Working overtime stinks. The one upside of trading your free time—when you'd normally be at home with your pants off instead of at work—is getting that sweet, sweet time and a half… That is, if you live somewhere in the world where getting increased pay is a legal requirement. If you're unlucky enough to live somewhere where they never bothered to make it a law, you're probably just getting your normal rate… if you're getting paid at all. See, there's a secret third option that some more unscru…

When the worst happens, you might hope that those with authority in your life would have your back, meeting the needs of the situation rather than taking it as a chance to exert their authority and kick you while you're down, attempting to hold you to uncertain terms of an agreement that shouldn't be in the forefront of anyone's mind. Unfortunately, the world is not quite so forgiving, and you'll often find that when it comes to professional arrangements, your personal needs and the situation p…

It's been a long day, and it's only the beginning of the week. There's no way bosses can expect their employees to maintain undivided attention all day long while still expecting them to produce top-notch work. Everyone needs a break once in a while. Whether you're having lunch in the break room, hiding in the bathroom, or tucked away in your cubicle, you need to recharge to get through the rest of the day. So why not recharge in the best way possible? Take a little meme break.

The grass always seems greener on the other side. But the truth is, that's not always the case. Sometimes, we can be going through a tough time at work and find ourselves questioning if this is really the right industry for us. When we're young, we're told we can be anything we want, and there are so many professions out there that sound interesting—doctors, vets, teachers, chefs, etc. But then, once you get into the field, it's not as glorious as you were hoping.

Volunteering your time to an organization remains exactly that: volunteer work. You're not being compensated for your time, so you'd hope that your contributions would at least be appreciated and that you'd be treated respectfully during your time there. Still, organizations that rely heavily on volunteer work can have the tendency to—well, forget this—and take the unpaid hours of their dedicated volunteers for granted, treating them as if they were subordinates instead. After all, where there…

When you work an hourly job, you typically submit your availability before you are hired, especially if it's a part-time gig. So when the manager creates the weekly schedules, you assume your shifts are going to fall under what you listed your availability as. Well, in this employee's case, as well as several other employees who chimed in the comment section, that is not always the case. It seems some managers take your availability as a 'suggestion' and schedule their employees for whatever ti…

Ahh, retail… a fine industry where middle manglement regularly tries to shove a dirt sandwich down your throat while whispering sweetly to you it's actually honey. The story shared in this post is a tale as old as time in retail, where management will happily tell you with a smile that the company's official policy is that the customer comes first… but that the unofficial policy is that making sure staff never claim or report overtime also comes first. So, then, what happens when you're working…

When someone ruins what could have otherwise been a great job for you, there's no better feeling than helping them on their way to unemployment as well. This worker made the tough decision to leave a job they loved due to the unbearable attitudes of the workgroup's executive directors, who had a propensity for taking credit for others' work and rewarding themselves for doing so while deriding those workers who had actually done the work for them. After being accused of underperformance in what…

You're always told that you should be friendly with team members—but not too friendly. Despite encouraging team bonding and after-hours unpaid recreational activities with your team, organizations have a tendency to get a little weird about things if you get too close or if things get too recreational . This, of course, doesn't apply in the service industry for some reason, where it's generally expected that staff will almost certainly engage in an interpersonal free-for-all. Still, this parano…

What you choose to spend your hard-earned money on should be of no concern to your employer. You work hard for your money, so you should be able to use it to buy what you want. Even if you don't need more clothes, collectibles, fancy dinners, or whatever else you choose to spend your money, it's just that - it's your money. Well, this employee is being scolded by his boss for what he's been spending his money on recently. And here's the kicker - it's not even flashy items. One of the recent ite…

Being charged with the responsibility of a section of a business usually means that it's implied that you'll hold that section's interests at a level of most importance and not jeopardize them over petty slights and egotistical battles with your subordinates and external parties. Yet, some people can't help themselves and let their ego get involved in every possible decision, finding themselves battling for superiority at every step of the way rather than managing the task they've been employed…

Health and Safety is no joke—though often made into one by one of those weird things in workplace culture that is handled with complete polarity depending on the organization you work for. If you work for a “cowboy” small business owner whose organization's growth has far outpaced the professionalism of its structure, one where the owner is used to taking risks that place themselves in danger, relishing these moments with machismo and bravado, bragging about them for years afterward. They now f…

Let's face it: we all need a break from work. There's no way our brains can stay totally engrossed for 8+ hours while still producing our best quality work all day long. Whether it's stepping outside for a quick breath of fresh air or eating a snack, sometimes that mental break is really what an employee needs to power through the rest of the day's tasks. Well, this boss is trying to mandate a new break policy. He's only allowing his employees two 15-minute breaks a day due to the company being…

There's this weird thing that happens in employment, you're there to get a paycheck—no question about that. And while your employer will want to pay you (close) to market rate if they want to keep you they're always going to want to pay you as little as they possibly can get away with. You want more, they want to pay less, probably figuring that they'll get the same amount of work out of you regardless. This dynamic will hang over any employment agreement you enter into. There becomes a point t…

A surprising amount of experts and analysts get hired to improve the efficiency of businesses that they know nothing about, putting more effort into marketing themselves and trying to ensure corporate clients than into ensuring their analysis offers any actual value—or that their statistics hold any actual significance. At the end of the day, all they care about is that they're able to give the client some result, a result that the manager who hired them is going to take at face value since the…

There's nothing worse than trying to voice your opinion and stand up for yourself at work, only for the conversation to be one-sided and your boss to ignore your concerns completely. That's exactly what happened to this employee. After one of his coworkers resigned, he went to his boss to say that he was capable of taking on his coworker's accounts. He had been working at the company for a while and was ready to prove himself. Only for his boss to pass him over and give all the accounts to anot…