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…

Workplace bullies are the worst for an obscene amount of reasons. The first is that you couldn't leave even if you wanted to because you came here to work, not to have fun. So either you give in to the bully or lose it and end up losing your job. The story that follows is about an emerging adult who is entering the workforce for the very first time. Unfortunately, OP had to deal with the worst workplace bully I have ever heard of. Nevertheless, as fate would have it, OP saw his chance and seize…

Talk about starting 2024 on the wrong foot! It feels like there are a million ways for a horrible boss to anger and frustrate their employees, but even those of us here at FAIL Blog understand that sometimes there is no other choice and hard decisions have to be made. That being said, choosing to enforce mandatory meetings two hours early every single day where everyone has to stand does not feel like a decision that needed to be made. This thread was posted to Reddit by u/Classic-Dog8399 , who…

This past year, we've seen some classic mildly infuriating moments in the workplace that serve as a necessary reminder that workplace culture is in desperate need of a makeover. This collection of stories, compiled from the top work-related stories from Reddit's r/mildlyinfuriating subreddit, showcases a variety of ways your boss, manager, or supervisor can intentionally or unintentionally offend you. Some of these stories include scheduling mixups, managers not honoring previously requested da…

If you give unclear, contradictory instructions to your employees, you're just asking for problems. It makes you wonder how these supervisors got promoted in the first place. Clarity is pretty much the most important part of the job, and if you can't do that, you have no business expecting your team to follow you blindly. This thread was posted to Reddit's r/MaliciousCompliance subreddit by u/Correct_Campaign3707 , who worked on the Member Service team at a retail company and was tasked with ch…

I think we've all had to deal with a smug and entitled manager at some point in our lives. My personal experience has shown me that it's simpler to find a method of working with them as opposed to confronting them outright. The story that follows is about a dissatisfied employee who works in a shipyard that specializes in ship repair and refitting. We are talking about a hardworking blue-collar worker. But things take a bitter turn when the entitled manager—who is occasionally referred to as EB…

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.

It's not personal; it's just business—a phrase you'll hear only when someone has decided to treat you quite poorly or has gone back on their word and is hoping that these simple words will prevent you from retaliating. The more accurate truth is that business is personal—it relies on trust and established relationships. And when you've established that you can't be trusted and have a habit of disregarding your relationships —well, don't be surprised when people no longer want to do business wit…

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.

Should your boss suddenly decide to screw you over by reducing your hours… you'll seldom have the chance to settle the score. But, as we've learned many times on the internet, you should never backstab someone who knows where the skeletons in your closet lie; after all, it's pretty obvious that they'll just go ahead and expose them in retaliation. We're not saying that the path of vengeance is one that you should decide to take; you'll live a better life by just walking away in most of these si…