Being forced to bring proof to work for being sick should simply not be a thing. We are all adults, there is no reason why we should not be believed when we say we feel bad enough that we cannot go to work. Even if one is not truly and wholeheartedly sick, if they feel like they are not up to going to work on a certain day, absolutely nothing will happen if they just stay home for a day without providing a doctor's note. The fact that the manager in this Reddit story had the audacity to request…

If you’ve ever worked a job where your work site was off-site, then you know exactly how this goes. It’s not unusual for some superior, probably your boss’s boss or boss’s boss’s boss, to make important decisions about the manner of your work and instate policy that makes very little sense in the reality of your working conditions. Almost always, they're sitting behind a desk in a city a long way away and entirely disconnected from the reality—even the context—of your job. The problem is that t…

The last 50 years have brought an unprecedented amount of technology and reform to the way we do business. Those writing Science Fiction around that time might have predicted that we'd either be living in a utopia where we no longer needed to work to live or we'd be living in a dystopian world where few oligarchs, like the fictional Eldon Tyrell, hoarded wealth from the masses like dragons sitting on a pile of gold, while many struggled just to survive in a world of decaying infrastructure amid…

Apparently, some workplaces are so out of touch with their employees that they sometimes fail to notice when employees leave for a vacation and never return to work. How do these workplaces deal with this situation, you ask? They ‘freeze’ every employee's pay once they go on vacation, until said employee returns and declares to HR they are back to work. This means that if you came back to work after a vacation, and weren't aware that you had to call HR and tell them personally that you were bac…

The age-old workplace practice of requiring workers to go to the doctor after missing a day of work to get a sick note feels a little strange; it's infantilizing in the sense that the only other thing like it in our lives is when we had to bring a note from your mommy into grade school after missing class. If your boss wants to treat you like a child, you might as well act like one and act like you don't know a thing. The real problem comes in the form of the fact that it's impossible to get in…

Working in modern workplaces can be exceptionally exhausting. Constant distractions due to open-plan offices tear employees away from their work. At the same time, success is attached to social and political status with heavy reliance on the “optics” of busyness rather than employees' actual effectiveness in completing their tasks. The reality is that we all work differently, and forcing all staff to work what you perceive to be the “appearance” of hard work will result in a performative cultur…

You've probably heard that old adage about the new hire who goes in for their first day of training ready to do everything by the book but is instead surprised and maybe even disappointed when they're instead taught all of the shortcuts that the experienced grizzled employee has developed over the years, cutting out the parts of the process that are superfluous and unnecessary. The problem is that by learning and only using the shortcuts in the first instance, they're never going to understand…

Why is it that when employees quit, they usually have to stay at their job for at least another two weeks, but when they get fired, they leave the same day without any additional work? Those two weeks since you hand in your notice and until your actual last day are always extremely awkward. Everyone at the office knows you quit, and basically have no interest in working with them anymore, the actual work you do feels pointless, and your manager is probably trash-talking you behind your back. Is…

Being told that there's absolutely no way you can or should possibly be paid more for your work when you've taken on the responsibilities of not one but two vacant levels of management above your actual role is disappointing for certain. It's almost more disappointing, though, when you get another job offer for 32% more than your current pay, and when you tell your employer the news, they're more than willing to give you the money you originally asked for and more. As always, in situations such…

‘You’re not the boss of me' is normally a sentence you would hear a child tell their parents or friends. You would not expect to hear this sentence in a workplace when a boss tells it to one of their employees. Yet, there are managers out in the world who behave like literal children in their workplace, and nobody bats an eye. They love their power, hate relinquishing control, and sometimes just bully their employees for fun. Take the boss in this Reddit story for example. OP (original poster)…

Having a conversation with your boss asking for a raise is something employees should seriously prepare for, and not take lightly. One should come with receipts and proof of all the hard work they've been putting into the company, while also providing data that supports their claim for more pay. The more prepared you are for this conversation, the higher your chances of actually getting what you are after. Even so, many employees get denied when asking for a raise, and then they have to decide…

If workers aren't being paid for their time, the real charity is the business itself… Businesses love to “contribute” to charity almost as much as they love using pizza parties as a band-aid solution for morale. For one thing, it's a great look for the business after the marketing team gets its hands on the photos taken on the day and then makes a bunch of social media posts grossly exaggerating the company's involvement and contributions. Even more importantly, almost all expenses involved in…

There is just a certain degree of oversight that doesn't need to occur in any situation. Sure, you might like to keep a tight lid on operations and your staff, but you can guarantee there are certain things that you don't need—and probably don't want—to know. At any rate, there reaches a point in your career where enough is going on underneath your level of authority where requiring any one thing to pass across your desk will result in an amount of work that you can't possibly keep up with. You…

There's this trend that happens in every industry, across every workplace, where managers think they've come up with a clever and original new idea to increase profits. See, there are really only two ways to do this: Increase revenue or decrease expenses. However, increasing revenue is hard and takes effort and new ideas, so instead, they start looking at the bottom line. The first place they're going to look at at this point is staffing. Employees and labor are huge expenses, and management is…

Every person, in every aspect of life, has a breaking point. Whether it is with their job, family, partners, or friends. There is always a point that should not be crossed, and if it does, that is usually a sign that things have to change, fast. When you reach that breaking point at work, that usually means that you have to quit and look for a new workplace. There are people though, who look at that solution as a weakness, as if quitting your job because you are unhappy, is a sign that you are…

When employees end up leaving their jobs, more often than not, they don't leave because of the job itself, they leave because of the people there, or more specifically, because of their boss. It can be really disappointing to actually enjoy your job but feel like you have to leave because you cannot work with the people around you. The employee in this Reddit story felt like they had no choice but to leave precisely because of these reasons. After OP (original poster) got skipped over a big pro…