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Tales From The Front Desk: The Painfully Ridiculous Things Office Managers, Admins, and Executive Assistants Deal With

By July 21, 2017 January 3rd, 2022 72 Comments

If you’re an Office Manager, Admin, or Executive Assistants, you probably get a million requests a day.

It makes sense. These roles have always been demanding, and today they’re more important than ever before.

You’ve proven yourself to be a problem solver. You devour the most impossible tasks with vigor, and you enjoy a challenge.

But the more we work with and learn about all the people in these roles, there’s one skill that continues to amaze us:

Your capacity for dealing with ridiculous situations.

Specifically, questions or requests that make you want to go…

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We didn’t realize the extent of this phenomenon until we launched our SID video for Administrative Professional’s Day. Although tongue-in-cheek, our parody about an Alexa-like device that shuts down crazy requests clearly struck a nerve.

It turns out, truth is stranger than fiction. As soon as we hit publish, we got tons of examples from our community of EAs, OMS, and Admins. And their stories were way crazier than anything we could come up with.

(PS – If you’re an Office Manager or Executive Assistant, join one of our private FB Groups (Office Managers click here, Executive Assistants click here). Each group is a place to connect, collaborate, and share advice on how to overcome the wide spectrum of challenges you face in your role.)

So without any more preamble, please enjoy the best of the best – the weirdest, most vexing, downright ridiculous tales from the front desk that we’ve heard so far from our community.

Just be glad this wasn’t you!

 

Hill of Beans

Our first example definitely had us laughing out loud.

This is a great illustration of the way professionals in these roles are sometimes tasked with projects that aren’t the best use of their time or their skillsets (to put it mildly).

“I worked for someone that really liked Wendy’s chili, but without the beans. It’s mostly beans. So at least once a week I picked the beans out of chili.”

-Anonymous

Anonymous Bean Picker, this person clearly didn’t deserve you. (I hope you left at least a few in there.)

 

The Crossing Guard

Here’s one from someone who found herself performing a task that was definitely outside her scope of work. (And while we know it’s not polite to laugh, the visual here is priceless…)

“Our office building is located in between a school and their athletic fields. There are signs in the parking lot that tell people not to use the parking lot to cut through to get to the athletic field, but of course it is ignored.

I was asked to stand outside with a sign that tells people not to use our parking lot so that our employees could get out of the parking lot faster and without a traffic jam. In all honesty, the ‘traffic jam’ consisted of maybe 10 – 15 cars. (It’s a small private school.)”

-Emily

But that’s not all. She also told us about a request from the same boss that had her playing amateur dietician.

“I have also been asked to create a menu for each catering event with a list of all ingredients from the variety of caterers we use to identify how many calories are in each serving. They felt this would help people that are watching what they eat maintain their diet (have they heard of Google?).”

-Emily

Just Google it, people!

 

So Fresh and So Clean, Clean

Check out this question from one particularly proactive (and hygienic) colleague:

“I’ve taken the mouthwash out of the bathroom because it seems I am the only one using it. May I keep it?”

-Darlene

Yes. Yes you can. Now step away from the desk.

 

Not to Be Difficult, But…

An Office Manager submitted the following exchange:

Employee: “I need lunch for a meeting.”

Me: “Ok.’

Employee: “I am Paleo, Tony is vegan, Sarah can’t have gluten or dairy and then Bob’s on a cleanse. What are my options?”

Me: “Air and water sound good?”

-Shannon

 

Batteries Not Included

Here’s an Office Manager with an all too familiar situation.

Coworker: “We’re out of batteries”

Me: “Did you check the drawer that says ‘Batteries’?”

[Pause.]

Coworker:“Found them”

-Norah

It’s always the last place you look, right?

 

Next to My Lunch??

Norah also told us about this creepy-crawly question from her boss:

Coworker: “Did you happen to throw out a tupperware in the fridge with worms in it?”

Me: “…”

Coworker: “I was gonna go fishing later.”

