I was originally hired as an Emergency Medical Technician by a hospital. After a few years the local Fire Department took over EMS. The only thing that changed is that the taxpayers had to pay to have our ambulances repainted and we all got new uniforms.
One day while driving my partner and I get flagged down; the man's truck had caught fire. We could see visible flames between the cab and the box. My partner grabbed the fire extinguisher on the console and I ran around to the back and got the fire extinguisher from the rear compartment. We doused the flames before the engine arrived. We made our report on the radio and went back to the station to restock.
We were later told that the fire extinguishers should only be used if our vehicle was on fire, and not for civilians.
So, we were supposed to sit in Fire uniforms, in a Fire vehicle, and not put out a fire.
I didn't stop to greet some customers as I walked in with a cane for the third week in a row due to nerve damage.
I wasn't on the clock, we didn't have a uniform, no name tag, nobody would even know I work there until I put my shit on after I clock in.
By that time I had made it a habit of recording every interaction with management, so I just pulled out my phone, hit the record button, and asked "so to be clear, are you officially reprimanding me for NOT doing work off the clock?" and that immediately shut him up.
Managers get awfully pensive when they have recording devices capturing them.
Worked for a small business which did electronics repair, and which had recently picked up e-waste recycling. Our boss, the owner, was known for getting baked out of his mind and imagining things which he needed to tell his staff, and would think the next day that he had actually told that thing to his staff. Just to give you an idea of the kind of guy the owner is, we had two company-wide group texts for the 11 people on payroll. One had everyone, and the other had everyone except the owner. The owner never knew about that one, and honestly that arrangement was a necessity to keep turnover low and by extension the business from running aground.
Anyway, my coworker is talking to a customer at the counter, who is dropping off an old television to be recycled. The customers leave, and the owner walks in.
Owner: "Wait, is this a plasma? We can't take this!"
Coworker: "why not?"
Owner: "We can't do plasmas! We've never done plasmas!" sees the stack of plasma screen televisions "What the fuck?! Who accepted these?"
Me: "Dude, you've never mentioned that we can't do anything with plasmas before."
Owner: "Yeah! It was in the class on e-waste recycling."
Coworker: "You were the only one who took that because you didn't want to fly anyone else to Vegas for a four day conference."
At this point I think the owner started to realize he hadn't actually disseminated anything other than the logistical aspects of the e-waste business to the employees.
Owner: "So, what, no one knows what we actually accept for e-waste?"
Me: "I don't think so, man."
The owner looks at me with obvious anger and with that look that says he's about to blame me for something.
Owner: "So, what y'all want a fucking list or something?"
Coworker: "Yeah, that would be great, actually."
The owner turned red, looked about ready to angry-cry, and walked out. Went home and got baked. I don't think he ever actually put a list together. The e-waste thing fell through a few months later after I left because the warehouse he was renting and illegally living out of was like a quarter the size needed, and there wasn't any money left for processing equipment. He franchised a corporate brand like a year later.
Fuck you, Matt, you goddamn moron.
I reported the multinational company CTO for not being able to keep his hands off me (I'm a guy btw) and a load of other employees. That report came on top of other reports of abuse, fraud, and briberies.
Mind you, this company wa so about protecting whistleblowers that I had to sign a contract about it. VPs were outraged and vowed to protect me.
I made the report, week later called into an emergency meeting with the CTO and head of HR is there too and I'm fired. I sued, won, and in that time learned that the CTO was fired the next day because, amongst things, he fired me. Even so, they didn't cancel my firing, didn't rehire me, because now I was toxic.
Never trust anyone in big companies. Never trust their contracts, never trust their words.
We were changing office buildings and were packing our desks for the move. They have us boxes and bags for everything. The bags were oddly large, which I commented on by saying "these bags could fit a small child". Apparently some people took offense at that, as I was later sent up to HR to explain myself.
There was a super insecure manager a bunch of years ago. I didn't report to him, but occasionally worked alongside him.
I had been working with one of our customers for a few weeks on a feature they had requested. It was something out-of-the-box, so understandably, if you didn't know the context, it would be rather confusing.
Manager is set to run a meeting with them, and asks for my help as the technical expert. No problem. We get into the meeting, and the customer asks some technical questions. Before I can get a word in edgewise, Manager proceeds to pull the most inane shit out of his ass for a good 10 minutes--clearly knowing nothing that's going on, but not letting that stop him. After the customer is sufficiently confused, and Manager is starting to look a little panicked, he finally turns to me.
I figure I'll try to save him some face, so I start my reply with, "I'm not entirely sure, but are you asking...", repeating their question back. The customer is clearly relieved that I know what they're asking, and I provide the answers. Crisis averted! The meeting ends and I head back to my desk feeling good.
Until Manager storms up to my desk and proceeds to scream at me, "IF YOU'RE NOT ABSOLUTELY SURE ABOUT SOMETHING, DON'T ANSWER! NONE OF THIS 'I'M NOT SURE' BULLSHIT! NEXT TIME THINK ABOUT WHAT THAT LOOKS LIKE FOR US!" and storms off. Nice projection, asshole.
I was new enough to not have the presence of mind to respond, so nothing came of it (though he was demoted not long after--possibly the shittiest manager I've ever known) so it all worked out in the end.
I was written up for being too pessimistic. It was about 8 years ago, I was a project manager at a small retail company. I was in a small meeting with my boss and the owner of the company. I was telling the owner all the possible risks associated with this new project I was given, the major one being that we didn't have enough time to complete everything by the owner imposed deadline. Calling out risks is literally one of the main responsibilities of being a project manager. Also the meeting went fine, no one got upset, it seemed everyone understood. A few days later I get called into HRs office with a write up for basically being a Debbie Downer. I was told to be more positive with my updates and stay away from any bad news. I was in total shock! A few days later I put my notice in and found a new job making twice as much. So it all worked out in the end. Thanks for the motivation Todd!
