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 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.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

I was born with glass bones and paper skin yet somehow I can still withstand more damage than a middle manager’s ego.

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.

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.

I didn’t give maximum effort according to my pa, when an outside contractor who was giving kickbacks to my supervisor, tried to sell our company a circa 2000 used phone system.