What's the worst you've ever been chewed out at work by a superior and it WAS your fault?

Locut0s

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
22,205
43
91
Stories of really stupid things you did at work and have been caught and badly chastised for. Note I'm not just talking about the worst a manager has gotten angry at you for any reason, you have to be genuinely at fault.

Just curious what stories people have. Nothing much of my own to add really. Only incident I can think of was when I first started at the retail store I'm now assistant manager at there was one day when a customer came in with a serious complaint that I was not ready to handle at the time. She asked for the managers number and wanting to get out of the situation quickly I unthinkingly gave her his HOME phone number. Ooops. Not to happy about that the next day I can tell you. But it turned out to be minor in the end.

Sure you guys have lots of better and more embarrassing stories. Let's hear them!
 

jagec

Lifer
Apr 30, 2004
24,442
6
81
My first job. I was young and dumb, working with a bunch of other young and dumb guys. We had a pickup truck with no tailgate. Since we weren't driving on public roads (or very fast), during the summer one guy would always drive and the other guys would ride in the back. We really abused that truck and always were screwing around, but I guess I just wasn't thinking when I had three guys in the back (all sitting with their legs hanging out over the bumper), I came around a corner and gunned it. Guys on the sides were fine. Guy in the middle wasn't anticipating it and fell out, and I saw him rolling on the pavement behind me and INSTANTLY felt like crap. It didn't get any better over the next few hours when we carted him back, took him to the nurse, and I went to the office to take my medicine.

Luckily he was OK, just shook up and with a few extra scrapes and bruises. I got reamed. Didn't get fired because I'd done pretty well until then, but they suspended my driving privileges for a long time and I was walking on eggshells around the other guy for a while.
 

rudeguy

Lifer
Dec 27, 2001
47,351
14
61
I have worked in retail for forever. Its very common for bosses to take their job waaaaaaaaaaaaay too serious. My signature move is to smile and try to giggle when they are yelling at me.
 

BigJ

Lifer
Nov 18, 2001
21,330
1
81
Nothing's my fault. As Jack Donaghy once said, "Always have a fall guy."
 

lokiju

Lifer
May 29, 2003
18,526
5
0
I was working at this 5 star resort when I was 16. I was basically a bus boy and since day one my supervisor was always a bitch to me. One day she called into office and just started really laying into and telling me I was such a bad worker. What really pissed me off though was that my 3 year older brother worked there also and she would always say "why can't you be more like your brother?" but this time with the way she was really laying into me coupled with the "why can't you be like your older brother?!" bullshit, I finally had it and snapped. I yelled at he "I'm not him, we're not exactly the same!!" and said "fuck this shit, I quit!" I then took off my apron, balled it up and threw it at her while saying "here's you apron back you bitch!".

Mind you I was 16 at the time and this was 12 years ago now.
 

Vehemence

Banned
Jan 25, 2008
5,943
0
0
I worked at Target in electronics and it was during the Christmas holidays, about 4 years ago. The electronics team lead at the time was a complete moron with scheduling and had me alone during lunch, so there was like 50 people waiting for assistance. They were pretty annoyed since I couldn't get to them very quickly and were all yelling and what not. I hated the job and especially hated it during times like those so I wasn't in the best frame of mind at the time.

One customer came up in one of those motorized carts since he was apparently pretty handicapped (as in mentally), and asked for a PSP and a bunch of games but asked me to hold them for a second while he got a CD he forgot. Since the games and PSP are behind locked glass, if the customer wants you to hold them for a minute or so you leave them behind the counter and locked up for them. As I was about to do that one of the crazed people impatiently waiting for me rushed up and asked for directions to an item and a pen, so I put down the PSP and games real quick.

It turns out I happened to have put down the PSP and games in the handicapped dude's little motor cart basket. He said thanks (probably since he didn't know I was suppose to be keeping them with me and not give the items to him) and scooted off and I was completely oblivious due to all the other frantic customers, being stressed, etc. Apparently the guy just drove on out of the store with about $200 worth of PSP gear without paying and was caught by security.

