There's one in every office. Each business place has that one person who everyone else gives a side-eye to. They probably have some kind of personality quirk that irritates everyone. But it's the kind of thing that you can't go to HR for, because what is HR going to do about issues like “Tina is always breathing too loudly” or “Jack has been heating up three meals a day in the microwave and he lets the microwave count down to the beep each time”? These are minor issues, and we all have to live…

An office's kitchen should be a safe space. It is where employees store the sustenance that will help keep them going throughout the day and is sometimes even a haven from the hustle and bustle of working. So when there is an employee who violates that sacred place, it throws off the entire peaceful balance of the staff. How can you trust your food there anymore? Now what? You gonna start bringing non-perishables for lunch only? It's a disaster. One group of employees didn't let this go by unno…

This boss knows the perfect time to start asking her employees questions — while they're taking their lunch breaks . This employee, u/Other-Importance, shared a question they had regarding their boss's habit of always talking to them during their lunch break . They write that as an hourly worker, they have a paid break, but for some reason, their boss always decides that's the best moment to have a talk about work-related topics. I wonder if their boss considers the OP a friend — so even if the…

Just like Daenerys Targaryen “kind of” forgetting about the iron fleet… these bosses forgot that this guy was included in their group chat, using it as a means for discussing firing the worker in three weeks' time, once they were caught up with the delivery workload.

Get ready for the oldest trick in the retail handbook: First, insist workers close and lock the doors precisely at closing—not a moment sooner, so that you don't miss any sales. Next, schedule workers' shifts to end precisely at closing time and make it as hard as possible for the workers to claim the inevitable overtime they accrue while trying to complete basic closing tasks that need to be completed after the doors are locked. If they try to claim five or ten minutes daily, just tell them th…

The best part of the working day is when you sign off and go home; I don't care how much you love your job… there are no exceptions here. Once you've put in your 8, or 9, (or even 10) hours, you're finally free to return to your humble abode, decompress… and start doing personal chores and obligations. Thanks to the modern workday, there's very little time to get all the things done that you'd like to at home; I'm sure each of us has several projects that we've been putting off due to constrain…

Breaks are one of the most essential rights of your daily working life, and they're not something to be treated as a privilege that can be taken away as punishment—like a parent taking away their child's favorite toy. Yet it's astounding how many managers and small business owners try this—completely unaware of the legal framework they must operate within and intentionally hiding behind their ignorance to shield them from questioning their morals and ethics. Would it be too much to ask that emp…

Everyone watch out!.. The fun police are on patrol. We all expect to have to maintain some degree of professionally at work, but we're all still human beings, and part of being human is wanting to—you know… enjoy things. We're already trading a significant portion of our existence for the means to eat and keep a roof over our heads, so is that really too much to ask?

Chasing a singular metric with reckless abandon will never be good for your business and, depending on which singular metric you choose to chase, can have a range of disastrous results. Let's go with an example: Imagine you work for a company that services multiple clients on an ongoing contract basis. The price of each contract is determined based on the time it will take a technician to attend the site and carry out routine checks on scheduled maintenance—with this being estimated based on th…

Backpacking through a foreign country while working on a holiday visa puts you in some strange situations in some strange places with some still stranger people. That's part of the joy of the experience; reflecting back on these situations with slightly rose-tinted glasses and wondering just how the heck you managed to get through it gives you a kind of “second-degree enjoyment.” Plus, you'll have

Just because the journey's over doesn't mean it has to end. Every ending is a new beginning and offers a chance for reflection on the experiences and lessons learned along the way. Of course, when you're quitting a dead-end job that you've been stuck in for the last ten years… you might not find all that much to reflect on. And the things you've experienced? They're probably best forgotten... What with the unnecessary meetings, micromanaged lunch breaks, egotistical leaders, and general toxic a…

I need to close all the job application tabs before sharing my screen on Zoom

"We're a family here," your HR will gladly tell new hires—a strained smile, thinly stretched, veiling years of workplace abuse, mistreatment, and exploitative policy that would say directly otherwise. The truth is that the only "family" this workplace resembles is a family on a true crime program where the children are chained in the basement by their remorselessly autocratic parents, who insist that the children should be eternally thankful for every scrap offered to them.

It's important that the medium used to convey a message matches the weight of that message.

Putting up posters in a break room also requires ZERO TALENT.