Providing customer service is never an easy task for a number of reasons. The hardest part is the fact that you cannot predict who you'll run into or what type of attitude they're going to have. The story below is an account of a frustrated employee. The original poster (OP), who is employed in retail, was hit with threats over a $1.63 charge. But rather than standing with OP and protecting the worker from the enraged client, management decided to stick by the client and reprimand OP for suppos…

Sometimes, no excuse is better than a lame excuse. Everyone deserves the right to take a break with no questions asked. Unfortunately for the workers of the world, that can be very hard to do when you have a demanding and nosey manager. These employees made the mistake of trying to fabricate valid reasons and coming up short. It's definitely better to say nothing at all if the only “reason” you can come up with is the grown-up version of your dog eating your homework. Luckily, those ridiculous…

Have you ever had a coworker who seemingly will stop at nothing to get you fired? Before we get into this story of how an employee managed to save themselves from getting unfairly dismissed by instead getting their work nemesis fired first, let's unpack how these kinds of work rivalries happen. Most of the time, like most elements of a work environment, it all comes from the top down. If the system is built upon a foundation of unhealthy competition, that will almost never fare well for employe…

New management always tries to come in and change things. Perhaps it's to validate themselves in their new position or to create a clear hierarchy in the workplace, but when this new managerial Godzilla comes to trample over a functional system, there are bound to be a few toes that get stepped on.

A couple of corporate bigwigs have gotten into the habit of only speaking to each other through their secretary. Their secretary isn't even supposed to have that job… they've just gotten themselves intertwined in the workplace drama between their different bosses. Up next, these HOAs have some really ridiculous rules that have tenants rolling their eyes, like one person who was informed, “ Your mailbox isn't shiny enough ."

Guess you're going to be short-staffed...

Front desk employees often have to deal with entitled customers, but sometimes they have to deal with equally entitled bosses.

In this day and age, we don't expect toxic workplace environments to get away with wildly outdated behavior anymore, and yet as much as we'd like to think that progress has been made, unkind and unfair treatment still does happen all the time. Here, we have a young female employee who was on the brink of getting married when the VP of her company organized a disciplinary meeting threatening to fire her if she didn't pull it together at work. Of course, there was no concrete evidence that she wa…

Chess not checkers

"No one is happy about it, but one of the people above me on the ‘front end’ always hides her own drink behind customer service, while also getting on everyone else if they have a drink."

Some bosses care more about enforcing ridiculous policies than assessing whether or not said policies are efficient. How many times have you found yourself in a work situation when the easy solution is staring right in front of you but you can't say anything because of your temperamental and particular boss? This truck driver had to deal with a silly new rule about scanning tons of extra paperwork to corporate when all he really needed to do was scan a few signed pages. Of course, despite voici…

Just when you think employers and managers might actually be instating policy with their workers best interest in mind you find yourself, yet again, disappointed. When I had heard that some employers were offering “unlimited” leave as a interest, understanding that a happy, motivated, and healthy workforce with a passion for their work is far more productive and creative than

Employees who regularly work expected overtime as part of the job come to rely on that money to earn their living. Time is money and money is time, right? So what happens when employers can't seem to afford that overtime payment but somehow maintain the expectations that employees should be completing that extra work? Well, if the employees are empowered enough, then they should let their bosses know the simple and fair truth: if employees must say goodbye to that money, then their employees mu…

Have you ever messed up at work before? A lot of us have, whether we let a project slip through the cracks, forgot we had to give a presentation, or even forgot to mute our mics during a video call. We're human; it happens. But what about a fail so bad your coworkers still bring it up years later? Or a work fail so embarrassing you had no choice but to change jobs? These are the kinds of mistakes that become office legends, the stories that get told and retold at every company gathering. Imagin…

There cannot be many folks out there who enjoy receiving unwanted feedback. This hiring manager thought it was a good idea to respond to a job candidate's request to withdraw an application by giving them a completely uncalled-for lecture about what it takes to be a good manager and how to navigate a professional career successfully. As many folks in the comments section pointed out, the truth of the matter is that the interviewer has clearly been having trouble filling a property management po…

Email etiquette changes everywhere you go. Politeness is key, of course. But at some workplaces, emails have to be answered in a highly specific way, even if the employees think it's ridiculous. Up next, these goofy goobers are some real dummies according to their friends, like one person whose coworker wouldn't drink water, ever, because “ water makes you rust .”