Nobody likes a micromanager! Rules, standards, and discipline are definitely crucial in a working environment, that’s true. However, what’s equally essential is the trust that managers place in their employees. If you have little of that, you’ll only breed resentment in the workplace and have to deal with huge turnover rates.Some of the employees of Redditshared theirmost bizarre work stories on r/meirl. They spilled the tea about the most ridiculous reasons that they ever got in trouble for at work. We’ve collected the most interesting and frustrating posts for you to enjoy on your coffee break. But God forbid anyone’s 12 seconds late to get back to their desk!This post may includeaffiliate links.
Nobody likes a micromanager! Rules, standards, and discipline are definitely crucial in a working environment, that’s true. However, what’s equally essential is the trust that managers place in their employees. If you have little of that, you’ll only breed resentment in the workplace and have to deal with huge turnover rates.
Some of the employees of Redditshared theirmost bizarre work stories on r/meirl. They spilled the tea about the most ridiculous reasons that they ever got in trouble for at work. We’ve collected the most interesting and frustrating posts for you to enjoy on your coffee break. But God forbid anyone’s 12 seconds late to get back to their desk!
This post may includeaffiliate links.
Got in trouble for eating in my car during my break because I might be needed to come back early. I explained that’s why I eat in my car.
I was reprimanded for working too much, and for not working enough, within an hour of each other. I was the only person remaining in a team of four people, so I was sneaking into the office early to get some extra stuff done off the clock. I was caught and written up for that. About an hour after I had walked out of my boss’s office she asked me to come back again to threaten to put me on my “final warning” for failing to deal with the backlog that was accumulating while we were understaffed.
I was 12 seconds late coming back from break onceWas talked to about time management
Employees valuemanagers who valuethemand find ways to encourage them. On the flip side, micromanagers are a living, breathing, typing nightmare to be around. You know that you’re working with the latter if theynever delegatetheir work, constantly pester you for updates, and don’t want you making any decisions without their knowledge.Micromanagers can’t see the forest for the trees: they focus so much on itty-bitty details that they ignore the bigger perspective. They’re hardly ever satisfied, have a massive employee turnover rate, and get irritated if you don’t loop them in on everything that you do. Micromanagers are also very big on monitoring their employees’ performance to a bizarre extent. And they also tend to ignore others’ work-life boundaries, insisting that their jobs are more important than anything else.
Employees valuemanagers who valuethemand find ways to encourage them. On the flip side, micromanagers are a living, breathing, typing nightmare to be around. You know that you’re working with the latter if theynever delegatetheir work, constantly pester you for updates, and don’t want you making any decisions without their knowledge.
Micromanagers can’t see the forest for the trees: they focus so much on itty-bitty details that they ignore the bigger perspective. They’re hardly ever satisfied, have a massive employee turnover rate, and get irritated if you don’t loop them in on everything that you do. Micromanagers are also very big on monitoring their employees’ performance to a bizarre extent. And they also tend to ignore others’ work-life boundaries, insisting that their jobs are more important than anything else.
I got told I’m too sensitive and need to accept people have their own personalities or leave… After reporting a guy for repeatedly calling team members racial slurs and then assaulting me and threatening to kill me multiple times when I called out his bad behavior. All of which was in front of our supervisor…F**k Home Depot.
I got written up for taking 4.5 sick days in a calendar year when we had 12 allotted. The company average was 4, so they wrote up everyone who had more.
Suspended from my waitressing job for a week for having overly bushy eyebrows. Not poorly groomed, just very full. Like Brooke Shield’s eyebrows. Manager said they were “distracting” to the customers. He wanted me to pluck them into the thin style that was more popular in the 90’s. I enjoyed my week off and, when I came back he asked me if I’d thought about what I was going to do about my eyebrows. Told him I was going to keep their natural shape and, if he didn’t like it I’d be happy to talk to a lawyer about racial discrimination at work. He dropped the issue and I quit soon after.
Any traditional working environment needs all of its employees to be on the same page on the stuff that truly matters. That means having a clear understanding of your responsibilities, knowing what kinds of deadlines you have to meet, how you’re supposed to treat your clients, and what your working day and potential overtime look like.Rules are there for clarity. They also ensure that the projects that matter are completed on time and that your customers end up getting exactly what they wanted. However, no set of workplace regulations is ever going to be ‘perfect’: there’s always going to be some nuances, misinterpretations, and rules that simply do not work in real life. So it helps to see the rules as general guidelines that are meant to be followed, but not something to be worshipped ‘as written.’
Any traditional working environment needs all of its employees to be on the same page on the stuff that truly matters. That means having a clear understanding of your responsibilities, knowing what kinds of deadlines you have to meet, how you’re supposed to treat your clients, and what your working day and potential overtime look like.
