Sometimes your actions to prevent something can bring it into existence as if you're unknowingly fulfilling a prophecy of your own making. That's what happened to this boss, who attempted to keep their workers from taking sick days by demanding they get a doctor's note only to have the doctor recommend them to take more time off than they would have in the first place. This is a common experience we've all probably had ourselves or witnessed at some point in our working life. A lot of organizat…

Starting a new job is stressful; you've traded the relative security of whatever job you've just left for the uncertainty of a new one. This entire process, from start to finish, is time-consuming and emotionally draining, leaving you hoping that you'll never have to go through it again… and then you get fired on your second day. This old bait and switch probably means that either someone realized they didn't have the budget for a new role that they thought they did, or layoffs are on their way…

Sometimes nepotism presents itself in subtle, understated ways that influence the progression of someone's career in unseen ways. But, sometimes, the person making way for the nepo-hire is brazen enough to fire workers under false accusations in order to make way for their desired candidate. But when you're in the process of prioritizing your own personal relationships over ability, you shouldn't be quick to overlook the personal relationships of those you're screwing over. This team knew where…

Getting passed up for a promotion when you know you're the best candidate is heart-breaking—made worse by the fact that it's usually because of some petty political dynamic or so that they can bring in a nepotism hire. Bonus points when the person who successfully interviewed for the role turns around and asks you for help or tries to delegate your work because your peers and managers have recognized you as the “go-to person." Whatever you decide to do at that point… you probably would like to…

Quitting a job is stressful and can lead your imagination to anticipate a myriad of possible terrible outcomes. The worst case scenario would probably be your current boss being secret best friends with your new one, prompting them to call your new boss and tell them not to hire you before firing you on the spot. Yes, it's unlikely can happen while working in small towns and close-knit industries—or when you're leaving a company to work for their major supplier. Still, despite wild imagination,…

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…

You should always be wary of the “walk back” as a manipulation tactic. Often used in sales and scams, the seller starts by offering something acceptable and slowly changes the terms of the deal to something that might have been unacceptable to start with but is now reluctantly accepted due to the sunk cost of invested time. Consecutive slight alterations to figures or terms should always raise red flags, and if something doesn't seem right you should always trust your gut instinct, just as this…

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…

Let's be real… We've all had that one coworker who is always coming in late and leaving early to pick up their kids. No big deal, right? Everyone deserves to have a flexible working arrangement. But, when that flexibility and those considerations aren't offered to other workers, and it places more work or undesirable shifts on those workers' shoulders, it becomes a problem. Reddit especially champions the idea that those with kids shouldn't expect special treatment over their coworkers who are…

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…