Getting time off work is often needlessly complicated, so many employers are skeptical of employees when they call out or request sick leave, believing them to be “just faking it” in order to get a day off. This attitude is prevalent within retail and service industry employers, which presents problems since employees are interacting with other people and even handling food. Most commonly employers will require sick workers to get a sick note from a doctor, even for a simple flu, requiring empl…

Working a bad job can be literally bad for your health, with chronic stress from being overworked and mistreated causing all sorts of untold medical issues.

There are a lot of things that could happen during the interview process that might make you lose faith in it. You'll find yourself completing endless applications that you'll never hear back from, getting ghosted after first-round interviews, even completing three rounds of interviews during which the interviewer insists you tell the owner of your current company that you intend to leave, only to ghost you for a month before confirming that they went another candidate; you might even successfu…

It's unfortunate when loyalty isn't repaid in kind, especially in a long-standing relationship in which mutual trust and reciprocation should have meant a better result. Sure, circumstances change, and it might “just be business,” but there's always a personal aspect involved when a relationship has lasted this long. Plus, treating your long-standing employees well is just good business. If you're seriously thinking about firing your oldest employee unceremoniously just to save a few dollars… w…

You should always be careful with ultimatums, particularly when you're really just on a power trip and bluffing… Sooner or later, someone is going to call you on your bluff, and you're going to be left standing there with your hands tied, looking pretty silly. Still, this is a favorite tactic amongst toxic managers, who relish the idea of threatening their workers with firing more than J. Jonah Jameson. There's nothing they enjoy more than putting a proverbial gun to your head, putting your fam…

Getting passed up for a promotion when you know you are deserving of the role is rough. Probably the only thing worse is being asked for help by the person who got the job and has no idea what they're doing—proving definitely that you should have gotten the role in the first place. But, it's not uncommon for these types of things to happen in the workplace, where politics, corporate narratives, and other misguided decision-making processes often override actual logical reasoning. Unfortunately,…

Requiring your workers to complete work-related tasks while off the clock presents a range of moral, ethical, and legal issues. Still, it's incredibly common with different policies, making this intention incredibly overt to more subtle. At the end of the day, the design of these policies is to keep costs down, reducing labor costs by shaving off “unnecessary” time at the end of shifts, which means that workers are completing those “unnecessary” necessary tasks on their own time. A great exampl…

They say quitters never win, but when it comes to jobs, sometimes you just need to know when to walk away… After all, we're not going to work the same jobs for our entire working lives. I think it's safe to say that the days of that being a likelihood are long behind us. Sure, our grandparents might have started working straight out of high school and spent their entire careers with one company, retiring at 55 with an excellent pension… But that's just not in the cards for anyone who isn't bord…

Taking leave from your job is important. For one thing, a bit of time away can give you more headspace, meaning that when you return, you're feeling fresh and invigorated, ready to bring new ideas and approaches to your role—or it can just mean you return with your hatred for your job freshly invigorated… If that's the case, it's a good sign that your current role and duties aren't a good use of your time, and it's time to do something else.

Attaining proper compensation for your contributions is a tricky and delicate subject . On the one hand, you want to be paid properly for your contributions, and it's important to be sure that you are, as this will help you to progress in your field and remain properly motivated. On the other hand, you must be careful to maintain good internal politics and not give your employer any reason to put a target on your back. This worker initially secured a substantial salary increase when starting th…

There are a lot of reasons to get fired from a job: being late, failing consistently to do basic tasks or meet KPIs, and being difficult to work with are some of the most common. However, you probably wouldn't expect to lose your job for expecting a client to follow basic common courtesy and for expecting your employer to respect your basic safety requirements. The thing about our pets is that while we love them to death and they can do no wrong to others, they're just another unpredictable ani…

If you're free to work, you'll work for free… At least, that's what a lot of hiring managers these days seem to reason. If it's not asking you to develop a new sales vertical and make actual cold calls, it might be asking you to use your marketing expertise to develop an actual campaign—all with the assurance that you might get the job.

The interview process is unique because of the high stakes involved for both parties; the implications of ending up with a dud candidate can be disastrous for an organization or workgroup of any size, and a candidate ending up in a job that's not the right fit can be a huge misstep for them as well in their career. Likewise, the interview process is hugely resource-consuming for both parties, so wasting the other party's time with missed or rescheduled interviews and misleading promises or expe…

Getting written up for a bogus reason in the workplace can be unfair, and being written up for a family emergency that caused you to miss a shift (that wasn't even yours in the first place) really fits the bill. Unfortunately, in most circumstances, you'd probably be stuck in the role for quite some time, especially if your life was already at a precarious point due to the aforementioned emergency. In fact, your power-tripping boss is probably counting on it.

It's nice to know that you're needed and appreciated both in your work and in other areas of your life. But when appreciation is out of the question… a frantic phone call from your (very) recently ex-employer's HR department, proving your necessity, will do. It's not uncommon for those prone to giving into their anger to make unwise decisions in the midst of that anger, and that can put you in some unfortunate situations when that person is your boss—or holds some other form of authority over y…

Divulging personal aspects about yourself in the workplace can be a pathway to forming stronger bonds and close-knit relationships—or it can be used against you the next time your performance review comes around. The reality is that your work time is for work, and your own time is—well, your own. But, in a modern “always online” world that's fueled by instant communication and where some employers want to squeeze their workers for every last drop of productivity, this line becomes increasingly…