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workplace-stories

 'You're not capable of doing my job': Micromanager takes 3 months sick leave but refuses to let employees take over, they comply, resulting in manager drowning in work upon her return

'You're not capable of doing my job': Micromanager takes 3 months sick leave but refuses to let employees take over, they comply, resulting in manager drowning in work upon her return

A good manager should know how to delegate their tasks to the people who work for them. When a manager is unwilling to let some of their responsibilities pass on to their employees, both so that the employees can learn and so that the manager would be able to free up their own time, they are lacking some important leadership qualities. A crucial part of managing others is helping them develop and expand their horizons within the workplace. If my manager had to leave for three months, I know she…
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Restaurant serves entitled Karen after she writes scathing 1-star-review over $2 dispute, provides hard evidence and turns public discourse against her: 'Below is the truth along with supporting evidence...'

This restaurant brought receipts—literally, when serving this freshly-baked smackdown of a belligerent local Karen who left them a scathing review on a community group. The post got “around 300 comments,” prompting the restaurant to reply. They gathered timestamped screenshots of the encounter along with the actual receipts of the Karen's transaction in order to refute her claims and turn the tide of public discourse against her. When you seek to publicly humiliate another person or organizatio…
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'Worst that happens is nothing': After getting rejected from a job, man sends an email to recruiter disagreeing with their decision, causing recruiter to retract the rejection

'Worst that happens is nothing': After getting rejected from a job, man sends an email to recruiter disagreeing with their decision, causing recruiter to retract the rejection

Every person who has even been through a job searching period got at least a dozen emails automatically rejecting them from a job. We all read the lines: 'We regret to inform you…', and we all know that most of the time, no one on the other end has glanced at your resume for longer than 10 seconds before deciding you are not a good fit. Very often, that rejection can come from job postings that are simply perfect for you, postings in which you check every single box they are after, but still yo…
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Barista gets back at unprofessional coworker by giving him decaf coffees for 5 months: 'He'd have 4 coffees and still be yawning'

Barista gets back at unprofessional coworker by giving him decaf coffees for 5 months: 'He'd have 4 coffees and still be yawning'

Sometimes the best way to get payback on a coworker is to enact your revenge covertly. They may never even know that someone is sabotaging them; truthfully, they may never need to know. All that really matters is that you are achieving that satisfaction and they are unknowingly getting their much-deserved comeuppance. Of course, we save these kinds of plots and schemes for people who really deserve them, and this barista's coworker certainly qualifies. He was guilty of flirting with female empl…
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karen attempts to commit credit card fraud using her mother's card, employee claps back but the entitled karen tries again the next day

‘Get bent, Janet’: Hotel customer attempts to rent a room with absent mother's credit card, employee flags her but she tries again the next day

She swears up and down that “no other hotel has EVER had a problem” with her using a credit card that doesn't match her identity.
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'I've learned my lesson…': Employee finishes assigned work early, boss finds out and sends employee to a different state to complete other's tasks, leading to a dispute when they return

'I've learned my lesson…': Employee finishes assigned work early, boss finds out and sends employee to a different state to complete other's tasks, leading to a dispute when they return

Every employee faces the choice of whether or not they should power through their assigned work and finish early, risking their manager finding out and giving them even more work, or simply take their time with the work they have been given, that way making sure there are no addition tasks handed to them. The employee in this Reddit story chose the first option, and they are now regretting it, as they learn that hard work is only rewarded with more work. OP (original poster), has been given mon…
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Boss tries to stall and not pay after tricking employee to agree to a bonus instead of a raise: 'I agreed to no salary increase, in exchange for receiving a large bonus in late summer'

There's an age-old saying that a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush, meaning that a guaranteed value will always hold more value than the prospect of something greater. This, too, is true when it comes to employment. The fact of any trade in capital is that the person buying will always want to pay as little as possible, and the person selling will always want the highest possible price for their goods. While this is simple economics, it really just speaks to how the monkey part of…
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'That's not a valid excuse': Employee calls in sick only to discover boss wrote them up for 'no call no show', employee reports manager to HR in response

'That's not a valid excuse': Employee calls in sick only to discover boss wrote them up for 'no call no show', they reports manager to HR in response

When working for a big corporation, 95% of the time HR is there for the company and the company alone. They don't really care how their employees feel within the workplace, all they care about is how everything affects and looks for the corporation. This means that they are not in any hurry to help employees out if they have a problem, unless that problem can reflect badly on the company, only then are they extremely happy to help and make sure you don't go off and sue anyone you work with. The…
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Boss announces employee's departure at company meeting despite employee fully staying there: 'Everyone was asking where I'm going'

