Mistakes and bad decisions happen, it's just a part of the decision making process. As Thomas Edison, the inventor of the lightbulb, famously said, “'I have not failed, but found 1000 ways to not make a light bulb." The quote and attribution varies, but it's usually something along those lines. And that remains true, you don't know and can't learn until you pick a direction and try, but where this becomes an issue is when people and organizations obstinately refuse to course correct, refusing t…

When enforcing strict adherence to company policy and legal employment obligations, it's probably important that you understand those obligations first. It's also incredibly likely that someone who has been navigating the ins and outs of those legal obligations out of necessity for their livelihood will know more about them than you, an average Joe manager, do. Just an important reminder of the fact that being in charge doesn't necessarily mean that you have the most experience in every given s…

Working with a team that you really enjoy being a part of is one of the smallest graces you can hope for in what's otherwise deep, begrudging resignation to your working life. Unfortunately, like most of the good things in life, the balance is delicately struck, and one small change can turn them on their heads. After spending almost seven years at this tech company working with a true leader of a manager who always stood up for his workers and encouraged autonomy and a healthy work-life balanc…

There is nothing worse at work than having to bother your manager every day to do a simple task that would make things exponentially easier. The lack of action can say a lot about the kind of manager you have. First, he could be intentionally making things difficult for you and playing mind games. That's the cynical take, but it's not an impossibility. Next, there's the slightly more generous take, which is that your manager is not the brightest bulb. Yes, that's the kinder interpretation of th…

It's hopefully no secret to anyone at this point that if you're given an anonymous questionnaire at work asking for your honest and critical feedback, there's a pretty good chance that that questionnaire is not, in fact, anonymous. That, or there are plenty of ways that it's going to be traced back to you regardless of how “anonymous” it actually is. After all, if they receive one response that's pointedly critical and you're usually the one who has no problem voicing your feedback, chances are…

It's weird to think that at one point, workers derided the cubicle, the confines of those grey-carpeted walls symbolizing their oppression. Whereas now, anyone in open-plan hot-desking office spaces would trade anything for the privacy that those same grey walls offered—a space to call your own outside of the immediate watchful gaze of your micromanaging boss where you can keep your things and not have to cart them around with you every day. So, in a way, it's easy to see where this coworker wa…

There are certain people you do not want to frustrate in a restaurant, one of whom is most certainly the lead cook. However, as in any fast-paced work environment, people can get hot-headed and conflicts can arise between folks who feel like they are stepping on one another's toes. This lead cook was often stationed in an accessible place in the kitchen so that everyone could easily access him and vice versa. However, on one busy night, the lead cook briefly left his station in the hands of a n…

They say the best revenge in life is success… That teacher who said you'd never make it? That bully in high school? Anyone who doubted you or tried to keep you down. Well, the best thing you can do is go on to prove that you're not as weak or insignificant as they're telling you you are. Of course, although not as often discussed, going on to leave a peaceable existence of mediocrity is also an acceptable option if that's what you prefer, though decidedly less exciting of a story. This employee…

When you have someone in your organization, or externally who your organization is paying, specifically to do a task… It makes sense to let them do that task; if you insist on your involvement and time being spent on that same task, all you're doing is double handling and wasting your own time and the organization's money. And, yet, so many managers struggle with this simple concept, refusing to relinquish even the smallest, most important things to those who should be responsible for them, bog…

This manager may have been irritated, but the rest of us can applaud this customer's success at bending the rules for his own gain. Sure, finding loopholes and using them to one's advantage can sometimes lead to unruly behavior, but this time, the customer achieved something most shoppers can only dream of: a loophole within a store's strict return policy. This thread was posted to Reddit's r/MaliciousCompliance subreddit by u/dubilendar , who shared that he had just bought a series of items fr…

This is what happens when teachers are not paid fairly. It's no secret that your average teacher is forced to take on a number of tasks and responsibilities that go well beyond their job description and salary. The reality of the matter is that without their extra free labor, students and teachers alike will not have the proper materials for class to run smoothly. Naturally, this lack of fairness can lead to a whole lot of resentment from teachers who are taking way too much time out of their a…

Management doesn't have any idea what you do; let's just get that out of the way.

There's a pretty simple rule of management that leaders should follow: Don't mess with something that's working. Whether that's a single high-performing worker, an efficient team, or just a general flow of business, messing with something for the sake of it is always going to end poorly. It's a similar premise to “let sleeping dogs lie” but in this case, it's more of "leave

Landlords are just about one of the only things that could make us root for lawyers. The lesser of two evils really comes into play when those two parties are in the same room together. The powerful preying on the weak is one of the oldest tropes in storytelling. What's not to love about a story like this? A wily lawyer who wants to do the right thing—but still doesn't work for free—coming to the aid of a desperate owner of a local restaurant (that happens to be the lawyer's favorite.) The cart…

Not honoring an employee's schedule when they have been following all the rules and going through the proper channels is about as disrespectful as it gets. When a manager rejects your request to not work a certain shift, the message is clear: your life and commitments do not matter. What matters is this silly arbitrary work schedule that is 100% malleable but apparently, that would require too much critical thinking on the manager's part. This thread was posted to Reddit's r/MaliciousCompliance…

Customer service work can be difficult at times. The old adage ‘the customer is always right’ can reach unprecedented heights, depending on the circumstances and parties involved. The story that follows is an account of a customer service representative. The Original Poster (OP) was involved in asset finance, namely with regard to land and cars. But in an effort to find a solution, he chose to bring up the issue with his management after encountering an angry client who refused to abide by the…