Who hasn't watched the amenities of their workplace—the absolute basics that you might expect to have in the office break room—slowly eroding? First, it starts with the coffee. If you had a machine in the workplace, suddenly that's gone, leaving a French Press. Ok, fair enough, but before long, the actual coffee they were providing is replaced with the cheapest instant coffee available that doesn't even really taste like coffee. Now, they're no longer providing milk, so everyone has to buy thei…

When you first start off your career, you're bright and starry-eyed, carrying such ideals as “work hard and be rewarded,” fueled by stories and mythology of working stories you've heard. The reality is that work is more like Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the hill only to have it roll back down again—nothing gained, changed, or earned except the opportunity to complete the task again. You probably think that as long as you put effort into something, it will eventually pay off and that honest f…

Slow and steady wins the race

It's pretty safe to say that your employer will never fully appreciate your contribution until after you leave. At this point, they will realize that your contribution isn't quite as easy to replicate as they thought, leading to productivity losses that they will have to pay a lot more to replicate. Of course, they could have just given you a moderate raise and saved more money than they ended up spending. A certain part of this is misreading the relationship, overestimating the hold they have…

Everyone remembers their first real job, the place that kickstarted their career and made them who they are today. And since everyone remembers that experience, no matter how much time passed, it shouldn't be hard to be nice to those who are just starting out. If every boss would recall their first week at their job, they would remember how stressful it is to prove themselves, and they would remember how important it is to have the right guidance, to have someone who can train you and help you…

It seems like the higher you climb in the corporate world, the less work you actually do. Otherwise, how can you explain that every CEO in the world seems to do absolutely nothing in their own company? They come to the office twice a week at best, wander around for an hour, have a meeting or two with the people who actually have work, and then go home. What is even more annoying, is that those types of bosses have no appreciation for the people beneath them, who work extremely hard to keep the…

There is an episode in How I Met Your Mother where Marshall gets yelled at by his terrible boss, and he doesn't know how he should react. His friends all give him different advice, some saying he should ignore it, while others said he should kindly confront his boss and put him in his place. Eventually, Marshall unexpectedly explodes at his boss and screams back at him with everything he thinks of his job and the management, and at the end of this screaming fit, Marshall quits. While it is just…

When one leaves a job in which they didn't like their boss, there are two things they might hope for any future interaction with said boss – Either no interaction at all and completely severing any connection with that person, or getting to see them one more time and proving to them just how much that boss missed out on by letting them go. Out of those two options, the best stories obviously come from the latter, much like the story we have here. OP (original poster) was contacted by their form…

It's no secret that a lot of employers in as many industries allocate more budget to hiring than they do to staff retention. This is a bit silly when you consider that large organizations will go on to spend tens of thousands of dollars on recruiting, onboarding, and training processes—in addition to value lost due to lost time and productivity of vacant roles. Though some of this cost is silent or not immediately apparent on the books and, in contrast, the idea of approving even half that mone…

When you know you are a valued employee, one your company cannot afford to lose, you have a lot of leverage when negotiating benefits and pay. The problem is, unless you actually threaten to quit, companies will not be in a rush to give you more than they think you deserve, which is usually much less than what you do deserve. So employees threaten to quit, and some manage to get what they want from their current company, and some end up actually quitting and getting a better deal somewhere else…

When people use the term “not leadership material” they can mean a wide variety of things. It can mean that you're not suited to the organization's toxic expectations of complicity and your unwillingness to follow whatever directive is passed down to you blindly. It can also mean that your performance isn't up to standard or that you don't prioritize interpersonal relationships and kiss the appropriate rear ends often enough. “Doesn't do the things I want them to,”

If a workplace can get away with dumping new responsibilities on employees without giving them anything in return, you can bet they will give it a go. There are plenty of employees who won't notice they are being taken advantage of, and will gladly agree to more work with nothing in return. They will probably convince themselves that it is good for the experience, and at least they can put the extra responsibility in their resume, for the next job to come. If you are not interested in gaining '…

It's called a 9-5 for a reason!

The interview process is a long and arduous one for both sides, really, and the last thing anyone wants is for their time to be wasted after such a long process. The relief that comes after simultaneously finally securing a role or finally having someone to fill an empty position on the team is understated, turning energies next towards developing and furthering the burgeoning relationship. While you can expect a lot of anxiety on the first day on the part of the candidate, the last thing you e…

Nothing is more satisfying than using the knowledge you worked so hard to gain for something that gives you joy. And you may call us petty, but sometimes that joy comes from revenge on someone who truly deserves it. Working in anything related to computer science is as good as having a superpower, you can use your knowledge to do just about anything. The employee in this Reddit story proved that with just one code line, you can really mess with someone's life, and OP (original poster) gained a…

Hanlon's razor is one of my favorite adages for maintaining sanity in this crazy world, and if you've read a few of these posts, you've probably seen it mentioned almost as many times. The philosophical razor states that one should “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” This is all well and good and helps one to let go of the atrocious and selfish behaviors they witness from others while out and about in the world: they don't mean to be that way they're jus…