Applying to jobs can feel endless, incessant, and Sisyphean… and that's just on the good days. On the bad days, the experience can fill you with existential dread and panic. Sometimes, the only way to get through the process is to laugh at the ridiculousness of the whole endeavor. How many times have you comes across a job posting that requires a million years of experience for an entry-level position? Or how about those instances where you're being interviewed by someone who seems disorganized…

Every employee needs to draw their boundaries with coworkers. Sometimes, you get along with folks well enough that you're more than fine hanging out outside the office. However, other employees prefer a strict separation between work and life, and regardless of how other people think or feel about it, that decision needs to be respected. Here , we have an employee who had to draw their own boundaries within the work day itself. After a year of spending lunch with coworkers in the break room, he…

This sounds harsh, but it's one of those lessons where the sooner you learn it in life, the better off you'll be. Success takes effort—and sustained effort at that. At a certain point, a certain amount of sustained effort is going to be an essential factor and determinant of whether you have an income that can support your continued existence and survival. That's not to say that it's the only thing that matters, but for most of us, it's an important starting point. Thus, this lesson holds value…

Protecting yourself should always be your number one priority in the working world. This story serves as yet another reminder of that fact, which applies to all industries, but in this case, we're talking about a diligent lawyer and his pompous client. This thread was posted to Reddit by Calledinthe90s , who recounted a story involving his client, Frank. Frank worked for a real estate corporation that was seeking money after one of its buildings collapsed. Frank was warned by the Original Poste…

Let this story serve as a friendly reminder to always remember what policies your boss can and cannot enforce. Here, we have a salaried employee at a call center whose hours are 10:00 am to 6:00 pm as they were expressly written in her contract, and yet her boss thought he could make his employees work late. This was not simply on one occasion; he was doing this regularly. In fact, he ended up trying to enforce a brand new policy that stated that employees would be reprimanded if they did not s…

Sometimes, employers do not do themselves any favors. If they want their employees to work hard and to continue to apply themselves with the hopes of a raise or a promotion, it's probably not a great idea to let them know that this is a fallacy and that pay increases at the company have absolutely nothing to do with quality, performance, and merit. On the other hand, perhaps this was the best piece of knowledge for this employee to gain in order to jumpstart the process of looking elsewhere for…

The roommate was given three separate warnings... can't really blame the woman at this point.

Stealing someone's lunch at work is one of the most obvious signs that some people really do never grow out of middle school behavior. Thankfully, this employee, who also happened to be a former chef, knew how to get even with the problematic coworker in his place of work. First of all, the former chef was, unfortunately, an easy target for the lunch thief, considering how elaborate and over-the-top their lunches tended to be. However, despite valid suspicions, the employee still had no officia…

Your potential partner's line of work is essential to your compatibility, regardless of whether or not people like to admit it. Sure, in theory, any two people should be able to make their relationship work if they get along. But let's be real here: if your partner works a job where you end up seeing far too little of them, love may not, in fact, conquer all. These Redditors shared the various forms of employment they feel are red flags for them, and as many folks in the comments section sugges…

Who you end up sitting next to on a plane while traveling solo is truly a game of luck. Sometimes, you'll board the plane and the seat next to you will remain empty for 90% of the boarding process until some random annoying dude who was running late makes it onto the plane at the last minute. Other times, you're seated next to a screaming child who is on his very first flight. Here, we have a passenger who had to deal with an entitled seatmate. This guy quickly took over both armrests and encro…

Sometimes, bosses just decide out of nowhere that they don't like an employee. It's not based on work ethic. It's not based on morale or personality. They simply have chosen to have an enemy in the workplace to make matters more interesting and cutthroat for them. If you're unlucky, you may end up becoming that employee for your boss. When this happens, as it did to this Redditor , you have to keep reminding yourself that it's not you. Furthermore, if this treatment starts to get in the way of…

"I told them I'd take that recording to the dean if they didn't make things right."

Organizing a kid's birthday party is no easy feat. You have to cater to the desires of your child while also enforcing limits and boundaries so as to not spoil them. You have to be respectful of your guests' experience while balancing that with the experience of the birthday kid. It's a lot to manage, and not everyone is up to the challenge. This Redditor's coworker was planning a birthday party for his daughter, only to discover from the school that there was a new policy requiring parents to…

The worst kinds of people are the ones who do not follow basic flight etiquette. This entitled 18-year-old and her Karen mother were certainly old enough to know better. They were on the same nine-hour international flight as this Redditor and would not stop kicking his seat and accidentally hitting him in the head with their jackets the entire time. By the time the flight ended, the original poster (OP) knew he had a small window to get some much-needed petty revenge. Of course, the teenager a…

Every adult has had a friend whose selfish behavior needs to be called out. Perhaps you don't have the guts to be the person to call an intervention, but you know the clock is ticking and someone is going to give this friend a piece of their mind at some point soon. Here, we have a Redditor who knew one of their friends named Sarah had an ongoing habit of conveniently “forgetting” her wallet when it was time to pay the bill at the end of a group dinner. She also had a habit of “forgetting” to p…

Some jobs seem like great opportunities in theory, but in practice, things can go awry pretty quickly. Here , we have a social media strategist who was hired by a boutique dentist's office and was tasked with making video content for his new boss. However, after requesting a W2 on day one, his new employer kept delaying drawing up any paperwork. It became crystal clear to the new hire that this was not going to work out, as he was putting in over 40 hours a week and still had not had the opport…