-Norah

In the office fridge, though? Not cool, man. Not cool.

 

The Ice Machine

According to Karlenea, this was “the strangest phone call I have ever ” Here she is calling a local golf course:

” ‘Hello, you have an ice machine at the bathroom between the 4th and the 10th holes. I need to know what brand of ice machine that is. Can you help me?’

That was officially the strangest phone call I have ever had to make on behalf of a CEO.

My CEO is super fun and we were all laughing over the need for me to do this. He took a photo but couldn’t find it so this was the option.”

 

Noah’s Ark

“I [once] had to get live animals on stage for a presentation.”

-Anonymous

We’re dying to know what this presentation was about.

 

The ATM

Here’s one from someone who told us that the higher ups in her office have a terrible habit of asking for personal items like aspirin, Kleenex, or candy/gum. But there’s one request that takes the cake:

“My executive asked me to borrow money. WHAT?!”

-Jeana

So wrong.

 

When in Doubt, Blame the Curb

Here’s one more from our pal Emily:

“I was asked to contact the property management company to have them repave a curb because this person hit the same corner of the parking lot twice popping the tires on his BMW. The curb is not as rounded as other curbs in the parking lot but it has been here for 30 + years.

One would think that if you hit it once you’d learn, but a week later he did the same thing and popped the tire again.”

-Emily

Sounds like the better solution would be for your boss to, I don’t know… not drive on over curbs??? We feel your pain, Emily.

 

Nope and Nope

An Executive Assistant dropped these two gems on us. She had a boss who asked her these two questions on separate occasions:

“Can you get the gum off of my shoe?”

“Pack up my gun safe before you leave!”

-Laura

Not sure which we’d rather hear…

 

The Dreaded Coffeemaker

Employee helplessness was definitely a prominent throughline in the stories we heard. Sometimes the most capable of our colleagues seem to be utterly incapable of performing the most mundane tasks.

For some, this phenomenon seems to revolve around the coffee maker.

“I think the silliest questions I get are about the coffee maker:

How do you fill the bean container?

It says add water, how do I do that?”

-Jenn

Ah, coworkers… they never cease to amaze.

 

Transportation Woes

These challenges prove that there isn’t much that a good admin pro can’t accomplish.

“I had to get a police escort for my boss to get him through traffic. No really…

I also had to get a co-worker to FLY to another state to meet my boss’s wife to get his passport that he left. I had to get him a VISA to India in four days, so we were in crunch time to make it happen. I did it too. Nothing short of a miracle.”

-Anonymous

 

Casual Mail Fraud

Here’s Norah again with her boss nonchalantly asking her to commit a federal crime. (No big.)

Boss: “Will you ship this wine to our client?”

Me: “I think that’s illegal.”

Boss: “Just say it’s grape juice.”

-Norah

What could possibly go wrong?

 

My Best Friend’s Wedding

Another Executive Assistant had this story for us:

“My boss had me research average temperatures and humidity in August between 4 pm and 6 pm in the Hamptons to figure out best time to begin her wedding. I called a weather org at Cornell University and got 3 years of historical data from a nearby airport to compare in a spreadsheet.

The result: not much difference!”

-Meghan

(Let’s pause and appreciate how impressive this is…. Nice work, Meghan! Ok, moving on.)

But that wasn’t the end. Far from it. Her boss also had her:

“Send Thomas the Tank Engine party decor to be printed, pick it up, cut it out, deliver to her home for her son’s bday party.”

“Reschedule foot doctor appointment.”

“Call W Hotel to change the fragrance in the ENTIRE hotel.”

“Make sure car service to airport does not have a strong odor.”

-Meghan

And then there’s this:

“No one in office was allowed to chew mint gum because of the smell.”

-Meghan

She eventually had enough.

“I had to quit her and transition to someone else at the firm. But now we are really good friends!!”

