Working a job can open your eyes to all sorts of things that you'd never even imagined were possible. Unfortunately, most of these—at least the ones that stand out in your memory—will make you never want to use that service or buy that product ever again. Once the curtain is lifted, it's impossible to close your eyes to the reality of the world as you now see it. Having previously worked in fire alarm maintenance in another life, you'd be horrified how many buildings are non-compliant to local…

It seems like no matter what job you are applying for, the interview process is always excruciatingly long. Even if the job is a cashier at a gas station or a simple grocery store clerk, people will treat it like it is the most important job ever, and suddenly you are not even qualifying enough to get it. Is it really necessary for an employer to know a potential hire's weaknesses? If All they will be doing is bag groceries, what difference does it make? This is pretty much the point that this…

There are few life experiences that are more humbling than going through a job interview.

If you're in a line of work that frequently deals with emergency break-fix scenarios where you're effectively permanently on call and might be expected (or required) to spring into action at a moment's notice at any time, having an expectation set that you'll never work overtime doesn't really work. Yet, that doesn't stop petty managers from setting petty rules for their frontline staff who are handling these types of situations. But, to be fair, it's not as if they really understand the indust…

Handling payment between two companies is never easy business. Each company has its own regulations and policies regarding their money, it is often hard to manage even the most simple payment. Much like the companies in this Reddit story. The person who wrote this story (OP) is an employee in a tech company that supplies and installs tech equipment to other small companies. Their policy states that until the payment for the equipment is fully paid, the ownership of it remains in the hands of th…

Feeling stuck in the workplace? Sometimes our job has a way of suffocating us, like you're handcuffed to a sinking ship with no prospects of breaking free. When you're underpaid and overworked, it feels like water is filling in around your ankles and the walls are closing in. Perhaps, if you're lucky, you'll find a kind stranger on the Internet to throw you a lifeline.

If a place of work requires a dress code, they should provide with the clothes, simple as that. An employee should no go out of their way to find something to wear for a shift, and they definitely should not be reprimanded for not having the right clothes on the odd occasion. The need for uniform is truly understandable, but surely a customer would care more about getting a good service from an employee, than about the color of their shoes. In this Reddit story, an employee had to deal with the…

No one really wants to work overtime—if you say otherwise, you're lying… or have something else at home that you're avoiding. Who on earth would want to spend a moment longer at work than they had to? Of course, there are exceptions to this—that sweet time and a half pay can be pretty sweet. Still, you'll be rolling your eyes when your boss asks you and weighing up whether or not it's actually worth a better paycheck when you're sacrificing all that time doing things you'd rather be doing. This…

One piece of advice anyone should follow when starting a new job is – get absolutely everything in writing. When you go in to interview for a role, both you and the interviewer might bring up important details on the job and its conditions. If you want to make sure you are actually going to get everything that is talked about, you have to get it all in writing. The employee in this Reddit story should have followed this piece of advice. In this Reddit post, he describes a situation in which he…

Getting fired stinks, but tricking your new manager into firing you so that you can walk away to your new job with a generous redundancy payout has to be the best way to get let go from a position. That's what this employee managed to do, playing along with their new boss's apparent plot to get rid of them and ensuring that they qualified for a cushy redundancy payout that would see them well compensated. When their new boss started, this IT Manager found themself the target, quickly realizing…

It's only natural for your employer to be interested in what you spend your time doing while you're at work; after all, they're paying you for your time. Even then, there are reasonable limits to this, and some employers get carried away and happily track any and every bit of data possible to help them prove you're wasting time. It started with mouse trackers, which track the activity of the mouse and keyboard on your laptop; now, programs are even able to track where your eyes are on the scree…

Agency is important in the workplace; people typically need to feel as if they have responsibility over a task in order to derive satisfaction from doing it. This is one of the most basic facts that someone managing a team should be aware of. Sure, it's important that you know what's going on with your team, but that doesn't extend to the level of having comprehensive direct access to every last bit of their personal workplace communications. The point is that you have a certain level of trust…

Some people just love to hear the sound of their own voices . Doesn't matter what the topic is, or if it's even appropriate for them to be yapping: some people just can't help themselves. These days, lots of offices are switching from remote work back to office work. For micromanagers, not having their employees in the office is a missed opportunity to boss them around. They get to feel empowered as they peer over your shoulder every few minutes. But many employees love to work remotely (for th…

Instead of under-promising and over-delivering, one company found themselves doing the exact opposite. Truly, this company sounds like a hot mess. Just ask u/SchalkLBI, a software developer who suddenly found themself with a ton of responsibility for low pay. How low was this pay? It was just $1000 per month, and the software developer had to commute for four hours every day to get to work. Commuting two hours each way on an intern salary? That's tough. This developer writes that they stuck aro…

The hiring process is asinine these days. After 8 rounds of interviews, 4 different cover letters, and losing your will to live, the application to your dream job may still be lost in the trash bin of some flippant hiring manager.

Usually, it's wise to have multiple persons capable of maintaining the continuity of the important areas of your organization. This means not having a single employee who knows essential company processes, secrets, codes, and passwords that can't otherwise be found, learned, or replicated by someone else. If you happen to have one of these workers in your organization or someone who is otherwise essential to the operation of your business, you will do well to treat them well. It would certainly…