Times you were "thrown under the bus"
Discussion
Any good or amusing stories of people really putting you squarely in the dirt for something not your fault?
Most memorable occasion for me was 1996, and my first-ish week of secondary school. Not that I'm still bitter about it, but just remembered it when reading the "snowball" thread in GG.
First week, we're stood waiting for my friend's mum to pick us up after school and there's another boy that neither of us know waiting in the same place who was throwing pine cones at passing cars. Not very good aim, but then he hit one car quite hard and the driver came to an abrupt halt. At which point said boy just ran off. This driver was furious and started demanding our names etc, despite our protestations that we didnt' know this other boy he just happened to be at the same place as us. No doubt our 11/12 year old ramblings didn't sound quite so convincing to her.
And then, out of nowhere, the boy I'm waiting with tells her that his name is "Matt North". It isn't Matt North at all, I think he's just made it up to shut her up. And then though, he gives her my actual name! What an absolute dick move on his part I feel. Woman has written my name and Matt North name down.
Worse to come though. What I don't know is that Matt North is a pupil at the school and the son of Mr North... Maths teacher and at the time I think he was Head of Sixth Form or some other highly respected position in the school. How did I find this out? Well of course the next morning, I arrive and my form tutor directs me to the Deputy Headmaster's office immediately
"Why were you throwing pine cones at cars outside the school? Why did you tell the woman you were with Mr North's son when you were with another boy, who was this other boy?"
The whole point of the mysterious pine-cone thrower was lost, I didn't know his name, all I knew was that my defense was pretty flimsy to a deputy head who probably missed the days of the cane/slipper/belt approach to teaching young boys. Neither me, nor the "mate" that I was with, had as much as touched a pine cone, but clearly the woman had forgotten this in her report to the school. Because of course she'd forgotten it.
Anyway, my vague description of a boy I didn't know and looked like every other 11 year old who'd just started at the school didn't seem to wash, and I had to give the name of my "mate" - I somehow avoided detention but had to suffer being known as a "grass" for some time after this. No punishment for my mate giving a false name out either, but the rejection by (some) of my peers, including said mate, well that hurt as an 11 year old
Most memorable occasion for me was 1996, and my first-ish week of secondary school. Not that I'm still bitter about it, but just remembered it when reading the "snowball" thread in GG.
First week, we're stood waiting for my friend's mum to pick us up after school and there's another boy that neither of us know waiting in the same place who was throwing pine cones at passing cars. Not very good aim, but then he hit one car quite hard and the driver came to an abrupt halt. At which point said boy just ran off. This driver was furious and started demanding our names etc, despite our protestations that we didnt' know this other boy he just happened to be at the same place as us. No doubt our 11/12 year old ramblings didn't sound quite so convincing to her.
And then, out of nowhere, the boy I'm waiting with tells her that his name is "Matt North". It isn't Matt North at all, I think he's just made it up to shut her up. And then though, he gives her my actual name! What an absolute dick move on his part I feel. Woman has written my name and Matt North name down.
Worse to come though. What I don't know is that Matt North is a pupil at the school and the son of Mr North... Maths teacher and at the time I think he was Head of Sixth Form or some other highly respected position in the school. How did I find this out? Well of course the next morning, I arrive and my form tutor directs me to the Deputy Headmaster's office immediately
"Why were you throwing pine cones at cars outside the school? Why did you tell the woman you were with Mr North's son when you were with another boy, who was this other boy?"
The whole point of the mysterious pine-cone thrower was lost, I didn't know his name, all I knew was that my defense was pretty flimsy to a deputy head who probably missed the days of the cane/slipper/belt approach to teaching young boys. Neither me, nor the "mate" that I was with, had as much as touched a pine cone, but clearly the woman had forgotten this in her report to the school. Because of course she'd forgotten it.
Anyway, my vague description of a boy I didn't know and looked like every other 11 year old who'd just started at the school didn't seem to wash, and I had to give the name of my "mate" - I somehow avoided detention but had to suffer being known as a "grass" for some time after this. No punishment for my mate giving a false name out either, but the rejection by (some) of my peers, including said mate, well that hurt as an 11 year old
Not me, but my cousin.
She worked for a national charity providing counselling for young folks. It was her, another sleazoid counsellor who eventually got the boot for touching people intimately, and a useless secretary who ate cakes all day.
The national charity decided to shut them down. The other two threw up their hands and decided to do nothing until the money ran out. My cousin decided the service was too important and spent months scouring grant making trusts and tickling everyone she could. She got the money. She also got fired and the other two pieces of dead wood stayed on for years.
She worked for a national charity providing counselling for young folks. It was her, another sleazoid counsellor who eventually got the boot for touching people intimately, and a useless secretary who ate cakes all day.
