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The office 'scolding email' thread

smmudge said:
I don't think it would be. I've heard they've got a saying in Australia, "If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down."

So their signs would tell you not to flush if it's just piss.
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Heard Ken Livingstone say the same thing was in place in his house years ago.

The dirty bastard.
 
A picture has gone up in our office kitchen/ eating area showing bacteria counts on various parts of a work station, with the hand written note above saying "desks have 400X more bacteria than toilet seats".

I suspect this is due to people eating at their desks which is strictly verboten since we move to a flashy new office.

I'm just trying to figure out how best to subvert this. Thinking of either adding "all food to be eaten off toilet seats" or "depending on how clean your bum is" ... just considering my options whilst snacking at my desk :cool:
 
LeytonCatLady said:
The reason I quit my last job was because of a manager who emailed me about a very minor mistake I had made - the type that everyone on the team had made at some point. Fair enough, it was her job to give feedback, but I didn't like the fact that she felt it necessary to copy in the whole team (peppered with a whole load of red bolded text and "We should ALWAYS follow X procedure. NEVER Y procedure. EVER. I won't tell you again." (I hadn't been told in the first place.) I emailed her back (just her, I wasn't horrible enough to embarrass her back) to explain that I was happy for her to let me know about errors so I could correct them but I would appreciate it if she didn't CC other people unless they were also managers who oversaw my work.

I was dragged into a meeting with her and the manager she reported to, they said they were "very disappointed" at my reaction and that they would "never have thought it of me". They wanted me to apologise to her for "challenging her authority". I refused and was told I'd be disciplined if I didn't. I told them I'd save them the bother and walked straight out! That's when I began busking. I was sorry to leave my teammates behind, particularly one bloke, but we're still friends today.

TLDR: Fuck managers who humiliate staff and treat them like children.
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Sorry to drag up an old post but that's awful. Glad you told them to stick it. I think you could have challenged any further action they tried to take anyway.
 
A notice went up on our fridge at work telling people not to adjust the temperature settings as it could lead to food spoilage and possible cause failure of the fridge if constantly tampered with.

Who on earth fiddles with fridge settings at a work location? It's a fridge, put your milk in it and it will keep cool - leave...it...alone..
 
nuffsaid said:
A notice went up on our fridge at work telling people not to adjust the temperature settings as it could lead to food spoilage and possible cause failure of the fridge if constantly tampered with.

Who on earth fiddles with fridge settings at a work location? It's a fridge, put your milk in it and it will keep cool - leave...it...alone..
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if the fridge is jammed full of stuff someone can end up accidentally knocking the setting dial down so it's not cold enough. i've known that happen so that's probably what happened rather than a deliberate turn down.
 
Sapphireblue said:
if the fridge is jammed full of stuff someone can end up accidentally knocking the setting dial down so it's not cold enough. i've known that happen so that's probably what happened rather than a deliberate turn down.
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Well it was a new fridge and the sign turned up within the first few hours and the woman looking after it was really hacked off after waiting for a new fridge to turn up people seemed to be messing with it...but I suppose it could have been over exuberance at a new fridge, that is significantly larger than the old one, but still gets full, much like the example of the student house rubbish bin, add another to cope with the load, that fills up to.
 
Enviro said:
A picture has gone up in our office kitchen/ eating area showing bacteria counts on various parts of a work station, with the hand written note above saying "desks have 400X more bacteria than toilet seats".

I suspect this is due to people eating at their desks which is strictly verboten since we move to a flashy new office.

I'm just trying to figure out how best to subvert this. Thinking of either adding "all food to be eaten off toilet seats" or "depending on how clean your bum is" ... just considering my options whilst snacking at my desk :cool:
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Supply us with desk wipes and keyboard wipes then!
 
Badgers said:
View attachment 146250
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Bit of insight into this unusual door scolding sign. This is from my old place of work and is one of the women's toilet cubicles in the warehouse. Seems that some of the departments had been claiming 'their own' cubicle and using it to store stuff in. Locking it from the outside so that nobody else can use it or use 'their towel' :facepalm:
 
Enviro said:
A picture has gone up in our office kitchen/ eating area showing bacteria counts on various parts of a work station, with the hand written note above saying "desks have 400X more bacteria than toilet seats".

I suspect this is due to people eating at their desks which is strictly verboten since we move to a flashy new office.