-Meghan

All’s well that ends well, I guess. Just don’t chew gum around her, Meghan. We hear she doesn’t like that.

 

Emergency Surgery

Sometimes you have to do whatever it takes to help a teammate out of a jam. Here’s a funny story we received:

“At the time I was working in a sales office for a major book manufacturing company.

One of the salesmen was heading to probably the biggest meeting of the year with his largest client and had a tear in his pants in an embarrassing location. Luckily the damage was spotted before he left the office.

He had another salesman follow him to the men’s room where he removed his pants and sent them out to me to repair. Later on he told me that his wife didn’t know how to sew but he knew I did.

Guess it isn’t always the best idea to let ‘some’ people know what you like doing off the clock!”

-Anonymous

 

Commode-o-phobia

Sometimes the bathroom can be a source of drama for the office. Here’s a story that proves the point:

“As an Office Manager I get a lot of requests that concern behavior of coworkers. Some of these are very valid but some border on being ludicrous.

One in particular had to do with a past employee who got mentally stressed at the thought of coworkers using the bathroom. Her office was not far from the only bathrooms in the office and she didn’t want anyone using those bathrooms but instead to have them go outside of our office to where the public bathrooms are in the office park.

I was concerned that it was things like foul odors coming from the bathroom and she said no that wasn’t it. It was just that she knew what they were doing when they went to the bathroom (as in relieving themselves) and that thought just grossed her out.

I offered to move her to a different location that wasn’t as close to the bathroom because I can’t tell employees to either not go to the bathroom or to go outside in the elements and walk 7 minutes each way each time they required the facilities.

I ended having her close her door so that she wouldn’t see people walking past to go to the bathroom, and got a sound machine for her office so that she wouldn’t hear co workers walking past. In addition I got air fresheners to position all around the building so that if someone used the ‘poo-pourri’ in the bathroom the smell wasn’t as obvious.

The employee still wasn’t that happy with the arrangements but I could see no other solution.”

-Anonymous

 

Maybe They Use Slack?

One Personal Assistant told us a story that raises the question, What exactly have you been doing this entire time?!

“Someone had been working at the company for a month and asked me what his email was.”

-Arianna

 

Helpless Part Two (Electric Boogaloo)

A Vibe Manager with a scenario I’m assuming a few of you have dealt with before:

“One time my coworker asked me to come to their house to plug their phone in the wall.”

-Taylor

I guess… it’s nice to be needed?

 

Needle in a Haystack

“My CEO returned from a trip with photos of a random stranger’s luggage and asked me to purchase one just like it. No photos of the label or anything, so after hours of pouring through Google images, I found it!”
-Lori

Color us impressed.

 

Helpless Part Three (Pencil Problems)

“When I was first starting out as a Girl Friday, the office manager called me into her office as she needed someone to put lead in her mechanical pencil. She couldn’t figure out how to do it.”

-Eileen

 

Taste the Feeling

“My boss asked me if I could reach into the cooler and get him a Coke so he didn’t get his hand wet.”

-Marissa

*Facepalm.*

 

RIP

One Executive Assistant reminds us that sometimes having to cover for your boss means stretching the truth a bit.

“I’m leaving early today because I have to go to a football game. But if HR is asking, my cat died.”

-Kelley

10 bucks says Kelley’s boss didn’t even have a cat.

Dumb Phone

“I had a boss email me two addresses along with detailed instructions to go on to Google, click maps, enter in the two addresses, and then email him the directions. He sent me all this  using his smartphone.”

-Laura

 

Problem Solved

“I would have to print out documents for my boss’ manager whenever he was in town. Someone sent him an email and he wanted the attachment printed out before he left on his flight back to Florida. I printed out an attachment that was 11” x 17”. He yells at me, ‘How am I supposed to carry THAT on a plane with me?!! It’s too big!’

“I kindly folded it in half and put it in his folder.”

