Dumbest excuse your boss used for reprimanding?

[joeyc]

Originally Posted by bluebomberx

What's the most idiotic, most worthless bull**** you've ever gotten in trouble for at work? Let's hear it! One of the many for me just happened on my way out to the parking lot this morning. Our general manager comes in dressed up like santa claus to hand out turkies, cookies, etc for the holidays - he was sitting at the front door. I step out at 0355 to start my car (parked in the spot right in front of the door); along the way I shared some pleasantries with the GM. I go back in immediately - it's still 0355. When I clock out at 0400, I pick up my cookie tin from the GM and start heading for the car. My supervisor comes up to me and inquires about my "excursion-to-the-parking-lot" that the GM relayed to her and whether or not I asked to go out there. I said no and proceeded to my car and she told me not to let it happen again.

What really chaps my ass about this place is the fact I get so riled up over the stupid **** they do to me and co-workers that it invades my thoughts during my off days Just last Monday, my supervisors gave a friend of mine and myself recognition for outstanding work in front of the whole department at the begining of the shift - then they fired him ninety minutes later for the most frivolous **** they could create. His partner went instantly to a final warning from good-standing. Merry Christmas my ass!

Sounds like you need a union...

[NiK]

Wow, guys. I'm speechless over your stories.

I'm going to show this thread to anyone in my unit that is thinking about getting out. Yes, the military has knuclehead bosses too, but they can always be held accountable for their stupidity, and they can't just take away your livelihood like that.

[one-eyed-fatman]

I prefer being fired over quitting. It's usually the only way to get a boss to get off his dead ass and make a decision.

[JimLongley]

Originally Posted by NiK

Wow, guys. I'm speechless over your stories.

I'm going to show this thread to anyone in my unit that is thinking about getting out. Yes, the military has knuclehead bosses too, but they can always be held accountable for their stupidity, and they can't just take away your livelihood like that.

Yeah, and that leads me back to a little incident that happened to me while I was in the Navy.

My gun mount had suffered a catastrophic failure of its hydraulic system, a BIG hydraulic system. I started out troubleshooting it and was joined by my E6 (I was an E4 just trying to make E5) I don't know why he joined me, maybe he already had something against me.

As we pored over prints trying to deduce where all of the high pressure might be going to, I kept wanting to place a test fixture at a certain point, and he kept vetoing that proposition. I had been a telephone man before I joined and understood that a good method of troubleshooting was starting at a certain point and working from there, while he kept trying stuff, seemingly at random.

After several days of fruitless endeavor, he went to the division and department officers and got them to declare the gun "CASREPT" which meant it was on casualty report and we would have to be scheduled for tender or yard availability to get it fixed. I disagreed because I felt we hadn't done a thorough and complete job of troubleshooting at all, we had never put a text block in that one position.

The E6 then proceeded to go on liberty, but since I had the duty and was staying aboard anyway, I decided to try that last spot just for grins. When I opened up the junction, I found that someone had placed a gasket in that spot, and that it had failed, dumping 1000psi hydraulic fluid directly into the return line for the low pressure system where it basically just vented into the reservoir.

I cleaned up the joint, applied the proper onion skin, sealed it back up and torqued it down and tested it out - worked perfectly.

I was sitting on the quarterdeck, still in my grungies, when he came back, more than a little drunk. You would have thought that I raped his sister, killed his dog, and spit in his beer, the way he treated me when I told him that I had fixed the gun mount. I had told no one but him, so he would have been able to take the credit, but he lit into me and told me he was going to see me court martialed.

And he almost did.

First he wrote me up for unauthorized absence, when I did have authorization, and arranged for me to have mast when he knew the E7 that had given me permission was going to be on leave. Suspended sentence, partly because my star witness was gone for a month.

Then he wrote me up for missing quarters on a morning when I was supposed to have late sleeper due to a long night's work. And those suspended punishments kicked in, busted to E3, suspension of pay, fine, restriction to ship. When I went to mast over that, I tried to use my late sleeper status as a defense, but he maintained that I had never had that authorization and that I had merely gone out drinking with other guys the night I had puleed the extra duty. Of course since he assigned the duties, he would know, right?

Shortly thereafter he made E7 and got transferred, and shortly after that I was trying to go on leave to get married when I found that my leave papers had not received command approval. I figured this was a legacy from the SOB, but it turned out different.

I went through the chain of command to get the papers signed, kind of unusual to hand carry that way, but I was supposed to already be on leave. When I got to the Executive Officer, who normally signs such things, he told me that the Captain wanted to see me.