The national charity decided to shut them down. The other two threw up their hands and decided to do nothing until the money ran out. My cousin decided the service was too important and spent months scouring grant making trusts and tickling everyone she could. She got the money. She also got fired and the other two pieces of dead wood stayed on for years.
Very large investment banking fraud. We identified over $10bn of erroneous trading activity in our sister desk in the NYC office, when we went there to quiz them on it; they coughed immediately (its not like they could stuff it under their jumpers). However in the following investigation; it become very neccesary (politically) that this looked more than a regional problem and head office tried to pin involvement on us. Queue an invitation to fly back to the US and be interviewed by the SEC and other "bureaus". I refused this very kind offer (reflecting on the fate of the Natwest 3 and being mildly allegic to prison rape). We did however agree that I would partake in an 8hr Video Conference, where I was complelled by our compliance and legal department to cooperate. So I told the truth and the management team that tried to f
k us; no longer work in the industry.
k us; no longer work in the industry.First day on a work placement on a college course aged 16
CD burners were new and expensive and we had one in the company, was scsi cabled I think
Big Boss man wanted to take it home or somewhere and tasked my boss with removing it. He in turn tasked me
Me: we will need to turn the server off to unplug that I think
Naaa, it’ll be ok
Me: I don’t think it will, it might cause some error with the irq stuff
Naw, it’ll be ok
Me: repeat x 10 back and forth
Me: ok, I’ll unplug it
Bzzzzzz - server (NT4 I think) falls over, then won’t boot
People getting shirty cus some database that everyone uses is off
My boss then sends round an email, our new starter today has caused the outage.
Thankfully I think most people saw that he was a nob
This was literally my first job in the real world, good introduction
CD burners were new and expensive and we had one in the company, was scsi cabled I think
Big Boss man wanted to take it home or somewhere and tasked my boss with removing it. He in turn tasked me
Me: we will need to turn the server off to unplug that I think
Naaa, it’ll be ok
Me: I don’t think it will, it might cause some error with the irq stuff
Naw, it’ll be ok
Me: repeat x 10 back and forth
Me: ok, I’ll unplug it
Bzzzzzz - server (NT4 I think) falls over, then won’t boot
People getting shirty cus some database that everyone uses is off
My boss then sends round an email, our new starter today has caused the outage.
Thankfully I think most people saw that he was a nob
This was literally my first job in the real world, good introduction
I was thrown off a bus once.
Soon after I started secondary school, a fairly long bus ride away from home, I was sitting downstairs in the evening when we pulled up to the stop outside the Plessey factory in Ilford. A crowd of women piled on, the factory hooter apparently having just blown, and me, having been brought up a gentleman, got up and offered my seat to one of them. The conductor looked down the aisle, shouted out 'five standing only' and chucked me off the bus. The woman I had given my seat to just sat there, staring innocently at the ceiling.
I was 11 years old. I am 70 now. It still irritates me.
Soon after I started secondary school, a fairly long bus ride away from home, I was sitting downstairs in the evening when we pulled up to the stop outside the Plessey factory in Ilford. A crowd of women piled on, the factory hooter apparently having just blown, and me, having been brought up a gentleman, got up and offered my seat to one of them. The conductor looked down the aisle, shouted out 'five standing only' and chucked me off the bus. The woman I had given my seat to just sat there, staring innocently at the ceiling.
I was 11 years old. I am 70 now. It still irritates me.
Many years ago when i was 18 i looked for a part time job while at Uni.
Having a strong interest in cars led me to visit the local car dealerships to see if they had anything. One of them was suitably impressed that anyone was mad enough to actively seek out employment in the car industry so took me on as a parts van delivery driver.
A few months later a new operations manager is brought in and within a week fires the majority of the parts department (sackings were done on a whim back then) and told me i had now been promoted to parts department manager!? Pretty strange given the only experience of a parts department was going to pick up an alternator for a cavalier or a set of disks and pads for a mondeo!
Anyway, i took it as a compliment and gave it a go, i was clueless, didn't understand the systems or processes and there was nobody to ask to help. The ops manager assured me all was well and i'd get training, etc but it never happened. New suppliers were shipped in which were significantly worse service wise than the previous one which was a bit odd but what did i know after all.
I must have been in that place sometimes 16 hours a day trying to get on top of what i was meant to be doing and eventually the systems started to make a bit of sense apart from one thing...the stock check kept bringing up an unusual figure. £117k and some change to be exact.
You can probably see where this is going but the ops manager was friends with the 'supplier' and was running hundreds of invoices against fictional stock.
I was put in place as firstly i wouldn't see what was happening and secondly to be the fall guy if anyone ever did!
Fortunately he wasn't aware that i had found him out and i went straight to the top and reported my findings before he could do the same for me but it was clear that was his intention and he did try.
