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 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.

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 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’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 got a verbal warning for referring to someone as a “guy” in my team’s group chat.

As in “I’ve got a guy here who’s running into issues with getting his loan processed. How should I proceed with assisting him?”

My language wasn’t professional enough, and my manager pulled me aside to warn me not to do it again. I’ve since left the role, and my new team fully embraces casual conversation (my manager has outright exclaimed that “our software is a piece of shit” to much agreement). Things are much better now.

I got in trouble for telling a senior manager that he was wrong on a technical issue. He sought expert advice on a control system but when the answer came back it didn’t fit his conception of reality and he didn’t want to hear it.

Turns out being good at management and being good at solving technical problems are skill sets that very rarely coincide in one person.

I was written up for being too pessimistic. It was about 8 years ago, I was a project manager at a small retail company. I was in a small meeting with my boss and the owner of the company. I was telling the owner all the possible risks associated with this new project I was given, the major one being that we didn’t have enough time to complete everything by the owner imposed deadline. Calling out risks is literally one of the main responsibilities of being a project manager. Also the meeting went fine, no one got upset, it seemed everyone understood. A few days later I get called into HRs office with a write up for basically being a Debbie Downer. I was told to be more positive with my updates and stay away from any bad news. I was in total shock! A few days later I put my notice in and found a new job making twice as much. So it all worked out in the end. Thanks for the motivation Todd!

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 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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.