When your Karen coworker has it out for you, you have to watch your back.

While at work, we expect a certain level of professionalism from our coworkers, including our boss. Many managers tend to have a hidden agenda of sorts, and live in la-la land, blindly assuming they won't get figured out. What was this manager's real motivation for making her employees' lives more difficult? I'm not sure. But she insisted that specific training take place out of State. Now, this was back in 2020, when that wasn't really possible. Moreover, there were mandatory 2-week quarantine…

Who among us hasn't dreamt of dramatically quitting and walking out the door of a toxic workplace? It's one of those fantasies that seem to creep in any time your manager is berating you for something inane, like not putting one of the new cover sheets on your TPS report. That's what these workers had the choice to do when their manager tried to write them up for not closing properly. The thing is… they didn't close properly because they had never been trained to close properly—in fact, they we…

Interviews are a two-way street: the candidate is trying to figure out whether or not they want to work for the employer just as much as the employer is trying to figure out if they're interested in the candidate. Still, often there are multiple candidates but only one position; this can create a power imbalance and desperation on the part of the candidate that leads to only one direction of the street being walked. As such, candidates may miss major red flags from the interviewer or dismiss th…

We all have daydreams about screwing over our former coworkers, right?

Some coworkers are intolerable for a number of reasons. Like when Jeff from IT forgets to reload paper into the printer or when Krista from upstairs chats too long in the elevator and makes you miss your floor– that kind of stuff in simply annoying, but doesn't violate acceptable work ethics and morality. Some work behavior, on the other hand, is completely unacceptable and make the workplace unbelievably toxic , like being a racist, xenophobic, and sexist jerk who makes the workplace toxic and…

If there's one person you don't mess with… It's the person who is in charge of the books. This person has the capability to rock your world in ways that you really don't want it rocked. This was especially true in a time before the internet when there wasn't a thing called a “digital backup,” and often, backups weren't a thing at all. Even if the documents were important enough, were used, and did exist—they'd be at another physical location and would have to be mailed, which could take weeks .…

This IT guy was working for a large firm as a contractor for their IT department. His experience was one that people often have within a giant, bloated corporate behemoth: The managers were unreliable, the expectations were too high, and the company had an odd culture that tried to give you more work, as congratulations for a job well done, rather than pay you fairly. That sounds like something that the owner or CEO thought of one day when they were sitting on the toilet, and all the "Yes Men"…

This job seems to check all the boxes of a toxic work environment.

Some people's claim to fame end when they get promoted, and from then on they simply sit at their desk, playing Candy crush on their phone, overlooking a bunch of other employees, not doing any more actual work. Either they aren't very self-aware when they expect to get glowing references from former coworkers, or they're downright delusional. Either way, if you're not gonna work, don't expect the people you effed over to vouch for you when you begin looking for another job.

A nefarious plot by the CEO to lay off all workers at a big-box electronic store triggered a rebellion by the store's manager that would send the corporate entity reeling. Is this a plot line written by George RR Martin? Or a modern retelling of Robin Hood? You be the judge! When the employees of the store accidentally learned of this plot, it was a free-for-all. The manager was angered and made use of his discounting privileges to provide all employees with a once-in-a-lifetime shopping spree…

Micromanagers are suffocating bosses who don't trust you to get the job done and certainly don't trust you to get it done right . This one in particular, ‘Sally’, was working in a company that was known for its nepotism. The upper-tier management was made up of family members and close friends. The woman who posted the story about micromanagement that led to malicious compliance shared the tale on Reddit — where she gained a lot of sound advice actually. See, this micromanager ordered the emplo…

Toxic workplaces love “fake” promotional roles—used to saddle workers with more responsibility and workload with a little-to-no increase in pay. They serve as an effective method for What stands out here is the impossible situation of being stuck in a terrible employment arrangement and being unable to find an exit route. People forget how much energy it takes to look for other work. When positions are limited in your sector, you can find yourself working what is essentially another full-time j…

It's pretty simple at this point: if you can't live up to your own expectations, then you're less likely to fill the position.

If you're looking for a sign, this is it. Is your boss treating you as if you're easily disposable, adding additional work duties that are not technically a part of your job description? Maybe it's time you look for a place where you'll be appreciated — where you won't be taken for granted, a place that will properly compensate you for the amount of work you do. In an earlier post, you'll find I wrote about a tired employee, working on an understaffed team at a restaurant, who shared his ‘horri…

Working interviews are a thinly veiled scam intended to draw upon a new source of unwitting workers for free resources, ideas, and labor.