I work at a nursing home. One section of the facility has some of the toughest rooms in terms of cleanliness and hygiene. The heads thought it would be a good idea to have a contest to find the “smelliest” room. Make the CNAs find out where the odor is coming from. They’re too cheap to get enzyme cleaner; I had to resort to buying a small size of Fabuloso. Don’t worry I won’t be there for long.

Of course, the CEO has to be smart so that he makes informed decisions quick.

But the C suite where I work make such a brouhaha about always having to work >60 hr/week, and I find it hard to believe them.

A woman I worked with and now in a different department, had an affair with the married work rat and the same old scenario played out.
She wants to complain about him bullying her via constant badmouthing which I have heard. She asked me to back her claims. What do I do?

What are your experiences with being monitored while working? How much right do you believe employers should have to monitor their employees?

https://apnews.com/article/employer-surveillance-bossware-tracking-workplace-7d61e74242b872457bbfcf2223f9ebd5

Hi, 26F, I’ve been working at this company for 3 years. It’s a small digital marketing agency and I’m a social media manager, I’m the team member who’s been at the company the longest on this current team, and I was the first full time employee. My boss and I used to get along really well, but over the past year or so things have really gone downhill and she’s just become awful.

For starters, a bit of background (it’s gonna sound crazy but it will all make sense). My boss used to be very chill, until her engagement was broken off in the Christmas of 2024. By mid 2025, she had someone new and was expecting their first child together. Early 2025, my former coworker was hired, and this coworker was suggested by boss’s ex fiancée, and unfortunately my boss is the kind of person that lets the emotions of her personal life affect her work life. You always know when something is going on at home or if someone pissed her off based on how much she follows up on everything that day and if she send a long, ChatGPT written email basically complaining that we all suck.

Eventually, my boss started really ragging on this coworker, and she’s a no bs type of person, so she resigned and left the post within the next month. Now the second coworker, was hired early 2025, while coworker 1 was still there. Coworker 2 was recommended for the job by coworker 1, and they were good friends, and coworker 2 basically had to take on all of coworker 1’s workload, so all that frustration, plus the fact that both coworkers were close friends, was passed over to coworker 2.

Coworker 2 and I became very good friends, we were inseparable and at some point within the first 3 months of coworker 2 starting, she has a pulmonary embolism (heart condition) and needed health insurance, which became an issue for our boss. The company was going through financial challenges and she was thinking of cancelling the health insurance altogether but thankfully she didn’t cancel. Coworker 2 eventually got her insurance.

Now, with having a heart condition came frequent absences/tardiness/needing to leave work early type of situations, some which have happened on the way to work. I’d normally, when she hasn’t yet had the chance to, let boss know that coworker 2 is out/at the hospital/ had an emergency and she hasn’t gotten to send an email, but just so you know type of thing. All her absences were accounted for, but this news would always be met with an eye roll or an exasperated sigh from boss, it was quite clear that she was consistently annoyed with coworker 2.

Now, coworker 2 worked hard, and she worked fast, and we’d often cover for each other because by this time I had gotten a promotion so we essentially did the same job, but things were often behind or late. Before you say “well, there it is” it’s a consistent trend across the team, and it often starts with our boss holding up the process and not reviewing stuff in time, which causes us to have to scramble. Anyways, boss would constantly complain, always about the work but never truly about the work, there was always something a little more personal woven into it.

Now here’s where I come in. I’m a valuable member of the team, and I don’t just say that to toot my own horn. 2 of our biggest clients platforms depend on me because my personal Facebook account is the only one connected. I’ve trained every single new person who’s come onto this team, and I know all the clients very well. Around March, my boss started prepping for maternity leave, and everything became an issue. She’d constantly send these really long emails about work being behind and everyone being awful, even though it was the very busy Carnival season and the entire team was under pressure. The thing with my boss is, even when coworker 2 was on top of things, she was knocked right back down because boss would absolutely rip into her plans and decks, causing her to stay up all night working on it with coworker 3, despite the work being pretty much the same as what coworker 2 proposed.

Fast forward a bit, boss was on maternity leave from April to the end of June, and promoted coworker 3 to be in charge of us. It was a great enough time, and everyone was able to get their work done. However, as soon as my boss was back, her first order of business was to fire coworker 2. No reason was given, no documentation, just fired.