Security and my boss (now back from lunch) called me in to the surveillance room and asked if I was friends with the handicap dude and was trying to hook him up or something. After I said no I was then chewed out by security, my boss, and then the head of that particular Target. Completely my fault. As it turned out I didn't even get written up for the incident, just thoroughly chewed out by pretty much everyone in Target.

---

Cliffs:

* Working in Target electronics, alone, during Christmas time at lunch hour
* Absentmindedly put down PSP and games in handicap dude's cart
* Handicap dude motors out of store without paying, gets caught
* Chewed out by all my bosses and security
 

Evadman

Administrator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
Feb 18, 2001
30,990
5
81
I used to sell windows. I told a female customer that she should not be buying windows, she should be washing them.
 

Fritzo

Lifer
Jan 3, 2001
41,917
2,157
126
Several years ago, I once moved a UPS to get a serial number off of it, and it had a short in the power button. I shut down our entire phone system during the middle of the day (I'm at a customer service center). My boss basically called me incompetent and said he was going to move me to another dept. that focused on my strengths, since they obviously wasn't in my area.

I think I almost cried at that point...seriously.

Now, I'm in directing a whole department of the company, so things always get better :)
 

SearchMaster

Diamond Member
Jun 6, 2002
7,791
114
106
Originally posted by: lokiju
I was working at this 5 star resort when I was 16. I was basically a bus boy and since day one my supervisor was always a bitch to me. One day she called into office and just started really laying into and telling me I was such a bad worker. What really pissed me off though was that my 3 year older brother worked there also and she would always say "why can't you be more like your brother?" but this time with the way she was really laying into me coupled with the "why can't you be like your older brother?!" bullshit, I finally had it and snapped. I yelled at he "I'm not him, we're not exactly the same!!" and said "fuck this shit, I quit!" I then took off my apron, balled it up and threw it at her while saying "here's you apron back you bitch!".

Mind you I was 16 at the time and this was 12 years ago now.

If you're not as productive as your three year old brother, you're pretty worthless. Sorry man.
 

Gibsons

Lifer
Aug 14, 2001
12,530
35
91
Working at a radio station and juggling a few things at once - a remote broadcast, ordering up commercial and PSAs, and then some other stuff in an entirely different room, running back and forth. The phone starts ringing (flashing actually) and I have to ignore it for a good 5 minutes until I can find a 2 minute gap. I pick it up finally and it's the middle manager on the line.

First words out are "SONOFABITCH!!!" Went downhill from there, but I'm not sure what I should have ignored to answer his completely unimportant phone call...

"What if the station was off the air and I was calling to tell you about it?!!eleven!!"

"Well, I've got the monitor channel I'm listening to in my headset, I've got Bill talking to me about when he wants to jump in on the remote and changing the tapes in the other room..."

"son of a effing goldang sheet."

Basically just waited til he got tired of yelling and hung up.
 
T

Tim

I was working at the M&M factory, and I was reamed out for throwing away all the W's, 3's, and E's
 

imported_Imp

Diamond Member
Dec 20, 2005
9,148
0
0
Got chewed out twice the first summer at my last job for staying late. It was still my first month then, and my house was being renovated, so I didn't feel like going home so quickly to a shithole filled with drywall dust, stashed furniture and no power for my computer (I unplugged it and covered it so it wouldn't inhale). Well, I stayed exactly 1 hour after my day officially ended, and got bitched at by my supervisors the next morning. They were pissed cause a director saw me there. The fact that I was there for 'personal' business (i.e. not doing work) was only gravy, and I only told 1 of my supervisors that. I'm so sorry that I knowingly breathed your f**king office air, emitted heat at my desk and used your computer power that would have been left on anyways.

The second time was the same summer at another office (was working off-site). I stayed 20 minutes late. Twenty minutes, trying to finish up some work on the active computer systems, so I wouldn't have to stay there an extra day. Well, super-ego director caught me again, bitched me out about some bullshit concerning the security system. After that, I totally stopped giving a shit and said f**k you to the company; got there late, left early.

