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’d demand that in writing.
We didn’t get written up or lose pay, so it was a wash.
But yes, it would have been funny to do that.
Missed the opportunity to watch them get chewed out by the fire department leadership.
Don’t get me started.
I can go for hours about how messed up the Fire Dept management is.
When Fire took over EMS exactly one Fire Chief took the time to do some EMS ride alongs. The rest of the brass ignored and/or sabotaged EMS in order to get rid of the oldtimers so they could be replaced by lower paid newbies.
Fire Chiefs would have either sided with the EMS bosses, or, more likely, petitioned the city for more money to train EMS in how to use the extinguishers properly.
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.
He knew what he was doing.
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.
Depending on where you live, you might be better off not scaring your employers with a visible recording device.
Why not let the law figure out what your bosses were asking for? In the US, attorneys will take these cases for free and be paid only if you are.
Just chiming in to say all of Canada is one party consent.
I found this out when Christian Selig (the Apollo app for Reddit developer) announced he had audio showing Reddit lied to him.
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)
I was written up for not being happy, and again for smiling too much later in the year. I’m a software test engineer.
I can imagine that writing unit tests all day long 24/5 may not make you smile enough at first and after while it can make you smile in scary way.
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.
I was born with glass bones and paper skin yet somehow I can still withstand more damage than a middle manager’s ego.
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.
My wife and I have a young Belgian Malinois, and at about a year and a half of age she started flopping down onto the floor in a very loud and obnoxious manner whenever she was frustrated or in a fit of pique. Being very bony, she makes a loud thump.
It wasn’t long after she started this that my wife remarked,
“It sounds like a body hitting the trunk of a car.”
It was all I could do to turn to her and query just how many dead bodies she had to have transported in her car’s trunk to get that intimately familiar with the sound.
Bro, I think your wife has downvoted you
Or maybe somebody else that’s thrown a lot of dead bodies in a trunk 😂
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.
My take away from the “you have to be sure” projection part tells me he thought he knew what he was talking about
Or he clings to some “never show uncertainty” rule he learned about and ignore everything else.
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.
What does “written up” mean?
Because our write ups are just incident reports. Like, if a shitty Karen went nuclear on a staff member, we do create a incident report. But anybody reading this will absolutely go, “fucking Karen strikes again” and it absolutely won’t reflect badly on the employee.
Just paperwork so the whales in the office feel like they do something.
It means nothing when you live in a “at will” employment jurisdiction.
In the past, (or in a union contract) employers had to prove they had “just cause” to fire you. This would be documentation of cause.
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 worked 48 hours straight on a weekend
Never do this. Always go home. Max out your overtime and go home. You will never be fired for not working 48 hours (unless you’re in the military or on a train or something).
If they want you to do that, they don’t have anyone else to take your place. Do the job at a normal pace and don’t let them rush you.
I decided to do it that way. Nobody pressured me, nobody asked me to do it.
For me it was the most logical way to get the job done without interruptions to my network and systems in the least amount of time.
If I had spread it out, I would literally have to have done twice the work taking more than twice the time working multiple weekends.
Fuck that.
If I had spread it out, I would literally have to have done twice the work taking more than twice the time working multiple weekends.
You wouldn’t have had to do anything but work normal hours. Ask for the resources to do your job, more people, etc. If you don’t get it, then the work doesn’t get done. Literally go home. You are hired to work a certain amount of time, not to do the impossible.
Lol, sure thing boss.
I rarely ever let an employer tell me how to do my job when I worked for companies directly, so sorry if I’m not going to accept some internet rando telling me how to do my job now, 15 years after starting to exclusively doing contract work.
It’s because I delivered results in difficult and impossible scenarios, I’ve been able to work for myself for the past 15 years, doing contract work explicitly because I can do the difficult and impossible, often alone. I wouldn’t have been able to get to that if I didn’t build a reputation as being capable of doing that.
This has allowed me to these days only work about 3-6 months out of the year and dedicate my time to my wife and personal projects the rest of the year.
I actually had a 2 year period where I did what you suggest and did the 9to5 thing doing just what the job required and that’s that.
It dumped me into a black hole of boredom and depression.
I found out I work best by going balls to the walls for predetermined periods of time and then going into full chill mode doing either nothing or personal projects once done.
Not everyone is best served with the same work (or any other facet of life) cadence.
You had boredom and depression from… working less? And asking for resources? Ok man, whatever.
If cringe means I’m embarrassed for someone else, what’s the word for being pissed off for someone else? I’m that.
I’ve got two words: vicarious anger.
I do not see a single word for it, somebody alert the Germans.
Fremdwut
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.
Had you?
I’m not OP but I still think about a series of events at my first job.
Would have been like 25 years ago, 3rd year plumbing apprentice and I was out on my own. Next job was for a real estate, the house was empty so I had to pick up the keys and then headed to the house, I was busting for a shit and the empty house was calling me. It was a blocked drain so I pulled up fast, cleared the drain before I shit myself and then went to open the back door… and the key didn’t fit, no problem I think as I heard around to the front… key still didn’t work. Fuck I’m in trouble here, there is no time to get to another toilet. I look around and see the access door into the crawlspace under the house which was pretty high, so I form a plan, use an empty bag to line a bucket and grab toilet paper out of the glovebox and head under with my homemade chamber pot. Do the business, tie the bag up and head to the bin to hide it. Once I open the lid I see the bin is completely empty… I can’t put it in there now so I put it in one of the big tool boxes on the back of the truck.
I ended up getting fired the next day, back then I partied pretty hard and was constantly late etc so definitely don’t blame the boss. But the poop bag was never retrieved from the tool box. So at some point either the boss clearing it out or the next guy given that truck would have found a bag, opened it and see a big fat log.
🤣🤣🤣
Oh, the adventures we had in our youth, no?
This is why I detest towns.
I mean, this was when I was living in a suburb of Cleveland OH. it’s not really a town thing so much as it’s an industry thing. I spent 20 years running movie theaters. I worked for all the chains, both national and local. Between managers and projectionists, everyone knew everyone else.
Cleveland OH
Where is that?
Which is where exactly?
I like to sometimes purposely flip the order so it’s ordered as least senior 1st just to fuck with people and see if anyone calls me out on it.
I guess just the fact that there are mails with six people in cc is an indication for how bad the order of command is.
