The 6 WEIRDEST Requests Any Boss Has Ever Asked - Could You Handle Them?

[@peterhobson3262]

I worked at a company where my division VP hated button-down shirts. One Monday he wandered into cubeland to see what the peasants were doing and saw me at my desk wearing a button-down shirt. He screamed at me for about a minute, ending with: "Go home and don't come back until you learn not wear a button-down shirt." On Wednesday my boss called and asked when I was coming to work. I told him I was a slow learner and it would likely take me all week to learn not to wear button-down shirts. On Friday I came in, gave my boss my resignation letter, and told him I had a new job at a company who didn't care what shirt I was wearing.

[@michaelvanhorn3271]

I was a truck driver in a strange city, was told to go get this trailer, I got within 50 feet of the trailer and could see do to flooding there was no physical way I could get to the trailer, first it was 2/3rds UNDERWATER!!! And, there was a river between where I could drive to and the location of the trailer on the other side of the river that had flooded. Dispatcher fired me for refusing the load, and told me to take the truck to the terminal "you're done", after I unloaded my truck, got an airline ticket and flew home, i sent the photos to the safety dept... back then the film needed to be developed. Took about a week before the call, they wanted to rehire me and would pay my expenses and back pay. Again they were livid I had "the audacity" to have gotten another job in the mean time and wasn't coming back. They could not understand you were here almost a decade.

[@cdevil9488]

I was a NAVY IT. Had a department head tell me he wanted me to give him access to the email boxes of everyone in his department. I hoped he was misstating his intent, thinking he wanted a mailing list for his subordinates. Nope, he waned to be able to open and read the emails - including personal emails - of everyone in his department. When I refused (it was against regulations), he threatened to put me on report and strip me of rank. I went to legal and acquired counsel, as regulations permit. My lawyer then called the department head in. When he explained to my lawyer what he wanted and that I was refusing to do it, the lawyer informed him how he could be court-martialed over the issue and proceeded to list the potential charges and penalties. The department head then went behind my back to MY department head and lied about what happened. When he called me into his office and started screaming at me about following orders and showing proper respect for officers, I set his phone for speaker setting and dialed my lawyer, requesting he clarify to my department head what had actually happened. Needless to say, I STILL had to deal with problems for being such a "troublemaker."

[@davidheesom7725]

Some years ago I was a manager at quite a large national company ( shirt and tie , desk , several employees answering directly to me ) . One morning the boss arrived , came to my desk , told me to find a broom and go sweep the car park , this happened at about 9am , by 9.05 I was in my car , by 11am I had a new job

[@WarpigA23]

Hahaha! Good for you!!

[@elsiestormont1366]

What an idiot.

[@G.G.8GG]

Awesome!

[@TheBreechie]

Ha ha ha you’re that manager! I love that for you!

[@halhortonsworld5870]

I had just started working at an insurance company in the IT department. Some director of something stormed up to my desk and demanded I get to the break room right away because the coffee maker was not working. I tried to be polite and tell her that I was IT and not an electrician. She wasn't having it. "It runs on electricity, therefore it is your responsibility". I had no idea who she was, so I just told her to stuff it and went back to my duties. This was the general environment at that company. Everyone was the director or VP of something, and therefore thought they were in charge of everything. I had just come from law enforcement into the corporate world, so I had no patience for their BS. I left after a month. If I hadn't left, they would have probably fired me anyway for telling so many 'bigshots' to stuff it.

[@maddiewetter6572]

When i was 16, i worked at an ice cream shop/fast food place, and one night, we were supposed to get a huge snowstorm. Where I live, it hardly ever snows or ices so they dont salt the roads, and the whole state basically shuts down if it ices too bad. My boss refused to let any of us leave early even though we only had a handful of customers come in the whole night. Well, when it came time to leave, the parking lot was already pretty icy. Everyone else on that closing shift drove trucks while I drove a small car with front wheel drive. They all left and didn't even ask if I'd need help getting home. I couldn't make it out of the parking lot. I ended up calling my friends dad to get me out, but by the time he was able to get there, the weather was even worse. I had to leave my car sitting there, not even parked in a spot all night. I was supposed to cover a shift the next morning, but I texted my boss and told her I wouldn't be able to make it. My roommate was going to take me, but our road was so bad we couldn't get out. She started yelling about how "I'm not a team player," so I asked her why I should act like a team player when she clearly didn't even care about the lives of her employees. I told her I could've died that night and not one person offered to help or even text me asking if I'd made it home. I told her I wasn't risking my life for a job that paid nine dollars an hour and hung up. To her credit, she did apologize and took me to lunch as an I'm sorry. I think it was the first time she really thought about the fact that her employees were actual people and not just names on a schedule.

[@nyneeveanya8861]

I worked some where that there was one man who stripped beds in two hotels, mowed grass at five businesses, rehung gutters as needed, repaired ice machines, did electrical repairs, repaired holes in walls, deep cleaned and winterized businesses at the end of the tourist season. The first 5 years I worked there. When he got cancer and had to quit over the next two years they ended up hiring 6 more people to do everything that he had done for them for 15 years. Luckily the owners of the businesses realized what an asset he had been and had saved them over the years and gave his family $100,000 when he passed away

[@billbryant7194]

Its sad that the guy died but good bosses for taking care of his family, in a good way, after his passing.

[@Boomette53]

I wish they’d given him the money before he died, but it’s still a nice story.

[@x-mess]

He probably saved them a lot lot more if they were willing to give that much!

[@TimeLady8]

OMG, a positive story. Makes a nice change from all the crap bosses out there.

[@EikePilt]

We got new carpets in the office! But guess what? The department manager laid down some strict rules. No more coffee strolls in the hallway or sipping at our desks! 🙅‍♀️🙅‍♂️ We had to take our coffee breaks in the kitchen, which quickly turned into an impromptu lounge. 😅☕️ We started to take long coffee breaks, and he wasn't happy about that either, so he removed the rule. But the damage was already done because we still took those breaks.

