The audacity of this assistant is insane and maybe a little iconic. Charlotte was a 50-year-old administrative assistant who reported to the CEO of a small company. The CFO was a 27-year-old, and Charlotte was clearly threatened by the age difference. When she was tasked with creating the organizational structure chart, she refused to acknowledge that the 27-year-old, who shared this Reddit thread, was senior to her. Apparently, the CEO refused to back the CFO when this hierarchical conundrum b…

It's always funny when managers decide to be strict about their overtime policies. If they want employees to abide by a “no overtime without managerial approval” rule,

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…

It's not easy saying no to your employer, but every so often, it's more than necessary to stand your ground. This is crucial for several reasons, but most of all, one needs to make sure one's employer understands the limitations of their so-called “control" and jurisdiction. It's one thing to draw mental boundaries between work and life, but it's even more challenging to make those essential boundaries known to your boss. This employee was leaving the company for seven weeks for paternity leave…

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

This bizarre coworker needs to get her act together. She seems to be relying way too much on this Redditor for her lunch plans, but it goes beyond the classic mooching. When the Redditor brings their own packed lunch, the coworker refuses to eat anything at all. But when the Redditor wants to go out to grab lunch, the coworker immediately latches on and tags along no matter what. She has completely rejected the concept of bringing her own food or going out on her own during lunch hour. Furtherm…

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…

It's impolite to steal people's stuff, and ultimately, they're not really responsible if what you're stealing isn't what you thought you were stealing. Besides, when you're taking things without asking, there isn't really a chance for the person you're stealing from to tell you what it is that you're stealing from them. Having food going missing from the workplace fridge is an all-too-common office frustration, driving some to go to considerable lengths in order to secure their food in the frid…

Let this story serve as yet another reminder to never give your employer the benefit of the doubt if they are not going to reciprocate. Here, we have an employee who worked for over three years as a traveling supervisor and had seen the once-gracious company bought out by a larger corporation, after which the treatment of employees gradually worsened over time. When the Redditor decided to finally put in his two weeks' notice, his boss forced him to pay for his own travel to get home. Now, many…

Slow and steady wins the race

One would hope that most managers who work with student workers would be sympathetic to how challenging it can be to balance education with employment. Let’s face the facts: if it weren’t necessary, most folks wouldn’t take on all that responsibility. And yet, there are still far too many employers in this day and age who become far too concerned with their own insular experience that they are then unable to step outside of themselves and understand how hard things may be for their student work…

Most employees have had to deal with someone ever so slightly senior at the company thinking they are in charge of them. For those of you who have seen “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” yes, we are talking about the Perpentuas of the world. Here, we have an office Karen who assumed her coworker was her assistant and who frequently took credit for her coworker’s projects. This ultimately did not bother the coworker as she was confident in her work and knew that the real folks in charge were well aware of…

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…

This is definitely not the tone you want to set before firing a bunch of people on your team! This boss had the audacity to send a team-wide message to boost everyone's morale by including the overused colloquial statement, “just remember that in da clurrb, we all fam.” Yes, it was written that exact way, and no, this message did not get the intended reaction from its audience. Instead, this toxic boss's employees responded with confusion, frustration, and eye-rolls about how outdated and despe…

Let this story serve as a friendly reminder to stand up for what you were hired for in the first place. If your boss tries to impose new rules and regulations, new responsibilities, and new expectations that were not expressly written in your initial contract, then you are well within your right to advocate for yourself. That means advocating for a raise or promotion if you feel compelled to do so. It can also mean enforcing what's currently written in your contract if you do not wish to accept…

Karmic interference