It's only natural for your employer to be interested in what you spend your time doing while you're at work; after all, they're paying you for your time. Even then, there are reasonable limits to this, and some employers get carried away and happily track any and every bit of data possible to help them prove you're wasting time. It started with mouse trackers, which track the activity of the mouse and keyboard on your laptop; now, programs are even able to track where your eyes are on the scree…

Agency is important in the workplace; people typically need to feel as if they have responsibility over a task in order to derive satisfaction from doing it. This is one of the most basic facts that someone managing a team should be aware of. Sure, it's important that you know what's going on with your team, but that doesn't extend to the level of having comprehensive direct access to every last bit of their personal workplace communications. The point is that you have a certain level of trust…

Some people just love to hear the sound of their own voices . Doesn't matter what the topic is, or if it's even appropriate for them to be yapping: some people just can't help themselves. These days, lots of offices are switching from remote work back to office work. For micromanagers, not having their employees in the office is a missed opportunity to boss them around. They get to feel empowered as they peer over your shoulder every few minutes. But many employees love to work remotely (for th…

It should not be revelatory that the number of hours one spends at the office is completely separate from the amount of work one completes. Productivity and efficiency are relative to the individual worker, and there is something to be said for leaving employees alone when it comes to how they get their work done, provided that no other team members are negatively impacted by their process. This thread was posted to Reddit's r/MaliciousCompliance subreddit by u/Fun-Pin9061 , whose boss insisted…

Instead of under-promising and over-delivering, one company found themselves doing the exact opposite. Truly, this company sounds like a hot mess. Just ask u/SchalkLBI, a software developer who suddenly found themself with a ton of responsibility for low pay. How low was this pay? It was just $1000 per month, and the software developer had to commute for four hours every day to get to work. Commuting two hours each way on an intern salary? That's tough. This developer writes that they stuck aro…

The hiring process is asinine these days. After 8 rounds of interviews, 4 different cover letters, and losing your will to live, the application to your dream job may still be lost in the trash bin of some flippant hiring manager.

When someone at work decides they don't like you for no reason, there usually is not much you can do to change their mind. You can try to reason with them or find common ground, but nine times out of ten, these are unreasonable people with a high school mentality. If they meet you with pettiness, sometimes the only thing you can do in return is to be petty right back. This thread was posted to Reddit's r/pettyrevenge subreddit by u/MercerAcolyte42 , who discovered her coworkers' complete distas…

Working at a company with a newly established HR department can lead to the establishment of many a shady policy. We're talking about people who don't really understand what it is to be professional and well-managed steering the ship. If you work at a company like this, you certainly cannot expect a smooth sailing experience. Rest assured, there will be bumps along the way. Here, we have an employee who took five days off at the end of last year at the request of their boss after the loss of th…

Note to self: never be the person everyone rolls their eyes at in the office. We're talking about the person who says whatever the boss would like them to say and would throw someone else under the bus in a second if it meant they got extra points in the boss's book. We're talking about the guy who is always scheduling unnecessary meetings just to make it seem like he's busy. Going out of your way for brownie points may impress an egomaniac, but it's always how to annoy and frustrate your cowor…

Usually, it's wise to have multiple persons capable of maintaining the continuity of the important areas of your organization. This means not having a single employee who knows essential company processes, secrets, codes, and passwords that can't otherwise be found, learned, or replicated by someone else. If you happen to have one of these workers in your organization or someone who is otherwise essential to the operation of your business, you will do well to treat them well. It would certainly…

Be careful what you wish for, boss! It's common for bosses to have strange rules and regulations; nine times out of ten, they are tied to a bizarre superiority/inferiority complex. However, we often find that bosses misinterpret perfectly normal behavior as disrespectful, and that's when this becomes an issue. It's rarely insubordination; in fact, most of the time, employees are so laser-focused on their tasks and responsibilities that they do not have their boss's emotions at the top of their…

Different jobs have different ways of measuring productivity. You might have a certain quota of assignments you have to do during the day, or maybe get to a certain amount of sales. Or, in some cases, your productivity might be measured simply by how many hours you have been on the job, and not by the quality of your work. This preference for quantity over quality is something that I personally do not agree with. I think if an employee gets the job done, they shouldn't be further kept at their…

Eight rounds of interviews later, this job candidate was hit by a wave of rejection that felt like an elephant had stomped on her. Absolutely devastated, was how she described it. And I totally understand why. If a company wasted my time like that, I'd be furious, too. Also, 8 rounds of interviews? What is this, the recruiting process to become the president? It seems wild that recruiters would make a candidate go through this. How many questions could you possibly ask a future employee? Maybe…

Company loyalty isn't really a thing anymore. Our Boomer parents can boast about their pensions and their work ethic, but when a company has nothing to give you after years of service–not even an inflation-covering raise–why would you stick around? Contrary to popular belief, you CAN buy loyalty… especially in the workplace.

It's difficult to picture your life any different than it is in this exact moment… and that's not talking simple wishful-thinking. It's easy to say “I wish things were better” or “I'm grateful and lucky for what I have” or “I'm glad things aren't worse." But that's not the same as being able to actually see yourself—

You know it's doomed when the well-being of a company is solely reliant on the work of three people. Several ways things can go wrong come to mind, the first of which obviously is the question of what will happen when one or more of the employees leaves. If the owner is smart, they will do everything in their power to keep these three employees happy and fulfilled. If the owner is smart, they will create a contingency plan that starts with expanding the team before anything goes south. If the o…