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 worked briefly for the probation service in reception and got rollocked for warming up a can of soup for an old man who'd just walked five miles.

I used to be a store manager and was sent home to change for wearing trousers by the area manager. When I returned I asked him to do all the high up work as I couldn't climb a ladder in my skirt suit. He was fuming

My children have SN so yes I know all about it… one DC mentioned that the other occasionally cooked dinner and they decided that meant I was unable to cope 🙄 I’m confused about your “scum families” comment and don’t really know what that horrible term might mean. It’s not one that I would ever use, although apparently you would.

I still don’t see how this is an odd question though. Hence my asking. I can easily see how it might come up in conversation.

Advent calendars are far from essential, so I don’t understand the implication of “not bothering” to spend on one. We sometimes get one, but it’s the type with glitter and little pictures, not chocolate. Perhaps my children are deprived. And my Muslim neighbour never buys them for her kids…

I mean, I don’t even know the answer to whether or not families share Advent calendars. If someone asked me my personal Advent calendar situation I would tell them without thinking twice, in fact I did so above.

I asked because he told me he hadn't been able to open it that morning he was 1 of 6 ao I wasn't sure if they had one each. Was trying to find out why he hadn't opened it that day.

I once found a quicker, much more efficient way of doing a small, computer based task which resulted in the exact same outcome. My boss asked me know I managed to get the work done so quickly and when I explained she told me that was ‘cheating’ and accused me of always trying to find shortcuts to my work 😂 😂

I was more wondering how it came up at home and why the mother got angry, not why you asked. Conversations go in all directions, I can imagine why the question might have come up.

Sounds like she was either offended or sensitive about the children not having one each or the perception that they might not have had one each. Whereas I don’t see why children need an Advent calendar each either way, so I didn’t understand why it might be a sensitive issue for some.

Then ask a open question. I've only got two grandchildren, but sometimes its been a busy/late morning and advent calendars haven't been opened. So my DD went to opening them of an evening. If you chat to children using open questions, you get much more information.

I also worked for a shoe shop. I earned £4 each Saturday. This was 1990s so not much even then.

We had to wear skirts and tights. Fine. But I got told off because I bought tights from the market, not the shop. I explained I could get 4 pairs for £2 from the market or 1 pair for £3 from the shop (I remember the actual amount!) and that I went through several pairs a month (the ladders we used were sharp) so couldn't afford to buy them at the shop. I was told I should get my mum to buy them for me! 🤣

I gave in and bought a few pairs on pay day. The horrible boss wouldnt even get me earn commission on them and made me put them through on soneone else's account! Not that they ever gave me my commission anyway but that's another point.

I went back to buying at the market, got told off again and quit. I'd like to say I quit over the tights but I didnt. I'd got another job the day before that paid £7 an hour which was a fortune! I also got more hours. I've never felt as rich since!

The shoe shop also banned all facial hair. Because we all know a moustache impeded the selling of shoe polish.

I was in my 20s and had been in a new role for about a month. There was a deadline for a piece of work I was involved in to be sent to a supplier. This was dependent on final sign-off from a senior manager who would have then sent over the work. As it happened she was off sick on deadline day. I emailed the supplier and said 'Just to let you know Manager is unwell today - let me know if there's anything I can help with in her absence' - trying to be helpful and make sure they weren't left hanging. When she returned to work a couple of days later she gave me a really nasty talking to, making out I was undermining her and going behind her back.

Couldn't stand her and was secretly overjoyed when she got let go for essentially being crap a few months later.

I had a temp job, whilst I was at uni in a shop. There wasn’t a specific uniform as such, but we had to wear black and white. Easy peasy, I thought… I wore a white top with a black grid pattern on it once. I got in trouble for wearing it because the grid pattern was too bold. I was asked not to wear it again.

Two of us got told off for not doing a job on Friday. In the same telling off we were told that when we did it on the following Monday it was too soon and we shouldn’t have done it then. 🤔 Still trying to work it out many years later.

