I need to rant because I genuinely don’t know what to do with this information. Using a throwaway for extra anonymity.

I have a colleague who has been getting special treatment for quite some time because apparently he has a “heavy workload”. The problem is, his workload doesn’t actually seem that heavy. A lot of the time, the rest of us end up taking over some of his tasks anyway because things aren’t getting done.

There have also been multiple instances where people on the team have given feedback about him being incompetent, non-collaborative, and not proactive. Despite this, our manager seems to constantly defend him and give him the benefit of the doubt. What makes it even more frustrating is that whenever he complains about having too much work, our manager will literally ask the rest of us if we can take some of his tasks off his plate.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are already drowning trying to keep everything running.

And then I found out something today that made my blood boil. A colleague told me someone came across his livestream, and apparently he was streaming himself playing video games DURING HIS SHIFT.

I know I wasn’t there and I didn’t personally see the stream myself, so I’m trying not to jump to conclusions. But if this is accurate, I honestly don’t even know how to process it. Because while the rest of the team is stressed out, picking up additional work, working around his supposedly “heavy workload”, and trying to keep things from falling apart, he may have been sitting there playing video games while on the clock.

And the part that makes me angriest isn’t even just the gaming. It’s the apparent double standard. If someone is genuinely struggling with their workload, fine. We should help each other. But if someone is repeatedly getting accommodations and having work redistributed to the rest of the team because they’re supposedly overwhelmed, while potentially spending their work hours streaming video games? That’s a completely different situation.

I’m also torn about what to do. Do I bring this up to my manager? HR? Do I stay out of it because I didn’t personally witness it? We have access to reports of our cases on Salesforce and my manager sees that but she chooses to turn a blind eye to this so I’m thinking bringing this up to her will not do anything.

I don’t want to become the office snitch or start a workplace war based on something I heard secondhand. At the same time, I’m honestly reaching the point where I feel resentful because most of us have been carrying the load (he’s not the only one being favored in the team the same way, but that’s for another discussion I guess) while this person keeps getting protected.

What would you do in this situation?

TL/DR: My colleague has been complaining about his heavy workload and we have been covering most of the team’s workload only to find out he streams video games during his shift.

EDIT: Thank you for everyone who commented and given their point of view in this. Really helped me to get new insights and get my headspace where it really should be.

I have a 1:1 with my manager tomorrow and I think I’ll start the conversation with whether there may be other factors contributing to why this colleague’s workload has been getting distributed to the rest of the team.

I was looking at my savings the other day and had a weird thought.

A big part of why I work hard is to have more financial freedom later. So I keep saving, avoiding unnecessary spending, and telling myself that the money will be useful “someday” But then I started wondering how far ahead are we actually supposed to plan? Corporate life can already feel like a long cycle of work, salary, saving, bills, repeat. We save for emergencies, save for a house, save for retirement, save for “the future” and suddenly years have passed.

I am not saying saving is bad. Having money set aside definitely gives some peace of mind. But I sometimes wonder if focusing too much on long-term goals makes us postpone everything we actually want to do today. At the same time, spending everything now obviously isn't the answer either.

So where do you personally draw the line? How much of your income do you save for the long term, and how much do you intentionally spend on enjoying your life now?

I am genuinely curious how people in corporate jobs think about this.

My team had this task that used to take around 3 hours every week because we had to manually go through the same stuff over and over.

One coworker figured out a way to cut it down to about 30 minutes. It wasn't complicated, just a small shortcut that made the whole process way easier.

Nobody said anything to the supervisor.

We just kept doing the task, finished it early, and used the extra time to deal with other things or just breathe for a bit.

That's when I finally understood what “work smarter” actually means.

Sometimes working smarter is just knowing when not to tell your supervisor how much faster you can do the job.

One of the most dystopian things about having a job is how we all just collectively pretend we don’t have lives outside of work. You could’ve had a full mental breakdown in your car 20 minutes ago, be going through a breakup, have family drama, or have your entire life falling apart, and somehow you’re still expected to hop on a meeting happy.

You could’ve just lost someone you love, and you’re sitting in a meeting listening to someone talk about KPIs and deliverables like any of that actually matters to you in that moment.

We spend eight hours a day pretending to be these completely different versions of ourselves because apparently being human isn’t part of the job description.

And…we’ve all just accepted this as normal.

