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…

Change is inevitable, no matter how we try to escape it or ignore it by burying our heads in the sand. The thing is, change is also pain, as whenever something new is to be learned, there is always going to be a process of failure and adaption and a loss of the comfortable and familiar, which is why people might try to avoid change in the first place. We can then conclude that, by associative properties “change is inevitable” and “change is pain” can just be simplified to “pain is inevitable”—b…

Higher education is interesting in the sense that it can mean wildly different things because—well, people are wildly different themselves. We perceive, retain, and apply information completely differently from one another. No two people are the same. While holding an advanced degree can mean you're intelligent, it doesn't necessarily mean that, and it's usually the people who insist that they're better and smarter than everyone else because of their degree who fall into that “not necessarily”…

New bosses love to bring in new ideas, barreling into situations they know next to nothing about and waving their authority in order to make broad-sweeping changes that they say are for the better. Meanwhile, everyone else glances sideways at each other and braces for the worst. You can probably see where this is going, as it always does with these types of situations: short-sighted cost-cutting hamstringing vital operations that only cost the company more in the long run when everything goes b…

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…

It's nice to think that you're irreplaceable. It's that sense of security that lets you sleep at night, not worried that you'll lose your entire livelihood should your employer choose to replace you overnight. That confidence and knowledge can get you a long way and actually help you to be successful in your role. That said, change is inevitable, and it's almost certain that you'll eventually move on from your role or even need enough time off that someone needs to be seconded into it. Gatekeep…

Those in charge typically think that they should be making all the decisions, even when they don't have all the answers—no, especially when they don't have all the answers. Something about their egos and insecurity in these situations makes them double down on any decision they make without listening to anything their subordinates tell them in warning. When the upper management of this tourist attraction in London decided to flip the script on their employees, it led to absolute chaos. For some…

Be careful how you treat people on your way up to the top because you never know who you'll run into on your way back down. You might be burning a bridge that you'll need to cross later on—or may find yourself getting burned and going up in flames along with it. This is sage advice that's passed around quite frequently when it comes to the discourse surrounding careers and employment. But, what this advice is missing is the root of the issue: You should treat people well because it's the right…

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

We're all going to make mistakes in the course of our lives, but it's pretty safe to say that we'd all hope that our mistakes not be immediately able to be quantified by a dollar value on a price tag directly attached to our error—and certainly not one equating to many (many) thousands of dollars. Still, usually when your superiors are the ones making a mistake like this, it's not often it works out in your favor, the typical response is for them to bury their heads further in the sand and cont…

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”

Dealing with an endless stream of customer complaints is no way to live your life... Repeatedly pushing that boulder of someone else's problems up to the tip of the hill only for it to roll down again every time the ungrateful person on the other end of the line hangs up. The futility and thanklessness of your efforts is only rewarded by statistics on a screen that you hope are high enough to keep your micromanaging supervisor off your back. Of course, the beauricratic inertia that customers fa…