[@Ben-Askins]

😬

[@mandolinic]

But on the plus side, you were allowed toe cleavage.

[@browsguy]

I had a sign hanging by my work desk, "Pardon the appearance, my Feng Shui consultant is on vacation."

[@naomiemoore5725]

That's cool!

[@maj.d.sasterhikes9884]

We had a sign, at my job, which said, "Drink more coffee, Make more mistakes faster!"

[@noniousxltruffles7454]

Sign on my office door at the music venue I ran, "It's the maid's life off - so sue me."

[@HelynHughes]

Mine says Yes, it is about me.

[@Samwise-o2r]

There was a restaurant here that shut down 2 weeks before Christmas. None of the employees were notified ahead of time. They showed up for their shifts, and the doors were locked. They could see the manager inside, but she refused to open the doors to talk to anyone and ignored all calls and texts. The media showed up, and she still wouldn't talk to them but later released a statement that just said they were closed. They had also just finished running a campaign to sell gift cards to a lot of local companies to give to employees as Christmas gifts. A couple of other restaurants stepped up and honored those gift cards even though they were under no obligation to do it. Of course, all of the employees were blindsided and completely devastated because they were counting on that money for Christmas and bills. Rent is expensive, and it is so hard to find a decent paying job that time of year.

[@elsiestormont1366]

That is criminal

[@Samwise-o2r]

@elsiestormont1366 you would think so, but nothing happened to the owner.

[@beverlywrensch1207]

I had something similar happen to me as an employee of an athletic club. I showed up to teach a class and the owner had locked the door and was packing up equipment. I yelled through the door asking what was going on and for him to give me my paycheck that was due that day. He refused to open the door and said he would mail the paychecks that day. Luckily I had his cell phone number and after six months of nagging him for my final paychecks, he actually paid me. I didn't want to get charged for a bounced check, so I went to the bank it was drawn on. The bank said it would have bounced, but he had overdraft protection on his account, so the bank manager approved it to be paid since the owner did still have a personal account with them that the overdraft protection could come from. That club was selling one year memberships until they locked the doors. Other clubs waived the sign up fees and gave 50 percent off the monthly rate for whatever period was remaining on their contract with the bankrupt club since all the other clubs were outraged at their behavior.

[@erinmalone2669]

There’s gotta be some karma or street justice coming their way I would imagine

[@joosyjulie]

I knew our business wasn't going to survive. So, I pulled all the staff together three weeks before Xmas and told them. I said that if we had an exceptional Xmas and New Year, then we might survive, but it was looking to be a slow year (the economy was slow). I asked if they could give me until the second week in January, but if they found another job in the meantime, to go for it. I paid their wages out of my own pocket as they found other jobs. Then we finally closed in mid-February.

[@j.vanderknaap9446]

When I was sixteen, I worked on Saturdays for a grower of Transvaal daisies and other flowers and plants. My work was varied, mainly tasks that full-time employees could not get around to, such as weeding, helping with the installation of a CO2 supply to the greenhouse, and grinding iron scaffolding pipes to size. The fact that the boss gave me tasks that were always different was completely within expectation and I learned a lot as a result. Until the day I quit. He had a reason to want to move 1.5 cubic meters of sand over a distance of about a kilometer, on the public road. That road has a maximum speed of 60 km/h and half of the traffic does not adhere to that. The sand was loaded into an oversized forklift, with a large shovel that could hold 2 cubic meters, instead of the traditional fork. His words: "Can you take this to the other greenhouse?" My sixteen-year-old naive adventurous mind thought: 'Hell yeah! He obviously has a lot of confidence in me.' He: "If the police stop you, you should just say that you stole the forklift." I declined his offer. Apparently he thought it was a good idea that an inexperienced minor without a driver's license would go out on the public road with a slow vehicle (max. 25 km/h) and if the police had a problem with that, that I had to prevent him from getting into legal trouble. I would then get a criminal record myself. After an afternoon of mulling this conversation over in my mind I quit that job as I could not follow this kind of leader.

[@TimeLady8]

At 16 you were wiser and more mature than your boss.

[@tessat338]

I'm so much happier reading this story than the one that would have resulted from you following his directions.

[@lynneseta]

Weird Requests: I was hired to do a temp Admin job and a little more than two weeks into it I was told to go to an upstairs room and clean it and wait up there for the owner family to come in. I was instructed to "pretend" I was the new babysitter for the owner's grandchildren and not, under any circumstances, tell the owner I had been doing Admin work the previous two weeks while the family had been on a European vacation. The room was a fright - soiled diapers and rotten food everywhere, and a generally messy place with toys and papers. The manager who hired me for the Admin job was to have had it cleaned weeks earlier and had not. The owner and his family come in and see the room is not clean (No way was i going to clean up that mess) and started yelling at me about how insubordinate I was. I told him what his manager had hired me to do and she went ballistic yelling at me that I was a liar. They sent me downstairs and continued to yell at each other. Eventually they came down, no apologies, the owner said he understood I had done a very good job with the Admin part and told me to go ahead and go home early and they looked forward to me returning on Monday. I asked to please get my paycheck for the time I had already put in. He grudgingly did so and I ran to their bank and and immediately cashed the check and never went back. I received calls from them for weeks with messages ranging from begging me to come back to threats of legal action if I did not.

[@naomiemoore5725]

Legal action for not wanting to work for idiots and creating a hostile work environment? I want to see a Judge that ever would entertain such a frivolous lawsuit.

[@elsiestormont1366]

crazy people!

[@benu_bird]

I worked for a venture capital company where the senior partner insisted that all mail be opened and read before it was delivered, I guess to make sure that business plans from potential investments went to the right person. One day, I opened one of the partner’s mail, and it was a handwritten letter. A SPICY letter. From his MISTRESS. We passed it around before he got it in his inbox. His secretary told us how he would always tell his wife he was on a “business trip” when he went to see the side piece. She never sent another letter while I was there.