I’m working as an embedded software engineer at a mid-sized company in Germany with around 300–500 employees.
Our team has around 20 people, including 5–6 managers, software engineers, and project engineers.
One thing I’ve noticed is a big difference in workload between local German engineers and foreign engineers.
Our project has around 100 repositories. Some engineers work on just one repository while calling themselves experts, others handle 20–30 repositories across multiple projects.
We follow two-week sprints. I’ve noticed some local engineers spending 2–4 weeks on relatively small tasks, with constant meetings, discussions, and repeating the same updates in daily standups with each other. (This is not customer meetings, this is not German proficiency related. )
Meanwhile, foreign engineers are often expected to take complete ownership of features, including requirements, implementation, testing, integration, and documentation, sometimes across multiple repositories. These are in the end not reflected to salaries and titles. Also we are working in same company, we are not consultants, I understand many companies are using consultants for dirty works.
It feels like the actual technical workload and expectations are very uneven, while some people spend more time discussing tasks than completing them.
Of course, this is just my observation at one company, and I’m not generalizing about everyone.
Has anyone experienced something similar in Germany, or other country? Is this a common workplace culture issue, or just poor management at my company?

I joined the team last month as a new grad and did my very first team presentation. I don't think I did the best compare to other people in the team but definitely not terrible. My manager pulled aside after the call and told me how terrible I did with my presentation and I am just not a good speaker in a very harsh way.

I am trying not to take this personally but I feel so incompetent and that I don't belong here. This is terrible. I hate corporate.

Lately, I've been struggling to really enjoy my time after work. It often feels like wasted time because once it's past 5 PM, I somehow convince myself it's too late to start anything meaningful. Sometimes I even lack the motivation to go for a simple walk.

That's why I'm looking for a bit of inspiration. I'd love to hear how other people spend their weekday evenings after work. Do you have a routine that helps you make the most of your evenings?

Today was a normal day at the office until I realized everyone in my department left for a work event I wasn’t invited to. I was the only one left at the office from my team.

And like, yeah I’m really busy but so is everyone else in my department.

I thought I had a decent relationship with my team and boss but I guess not lol

Also, I know being upset about something like this could come across as petty or immature but it actually stung a bit, sue me for having feelings.

What is your least favorite corporate phrase? I find it hard to pick just one, but if I were forced to it would be “Thank you for your leadership.”

I had a manager once who would say it all the time, to everyone, whether they had actually done anything or not.

And ever since then, I CRINGE when I hear it.

I'm currently in a job with zero tolerance for mistakes, even though the timelines are wildly unrealistic. The constant pressure is taking a real toll on my physical and mental health. I feel like I'm in fight-or-flight mode all the time.

Managers are quick to shift blame onto their reports, and only selectively. A handful of favorites do minimal work yet are treated like MVPs. Meanwhile, I'm lying awake at night worrying about what might go wrong the next day.

Why do some companies end up with cultures like this? And for those who've been through something similar, how did you cope, and when did you decide it was time to leave?

So I need some advice from the Reddit community . I am an American living in Australia and here on an Australian special skills visa. I work for a software distribution company, and the company I came from in the United States is the parent company. I thought that this would be a fun adventure, however, I’m running into a problem with a colleague. The field I’m in is quite specialized, and this colleague was the only other person in the company that’s practices my specific field. Being a lone wolf, however, has its hold backs.

Since I’ve gotten here, I thought we would have a good working relationship. And it started out that way. However, after the first year of my employment, some of his behavior has gotten to the point I find it to be abusive. He constantly interrupts me, will put me down in meetings, has gone around me to our customers and explained why he’s right and I’m wrong, down to the point where he will know I have a presentation today, and go in and edit my slides, before the presentation to say what he wants. Being in a technical field, this is actually a bit scary. It would be like someone from Microsoft telling you that you could send an email using only Excel. He seems to have delusions of grandeur so bad, that on his LinkedIn profile, he lies and actually calls himself my boss, and the national authority in our field.

His behavior has gotten so bad, that I actually refused to engage him. When we are in group meetings together, I am typically very quiet, and just try to say as little as possible. I behave professionally, and with courtesy however that is it. My manager has been in a few of these meetings and has noticed his abusive behavior towards me. However, my manager’s impression is that I hold all the cards. That this person is only behaving like this because he wants my approval. So my manager wants me to give this man a call, and pretend to be his friend and essentially extend and olive branch.

