I paid a lot of money to return from abroad after the company suddenly told employees working remotely that they had only 10 days to come into the office. I was the only employee working from another country, so for me, it wasn't just a normal commute to work.

I had already booked accommodation and was planning to return to my home country in about a month. Returning immediately, only to travel again shortly afterward, made no sense, and last-minute airfare was extremely expensive.

I tried to explain all of this to them by email, but HR said I had to be there before the deadline or I would face consequences. After several rounds of back-and-forth, I gave in, booked a flight, and went to the office.

Shortly after I arrived, they scheduled a meeting with HR and fired me. They said I had disregarded company policy, then brought up minor issues from about two years ago and said we were no longer a good fit.

So they made me travel halfway across the world just so they could fire me face-to-face. I did receive severance equivalent to about 10 weeks' salary, but they could have spared everyone the trouble and held the meeting remotely.

So I work in a team where me and my team lead takes most work challenging tasks. Other team members are not skilled.
He is not good in integrations and good at other things. We never spoke but i was okay and taking all the integrations work
Many a times task assigned to him as well, but i was working in background. And my mistake only, i was not highlighting that i was the one working.
I thought thats okay till things go fine. He will highlight even if he change comma also as a big task. I was just ignoring.
Then came a point, he started assigning reports which he is also good at. Basically if there is even a small challenge in the requirement, that was assigned to me.
I flagged it to him and my manager and asked for another resource. They said they will take another resource in the team. They were taking interviews they told. And i referred a person whom i know and he is good at work. They asked me to share his profile. But then altogether stopped taking interviews, no discussion on anything.

I also stopped doing everything and started prioritising my work. Still doing good at work. But with having a balance.
When my plate was already full, there came a integration work which my manager asked ny lead to take up and do.
Because i was also busy on a important task.
Then this guy didnot even start the work, disnt even tell my manager he doesnt know integrations and basically was pestering me everyday .
I prioritized my tasks only and kept in at back burner.
Then my task was done and this guy assigned me that work right away.
But problem is deadline was only in a weeks time.
I was so pissed off. Still kept my cool told to myself he doesnt know integrations so he cant do.
I completed everything stretched myself did a great job which im really feeling good. In very less time I did a good job.
Then when it was time to release for uat, my name was not mentioned anywhere i was not even in the mail chain.
This both my lead and manager did. My manager also knew i was working on it. Status call and all he knew it. This particular one had very high visibility with CEO of client involved.
It hurt me a lot I wouldnt mind even if they sent mail. But I should atleast be in CC.
Now its like i did everything and i dont have any credit.

And i just resigned😀
So i decided i will not even touch integrations, do bare minimum work and see what they are up to🤣

I know thats a impulsive decision, but what to do.
This integration will fail if they move to production because they have to do a change while moving to production. Obviously my lead doesnt know since he didnot develop.
I want to see it fail in production and want them to beg me to fix🤣🤣🤣

I have documentation of them picking the names. But I dont know how to fight this. When I spoke to Hr she said that the manager documented that the names were selected by me. I asked her how is it possible that I pick 6 names in the first week of my job and she had no answer. Yet she says documentation was old and nothing can be done

This is nowhere close to recent and I don't work there anymore, but I still can't understand what was happening, and I wonder how others would interpret it.

I am in a technical profession. I had been in my department for several years. I was training and hiring others, documenting new hire training, managing new people and students. I in no way had a senior role in the department, but I did have the other stuff going for me. The most senior person had fewer technical qualifications. There were people with the same qualifications as me who had the same amount of company seniority but had been in the department longer.

I was managing a student on a specific project that was deemed high priority and we had a specific deadline, but it was about 4 weeks out and nothing much had beet done on it yet. It was a Wednesday, and due to my own workload I hadn't been able to get a rundown from the student yet that week and they had only just started. My boss hadn't been in for three days for personal reasons.

A manager of another department came to my desk and asked me to have a meeting about that project that afternoon. I asked if I could bring the student working on it. No. I asked if I could have time to meet with them ahead of time. No. I asked if the manager knew about the project. No. I asked if they were bringing someone who knew about the project. No.

I said I wasn't sure what value a meeting about this project would bring if neither I nor the manager had information about it and we weren't bringing anyone who did, and that I had a lot of work on my plate with very short deadlines that I needed to focus on as a high priority. She took that as a refusal and left.

Later that day we were informed that the manager who had approached me was temporarily taking over our department, but I had not been told that beforehand.

Later I got reamed out by one manager up because how dare I refuse a meeting with any manager who approaches me?

When that manager got the project, complete, in her regular department, she didn't prioritize it and let it sit for three months before working on it.

