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.
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.
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 like how the company-wide group text tidbit had nothing to do with the rest of the story.
Reminded me of watching the extended cut of LoTR, where some scenes were just fluff.
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 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.
My petty ass would be putting them in reverse-seniority order from then on out of spite. That would be the absolute funniest thing ever to be fired for.
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 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.
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 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.
“Huh, that’s not the order I typed them, Outlook must have re ordered them when I sent it”.
Feed them bullshit.
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.
Wait you mean people actually pay attention to the order?
People get cc’d into emails depending on the order I remember they exist.
Anybody who spends time doublechecking they’re listed where they want in a group email needs to be fired. The company is not in the business of “your ego”
the person bringing the complaint is the one disrespecting everyone.
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.
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 introduced myself to a new client (new job) and the boss didn’t like that the client joked to the boss that he better watch out for his job because I sounded like a better [what we did] than he did. Which I was. Which was why he hired me. But a month later I was working somewhere else.