Rules are there for clarity. They also ensure that the projects that matter are completed on time and that your customers end up getting exactly what they wanted. However, no set of workplace regulations is ever going to be ‘perfect’: there’s always going to be some nuances, misinterpretations, and rules that simply do not work in real life. So it helps to see the rules as general guidelines that are meant to be followed, but not something to be worshipped ‘as written.’
Leaving town and going to the lake because I wasn’t scheduled for four days straight. My manager told me that just because I’m not on the schedule doesn’t mean I’m guaranteed a day off. I needed to put in for vacation if I’m actually leaving town. Otherwise, I need to stay at home in case I’m called in. I lasted two months there.
I politely told multiple C level executives to put steel toe shoes on while on my production floor because it set a bad example that all the production workers had to wear them per the rules but the suits were in dress shoes and heels. So basically I was in trouble for following and enforcing the company safety policy.
I was told I was insubordinate because when my boss asked me a question, I said “Let me dig a little deeper before making a decision.”
Some managers (and even regular employees) take the rules far too seriously for everyone’s good. They’re overly zealous. They might berate you for being a few seconds late coming into work. Or they lecture you about minute details while never praising you for your accomplishments. For them, nothing you do will ever be good enough because they have unrealistic standards for performance.
Someone shouldn’t be lectured because they’re a few seconds late (unless you want to start keeping track of all the times they’ve been early). However, if there’s a genuine issue with chronic lateness, it’s something that needs to be addressed in a friendly but firm one-on-one meeting.
For some more ridiculous work stories and micromanagers ruining everyone’s day,check outBored Panda’sprevious article.
I got fired from McDonald’s for looking at the prices when I had a customer ask how much a new menu item was. It was my second day on the job.
I got a stern talking to because I took credit for my idea in my annual review. The head of the department had said it was her idea and been touting this as something great she did that year. Our reviews did pass over her boss’s desk, and he saw it. So I got in trouble for accidentally outing her lie and taking credit for my work.
The lines of my excel charts were not thick enough, I was following the company design guide
I was told I wasn’t a team player because I didn’t want to go to the waterslides on my day off.
Not smiling enough. Written up and coached every morning on smiling, how to smile, when to smile, how long to hold a smile, etc.
I was a top producer at this company and went “out of policy” to correct a mistake someone else made on one of our largest accounts. A new director wrote me up, and I refused to sign the corrective action arguing I did what was necessary to retain their business. I was placed on a PIP until I would sign the write up. I was number one in sales and was on a PIP. I received another job offer and left a couple weeks later.That account dropped that company when they learned I was leaving.
I once got in trouble for making too much money. I worked a straight commission job.
I once got fired because when we came back from our mandatory Christmas break they asked if I was glad to be back at work and I said no, said I had a bad attitude.
Drinking free water at our beverage station, that’s free to everyone… even us..
Was told not to copy the VP. Should go through the “chain of command.“My boss didn’t know the VP had asked me to find that info and send it to him. I was copying my boss so she wasn’t out of the loop.
Got in trouble because the finance director bought on of those fake titles from online, the ones where you buy a tiny bit of land in Scotland, and get to call yourself a ‘Lord’ (even though it’s b******t). The finance director sent out an email to all the staff stating that we had to address him as ‘Lord….name) and all emails had to have the honorific. It thought he was being funny, that it was a joke, and that he was being ironic, I replied ‘ this is funny, made me laugh’. He wasn’t joking.
I worked as part of an account management team for a “corporate, inner city” type company.I was raised to be polite to everyone I guess, so when I’d find myself at a door at the same time as someone else, I’d hold the door open for them and allow them to pass through first. No need to converse further, it’s just what you do, right?I did this for everyone.I got called into a full investigative committee of owners and management when one of the women I worked with reported me for sexual harassment. Apparently, holding a door open whilst indicating they should go through first a handful of times over the course of months constitutes sexual predation to this person.Thank the gods my immediate supervisor ( also a woman) was a very down to earth person. After the “charges” had been laid out to me, she spent about 5 minutes explaining that I did this as a general rule and all was quickly forgotten.That lady rocked! I left soon after that incident but I have fond memories of her, I hope she’s well.I’m glad I live in the hinterlands now and don’t have to worry about things like this.
Got written up for insubordination because of the expressions I had during a Zoom interview. I didn’t say one word, all I did was nod or shake my head at the wrong times apparently.
Written up for falling below the calculated percentage of available time off. I had 24 hours of PTO available and took 8 hours off, still had 16 hours available but got in trouble. Why even say I have time available if you aren’t going to let me use it?
Two senior leaders at a previous company didn’t like that I answered all of their questions with “no ma’am” or “yes ma’am”.I was raised in the south. Everyone is ma’am or sir, and it’s not even an age related thing!It’s not my fault that both of them were successful, recently divorced single mothers in their mid 40’s with tons of recent plastic surgery. They said me calling them “ma’am” hurt their feelings, and made them feel old. I thought they had accomplished a lot that they should feel great about, and it’s a little weird that one lowly employee saying “ma’am” bothers them so much. I’m also not their damn therapist, and won’t tap dance around their insecurities. I told that to HR when they called me in to give me an actual talking-to about it.