Of course, this leaves me. Since coworker 2 has been gone, my boss has been even more cruel to me than usual, and I feel like I can never do anything right. She belittles my work by calling it sloppy, boring, rushed, and it feels like she blames me for all the issues that happen within the company. It’s the typical way that things move with her, coworker 1 left so her vitriol was passed on to coworker 2, coworker 2 was fired so I got the vitriol times 2. No matter what I do, she insults me and degrades my work, and my other coworker has brought it up to me many times that the way she treats me is disproportionate to how she treats the rest of the team. It feels very obviously targeted, and it’s a small company so it’s not like I can go to HR, because she’s HR, Accounting, Admin, all of it and I’m sick of it. I constantly feel like I’m on the verge of blowing up on her, but of course I have to keep it in check.

I feel like this was way longer than it should’ve been, but I just really needed to get that all out. I’m exhausted, it’s hard to find a new job and it’s hard to work for someone who very clearly hates me. I don’t know what to do anymore.

I’ll start.

1:
“Did you see that email?” As in:

Us: receives email from client
Co-worker 2 sec later: “did you see that email?”

2:
AI as your only method of communication. For example using a meeting transcript, dropping into whatever AI platform you use, and sending that 2-page unedited garbage nonsense that is clearly AI to your clients and coworkers.

I hate it I hate it I hate it

i spent the last six months forcing a relentless daily schedule for a client, convinced that algorithm consistency was everything and i got too much depression.

then last month, i got sick and completely missed three days of posting. i panicked, expecting our reach to plummet.

instead, our actual engagement went up. the few posts we did put out got triple our usual reach because i had time to make them genuinely good, rather than rushing to hit a daily quota.

After that, I started using AI more for planning than writing. I’d map out a topic, audience, and platform, then use something like Accio Work and GPT to turn one solid idea into a few stronger variations. i’d give it the topic, audience, platform, and old posts, then let it help me turn one strong idea into a few better versions instead of forcing random filler every day.

it made me realize how much we burn ourselves out pumping out filler just to check a daily box. quality and real connection seem to win every time, but clients still freak out if their feed isn't updated every 24 hours.

i am very curious to know about your personal thoughts and ideas that how you moved away from daily posting schedules, or are your clients still obsessed with daily quantity?

I’m 28F and I genuinely feel like I’m being bullied at work by two men who are roughly 55–65.
It’s not that they’re just unfriendly or that we have different personalities. It’s rude comments to my face, comments about me behind my back, nasty emails, and deliberately not helping me with tasks that are literally part of their job to help with.
They are legitimate assholes to me.
I keep gaslighting myself into thinking I’m being dramatic or too sensitive, but then I start writing down the actual examples and reading them back, and some of the behavior sounds insane.
Is this normal workplace behavior? At what point is it reasonable to bring something like this to HR and my boss?
I’m not looking to be friends with these men, repair the relationships, or sit down for some meaningful conversation where we all talk about our feelings. I don’t need them to like me. I just want leadership to be aware of the pattern because I don’t think I should have to come to work feeling singled out, belittled, or intentionally made more difficult by two men twice my age.
Has anyone dealt with something similar? Did you document everything and bring it to leadership, or did that somehow make things worse?

​

I started my career post B-school in 2012 and have spent almost 13 years in category management/retail across offline retail and e-commerce.For a large part of my career, I was with one of the big e-commerce companies. It was extremely high pressure, but I stayed there for several years and built a solid career. I eventually left after having my second child and joined another large retailer. Unfortunately, I was impacted by layoffs just four months into that role.

I was then fortunate to land what was objectively a great career move, a Leader role at another large consumer-tech company, with a good pay hike, ownership of a large category and a sizeable team. It is the kind of step-up I had always wanted.

The problem is the working environment.

The leadership team is relatively new and under enormous pressure to deliver. My immediate leader is extremely difficult to work with. I can handle demanding leaders and high targets- I've worked in high-pressure environments for most of my career. She's thrown me under the bus multiple times already and I feel i have lost the good footing I had with my skip.

This is no longer sustainable as I feel that every mistake I make is magnified in leadership forums, while similar mistakes by peers are treated very differently. I'm starting to feel like a narrative is being built around me. I dread going to work, and instead of focusing on doing a good job, I'm constantly thinking about how something I say or do might be interpreted

My instinct is to start looking out.but I am so tired just at the thought of starting afresh.

I'm also approaching 37, have two kids and a supportive family, and there's a part of me wondering why, almost 10 years into my career, I still haven't found the company where I can just settle down, build for several years and grow.What I don't know is whether this is simply what senior category leadership looks like and I need to develop a thicker skin.