 

Farang

Lifer
Jul 7, 2003
10,913
3
0
I worked at a pizza place and when I'd be on the pie line putting toppings on monotonously with other people, I'd randomly take a piece of raw sausage and throw it straight up so it would stick on the ceiling. Eventually there was a weeks old collection of these things on the ceiling and my boss caught me one day and chewed me out.
 
T

Tim

Originally posted by: SearchMaster
Originally posted by: lokiju
I was working at this 5 star resort when I was 16. I was basically a bus boy and since day one my supervisor was always a bitch to me. One day she called into office and just started really laying into and telling me I was such a bad worker. What really pissed me off though was that my 3 year older brother worked there also and she would always say "why can't you be more like your brother?" but this time with the way she was really laying into me coupled with the "why can't you be like your older brother?!" bullshit, I finally had it and snapped. I yelled at he "I'm not him, we're not exactly the same!!" and said "fuck this shit, I quit!" I then took off my apron, balled it up and threw it at her while saying "here's you apron back you bitch!".

Mind you I was 16 at the time and this was 12 years ago now.

If you're not as productive as your three year old brother, you're pretty worthless. Sorry man.

You fail at reading comprehension. Try reading what you've bolded again.
 

Jules

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
15,213
0
0
Originally posted by: theplaidfad
Originally posted by: SearchMaster
Originally posted by: lokiju
I was working at this 5 star resort when I was 16. I was basically a bus boy and since day one my supervisor was always a bitch to me. One day she called into office and just started really laying into and telling me I was such a bad worker. What really pissed me off though was that my 3 year older brother worked there also and she would always say "why can't you be more like your brother?" but this time with the way she was really laying into me coupled with the "why can't you be like your older brother?!" bullshit, I finally had it and snapped. I yelled at he "I'm not him, we're not exactly the same!!" and said "fuck this shit, I quit!" I then took off my apron, balled it up and threw it at her while saying "here's you apron back you bitch!".

Mind you I was 16 at the time and this was 12 years ago now.

If you're not as productive as your three year old brother, you're pretty worthless. Sorry man.

You fail at reading comprehension. Try reading what you've bolded again.

pwned
 

kt

Diamond Member
Apr 1, 2000
6,031
1,346
136
Originally posted by: SearchMaster
Originally posted by: lokiju
I was working at this 5 star resort when I was 16. I was basically a bus boy and since day one my supervisor was always a bitch to me. One day she called into office and just started really laying into and telling me I was such a bad worker. What really pissed me off though was that my 3 year older brother worked there also and she would always say "why can't you be more like your brother?" but this time with the way she was really laying into me coupled with the "why can't you be like your older brother?!" bullshit, I finally had it and snapped. I yelled at he "I'm not him, we're not exactly the same!!" and said "fuck this shit, I quit!" I then took off my apron, balled it up and threw it at her while saying "here's you apron back you bitch!".

Mind you I was 16 at the time and this was 12 years ago now.

If you're not as productive as your three year old brother, you're pretty worthless. Sorry man.

You just managed to barely squeeze into this year's "Self-Ownage of the Year" nomination.
 

Tiamat

Lifer
Nov 25, 2003
14,068
5
71
Originally posted by: kt
Originally posted by: SearchMaster
Originally posted by: lokiju
I was working at this 5 star resort when I was 16. I was basically a bus boy and since day one my supervisor was always a bitch to me. One day she called into office and just started really laying into and telling me I was such a bad worker. What really pissed me off though was that my 3 year older brother worked there also and she would always say "why can't you be more like your brother?" but this time with the way she was really laying into me coupled with the "why can't you be like your older brother?!" bullshit, I finally had it and snapped. I yelled at he "I'm not him, we're not exactly the same!!" and said "fuck this shit, I quit!" I then took off my apron, balled it up and threw it at her while saying "here's you apron back you bitch!".

