When You Wish They’d Phone It In

I work in the accounting department for a car dealership. The only time I even see customers is when I’m coming in or heading out; everything I do is internal. My desk is in a back office, away from everyone. So, when a memo goes out for no more personal phones on the showroom floor, I don’t even think of putting my phone on my desk off to the side while I work. I get told by a passing manager that, no, that applies to everywhere outside of the break room. Okay, not how it was worded, but all right, into my purse it goes.

The next day, I get called out again by the same manager; he “saw me on my phone,” even though I’m certain I didn’t take it out of my purse outside of my lunch break.

On the third day, he “catches me” again, once in the morning and once in the afternoon.

Manager: “If I see you on your phone one more time, I will write you up.”

Me: “If you do, you bring [HR Guy] from Human Resources with you.”

Sure enough, the next morning around 10:00 am, up marches [Manager] with a write-up in hand and [HR Guy] in tow. He slaps the paper on my desk and barks:

Manager: “SIGN IT.”

Instead, I asked [HR Guy] if he had my phone number on hand as I’d asked. He did. He dialed from my desk phone, on speaker. My husband — to whom I had given my phone that morning — picked up and confirmed that he was speaking on my cell phone. I stared [Manager] down while [HR Guy] picked up the write-up and said we were done. [Manager] fumed for a minute and then stalked off.

The weirdest part is that [Manager] was a sales manager; he wasn’t even my manager! I don’t know if he saw me looking down at my desk while doing paperwork and assumed I was on my phone, or if he had some strange vendetta and made it all up to get me in trouble.