-Marilyn

 

Make it Rain

“I was asked the precise time of the forecasted rain. My boss was concerned about his son’s little league game. I picked a time out of the air and said ‘4:00 pm.’ At 3:50 pm clouds rolled in and at 4:01 pm the torrential rains fell.”

-Anonymous

Did you ever consider that you actually have a hidden power for predicting the weather? Just a thought.

 

Vom-Com

“A co-worker’s child puked in the company car and I was asked to find a place to clean it.”

– Anonymous

 

Presented Without Comment

And finally…

Boss: “What time is the noon meeting?”

-Anonymous

 

How do your crazy requests stack up against these? Let us know the craziest thing a boss or co-worker has requested from you in the comments.

72 Comments

  • L says:

    love this. i’m forever getting these dumb requests too. the best ever was ”please contact Microsoft and ask them to create a butterfly screensaver that links with our brand”. Umm yeah, i can really see that going down well.

  • Kitty says:

    How to put paper in the photocopier….really!

  • Elizabeth says:

    I love these e-mail from you.

  • Angel says:

    I always get the “how to use a coffee maker” and they we’re supposed to be coffee drinker for years. Also how to use the copy machine and also send fax, then where is the scotch tape, staples, scissors and every other office supplies that’s already in the storage room with labels. Aurgh!

  • Cheryl Lowe says:

    I don’t celebrate Christmas due to religious beliefs. At one company every year they bought a large ham for major clients and I would have to go and drive around delivering ham all over the city.

  • Nadia says:

    Love this article and hearing all the stories. Some of my crazy requests were doing a McGyver on my bosses belt because the pin that goes into the hole broke. I ended fixing it with a heavy duty paper clip. Our office is located next to a department store wher he could just have bought another belt.?

    The same boss called me into his office when he was busy typing an e-mail and asked how does he get to the next line…. I pressed enter and walked out the office…. needless to say he felt pretty stupid afterwards. ?

  • Rhonda Coleman says:

    While working for the President of a Real Estate development company I was given money each morning to buy his breakfast, which was always short by $1.00, and I was expected to make up the difference and upon bringing it back to him I was expected to spray the back of his head with Minoxodil (the hair regrowth prescription). I’m surprised I didn’t sprout hair on my palm!

  • Kelley says:

    Haha too funny! And I thought mine was out there.

  • Jean says:

    But, this what we get paid for. If you don’t get why the CEO of a 2 billion company is allowed to do these things, you need to find another line of work.

    • Melissa Brazeau says:

      No one will ever pay me enough has an assistant to lend money to my boss (who easily makes 5x what I do) or spray hairgrowth prescription on his head.

    • Danielle says:

      I don’t think that that’s true. There is a line and many people cross the line.

    • Dana says:

      Personal assisting and executive assisting an in office are two different things. Most time the people who sign up for these ridiculous tasks would never have done so if the truth was presented to them.

  • Mitch says:

    I worked in the music industry for a while, and a boss of mine accused me of throwing out a pair of hard-to-get Neil Young tickets. She badgered me to look in my garbage can, her garbage can, and then the dumpster outside our offices. (There tickets were never sent over; they were sitting at will call the entire time). Same boss also wanted me to purchase her speed. And her office was right next to HR (!!!)

  • Sylvia hancock says:

    What a hoot to read these stories!

  • Kim says:

    The weirdest request I had was at a previous job from my boss’s wife. She had “rescued” a baby chinchilla whose mother had died. The baby had to be held constantly to keep it warm. She had to go to a doctor’s appointment and couldn’t take it with her so she asked me to keep it warm while she went to her appointment. She said I could just put it on my lap which at least kept my hands fairly free so I could continue to get work done on my computer. After she left, it kept making whining noises and scratching/digging around trying to get under hem of my shirt. I discovered if I put it under the hem of my shirt resting on my lap it got quiet and fell asleep. I even greeted clients like this – unbeknownst to them. When she returned, the baby chinchilla was still asleep on my lap so she decided to go grocery shopping….