[@corriebelle]

This happened to me at my first job. I worked for a state legislator 😂😂.

[@Keith_WB2VUO]

Not sourcing new clothes, but back in the 1980's I was asked to match the color paint chips with the office walls to select the new paint. Big problem: I am color-blind. Manager accused me of "Making Up A Disease" to get out of work. I had to prove that being color-blind is a real thing. I got let go a couple weeks later. Just a coincidence, I am sure...

[@naomiemoore5725]

Reaffirms that people are idiots.

[@cupidstunt5270]

Colour blindness is overlooked as a "disability". I work for hyper politically correct US Media company, we were all made to do an online DEI awareness course. The answer buttons consisted of red text on brown background and yellow text on green background. I had to email HR, or People and Culture as they like to call themselves, to explain whilst they say "there are no wrong answers on this course" they shouldn't infer too much from my replies as they've made it impossible from at around 10% of the male employees to give accurate response. P&C is of course 99% harpy, sorry female.

[@judyricco6635]

Had that memo about toe cleavage actually gone out, I would have come to work the following day. With some REAL cleavage to get his blood pressure up!! What?! My toes are covered!😂

[@elsiestormont1366]

😮😂

[@x-mess]

Don't worry... he'll be OK bc it's TOES that turn him on 😂😂😂

[@hippiemd1978]

If someone asked me to rewire anything electrical, the answer is NO! I AM NOT DYING FOR YOU!

[@felix1974]

or killing anyone else. I don't know what the rules are in the States (I assume similar to UK) but here in the UK, that would be against the law. A fully qualified electrician would be required to sign off all the work. You can't just start doing electrical work and hope for the best

[@Sd12sx23]

In a hotel, for sure, 100% illegal in the US.

[@maxfan1591]

6:50 Dress buyer would have been in a good position to ask for a raise afterwards..."Oh, hi boss's wife!"

[@Ben-Askins]

I'm sure they would have been

[@kmbbmj5857]

Not sure if it falls in this category or not, but one of the biggest penny-wise pound-foolish was when our management decided it was too expensive paying for janitors to clean to buildings and restrooms. And instead, we should do it out of our spare time on the theory that everyone has some wasted time in the day. Sounds simple but we were an enormous complex. Just for my facilities it would require taking 2 engineers off their jobs for half a day, every day. The lost productive time in a single month more than paid for an entire year of janitorial service.

[@naomiemoore5725]

That is the most insane thing I have heard, or at least in the top five. ❤

[@maxfan1591]

I've faced that same sort of "penny-wise, pound-foolish" attitude. I once worked in a payroll team where we were expected to do our own filing. The problem was that employee files were stored in a single filing compactus, so only one person at a time could access files, whether to retrieve them or put papers on files. It therefore made sense to employ another person to do just the filing, especially as they could be employed on a lower salary given it didn't require as much expertise as actual payroll work did. But no; even though the payroll team was understaffed (and therefore already overworked), the division as a whole was overstaffed.

[@TastyRedCrayons]

I worked retail, at a big box electronics store store. I was a warehouse employee for 8 years. The managers in the store would ask us to sell a lot so I was sales too. Which was frustrating, but not the thing that was weird. One day two other employees and I were called up to the front by the on duty manager. We had been open for 3 hours and some customer saw fit to use the men’s bathroom and smeared their waste all over the walls. So instead of getting a professional cleaner to sanitize that mess, he said to the three of us, “who ever cleans the bathroom gets to go home early.” I refused, I’m not paid enough to clean that sort of mess. One of the guys ended up volunteering. Given some bleach and paper towels and he cleaned it. I never found out if he got paid for the rest of the day or extra. He was just happy to leave. That place was a nightmare to work in.

[@VerySadPenguin]

I've had a similar experience at a now defunct (mostly) retail toy store. Except in this case the incident took place in morning and the store manager prevented the cleaning staff from cleaning it. Instead he waited until I came in at my closing shift and laughed at me as soon as I walked in and told me I needed to clean the restroom. One of the employees told me what to expect as well as telling me the boss had been telling everyone he was, "saving the mess for me to deal with." I opened the door to the restroom, saw feces on the walls, floor, ceiling, and mirrors. I just went and clocked out and went home, told the boss off and took the write up.

[@SirPlatypusVI]

Worked IT. Got a ticket for a clogged toilet. I messaged them informing them that was custodians job and included their extension and email. He lost it claiming we were all the same department and to get it done. He didn’t get fired or anything, but was told to message the appropriate department for the correct tasks.

[@jimmiemurvin1871]

For 8 years in the '70s, my husband was program director for a small-town radio station. Every year just before Christmas, the station manager would call him in and tell him who he had to fire just before Christmas. His holidays were spoiled every year for 8 years because he, in turn, was forced to put people out of a job just before the holidays.

[@harryboyes2812]

Several years ago my then boss ordered me to go and buy a car and use it for a work vehicle. Yes, she wanted me to use my own private car for a work vehicle. The workplace rules spelled out clearly this was not allowed, and if it was necessary for me to use a vehicle for work purposes, the employer had to supply it. For the record, I refused because I couldn't afford it and had nowhere to put it anyway. But then again, this boss was a narcissistic sociopath, and oh my, the stories I could tell about her. 🙄

[@netherfield2000]

I had to reread this. The boss wanted you to go out and purchase a new car WITH YOUR OWN MONEY, and then claim it as a company car? Besides being obscured, is the company to be paying for it, or did they expect you to pay yourself plus pay insurance, maintenance, etc? No thank you.

[@harryboyes2812]

@@netherfield2000 Exactly. She demanded that I pay for absolutely everything. No thank you indeed.

