Imagine feeling the sweet relief of quitting your horrible job only to receive a message online soon thereafter asking if you'd like to be considered… for the position you just left. This complete lack of due diligence can be disheartening, to say the least. We expect recruiters to do the bare minimum and browse the resumes and experiences of job candidates that have been so clearly spelled out for them on their LinkedIn profiles. If those basic expectations were met, then this recruiter would…

Who hasn't received an eyebrow-raising message from a current or former employer? You know the kind of message we're talking about. It's the kind that makes you question if this person is fit to be your employer at all. Sometimes, it's an audacious demand that they are in no position to make. For example, I once had a boss ask me to fill in for a security guard position when I was an intern despite the fact that I was woefully unqualified to do so. Other times, it's an invasive question your bo…

Working in the human resources department means you have likely seen some things no professional wishes to see. Perhaps you love managing teams of employees and making sure they are taken care of day in and day out. However, we know all too well at this point that working in HR means you are protecting the company at all costs. The employees? Sure, you may care about their well-being a little bit but only to a certain extent. At the end of the day, your job is not really about protecting them b…

No one likes a lunch thief, especially if it's the boss's nepo baby son. This employee worked in a small office of about ten people, so when it became clear that there was a lunch thief among the team, it was pretty easy to figure out who the culprit was. However, to ensure that there was proof, the Redditor had a plan. He brought blue food dye to work and left a few drops in a coworker's half-eaten yogurt. This coworker had complained that the mysterious lunch thief had eaten almost all of her…

Whatever happened to keeping your eyes on your own paper, Karen? This entitled coworker thought it would be a good idea to confront another employee on her team and give them a hard time about the frequency of their breaks and the lack of extra responsibilities they take on at work. It turns out that the Redditor was going to the bathroom frequently because of a medical condition that HR was already fully aware of. As for the extra responsibilities, this was an intended line that the Original P…

There are some pretty embarrassing ways to get fired from one's job. Typically, everyone worries about the reaction from the person getting booted. Will they make a scene? Will they get hostile? Will they call their boss out on their complete lack of adequate management skills? However. more often than not, we come across stories where the people doing the firing should really be the ones who are embarrassed. Here, we have an employee who logged onto a Zoom call with HR. Just when they mentione…

Getting fired is one thing, but not receiving your final paycheck is a whole other ballgame. Here, we have a former employee who was unjustly dismissed by his former boss after calling out the rampant and consistent wage theft practices at the company. Now, he is considering filing a class-action lawsuit along with several mistreated former employees because his boss tried to get away with never sending this guy's final paycheck. It's easy sometimes to accept this kind of treatment due to the v…

Imagine going through the entire job application, interview, and salary negotiation process only to discover that your actual job has far more responsibilities and expectations than you were anticipating. This new hire spent thousands of dollars relocating to a new city in order to be a communications assistant. He had negotiated his salary to reflect the typical range for a position of that nature. However, after beginning the job, he learned that he was the head of the entire communications d…

Imagine signing onto a part-time job only to learn that the people running the store are incompetent high school graduates. It's not that these 18-year-olds are not capable of running a business one day, but as of now, the total lack of professionalism is on full display. It's already pretty awkward to work for someone far younger than you, but that's something the Redditor could get past. Otherwise, they would not have signed onto the position in the first place. What made this job particularl…

Imagine helping build something from the ground up, only to have your contribution entirely dismissed and undervalued. This CEO is giving an Elizabeth Holmes level of ruthlessness after cheating her former CTO out of his promised shares in the company just before its official launch. This, of course, was after two years of contracted work on the CTO’s part in helping develop the app and raise funding for the startup. Once the CEO found an investor who signed onto the company as her COO, this Re…

Every naive employee has to learn how to create boundaries with one's coworkers. A professional work team is not a sorority no matter how much someone may try to create that dynamic. If you find yourself trying to be one of the cool kids at work, take a minute to step back and remember that this is not high school and you likely do not need your work relationships to overlap too much with your friendships outside of work. Of course, there are exceptions and there are plenty of work environments…

"I had exceeded legal driving time [so] they had to make sure I went home early for a few days." WIN!

Imagine having to endure a week with your most difficult and annoying coworkers only to be reprimanded when you finally take the opportunity to enjoy a night off. This employee was dragged to a week-long work conference where he was attending meetings and events on the clock for full days of work. Those hours of work were followed by endless meals and cocktails with his team. On the final night of the trip, the employee was excited to see that there was no after-work meal scheduled. He planned…

“Apparently, she tried to use me leaving early a lot as a reason that I should be fired, BUT SHE WAS THE ONE WHO WAS TELLING ME TO LEAVE EVERY DAY.”

Let this story serve as a friendly reminder that any boss who forbids their employees from discussing pay with one another is quite simply not entitled to enforce that policy. This hostess at a restaurant chain knew that instinctually after her manager reprimanded her for doing so. The hostess learned that she was getting paid less than her two coworkers for doing the same job. She brought this up to her general manager, who ultimately acquiesced and gave her a deserved pay raise. However, that…

"I explained to them that I was only staying on until the next crew relieved me and I had sufficient time to brief the incoming crew per the corporate policy [that] the hotel must be manned 24/7."