Boss announces employee's departure at company meeting despite employee fully staying there: 'Everyone was asking where I'm going'

When it's officially announced that an employee will be leaving a company, typically the employee knows about this in advance… It turns out that in this scenario , it was merely an assumption made by the employee's boss, but the employee has everyone at the entire company asking about their professional future. Furthermore, the boss was attempting to replace the employee on an important project that they built from the ground up while still requesting their continued assistance on the side. Obv…
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Company sends warning emails to employees who are ‘mouse jiggling’ instead of working, causing employees to look for other ways to avoid work: ‘I hope they are bluffing'

Company sends warning emails to employees who are ‘mouse jiggling’ instead of working, causing employees to look for other ways to avoid work: ‘I hope they are bluffing'

No full-time employee truly works for 8 hours a day. It is actually scientifically proven that most employees get around 3-5 hours of work done in a day, which means that most employees also have around 3-5 hours a day in which they basically do nothing. For people who work from home, it is supposedly much easier to avoid doing work, because you have no one to physically monitor you while you are meant to be working. This fact has brought on a phenomenon called ‘mouse jiggling’, which describes…
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workplace discussion workplace-stories jobs job malicious compliance work workplace workplace malicious compliance employment in the workplace - 36145925

Micromanager demands workers track all actions, they drown him in endless data: 'The real data was also there, but it was practically unusable'

You'll encounter this often: Some middle manager in your organization decides to start tracking everyone's metrics and efficiencies, completely and obstinately oblivious to the irony that they themselves are doing nothing productive by doing so… They'll further add to the irony of their entire existence by implementing new procedures for staff to follow that do nothing but add to the inefficiency and make every task more painful and less efficient. Common examples of this would be, say, replaci…
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Guest contacts hotel demanding cancelled reservation, but their story keeps changing becoming increasingly unbelievable: 'I tell him no. That is against policy as per my manager'

In your first customer service gig, you will be shocked at how readily people manipulate and bend the truth in their favor while recounting events with what seems like complete and absolute sincerity. The first time you encounter one of these sad sob stories, your first instinct will be to do everything in your power to help them out. But the first time one of these stories starts to not quite add up, unraveling before your very eyes, you're going to end up with trust issues and not take anythi…
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'We're praying for you but you're fired': 17-year-old gets fired from first job for not personally calling in sick after getting admitted to the hospital

'We're praying for you but you're fired': 17-year-old gets fired from first job for not personally calling in sick after getting admitted to the hospital

There are plenty of folks who do not look back fondly on their first job. Entering a professional setting without any relevant experience can be a daunting learning curve for anyone, regardless of the industry. However, no matter how much experience you may or may not have regarding the working world, sometimes, abhorrent behavior is so obvious that you know you have been wronged. You don't even question if this is “how things are done” no matter what your employer tries to tell you. You know t…
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employment job jobs Horrible Bosses work workplace antiwork workplace-stories employment-discussion workplace discussion employment issues in the workplace - 36274181

Employee gets marked down despite following written process after their boss doesn't reply for 30 minutes: 'I'm gonna end up getting myself fired'

Organizations really, more than anything else, love scapegoating lowest-level workers for mistakes made by management and general organizational incompetence. The only thing that comes close is their love for simultaneously insisting that you should have just “handled” something on your own, even though the process you were following stated explicitly otherwise. Really, the truth of the matter is that they just hate having to handle any customer issue that has escalated to them, so there's no w…
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entitled boomer co-worker harasses woman who just got back from maternity leave, says the government and she should not be paying for pregnant women to take extensive time off

‘I'm literally not anyone's enemy because I had a baby’: Woman comes back from maternity leave to a sour boomer co-worker harassing her about taking the time off, HR gets involved

Why do boomers want the next generations to suffer just as much as they did?
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'A new hire got a promotion over me. I'm lost as what to do': Employee gets passed over for promotion because they're too valuable in their current role

There's this idea that sums up how we end up with so many incompetent managers, which is called the “Peter Principle." You've probably heard of it before, but if you're just coming across the term for the first time, it's basically surmising that people who are good at a job get promoted to the next level, even if that promoted position really has nothing to do with the skills they've proven to be apt at. What's unfortunate about these situations is moving into management is really the only way…
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