  • Martha says:

    I once printed out some HR documents for employee to take with him, sign and send to HQ. I gave him a stamped addressed envelope so that he could just drop it in the mailbox after he signed them. He showed up the next day and handed me the envelope explaining he did not have an envelope moistener sealer. I took the envelope, licked it, sealed it, and handed it back to him.

  • Brad says:

    I had someone ask if they could bring a nerf gun for each person in the office to keep on their desks…….

  • Kendra Anderson says:

    I came back from an errand one day to find the operations manager scooping bubbles out of the dishwasher because someone used dish soap instead of the detergent. We work in a building full of engineers…

  • Amanda says:

    The “candy dish” is the worst office benefit ever. I have had people throw their candy wrappers and trash at me twice at my current company because they’re too lazy to walk over to the trash can themselves. The first time was a peer who thought she was being funny. The second time was my CEO who I responded to with, “Do you want me to throw trash at you?!”

    We no longer have a candy dish.

  • Bev says:

    A manager came up to me in a meeting to tell me the yellow toner was empty in a specific printer and that he didn’t know how to change it. He said he pulled out the empty one and shook it around and then put it back in the printer…the same way you would put in the new one.

  • Nora says:

    Top this, folks: After traveling abroad, my casino CEO boss had what his MD suspected was dysentery. So I was tasked with finding a receptacle for a stool sample and then had to walk it to the lab at the local hospital for testing. This was just the straw the broke the camel’s back after 4 years of ludicrous expectations. I quite a month later.

  • Olga Babayan says:

    Awesome stories! LOL

  • BreAnne Stretch says:

    Our Ice maker is on the fritz, so I have turned it off, opened the door, PLACED a note on it explaining there is ice in the freezer, however, I am defrosting the ice maker, etc. EVEN sent out an email. I have had 3 people come tell me that someone left the door open to the ice maker and one tell me that he removed the sign, turned it back on and closed the door. UGH!!!

  • Bonnie says:

    Life Coach and traffic reporter must be included in “Other duties as assigned”. One of my directors called me from home one morning because the fire alarm (it was probably a smoke detector) was going off in her home and she needed me to tell her what to do and who to call. This is the same person that when stuck in traffic on the way to work, she would call me to find out why she was stuck in traffic. She just retired this summer. **Relieved**

  • Alison Falconer says:

    Fab article, made me chuckle ?

  • Vikas Arora says:

    You are absolutely right as this was not common in early days. All threads go to digitalization!! Hahaha

  • Susan Rogers says:

    My boss left me 2 tubes of men’s Lancôme aftershave lotion in his outbox I asked him what he wanted done with them. With a straight face he asked me to tell Lancôme to change the formula because the smell repulsed his wife. Wanted me to return them with nothing more than his credit card statement as proof of purchase. I gave them away. But for fun I emailed Lancome and told them what he said. Never got a reply…lol.

    On Christmas Eve he called me to find out where he could get 2 pictures custom framed that day. No where. That’s what I told him. No where in our city will that get done.

  • Rosemary says:

    At one of my first jobs, I once worked as a legal assistant for an attorney who started gaining weight and, consequently, “growing out” of his suits. He split his pants in a less than convenient place before a very important deposition. He closed his office door, buzzed me on the intercom and told me to knock on his door and not come in. I did so, he stuck out his arm with the pants in hand and told me to sew them. I had been asking for a raise for a while and brought the office manager over as a witness when I asked for the raise once more. He said “Sew my pants.” I told him not until he agreed to my raise; he did and I sewed the pants and got the raise!

  • Paula says:

    A boss I used to work for was a procrastinator. He had a big project to get out in the mail that day and as usual didn’t start until later in the day. 5 pm came and he asked me to call the US Post Office and ask them to stay open until we could drop off the mailing to them!