[@ronhanson6054]

Oh hell. Now we gotta hear more lol

[@agustinagambirassi1728]

A year ago I joined a company as a marketing assistant. It was a startup and there were very few people, I was the only one working in marketing. My boss (sales manager) took the "assistant" part the wrong way, because I became his secretary in a matter of days. I put together his reports and presentations so that he could take the credit later, I cleaned the whiteboard in his office and carried his boxes to the warehouse. I also put together 6 other reports for the sales team while they did absolutely nothing. My coworkers called me “the secretary or assistant" in a derogatory way. It was a very demoralizing experience. I had never felt so used.

[@lavather]

i worked in IT. not considering the fact that me as the only woman was responsible for writing bills and taking care of the office, even tho i was trained as an IT specialist, one day the boss` wife walks in, takes me aside, hands me toilet cleaner and asks me to just throw that in the toilet every friday. asked her why shes telling me and not everyone else as well, she said the guys need to focus on work, and as a woman i should be happy about utilizing my strengths...

[@elsiestormont1366]

😮

[@G.G.8GG]

What a load of . . .

[@amazingperson326]

She can come in every Friday to utilise her own damn strength,tf

[@abikt1782]

I was working at a retail place that rhymes with Blext- and my manager asked me to clean the mannequins- all over- but I wasn't allowed to take the clothes off them... wtf?

[@valenmejia2135]

My boss wanted me to call previous loyal customers individually to ask them why they hadn't signed up for our newest event, to pressure them to buy, and to invite other people. He wanted me to go into the system with the private information they had used to sign up for previous events and use that to call them to their private phone numbers. This was during a recession that was hitting my country. I know some other coworkers refused to do this before I was asked. It would have been roughly 200 phone calls, had I not refused while reminding him I am a designer, not a customer service rep.

[@leblueawoo]

In my previous job, I was the IT admin and one day, my manager tried getting me to mop toilet water from the bathroom floor because someone was cleaning the sewage pipes and the toilet had overflowed. I left a month later. For clarity, there was ABSOLUTELY NO REASON the cleaners couldn't have done this. In fact, they were going to, but my manager told them not to bother. They came and did it anyway, but that was the last time I looked at that man with respect.

[@mariangeerling2950]

I had a boss try to ban sling back shoes for women b/c he didn't like the slight also sound they made as the women walked. Absolutely ridiculous. 😮

[@kylasaundersmiller2286]

It was 40 years ago but my boss asked me to balance his personal checking account. PERSONAL! He was also the United Way chairman in our small town and he had me call all his contacts for donations. Guess who won an award for the most funds raised? Not me.

[@hughboyle7251]

I will give one about emails. Working for a large multinational every now and then animal would be sent to all staff 500. So people would reply to all 500 people. I worked out that just one email was generating 250000 unnecessary. This happened a number of times before I replied to everyone, giving them the maths and asking them to be careful in the future. In our business, every email had to be checked in case it had vital information. The biggest culprit was HR.

[@abc2662]

I have a personal policy about never working for a personal owned business. I used to know a guy who worked for such a company and one beautiful Friday the owner comes and tell everybody they will help to paint the premisses to a specific blue shade because he read in a magazine that it would improve productivity 😮 They spent the whole weekend doing this unpaid task. That said, I've witnessed inumerous situations when a corporate high ranked executive would ask people to take care of his/her personnal affairs. Luckily some of those were fired after exposed. Unluckily the majority of them weren't, but there's hope. In an owner situation there is no hope.

[@Bobywan75]

9:31 I got fired a week before Christmas a few years ago. In France, I am supposed to have 3 months notice, but thanks to Macron when he was a minister, on special economical occasion, you can be fired without notice, I got 2 weeks notice because "my boss was doing me a favor" according to himself.

[@Brandilio]

Recently my boss has been essentially asking me to see how much of my job can be outsourced to AI. Despite my numerous protests that AI is only as intelligent as what you feed it, the prospect of free labor is more enticing, I guess. I'm a multimedia designer, and most of my job is building templates and ads for other businesses - I cannot tell you how screwed the company would be if they try to rely entirely on AI to do the job. Especially considering that 50% of the businesses I make ads for could, at my most generous, be described as "tech illiterate."

[@naomiemoore5725]

We am always open for new ideas. AI will never replace our jobs. It can easily assist when human eyes are elsewhere. We work with animals. AI can't walk them, feed them, administer medication, bathe them, etc. AI could throw balls for them and make the rounds hourly to possibly to keep another eye on them. That's it. Is the cost is not worth it. Period. Most animals are initially afraid of Roomba and equivalent and get away as fast as possible. Yes, there are always some that love to ride them. If they appear like R2-D2, the larger animals would destroy it in a matter of minutes and small ones terrified in fear. Absolutely NOT. So no, AI is no where as advanced enough yet to be much of a help yet. Animals require compassion and cuddling. They would have to appear like a fluffy giant teddy bear and the cost too much to be useful.

[@pamwaldron3504]

@@naomiemoore5725 And even dressed as a fluffy giant teddy bear, there are those animals that would still tear it up. My border collie, for example, believes non-living fluffy items of any size or shape to be the best shredder toys on earth.

[@TheStuartGibson]

Time to set up your own company

[@Laura-gb1jv]

Oh, ugh, one of my pet peeves. "AI is not capable of true creativity. It generates an average version of whatever you asked for. I certainly hope you prefer to give our clients something well above average."

[@stinko74]

Now if my wife checks my internet search history, she’ll find “toe cleavage”. An explanation I don’t know how to answer… 😂😂😂

[@bioburden]

As a software engineer, I was once asked to fake the current progress that had been made on another team's project because they were way behind schedule. He wanted me to fake the progress to present to the funding body to secure the next round of funding (budget allocated per milestone). I declined, went on sick leave (due to stress), handed in my notice and used the time to find a new job.

[@guitarandgospel]

I got fired on 19 Dec from the largest telecoms company in Australia at the time. They screwed up and fired me outside of the probation period which they thought had ended. I got decent compensation at the time, but not with out a fight from the union. They thought they were just going to get rid of me with no consequences. I think God looked after me in a way I could be easily happy with on this occasion.

