Have you ever had a pesky stray string poking out of your new shirt or cardigan? It looks harmless enough—just a stray bit of material that accidentally got left over from the manufacturing process. Except, when you go to pull at it, its significance and integrity are suddenly revealed, leaving you looking the fool—with a bit of string in your hand and a gaping hole in your new shirt. That's a great metaphor for what happens when a cheat and a liar finally cross paths with the wrong target and…

What is it with people constantly trying to blame someone else for the thing that they themselves are most guilty of? This hypocritical finger-pointing is just a vapid means of projection that these narcissistic robots employ whenever they feel threatened. This thread was posted to Reddit's r/AITA (Am I the A--Hole) subreddit by the coworker scapegoated by the others, Redditor u/Maleficent_Shoe3791. She had been doing all of the work to make up for their lazy behavior, and they still tried to b…

There's nothing better than loving your job—there's nothing harder than the dawning realization that you're going to have to leave. We all get surprisingly comfortable with our routine—it's just something in our nature. Branching out into uncertainty feels risky, making us shudder at the thought of trying new things. Companies—rather, the people who run them—are the same way, and for that reason, they will be more likely to leave you in your role if it means less change and less new uncertainty…

There's no shame in ditching a new job once it's clear it won't work out. We're constantly told that a bad reference (or lack of one) will follow us for our entire life and hurt future job prospects, but that's not really true. Still, not everyone is going to be able to do this. However, when you're 17 years old and still living with your parents, you have the freedom to look for something else—which is good because you're often going to attract a lot of employers looking to exploit your lack o…

A mistake usually goes unrecognized until well after that mistake is made… and your importance to an organization is often not recognized until well after you're gone. Not so in this case, the decision to identify the least efficient members of their organization backfired spectacularly—all but negating one of their most important clients and making it very clear how important that “inefficient” member had been. You might think that this decision-making process might have considered that one pe…

Remember when your parents used to confiscate your cell phone for not answering it? Thus leaving you with no cell phone to answer their subsequent calls with. You might not have been able to text your friends either, but not being tied to a requirement of constant communication and surveillance was freeing. It turns out that experience is not lost to the past, and you may be able to relive it (without clocking 88 miles an hour in a DeLorean.) All you need is a boss who is more concerned with ma…

You're not always going to agree with every decision your workplace makes… and it's especially gutting when that decision is to fire a well-liked coworker over stupid workplace politics. Maybe they got on the wrong side of one of the bosses, maybe they didn't support a foolish new direction or initiative, or maybe they were just the sacrificial lamb to make everyone sweat a little bit to keep them as productive as possible and keep them toeing the line. The fact is that watching a coworker get…

Ah, the holiday season — a time of year best spent with loved ones over amazing meals and through the sharing of thoughtful gifts. Holiday daydreams often take you to a place beside a roaring fire, wrapped in a thick woolen blanket — its surprising weight offering a welcome embracing comfort. A warm beverage of choice in hand or in arm's reach (Irish hot chocolate for me, please) completes the mood. It should be no surprise to any of us that these holiday ideals, moods, and traditions just don’…

Have you ever gone above and beyond at your work and received no recognition for it? How about taking the initiative to fix a serious problem that's plaguing your workplace, only to turn around and be reprimanded by your boss? If yes, maybe it's time to seek out greener pastures, just as this worker did when their micromanaging new boss took issue with the fact that they were going above and beyond to fix a problem that had been plaguing the company. Some people just desire nothing but control…

You can't have your cake and eat it too—and the people who work for you are people, not cake. I don't really know exactly how to unpack that statement further… but let's just say that you shouldn't be surprised when your workers want greater compensation in exchange for the increased responsibility you've been giving them. If they're doing the job of a manager already, make them a bloody manager. The amount of hoops that retailers want their employees to jump through in order to achieve a promo…

We often like to think that, through sheer grinding, grit, and determination, our efforts will be rewarded with greater compensation and career progression. After all, that's what we've always been led to believe by schooling and popular culture. But what if you make yourself so irreplaceable that your bosses refuse—or simply can't afford—to promote you? Being too high of a performing productive worker lends itself to some complications. To replace you, the company may have to hire two or three…

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…

Just a tip for the next time you're in a job interview: Don't tell the interviewer that you're more qualified for their job than they are. That's… just not going to end well for you or your prospects. This three-part story has taken place over the course of just as many years, with the original poster returning this week to provide a wholesome update and conclusion to their tale of the most insolent job candidate they ever interviewed. The tale starts with the candidate “Annabelle” coming in fo…

It always pays to be kind—or at least decent. You never know when that karmic pendulum is going to swing right back at you and knock you on your rear… The world is a far smaller place than we take it to be and only gets smaller as you isolate down into the people you're likely to interact with based on demographics. Within a given industry, it's more than likely that you'll encounter the same people over the course of years spent in different jobs, even if you move cities. This idea gives rise…

Scientists were astounded when a new material was discovered that is even denser than osmium: This boss's thick skull. This thread was originally posted to Reddit's r/AmItheA**hole subreddit by the boss, who was resoundingly put in their place and declared completely wrong by everyone who responded. Commenters were so shocked by the boss's callous willingness to renege on promises—and so impressed with the worker's decision to quit on the spot—that one commenter cross-posted screenshots of the…

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…