Police was called in, he was arrested and i left and found another job after that. Not in the car industry i might add
Having a strong interest in cars led me to visit the local car dealerships to see if they had anything. One of them was suitably impressed that anyone was mad enough to actively seek out employment in the car industry so took me on as a parts van delivery driver.
A few months later a new operations manager is brought in and within a week fires the majority of the parts department (sackings were done on a whim back then) and told me i had now been promoted to parts department manager!? Pretty strange given the only experience of a parts department was going to pick up an alternator for a cavalier or a set of disks and pads for a mondeo!
Anyway, i took it as a compliment and gave it a go, i was clueless, didn't understand the systems or processes and there was nobody to ask to help. The ops manager assured me all was well and i'd get training, etc but it never happened. New suppliers were shipped in which were significantly worse service wise than the previous one which was a bit odd but what did i know after all.
I must have been in that place sometimes 16 hours a day trying to get on top of what i was meant to be doing and eventually the systems started to make a bit of sense apart from one thing...the stock check kept bringing up an unusual figure. £117k and some change to be exact.
You can probably see where this is going but the ops manager was friends with the 'supplier' and was running hundreds of invoices against fictional stock.
I was put in place as firstly i wouldn't see what was happening and secondly to be the fall guy if anyone ever did!
Fortunately he wasn't aware that i had found him out and i went straight to the top and reported my findings before he could do the same for me but it was clear that was his intention and he did try.
Police was called in, he was arrested and i left and found another job after that. Not in the car industry i might add
bristolbaron said:
Andrew Fox threw a piece of chalk at Mrs Carter once. She turned around and asked who it was and he blamed me. I was sent to the headteachers office to explain myself but no one would listen. I hope he’s rotting in a prison somewhere. Okay, we were only 5, but what a ****.
I feel your pain.Back in Primary 6, some of our class developed a thing for pinging bits of rubber (eraser!) at each other with rulers. Went on for a few days until the teacher got wind and the class were given a telling off.
Next day, someone pinged a bit at Joanne Borthwick. For whatever reason, she blamed me and grassed me up. I will never forgive that teacher for giving me 100 lines for something I didn’t do... or my Mother for that matter for not believing me.
Threw myself under the bus.
I was going to school on my bike and turned right to be clipped by a motorbike. Flipped up in the air and came down on my back. Ended up in front of a double decker which came screeching to a halt. Front wheels each side of me so I was lying underneath -could not understand what happened at the moment.
Crawled out. Poor bus driver looked like he would have a coronary. I collected my bike which was a bit wobbly. On reflection likely a concussion. Never told my parents.
I was going to school on my bike and turned right to be clipped by a motorbike. Flipped up in the air and came down on my back. Ended up in front of a double decker which came screeching to a halt. Front wheels each side of me so I was lying underneath -could not understand what happened at the moment.
Crawled out. Poor bus driver looked like he would have a coronary. I collected my bike which was a bit wobbly. On reflection likely a concussion. Never told my parents.
RDMcG said:
Threw myself under the bus.
I was going to school on my bike and turned right to be clipped by a motorbike. Flipped up in the air and came down on my back. Ended up in front of a double decker which came screeching to a halt. Front wheels each side of me so I was lying underneath -could not understand what happened at the moment.
Crawled out. Poor bus driver looked like he would have a coronary. I collected my bike which was a bit wobbly. On reflection likely a concussion. Never told my parents.
I was going to school on my bike and turned right to be clipped by a motorbike. Flipped up in the air and came down on my back. Ended up in front of a double decker which came screeching to a halt. Front wheels each side of me so I was lying underneath -could not understand what happened at the moment.
Crawled out. Poor bus driver looked like he would have a coronary. I collected my bike which was a bit wobbly. On reflection likely a concussion. Never told my parents.
Winner.
1980 something. RE Class. The Reverend is writing on the blackboard. I'm teetering on the front two legs of my chair in boredom. The Reverend without turning around asks me to read the next verse and I start doing so. Meanwhile one of my friends behind me grabs my chair and passes it back until it ends up at the back of the class. I'm struggling to maintain a seated poise whilst reading and the sniggering starts. The sniggering alerts the Reverend who turns around, looks at me:
R: "WHY AREN'T YOU READING PROPERLY BOY?!"
Me: "I don't have a chair Reverend"
R: "Where is your chair?"
Me: "I don't know Reverend."
R: "Right that's two weeks detention at lunchtime".
What made it worse was that I used to go on lunchtime "dates" with Lizzie Harrison and she went off with a sixth former whilst I was in detention...
R: "WHY AREN'T YOU READING PROPERLY BOY?!"
Me: "I don't have a chair Reverend"
R: "Where is your chair?"
Me: "I don't know Reverend."
R: "Right that's two weeks detention at lunchtime".
What made it worse was that I used to go on lunchtime "dates" with Lizzie Harrison and she went off with a sixth former whilst I was in detention...
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