Full of trepidation I approached the Captain's cabin and knocked. He asked me to enter and then chatted with me a little about my coming marriage and my possible future in the Navy (no way!!!)

Then he looked at the leave papers and wrote something on them, and then told me that he would be glad to sign them for me, but I had better get into a correct uniform first. He had changed the E3 on the papers to E4 and he wanted me to go get in an E4 jumper. Luckily I had only pulled my crows off a couple of uniforms so I had a quick change ready.

Back up to the Captain's cabin, a little happier, and then he tells me that he kind of thought that I was getting screwed, but that as a Captain he had to show support for his senior NCOs and that now that the SOB was gone, he could do a little something to correct the situation.

It's hell to be in a situation where any little tin god can screw up your life on a whim.

I found out, much later, that e may have actually put that gasket in the system himself, because with the gun broken we would not be able to go to 'Nam with the rest of the squadron. But I have no proof.

[jetsiphon]

Oh man, sounds like I just got a new job! Wonder how I'm going to go about telling the other company to F off....

[backstay]

Um...if you are paid to 4:00 maybe you should work to 4:00 and then start your car. Just a thought. I work for myself now and have never been happier. I take a half day off on Tuesday to shoot IDPA. Never could do that when I was a slave.

[DrBaker]

Originally Posted by jetsiphon

Oh man, sounds like I just got a new job! Wonder how I'm going to go about telling the other company to F off....

Just a suggestion:

When I'm ready to quit, I think I'm going to have some fun. I think I might bring in a truck load of sand. I'll fill my office about 4 inches deep. Move out my chairs and replace them with beach chairs. Move out the printer and put a cooler full of Ice and drinks in its place. I'll wear a business suit, but I'll have flip-flops on. I'll just sit/lounge there with my feet in the sand and act like I have no worries.

[[TASF]Maverick]

In high school I was a shuttle driver at a nearby hotel. It was only my 2nd day of work on a Sunday and I was scheduled to work a 9-5pm. It was 11:45 that night when I finished my last shuttle run and began driving back to the garage, and I rolled through a stop sign. There was a car (I could tell it wasn't LEO) about 50 yards to my right coming up the hill at a speed of about 20 mph.

When I parked the shuttle in front of the garage, the Jeep roared up beside me and a man got out of the car and began to yell at me. I'd never seen the guy before in my life, and here he was yelling at me for running the stop sign. He demanded my name, and in shock I just pointed to my NAMETAG. He ran to my manager and yelled at him for my "wreckless driving." Turned out that he was the Vice President (now President) of the resort.

Also, when I was working construction this summer under my brother (not Overkill), we had a fellow supervisor accuse us of "time card fraud." This happened for weeks until my brother and I decided to get to the bottom of it. We charmed (haha it was hilarious, I wish I had video) one of the secretaries at the office into telling us what the other supervisor had on his time cards every week and we found out it was 5-3 every day. My brother and I decided to go to work at 4 the next morning and see if that was true. We usually got to work at 7, so this was going to be a surprise for the supervisor. Sure enough, the supervisors' helpers show up at 6:15 and he shows up at 6:45. My brother and him went into the job trailer to sort things out, and the brother came out with a big ol' smiley face after it was all said and done. I think that supervisor got fired for stealing from the company soon after. What I found particularly amusing is that the secretary we got the information from was the supervisor's wife hahahahahaha.

[jetsiphon]

Originally Posted by DrBaker

Just a suggestion:

When I'm ready to quit, I think I'm going to have some fun. I think I might bring in a truck load of sand. I'll fill my office about 4 inches deep. Move out my chairs and replace them with beach chairs. Move out the printer and put a cooler full of Ice and drinks in its place. I'll wear a business suit, but I'll have flip-flops on. I'll just sit/lounge there with my feet in the sand and act like I have no worries.

Man, that's a great idea.

[[TASF]Maverick]

Originally Posted by DrBaker

Just a suggestion:

When I'm ready to quit, I think I'm going to have some fun. I think I might bring in a truck load of sand. I'll fill my office about 4 inches deep. Move out my chairs and replace them with beach chairs. Move out the printer and put a cooler full of Ice and drinks in its place. I'll wear a business suit, but I'll have flip-flops on. I'll just sit/lounge there with my feet in the sand and act like I have no worries.

At my last job when I was about to quit... I thought that I just might see just how much I could do before they fired me. haha I was going to unplug their microwave and walk out the door with it, tell customers to leave, etc etc. I had some funny things lined up, but I just couldn't do them because I didn't hate the place nearly enough to do them. But if someone pisses me off enough in the future...