The willingness of superiors to apply rules to themselves that they make for others speaks volumes to the character and quality of an organization. An undercurrent of issues surrounding fairness in leadership can give you a great indication of the toxicity of the workplace. This reaches levels of ridiculousness that can't be rationalized when it begins involving matters that aren't even specifically related to your performance or time that you spend at work and begins leaching into personal and…

At some jobs, there is no winning solution to the boss's problems . It's often an issue that management has, then insists on passing down to their workers. This malicious compliance story is a great example of that dynamic. This person shared that as a college student, they needed a new gig, and found one with a manager who was “ one of the biggest Karens you have ever met .” Off to a great start! As a new employee, this person was swamped. While Karen was changing the procedures, it meant that…

There are things in life that you'll encounter, and you'll find nothing you've encountered previously has properly prepared you for it. Usually, these things will be so off-the-wall that there's no way anything could have properly anticipated them. The very idea of being flown out to a final interview and accepting a position, enjoying lavish dinner with the company's owner, only to go into the office and meet the guy who has just started working in the role you thought you had been accepting,…

Sometimes, when you mess around too much, you find out the hard way that there are very real consequences associated with your actions. It's all well and good for you to do as you'd like and act as you please, but when it comes to facing the consequences you'd better come to terms with it. That's what this employer is going to have to do when they realize that their driver went ahead and found another job (with better pay) after being told that his job was no longer available when he tried to c…

Generally, in your working life, you might expect that, as you gain experience, skills, and knowledge, you'll be making more money… throughout your career as well as your time in a singular role. Where you might not be too surprised and even expect to be rejected a request for a raise or two, you'd never expect to have your boss approach you telling you that they're slashing your pay in order to get “more bang for their buck." Openly telling you that they're going to be saving money solely at y…

When enforcing strict adherence to company policy and legal employment obligations, it's probably important that you understand those obligations first. It's also incredibly likely that someone who has been navigating the ins and outs of those legal obligations out of necessity for their livelihood will know more about them than you, an average Joe manager, do. Just an important reminder of the fact that being in charge doesn't necessarily mean that you have the most experience in every given s…

Working with a team that you really enjoy being a part of is one of the smallest graces you can hope for in what's otherwise deep, begrudging resignation to your working life. Unfortunately, like most of the good things in life, the balance is delicately struck, and one small change can turn them on their heads. After spending almost seven years at this tech company working with a true leader of a manager who always stood up for his workers and encouraged autonomy and a healthy work-life balanc…

Being the longest-standing member of your workgroup usually means that you have memories of how things “used” to be, memories of the “before times” that probably stretch back long before even your manager worked here. The problem with this is organizations almost always trend in a negative direction when it comes to working conditions and benefits for workers; after all, there are only two ways to maximize profit, and cutting costs is far easier than increasing revenue generation. As a result,…

These days, it's not unusual to hear back from a job you applied to months ago asking if you're still interested in that first-round interview, and—hey, things happen and there are any number of reasons why the hiring process for the position you applied to might have gotten delayed. Sometimes, hiring gets sidelined in favor of more pressing concerns that the management team is dealing with. Sometimes, there is not quite as much room in the budget as management thought there was. Maybe they had…

It's hopefully no secret to anyone at this point that if you're given an anonymous questionnaire at work asking for your honest and critical feedback, there's a pretty good chance that that questionnaire is not, in fact, anonymous. That, or there are plenty of ways that it's going to be traced back to you regardless of how “anonymous” it actually is. After all, if they receive one response that's pointedly critical and you're usually the one who has no problem voicing your feedback, chances are…

The promise of promotion is a proverbial carrot on a stick that often gets dangled over workers' heads, encouraging them to do more and work harder for longer hours, taking on additional responsibilities, under the guise that this “growth” will soon earn them a promotion that pays them properly for the work they have been doing. Of course, while this holds merit when honest intentions are had, all too often this is exploited to get workers to do things they're not being paid to do… This employe…

If this new hire doesn't shape up, she's going to lose that brand-new job . Imagine fumbling the ball that badly! They say you get one chance to make a first impression, and there are few times in life when that's more important than your first weeks at a new gig. If a company has just hired you, you should probably be acting happy to be there, ready to learn, and eager to get to know how the team operates. You're learning where you fit into the bigger picture of the company. During this period…

It's weird to think that at one point, workers derided the cubicle, the confines of those grey-carpeted walls symbolizing their oppression. Whereas now, anyone in open-plan hot-desking office spaces would trade anything for the privacy that those same grey walls offered—a space to call your own outside of the immediate watchful gaze of your micromanaging boss where you can keep your things and not have to cart them around with you every day. So, in a way, it's easy to see where this coworker wa…

You never know what you've got until it's gone… An old philosophical adage that rings true throughout all areas of our lives, speaking to the fact that we don't really appreciate something's worth until we no longer have it, whether that be a time in our lives, an object, or even an individual. It's easy to take things for granted when they're right in front of you, and it's easy to think that how things are now is how they will be forever, evoking a resigned, almost begrudging feeling towards…

Another day in retail work, another entitled customer . That's the way of the world for the brave souls who work at retail shops, including u/CmdrGrayson, an assistant manager at a clothing store. There are customers who treat retail workers like people. Maybe they've worked in retail themselves, and know how grueling that job can be. But other customers do not care about the thoughts or feelings of the workers at all. They're happy to belittle them or mock them for no reason at all. It makes y…

There's this interesting thing that happens with KPIs, targets, and business focus. Sure, putting impetus into these areas will usually result in increasing them, creating the image of a larger, healthier, more profitable business. But what is the cost? More, importantly, where is the cost? You're not looking for it, you're not tracking it, and you won't know what it is and probably won't even know where it was or how to measure it until it's too late. This happens all the time in businesses wh…