WTF Moments in the Workplace

Below is a compilation of what I like to call WTF moments of the workplace. These are memorable phrases I’ve heard over the years that had me just sitting at my seat, staring at the person in awe of their stupidity. Sometimes I wondered if I were being punked or if this person should be on permanent medical leave as they are obviously not right. So here it goes….

Things I’ve Had to Said to Direct Reports

• “You can’t watch movies while you work.”
• “You want to work from home? But you’re the photographer. You don’t have products at home to photograph.”
• “You can’t hit on the temp. She’s a pretty girl but you guys can’t peace out and take long walks, up and down the conference rooms.” Side note, these 2 are married now so I guess it was worth his indiscretions.
• “Look, I can finish a bottle of Cabernet on any given night but you can’t drink at lunch then come back to work.”

For all of the above, I would like you to now turn up your speakers and play this:

Things That Have Been Said to Me

• “You did absolutely nothing wrong but we are letting you go.”
• “Can you please leave out the back door? The C.O.O. sees you leaving at 5 everyday and that looks bad for us.” This was a request to me and 2 other women despite 5 p.m. being the quitting time. 2 out of 3 of us had kids and the one woman would get in sometimes around 6:30 a.m.
• “Yeah, I just pulled this presentation together in like 10 minutes. It took me like 30 minutes though to figure out how to get the army man pointing in the right direction.” A former boss on his war theme power point that had a faux army man on the battlefields of content marketing. What makes this especially awful? I was tasked with the presentation and had no idea my boss would ambush it by requesting it be taken down, so his power point could be shown. I just stared at his Ed Hardy shirt in wonderment.

Things Said In Meetings

• “George Bush just walked by.” I was in a conference room for a multi-million dollar company with my back turned to the glass. Apparently our C.E.O. was a huge Bush supporter. Bush was just stopping by to personally thank him for the large donation.
• “We are implementing the Renaissance project.” Normally you wouldn’t find this declaration funny and it’s more ironic. Renaissance means awakening, something positive, yet this was a project to see what people did daily and to see who could take over those responsibilities then lay off 50-100 people. Classy.

I have so many more but can you believe these people? I would definitely file many of them under oblivious.