Work holiday parties are a delicate concoction of forced holiday cheer and awkward social experiments. Case in point: the infamous White Elephant gift exchange. For those who've never played, it's a game where everyone brings a wrapped present, and the fun begins as gifts are opened, stolen, and swapped in a battle for glory—or, at least, the coolest gift under $20. Sure, seeing who ends up with what is fun (bonus points if you get to steal from the office food thief ), but let's not sugarcoat…

Worker benefits these days just aren't what they used to be. Instead of a lifetime job at one company, making enough money to feed a family of 5 and have leftovers for vacations and cars, a lot of workers these days are struggling. The working force of America is working two or three jobs, many have to live with roommates instead of owning property, and they dream about having a 401k someday. That said, a lot of employees do still like their jobs, benefits or not. But it's not like you can forc…

Let this story serve as a friendly reminder that no matter what anyone says about it, you are entitled to discuss your salary with others in the workplace. Of course, that kind of transparency is exactly the opposite of what your employers want you to do. That kind of transparency, however, can expose systemic flaws that all employees should be aware of regardless of whether or not those in charge want you to know about it. Here , we have an employee who knew his rights and advocated for himsel…

Good teachers are extremely hard to come by, so when a school gets a hold of a teacher who is loved by the students, the parents, and other teachers, you'd think the school would do everything to hold on to that gem of a teacher. However, a school is no different from other places of work, which means that the people in power often make stupid decisions. Decisions that make absolutely no sense to anyone involved, like firing extremely good employees. The teacher in this Reddit story was sure sh…

Desmond Tutu once said: “You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.” what you can do though, at least to some extent, is choose your workplace. This (together with a lesson about ignoring red flags ) is what this story is all about. The original poster (OP) of this story posted on Reddit a while ago, He was asking Redditors why it is a red flag when a hiring team member tells a job applicant that the “company is like family.” he ended up taking the job that ma…

Working in IT often means being constantly undervalued and under-appreciated. This, of course, should not come with the territory, considering nothing could run properly without a functioning and knowledgable IT department, but alas, other employees seem to take advantage of what it means to actually have a good IT guy. Unfortunately for this Redditor , he had to endure the classic biases against IT on top of a totally unprofessional new CFO who was gradually replacing everyone around her with…

Jingle all the way to the bank

Some employers love to preach loyalty, but as soon as they think that they might be better off without you—or that you haven't made them as much money as you could have—they won't hesitate to send you packing, no matter how long you've worked together and what your contributions have been previously. This isn't true of all employers and all situations, but the bad experiences and accounts

Job applications get old real fast. The worst are the ones that require you to upload your resume, then, when you click to the next page, they ask you to reenter everything. You need to type in when and where you went to school, the dates of all your jobs, your job titles and job descriptions, and more. You have to retype every little thing, and there's no way around it if you want to apply to jobs! Another more recent thing that's been getting on people's nerves is having to do recorded video…

It is never fun to know that you are being left out of something and that people are doing it on purpose. Even though we are all adults, being excluded from social events can make each and every one of us feel like we are back in middle school, being picked last in Gym. When I first started my previous job, I entered a group dynamic of coworkers who were obviously very close to each other. They had all these inside jokes, shared experiences, and relationships that I had nothing to do with, and…

Only coal in their stockings

It's the end of the year (finally!) and the office work is winding down for the year. It's the season for out of office email auto-replies. Who doesn't love to hear the phrase, “Let's work on this in the new year"?

Not every work situation has to turn sour.

No one wants to end their year at work on a sour note like this. Of course, annual performance reviews are bound to cause some sort of anxiety among most employees, especially those who are preparing to advocate for a raise. Unfortunately for this employee, she was met with total rejection, and it only gets worse from there. This Redditor had been at the company for over three years without a significant pay raise during her time there. Not only was the CEO complimenting her work all the time d…

The music people choose to listen to in order to get through the workday is a private decision. It's not meant to be publicized for all your employers and coworkers to see. No one needs to know how much you listen to Taylor Swift or the Wicked soundtrack. Unfortunately for this Redditor , he and his team of 30 or so coworkers were asked to share their Spotify Wrapped screenshots with the whole team as part of a team-building exercise. This would be an immediate no for me. If I want to share tha…

Caught red-handed