Joined a small company in late 1980s as a teen. Got told off for wasting triple carbon copy invoices by predating them. I pointed out that it wasn't me. The date was 3 weeks before I'd started. Was hmmp'd at & told well it's a lesson you've learned. My boss was the company owner's wife & was disliked by most of the staff.

I was sacked from one of my first jobs because the manager decided on the day that he wanted everyone to wear white shirts from tomorrow, I didn't own a white shirt, my shift finished at 8pm and when I explained that I couldn't possibly buy a white shirt by 8am the next morning because I lived in a tiny village and my first bus would only allow me time to get to work, also I hadn't even received my first pay check. He told me not to bother coming in the next day.

Where I worked enquiries had to be answered within 10 working days. I was emailed something and replied in 5 minutes because I had the information at hand.
An hour later I was told a formal complaint had been made against me by the man for failing to reply to an enquiry, I even printed the emails off and showed them to the manager and she still said ‘well the process has been started’.
Man rang back another hour later to say he had found them in his spam folder so not my fault (so manager withdrew the complaint), but he had another question, which I didn’t answer for…9.5 days. Twat. It was way after he needed the information.

Drinking Earl Grey Tea.

Manager sent me home for being ‘sick’ even though I’d lost my voice but was otherwise fine, and another colleague had offered to take any phone calls on my behalf (we took maybe one or two calls a day usually.) Manager then gave me a warning for being off sick.

🤣

I just bought some lovely EG tea today, I didn’t realise I was misbehaving.

Ah, but were you drinking it at work? ladymalfoy may have made her colleagues feel inferior.😉

I disagree. Jealousy lives on well past schooldays. In fact adult life is the dynamics of the playground transferred to adults with the added bonus of taxes, children and death.

I got told off for (all spearheaded by an utter lunatic)

Complaining (while running my hand through my own bobbed hair) to my friend that the trouble with a bob was that it grew out too fast and looked raggedy unless I got it trimmed again. She had a bob haircut and this was rude apparently. It was a conversation between my friend and I and nothing to do with her. I was talking about my own hair.

That I created a hostile work environment when I took messages for her when she let her phone ring through to me (we were both Jr lawyers) instead of helping her clients. Lazy baggage. (I then went to IT and got the phones to ring the other way round the team so hers did not come to me) the entitlement!

That I had been gossiping about her after a horrific work party where she got screaming drunk and she and her boyfriend had a massive public argument in front of everyone that ended in quite a scene

I pointed out that I was nowhere near as interested in her as she was in me and had better things to do.

I cited her as the main reason why I left the firm, she drove several staff away by beinf a malicious and duplicitous baggage. Strange woman.

I told on a colleague for forwarding all his calls. I did tell him it was an issue before going to the manager.

The calls were disruptive (and his standard of work wasnt all that so we didnt like picking it up but I didnt say that).

He was the only person who used call forwarding.

It backfired because our manager queried it with a senior manager. The senior manager waited until all 7 of us were in the office together to bollock us for 20 minutes about using call forwarding at all. She'd printed out the policy for each of us to take away and read.

Afterwards I told my manager no one was happy because that was so heavy handed. He told me that the senior manager didnt want to be seen to target just one person but that it was too important for an email with the policy attached.

Call forwarder left. His replacement came in and when he asked who he should forward his calls onto when he was on leave we all shouted "no one!". 🤣

Endlessly got told off for being good at my job. (Almost certainly because i made them all look bad) You couldnt imagine how bad this place was, and the absurdities i witnessed.. Ive still got ptsd about the place 7 years after I left. 😂

For putting on an out of office reply on my emails - standard thing to do but for some reason my big boss objected to it. Never got to the bottom of why though.

Did it say "send all your emails to my boss" or the one I'd love to write "I'm not in, all emails will be deleted".

I was once told out of offices were a security risk. Apparently it indicates that your house might be empty and that there might be a vulnerability in the office eg a temp receptionist who will let dodgy people through. I dont know how likely it is but that's why I will only say "I'm not in the office and have limited access to my emails" rather than things like "I'm on my honeymoon" etc which I've seen.

That sounds vanishingly unlikely