There is just a certain degree of oversight that doesn't need to occur in any situation. Sure, you might like to keep a tight lid on operations and your staff, but you can guarantee there are certain things that you don't need—and probably don't want—to know. At any rate, there reaches a point in your career where enough is going on underneath your level of authority where requiring any one thing to pass across your desk will result in an amount of work that you can't possibly keep up with. You…

There's this trend that happens in every industry, across every workplace, where managers think they've come up with a clever and original new idea to increase profits. See, there are really only two ways to do this: Increase revenue or decrease expenses. However, increasing revenue is hard and takes effort and new ideas, so instead, they start looking at the bottom line. The first place they're going to look at at this point is staffing. Employees and labor are huge expenses, and management is…

After remaining loyal to a company for several years, what would be the final straw for you to call it quits? If you don't have any work drama, the most common answer is probably for a better salary elsewhere. Lots of employees boast about job hopping in their early career in order to reach a desired salary. Some even claim that it's the only way to significantly increase their earnings, as a lot of jobs don't give regular raises, and if they do, they are hardly enough to keep up with inflati...

Some people just don't respond well to rejection, even when that rejection comes in the perceived form of an employee handing in their notice even if they've never treated the employee well or cared much for them in the first place. Anyone who has been around the block a couple of times in their career will know how this goes. They'll say it's about betrayal and the fact that you're leaving your ream high and dry with a touch of “How could you do this to us,” this might be followed by silent tr…

“Math is important.” “You're going to use this one day, so you'd better pay attention.” Welcome to today's edition of “Is your employer smarter than a 5th grader…” These are things we were told in school, and it's clear some people didn't listen. That's all well and good; it's not like you're actually going to use differential equations in your everyday life, but it stands to reason that having a base understanding of the way the world works or even having the ability to accept that there are t…

“Rules for me but not for thee” is a phrase you'll see bandied about whenever there is an unjust application of rules by undeserving leaders in instances where they are making themself an exception to their own rules without any explanation being given. This hypocrisy will earn them the ire of their subordinates, who are disgruntled at the lack of fairness and the fact that they're having their own conditions worsened.

Trust that the employee knows how to do their job.

They always say that you should fake it till you make it, and it's no secret that a little bravado will get you a long way. Sure, there might be an inverse relationship between confidence and competence—since you need to know enough about something to know how much you don't know, which makes you less confident as a result. But a lack of competence certainly doesn't stop people from getting jobs when there's confidence on display. But what do you do when you fail so epically upward that you fin…

The problem with writing or saying too much and flagging issues with your organization is that leaders will just default to considering you to be the problem, especially in instances where they are actually the problem but don't want to own it. And, let's face it, any issues within an organization are issues with leadership. At the end of the day, they're setting the course, and issues fall on their shoulders. But, they're not going to want to accept that, so someone who is flagging issues, whe…

Taking the initiative will get you far in most workplaces, even though it's technically your manager's job to make sure you have work to do. But the last thing any manager wants to do is chase staff around to make sure they're being productive, and anyone who has managed staff who never do anything they haven't been explicitly told to do knows how frustrating this can be. So, just them knowing that you're actively trying to get as much as possible done without their oversight will bring them so…

You'll repeatedly encounter people who think they know better than you, even when it comes to the responsibilities of their own job. Most upper managers have this cynical view that their subordinates are just slack-jawed lackeys without a single decent thought. They probably think that whatever job it is their subordinates are doing, anyone could do, completely blind to the fact that this single employee is pulling more weight than anyone else in the organization—including them. Heck, there are…

Requesting time off from work is kind of a weird ritual. While you're technically “asking” for time off, that time is, is usually less of a “want” and more of a “need”—even though your employer will treat it like the former. It's not as if you can ask your cousin to reschedule their wedding just for you or your entire family to reschedule their family reunion. Still, lots of businesses have periods of high trade where they're exceedingly strict about granting any time off—or there during holida…

There are a range of reactions you might expect from an employer when you quit your job: they may be upset, get angry, or pretend like they don't care at all, whereas the jobs you are actually sad to leave will probably want to celebrate with you and congratulate you on your continued growth—even if they're a little mournful about it too. However, the reaction to your resignation you'll probably never expect is a flat “no” as a response. There's not

If you hate your job, you've probably fantasized about doing exactly this. Letting everyone know exactly how it is and saying the quiet parts out loud—finally declaring that the emperor has no clothes once and for all. Of course, while your coworkers will whisper This coworker's resignation went viral after they sent an email out to all staff at their company outlining, in a humorous way, everything that they despised about their time working for the company, doing so with a levity and sardonic…

Obey the schedule… Managers love to preach the importance of “the schedule”

There's an age-old saying that a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush, meaning that a guaranteed value will always hold more value than the prospect of something greater. This, too, is true when it comes to employment. The fact of any trade in capital is that the person buying will always want to pay as little as possible, and the person selling will always want the highest possible price for their goods. While this is simple economics, it really just speaks to how the monkey part of…