Absurd requests/demands

[Pippen]

So my flatmate resigned from his part time job because apparently doing your job properly upsets other employees. This has left them completely in the poo as all their staff are dropping like flies and they are too useless to manage the situation. He has done everything he is required to with regards to working out his notice and they are fully aware his last day is today. Apparently they are snippy with him because he won't work next weekend. Even if he felt so inclined, he can't because he has his BIL's wedding to go to. The GM actually asked him to miss the wedding to "help them out".

Yeah. Right. Can't see that happening. Do people really think these requests are reasonable when they ask them?

[Kaypeep]

When I was in college there was a terrible NorEaster that slammed our city.  My entire block was flooded.  There were literally boats floating in front of my house in the street.  I called my boss to tell him I coudn't come to work as the front of my house was the ocean and it wasn't even high tide yet!  I moved my car into the lawn in the backyard and off the street and was worried it was going to be carried off if the water got any higher.  My boss said I "had to" come in and he'd send his brother with a diesel truck to come get me, if I could climb the wall in my backyard and get to the next block over.

 

Yeah, I'm going to leave my home to float away so I can go work at the convenience store.  NOT!

I told them absolutely not.  Not only were we watching our house but we were helping neighbors as well. We lived on the shore so there's a whole hurricane protocol the whole neighborhood pitches in to follow and help others out.  This was an emergency and neither I nor my brother (he worked at the same place) would be in that day.

[diesel_darlin]

Kaypeep, my mom had a boss similar to yours. We didnt live near the ocean, but we had the remnants of a hurricane that passed through. Our little creek became a raging river. While we lived up on a hill high enough where our home wasnt damaged, our neighbors werent so lucky. The water was up so high that no one could get in, and no one could get out. When my mom called her boss and told him that she wasnt going to make it to work that day, he raged at her saying that he better see her within the hour. She got the local department of highways to call him and tell him that there was no way she was going to make it to work. 

[HorseFreak]

When I was in college I took a class that involved several weekly shifts at the dairy farm caring for and milking the cows three times per day. In case of emergency or lots of snow three students lived above the barn for no rent in exchange for labor. I lived 8 miles from the farm down some pretty narrow, rural roads and drove a compact car. One evening we got 3' of snow, the transportation was shut down and the roads weren't plowed. I called the student leader in charge to let him know I wouldn't be able to make it in and to please ask the live-ins to cover (not that big a deal for them, an extra 30 minutes of work). I got quite the lecture about what responsibility meant and how I made a commitment and those cows needed to be taken care of no matter what, blah blah blah. I told him that was all well and good, but that's why those students LIVED ABOVE THE BARN and I literally could not make it to the barn! He told me to walk and said it wasn't his problem when I reminded him that I lived 8 miles away while he was an RA on campus. 

He didn't get it and he gave me a poor grade on my peer evaluation at the end of the semester.

[Jocelyn]

I was on my way to work when a woman turned left in front of me; a collision was inevitable. (She just didn't look carefully). My left had flew off the wheel, hit the door, and broke. Both cars were disabled. While we were waiting for the sheriff to arrive, I went to a nearby store and phoned my boss, because I was scheduled to give an in-service for a school at 1 pm that day. I told the boss that my car couldn't be driven, I was injured, and law enforcement hadn't arrived yet. It was 8:15 am.
She asked, 'Don't you think you can be there by 1?'
I told her the only way I could get there by 1 would be if I skipped the step of 'go to ER, have Xrays and have the hand casted'. She seriously expected me to make the police report, ride the wrecker back to Home City with my car in tow, and then to go directly to Hertz, rent a car, and then go do my in-service as scheduled...waiting about 8 hours before going to the ER. I didn't think so.

[Thipu1]

I had one years ago at work.

We had arranged a once in a lifetime vacation almost a year in advance.  My bosses knew about our plans and the leave was approved.  During that year, my immediate boss left and a job search was initiated for a new one.  One was hired and, wouldn't you know it?  He was scheduled to start a week before the vacation.

There was extreme pressure from the uber-boss to cancel the vacation or reschedule.  This was impossible.  You can't reschedule the last crossing of an historic ship.  Even if we could we wouldn't because the uber-boss knew our plans before this new hire was even interviewed.

The vacation went off as planned but relations between the uber-boss and me were strained from that point on.     

[CrochetFanatic]

This probably isn't as severe as the other stories on here, but I occasionally get stress-related migraines.  Sometimes--most of the time, even--I can soldier through it and get things done.  If I feel it beginning to come on, I can take something for it, and it's not that bad.  If I wake up with one?  Well, that's another matter entirely.