[@Golden-dog88]

screwed by telstra. not a surprise they screw over their staff considering how much they screw over us customers who then go over to other providers

[@VerySadPenguin]

Had one job that wouldn't allow their employees to take medication while at work because, "people might think you are on drugs." The only way to get an exception was to give the store manager your meds, proof of a prescription, and explain what you were taking it for. Boss didnt care it was illegal... they felt "justified" because it was their business. I layer found out they were stealing some meds from a few employees, adhd meds specifically.

[@scbtripwire]

As a Canadian, you'll be hard-pressed to find a Canadian who *doesn't* know what's going on in the US. We consider the US a cautionary tale of sorts, in the sense that we see the effects of poor legislation and gerrymandering and can frequently base our legislation to basically be the polar opposite of theirs, when necessary. Watching US news is frequently like slowing down at a car accident to gawk, our economies are tightly intertwined so their poor choices of leadership have a direct and immediate impact on us.

[@joeross9478]

How is that all working for you in Canada though as you are living in almost as much of a police state as the UK. You have it mostly backwards as it is the freedom loving US that uses Canuckistan as a precautionary warning.

[@erinmalone2669]

I’m very embarrassed by my fellow Americans. Maybe one of the countries my great grandparents emigrated from will take me back.

[@alanbennett5071]

And now it is going to get even more "interesting"...

[@MisterMarcus79]

I worked as a metalworking machinist making huge 20 tonne parts on machines the size of a small house. When there were some top level clients coming for a tour of the factory, the manager asked me to go outside to trim the bushes and remove some weeds. I told him I don't even work in my own yard if my wife tells me to do so, I hate garden work, my brother is a gardner and he does that stuff... He said "but you get paid here" I told him "I get laid and head at home, what's your point? No..." He walked away and got someone else to do it...

[@Stone2200]

I worked for a coach company. The boss also used to buy/renovate and rent houses. He bought building materials and several appliances for a house he was having renovated. Instead of paying to have all this delivered to the house, he had several of us go and pick it all up with a coach, all the appliances went in the side lockers and building materials went inside the coach on the floor. We then took this all to the house and had to unload it all. He paid four staff to do this and it would have probably been cheaper to just get it delivered. I drove as I refused to do anything else, not my job.

[@x-mess]

The most common inappropriate request I've had is to walk the dogs and make coffee... I'm not the dog walker or the secretary mind u. .. so you have choices... forget to ask for the bag for the dog doodoo... and make super watered-down coffee and super strong coffee the next... then throw a fit that nobody's drinking your coffee..😂😂😂 i learned that this is called malicious compliance

[@capt.bart.roberts4975]

The weirdest job I had outside of "Frankenstien's Monster", was a minder for a junior member of the Saudi Royal Family, who was completely hatstand! I just had to babysit him. Deeply strange man, deeply strange family.

[@mandolinic]

You can't just name drop Frankenstein's Monster without telling us the whole story! Come on, man, spill the beans!

[@netherfield2000]

A hatstand? Was this an adult you were babysitting?

[@forensicgirl]

​@@netherfield2000 I think it might be a slang term for having a mental health issue.

[@666toysoldier]

Serious inbreeding.

[@nrellis666]

The toilet lid has to be down to prevent the Dragon of Unhappiness flying up your bottom (according the Terry Pratchett)

[@forensicgirl]

LOL! Classic Pratchett! Thanks for this.

[@kathleencostello5691]

After one job I had I think that dragon took up residence! 🤷🏽‍♀️🥴

[@KatieDe_G]

Hey folks, take a fraction of a second and like Ben's video, please. He deserves it 😊

[@calesommers3229]

If the person wanting the Feng Shui was Chinese, then I can understand it. In China, as I understand things, it is common for a Feng Shui master to be consulted when constructing buildings. Both in and out.

[@orielwiggins2225]

Oh my! The dress buyer would have me "innocently" calling or texting the wife to send pics and ask if what I was looking at buying was her color season or size and letting it slip that I thought he was buying things for her, but the sizes are way off... 😂 These are something else. Thanks for your content. It's often validating and all too familiar. And sometimes just plain infuriating that folks can act in these ways and get away with it.

[@VerySadPenguin]

Years ago I worked for a large retail store. Meeting the monthly sales goals was a huge issue for the store, so when we weren't going to make it the store manager would buy several pieces of diamond jewelry and then return it the next month. The credit card company called his wife inquiring about the purchases. The wife, who wasn't receiving any diamond jewelry from her husband assumed he was cheating on her. The best part was what he was doing was a huge no-no for the company, and the wife was friends with the CEO of the company (the store I was at around 10 miles from our corporate headquarters) and he got into huge trouble for it.

[@orielwiggins2225]

@@VerySadPenguin haha. Nice!

[@louisbrook6856]

I was a chef a few years ago, my manager at the time was a controlling freak, and half the time demanded the staff clean his car, if they didn't he would start shouting at us to the point where staff were in tears

[@evaveronica5222]

Ok... My story... She asked me to baby sit her 3 kiddos for a whole weekend, went for romantic trip with her husband and when she came back, first think she did was firing me and hiring a new -"wild-shark" manager (she was secretely looking for). After two weeks she called me begging to change all passwords and coming back to work cause he screwed them up.

[@lisathaviu1154]

I had a boss come in and try to get me to do his homework in a graduate course. I had never taken this course or any graduate course in our field. After answering a few questions about the subject, I refused to do his homework. When he threatened me, I told him that I would call the school and have them advise the professor that he didn’t do his own homework.

[@tripolarmdisorder7696]

Nothing to do with Feng Shui, but in a house with itty bitty kitties, you keep the lid down on the bog, or you'll find a drowned kitten in it. I foster kitties, and it was a rule that was easy to follow and understand.

[@theresatomsen5254]

I had a client ( I trained horses for 36 years) ask me to house train her four horses. She wanted me to teach them to use the toilet for their no. 2s! Yeah I had to laugh that one off!

