Desmond Tutu once said: “You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.” what you can do though, at least to some extent, is choose your workplace. This (together with a lesson about ignoring red flags ) is what this story is all about. The original poster (OP) of this story posted on Reddit a while ago, He was asking Redditors why it is a red flag when a hiring team member tells a job applicant that the “company is like family.” he ended up taking the job that ma…

"The true redemption, however, isn’t just walking away from the toxicity... it’s stepping into freedom."

Hiring managers don't always say exactly what they mean, but if you can read between the lines, you might save yourself the headache of working somewhere awful. After that, read about an ultra-petty apartment tenant who's getting back at their irritating landlady, sharing that “ I'm making my landlady wait 29 minutes .”

Bosses are universally known as generous, appreciative, and loved by all figures of authority. They are, without a doubt, the most benevolent and caring characters in the corporal food chain. They would never be unprofessional, over-demanding, or hold unrealistic expectations that would affect workload. And most importantly, our cherished bosses will never ever cross the line between their workers' professional and personal life, the latter, held close to their hearts, is of utmost importance t…

Some bosses call emergency meetings because of a work crisis, some schedule one-on-ones to discuss important matters, and others just want to start some drama. In theory, folks on the internet would align their sensibilities with this toxic employer, but in practice, no one wants their boss sewing seeds of doubt in your brain. That's exactly what this boss did to a manager who had been working for just three weeks and was buried in tasks and responsibilities. On top of this very difficult trans…

Some companies don't know what they got 'til it's gone.

Employees should never be pressured to stay late, especially when they are not getting paid overtime to do so. Here, we have an overworked employee who became known around the office for refusing to give in to his toxic boss's requests. Even when he was pressured to stay late for unpaid work because of a last-minute assignment, the Redditor still packed his belongings and left at the end of the day. When his boss and coworkers caught wind of this pattern, they bequeathed the Redditor with the n…

"Normally, I’d do it my usual way—efficiently and with a bit of common sense."

We expect our employers to act in good faith. That being said, instilling all of your trust in your boss without making sure to protect yourself is a recipe for disaster, as this employee unfortunately has recently learned the hard way. He had been consistently depositing money into his retirement account for the last few years. However, when he checked his account most recently, he soon discovered that his boss had been “withdrawing money from his paystubs” yet had not contributed that money t…

Well, that's one way to send a message!

This manager is going to have a hard time the day she comes back from her extended vacation. Well, that's what you get for making enemies out of nearly everyone who is working for you. Not long after joining the restaurant, this new hire implemented unfair scheduling policies that mostly benefitted her above all else. It was only a matter of time before the Redditor and her boyfriend, who also worked at the restaurant, discovered a big mistake that could get this new manager fired. Well, one da…

Sometimes, the best way to communicate to your new manager that they're doing a bad job is to do exactly what they have instructed. Perhaps you have tried to do the decent thing and explain exactly why a new policy isn't practical or efficient for the people who actually execute said tasks and responsibilities, but we all know that most managers are intellectually incapable of processing that kind of criticism in a productive way. Instead, they would rather interpret this criticism as indicativ…

There are a number of reasons why HR might reprimand you for something… but this seems a bit far-fetched. Here, we have an employee who, like any other twenty-something employee in the 2020s, has a personal social media account where they post photos with friends and the occasional relatable memes. This past weekend, the employee shared a relatively benign photo of their friend group grabbing drinks on a Saturday night. There was nothing inappropriate documented that could come back to bite the…

It must have been challenging for this boss to read about how her own lack of professionalism. However, as Justin Timberlake himself once sang and then experienced, “what goes around… comes around.” Here, we have a former employee who quit after experiencing a severe case of burnout. Their horrible boss established a workplace environment that discouraged calling in sick

Imagine getting in trouble during your first week at a new job because you didn't stand up when your boss entered the room. Who does this employer think he is, a king? You would think in this day and age, given all the cultural conversations we have been having regarding employees' rights and backward workplace behavior, that this would not be allowed. And yet, the other employees in this office, from the bottom of the “food chain” to the top, seem to feel that this is the appropriate standard.…

Always be careful with the words you say at work, folks! This micromanager was so annoyed by his employee wearing headphones in the office simply because he had to call his nice twice on one occasion. Talk about a power trip! In this day and age, nearly everyone wears headphones in offices to focus. Plus, the employee's line of work never involves serious or dangerous circumstances that would require him not to wear headphones. So when the boss told the employee he never wanted to see him weari…