One morning, I woke up to a feeling that my head was trying to hatch, and I couldn't see out of my left eye.  I had been to the doctor for it, and I know it's a harmless (if you have nowhere to drive!) effect called an "aura", though I sometimes call them "floaters" because they're blind spots that pass diagonally across my field of vision over the course of about an hour or so.  Sometimes this is my warning sign, because it can arrive before any pain.  That morning, the migraine also affected my stomach, as is often the case.  Unable to see well enough to drive safely, unable to walk without weaving, and unable to stray far from the bathroom because of the nausea, I called out sick.

The place where I used to work was a 24/7 gas station and convenience store, and it is almost always busy.  The call-out policy is as follows; arrange with someone to switch with you at least a day before you're going to be out, or you better come in.  This isn't always possible, and people would come in to work (and handle FOOD!) whether they were sick or not.  Also, 99% of the time a request to switch would be met with, "Sorry, I have plans."

I was told, "Well, we need you here, so I'll see you at such-and-such."  I don't remember exactly how the exchange went, but I didn't go in, got written up, and ended up having to bring in a doctor's note.  I do understand that they were short-staffed that day, but I doubt they would have appreciated having a customer complain to them that the cashier got sick in front of them.  And I was not going to risk driving when I could hardly see.

[Adelaide]

My Civil Procedure professor found out that everyone in my CivPro class has the exact same schedule. He flew off to speak at an event and gave us two days notice that he would miss class, then said that we would have a three and a half hour class the next day to make up for it, that attendance was mandatory because he knew we weren't in class during the allotted time. Luckily the Dean stepped in.

[NyaChan]

My Civil Procedure professor found out that everyone in my CivPro class has the exact same schedule. He flew off to speak at an event and gave us two days notice that he would miss class, then said that we would have a three and a half hour class the next day to make up for it, that attendance was mandatory because he knew we weren't in class during the allotted time. Luckily the Dean stepped in.

One of the few things our school does right is that it makes clear to everyone that if a makeup is scheduled, they will videotape it & we aren't going to be docked for not being there. 

This prof. seems to have gone on a bit of a power trip - 3.5 hours on a non-class day with only 2 days notice? lol yeah that's not going to work.  Great job on the dean's part!

[kherbert05]

Kaypeep, my mom had a boss similar to yours. We didnt live near the ocean, but we had the remnants of a hurricane that passed through. Our little creek became a raging river. While we lived up on a hill high enough where our home wasnt damaged, our neighbors werent so lucky. The water was up so high that no one could get in, and no one could get out. When my mom called her boss and told him that she wasnt going to make it to work that day, he raged at her saying that he better see her within the hour. She got the local department of highways to call him and tell him that there was no way she was going to make it to work. 

When I was living in West Texas there was an ice storm. Now San Angelo has an arora or dry creek that goes through the town. In some places the road just goes down in the arora and you have a flood gauge next to it so you can tell if it is flooded during rains. In other areas there are low water bridges. There are also bridges over the Concho River. All of these ice over in an ice storm. The low water bridges are especially dangerous because you don't think bridge when you see them.


So the highway department declares an emergency - all roads are closed to traffic except 1st responders.  The new superintendent calls us all a bunch of wimps and declares the schools open and threatens parents who don't send their kids with truancy charges. This same guy tried to cancel FOOTBALL practice in August and September because it was in the High 90's in West Texas.     The board, Texas DPS, and him had a come to deity meeting about West Texas weather safety Vs Minnesota  weather safety.

[Kaora]

Not as severe, but a real wallbanger.

Got permission from my parents to go to a concert with BF and his family last night.  Gorgeous outdoor concert by a local orchestra society, honoring all sorts of movie themes and show tunes.  It was a blast to be there.

My mum, who immediately decided that I needed to wear a dress (and every example she brought out would have been 20-30 years too old for my short-of-25 year old me), makeup, and have my hair up in a bun.  Umm... maybe if it were more formal.  But not then, especially when BF was insisting I come casual, just as long as I look nice.  I still get stuck in a 90 dollar pair of jeans, which I promptly crawled around the grass in for a picnic at the concert.

I was better dressed than his mom as well, and that made me nervous.

And yes, I was this close to going to a concert with a bun and makeup, if BF hadn't just decided to drop in and get me aand rush me out.  Thank you BF for doing that, or else I really would have been overdressed.

[Pippen]

This was put to me as more of a "Hey don't you think this would be a great idea?!" when I couldn't actually think of anything more absurd and less likely to happen.

I used to work in a sales role for the worst company in NZ. Lets call it Telecom seeing that is it's name. Each year our team would be assigned a set amount for bonuses and our manager, not HR would determine how it was split. Our manager P was a nice guy but a hard out Christian and he had funny ideas about all sorts of things. I worked with a guy M who was the most useless, lazy, sneaky, vile person. He never made his targets and created all sorts of drama for the rest of us. I loathed him and everyone knew it. M was also somehow on the periphery of P's church

At my performance review my manager told me I had well exceeded all targets and that my bonus if worked out on percentages would be X amount which was several thousand dollars. He then went on to say that he had prayed about the matter and decided we were all only going to get half our bonus and M the worst employee in the world was going to get the other half. His reasoning for this was M had 7 children and I had none.