[@steph.v.o.7078]

I worked in cleaning, it's hard work, heavy work, and you get taken advantage of because they know you need that job, and finding antother job is hard at that level, and they also know that

[@Ancano]

Be right back, I got to go release some negative energies.

[@meganhulatt6779]

Oh dear I could write a book about my weird managers, one used to get the police around regularly due to locals complaints about his nude bathing at the nearby beach, he didn’t also agree to heating the office when it was minus figures and lit a Smokey fire which nearly suffocated us all and got annoyed with us feeling ill from it.

[@melissacoelho8413]

Lol toe cleavage? That’s a first 😂😂😂

[@Ben-Askins]

First for me too 🤣

[@sophiedash4026]

It's been in use for a long time. I first heard it at least 25 years ago... Aside from that, he could have just said he wanted to add close-toed shoes to the office dress code. Still a dick move guaranteed to annoy staff, but without the ick. 🫣

[@hiluxcolt]

Cool, I got with this video the chance leveling up my english skills... 😂

[@davinasquirrel7672]

@@hiluxcolt As a native English speaker, I managed for over 60 years without knowing the term. Trust me, it is not essential.

[@scottsmartky]

Yeah, that's weird. Normally it's phrased as no open-toed shoes allowed. Absolutely no reason to drag cleavage into that. LOL

[@jamesduncan578]

I worked in a retail music store, guitars, band instruments and such. It was casual dress, blue jeans or khakis and a uniform polo.we had a lady that worked with us and her and I dress alike, blue jeans with uniform shirt and we both wore Sperry Topsiders with no socks. I got written up for not wearing socks. Apparently in business men wear socks.

[@alanlittle4589]

During the 2010 riots in London (and other cities?) I was working in a supermarket. The General Manager sent me down the road to Loughton station to look out for rioters. Luckily, despite the rumours they didn't come. Don't know what I would have done if they had turned up.

[@Greenplanet949]

I worked at a place with a business formal dress code. Women couldn't show both their toes and their heels in the same shoe. You could only have one or the other. The CEO would openly say for women closed shoes was the preference. We all had shoes in boxes under our desks that we’d put on for meetings.

[@tealrustsage24]

Back in the 80's at a travel agency the female boss/owner had me wash her car, wrap empty boxes for Christmas presents and pick up her dry cleaning just to name a few examples. Still got paid my secretary wage so I had no complaints. Today, I would not be so flexible.

[@patrickjordan2233]

Oftentimes these requests aren't about the task... rather they're more a brute "power flex" demonstration... Capitulate once and the next assignment Will Be Worse...

[@My2Catz]

The dress story reminded me of a terrible boss I worked for in the early 1990's. This guy was boinking his (3rd) wife's best friend - he had introduced his wife and her friend to us one day when they visited just after I was hired. Afterwards, the friend would come to the office for "lunch" with the boss, and on his way out he would tell me and the receptionist (me because I had to cover as receptionist when she was at lunch) that if his wife called, we were to say that he was "in a meeting and not to be disturbed." Then he would take his mistress to his van in the employee parking lot and do her for lunch. The thing is, our office overlooked that parking lot and we would all gather at the window to watch the van "rock and roll." The final straw for me came when he was finally divorcing the wife to marry the best friend (I worked there 4.5 years; this was towards the end of that time which tells you how long the affair had been going on) and he ordered me to forge his wife's signature on their tax return. Obviously, there was something dodgy about that return that he didn't want his wife to know. I did it only because I was on my way out at the time and hoped he might get caught for that forgery or whatever was in that tax return.

[@jyyyb]

Shoulda grassed about the signature

[@tammaratiffany7425]

I once worked retail at a resort. They were so cheap that I was supposed to close by myself and if anyone was in the store I must wait for them to leave before closing the register. Ok, but if it was past my shift, I was supposed to walk across the complex (in the dark,) punch out, walk back, count the money, lock up, WALK BACK WITH THE MONEY, then turn it in and leave. Huh??? No! I refused. I wouldn’t clock out until I was finished, and I demanded a security escort across the property. I did this a couple of nights. Then I quit!

[@socialite1283]

I absolutely can imagine senior managers making those sorts of requests. They often have little connection with the reality of the "shop floor". In my experience, those who set prices also have no knowledge of the actual cost of providing services.

I worked for real Mr Dunning and Mr Kruger. After a few years, I quit. I couldn't take the idiocy anymore. Literally every single project I was involved, was cancelled after this. They blamed me for the financially losses they produced this way.

[@reginabillotti]

With the housekeeper one, I was expecting that maybe she would be drafted for front desk or other normal hotel duties, but no, apparently they want an amateur electrician?

[@robynjohnson9909]

I was a hostest at restaurant for years in highschool and I had one boss who would always make me run errands for them, like pick up bread from this local bakery that supplied their torta bread. They sent me there so much that the baker finally asked if I was my boss's wife (I was 17 and my boss was 40) lol after that I told my boss these errands are not in my job description as a hostess.

[@Anthony-fd8mh]

Not sure this is considered weird but I once was asked to unclog a toilet in the ladies restroom (I'm male) that the receptionist in our office clogged (I think by flushing her lady products, however there was other "Material" in there as well) and the receptionist I guess was too important to grab the plunger next to the toilet and unclog it herself (even though she lived alone with her child), so I was asked to do it and at the time I was the assistant to the assistant manager. Heaven forbid the receptionist ever clogged her own toilet at home as I have no clue what she would have done then, but I suspect she would have grabbed a plunger and fixed it herself, but oh no, not at the office as it was far too important for her to sit idly and wait for the phone to ring.🙄

[@jamesduncan578]

Me: "Is it over overflowing?'- Them: "Yes" - Me: "call a plumber." or Them: "No it is not overflowing." - Me: "Call a plumber, I don't know anything about toilets other than how to flush it."