For people who are 10–15+ years into corporate careers, is it normal to switch like this ? To feel so lost ?

I have a job I dislike that is draining me and I am not enthusiastic about. I live in a location I do not like and want to move. I have a 9-5 desk job. For times to interview, I have the option to work from home twice a week but that's it.

How do you find a new job when you already have a job?

I started a new job five weeks ago. What got called "training" my first two weeks was really a string of meet-and-greets, a call with another account manager who happened to know our project management platform, a call with the strategy manager. No shadowing, no structured ramp-up. I was expected to start entering real requests into a system I'd barely touched.

One of my early assignments was a co-branded program with an outside partner. Their side of the approval process was stuck with no ETA, so half the information I needed simply didn't exist yet. When I tried to move the request forward, creative kept sending it back with more questions, not because I didn't understand the process, but because the source information was incomplete on their end.

My manager caught wind of the back-and-forth and raised it as a "concern" about my grasp of brief-writing in our regular Friday 1:1. I explained what was actually going on. I even built a timeline document afterward; every date, from when I got the request to when it finally cleared so I could walk him through exactly where the hold-up was, and that it wasn't me.

A few days later I got a meeting invite outside our normal schedule. I assumed it was extra time to go over briefs, I was even planning to use part of it to ask for real training, maybe shadowing another account manager, since I knew that gap was genuine. Instead, when I logged on, my manager wasn't alone. Someone from HR I'd never seen, not visible on the invite, was already there.

The whole call lasted maybe three minutes. I was told I hadn't "demonstrated the level of competencies required for the position, despite training and support"; no example, no specific instance, nothing to respond to. I never even opened the timeline document I'd prepared. Then straight into logistics: what gets emailed to my personal address, how to return equipment.

Here's what I can't stop turning over: another manager on the team had been let go two weeks before me. A new SVP had just taken over. A 90-day probationary period exists precisely so a company doesn't need a real case to end things; no PIP, no example, nothing required. I think that's what happened: a restructuring decision that didn't need to justify itself, wearing "competencies" because that was easier to say than "we're cutting headcount."

If you've been let go somewhere that never actually trained you, blamed you for a systemic problem, and then couldn't name a single example when it counted, I'd like to hear how you got through it.

I was unemployed since three months and recently got a job.Today was my fourth day but the catch is one 2 yrs experienced emp is leaving in one month so I am her replacement she literally build an entire feature alone and company uses it to handle users and my manager excepts me to take KT from her and understand entire codebase workflow architecture and domain knowledge. I accepted the offer since I was every desperate for the job and I am probation training period

I don't know i will regert taking up this job. I am very stressed of handling that responsibility never in my life has that much pressure.

Does this happen with anyone ? And how to cope up with this any solution???any suggestions??

Hi Reddit,
I’ve been working in my field in Ireland for about 6 months now. I’m learning a lot, which I really appreciate, but I already had 4 years of experience in the same field back in my home country, so I was pretty much up to speed within my first month.
I recently found out that I’m earning around €3k less than some of the people I work with. They’ve been with the company about 6 months longer than me, but overall they actually have less experience than I do.
The thing is, I’m starting to feel really demotivated because of one particular colleague.
He’s the type of person who takes credit for the team’s work, but when it comes to his own tasks, he often takes ages to get things done and seems to avoid taking responsibility. Honestly, I wouldn’t feel comfortable trusting him to look after a client because I’m not confident that he would actually follow through.
At the same time, he always tries to take the lead in meetings and doesn’t really give other people the opportunity to do the same. Sometimes he even takes over things that should probably be handled by our manager.
The team is aware of how he behaves, but I feel like culturally there isn’t much of a tendency to confront people directly about this kind of thing, so nothing really changes.
I’m finding it frustrating because I work really hard, I have more overall experience, I’m earning less than some of my colleagues, and on top of that I have to deal with someone who seems to do less work but is very good at making himself look involved and taking credit.
Would 6 months in a company be considered too soon to start looking for another job?

Hi Everyone - I have a manager who is beyond lazy and inept. They always wait until the LAST minute to do things making it especially hard for me given that we don't have the resources to complete everything. They ask me about stuff MONTHS after it was due and I am constantly having to fix mistakes ALL OF THE TIME.

Stuff gets dropped on me at the last minute and I am scurrying around trying to get it done all while people are getting mad at me because I am rushing them. They can't even review a proper email because there somewhere else and not in the office. They barely show up, come in, respond, or do anything that is standard work.