I'm just trying to figure out how best to subvert this. Thinking of either adding "all food to be eaten off toilet seats" or "depending on how clean your bum is" ... just considering my options whilst snacking at my desk :cool:
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Bacteria count is irrelevant. It’s the type of bacteria that matters. Yoghurt has billions of bacteria but you’d rather eat that than one-four hundredth the quantity of e-coli
 
kabbes said:
Bacteria count is irrelevant. It’s the type of bacteria that matters. Yoghurt has billions of bacteria but you’d rather eat that than one-four hundredth the quantity of e-coli
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Yeah. "Kills 99.9% of all known germs". Of which 99%* (of the 99.9%, mister number person :p) are completely benign. I have arguments with family members about this.

*all numbers may be pulled out of thin air, and are used for illustrative purposes only.
 
I haven't actually got an example of the scolding email/poster, because it hasn't been written yet.

But Mrs E came back from her little office job yesterday, all cross because people aren't putting their dirty cups and glasses in the dishwasher, and suggesting all kinds of passive-aggressive parental-style notices they might post in the kitchen area.

Mindful of this thread, I suggested that maybe there was a reason for this. 2 minutes' discussion confirmed that the offences were most likely committed when the dishwasher was in use, and the cups therefore couldn't be put in it until it had finished.

So I've suggested that maybe a notice, treating the people like adults, and offering a suggestion as to how to resolve the issue (eg, wash them up by hand, or rinse them out and stack them in a specific place) might serve better than a rant about "you wouldn't do this at home".

I honestly believe that most of these notices get written by people in high dudgeon, and serve only to immortalise and advertise a flash of pique, rather than being a useful effort at making stuff work better.

My apologies for my part in reducing the number of scolding emails in the world.
 
BristolEcho said:
Sorry to drag up an old post but that's awful. Glad you told them to stick it. I think you could have challenged any further action they tried to take anyway.
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Thanks. Managers like that dig their own grave soon enough anyway, though. I know I'm not the only one who left because of her. She had done a similar thing to my friend who also worked on the team (not by email, it was a verbal dressing down in front of others. I wasn't in the room at the time), and I later found out that by a weird coincidence, he had put in his resignation (2 months' notice) on the same day for that reason. (I admired him for being so professional!)

I gave him consent to explain to our teammates why I had walked out, and he often told me everyone missed me, and were shocked that one minute I was there and then I wasn't, but were also envious that I had escaped. When I got home that afternoon, I emailed Big Boss to explain what had happened, and that I was sorry not to be able to provide a notice period, but under the circumstances I really didn't feel I could stay any longer. She sent me a fucking ESSAY back that I didn't even bother to read through, because the general gist of it was basically "Well, we're right and you're wrong." That didn't stop her approaching my friend shortly before his departure to ask "Would Leyton Cat Lady come back?" because she hadn't been able to find a replacement for him. I told him she should approach me herself and not use him as a go-between, and that the answer was definitely no.

It wasn't only because of that anyway - this company had started making all call centre staff wear a uniform, despite the fact we were on the phones and no one could see us, and also all the other teams could still wear what they liked, as long as it was office appropriate. It felt really stigmatising, like some sort of corporate jumpsuit, especially when certain people from other teams started talking to us like shit because they thought we were lower status. The management also banned us from having tea breaks because we couldn't be trusted to leave our desk to get our own - instead they introduced a tea rota whereby we would each take it in turns to make drinks for the whole team. When the email announcing this was sent round, I don't think I was very popular with management after I replied all to ask if the designated teamaker was also going to take toilet breaks on everyone else's behalf.

But yeah, the scolding email thing was basically a last straw. As I said, managers do themselves no favours with that crap. They behave like arseholes and then wonder why they can't get the staff.
 
I think some managers can get caught up in their own self importance. All the decent managers I've had actually listen to staff and don't just assume they know everything. Sounds like you're well shot of the place anyway and it's good your next move has worked out. :)

I've sent a scalding email before. When our managers were giving staff a hard time over medication errors I emailed them back calling them out for lack of training etc from an anonymous account copying in everyone. Looking back from an organising point of view it was stupid and I luckily got away with it. They did quickly put training in place and laid off of us a bit so it was a result in some ways.

I do understand that medication errors are serious, but they were blaming it all on the support staff without looking at their own areas.

I also emailed one of my ex bosses telling him to fuck off by accident which I somehow got away with. I should stay away from emails really.
 
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