Whether we like to remember them or not, we have all been in toxic work environments. Perhaps you were at the start of your professional life and you were concerned that all workplace environments and dynamics were like this. Perhaps you were working under a new boss who spent far more energy enforcing ridiculous rules and disparaging the work of their employees than fostering a strong working atmosphere. Perhaps you didn't say anything to your boss before you left the company and you desperate…

This Karen was actually the manager until the employee she fired got her booted too. That's what you get when you were the one who messed up and everyone saw it. No matter how powerful you think you are, if you've gained enough enemies, it will bite you in the butt, which is exactly what happened to Carol. Carol was the assistant manager of a restaurant that employed a high school student who wound up working approximately 60 hours each week (when did he find time to do his homework is the real…

Nepo-CEO's wouldn't get it

It's no surprise that someone who isn't qualified for their management position might not be very good at doing it—what's surprising is the vigor that these people display when doing petty and cruel things to their subordinates, wielding and abusing every last shred of stupid power they have with enthusiasm. At least in functional organizations, there are checks and balances to the abuse of power in the form of HR departments and upper managers who at least have an interest in reducing the orga…

This job candidate thought it was a good idea to call up the company she was interviewing for, until she realized she made a huge mistake. That's because the marketing assistant who answered the phone just so happened to be the very person the Redditor would be replacing if she were to get the position. It gets worse…. the current employee had absolutely no idea she was being replaced at all. Talk about a shady boss and a major red flag for the interview candidate! If this story serves a purpos…

These workplaces found out the hard way that you can only push your employees so far before they snap.

This employee tried over and over to tell their boss that they were making a mistake . Some bosses just always want to think they're right. U/Ars-Torok had a great malicious compliance story to tell, and while it's a long story, it's totally worth the read. The OP writes that while rising through the ranks of this company, they worked with a few different bosses. One was a great boss who could solve anything… and the other was Steve. Steve was the kind of boss who thinks they are right 100% of…

Can you imagine having this much leverage and not using it to your advantage? It's almost as crazy as a company not keeping any records of important documentation like their entire directory before laying off most of the company. Oh, wait… both of those scenarios are happening here. This Redditor was laid off about a year ago in a very unceremonious fashion. Essentially, most of the company was laid off at once with 30 minutes' notice at the end of a work day. It doesn't get much more savage th…

This boss tried to bluff , only for their employee to call them out on it. While things didn't go to plan for the boss, their employee, u/exie610, got some amazing revenge. Some managers have no respect for individual jobs. Instead, they'll insist that alongside your own job, you can also do the work of four or five other people. Why do one job excellently when you can do five jobs badly? At some companies, things are always run this way, either because the boss is a penny pincher, or because m…

This story will be familiar to anyone who has worked in service or retail, with both entire industries being plagued by employers who require you to show up early—without being paid for it—or finish tasks after closing after being automatically clocked out when the doors locked. Managing these businesses isn't much better, earning only moderately better pay while being made to work more unpaid hours that actually pushes your earning back down to (or below) minimum wage. Combine this with chroni…

If you mess with things that you don't understand, you're going to make one. There's a reason why any leader worth their salt knows to listen and observe when they join a new organization rather than wildly making changes to feed their own ego. Yet, so many managers make the mistake of not doing this, seeking to make their mark on the organization and justify their salary. They might not even have any relevant experience with the industry they've moved into, yet they think they can just walk in…

This man can't decide if he should quit peacefully or expose the toxicity.

One simply can't be happy-go-lucky at work all the time.

When getting hired by a company, the last thing you'd imagine to happen would be everyone leaving on your first day. But that's what happened to u/mTbzz, who was hired as a sysadmin. This company was using some pretty obscure software from IBM, so OP was walked through it. He even met the other 2 senior sysadmins and they had a good talk about experiences and the job. The next day OP found out that all three of these people would no longer be working at the company, and he was left with systems…

Work in IT is ever-evolving. Once you become an expert in one aspect of your job, it updates, and everything changes. But IT workers know this and choose this—they got in the game for this exact reason. It keeps them on their toes and keeps their creative problem-solving fresh and new every time. With the way society is unfolding, it appears we are always going to need IT workers. So why is it that toxic managers are still going to toxic manage ? Why can't they evolve like the work they manage?…

If you were to be laid off from your job, only to be contacted a year later asking for vital information that it was your job to keep safe, that's pretty much your employer admitting how much they actually needed you in the first place. All we're saying is, make sure to take that into account when you set your new terms, and if they're bringing you back on a temporarily contracted basis, be sure to charge accordingly. Of course, it's more likely that, if things ended badly enough, you'd prefer…