  • Teresa says:

    1). On my first day at a job, an employee asked me if I had stamps, and I said I didn’t, but CVS is right around the corner. He then asked if I had greeting cards because he needs to send a sympathy card to his cousin. I told him I didn’t & reminded him the CVS and Hallmark were right around the corner. He then suggested I buy a box of cards that are blank on the inside to have on hand for employees to use because that’s what his wife does for him.

    2). An employee stopped by my office to request I contact building management to have a Stop sign added to the corner just outside of our building. When I asked why this was needed, he stated it was because he is almost hit at that corner every day. I promised to look into it, but reminded him there are other ways to enter our parking lot. He replied he only wanted to enter in that direction so that he may park his car facing the sun which would therefore prevent him the need to scrape the snow off of his windshield when he left for work.

  • Christi says:

    A coworker got some tissue caught in his ear canal and asked me if we had any tweezers. We do, they are in the First-Aid Kit. He then had me take said tweezers and get the tissue out of his ear. The “operation” was a success.

  • Yolanda says:

    Amazing is all I can say. LOL

  • Debbie says:

    My executive asked me to put staples in her stapler. LOL! Can you say Diva?

  • Courtney says:

    My manager would always ask me to send faxes for her, as her faxing was “broken” on her computer. One day, I finally brought the issue up to our IT department. They checked into it and determined the manager’s faxing was working perfectly fine; she simply did not know how to use it! I desperately wanted to tell her-“I am your assistant, if you want me to send all of your faxes, I have no problem doing that.” But instead, I continued pretending I believed her cover story. For entertainment, sometimes I would suggest that she contact IT about the issue, just to see the different excuses she would come up with!

  • R says:

    I frequently have board members that have been with the company since its inception ask me where certain conference rooms are. I’ve been with the company for just a couple months.

  • Elle Sandes says:

    My former company used to supply coffee, tea, sugar, and milk. Standard stuff. I began to get requests for a certain kind of tea, herbal tea, certain brand of coffee (ground, bean and instant – 2 types of instant!) along with Friday snacks. We also had Friday “Desk Beers” that the DevOps guys Soon, I was being asked to stock sodas (diet and regular) for those who do not drink alcohol, wine (red and white) for those who do not drink beer, snacks to go along with the drinks – and of course the special requests on those. Everyone loved it and it made for a fun workplace. But my new boss didn’t like it so she told me to just stick with the Desk Beers and a bottle of wine.and a bag of chips. Soon after a lot of contractors didn’t wish to renew their contracts due to new management. I left at the beginning of the year because of differences with my boss. I hear that the place is not the same and kind of no fun. Too bad.

  • R.I. Elliott says:

    This one that is above is crazy, but I’m sure it’s true: “Call W Hotel to change the fragrance in the ENTIRE hotel.” I can’t believe the egos of some executives!

  • R.I. Elliott says:

    I had to deal with the owner of the company going away to D.W.I. jail for executives. Boy, did he have the life, he said. He called the office whenever he wanted to, kept running the company from jail!”

  • Rachel says:

    Such a good article!

  • Judy says:

    I love all these, here are a few of mine:

    I was an office manager for a large law firm in Chicago, in my position I traveled overseas for Healthcare Conferences with the managing partner several times a year. She of course always traveled in first class and I was in the back of the “bus”. I would get off the plane and she would be standing at the end of the walkway asking me what took me so long to get off the plane – “Hello Ms. 2A I would like you to meet Ms. 53C and I had to wait for everyone else to get off the plane, how about you go to baggage and meet me there because 9 out of 10 times my bag came off before hers even with the priority tag on hers.
    Also on one of these trips she asked me to go to that machine and get her money because she didn’t know how to work it because her husband always went and got her cash before she left and he didn’t have time this trip.
    On one trip to Italy we arrived at the hotel and were given our keys, her room was first and I helped her get into her room and walked down to mine I opened the door to a 2 room suite which was much larger than hers, she called later to say she had dropped her phone in the bathroom could she bring it down to my room so I could fix it?? Not wanting her to see my room (she would have wanted us to trade) I said I would come down by her and with blow dryer in hand got her phone up and running again.
    When I quit the job over a dispute on wither or not they would pay for my Economy Plus pass for the year (yes they wouldn’t and I was done with all the travel “issues” with the managing partner), she was out of town when I quit and I called to tell her and she said what did you tell them about me?? Thank you for all your concern, nothing, told them nothing………..but nice to know she was let go a few months after I left, there is justice sometimes.
    As I am typing I also remembered the boss who every day I had to order lunch for him and the CFO (and anyone else he thought to invite to lunch) re-plate the food from the containers to china and also had to roll the silver in linen napkins. For this same boss I also had to order his Viagra and send his driver to pick it up (oh yes and he was having an affair with the Executive Assistant, I was the Administrative Assistant). On day he didn’t get a message fast enough and as I walked into his office he threw his desk phone at me, yes I quit!
    Can any of us make these stories up?

  • Stephanny Morales says:

    HAHAHA I can’t get over these!

  • Heather says:

    My boss asked me to go and notarize a document for him. I wasn’t certified at the time so I went to my bank to complete it. I wasn’t allowed to sign the document so I had to go back and pick up my boss to complete the process.

  • Dee says:

    At my first EA position my boss was very erratic, everything was always either wonderful or terrible. I just chalked it up to his charming personality and got on with my day. About 3 months in he called me into his office and told me I had to drive him to an appointment. Okay. When we got to the building he had me come in with him and fill out the forms for him. Turned out I was checking him in to rehab.

    • Naomi Ramon Krzyzaniak says:

      There are so many stress factors at the top and I have seen the truth behind the old adage, “there is a fine line between brilliance and insanity”. We do what we can to support them and keep them functional. So many examples I could add from having previously supported stock brokers, surgeons and executives. Maybe someday, when I retire, I will. =)

  • Judy says:

    The Director of Operations told me that she was not feeling well and would be going home for the day. I had to let my boss (the President and owner of the company) know….she demanded that I take a thermometer she had in her first aid kit to the Director’s office and take her temperature as proof she was ill….

  • Traci says:

    I once knew someone that had the craziest stories to tell me about an attorney she worked for. I think the most outrageous one was when the Caucasian attorney told (not asked) her Filipina assistant to curl her hair for her…at work…in her office. Provided the curling iron and all.This same attorney apparently had a “man”(African American gentleman and that’s what she called him) that used to take care of the furniture in her office and fix-its around her house.

  • Linda says:

    Reading all of these wonderfully hilarious stories has made my day! And here I thought I was the only one with serious issues. Thank you all for sharing, I now know stupidity comes in all forms I was beginning to think it was just my company!!!!!

  • Toni says:

    Reading some of these stories made me smile as they were so funny and then in amazement at how some people can be so ridiculous!

  • Jo says:

    My boss called me from the airport and asked me to call TSA to see if he would have any issues boarding after going through TSA check out again because he forgot his keys and had to run back to the hotel. He said he can make it back in time to catch my flight, he just need to know if they will let me back through.

    Me: Ok, Where are you…still at the airport?

    Boss: Yes

    Me: Ok….Now I was feeling a bit perplexed because In my mind, they are there with you and you still have your boarding pass to get back in and you have TSA precheck-in; yet you didn’t ask them???

    • Joan Meenan says:

      OMG! My old boss did the same thing – only it was her laptop. I had to get in a cab, take her laptop to the airport, and meet her at the curb. She just made her flight ….

  • Michelle Hellens says:

    My boss called me while driving in the middle of nowhere and asked me to figure out where he was and directions to get to his next meeting.

    He also called me while driving around an airport in Prague and told me he needed a hotel in the next 5 minutes. He hada long list of requirements but he wasn’t going to stop driving so “book somewhere close”. He wouldn’t get off the phone so I had to calm him down while I tried to find a good hotel with air conditioning and an elevator…in Prague.