After a long silence I told him exactly what I thought of this plan in no uncertain words and he could expect my written resignation on his desk in 2 minutes. He was stunned. He truly believed it was a wonderful idea and that I would be delighted with it. He then turned it round to a "What about the children?" thing and I had to tell him I did not like M's children (They were as vile as their father), I did not care 2 hoots about them and if M needed money to bring up his brood maybe he could think about actually doing his job for a change.

I went straight to our GM and told him and he was appalled. P got a 'please explain' phone call. M hated me even more as P had told him all about this madness beforehand so he thought he was getting lots of lovely money and I had put a stop to it.

[siamesecat2965]

This was put to me as more of a "Hey don't you think this would be a great idea?!" when I couldn't actually think of anything more absurd and less likely to happen.

I used to work in a sales role for the worst company in NZ. Lets call it Telecom seeing that is it's name. Each year our team would be assigned a set amount for bonuses and our manager, not HR would determine how it was split. Our manager P was a nice guy but a hard out Christian and he had funny ideas about all sorts of things. I worked with a guy M who was the most useless, lazy, sneaky, vile person. He never made his targets and created all sorts of drama for the rest of us. I loathed him and everyone knew it. M was also somehow on the periphery of P's church

At my performance review my manager told me I had well exceeded all targets and that my bonus if worked out on percentages would be X amount which was several thousand dollars. He then went on to say that he had prayed about the matter and decided we were all only going to get half our bonus and M the worst employee in the world was going to get the other half. His reasoning for this was M had 7 children and I had none.

After a long silence I told him exactly what I thought of this plan in no uncertain words and he could expect my written resignation on his desk in 2 minutes. He was stunned. He truly believed it was a wonderful idea and that I would be delighted with it. He then turned it round to a "What about the children?" thing and I had to tell him I did not like M's children (They were as vile as their father), I did not care 2 hoots about them and if M needed money to bring up his brood maybe he could think about actually doing his job for a change.

I went straight to our GM and told him and he was appalled. P got a 'please explain' phone call. M hated me even more as P had told him all about this madness beforehand so he thought he was getting lots of lovely money and I had put a stop to it.

I heard about a similar situation at my company, but not quite as bad. we also get bonuses each year, and then there used to be a "pot" of money which could be given to employees, at the manager's discretion, although now that I think about it, this might have been salary increases.  In any event, one CW had done a lot of work on one project, above and beyond, adn her boss went to my director, and said, hey, please consider her for this extra as she did, this, this, and this.  Not a demand, but more of an FYI.

My director, who is also an attorney, so should KNOW better, told her that well, that's all well and good, but someone else, who happened to be MY boss, had a family, so he was thinking of giving him more.  I don't know what ever came of that, but last time I checked, having a family is NOT a good excuse to do something for one employee over another.

[siamesecat2965]

Not as severe, but a real wallbanger.

Got permission from my parents to go to a concert with BF and his family last night.  Gorgeous outdoor concert by a local orchestra society, honoring all sorts of movie themes and show tunes.  It was a blast to be there.

My mum, who immediately decided that I needed to wear a dress (and every example she brought out would have been 20-30 years too old for my short-of-25 year old me), makeup, and have my hair up in a bun.  Umm... maybe if it were more formal.  But not then, especially when BF was insisting I come casual, just as long as I look nice.  I still get stuck in a 90 dollar pair of jeans, which I promptly crawled around the grass in for a picnic at the concert.

I was better dressed than his mom as well, and that made me nervous.

And yes, I was this close to going to a concert with a bun and makeup, if BF hadn't just decided to drop in and get me aand rush me out.  Thank you BF for doing that, or else I really would have been overdressed.

I had something similar happen going to my HS reunion.  I was going with a friend, and staying at her house.  Got there, got ready, and we were ready to go.  Friend has had some health issues, and has had certain treatments, and as a result, doesn't always pick up on subtle social clues and norms.  Friend also prefers women to men, which is fine as we've been friends since we were twelve. I could care less about that.

However, friend thought it would be nice to get us both corsages to wear.   While the thought was lovely, there was no way I could walk in there wearing a matching corsage, as everyone would think we were a couple.  So thinking quickly, I fibbed and said while it was lovely, I was allergic and therefore wasn't able to wear it. 

[Sirius]

I was asked, "Why do you have to get married the day of the town-wide yard sale?"  I felt like saying, "If you'd rather go to a yard sale than come to my wedding, be my guest," but I didn't, especially since we'd planned our wedding for that particular dates months before the yard sale was announced.