Mind you I was 16 at the time and this was 12 years ago now.

If you're not as productive as your three year old brother, you're pretty worthless. Sorry man.

You just managed to barely squeeze into this year's "Self-Ownage of the Year" nomination.

:laugh:
 

Tweak155

Lifer
Sep 23, 2003
11,448
262
126
My story is pretty lame but since it popped into my head, might as well tell it.

I worked in a movie theater at this time and I was promoted to a low-level not even considered assistant manager. Well eventually that job evolved into being in control of who goes home for the day to keep wage - pay out vs attendance balanced.

Well I was in control that day and decided one of the guys on my level could go home and I sent him home.

Maybe 45mins - an hr later we got slammed. Slammed harder than a 13yo girl slamming the door in her dad's face 'cause he just don't get it.

The director of the building is now on the floor and he is looking around going "Where is (employee's name I sent home)? This is RIDICULOUS. He better be SICK. There is NO EXCUSE for this."

So yeah... I didn't want to say anything because he was just kind of talking to himself but I told him what I did. He was majorly pissed at me.

After all the whining customers and lines went down (or maybe it was the next day?), he told me people make mistakes or I couldn't have predicted it or something. But he was PISSED at the time.
 

TallBill

Lifer
Apr 29, 2001
46,017
62
91
At fort campbell, on a day we were doing training. I had a junked out econovan full of mock bad guys (really other soldiers) driving around a simulated war riddled town. There was no training going on at the moment and I had a full tank of gas. I was doing fishtails and driving like a lunatic, right in front of the company commander and lots of other top dogs.

I got called out of the van and my ass chewed for a good five minutes by an operations sergeant. Fucking 100% totally worth it and incredibly fun. Ended up playing poker that night with the ops sergeant, we were kinda buddies and he was just doing his job ;) Helps to have friends in high places.
 

OutHouse

Lifer
Jun 5, 2000
36,410
616
126
not really a chew out story but more of a major screw up story that didnt result in a chewing out.

about 11 years ago when i first got hired at my company. I had to come in at 2am for the stupid time change. well we had novell systems then and i had never ever touched a novell system. thwen the time change rolled around my boss was on the phone with me telling me how to change the time on the novell servers. well when he told me to hit enter i did and within 30 seconds all sorts of alarms were going off, the call center was calling, shit hit the fan. well he didnt tell me to put AM at the end of the time (you change time on novell 3.1 through a command prompt) well we are very time based and it took 3 days for the developers to go through the databases to fix that little mistake.

I felt like a total incompetent shit and i thought for sure i was to be fired for that, but the COO pulled me aside and said it was a easy mistake and not to worry.
 

Ramma2

Platinum Member
Jul 29, 2002
2,710
1
0
#1 - Working at Wal-Mart, during high school, in the electronics department with another girl a few years older than me. It was later in the evening, so things were slow, and this family of 3 came to the department. The dad asked my coworker a question about alarm clocks in one back corner, and the daughter asked me a question about computer software in the other corner. During this the mom proceeds to load up a cart with electronic stuff and scoots out of the department. The dad and daughter finish up their stalling time, thank us and head out too. Turns out they got busted when someone drove by the garden center and saw them tossing VCRs over the fence. Management couldn't really blame us but they sure tried hard and made us feel like crap.


#2 - Working at the arcade in the mall, senior year of highschool. Turns out that playing games after the mall closes instead of cleaning the games is frowned upon. After like 2 months of my greatest job ever the manager yelled at me and fired me. Sad day =(


#3 - Basic training. I was pulled for weapons guard detail for this day's particular trip to the rifle range. Normally you draw the entire platoon's weapons, and bring them all to the range, even the ones for the soldiers on kitchen patrol, sick call, etc. On this fun fun day one of my friends was pulled for KP, and instead of loading his weapon into the rack on the back of the truck he turned it back into the armory. So we go out to the range, shoot shoot bang bang and I'm guarding the extra weapons, when poof the DS's figure out that we're a rifle short, and I don't know where it is.