For documenting the accurate number of hours I worked, in a teaching lab. The department head didn't believe that the lab I taught (as a grad student) needed the hours it was given. Keep in mind, I had to do everything for the lab: create the lab manual, design lab activities, get ethics approval, create lab lectures, setup and clean up the lab, and do all the marking.
Turns out, the department used that document to pay me. This was never explained to me, usually we just get paid the set amount of hours, and I was of the understanding that this was just an audit of my hours to justify what I was getting. Turns out I worked about an extra 30% of the hours set for that lab for the semester. As a result, the department couldn't fully pay me until the following year because they didn't have it in their budget to pay for that extra 30%.
I ended up getting an ear full from the department head, but he backed off when I told him I was simply doing what he asked and that I wasn't inflating the numbers to get higher pay, since I had no idea they intended to pay me based on that audit.
Perhaps it's coincidence, or perhaps it was petty revenge, but later that year at gathering of the faculty and grad students he announced that I had won a major scholarship (one that would've paid pretty well for a grad student), and had me stand up in the crowd along with the other winners. Then, immediately after the assembly, he runs up to our lab office to tell me he read the sheet wrong and I hadnt actually won the scholarship, he just read the wrong name. I spent the next few days shamefully having to explain to everyone that, no I didn't get the award.
*edit: spelling mistakes.
My GF is a pool cleaner and once got written up for sending a customer a picture of dead pigeons that were in their yard.
The customer called the office screaming that she sent the pictures "to be mean."
Turns out these people had pest control out on their property to "remove" all the frogs because the frogs were "keeping them awake at night", and the birds took the bait instead.
Yes, these folks were filthy rich and entitled.
I got a verbal warning for referring to someone as a "guy" in my team's group chat.
As in "I've got a guy here who's running into issues with getting his loan processed. How should I proceed with assisting him?"
My language wasn't professional enough, and my manager pulled me aside to warn me not to do it again. I've since left the role, and my new team fully embraces casual conversation (my manager has outright exclaimed that "our software is a piece of shit" to much agreement). Things are much better now.
Weirdest would be that the CEO of the company I worked at then had one single runin with me in my entire tenure at that company and found that my facial expression wasn't to his liking.
I'm autistic and by that alone have little facial expression, add the meds I take for anxiety and depression and it results in that I have no facial expression at all.
So it pretty much came down to him not liking my resting face.
Tried to fire me for no reason, couldn't, because I'm in a protected class.
Managed to do so anyway by bullying me to no end until I accepted being fired.
Worst reason to be fired would be that I worked 48 hours straight on a weekend to implement vast network and server overhauls to then be fired for not being at work on monday morning.
I had the full clear from my boss and his boss and was not supposed to come in on monday unless something went bad with the upgrade (it didn't).
Simply not being there when my bosses boss wanted me to be there was all it took.
I was working in the military. An office job at HQ so we had to use our parade uniforms. I was working nights one week and didn't have any clean black socks, I used white.
Around 8 in the morning I was walking up the stairs to leave and passed the Naval Admiral, who promptly chewed me put for wearing white socks and dress shoes.
I was interviewing for a job as a movie theater manager.
In my neck of the woods there's a limited number of movie theaters, and everyone knows everyone else. So I was interviewing for the job when I'm told
"we heard through the grapevine that after you were fired from your last job you broke into the office and did something unspeakable on the carpet."
I still ended up getting the job.
I told the CEO that not having a disaster recovery plan was a bad idea. He did not like that. Got written up the next morning. They wouldn't even tell me exactly why I was being written up. Only that I had "not done what I was supposed to" which was apparently to sit there in silence.
Got fired from that job a few years later. My bosses boss called me at home because he didn't have the decency to do it to my face. In that moment I panicked a little but by the next day it was like a weight had been lifted. That place was a complete shit show.
I got in trouble for telling a senior manager that he was wrong on a technical issue. He sought expert advice on a control system but when the answer came back it didn't fit his conception of reality and he didn't want to hear it.
Turns out being good at management and being good at solving technical problems are skill sets that very rarely coincide in one person.
I'm in this situation all the time. Simple solution if you're worried about it: alphabetize them by first name. It's fair and if people actually care about crap like this, they can fuck off in general. At least if you're consistent with that, they can never complain. It's insane to me that it's a thing, but people are fragile and it matters a lot to some of them
I had a really insecure young manager who was almost half my age. Guy was a chickenshit. One day, while he was out, we reorganized our desks so that we'd not have our backs to the hallway. Instead, we turned our desks 180 degrees so that our backs were to the wall. He came around and said "well, this layout is not in accordance with the open office rules". I paused for a second, looked at him and replied "Oh really? No shit! How cute..." And proceeded to ignore him solemnly.
He didn't do shit. Was eventually let go for complete incompetence and negative reviews from every single one of his employees.
I got in trouble at work because I sent an email to my manager about some new servers that were being installed, but didn't appear we had access to the management console. I let her know the entire team will need access so we could properly support the machines. I was pulled into a conversation... How dare I presume my direct manager who only managed my team, have any idea what we do!
(Lost all respect for her that exact moment)
Ugh, I hate that this is something I think about every time I send an email.
Just use Bcc instead
You HEATHEN! How DARE you not CC those people in order of seniority! /s
I got a verbal warning for farting.
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