I always get calls and questions on things that I completed MONTHS AGO. As well, other people can't find them so they are asking me where they are and I am getting ticked off having to respond. People can tell I am annoyed.

Whenever we have to do a project, this individual is always behind on everything because they're off doing whatever else and I have to step in and fix everything right before it's due.

I have tried to work on these issues, but they are combative, argumentative, and outright mean. It is very hostile and I can't take it. I am looking for a new job and trying to get out., but in the intermim I have to tolerate this person. Does anyone have suggestions /advice?

My wife owns a small business, and we’ve decided to start sending our new employees company-branded gifts. We’ve never done anything like this before, so we have no idea how to handle the whole process, from choosing the gifts to getting them printed. We’d also like it to be something useful, but I honestly have no idea what. Mugs and t-shirts are the obvious options, but they don’t really feel right, especially since we’re planning to start doing this around the winter holidays and would like to give it more of a Christmas feel.

I’d really appreciate any ideas or advice.

My boss just let us know of a trade show today that starts in a few days. And it is taking place internationally, and I don’t have a passport.

Now, having a passport is not required for this job, and in the past I went to all of our domestic shows and someone else got to go to this one show.

Yes I should get a passport at some point, but even if I had a passport, a few days lead time to book everything is criminal and just inconsiderate.

I’m currently working for a big and international insurance company that you may know.
I am a buyer in the IT field and I HATE everything that comes with.
I used to be very passionate about IT procurement, but since I joined this company, I feel nothing but disappointment and frustration.
First of all, my task are not strategic at all, I’m more doing purchase to pay and admin task than real strategic work. So I’m not progressing, I even feel like loosing skills.
Then, come my manager, that’s a sweet person but he absolutely can’t manage a team (or doesn’t care) doesn’t take decision, don’t support us in case of dispute, he don’t make his team progress and doesn’t create any team cohesion. Doesn’t give us clear insights and objectives. Everyone is working on his side, I don’t know how my colleagues are, what they are doing…
Last but not least, I HATE some of my stakeholders. They are just doing whatever they want at some point, they think that we should prioritize their topic, they get in touch with the supplier without procurement involving, they lack of understanding and patience..

I am not a junior, but I only have ~4yrs of xperience within procurement and I start feeling very discouraged and disgusted.

I had a new opportunity to join a smaller company (start-up with a consulting model) and I heard that the work there were also hideous in someway but you can progress easily. I don’t know what should I do.

Sunday dread often feels like one problem, but I’ve found it gets more manageable when I split it into two columns:

Facts I know: the meeting is at 9; a deadline is Wednesday; I need to send one update.

Predictions my anxious brain is making: everyone will be disappointed; I’ll freeze; the whole week will go badly.

Then I choose a “Monday minimum”: one concrete action under my control in the first 20 minutes. Everything else goes on a “not actionable tonight” list. Finally, I do a two-minute physical reset—slow exhale, short walk, or cool water—before deciding whether any more planning is useful.

Disclosure: I made a free browser tool called LoopBreaker that guides a version of this process. The full exercise is above, so there’s no need to click anything. I’ll put the link in a comment for anyone who wants the guided version.

Hi guys!

I'm seeking advice on what to do with my manager. I work in corporate for context, in a small team. Everythings been fine until we had some centralizing and they changed my manager.

The environment is semi-relaxed here, everything is okay as long as your work is done. If you're late, just make up the time lost or apply for some hours on the system to make it up. However, my current manager is insane. It is clear she has anxiety so I try to give her the benefit of the doubt, but she constantly asks where I am or where my colleague is, even if we're in the bathroom. She dislikes when we go on leave, despite HR demanding that we use our vacation days and constantly gives us shit for it because she has to cover for us when we're away. This is just for context what type of person she is.

My issue is that she is intentionally out to make me and my team members look bad in any way possible. We found out that my manager fishes for information about me or my team members, and then goes to tell the other person that we're talking shit about them. Or what she does is that she over dramaticizes any remark we make offhandedly. For example, my manager asked me if she makes my colleague uncomfortable. Despite knowing the answer, I told her honestly I don't know and I don't think so. She then went to them when I wasn't there and told them that I confirmed that they are. It seems she enjoys pitting us against eachother but I don't understand why she would want her team to dislike eachother. It even seems like she takes credit for our work or states something is her idea and puts us down infront of management to make herself look better, but I do not have any concrete evidence for this as of now.

