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'Their faces were priceless': Boss makes sick employee come in, employee maliciously complies, gets company sick policy revised

'Their faces were priceless': Boss makes sick employee come in, employee maliciously complies, gets company sick policy revised

All employers should know by now not to mess with the company sick day policy. Here, we have a horrible boss who decided that every employee who called in sick needed to physically show up to the office first to hand in a note from their physician. A phone call wouldn't even suffice. Clearly, this boss didn't have any trust in his employees and also didn't fully comprehend the risk of having infected folks show up and potentially getting more employees sick. Essentially, this dude was either as…
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Update: 'Most people aren't being paid market value here': Employee confronts boss about lame promotion with receipts, leaves boss grasping at straws for excuses

Update: 'Most people aren't being paid market value here': Employee confronts boss about lame promotion with receipts, leaves boss grasping at straws for excuses

There are definitely better ways of justifying your employee's lack of a fair raise. This boss decided that the best way to justify the decision was to say that essentially everyone is underpaid at the company. In other words, she was saying that the entire company cheats its employees. Not only is that a completely irresponsible thing to say both for the employee's sake and for the company's, but also it gives the impression that there is absolutely no hope for the employee in his pursuit of a…
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'I was stunned [it was only] a 1% raise': Outstanding employee gets a offered a pathetic raise after years of dedication, finds a new job with a 32% salary increase

When we're in preschool, kids are taught that hard work and dedication gets rewarded. If you take your nap, eat your snack, and listen to the teacher, you get to go to recess. As adults, our equivalent of 'recess' is a stiff paycheck at the end of the month, ideally with as many digits as possible. Unfortunately as we get older it becomes more painfully clear that real life isn't so simple.
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'He's complaining to me he's overdrawn...not my problem dude': Repair shop refuses customer's credit card payment, then realizes his mistake

'He's complaining to me he's overdrawn...not my problem dude': Repair shop refuses customer's credit card payment, then realizes his mistake

This person told a tale of their car repair debacle from 20 years ago, and you can tell it's an old story because they discovered the repair shop using a phone book. A real phone book! What a delightful throwback! For those of you who don't know, a phone book was a very big and heavy book with hundreds of pages. The white pages listed the numbers of people, and the yellow pages listed the numbers for businesses. It wasn't just numbers, either, it usually listed addresses too. Having your phone…
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'She made a big scene': Woman mocks coworkers' vegan lifestyle, then gets upset that coworker won't eat her "vegan" food

'She made a big scene': Woman mocks coworkers' vegan lifestyle, then gets upset that coworker won't eat her "vegan" food

A birthday cake is dividing this workplace. That's because of two coworkers who can't see eye to eye about food. People eat all sorts of diets for all sorts of reasons. For example, if you go to the doctor and your cholesterol is high, they might tell you to stop eating eggs. Or if you want to have more vegetables and less red meat, you might start eating fish in place of burgers. Everyone eats in their own unique ways, and has their own specific likes and dislikes. But for some reason, people…
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'We wait even longer for a third tow truck to arrive': Service tech tries to reschedule appointment located on steep hill, gets themself and numerous other vehicles stuck

'We wait even longer for a third tow truck to arrive': Service tech tries to reschedule appointment located on steep hill, gets themself and numerous other vehicles stuck

This service tech is used to driving to jobs in different neighborhoods, but they weren't prepared for this weather. In any job, if your boss has your back, it makes your life a lot easier. However, many managers think that their employees are always trying to be sneaky or deceitful. They have no trust in their decision-making abilities…even though they presumably hired them for such qualities. This person, u/EmuExternal6244, shared a story from a snowy day on the job. As a lead service tech, t…
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'They had to hire three people to do my job': Malevolent new supervisor writes dude up for being late, so he leaves on time every day and quits

Flexibility begets flexibility—treat workers with the understanding, trust, and respect they deserve and get the same in return. Particularly in a line of work where being a few minutes late means nothing, but the worker's willingness to stay late or work unexpected hours means everything, you'd do well to accept that them walking in the door a few minutes late isn't that big of a deal. That is unless you, their new supervisor, have a bone to pick with them over the fact that their self-determi…
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'We want you to be more visible': Cop shares multiple stories of department malicious compliance