[@erinmalone2669]

I’m going to be starting a new job soon and I haven’t worked outside of the home in a while. I’m going to make sure I get a clear job description and everything in writing.😅

[@Chuckf66]

To be fair, I rescued a cat who I soon discovered was pregnant, so my sister (a school teacher) put out a call through the school newsletter. All 5 are living their best lives now. The mum, Lily, became my best mate & arch nemesis for 12 years until I lost her last February to a snake bite.

[@trashbandit2750]

What really scares me is none of this really surprises me, I just get asked to do so much crazy stuff outside my job description these days none of this feel like much of a stretch.

[@monkeyslovewand]

Not the weirdest thing ever, but the last 10 years of my working life I've worked within an office environment doing admin. In the summer the girls/women of the of office were allowed to wear skirts and sandals, yet the men were NOT allowed to wear shorts, sandals or trainers... because warehouse. We went into the warehouse as much as the ladies did, which is to say never. Still weren't allowed to wear anything less than trousers and shoes. That was the same in 2 places I've worked. Never understood it personally. Oh and the office had air recycling so not even air conditioning!

[@Tommi-C]

I was fired a couple of days before Christmas. I was due to get two weeks paid off in a small manufacturing company in East Kilbride and instead he fired me. The accountant however paid me notice and holidays as he knew the owner was an a-hole.

[@beauteoussounds1156]

I worked at a school district that was receiving bomb threats. My boss said that, if we were told to evacuate the building, I was supposed to hang back and do a walk-around to look for suspicious packages. I asked when I’d be receiving my bomb training. HE was appalled at ME for asking that question. I told him “I’m not doing that. In fact I might knock you down if you get in my way while we’re fleeing. Hahahaha HA! My other outrageous ask pales in comparison. A different boss asked me to buy his wife a valentine’s card and gift during my lunch break. I spent SO MUCH of his money, he got mad at me.😅

[@villipend]

Speaking of feng shui, I worked at a company that was taken over by new owners and they reoriented all the production lines to run east-west instead of north-south! Not an easy task and made no sense due the orientation of the building! But all productions lines in all their facilities all over the world were orientated this way! (this company is no longer in business)

[@shamus7747]

I don't know if this practice still happens as its been a while since I worked in banking but banks would get rid of people just before Christmas as its the time of year that will cause the least disruption to the business. Worst part was that it was also the bonus time so when you went into the managers office you didn't know whether it was for a bonus letter or whether the cables were being disconnected from your PC whilst you were in there!

[@STORMDAME]

I was a production manager for music festivals pre retirement. At one event the site boss asked me to clean the loos because their cleaners had walked offsite on account of not being paid. Good for them. Luckily I was paid in advance because the whole thing got closed down by H & S on account of the loos not being cleaned.

[@laughingaardvark3128]

I remember seeing the on car chase on the news. An alarm went back off in my head. " Media Circus! Media Circus!". I managed to avoid watching the trial for three months until I had to move back home. My parents watched it constantly. 😟

[@KitCatForever777]

I got fired 1 week before Christmas. While it was difficult, it may have been a blessing in disguise. I am still looking for a new job but I am wondering if at my age, if I may need to just start doing something on my own. I just do not know what. I have worked for someone all my life and I do not know what it would be.

[@SandraHertel-u3b]

If that hotel had a fire and they have their housekeeping retiring things, who is getting sued when the next fire happens from faulty wiring? What BS.

[@capt.bart.roberts4975]

The weirdest request I've had at a job? Delivering a set of prosthetic teeth to a well known actor. For use in a movie in Italy. It would've been cheaper for me to drive to the specialist false teeth maker, get on a regular flight and put it in the dude's hands.

[@capt.bart.roberts4975]

The other being, "How do you feel about free falling 150ft into an airbag?"

[@ThunderPrincess2500]

I once sold 5 sets of my grandmother's old, ill-fitting, USED dentures on Facebook. Hands down, one of the strangest transactions I have ever been a part of, but I made $35 from literal garbage. So that's not too bad.

[@mandolinic]

Sounds like they've gone completely dental.

[@lynnquinn7244]

@@mandolinic Hahaha! Good one!

[@eldridgebrown3907]

I live in Maryland in the US, between Washington, DC and Baltimore Maryland. So, it wasn't requests from our manager, who was an incredibly great guy, but from the new board of the company which took over our Movie Theater Chain I worked with called Regal Theaters. This was a company that had never owned any movie companies before. And they showed it. Massively bad ideas appeared to be how they did things. A lot of the times, Managers and employees both said "Fuck the rules" or made creative bypass of them. We had a Very Big Theater Complex. 1. Directive: Trash receptacles are "ugly", remove them from the theaters and only a minimum on the hallways... So, instead of people simply being willing and able to throw their trash away, they were conditioned to leave it. Thus making ushers and manager have ALL OF THE CLEANING to do with in the 20 minute spaces between shows. The exact rule was "there can be No trash bins left in the theater while a movie was going". My response was "Wait... What if we take the large once, put them on their rolling carts and bring them is when the credits start rolling?" My boss like that and it mostly fixed the issue. 2. Directive: New management structure. I and all my equal AMs were demoted to non-managerial positions called Senior Employee. We had almost all the same responsibilities, but few solution options and we got to handle the unhappy folks first with less ability to appease them, like being able to give out free tix for bad experiences. Our pay was reduced as well and the Manager was forced to let 1/3 of us go. He could no longer keep his group of managers and they put restrictions on him as to how many managers he could put on shifts, even with big movie event openings. 3. We already deep cleaned the theater Concessions areas every night. Intense deep clean. They now wanted us to clean already cleaned and not touched things through the day and clean one whole soda machine ever 2 hours. Whether or not it was gangbusters busy with something like a huge showing being released. Eventually, after a few months, my boss left. He had every reason to. I followed 1 week later.

