What is the value in enforcing who gets to have a cup of coffee in the office? The only potential answer to that question is for a toxic manager to be able to flex his muscles and enforce his sense of authority for literally no reason other than to do just that. This time, we have a manager who did not like how his employee offered interview candidates a cup of coffee, as they were not present in the office for “whole day events.” So, he went ahead and enforced this absolutely bogus rule.

Unpaid internships should not be a thing. No matter how small the job that they are doing, if it is a job, they should be getting paid for it. The whole concept of unpaid internships only allows employers to take advantage of young people who desperately need to gain experience in order to get a real job, and that's just wrong. Employers can afford to pay them even a minimum hourly rate, instead of bossing them around for nothing whatsoever. This is why I was extremely proud of the intern in th…

If you think your boss is goofy, just wait until you hear about how other peoples' bosses act.

Who wouldn't react this way? Sometimes, people will mistreat you so egregiously that you have no choice but to drop all the niceties and call this person out point blank. That's exactly what happened to this Redditor , who worked in a body shop and had expressed to his manager over several years that he wanted the opportunity to take over for painting when his much older coworker inevitably retires. The promotion would not only result in a pay raise, but it was also far more in line with what t…

Bosses don't have to be nice to their employees. Sometimes to gain respect you have to be firm with your employees, and they probably not going to like you for that, which is completely fine by a lot of employers, as long as things get done on the job. But still, many bosses managed to create a successful work environment while still having a good relationship with their employees, which is truly admirable. That being said, even if your boss isn't nice to you, there are still parts of the job t…

This CEO just made a huge mistake . Better still, he has no idea what he's done, or how colossal his mistake has become. When you finally get a job with a nice salary , it can transform your life overnight. You can pay off your debts, stop worrying about making rent, and have a little extra to treat yourself with. It makes it feel like all those years of working unpaid internships or minimum-wage jobs have finally paid off. This worker found a startup company that was willing to double their cu…

If you've ever worked a job that relies on timesheets, you know how this goes… Management (usually of the upper variety) wants to keep better track of how and where staff are spending their time, they pressure staff to charge out more hours to jobs, trying to keep them from posting “unproductive” uncharged hours. Suddenly, clients are getting charged more hours, and therefor paying more, for services implement The really interesting thing about management wanting to better track

Having a Karen coworker feels like going into battle every single day of the work week. You have to walk into your place of work ready and prepared to be lectured, condescended to, and poorly treated. If the Karen in question is your equal, don't worry: she'll still talk down to you no matter what. Having a Karen for a coworker is largely about picking and choosing when to defend yourself and when to be the bigger person and let her nonsense go in one ear and out the other. Generally, you want…

Strict adherence to policy is a double-edged sword; if you demand unquestioning obedience to the rules when it benefits you, then you need to hold that same zealous ideal when things aren't stacked to go your way. Unfortunately, we humans seem to really struggle with this and love nothing more than changing rules, or our interpretation of them, to suit us best—sometimes without realizing we're doing so. After all, we're all the heroes of our own stories, and we have the uncanny ability to hold…

Some stories make it really hard to decide where to begin explaining what is going on, but let's give it a go. The person who shared this story (OP) has been working with a certain company for about 7 months. From the first day, it was clear something was off, as OP's boss kept giving them more and more responsibilities, even though they were new, and definitely didn't get extra pay for all the additional work they got. Then, other employees kept quitting, and guess who had to take over their w…

This is what happens when you try to manipulate the employees you rely on the most! So many managers think they can get away with unnecessary outbursts, lectures, and mind games, yet what they don't anticipate is what could happen if the employee they are currently messing with just decides to up and leave one day. Here, we have an employee who was voluntarily fixing any bugs in the company's sister without extra payment as this was not expressly a part of his job description. His new manager d…

Finding work is never an easy task. It would be an understatement to say that there are times during the interview process when it feels overwhelming—it appears like a never-ending process that only the lucky few are able to complete. The story that follows centers on a clever lawyer who happens to stumble upon a job posting seeking a research lawyer. The Original Poster (OP), a research lawyer by profession, applied for the job immediately. Upon submitting his application, he was requested to…

This person got roped into a job that was full of red flags from the very beginning. But when you're a college dropout desperate for work, those red flags might be easy to ignore. You've got to be careful with startup companies . While some are reputable and have bright futures ahead of them, most fail. You've probably heard the old adage that about 90% of startups fail, and that most fail within their first five years of business. That's because some are created by people like Chad, the boss i…

Contracting is a tough gig, yet it is becoming increasingly common as companies seek to shift further towards a low-cost, low-obligation workforce. The thing is, as a contractor, you have fewer benefits and less guarantee of income, but while that uncertainty can be hard to manage, it makes up for that in flexibility. See, when you're a contractor, your “employer” (clients) really can't make you do anything outside of the contracted production they're paying you for. They can't set when or how…

Large companies function like machines. The managers and employees are in charge of keeping the machine operating as efficiently and profitably as possible. But occasionally, people become so engrossed in their work that they lose sight of what needs to get done right now and what can wait. In the story below, a devoted IT worker has had enough of his supervisors' ridiculous expectations. Since the Original Poster (OP) has been employed by the same company for quite some time, he is familiar wi…

Everyone has had an annoying coworker at some point in their professional career. You know, that one person you irrationally dislike and who always makes you struggle to not roll your eyes visibly in their face. There are a myriad of qualities that can lead to becoming that annoying coworker. There's the one who thinks they're slightly senior than you are based on absolutely zero evidence. There's the one who plays loud music, eats obnoxiously, or types like they want everyone to pay attention…