You haven't been yelled at until you have 4 drill seargents, the company commander, the batallion commander, and 2 military police officers roasting your ass over where that rifle is. Dishonorable discharge, time in the brig, death, they threatened it all. I was 17 at the time, and scared out of my mind. A few phone calls later and the rifle was located safe in sound, back in the armory of course. My friend still thinks this is all funny, 12 years later.
 

TallBill

Lifer
Apr 29, 2001
46,017
62
91
Originally posted by: Ramma2

#3 - Basic training. I was pulled for weapons guard detail for this day's particular trip to the rifle range. Normally you draw the entire platoon's weapons, and bring them all to the range, even the ones for the soldiers on kitchen patrol, sick call, etc. On this fun fun day one of my friends was pulled for KP, and instead of loading his weapon into the rack on the back of the truck he turned it back into the armory. So we go out to the range, shoot shoot bang bang and I'm guarding the extra weapons, when poof the DS's figure out that we're a rifle short, and I don't know where it is.

You haven't been yelled at until you have 4 drill seargents, the company commander, the batallion commander, and 2 military police officers roasting your ass over where that rifle is. Dishonorable discharge, time in the brig, death, they threatened it all. I was 17 at the time, and scared out of my mind. A few phone calls later and the rifle was located safe in sound, back in the armory of course. My friend still thinks this is all funny, 12 years later.

Ah, loss of a sensitive item, especially a weapon. That's the most terrifying thing in the Army.
 

Modelworks

Lifer
Feb 22, 2007
16,240
7
76
Originally posted by: Ramma2


You haven't been yelled at until you have 4 drill seargents, the company commander, the batallion commander, and 2 military police officers roasting your ass over where that rifle is. Dishonorable discharge, time in the brig, death, they threatened it all. I was 17 at the time, and scared out of my mind. A few phone calls later and the rifle was located safe in sound, back in the armory of course. My friend still thinks this is all funny, 12 years later.



I know the feeling . When I was 17 during basic I fell asleep on watch. It was at 2am after we had been running all day. I literally was sleeping standing up. Awoken by the company commander yelling "I'm gonna put my foot so far up your ass" , followed by the officer on duty and a female officer yelling at me about how I could get everyone killed , and end the world as we know it. Female officer was the worst, they really like to come down as a hard ass on the males. This was before the first gulf war, but I still remember it well :)
 

OutHouse

Lifer
Jun 5, 2000
36,410
616
126
Originally posted by: TallBill
Originally posted by: Ramma2

#3 - Basic training. I was pulled for weapons guard detail for this day's particular trip to the rifle range. Normally you draw the entire platoon's weapons, and bring them all to the range, even the ones for the soldiers on kitchen patrol, sick call, etc. On this fun fun day one of my friends was pulled for KP, and instead of loading his weapon into the rack on the back of the truck he turned it back into the armory. So we go out to the range, shoot shoot bang bang and I'm guarding the extra weapons, when poof the DS's figure out that we're a rifle short, and I don't know where it is.

You haven't been yelled at until you have 4 drill seargents, the company commander, the batallion commander, and 2 military police officers roasting your ass over where that rifle is. Dishonorable discharge, time in the brig, death, they threatened it all. I was 17 at the time, and scared out of my mind. A few phone calls later and the rifle was located safe in sound, back in the armory of course. My friend still thinks this is all funny, 12 years later.

Ah, loss of a sensitive item, especially a weapon. That's the most terrifying thing in the Army.

yip, when i was in Panama 1989 (air force law enforcement) somebody in a airborne platoon lost a .45 the thing is they just spent 3 days in the jungle so finding it was next to nill. however it was humerus seeing the entire 506th airborne regiment standing out on the Ft. Kobe chopper pad with their colonel chewing their collective asses out with a bull horn. they sent several platoons out in the bush to try to find it but they never did.