[@MarkBrennan]

Years ago I started working for a printing company as assistant to the production manager, obviously an office-based job. A few days into the job, he said his previous assistant always washed his car and asked if I would do it. I refused. He was really put out and said I should do anything within reason that he asked me to. I said I agreed, but washing cars wasn't a reasonable request for an office worker. He also said that his previous assistant always went to the sandwich bar to buy his lunch and I should too. I said I would do it, but only if I went 10 minutes earlier than my usual lunch time. We only had a 30 minute lunch break!

[@houghi3826]

I was asked by the CEO to go to a football (soccer) game during work hours. When I said I was not interested in sports, he said that did not matter, we will just be sitting in the Vip lounge anyway and he did not wanted to go alone. All paid for and hours paid as well, including overtime, It was really fun to see how many people where there NOT caring about football, but just doing networking. And yes. there was alcohol.

[@erinmalone2669]

That sounds awesome. He sounds kind of like a lonely, but generous guy.

[@reginabillotti]

With the dress shopping one, I'm less struck buy the fact that this person is buying dresses for the boss's mistress and more that they are expected to drive around New York (and repeatedly find parking at each destination) to do these errands. I've been to New York a half dozen times and it's almost never worth it, at least for me, to drive.

[@erinmalone2669]

I would hope someone that big of a douche would have a car service

[@choocobutterfly]

My boss asked to transcribe his mother's in law poems since she wasn't capable of using a pc. Then whenever she would want to make the smallest change, add a comma for example, she would give me a call in the office. No matter how serious was the task I was doing, I had to get her call. there where some days she would call me even 10 times, these days it was impossible to do any other thing in the office

[@CherylLime]

I think Ben needs to do a follow up video with more weird requests and this one should be in it!

[@paul8161]

So this wasn't so much anything I was asked or anyone else at work,, but at work the employees where all given a small mug each with the usual blurb on it about how great the company is , you know the drill basically bigging the company up,, unfortunately the employees where less then enthusiastic about their new gifts so they would basically leave them everywhere in the staff canteen in a mess,, anyway long story short we had at the time a manager who was known to be firey and didn't suffer fools,, anyway in comes said manager who was Welsh and he kinda lost it a bit,, scooped up every single mug and binned the lot,, exclaiming,, expletive problem solved, and funnily enough not one person mentioned where the mugs went.😂

[@lynrossi8409]

I worked for an attorney who asked me to bake a lasagna dinner for his family's Christmas Eve dinner. It went over so well he asked for it every year while I worked there. It was annoying that I want allowed to enjoy my own Christmas Eve celebration with my extended family. Also, he only paid for the ingredients on the receipt and not for my time or delivery. What rubbish!

[@Stauvie21]

That’s for sure your fault.

[@MsPeabody1231]

The word you needed was "No"

[@csatterley]

"No" is a complete sentence.

[@nicolad8822]

🤦🏻‍♀️

[@claudiamcnal187]

How long did you do this for???

[@debtompkins5363]

my boss didn't make a 'request' BUT when I trailered a horse of his to a sale in KY from NY, and was to spend the week there taking care of and showing the horse to prospective buyers. I was put up in a very shabby cheap hotel and then learned he had given my services to a barn owner down there, prepping horses for the sale. no compensation for any of it, unless you count the ball cap with the farm name on it.

[@davidbroadus9392]

As a copywriter, I was asked to write the wedding vows for my 40-year-old boss and the 19-year-old PA he left his wife for :/

[@fdm2155]

Treated like a PA? My old director had people doing all sorts of personal shit for her including: scheduling medical/dental appts for her family, bookkeeping for her husband's unrelated business, organizing her family reunion, making family scrapbooks, and completing assignments for her college classes. These are just the things that come to mind.

[@travellinmark2745]

"Toe cleavage" is a weird term. I do think that a boss might be concerned about open toed footwear from a liability view. If someone trips, has something dropped on their open toes, etc., the company could face lawsuits or OSHA penalties.

[@amethystanne4586]

We had been panning up food this morning for the first day of school Monday. Ben posted a new video? Cool! I’ve been listening, and thinking our workplace is pretty good. Then there has been a new mandate regarding taking attendance for the after-school program. There is an alphabetical list of the attendees. But we cannot ask each student their last name to check each person off the list, “Because it would take too much time” Asking the students to write down their last name would also “take too much time” Okay…. So how are we supposed to take attendance? Change everyone’s last name to Smith or Jones?

[@christinamann3640]

If a boss told me to take these kittens somewhere else I’d be like ‘no problem’ because they’d be mine🥰🥰🥰

[@slc1161]

, to shop for dress and business clothes for him. Because my first job in high school was menswear and alterations. It was awkward measuring him to get the right fit or to have things altered. And yes, the hospital paid our wages to shop. It was a big deal to them.

[@chaoticwonder3278]

All I could hear with the housekeeper one was "Yes Mr Fawlty!"

[@opheliaspuppyloverchannel9683]

I had a boss once who had just had a baby…. I was like 20 (aka wanted nothing to do with kids) she managed the store and I was her assistant manager…… she took that as she could bring her baby daughter in and I got to babysit that bloody baby…… for 8 hours lol…… 😂 I did it for a week?! And then quit

[@3ratsinatrenchcoat605]

When I was like 19 or so I worked in a call centre and my manager would build time out of me answering the phones ( my job) to describe the latest marvel movie to her in depth.

[@susansolimando]

The owner of my company sent me to buy a gag gift for his partner/co-owner. It was a hamster. I was early 20's and didn't understand it was a sex-related joke until we were at the party and they gave it to him. Too weird for me so I got out of there and went home. I debated if I wanted to keep working there, but showed up the next day to find the hamster on my desk. They expected ME to keep it, like a pet, since the joke was over and they didn't need it anymore. I didn't say anything; I just walked out and never went back.

[@katherinetucker4849]

I was working reception. And yelled at by my boss for other people walking up the stairs too loud.

[@tylergodefroy8713]

if she gets the wiring wrong, she burns down the hotel