Fantasizing about quitting a job that you hate is one of the few things that can get you through a shift. Fueled by caffeine, pure hatred, and the dream of one day leaving this wretched place behind… you find the strength to go on. And, on that note, nothing is more likely to make you want to quit your terrible job than a horrible boss. As we've learned many times, people don't usually quit jobs; they quit their boss. This overworked and underappreciated IT worker, who works in the notoriously…

Usually, helping your team is considered to be a positive trait and one that your employer will look for when they first hire you, to the point where including somewhere that you're a “team player” is pretty much a default part of a CV. Seldom, if ever, would you ever expect to be told to leave well enough alone and ignore your overworked teammates, leaving them to their fate.

There's no feeling like constantly being behind the ball, especially when that ball is a heavy boulder that you're being forced to push eternally uphill only to have it roll back down, forcing you to start over. The Greeks regarded this tortuous task as suitable eternal punishment for violating the rite of hospitality and killing guests in your home, along with a long list of other crimes that included cheating the personification of death himself. Nowadays, we just call that “employment." The…

Nothing shows you how essential you are to the business like taking a vacation. If your boss or team can't handle a week without things going off the rails, then that's saying a lot. The thing is, the types of bosses who insist on being able to contact you during your “vacation” are the same bosses who try to tell you how expendable you and your role are, negging and gaslighting you to keep you in your place. This worker went out of the country in order to visit their family for the holidays, l…

If there's one thing your manager probably hates, it's having more work to do. Whether they're just lazy or already have too much on their plate, chances are pretty good that they won't want to be spending hours combing over your work in addition to what they're already working on. Even the most micromanaging sort will quickly grow tired of the additional work if you can manage to reflect their time-consuming processes back onto them.

In shift work, particularly in locations that rely on staffing part-time workers to handle annual increases in foot traffic and trade, it's pretty common to have workers list their availability, determining when they're available to work and be scheduled. This allows for part-timers to keep a second job, attend class, look after their kids, or whatever other life obligations they might have. Usually, some indication of your availability will be given and negotiated upon during the interview pro…

Some employers have this tendency to assume that you're trying to get one over on them, constantly accusing their workers of claiming time they're not working or flat-out stealing from the business. Whatever the accusation is, it seems they're always looking over their shoulder, waiting for you to drive the knife in and pick their wallet out of their back pocket. Despite their constant insistence, you'll probably never see any evidence of this happening, with stocktakes always coming out clean…

Employers and managers tend to have a habit of assuming they're getting the worst end of a deal and that you're holding something back from them—as if their workers are colluding against them and not just desperately trying to keep up with their current workload. Even if they're already grossly underpaying you for your work and the value that you provide, they'll still try and convince you that you really could be doing more if you weren't so inefficient. Whether or not they actually believe th…

This world is chaos, and the more you try and control it, the more it's going to fly back in your face. As with anything, adding more opportunity for uncertainty in what needs to be a certain situation is eventually going to come and bite you. A commute to the office in a major city is a little bit like that; small traffic incidents can cause a chain reaction that creates delays that can increase your commute time two, three, or even four-fold. Braving the Seattle traffic is a bit like this; I…

Sometimes, you really can't help but wonder if people even listen to the words coming out of their own mouths or if they're so out of touch that they hear and even believe the wildly out-of-touch things that they are saying. The reality is that whether we love, are passionate about, and believe in what we do—or not—is really a moot point. We work for money to provide for ourselves, to put a roof over our families' heads, and to put food on our table. The service, skills, and time that we provid…

If you're doing something wrong, you normally wouldn't want evidence that you're doing something wrong, and you certainly wouldn't want to order someone to—no, demand that someone—record evidence of your misdeeds. Well, beware of the power of the pen… when meticulous records are kept detailing your “leadership” and just the type of operation you're running: a toxic work environment rife with dismissive attitudes and unwillingness to acknowledge critical issues. Little did this boss know that th…

One should never give an exit interview, particularly if their employer has demonstrated a complete inability to listen to advice or honest feedback—and especially if they've shown a willingness to retaliate against someone giving that feedback. Even if you complete an exit interview and provide feedback with the best of intentions, you may just be burning a bridge you had no intention of burning once they've had some time to think about it.

The practice of necessitating and checking job referrals during the interview process creates a system in which an employer can provide feedback about a worker's performance and contribution during their time in the company's employ. Sure, the candidate themselves often needs to volunteer the points of contact, but when certain key periods of employment are omitted in a candidate's references… it's easy for a hiring manager to read between the lines. So what, then, is an employee able to do to…

It's not uncommon for those in petty positions of power to vastly overestimate the reach of that power. Whatever the words of the message, the point this manager is trying to convey is clear: we know that you need us more than we need you, so we're going to see how far we can manipulate the conditions of your employment in our favor and you're just going to have to deal with it.

The great thermostat debate in office workplaces is extremely common and practically without a solution. It's almost like a real-life sort of “Trolley Problem” in that whichever side you take, there's going to be someone losing out. Some people run extremely cold and have poor circulation, preferring to live in literal infernos like some kind of demon lizard person. On the other hand, you have folk like myself who are the literal inferno and generate far too much heat as if we're a human nuclea…

Life is comprised of a series of rules, rules that, throughout our lives, are imposed upon us and, maybe, even set for us by ourselves. Some of these rules are paramount, and our ability to follow them will determine who we are, how we're perceived, and the effect on the world. Other rules are really quite silly, and one feels silly following them. Chances are that these silly rules were written and enacted by someone who really had no idea what they were doing or were imposed by someone who wa…