  • Sue says:

    Helped an employee read their pregnancy test twice. 2 different employees.

  • Kelsey says:

    I had to make my boss’ brother’s funeral ceremony program.

  • Lori says:

    I worked for a VP who used to print out emails and then hand them to me so I could scan and email them back to him.

    I also worked for a CEO who asked me to book him a flight using an outstanding airline credit within 15 minutes of the time he needed to be at the airport (we were a 10 min ride to the airport). While I was on the phone with the airline booking agent my boss paced back and forth between our offices complaining that I was taking too long, and that he had no confidence that I could get him on the flight he wanted.

    He had left the office for the airport by the time I finished booking his seat. I immediately checked him in electronically. He called to let me know that while driving to the airport he booked a seat on the subsequently departing flight. He then sent me the details of the flight he booked and demanded that I get him a full refund and that an airline credit would not be acceptable.

    This happened on a Thursday and I handed in my resignation the following Monday morning at 8am..

  • Kathleen Monahan says:

    I once worked as an EA for a very large pharmaceutical company. One day my prior boss who was a manager in another building was meeting with my executive. (This former boss put some false info about me in my personnel file and the personnel director had asked about it when I requested a transfer from his department.) Once he was seated in the office my current boss, he asked me to get him a cup of coffee. After getting the coffee from the machine, I put the change on the lid – by the time he got the coffee, those coins were red hot. Karma is grea

  • Jessica says:

    My boss once asked me to set up a meeting with a bishop and to call him by his title “bishop” when contacting his assistant!!
    Well for a start i am not a PA but an EA and second this is not my bishop so I just called him by his name

  • MK. Bacon says:

    Back in the mid 80’s I was a PA to a very busy pediatric dentist. He had recently moved into a brand new very large office that his wife had appropriately decorated in burgundy and grey. (Kids love those colors) Since she considered herself the office manager and head decorator she informed the entire staff of 13 women that we were no longer allowed to wear ANY gold jewelry because it didn’t match the silver door knobs! The horror! More recently, I had a manager that came to me one day after she had eaten a large lunch of Indian food and asked me to ‘burp’ her. Yes, she wanted me to pat her firmly on her back so that she could BURP.

  • Kim says:

    Just this week….
    All the electricity in my cube is out. The computer, lamp, fan…nothing is working. I walk back there push the button on the battery backup … magic! Everything comes on. Him…what did you do? Me…I pushed the ‘on’ button…

  • Clio says:

    An ex boss arrived to the office drunk, with his Dad, also drunk and his service dog. The two of them fell asleep, so I ended babysitting both and the dog. The father attempted to get into the car with the dog and all of neighbouring companies’ employees who were on their smoking breaks looking on. In the middle of it an outside training person I had asked to come to the office called and the situation was so crazy that I had to explain what was happening as I was running between the office and the car looking after the boss, the Dad and the dog. Needless to say he remembered the company when he came for a physical visit. My ex boss drove home that day (despite my insisting that he not do so). His Dad got a cab. After this incident I thoroughly understood why his wife was so “grumpy”.

  • Stacy Plunk says:

    One morning my boss called me hysterical on her way to a meeting that she was late for (which was normal for her) and said she had hit a squirrel and I was to get in my car and go look for it. If it was hurt I was to take it to her vet, if it was dead I was to bring it back to the school and have the janitors bury it…
    She also lost a filling in her tooth one day and I was sent to Walgreen’s to get temporary tooth filling and had to play amateur dentist that day…SMH

  • Anon says:

    When I get to the office, leave an index card with directions on how to work the phone. Say what???? Dingaling…

  • Vanessa says:

    I recently scheduled an all employee luncheon with our Board of Directors. Due to meeting conflicts, I had to change the time of the luncheon to a later time. I immediately received an email response from an employee asking if food was still going to be served. Seriously – I changed the time not the fact that it was a LUNCHEON.

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