Imagine having a new boss who felt the need to watch your every move, including your bathroom breaks. If you've ever been in this position before, we imagine you found a loophole at some point because one simply cannot get their work done well without much-needed breaks. As for monitoring bathroom breaks, that simply feels hierarchical in a way that is no longer conducive to healthy work environments. It's merely invasive. Managers should have way more important priorities on their hands than n…

We see stories all the time with new bosses coming in and shaking things up in order to make it look like they're going to be effective in their new jobs. But, the thing is, not everything needs changing or improvement. Often, the workers themselves have been doing their jobs for long enough that they have developed their own methods for handling tasks quickly, effectively, and efficiently. As long as important corners aren't being cut in these adapted processes, it stands to reason that the ne…

What do you do when you have a coworker with a body odor issue? Picture this: you're at your desk at work and you're trying to focus on your daily tasks. Just as your brain locks into focus, you start to smell something funny. At first, you think it's coming from you. You smell your armpits to make sure you put on deodorant this morning. You quickly realize that it isn't you at all. In fact, it's the new coworker who's sitting right behind you. Your brain starts spiraling as you try to figure o…

Sometimes doing what's convenient for a coworker is not necessarily what's fair to you. It's time to stop adjusting your needs to the needs of folks around you, especially when you gain nothing from adjusting said needs. This employee was recently encouraged by her boss in a team meeting to show up five to ten minutes early to shifts so that the handoffs from one coworker to the next would be smooth and easy. Luckily, this change didn't affect the employee's schedule very much, so it was an eas…

Unfortunately, after long years of service with an organization, all it takes is a singular change in leadership to bring everything crashing down. New managers come with new ideas and processes, bringing things with them that they've made a part of their playbook—eager to shake things up and leave their mark on their new organization. While these ideas and processes may have been successful at a previous job, they can seem wildly misplaced at the current one. With things like introducing open…

In today's edition of “We offer no flexibility but expect flexibility from you in return."

When given the opportunity, companies will always do what is best for them, and not for their employees. Every. Single. Time. It's 'just business', they say. 'Nothing personal', they say… And you are left picking up the pieces. Getting laid off sucks, no matter how long you've been working at the company, but if there is one thing worse than simply getting laid off, it's getting laid off without notice. As shared by u/Lotus2016, they were fired, without notice, effective immediately. OP had bee…

Getting fired on your first day is no easy feat. Like many things in life, you have to work at it. You have to be so aggressively unsuited for your position or so unbelievably unprofessional that you're leaving your managers and everyone in HR with no other choice. Usually, people are very forgiving on the first day. Perhaps you did things differently at your old company and need some time to readjust to the standards of your organization. Perhaps you're not particularly well-versed in all the…

Micromanagers need to be careful about what they wish for. In theory, they tend to demand things from their employees that are conducive to productivity. However, most of the time, it's really about asserting authority for no good reason other than some good old-fashioned ego-stroking. This manager chewed out an employee for allegedly not getting approval before they clocked out, even though of course, the manager was incorrect and the employee had done everything they were supposed to do. But…

There are certain team-bonding work traditions that should be disbanded and one of them is most certainly Secret Santa. First of all, there's the money factor. Even if the fixed price everyone should spend is decided to be $10, I don't want to spend two cents on anyone at work and I'm pretty sure they'd say the same about me. There is absolutely no ill will or bitterness here; in fact, to me, it feels like a healthy mutual understanding. Now, the next reason why Workplace Secret Santa should be…

Sometimes, the games and manipulation start from the interview, with the hiring party pulling ticks, like showing up late, to “test" candidates, claiming to be testing for traits like “loyalty” and “patience” when really they're just looking to see how much of a pushover the candidates are. Really, if you're pulling stunts like this, you're probably discouraging the best candidates from working at your company, which you probably think is fine since you're obviously looking for desperate and pl…

Imagine working at the same company for seven years and getting fired the second you bring up the topic of a raise. Talk about a complete lack of respect for the loyalty these employees have shown to the company by staying all this time with no financial incentive to do so. The employee who filmed this video of his boss's tantrum shared that he and his coworkers merely asked politely for a meeting after learning that new employees were receiving higher wages. That meeting led to the conversatio…

Let's talk about the bureaucracy of requesting PTO and how it really shouldn't be a bureaucracy at all. When you sign a contract that entitles you to a certain about of time off, that should be the only bit of documentation involved in planning your personal vacation time. Other than that, you should be able to just send an email announcing that these are the days you're taking off. There should be no “requesting" process. There should be no waiting period between your request and your approval…

Bosses who are annoying about promptness should be focusing their attention on far more pressing matters. Whatever happened to focusing on their own tasks and responsibilities? Whatever happened to ensuring that the employees on their team are supported and fulfilled (well, as fulfilled as they can be given the circumstances of work)? Whatever happened to minding their own dang business? In work-related matters such as this, we often go back to our mantra that if the work gets done and gets don…

This employee had to learn the hard way that many companies don't want innovation , they want employees who will keep their heads down. That is a frustrating lesson to learn if you're a bright young person in their first job, ready to tackle any issue. You find an issue, have a great idea of how to solve it and then… your boss just never implements that idea. They might ignore it entirely, or just tell you not to do that. Then you watch as your workplace carries on as usual. This guy had an esp…

Printers have been the bane of many office workers' existence since the dawn of the printing age, with networking issues, mechanical failures, and permanently low toner/ink levels making tasks that should be easy and simple incredibly frustrating instead. Back in ye olden days of the 1990s, this print room worker managed the printing room of a shipping operation, operating the company's large and finicky dot matrix printers. If you've ever worked in a traditional warehousing or shipping joint,…