Interacting with people constantly in any line of work opens you up to a number of strange experiences, and you'd better believe that police officers and other first responders have seen the wildest ones. Similarly, every job has a process that needs to be followed, even if that process is nonsensical and enforced by a power-tripping boss who also adds their own directives to it and demands they are followed to the letter. Take, for example, when this police officer was told that they needed to…
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'I stopped putting in the maintenance requests': Worker reprimanded for going above and beyond, does less and is rewarded

It's always perplexing when your superiors demand that you do less work, stop thinking for yourself, and just mindlessly follow your contracted tasks like a mindless drone. The fact is, you're making them all look bad, and while they appreciate your efforts, if they let you carry on being exceptional, you'll put everyone else out of a job. As we've scrawled on the pages of Fail Blog a thousand times before, too many bosses and employers prioritize the ability to follow orders without thinking o…
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'He was "reassigned" to a different department': Operations officer demands less collaboration with disastrous results, loses his job

One thing employers almost unanimously do is encourage collaboration, promote synergy, and do deep dives into core competencies in order to close the loop on big data and growth hack deliverables… While no one is completely sure what any of this means , there's a chance that your boss has used one of these phrases in order to promote whatever thing they're pursuing, and it remains certain that collaboration is often at the forefront of company initiatives.
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'[Boss] sent me a "Somebody's Got a Case of the Mondays" gif': Employee shamed for calling in sick after working OT, confronts boss about his bad joke

'[Boss] sent me a "Somebody's Got a Case of the Mondays" gif': Employee shamed for calling in sick after working OT, confronts boss about his bad joke

Not only did this boss have absolutely no right to question his employee's decision to call in sick, but also he made things even worse by trying to make a joke out of it. If you've ever been someone's manager, you would know that while having a sense of humor can lighten the tension, having a bad sense of humor can produce the complete opposite effect. This thread was posted to Reddit by u/ShiftyPom , who worked for a small family-run business and had recently been working overtime for several…
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'Management acts like they can't do anything about it': Worker reports that company's new software is stealing employee's reported time

When apparent negligence and mysterious circumstances are working directly in your employer's favor, it's sometimes hard to imagine that things aren't actually working as intended. Longtime readers will know that I'm a big believer in Hanlon's Razor, the idea that you should "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." As with Occam's Razor, where the simplest explanation is the most likely, the simplest likely explanation for something is usually that they're ju…
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'Not worth it': New employee misled during onboarding process after prior commitments were not honored, confronts recruiter

'Not worth it': New employee misled during onboarding process after prior commitments were not honored, confronts recruiter

Sometimes you know within your first day of starting a new job if you've made an egregious mistake. You might go through a period of denial, where you try to give your employers a second, third, and fourth chance. You might even go through a period of trying to convince yourself that you enjoy the people, the work, and the office environment. But nine times out of ten, you will most likely return to that initial gut feeling you had on Day One. This Redditor was hired to be a tutor as a second f…
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'95% of success is showing up on time': 30+ Workers share their sage advice to workers joining the workforce

Joining the workforce for the first time is a surreal experience. You start off bright-eyed and filled with wonder about what the world might have in store for you… ready to give it your all, dreaming of the drastic contributions you're going to make to society. But, the more time you spend working, the more the wonderous color drains from the dream, leaving behind a sad, beige, and grey world that looks like every house-flipping millennial's home renovation.
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'[He] had to be repeatedly sent home to shower and change': 15 bosses tell all about their worst employees

'[He] had to be repeatedly sent home to shower and change': 15 bosses tell all about their worst employees

We often talk about the horrible bosses of the world who have no regard for their employees, but as much as it pains us to admit, the reverse can be true as well. In fact, forget the disregard for your boss because more often than not, being disrespectful at work affects your coworkers and everyone in your office environment as well. Some of these stories range from a lack of hygiene to a literal hoarder. We have employees who refuse to do the bare minimum and employees who go out of their way…
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'Come in and volunteer in the meantime': Company cancels interview as it's starting, asks candidate to volunteer for them instead

People work jobs to get paid—it's as plain and simple as that. It's not something we're doing out of goodwill because we care so much about our boss that we want to fatten his wallet up for him. While our bosses might wish that this was the case, the arrangement of employment is based on a simple transaction: The worker's time and skills are provided in exchange for a consistent paycheck.
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