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.

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.

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)

That is (hopefully was) a think in some very strict japanese companies. Also, when people had to stamp thing, they would angle their stamps to be “bowing” to the superiors who stamped first. I hope all those traditions are dead

I put an attorney’s name in the “assistant” field of a work order. That bitch called the manager to say she worked too hard to become a lawyer for me to call her a secretary, lmao

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.

If cringe means I’m embarrassed for someone else, what’s the word for being pissed off for someone else? I’m that.

I was taken to task aa a hostess in 1989 for saying ," enjoy your lunch" rather than “gentlemen enjoy your lunch”

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.

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.

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.

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’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 always go alphabetically by surname, if i think the recipients care about the order. Still a hassle, but at least i don’t have to decide who has a higher seniority.