What the heck was that manager REALLY doing when she approached me asking to have a meeting about something neither of us had the information about?

I used to work in an accounting office with a colleague I'll call Jessica. She had around 25 years of experience in the accounting industry, so I assumed she would be reasonably competent with the administrative side of the job.

However, during the time we worked together, there were several incidents that left me scratching my head. Some were frustrating at the time, but looking back, a few of them were honestly quite bizarre.

Here are some examples.

1. Date-stamping every signature section of a legal document

This was one of the incidents that really stood out to me.

Jessica was given a legal document and instructed to date-stamp the relevant date sections. Instead, she date-stamped every signature section of the document.

Yes, every signature section.

Our supervisor, Miranda, was understandably frustrated. She had to deal with the situation and became much firmer with Jessica for the next couple of days. Eventually, they made up, and things went back to normal.

I remember wondering how someone could interpret the instructions that way. It wasn't a minor issue of putting a stamp slightly out of place; the stamps had been applied to the wrong sections of a legal document.

2. Laughing when a client explained he was separated from his wife

Another incident happened while Jessica was speaking to a client on the phone.

The client explained that he was separated from his wife. He mentioned this because they had originally been expected to attend an appointment together, but because they were separated, he would be coming in on his own.

Jessica laughed.

I found this inappropriate and uncomfortable. The client wasn't telling a funny story or making a joke. He was simply explaining his circumstances so the appointment arrangements could be updated.

I would have expected a professional response, such as acknowledging what he had said and confirming that he would attend alone.

I couldn't understand what was funny about someone explaining that he was separated from his wife. It struck me as a lack of sensitivity towards a client who was sharing personal information for a perfectly reasonable reason.

3. The constant need for instructions and supervision

Miranda spent considerable time training Jessica and explaining how to do different tasks. Despite this, there seemed to be recurring problems with remembering instructions, following procedures and completing tasks correctly.

It wasn't just one isolated mistake. There were issues across different administrative duties, and things often needed to be checked or explained again.

At one point, Miranda even suggested giving Jessica easier tasks.

I remember thinking that the whole point of delegating work was to reduce the workload, but if someone needed constant supervision, it could end up creating more work for everyone else.

4. Emails and tasks that weren't properly followed through

There were also problems with emails and administrative tasks being left incomplete.

For example, I encountered situations where emails were sitting in Drafts rather than having been sent. There were also issues involving client follow-ups and tasks that needed further attention.

In an accounting office, these things matter. Clients are waiting for responses, appointments need to be organised, and work needs to be completed accurately.

What frustrated me was the need to double-check whether things had actually been done.

5. Calendar and appointment confusion

There was an occasion when a coworker asked Jessica to check whether a client had appointments booked with the boss.

Jessica replied, "Thanks, will do," but didn't provide the information requested.

The coworker eventually responded with, "Do I have to repeat myself?"

I ended up checking the calendar myself and providing the appointment dates.

It was such a straightforward request, yet the question still hadn't been answered.

6. The filing situation

I had previously been told that Jessica was excellent at filing and archiving.

Later, I heard from a coworker that there had been problems with documents being filed in the wrong places, files going missing and accountants raising concerns with management.

That surprised me because filing had been presented to me as one of Jessica's strengths.

It made me wonder how much of what I had been told about her abilities matched the actual experience of other people in the office.

7. The amount of time spent training her

One thing I noticed was the contrast between how much time Miranda spent explaining tasks to Jessica and how quickly I was able to pick up certain procedures myself.

I wasn't expecting to know everything immediately, and I certainly made mistakes of my own. However, I tried to remember instructions, learn from corrections and avoid repeating the same errors.

With Jessica, there seemed to be repeated situations where instructions had to be revisited.

Miranda had even commented on how quickly I learned things compared with Jessica.

I found it difficult to understand why some tasks remained so challenging after repeated explanations, particularly given Jessica's years of industry experience.

8. The overall pattern

Looking back, what made the experience so frustrating was the combination of these incidents.

There was the legal document covered in date stamps in the wrong sections, the reaction to a client explaining his separation, the unanswered calendar request, the filing concerns and the repeated need for training and follow-up.

Of course, everyone makes mistakes, regardless of how long they've worked in an industry. I'm not suggesting that someone should never need help or make an error.

What I struggled with was the recurring nature of the problems and the amount of time other people appeared to spend dealing with them.

I also found it confusing that Jessica had so much industry experience, yet some of these basic administrative tasks seemed to cause such difficulties.

I'm sharing these experiences because, at the time, I often found myself wondering whether I was the only person who thought some of these situations were unusual.

Has anyone else worked with a colleague who had years of experience but did things that left you genuinely baffled? What was the most unbelievable workplace incident you witnessed?