Some people want to have their cake and eat it too. But it's really not so much about the cake itself as it is the control over that cake; they want the cake to submit to their authority and stop questioning it all the darn time. The thing is, this cake-haver probably isn't qualified to tell the cake what to do, which is why they're so darn insecure in the first place… I don't really know where this is going or what this metaphor is supposed to mean, but people aren't cake—and you shouldn't try…

LOL

Having too much work to do and unrealistic expectations from your superiors about that work is a surefire way to make you hate your job… and your entire existence. This will usually happen in some sort of toxic workplace environment where middle managers have been selected and promoted on their willingness to enforce any policy they're told to rather than on any actual skills in operations, administration, or management. These middle managers are more than willing to pass any pressure placed on…

Go team

New jobs can be as exciting as they are challenging, but when you enter as a new manager, and you have a hotshot complex, this can be disastrous for a company and its employees. This boss in particular, who we'll call Steve, made especially unreasonable demands on his employees, essentially alienating them. Steve demanded that his employees come to an unnecessary in-person meeting out of state, on extremely short notice. Because it was so unreasonable, the employees knew what they had to do. Th…

Memes galore to help with the bore

Remember that episode on Friends, when Rachel lied to Joey about her boss wanting to ‘buy her baby’? This story has a similar plotline, except it's real. This particular boss began as OP's 'friend’ when OP was pregnant, alone, and stuck in a rut. The woman was offering OP an apartment (in a property she managed) and a job when she had neither. It was a no-brainer, and OP became her tenant and employee. Unfortunately, the woman was taking advantage of OP, and expected her to ‘give her her baby’.…

New management always finds a way to demotivate workers, usually via micromanagement, but in this case, the opposite is true. There are countries where labor laws are a dime a dozen, and in this specific one, employees have a certain amount of hours required to work each month; every hour short of that is deducted from monthly payment, and every hour beyond is paid as overtime. This employee used that to his advantage when his new boss decided to mess with him, attempting to deduce his salary b…

Stories like this are a dime a dozen, the reason for that being that many new managers make the common mistake of trying to change rules that work, for rules that don't. One man was working for a subsidiary of a fortune 500 as a manager of a dev team. Everything was working perfectly until a new security manager came along, and revoked the admin rights of OP's team. This led to a handful of problems, which were brought to the security manager, who waved them off. In fact, he replied to every em…

The employees maliciously complied to the point where the company lost hundreds of millions of dollars.

It seems like there are barely any workplaces with adequately staffed teams of employees at this point. Everyone is wondering, ‘Huh, why don’t we have more workers?' when the answer is simple: People don't get paid enough to deal with rowdy, delinquent customers. Bank accounts all over are sitting on the same number, or recede slowly into negative zeros. People want to be compensated properly, but that obviously ain't happening in this economy. It can be jarring to deal with such negativity on…

Micromanagers are suffocating bosses who don't trust you to get the job done and certainly don't trust you to get it done right . This one in particular, ‘Sally’, was working in a company that was known for its nepotism. The upper-tier management was made up of family members and close friends. The woman who posted the story about micromanagement that led to malicious compliance shared the tale on Reddit — where she gained a lot of sound advice actually. See, this micromanager ordered the emplo…

Not many people today can say that they love their job. Maybe a handful, at most. Toxic environments, terrible bosses, and irritating coworkers are at large, and it only takes one word to get your eyes rolling and your foot halfway out through the door — and that word is 'work'. Don't get me wrong, I like to work. It's better than sitting at home anyway. I just don't like the conditions or expectations that come with it. I salute those of you who work in customer service, for that is truly the…