Every employee needs to draw their boundaries with coworkers. Sometimes, you get along with folks well enough that you're more than fine hanging out outside the office. However, other employees prefer a strict separation between work and life, and regardless of how other people think or feel about it, that decision needs to be respected. Here , we have an employee who had to draw their own boundaries within the work day itself. After a year of spending lunch with coworkers in the break room, he…

Protecting yourself should always be your number one priority in the working world. This story serves as yet another reminder of that fact, which applies to all industries, but in this case, we're talking about a diligent lawyer and his pompous client. This thread was posted to Reddit by Calledinthe90s , who recounted a story involving his client, Frank. Frank worked for a real estate corporation that was seeking money after one of its buildings collapsed. Frank was warned by the Original Poste…

It's surprising how many businesses seem to be able to continue to persist despite the fact that a light gust would blow them over, being consistently and continuously mismanaged to the point where one single mishap would cause them to cease to exist. This employee worked for a horrendously mismanaged manufacturing company that was seemingly on the verge of collapse. The management team that had employed them was suddenly fired soon after they were hired, which caused them to be understandably…

We hear a lot about hotels being so noisy that guests can't sleep, but has a smell ever bothered you at a hotel ? Some hotels have pools with the strongest chlorine smell ever, and it wafts into the hallway even outside the swimming area. Other hotels offer complimentary breakfasts, but there's no way the smell can waft from the main lobby to the rooms in most cases, since there's usually a big space in between the two areas. If anything, the complaint that most unhappy hotel guests have is noi…

Let this story serve as a friendly reminder to always remember what policies your boss can and cannot enforce. Here, we have a salaried employee at a call center whose hours are 10:00 am to 6:00 pm as they were expressly written in her contract, and yet her boss thought he could make his employees work late. This was not simply on one occasion; he was doing this regularly. In fact, he ended up trying to enforce a brand new policy that stated that employees would be reprimanded if they did not s…

This boss was left with an embarrassing predicament, but he has no one to blame but himself. Employees who aren't hungry are better workers, that's just a fact . You probably know the feeling of skipping breakfast and feeling groggy all morning, only to wake up after your lunch break and power through the rest of your day. When you're hungry, you can get headaches or wooziness, which isn't going to help you focus on your work. If all you can do is daydream about hamburgers, you're not going to…

Sometimes, employers do not do themselves any favors. If they want their employees to work hard and to continue to apply themselves with the hopes of a raise or a promotion, it's probably not a great idea to let them know that this is a fallacy and that pay increases at the company have absolutely nothing to do with quality, performance, and merit. On the other hand, perhaps this was the best piece of knowledge for this employee to gain in order to jumpstart the process of looking elsewhere for…

Going above and beyond should earn you praise and commendation. Unfortunately, it's more likely that all it will do is increase expectations. Showing your superiors what is “possible” and setting a new baseline for yourself. When this worker went above and beyond in their contributions to their workplace, creating and sharing video content for

Stealing someone's lunch at work is one of the most obvious signs that some people really do never grow out of middle school behavior. Thankfully, this employee, who also happened to be a former chef, knew how to get even with the problematic coworker in his place of work. First of all, the former chef was, unfortunately, an easy target for the lunch thief, considering how elaborate and over-the-top their lunches tended to be. However, despite valid suspicions, the employee still had no officia…

There's no motivation in life like receiving a hard-earned reward—our brains are literally wired this way. When it comes to work, you might hope that that reward would be increased compensation that matches your increased contribution and efforts. But, unfortunately, at a lot of organizations, showing a willingness to take on more work is only showing that you're willing to be paid less for it, leaving you with more to do in the same amount of time with little to no increased compensation. Let'…

Your potential partner's line of work is essential to your compatibility, regardless of whether or not people like to admit it. Sure, in theory, any two people should be able to make their relationship work if they get along. But let's be real here: if your partner works a job where you end up seeing far too little of them, love may not, in fact, conquer all. These Redditors shared the various forms of employment they feel are red flags for them, and as many folks in the comments section sugges…

When you've been entrusted with the care of children, it's a little difficult to do your job without telling them what to do. Adult input to keep things moving in the right direction is essential to their safety and happiness, and it's kind of impossible to get anything done without it. With that considered, you'd be foolish, as the parent employing said child-carer, to tell that child-carer that they were unable to give your children instruction and “parent” them. As if—what? You just expect t…

Sometimes, bosses just decide out of nowhere that they don't like an employee. It's not based on work ethic. It's not based on morale or personality. They simply have chosen to have an enemy in the workplace to make matters more interesting and cutthroat for them. If you're unlucky, you may end up becoming that employee for your boss. When this happens, as it did to this Redditor , you have to keep reminding yourself that it's not you. Furthermore, if this treatment starts to get in the way of…

Obsessive control over situations and circumstances does net results—and that's part of the problem. This early, immediate, and measurable success creates the validation necessary for managers—and really anyone in a position of authority—causing them to fall further and further into the pitfall that is micromanagement. Other than the fact that it ruins morale and generally makes everyone you're working with miserable, micromanagement presents some problems: namely, you'll reach a point, a limit…

Some people assume the worst of others, declaring everyone else to be lazy, foolish, or otherwise plotting and scheming something nefarious. But let's be honest, they're probably doing so to deflect from their own shortcomings—which are probably the exact same things they're accusing others of. Having one of these people as your boss or employer is, of course, going to ensure you a terrible time during every moment you're at work, with constant accusations of slacking, skiving, and even stealin…

When a worker tried to report some concerning workplace issues, they didn't get the reception they'd hoped for. If you reported something wrong in your workplace, would anything change? At some jobs, the answer would be an immediate yes. But at many workplaces, pointing out issues isn't going to make you any friends. There's a good chance that management already knows about them, and aren't willing to change them. So when an employee rocks the boat, it gets the supervisors worried for their own…