Every so often, your coworker asks you to do a favor for them. It might be to proofread an email, grab something from the kitchen, or brainstorm for 15 minutes. However, giving them a free manicure is not exactly the kind of favor one expects to be confronted with at work. This employee's coworker admired their nails and asked them what they were using. You would think the conversation ended there, and the coworker would just take it upon herself to purchase the same product as the employee. Ho…

Now that it's the Holiday season, we are unfortunately subjected to that time of year when we have to get gifts for more people than we'd like. The idea of having to participate in an annual Office Secret Santa on top of all that other shopping is truly too far. Thankfully, I have never been asked to participate in one, and honestly, thank goodness. I'm not quite sure what I've done in my life to deserve that luxury, but I'll take it. Knowing myself, if I were pressured to be a part of an Offic…

The reality of being an adult in the working world is that not everyone is going to like you. This can be especially hard to hear for the people pleaser of the world. As someone who once upon a time would identify as a people pleaser myself, I understand the mental and emotional adjustment that comes with learning that some people are just not going to be your friend. Perhaps this phenomenon has weighed on you since your school days, or perhaps you're only just realizing it now because you lear…

There's one in every office. Each business place has that one person who everyone else gives a side-eye to. They probably have some kind of personality quirk that irritates everyone. But it's the kind of thing that you can't go to HR for, because what is HR going to do about issues like “Tina is always breathing too loudly” or “Jack has been heating up three meals a day in the microwave and he lets the microwave count down to the beep each time”? These are minor issues, and we all have to live…

There's nothing worse than being blamed for something you didn't do, especially when you know who did do it but can't prove anything to defend yourself. This sinking feeling is one we have all probably felt at one point or another, like on the playground after some spoilt classmate framed us for their own misdeeds... No, Jared, I didn't throw that ball at the recess teacher, but you know very well who did.

Navigating a troublesome coworker in the workplace is a daunting experience. With them creating trouble at every turn and drowning you and your teammates in false reports to managers and HR, it's sometimes hard to know where to turn, constantly treading on broken glass-covered thin ice as you all wait for the coworker to either resign or get fired so that you can all return to a peaceable existence. It's wild how the presence of this one person can turn a team on its head , which kinda makes yo…

You find out a lot about someone when they attain a petty position of power, do they take up the mantle reluctantly? Or do they wield their tiny shred of power with impunity? Sometimes you might be surprised to discover how someone reacts , but more often than not the latter category is easy to spot from a mile away.

There are definitely unwritten rules about using the communal microwave in an office. If you're heating up your lunch during an in-demand time and it's a frozen meal that takes more than five minutes to cook, you might want to step back and let other people use it first. Furthermore, if you're eating something particularly aromatic, consider eating in the break room and not right at your desk. This also applies when you're eating a messy meal. I cannot tell you the number of times I have seen c…

I suppose it's only fair for everyone's spouse to be on the same page. That certainly was this Redditor's mentality when she Googled the contact information of the husband's coworker. The coworker had been flirting pretty aggressively with OP's husband, both during and outside of work hours. Thankfully, the husband was communicative with his wife and told her everything, which we know is not normally what happens in these situations.

In every office, there is one person who finds an excuse to be absent and to shirk their responsibilities as much as possible. As much as we often praise the folks who find ways to work smart and not hard, in this instance, someone else at the office is often left picking up all that slack. If you're the first kind of person, the key is to find a way to do the bare minimum without affecting anyone else's workload. If you're the other kind of person and you're the people please who has to take o…

Getting on with the daily grind can often be a wearisome chore, especially when you find yourself needing to do your coworker's tasks for them in addition to your own. It's not like you had enough to do as it was. Now you're busy going around picking up after them as well, and to make matters worse, you know, mentioning it to your boss won't do a thing to solve the problem and might even end up with you being labeled as not being a “team player.”

Who doesn't have nightmares about work emails? Whether it's you sending an email to the wrong person or receiving a dreaded email from your manager, we all have anxiety concerning the ubiquitous phenomenon that is emailing. Sometimes, I even get anxious about sending someone without an attachment or with an egregious typo, especially in my early working days as an intern. In fact, I can't imagine the stress this intern was under when she opened her work email one day only to discover that her a…

Thinking that you can trust someone, that they're your friend, and confiding in them only for them to turn around and stab you in the back—throwing your confidence back in your face—has got to be one of the hardest lessons to experience. You never know when a new friend or friendly coworker is actually going to turn out to be another rat racing up the ladder to the top, gnawing every rung they climb as they go to ensure that others are unable to follow. This administrator was blindsided when he…

Every member of a team brings with them their own unique traits, abilities, and experiences. No two people will be exactly the same or have the same perspective. Even on a single issue, it's surprising just how different different people's perceptions of that thing can be. In this same vein, it's important to accommodate other members of the team ; maybe they don't have the skills or even physical capabilities that you do, so it might make sense for you to pick up more of those tasks that you'r…

Meddling pedantic coworkers who consider them to be a step above the rabble, despite being in exactly the same position as this “rabble," are a one-way ticket to a hellish workplace. The problem is that managers usually leave these busybody coworkers alone and may even regard them as proficient workers because they're making the manager's life easier by doing their dirty work for them. To be fair, the managers are also probably afraid of these people, seeing as they usually memorize the technic…

There is something to be said for creating a healthy distance with your coworkers. Most folks understand this choice. The ways in which people choose to draw boundaries between their work and their social lives are personal choices. However, as much as you would think everyone would understand those choices, some folks simply don't get it. Like the coworkers who keep inviting you to events that you continually turn down…