What is the most ridiculous thing that you've been asked to do at work?

I was once asked to not go to my uncle's funeral. I was told, and I quote,

Well, he won't know you're not there. I quit very shortly thereafter and reported the manager

to executive management. Jerk. My mom got fired because she missed one day of work ever to go to her father's funeral.

She'd worked there for three or four years and never missed a single day up until that point.

Retired paramedic. I was told to immediately place a freshly delivered newborn back inside the mother.

She delivered in a transport ambulance on route to Whale Cornell, and lost it that

her baby wasn't born in a hospital, and further not born in a good hospital. The mother told me to

hold the baby in with your freaking hand, and I explained that that wouldn't work, and that we were

having this child on 3rd Avenue in the middle 50s, and she flipped. So she and I had an agreement

that I'd say the baby was still inside her body

till we backed up at the hospital.

I guess this satisfied the requirement of being born at the hospital

versus next to the dry cleaners on 3rd Avenue.

So far as that kid knows, she was born in the Whale-Cornell ER Ambulance Bay.

I got asked by my boss to go to the building site next door and just ask the builders to stop construction as they were being too loud.

Not for a specific length of time, just to stop working. I had to ask him what he thought that would actually achieve.

A while back there was a carpenter renovating the office next to ours. My boss went next door and yelled at him.

You should do this after hours. Do you like listening to hammering and sawing all day while you're at work?

And the carpenter said, actually, yes, I do. I was asked to lay off a group of employees for another

manager. She begged me to do it it and I initially refused. This manager selected

and approved the list of people being let go and was 100% responsible for even needing a layoff.

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