a future lesson. I kept my eye closely on the class whilst doing it. SLT had looked through the window and I was threatened with a disciplinary.
I actually got a disciplinary for being 5 minutes late to a fire drill that went off after school as I was actually on the toilet sorting out a menopausal bleed - it's not like I could have stood up and gone in the state I was in. Caretaker hammering on the door and reported me. Deputy Head wiped the floor with me and gave me a mark on my record for being obstructive during a fire drill. It was 5 minutes, there was no fire and the alarm had been set off accidentally by the caretaker ....

Some people just think it’s their business, I think. They don’t see anything wrong in commenting on personal things.

It’s too complex in a workplace. I have three categories of people I work with - people who I cba with unless it’s necessary, people who I get on with at a surface level and very close friends.

Those I am friends with know I never notice or have an opinion on things like changes in hair or new clothes.

When I was a fire marshal I was told that we couldn’t leave the building until everyone was out. And anyone who didn’t follow procedure was bollocked, even in a drill.

In the event of a real fire, someone would have had to risk their lives potentially.

Having crumbs in my keyboard.

Boss came in looking for a row that day, could feel the antagonism off him as he walked around the office. I was eating a sandwich at my desk - there wasn't anywhere else to go, no canteen or breakout area - and still working on a project that he'd been chasing for. "It's disgusting, Bippedy, I'm disappointed in you".

Worked in admin for a big ish company for a few months, I’d had to go home early poorly one day, can’t remember the reason, got a feeling it was a stomach thing, on returning one of the girls asked if I felt better, I said much better but I’d spent previous afternoon not moving off the sofa
boss took me into the ‘meeting room’ it was this glass box in the middle of a huge office and proceeded to have a documented chat about if I’m off sick I should be in bed not on the sofa. I was young and much less gobby than I am now I just sort of mumbled ok then but was baffled
I left the following month

I got told off because the positioning of my paper clips when attaching documents together meant it took my boss too long to turn over the top sheet amd wasted her time

😄 This is so funny.

Oh yes, the old interview advice of never sitting down unless you'd been invited to, as if you had to stand up the whole time unless it was said!

When I was an early childhood teacher I worked in the infant room for awhile with a woman who found fault with everything I did. She complained when I picked up a child who had been crying and said I was spoiling them. She questioned why I would read to a young child who couldn't understand the words.In fact she would look at a child and tell them in a mean voice "Don't you think I'm going to pay attention to you". I told my director I couldn't work with this person.and why..

I used to work in a place where there was another woman about the same age who was also blonde. I used to have bosses who would come up behind me and shout “Fiona. Fiona!” when that was my colleagues name, not mine. Then they would get cross because I would say that my name was XYZ, not Fiona. Because the blonde women in their early twenties were pretty much interchangeable.

Nobody ever told me that rule! Good grief.

I get that but I was bleeding everywhere and had to clean up! I was 5 minutes and not everybody was out!