People will gatekeep the most insanely petty things in order to feel even a semblance of purpose and power. Name a hobby, sport, community, or industry—and I promise you that there are a number of people there who will make it as challenging as possible for you to join, contribute, or succeed in a way that they perceive might threaten their supposed authority. We're territorial beasts, after all, with many of us being fueled by our ego's lust for significance, prominence, and recognition. Consi…

Sharin' is carin', Karen!

A guest at a hotel couldn't believe the way the front desk clerk was talking to her. She thought it was rude — so she tried to get the employee fired. There's that old saying that goes, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar,” meaning you should be nice to people in order to get what you want. It's that simple, and it works a lot of the time! People who work in customer service are far more familiar with the kinds of customers who are quick to anger, and this hotel guest is a great examp…

$14/hr for a medical professional whose job is saving other people's lives? If that's not cause for concern, I don't know what is.

Your emergency contact is intended to be just that—for emergencies. Its intended purpose really isn't so that your boss and coworkers can call and tell on you for playing hookey from work like they're a teacher reaching out to an unruly child's parent.

No one wants to go to mandatory company events on your day off, so managers and bosses better make sure that employees who are required to go have a good time. First of all, these company events are usually after a tough work week, they usually involve way too much schmoozing for anyone's good, and they're usually wildly inconvenient in terms of location and time. All that happened with this Redditor , who was also an underpaid employee who primarily decided to attend the event because it meant…

Most days in the workplace are ordinary and routine, so when something out of the ordinary happens, it can make for a memorable shift. These people know that all too well — they replied to u/Murkantilism's question, “What is the craziest thing you've seen somebody do at the workplace?”

It seems that recruiters are asking way more of job candidates than they should these days. We’re used to the common interview questions that might be difficult to answer: what’s your weakness? What’s a challenging leadership moment you’ve had? Why do you want to work? (just kidding… sort of). However, this recruiter took things just a bit too far when they asked a potential job candidate to move their camera around the whole room. This story was posted to Reddit by u/nuestl , who froze at the…

This boss thought she was getting away with sneaking around, but the entire office already knew her secrets. One basic rules of adult life is to avoid dating those you work with. There are billions of people in the world, so why would you want to date someone who you work with all day? It can lead to awkward power dynamics. Even if the relationship works really well, any cutesy behavior between the couple is sure to make the rest of the workplace uncomfortable. This boss seems like she was “use…

The fallacy about the idea of certain jobs being classified or unclassified as “skilled labor” is that every job requires different skills and experience in order to be done effectively. You go to your local coffee shop of choice because the barista makes a better and more consistent cup of coffee than you could ever hope to. You probably go back to that shop, too, because that barista's particular consistency and skill stand head and shoulders above even the other specialized baristas in the c…

Being a team player can mean a lot of things. It can mean being a communicative collaborator. It can mean taking on tasks that are normally outside of your primary responsibilities in order to further a collective goal. One thing it does not mean, however, is taking a pay cut. Unfortunately, in this economy, that seems to be one of the latest tactics employers are using to avoid mass layoffs, but one has to wonder if the executives at the top are making the same sacrifices. In fact, one should…

People often wonder if they should quit, dreaming of greener pastures, or in other words, more money, better work conditions, and nicer coworkers. Also, let's not forget the most important thing of all… a good boss. Quitting your job can be easy, or hard, depending on how much you enjoy it. Once upon a time, I was working as a waitress, and let's just say that it wasn't hard at all to let go of rude customers, not great pay, and long nights cleaning bathrooms. But hey, I had some pretty legitim…

There are bosses with empathy, and then there's this dude. U/yodascousinkevin told this surprising story of what happened when they came down with a bout of pneumonia, only to find out their boss just would not leave them alone. We all want to feel unique and special and irreplaceable at our jobs . We want to think that the work we do is exceptional, and that the place just wouldn't run the same without us. In reality, everyone is replaceable. No one told that to the OP's boss, though, who is a…

Taking over for your coworker in a time of crisis is the nightmare to end all nightmares.

Let's be honest; despite all the grief that middle managers get, surviving in that role is no easy task. You constantly and consistently receive downward pressure from owners and upper management to implement changes and pass on cost-saving measures that you know aren't going to work. To top this off, you only really ever have two choices—provide feedback to upper management; while this absorbs the stress and pressure, keeping it from being passed on to your subordinates, it rocks the boat and…

They always say they can't give you a raise but nine times out of ten, the truth is they can. This employee had to jump through hoops in order to get a 0.75-cent hourly raise. Despite finally achieving this small win, he knew that he was worth more, as most employees are. So naturally, he started looking for other work and eventually received a job offer that paid $2 more per hour than his current position. Once he brought this fact to the attention of his manager with the intention of quitting…