See Also on Bored Panda
Not “managing” my chair. Aka not tucking it in far enough when I walked away from my desk. This guy just lost it on me.
I got a stern talking to in my first office job for starting an email saying “Hey ____” instead of “Hi ____”. I was told it was unprofessional for using “hey”…
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My first job out of college, I told someone I would “shoot them an email.” One of the managers got angry at me because I allegedly didn’t know how to speak professionally in a business setting. She told my boss and all.Fast forward 11 years and I’ve heard others say “shoot an email” too many times to count.
being right and in his words “I was too smug about it”.I worked at a laboratory and I told my supervisor what the fix was for one of our pipetting robots and he told me it was impossible that that was the fix as it was “too straightforward for a complex robot” and I was completely right about how it needed to be fixed.and then I said “well we could have saved a lot of time if you did what I told you” (which was pretty smug)also I studied for lab technician and he studied chemistry so there’s that.
I got yelled at . I mean red-face-spit-flying-everywhere kind of yelling. The reason? I cc someone who felt that it wasn’t his business to know about the stuff. It was. Also, it was his first week.
I got a talking to from the boss because I finished my work in 40 hours instead of needing approved overtime to work Fridays to finish.F**k contract firms that just want your a*s in a chair to make them $.Also in that job they made me jump through hoops if I finished something in 40 hours they thought would take 80. According to the schedule, it was only half done if I only used 40 hours!
My boss called me a thief and called the police on me.All I did was replace a shared computer’s monitor that I thought I had approval for. Approval was the following week and he “caught me” stealing.I didn’t take the monitor home and I could have just walked to the station and replace it with the old one but he didn’t want to hear it. Police never talked to me but they talked to my boss and told him to f**k off.
my wife got disciplined at work for not saying thank you for receiving a 3$ lunch coupon due to being required to stay after work another hour. her charge nurse knew she wanted to leave on time but told her to stay anyways (cardiac sonography in a hospital)
I had a meeting with HR because my co worker who was my mothers age decided that I wasn’t speaking to her enough and therefore I made it a hostile work environment, even though she hated me from the very beginning so why would she want to speak to me?
We got fruit baskets to eat over the week. Free of charge, you can just pick something up.A few months ago we also occasionaly had mangoes.I had such a busy day I hadn’t eaten anything yet. So when I went home, I took a mango with me.Didn’t eat it though. First had to walk my dog.And I st you not, while I was walking; my boss asked me if I took the mango. When I confirmed it, he said “This isn’t the intention of those. Can you take it with you again tomorrow?“I found it super f***g weird but okay fine.Took it with me again the next day and ate it at work and no one batted an eye.
Clocked in 1 minute late a couple of times a week and regularly worked avg 7 minutes after shift-end. Guess what the problem was.Of course I should have known that working extra time to get the job done wasn’t appreciated. Quickly learned to wait 15 mins to get the OT.Hey boss, if you don’t give a little, I’ll make you give more.
I was called in to my supervisor’s office to discuss my “unprofessional conduct”. The unorofessional conduct: adding a smiley face to an internal email when a colleague did me a huge favor.That supervisor was the worst person I have ever worked for.
A co-worker and I were reprimanded for leaving at the end of our shift while the toilet flooded in a different department.* We asked the manager of the department if they needed us to stay, and they said no.* We were told our manager was on the way to help fix it.Our department manager sat us down the next morning and said we should have waited for her to arrive for her to dismiss us. Previously she told us we should not stay past working hours.
Coming in early and leaving the front door unlocked, when it was a member of the cleaning crew that left it unlocked after coming in after me. The boss only saw me and assumed it was me that did it.
At a work party, I had grabbed a small plate for food but I didn’t grab much (I figured if I wanted more I could go back). I went back for more CHIPS and my boss told me that I couldn’t have seconds because others hadn’t gotten their food. I just wanted chips.So I looked her in the eye and grabbed more chips and left.They pulled me aside to scold me after lunch.
Ran a small crew cleaning 3 car dealerships at one 4 way intersection. Boss got mad at me for not cleaning out the insides of the trash cans, like spraying the empty trash cans out after we’d taken the trash bag out. I bout got fired for saying that’s probably something we needed to be told to do
I got a letter from child support that told me I owe them 10k for the workers comp I took, but I didn’t have workers comp, so I went to HR, the name on the sheet that signed off on the workers Comp, asked why she reported that I had workers comp when u didn’t, and they she need to call child support to tell them it was a mistake. She fired me cause, “you can’t just accuse people of stuff like that”
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Gabija Saveiskyte
Justinas Keturka
Rūta Zumbrickaitė
Work & Money
