Many a misguided middle manager has had the idea of hosting meetings at a time that is convenient for everyone: say during lunch hour when everyone is on break, so won't have any meetings scheduled… except that break is unpaid and, well, when are people supposed to eat their actual lunch when there's suddenly a meeting jammed in there. No matter how fun they try to make it sound, “zazzing” it up and naming it something they think is cool, like “Power Hour Lunch Sync,” the reality remains the sa…

How long is too long for a shift at a job you just cannot wait to be rid of? Obviously, the answer can be even one minute, but if we're talking realistically, how many consecutive hours can you actually take doing a job you cannot stand? Most people would probably say they manage 6-8 hours of a shift in a terrible job, some have really high work ethics and can maybe endure 10, but there is absolutely no chance any employee out there would agree to 13 hours doing a job they hate, with terrible p…

Picture this–You arrive at work on a random weekday, fully believing you are going to have a great day. Your boss is so pleased with your department's work that they have been promising for months to expand your team, going as far as showing you building plans for your new office. But then, management and HR gather your entire team, all 18 employees, and tell all of you that you are being laid off, essentially disassembling the entire team. They then leave with a big smile on their faces, and y…

Almost certainly, at some point, those working shift work, or in other jobs where timesheets need to be kept, have been told by some manager not to “bother” reporting time that they worked over their shift because it's “inconvenient” for them to report it. Sometimes, this comes in the form of being told that it needs to be at least 15 minutes to be reported and counted for anything, but that's not really true—at all. If anything, if their system can't handle menial minutes overtime, then they s…

By the time you're training new hires in your department and taking on additional responsibilities and work, it's about time to start wondering when that promotion is coming. Let's face it: you're basically contributing at a level as if you'd been promoted already, so all that's left is to make the adjustment to your title and compensation. But, of course, no one likes paying for something they're already getting for free—and employers, first and foremost. So they'll drag out that promotion as…

The proverb “A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush” postulates that you're better off with what you have or are able to get now rather than what you might be able to get in the future. Reson being that While working for an emergency telecommunications company, this worker fell into the all-too-common trap of taking on additional work with the promise that it would eventually lead to more pay. Spoiler alert: It didn't. With the proverbial carrot dangling just in front of them indefin…

Those of us who had the misfortune of working a minimum wage job in retail or at a restaurant know how much those places of work try to take advantage of their employees. Usually, it comes in the form of attempting to get employees to work more for less money, which 90% of the time is not even legal. That is why anyone who even considers working in a place like that should be really careful and look after themselves. Luckily, the employee in this Reddit story managed to recognize the red flags…

We thought the titular contests of the “Hunger Games” series were just some SciFi hoopla, yet here is this eerily similar real-world equivalent: competing for the privilege of working so that you can continue to support your own survival. In fact, “Hunger Games” is a fitting name given the fact that the arena for this real-world analog was in a restaurant. Everyone who has ever worked in the service industry or retail knows that customer reviews are a total grab bag, you can do nothing exceptio…

Question for you, kids–When someone does not like their job, what should they do? Is it A) Keep at it and suffer quietly. B) Disappear and never return. Or perhaps C) Quit with as much respect as you have been given. It might be hard to find the right answer, as we all considered doing any of those three options at some point in our lives. However, the best approach is probably option C, because that is the only way you can be done with a toxic workplace and never look back with regrets. It mig…

A double-edged sword cuts both ways, and you could probably get a paper cut from a double-sided print job, too. Cutting costs might seem like a good idea, but really, you're probably just going to slice right through other important things like customer satisfaction and, by extension, your company's profit. After all, as the old saying goes…You gotta spend money to make money. Overly inflexible policies are almost certainly a double-edged sword. When you demand rigid adherence to rules, leaving…

When maintaining million-dollar machines is the singular focus of your work, you'd hope that your manager would leave well enough alone and trust you to know how to do your thing. Alas, when it comes to new management, leaving well enough alone is something that is never in the playbook, a “one-size-fits-all” approach taking precedence over logical reason. This machine operator worked at an aerospace manufacturing company, executing an efficient routine by starting work early to ensure that mac…

Many times in life you should be careful what you wish for. Especially in business, foolish ultimatums that you think your subordinates won't be able to rise to may only inspire them to call your bluff and look elsewhere for employment. Being underappreciated in your work really is frustrating, especially since it usually goes hand in hand with being underpaid. Employers often will downplay your contributions, whether consciously or subconsciously, instead attributing the company's success to t…

Being consistently overloaded with work in an organization where the expectations are completely out of touch with reality is a soul-sucking experience… always falling short, no matter how much time and effort you put in. Let's face it: if your team is “understaffed” for a long enough period of time, it's pretty safe to say that your employer has no intentions of hiring anyone else, and they consider it to be an ideal staffing level. It's only when productivity and customer satisfaction start s…

We all have people in our lives who make us wonder how they managed to get this far without having a single drop of technological knowledge or orientation. It is truly amazing (and slightly infuriating) that certain people can completely avoid adapting to necessary technological advancements, and still get so far in life. More often than not, those people end up becoming our bosses, which then leads us to be assigned the fantastic task of helping them navigate through the easiest tech stuff. Af…

Don't you sometimes wish you could say whatever you want to your boss, without thinking of the repercussions? Perhaps we could come up with a workplace ‘purge day’, in which everyone could do and say whatever they wanted at work, and then all will be forgotten the next day. Some employees don't need a day like that, as they are not afraid to put people in their place, even their bosses. Take the employee in this Reddit story for example. If I were told by my boss that I have to accept a $1 rais…

Nobody likes to admit defeat, it is an extremely difficult challenge, to acknowledge that you tried your best, but there is nothing more you can do. In a workplace environment, this challenge might be twice as hard, because not only do you lose your pride, but you might lose your job in the process. It's much like what happened to the employee in this Reddit story. OP (original poster) tried their best to stand up to their toxic management until they realized there was nothing more they could d…