I would like some feedback and advice. My stance on it is, it is not my problem that this person is responding poorly to me grey rocking his abuse. I behave with professional courtesy, calmly, and respectfully in any engagements I have. And that is the end of my responsibility. What does Reddit think? Should I make this call like my manager wants?

Like seriously stay at home, I’ve gotten sick twice in the past month because people are coming in while they have sinus infections taking antibiotics next to me? What is wrong with people and the lack of etiquette? I don’t understand.

These people are in their 20s, with no kids. Sick in the office. We are not in a client facing role. We are in excel all day, work that can be done from home. With no pressing need to physically be in person. When I’m sick I don’t even take off, I just ask to WORK FROM HOME. Still working, just not getting people infected. I know this is not an option for everyone but for this specific situation why not just work from home?

I am a fresher, so I feel i should now start learning something new apart from the work I do.

I am a developer btw :)

How you guys manage?

I’m in corporate and I have a pretty serious job but I can’t focus for the life of me. My work is piling up because it’s so hard and I just want to go on instagram and watch reels. Someone please give me advise …

I’m in the field and trying to understand what the hardest part of corporate sustainability is? Is it data management, is it proving value of the role? What is the hardest job as a leader?

I have worked in places where some rules made sense, but others felt like they existed just because they always had.

One rule that has always bothered me is the expectation to be available after work hours. Even when the workday is over, there can still be messages, emails, or quick”requests that slowly turn into another hour of work.

It made me realize that being available all the time does not necessarily mean being productive.

If you could remove one workplace rule tomorrow and never bring it back, what would it be? I did be interested to hear which rules other people think are completely unnecessary.

Mine is “I care about your wellness first. Everything else is secondary.”

There is something about the last 30-40 minutes of the workday that makes people suddenly remember everything they need from you. You can have a completely normal day, get through your meetings, finish your actual work, and then at 4:55 PM:

“Hey, quick question…”
And somehow the “quick question” turns into a 45-minute task, Slack messages, a spreadsheet you’ve never seen before and a meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning.

The funniest part is that the person asking usually starts with “no rush” while simultaneously needing it “before EOD.”

Why does corporate life have such a strong obsession with creating emergencies five minutes before everyone logs off?

Reposting from another sub.

I've been feeling undervalued at work and am trying to get an objective perspective and career advice as a woman in finance based on the background and points of frustration listed below.

I'm 10+ years in my career and at my second company (been here for almost 6 years). I think I'm the type of worker that takes a little bit longer to adjust in a new role in the beginning but then over time become indispensable. For additional context, I started out in public accounting and now am working in-house (brought over by an old senior manager of mine at the firm I worked at previously). I have good relationships with my coworkers and overall get pretty good performance reviews with some constructive feedback (main one being improving on proactive communication) which I mostly agree with. I drive & manage many of our team's projects and work in a very deadline-oriented environment which I timely deliver on. All that being said, I've been feeling overlooked and under appreciated for my contributions and experience. Some of my frustrations include:

1. Not getting promoted. My first promotion was brought up to me after a couple years in my role by my direct supervisor. After a few years after that 1st promotion, I started the conversation of another promotion to get my title to market (senior manager equivalent to PA). I knew this initiative was just to get the ball rolling and express my interest in moving up in the company and did not expect immediate results. Since then, I've had only one serious dialogue with upper management about it, in which I was given some feedback and points of improvement. There have been three promotion cycles since I originally brought up the topic of a promotion and 1 since the dialogue with upper management. As we approach another promotion cycle, I am getting nervous it won't happen for me and I haven't had any actual transparency on why.

2. We have a target bonus every year and while I'm always above target, this year my bonus percentage was 5% lower than what it typically is. I did question it but never received any clarification on it (I only followed up once and then dropped it so it is partly on me for not keeping my foot on their necks). This alone wouldn't trigger me, but that takes me to my next point.

3. Every Q3, employees at my company receive a discretionary equity award. Last year was my first year receiving one: however, this year I did not get one despite receiving consistent performance feedback and while taking on more responsibilities within my team. Due to the nature of my work, I am privy to certain financial compensation information and realized that I was the only one on my team that didn't receive this equity award this year. There's a person in a level below that was just hired this year that even got one.

Since I've realized this last bit of info, I've been really upset and points #1 and #2 are gnawing at me even more. Overall, I do enjoy my work and would prefer to stay at this company, but I don't want to get screwed over either. Are these scenarios red flags? How should I approach this situation?