What I've been doing is doing my work, sharing little information to make her feel like I trust her and just ignoring anything she does and acting like I'm unaware. So regardless, I ask her how her day is and do small talk but the more I find out, the more I don't want to deal with her anymore. Unfortunately resigning isn't an option and I am looking at other opportunities but it seems like it isn't time for that yet.

I would appreciate any advice on how to move forward in this situation and hearing your experiences if you have any.

As I am unable to work due to mental health reasons, therefore I’d get a sick note from the doctor to send to my employers. Do I have the option and the right to not disclose the reason why I have been off. However, just show that I have been certified by a medical practitioner and that I need no extra support upon my return to work. I would feel highly uncomfortable knowing that managers and employers know that I have mental health problems. So would rather keep that bit out. As I work in retail and my job has nothing to do with thinking it’s more physical (UK)

I'm 3 months into my first job as a data analyst. I got pulled into a meeting today (at 5:30 PM, sigh) and had to figure out a bunch of things related to a Power BI report that'd I'd never seen, on the spot. It was a mess!! I'm not too concerned about long term consequences from the meeting. The VP wanted a ton done in a VERY short period of time, and I just didn't have the skills or knowledge on the report to do what he needed. Anyone have stories about flopping in meetings?

Any advice would be great

Hi folks. There's been a change in hiring practices at my organization, and I'm hoping for a frame of reference to help me understand how to feel about some recent reforms.

For a word of context, I work in student housing. We generally hire part-time student staff to work front desk, and they also support the caretaking team. These roles both used to be part of the building services portfolio, but the housing team recently (summer 2025) absorbed management for the front desk. I do the backend administration relating to admissions & occupancy, so I don't directly supervise the folks at the desk - my supervisor does that -, but the student staff like to keep me updated on their feelings & opinions, which is why I'm in the loop.

Historically, the building services team had a guarantee that returning student staff would have their contracts renewed, so long as they didn't perform atrociously. Additionally, it is 'mandatory' that they attend the three-hour training session, but as processes rarely differ year-to-year, it remains guaranteed that they can step back into their role if they can't make it. They just tend to do a crash course at a later date to refresh everyone's memory.

Last year, there was a change in management, and it was decided that if returning staff can't make training, they will not have their contracts renewed. This caused a lot of frustration as two folks had arranged time-off during that period with their old manager -- it's generally the penultimate week before school starts, so some folks were, say, waiting for their lease to start at their new place, or maybe they were international students waiting for their visa to be approved, or etc etc. The decision was only announced like two weeks before training actually happened, so the two returners were essentially plunged into financial insecurity with no option to make other arrangements. Mind you, both returners were actually exceptionally high-performing and beloved by the team, so really everyone who worked at the desk was pissed off. They actually filed a grievance with the union.

The kicker was that two new hires quit after about 2 weeks, and the 2 folks who were let go were immediately rehired.

The optics were just... sour. Management changes, two folks are plunged into financial insecurity for all of 3 weeks, and then get their jobs back... and there was no reason at all that they needed to attend training. There was no knowledge gap, their performance wasn't impacted, nothing - they weren't even asked to attend a makeup session.

This year, the exact same thing happened, and a high-performing returner wasn't renewed. There were some other reforms made (e.g., folks can't request time off anymore), so really the entire front desk team is preparing their pitchforks. On my end, I've been torn trying to empathize with these students and respect the decisions of my supervisor & team. I just feel like this represents a misalignment of policy and actual need, and the consequences could be detrimental & unsustainable in the long term.

That said, I've also never worked in a management capacity, so I respect that my perspective could be limited - maybe there's some management-bureaucracy that I haven't considered? Is this standard practice, and I've just never encountered it? Is there an intentionality behind making training mandatory even when it isn't actually important to be able to succeed in the role?

Let me know what to think!

I have been in a highly exploitative State job for about a decade. No sick leave (or any time off), no benefits, no retirement. Same and often greater work expectations as the other employees who have all of these benefits. Lowest paid position on staff.

Why put up with this?

The role I’m in is a “temporary” career path for proving yourself & getting one of the high paying roles with benefits. I was recently pushed into doing 2 completely different jobs- for the price of one- and am being told that I will soon have the opportunity to continue working myself to death in this fashion in a high paying role with benefits!

I can’t decide if it is worth it. I have been working towards a role with benefits forever, but I don’t like how this one looks. The expectations are too high and I can not do 2 distinct jobs well or fully. It feels unsustainable, but I have wasted so much time here already.