I was a nursing educator at the onset of Covid and had just returned from a holiday, long-planned, from out of the country. My manager would not allow me to work from home during my mandatory 14-day quarantine. I had to work from my office, minimize contact with my colleagues, and was not allowed to eat in our lunchroom.
We were also not allowed to eat at our desks due to infection control guidelines. I asked my manager where I was supposed to take my breaks and eat lunch. She told me I would have to eat outside. In stunned shock, I told her it was -15 degrees Celsius and snowing outside. She told me I should just try to sit as close to the building as I could. As I stood there with my mouth hanging open and in stunned disbelief, she just turned around and walked away.
I should note that this was March in Canada, and not the warm part of either. This was possibly the stupidest thing I ever heard a manager say. How about you? What is your story?
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I created an animated explainer video for work. I always use a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes for the characters to include everyone. Boss said, 'Make this less multicultural.' I remade the video with all characters looking exactly like her.
Not me but my dad. A manager once told him that instead of the promotion that he deserved, they are reducing his salary, but still making him do the same work he was doing. Needless to say, he quit shortly after that announcement
"We've always done it this way!"
In response to asking why we aren't following the laws while literally making other people follow the law. Laws that everywhere else I'd worked seemed to manage just fine.
I asked him if he knew who a famous (white) athlete was.
He responded “is he Black? I have found most all athletes are Black.”
Cue the face palm.
I'm 15 and one of my shift managers was talking to a coworker and I joined the conversation. Kinda regret it but at the same time I don't. She said " I used to smoke weed, but one day when I was a lot younger I was at a party and they were rolling joints and a guy put this white powder in it. I had no idea what it was and that put me off of it permanently."
Gave me more respect for her because that is something a lot of people wouldn't have the strength to do. And Pam, if you see this, you are a great manager!
I really wanted to miss work that day and I called my boss to tell him that I couldn’t go because one of my children gave me lice. He proceeded to tell me “ get in the shower, scrape your scalp very well and come to work!”
That the amount of cars on the company's parking lot would be an indicator for productivity.
IT service company
I'm a manager, so I'll have to go with the stupidest thing my Bosses have ever said. Their most famous phrase has always been, "It's not rocket science!"
My company is telephone based customer service, so no, it's not rocket science. It IS stressful, demeaning, exhausting, soul sucking work so when our clients decide to update their scripts and platforms without warning and spring it on us, IT'S JARRING. Suddenly our workers are seeing a whole new layout, new script, which can make them seem incompetent and some customers pounce on that, making our grueling calls even worse.
Not to mention the Bosses want to pounce on this when it comes to worker performance reviews which I HATE.
"NO, why do you even bother to ask?" This is another one I get a lot. If a client wants a layout makeover/update/script change, it's finalized (completed) on Fridays with my Bosses and our IT signing off on it and gets implemented bright and early Monday mornings for everybody.
I asked my Bosses if on Friday afternoons, us Managers (there's 3 of us) could have a meeting with our IT to go over the changes. It's always NO. I always said, f*ck it and got with IT anyway to get screen shots so I can familiarize myself, send them to our workers with a notice, update my training materials, etc.
"Why do you even bother?" Is what I'm always told when they find out what I do. Makes me want to bash my head on my desk until I'm unconscious. Or strangle them.
The funny thing is even though they tell me no, and I do it anyway, they NEVER come down on me for it. Instead they just mock, ridicule and never get a clue despite the fact that it helps our workers GREATLY and therefore, our clients.
Speaking of stupid, our HR department (2 people) which I've subbed in a couple times now when needed, recently decided to make a mountain out of a molehill last month.
One of my workers was in a car accident in June and was hospitalized. He got in touch with me as soon as he could because he couldn't reach HR (always voicemail) and they weren't calling him back. I flagged his file on my end to hold his job, then expedited him to HR. The next day, HR contacted me to "get more information". When I asked them why they weren't calling him on his cell or at the hospital (which I gave them the information for), they said, and I quote: "I'm just asking, he's alive, right?"
No, I took a phone call from a dead man. He was calling me via a OUIJA board. *bangs head on desk* Do your job and get back in touch with him or his wife who was his emergency contact. My worker is still alive, btw.
Years ago, when Ken Jennings was in the midst of his huge Jeopardy! run, a cowboy and I were discussing his accomplishment and the show in general. We both agreed we particularly enjoyed learning new things. A nearby manager asked, "Why do you want to learn things, you aren't in school anymore?".
I was a new employee at Wendy's when they first introduced their baked potatoes.
The manager was showing us how it was done.
He would say one step but demonstrate it differently. Weird and confusing.
Then he had me do the same.
I am a visual learner so I did it exactly the way he did.
Then he yelled at me for not doing what he said. I told him I did it exactly the way he did.
There were snickers from the other employees. I guess no one had called him out for being the hypocrite that he was.
He fired me on the spot.
Happy to lose that job.
