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When we pay for something, the transaction is clear: I give you money, you give me what I paid for. With gifts, something more elusive happens: For some people, receiving something as a gift creates a sense of entitlement that masks an underlying dependence on what was given to them. Some people defend themselves from that feeling of dependency by treating what was given to them as something they were owed.

University library employee reports increasing student entitlement towards loaned laptops since 2020: 'I've had more than one patron demand I get them a different laptop because the one I grabbed from the cabinet didn't look nice enough'

Back when I was in high school, I was terrified of something like this happening to me, the classical story: the boys make a bet to see who can ask the ugliest girl out, and it turns out I’m the oblivious girl thinking she has a chance with the high school heartthrob. Well, this story doesn’t involve that kind of heartbreak, but it does involve someone giving a long, controlled performance to get the information they wanted.

Employee pretends to be friendly with coworker for months only to extract important information about the workplace: 'The friendship part might have been real at first, but somewhere along the way it started feeling more like a project to him'

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'It all started when...': Pour a dash of these laughs into your morning coffee for extra energy (June 27, 2026)

Elna McHilderson

Anyone who has worked at customer service knows this: there is always a customer who arrives at the very last minute, and then makes you wait for him to finish, and you end up closing the store 45 minutes late because you aren’t allowed to say you need him to go asap so you can close. I genuinely don’t know where these people come from, nor why they don’t seem to have any empathy or understanding of the phrase ‘we’re closing’.

Entitled customer demands employee to open the store even though he was warned it closed in five minutes: 'Like do some customers need to be hand held now or what?'

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IT Helpdesk manager emails demanding staff arrive 15 minutes early to login and be ready to take calls "1 second before" their shift, staff comply and hang up on customers the second their shift ends: 'Sorry to interrupt you, my shift is over. Goodbye'

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'It's Friday, do you know where your employees are?': A beautiful half-day of "Summer Friday" memes to wrap up the work week

Elna McHilderson

When anonymity turns to exposure I just found out there is a rarely used literal antonym for anonymity, it’s nonymity, which means ‘with a name’, of course. So what this company conducted was probably a ‘nonymous’ survey, only they forgot to disclose it. I’ve had the temptation to be really honest in one or two of those surveys, but I always held back because there weren’t many people being surveyed, and it would be really easy to discover who wrote what. Of course, it would all be perfect if w…

Employee finds out his anonymous feedback was never anonymous and is being called to have a personal meeting with the manager: 'It turned upside down when my manager called me out in front of the entire team and mocked about the review i gave'

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Boss praises employee as a top performer but keeps him out of key meetings because he supposedly lacks industry knowledge: ‘Just read more’

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I was about to make malicious compliance my new religion until I came across this example of it going the exact opposite way it was expected. Maybe it’s time to give up on our mischievous endeavours and turn back to old, regular, direct communication. When something like this backfires, we get two problems where there used to be one.

Manteinance employee maliciously complies with his manager's new rule and in an unexpected turn of events, his manager loves it: 'As you can tell from the title, this did not go how I was expecting'

Some things we can only figure out in retrospect. People often act in ways we deem incoherent and irrational, and only after everything ends can we see the underlying motives for their behaviour. Becoming too close way too fast with someone might be a cause for concern.

Resentful manager goes from bonding immediately with new server to sabotaging her every move: 'Looking back, it suddenly made a lot more sense why she seemed to go from friendly mentor to treating me like public enemy number one'

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‘I love my job, I love my job…’: Skip this 9-to-5 mantra, it's time to clock into work memes

Elna McHilderson

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Drive-thru employee demands customer park in handicapped spot while they wait for their order, customer firmly refuses: ‘Not in the handicap spot’

Drive-thru employee demands customer park in handicapped spot while they wait for their order, customer firmly refuses: ‘Not in the handicap spot’

I think there is something to say here about a road paved with good intentions, but anyway. Sometimes we analyze a situation and come up with the best solution we can think of, and we end up breaking something that was steadily functioning. The key to success might be communicating our plans to fix the thing instead of doing it as a surprise, but well, everybody makes honest mistakes, and it even feels unfair to call a situation like this a mistake.

Employee spends months thoroughly organizing communal folder in secret, only to wind up causing office chaos: 'I’m sitting here, staring at the perfectly organized, color-coded, and searchable directory I created, terrified to say anything'

Hiring managers accidentally send post-interview discussion to a job candidate, leading candidate to hear everything they had to say about her: ‘Well, that's authentic feedback’

Hiring managers accidentally send post-interview discussion to a job candidate, leading candidate to hear everything they had to say about her: ‘Well, that's authentic feedback’

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'It all started when...': Pour a dash of these laughs into your morning coffee for extra energy (June 20, 2026)

Elna McHilderson

College student buys PS5 instead of saving up to move out of parents' house, family accuses him of acting childish, then demands he shares the console: ‘I said no’

College student buys PS5 instead of saving up to move out of parents' house, family accuses him of acting childish, then demands he shares the console: ‘I said no’

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‘My apartment isn’t livable between 8am-4pm‘: California renter loses her bedroom, bathroom, and water every weekday for 2 weeks during pipe work, can't relocate to work remotely, and asks if the landlord owes compensation

‘My apartment isn’t livable between 8am-4pm‘: California renter loses her bedroom, bathroom, and water every weekday for 2 weeks during pipe work, can't relocate to work remotely, and asks if the landlord owes compensation

Employee pretends to be friendly with coworker for months only to extract important information about the workplace: 'The friendship part might have been real at first, but somewhere along the way it started feeling more like a project to him'

Employee pretends to be friendly with coworker for months only to extract important information about the workplace: 'The friendship part might have been real at first, but somewhere along the way it started feeling more like a project to him'

Employee gets coworker Perry fired after discovering he had been taking credit for months of their work: ‘I brought documentation’

Employee gets coworker Perry fired after discovering he had been taking credit for months of their work: ‘I brought documentation’

Stepdaughter refuses to rely on wealthy stepmom after watching her use money to control the family: ‘I've seen what financial dependence does to my dad’

Stepdaughter refuses to rely on wealthy stepmom after watching her use money to control the family: ‘I've seen what financial dependence does to my dad’

Employee stops overworking as it hasn't brought any raises, workload increases for everybody else, boss notices how much he was doing when he stopped: 'He admitted I was doing work that should have been divided between at least two roles.'

Employee stops overworking as it hasn't brought any raises, workload increases for everybody else, boss notices how much he was doing when he stopped: 'He admitted I was doing work that should have been divided between at least two roles.'

University library employee reports increasing student entitlement towards loaned laptops since 2020: 'I've had more than one patron demand I get them a different laptop because the one I grabbed from the cabinet didn't look nice enough'

University library employee reports increasing student entitlement towards loaned laptops since 2020: 'I've had more than one patron demand I get them a different laptop because the one I grabbed from the cabinet didn't look nice enough'

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