What do you do when you have a coworker with a body odor issue? Picture this: you're at your desk at work and you're trying to focus on your daily tasks. Just as your brain locks into focus, you start to smell something funny. At first, you think it's coming from you. You smell your armpits to make sure you put on deodorant this morning. You quickly realize that it isn't you at all. In fact, it's the new coworker who's sitting right behind you. Your brain starts spiraling as you try to figure o…

Sometimes doing what's convenient for a coworker is not necessarily what's fair to you. It's time to stop adjusting your needs to the needs of folks around you, especially when you gain nothing from adjusting said needs. This employee was recently encouraged by her boss in a team meeting to show up five to ten minutes early to shifts so that the handoffs from one coworker to the next would be smooth and easy. Luckily, this change didn't affect the employee's schedule very much, so it was an eas…

It doesn't matter how your employer feels about it. Getting sick is literally part of what it means to be human. It's part of life and it's completely out of our control. There is a reason why employees are given a number of mandated sick days, and it doesn't matter if your boss is the King of the World; you are entitled to taking those sick days whenever you need to take them. This boss shamed her employee for not giving enough advanced notice when they took their sick day. The employee shared…

Getting fired on your first day is no easy feat. Like many things in life, you have to work at it. You have to be so aggressively unsuited for your position or so unbelievably unprofessional that you're leaving your managers and everyone in HR with no other choice. Usually, people are very forgiving on the first day. Perhaps you did things differently at your old company and need some time to readjust to the standards of your organization. Perhaps you're not particularly well-versed in all the…

Micromanagers need to be careful about what they wish for. In theory, they tend to demand things from their employees that are conducive to productivity. However, most of the time, it's really about asserting authority for no good reason other than some good old-fashioned ego-stroking. This manager chewed out an employee for allegedly not getting approval before they clocked out, even though of course, the manager was incorrect and the employee had done everything they were supposed to do. But…

Let's talk about the bureaucracy of requesting PTO and how it really shouldn't be a bureaucracy at all. When you sign a contract that entitles you to a certain about of time off, that should be the only bit of documentation involved in planning your personal vacation time. Other than that, you should be able to just send an email announcing that these are the days you're taking off. There should be no “requesting" process. There should be no waiting period between your request and your approval…

Bosses who are annoying about promptness should be focusing their attention on far more pressing matters. Whatever happened to focusing on their own tasks and responsibilities? Whatever happened to ensuring that the employees on their team are supported and fulfilled (well, as fulfilled as they can be given the circumstances of work)? Whatever happened to minding their own dang business? In work-related matters such as this, we often go back to our mantra that if the work gets done and gets don…

Working overtime without extra pay? This Redditor doesn't think so.

We know that the HR team members are humans too, but that doesn't make us friends! You might be one of those working folks who has managed to successfully form friendship bonds with your coworkers. Perhaps you have a work spouse. Perhaps you occasionally grab a drink with your team outside of work hours. Perhaps you text each other memes and pop culture news every day. Obviously, this kind of friendship is necessary. You're spending more time with your coworkers than with most people in your li…

What would you do if none of your coworkers defended you from name-calling?

Some toxic work environments have got to amend their sick day policies. Here, we have an employee who was told that he had to come into work to be assessed about whether or not they were truly sick enough. The Redditor explained that as a night shift supervisor, there were instances in which this kind of assessment was important. However, when it came to illness, it's better for everyone involved if employers just took the employee's word for it. Not only is it best for everyone involved health…

It's one thing for your boss to boss you around, as it is literally their job to do that. It's quite another when the person bossing you around is your boss's girlfriend. This bookstore employee came up with a system to manage customer orders that involved a little extra double-checking when each order was processed but ultimately meant fewer phone calls confirming orders to customers, as repeat phone calls were clearly bothering the customer base. Sounds like a pretty good system and the emplo…

Having a conversation with your CEO is not necessarily easy, especially if he's asking you to defend your presence at the company during an elevator ride.

Imagine learning that your boss has been taking credit for all of your work and that the CEO of your company has absolutely no idea what you do on a day-to-day basis. We all know that when situations like these arise, the truth is often the exact opposite of what the CEO has seemingly gathered. The truth is probably that the employee's day-to-day is filled with fulfilling not only their personal job responsibilities but also with picking up the slack as a result of the subpar work of everyone e…

It should be required to permit sitting down when needed for any and all jobs.

There are some ridiculous demands that employees simply should not have to put up with at work. For instance, if you are guaranteed a certain amount of vacation days, there shouldn't be any sort of “quid pro quo” agreement involved. If those days are guaranteed per the employee's contract, there should be no negotiation whatsoever. This Redditor shared a story about how his new boss, who just so happens to be the CEO's