There's a tendency within organizations as they grow and expand to slowly erode the perks that made working there great, which made the early stages of the company successful in the first place. But when you have ten employees offering comprehensive benefits, it creates a far smaller total number than when you have 100. At some point, the owners or some executives are going to notice this number and put all benefits on the chopping block so that they can pocket that extra profit or qualify them…

It's pretty confusing when your employer is losing workers faster than it can replace them and doesn't seem at all phased. Sometimes, you can chalk this up to general incompetence. Still, it's more likely that there are over-inflated egos involved, with key members of the company refusing even to consider that they, their policies, and the way they treat workers might be the problem. Other executives and HR play along, worried that if they acknowledge the situation, the entire company might imp…

Imagine getting away with this kind of corporate sorcery! We know that most companies that have since gone through the whole “return to office” process are pretty strict about in-person policies. Often what happens in a corporate environment is a gradual return to in-person work. It might start at a couple of days a week, but it also may gradually increase to a set period of mandatory days in a largely vacant office environment. Remember: it's all about the “culture.” Just kidding, it's all abo…

Some bosses don't trust their employees to work remotely, even when it's a necessity. This is especially true if the boss is a micromanager. They can't stand to let their employees have any autonomy over their days. If they let their workers do their jobs remotely, how will they know if their employees are actually working? Sure, they might get all their work done (or even be extra productive!), but if the boss can't make sure they're working exactly eight hours, they won't like the remote-work…

It's not the best idea in the workplace to claim responsibility when you don't know the first thing about what you're doing. I'm all for the concept of “fake it till you make it," but within reason, and in this case, this administrative assistant was very much not within reason. One of the first jobs I ever had involved teaching subject matter to high school students and preparing them for college-level material. I primarily worked on reading comprehension, grammar, and SAT/ACT-level math. Howe…

“It's just business,” people (often your boss) love to spout… and it always is until it's personal. You can rest assured that anyone using this canned clamshell phrasing is probably using this to dismiss situations where they're exploiting you and are going to take it very personally should things one day not go their way. It's the same sort of tactic that is used when you're told by a notoriously toxic employer that “We're all a family here.” The hope is that you'll buy into the thin words the…

They say you're supposed to work hard for the money, but there is a special satisfaction that comes with not working hard for as much money as possible. Now, personally speaking, I am not slick enough to pull off something like this. I have too much “rule follower” energy in me to be able to create a plan that pays me as much as possible for doing as little work as possible. Blame it on how I behaved as a student in school or blame it on millennial anxiety! Regardless, I just don't have the aud…

Meddling pedantic coworkers who consider them to be a step above the rabble, despite being in exactly the same position as this “rabble," are a one-way ticket to a hellish workplace. The problem is that managers usually leave these busybody coworkers alone and may even regard them as proficient workers because they're making the manager's life easier by doing their dirty work for them. To be fair, the managers are also probably afraid of these people, seeing as they usually memorize the technic…

Some points in your career give you a sudden moment of clarity.

Never forget that when it comes to your working agreement, you have to get everything in writing. I'm not one to be cynical about everyone that I work for, but I will always at the very least protect myself, and yes, I have learned this the hard way. This is especially true for jobs where the workload is inconsistent, such as a freelance position. If you want to be promised some semblance of stability with the workflow, you have to lay all your cards on the table from the get-go. It's not that…

Nobody wants to disappoint their parents– especially their mothers. In fact, it was ingrained deep into our psyche at an early age that when our parents got mad at us, that was sort of okay, but if they were disappointed in our rebellious behavior, there was no greater pain on Earth. Obviously as we all grew up and moved out of the house, we became accustomed to our own illicit activities, but mom doesn't need to know what we do with our spare time or what vices we hide under our pillows.

Hiring for a position as a regular manager is an exhaustive process, draining your time and resources, so it's really hard to imagine something like this ever happening with a manager who is concerned about their own time. But, there are those within certain organizations whose job it is to recruit full-time, and these recruiters and certain members of HR constantly scout and search for strong talent even if the organization really doesn't need them. This works in large corporations that are li…

It's not often that the villain wins in the end—unless it's the second part of a trilogy, and you need to set up the third part so that our heroes are fighting back from the brink of defeat… a la Star Wars' second (fifth) installment The Empire Strikes Back . See, ending your story with a conclusion where the villain wins usually doesn't provide a satisfying story structure—unless things have been leading there the entire time, and that's the point the story is trying to prove. [SPOILERS: No Co…

When you're young, spry, and fresh out of college, the first thing on your mind is probably trying to get a job. With all these student loans piling up and your parents breathing down your neck about “finding a stable job”, it's easy to overlook some obvious red flags in the workplace. Oh, sweet summer child, be careful what you wish for...

This waitress wanted to share a story about a family interaction at her job, but commenters took the customers' side! The OP has a few memorably cringe lines. If a waiter ever handed me water and in the same breath told me about how it had “came out of the dinosaurs years ago. [It's] just filtered super well," I'd hesitate to eat there. What a weird thing to say about a fresh beverage! Perhaps one of the worst ways to make water sound appetizing is to remind the customer of how water filtration…

What's the opposite of a work wife or work husband? It's a work nemesis, as these poor professionals can attest to. If you have friends you're starting to not get along with, you can stop texting them or inviting them over. But with your colleagues , even if they're really annoying or irresponsible, there's not a whole lot you can do to avoid them. Maybe you and Dave from finance don't see eye to eye on politics, but you'll still find yourself working on a spreadsheet with him while rolling you…