Let's be honest; despite all the grief that middle managers get, surviving in that role is no easy task. You constantly and consistently receive downward pressure from owners and upper management to implement changes and pass on cost-saving measures that you know aren't going to work. To top this off, you only really ever have two choices—provide feedback to upper management; while this absorbs the stress and pressure, keeping it from being passed on to your subordinates, it rocks the boat and…

There's nothing more satisfying than proving to everyone in the office that your manager's pointless rules are... well, pointless.

It turns out they had a choice after all…. The bounds of any authority are limited, but that doesn't stop those wielding it from consistently overestimating where those limits are. And, when you're the assistant manager of a pizza place, the bounds of your authority are probably much less than you think… Your power in that position isn't unchecked—it's not like you're the United States Secretary of Defense or anything. Still, as always, where there exists a single shred of power, there is someo…

The bad part about an unpaid lunch break is there's a whole hour in the middle of your day that you're not getting paid for, meaning you're stuck at work for that much longer before you finally get to escape the prison and go home. On the other hand, the great part about an unpaid lunch break is there's a whole hour in the middle of your day that you get to yourself to eat your lunch, get out for a walk, and worry about other things in life outside of your to-do list and your boss's whims. Of c…

This boss manages a team of people who recently got a new hire — and he thinks she isn't fitting into the company culture. We roast a lot of bosses on this site, but we don't always get the story from their point of view. Managing people is a role that some people shine at, becoming the boss that everyone loves and feels they can talk to openly. But on the other hand, people management is not for everyone, a lesson that the commenters on this post strongly suggested the OP should learn. U/tway1…

Imagine having a coworker so terrible that when you get a new management role and poach the members of your old team, your old HR manager actually gets mad at you for not poaching the awful one. That's a scenario that boggles the mind so completely it's hard to imagine this scenario actually playing out in real life. Yet, that's exactly what his manager reported experiencing in a story that they shared on Reddit. In their account of events, they tell how—a few months after leaving their old job…

Micromanagement is a kind term for control, which a lot of bosses often feel like they need to exert over their employees in one form or another. In this case, OP was working for a construction company, doing admin and project management work. The company employed a lot of Latino men, who would listen to Mexican music on a speaker during their shifts. There was a lot of noise from the machines, so the speaker was pretty big. One day when OP came to work, he found the speaker was gone. Later tha…

Kleptomaniacs come in many forms. Bank robbers, snatch-and-grabbers, check-out chocolate bar thieves, and public transit backpack rummagers are all some form of thieving-obsessed klepto. Although most klepto's dream of being a bank robber like in the movies, nobody has the stones or the brains to pull a job that big, so instead, they head over to their local library to get their thieving fix.

C-level management seems to forget that their ‘family’ of employees is really only working so they can get that money bag every two weeks. Despite their lofty claims that everyone's on the same team and needs to reach company goals, a lot of workers are starting to refuse to do more work unless they're financially compensated– as it should be!

Dealing with a micromanager is a burdensome experience, with the complete lack of autonomy and self-determination totally sapping any motivation you might have once had for your job. To make matters worse, it almost always comes from a manager who should have never been promoted over you, who has far less of an understanding of their role (and yours) than they seem to think they do… maybe that's the core of the issue? This employee shared their experience of managing their micromanaging boss. T…

If there's one thing that every organization on this earth loves… it's stupid strict rules that have no business existing in the first place—usually coming from a middle manager who decided to write and enact a new policy without ever asking others with more insight and experience for their input. Bonus space on the bingo card here for this manager also being someone either freshly promoted on a power trip or brand new to the organization and trying to look like they're doing an effective job a…

You really shouldn't say something that you don't mean that could cause an outcome that you don't want to someone who will happily oblige you. Retailers love to set rules and swear by them as if they had been written in stone since the dawn of time—and definitely not something they made up 15 minutes ago. These rules will blatantly disadvantage workers and be strictly enforced to the point where there is no nuance for grey-area scenarios. After all, being able to predict extremely obvious gray…

Some companies' policies don't allow overtime, as paying minimum wage employees a slightly more humane salary is just not in their budget. Despite this, managers can overrule this when holidays arrive and they are in dire need of help. In this case, OP was working at a retail store; unsurprisingly, this was the type of company that paid its employees little but expected a lot. The holidays were fast approaching, and management knew that they were way behind, thus they would need many hands on d…

There are no winners in the tipping debate , but this dude decided to ask people on the internet if they thought he handled this the right way. As u/Thatsweatyguy4 wrote in their post to r/AmItheA**hole, they and their little brother found themselves in an awkward situation with the manager of a pizza place. Basically every human being loves pizza , so it makes sense that the brother, an intern who organized a food drive, picked the universally beloved food to serve. They planned to give a pizz…

Oh, Karen

Quitting tomorrow