Some people's pursuit of unchecked control and profit causes them to make shortsighted blunders. At least their own greed and stupidity are holding them back because these people's constant manipulation of legal loopholes and leeching off societal virtue means that they otherwise are getting a leg up on the rest of us. Enter stage right: Landlords—a group infamous for their corner-cutting, profit-seeking, and below-the-belt tactics. It should be no surprise that a landlord made such a decidedly…

Sometimes managers and business owners manage to convince themselves completely that everyone is out to get them. They're certain that their “lazy” workers are looking for every possible option to screw them over by slacking off on the job. Sure, there might be some workers like that out there. But from what I've seen in the workforce, they're completely outnumbered by those who are going above and beyond. Why jeopardize those workers' morale just so you can control the one bad egg? Why cut off…

It's not often that we see a scenario where someone successfully manages to maliciously comply with a malicious compliance… Enter stage right, this clever customer service representative. Reddit user u/pinkfloss9 shared this story about an experience they had at work on Reddit's r/ MaliciousCompliance subreddit. In the post, they tell the tale of an angry Karen who came into the office where he worked at the front desk. She came in guns blazing, and when it came time for her to pay, she whipped…

There is a quote that is often attributed to the likes of Bill Gates and Walter Chrysler that goes something along the lines of “Always choose a lazy man to do a hard job because a lazy man will find an easy way to do it.” Whether or not either of them actually uttered this string of words (or was the first to do so) is up for debate. But the sentiment rings true in many instances that require innovation: Why hire the guy who is content to do things by the letter when you can hire the guy who w…

The thing about taking over a business your family owns… is that you might not know anything about that business or have any of the skills and experience necessary to manage it. Couple this with an uncompromising ego and a general sense of entitlement, and you've got yourself a nightmare boss in the making. We've seen this exact scenario play out time and time again: "A new owner takes over a business that they are hilariously unqualified to run and proceeds to gut the company of its most essen…

It's no secret that the human resource department isn't as benevolent or employee-focused as we might have once been led to believe. At the end of the day, that seems pretty obvious, and we find it hard to believe that the wool could ever be pulled over our eyes. After all, it's in the name . It's an entire department of the company that exists solely to manage and mitigate one of its most costly resources… humans—aka you . Still, HR managers manage to either be the sweetest, most hospitable pe…

This guy wanted a well-done steak but ended up getting roasted himself. There's nothing that can make a man feel small like his own mother. Even the toughest of gangsters know not to cross their mamma. When mom lays down the line and says, "Enough is enough," then you had better quit. This Dad was determined to act out the Applebee's scene in Talladega Nights before his mother stepped in. The story was posted by their server, u/Papakeely, to Reddit's r/talesfromyourserver subreddit. The family…

It's no secret that some employers think they own your soul just because they pay you for your work. Somewhere between now and the 15th century, they got lost in time and mistakenly thought they were feudal lords. Unfortunately, there are more comparisons between peasant working conditions in medieval Europe and today than we would care to admit. This viral thread was shared to Reddit's r/antiwork community by the worker, u/InfiniteMaf. With a bewildering level of forwardness, the company's HR…

This underpaid IT professional waited years for fair treatment from his bosses. The work doubled and then tripled, but the pay never reflected his efforts. He wouldn't prove how essential he was to the company until he left… and cost them $40 Million. Redditor u/slw_motion_trainwrck shared this story on the r/antiwork subreddit. u/slw_motion_trainwrck's story centers on their experience working for a factory in the Southern United States. The factory was based in "a very small farming town of a…

Doing your own job is tiring enough without having to do your coworker's job too. Unfortunately, the reality is you'll often find yourselves having to make up for your coworker's chain-dragging—hey, at least those group projects in school prepared us for something … right? Another unfortunate reality comes in the realization that most managers will be slow to do anything about this. Even if they say they're looking into it, you can bet on a sloth to show more urgency and keep a greater pace. No…

Idiots can become a huge problem in the workplace when the “Peter Principle” takes effect and elevates them into positions they should never have held in the first place. From their positions of authority, they wreak havoc with their wider-reaching idiocy, making ill-advised decisions and unleashing their stupid wrath on competent workers. Luckily, that same double-edged sword of dimwitted confidence that got them in the position in the first place can also be their downfall; all it takes is th…

This post is crazy. Like positively insane… Whether or not you believe the legitimacy of it, it makes for some brilliant reading that scratches a “true-crime” itch. There's just something astounding about reading stories with this level of gaslighting, manipulation, and scheming—especially since most of us probably can't even fathom actually behaving in this way. Perhaps some of the satisfaction comes from trying to suspend yourself from your normal train of thought and imagine just what that p…

When your business is essentially employing people who could be easily contracting for themselves (without the need for your siphoning off their earnings), it's probably best to treat them with a bit of respect. This goes doubly if they're your best performer and highest earner. Sure, by employing them, you're providing them the security they might not otherwise have, but as soon as that security is compromised, they will start questioning their situation. Sometimes reducing wages may be a nece…

Customers are easily the worst part of any customer service job, followed closely by arrogant unqualified managers. The two make a dynamic duo when you're unfortunate enough to endure them simultaneously. The Karen, an unstoppable force of rage and fury, and the manager, an unmovable brick wall of utter density. Like Batman and the Joker, they are eternally locked in an endless struggle—and you're stuck in the middle. (It's no wonder that, in these industries, you spend most of your time off ju…

Who among us hasn't dreamt of dramatically quitting and walking out the door of a toxic workplace? It's one of those fantasies that seem to creep in any time your manager is berating you for something inane, like not putting one of the new cover sheets on your TPS report. That's what these workers had the choice to do when their manager tried to write them up for not closing properly. The thing is… they didn't close properly because they had never been trained to close properly—in fact, they we…

Each and every one of us has a memory (or memories) from our childhood that we hold dear, a nostalgic high-water mark of the happiest moments of our lives. We could drive ourselves mad trying to attain this same sense of blissful wonderment—and indeed, some have. This girlfriend seems to be one of those people, choosing to forgo all rational thought and social decency to chase and ride the high of her youth. Who doesn't love dipping their finger in a baking work-in-progress? Reckless abandon pr…