It could be that someone got fired for something they did and you got the blame for them being fired.
Or it could be something else, so spill the beans what workplace dramas have you been involved in?
I used to work at a company with a...slightly incompetent...IT department. A couple stories:
We had a problem with the company network crashing, about once a week. It was an ongoing problem for almost a year.
The engineering department used Unix based CAD workstations. The rest of the company used Windows. To run Windows apps, we engineers had a Citrix server that would we would remote into, and run Office apps from there. One day, one of the engineers discovered an admin app that would let users logged into the Citrix machine to send instant messages to any other user. It was both useful, and abused, because the messages weren't tagged with a sender. You could pretend to be anybody.
One day, an outside IT contractor (the internal IT department was incompetent, so they hired a contractor) discovered a log of all the messages. He came into Engineering, and just told us the log existed, and to be more 'professional' when sending messages.
He must have told the IT manager, because next I know, the entire department is called into the VP's office, interrogated about the IM app, and sent home while they decide what to do. Sent home without pay.
Over the next few days, engineers were called in one-by-one for meetings with HR. Turns out, the IT manager told HR we were using the IM app to purposefully crash the network. Never mind that the contractor told her that wasn't possible. She was intent on finding a scapegoat.
HR decides to suspend everyone without pay for a week. But nobody is fired because there's no proof and no "confession". While everyone is out (I found out later) the network crashes.
Things get back to normal, time passes, and a couple months later, the network just stops crashing. No more problems. It turns out, IT had installed the wrong printer driver for the engineering plotter in another department. This other department only used the plotter about once a week, so they just used the plotter in engineering. It was overwhelming the network whenever it was used. This was fixed quietly, without fanfare. We engineers only found out about it a few years later, after the IT manager left the company.
Next story:
Company emails were formatted First Initial Last Name @ Companyname . com. I have a common nickname I'm known by. Nobody calls me by my given name, and my nickname had a different first letter. My company email uses my given name. Pretend it's clastname@company.com.
I start getting phone calls from customers, suppliers, people outside the company, etc. that any email they send to me is getting bounced back. When I ask what address they're sending to, they're using an email created using my nickname. Pretend it's dlastname@company.com. So I tell them it's wrong, give them the right one, and fix it one caller at a time.
This gets old, and it happens while the IT manager is talking to someone else in the department when it happens again. I walk over to her and ask if it's possible to have a second email address based on my nickname, because I'm getting a lot of calls about people using that instead of my official address.
"Absolutely not. If I give you a second address, pretty soon everyone is going to want one."
One of the engineering managers is standing there. He says "I don't want one." Another engineer speaks out "I don't want one either." IT manager is pissed, but stands her ground. I don't get another address.
Pretty soon, I get a phonecall from a college intern that was planning to come back for the summer. He says my email address doesn't work. I explain the issue, and give him the right address.
He says "That's not what's on the webpage."
For some stupid reason, the company webpage had everybody's email address on it. Except mine was wrong. When IT made the page, they put dlastname@company.com on it. But since that was wrong, all email was returned to sender.
I talked to the IT contractor about it, and he basically said "That's stupid. It's a 30 second fix, I'll take care of it." And a few minutes later, I had two email addresses and the issue was fixed.
Half my team quit because I told them about a better job offer I got. Oops. I don’t feel bad it. I stayed because I got a WFH guarantee that was pretty much immediately taken away from me.
On Monday, I got in trouble for waving goodbye to one of my bosses at the end of my day. Not even an exaggeration. That’s exactly what happened. I hate my job.
Wasn't exactly my workplace, but a contractor. Basically, as a cost saving measure, they layed off half of the IT department. And then they got hacked. They just re-flashed everything, and the threat was out of their system, but they messed up big time. The new images weren't locked down properly, so they almost immediately got hacked again. I noticed that they'd messed up, and pointed it out to a few people, but it was too late.
Now the execs need a scapegoat, so they gut the IT department again. I don't work for them, not even close to the business relationship, but their managers call me to a meeting room and try to get me in trouble? Try to make me admit to doing something wrong? And it was just their admin people there, not like my heads or anything. It was kind of a surreal experience.
This was a while ago, and their tech is still a bit funky. (Some details are lightly fuzzed, but this all is basically true)
it sounds like some of techheads from the first round of layoffs hacked the company tbh
i realized (in retrospect & a few years ago) that i was near the center of a strongly controversial political hiring decision based on the comments i got from some of my colleagues; but didn't them piece together until almost a decade+ later.
i'm still not sure what the controversy was; but i do know it was committed by the same c-level exec who took a strange interest in my well being in my the company like i was pip in the dickens novel, great expectations. i assume this because his tenure ended an hour before mine did when the company got bought out. lol
i also learned that my team lead and my manager were on the opposing side of the decision; so i got quite a lesson on what it means to watch your back at work and keeping your ear to the ground.
Left a management position because of overstress and poor work culture. Before leaving, I recommended a guy for my replacement. Not the most skilled folk, a bit of weird guy, but was very passionate and good to motivate people.
Sometimes later, an ex colleague told me he was saying bad things about me, that I hired a girl just because she was pretty, and such evil things.
I got pissed so I started investigating, noone believes those things because they know me, but they still believe he is good and downplayed my concerns, even the girl confirmed nothing innapropriate ever happened with me (it was actually a joke I said in a completely non serious context that was used maliciously by somebody). My supervisor is "of the old kind", so he just repeated I was a good guy, I didn't need to worry and I should just go on, that I will encounter mean people all the time and that I should just "get a beer with him" and all will be good.
I even confronted the guy and he exploded in a fit of rage, saying that he heard those things from the girl, that I was a terribile manager, that people hated me and my organization was terrible.
I understood he was delusional, no one really belived him, so I left him to his delusions and went my merry way. To this day, months later, people still come to me for help with my supposed terrible organization that now crumbled with him.
