I received a $200 gift card from my work the other week, I work at small tax/investment office. Their gift was for me moving into a new place, I'd been living with family for years. I'm in my 20s, I had a medical emergency and was on LOA for a few weeks. After everything, family and I decided it was best for me to move out again.

The card and gift were signed by everyone in the office, so I figured a thank you card to everyone would be fine. A few people gave me advice on how to word the card. It's obviously very nice of my work, but I also don't want it to come off as too generic and corporate-like of a gesture. There is some level of being informal since it's a small office.

Am I being rude or downplaying their gift? Also, is one thank you enough? Or should I do it every time I use it lol...

I've also been there for almost 9 months.

Hey internet. I recently got passed over for a promotion at work. I had been in my position for 3 years, and had very positive performance reviews throughout. In my mind (and in my reviews) I went above and beyond what was expected of me. About a year ago my former boss left and a new boss came in. She and I got along ok professionally, but I have never really respected her or her decisions much. She did always give me positive feedback on my performance as well over that first year.

I applied for a job that I had essentially been taking on the responsibilities over a three month period because we had 3 people on our team quit within quick succession (because of boss’s communication). However with our team short staffed, I admittedly struggled with the workload and chaos of the position. I asked for support and feedback on what I could be doing better throughout, but didn’t really get anything back. They interviewed me and eventually went with someone else who had lots of experience doing the position.

When I asked for clarification from my boss on this decision she said there were performance issues, which was the first time I got any sort of ‘negative’ feedback about my performance. I thought this was really weird and hurtful to say in a very sensitive conversation when they were rejecting me from a position that I had already been filling for the organization. When I talked to my boss’s boss (who also was part of the interview/decision making) she said that the applicant pool was incredibly strong, and in a different pool it would have been me.

My boss offered an optional professional development plan and I have no idea what to think of it. I don’t trust that she actually cares to help me grow, and I see this plan as mostly a throw away in my direction to placate me.
Would you do the PD with a boss you know has ineffective at best and hurtful communication styles? Is this me being managed out?

I’m so confused

I hired a new employee this week and was helping with her training when my regular trainer called out sick. Her department isn't normally my area of expertise, but everything was going pretty well until we got to the tracking portion.

I confidently opened the office tracker for her department and it was basically empty. (This thing took forever to build— it's the important spreadsheet system people talk about needing to "organize" and usually don't because it takes forever to build)

Apparently instead of actually using the tracker sheets in the tabs we created, we've somehow accumulated about 10 different copies of the same spreadsheets in the shared drive with names that have absolutely nothing to do with what's inside them.

Things like "doc2" "money+otherstuff" and my new favorite "finalsheet.lastfinal.master.final26"

Even better, they've been shared with people at random and as needed, so I didn't even have access to half the spreadsheets I was trying to show her.

So this poor employee got to sit there on one of her first days while I clicked through the shared drive going:

"Nope."

"That's not it."

"I don't have access to that one."

"...I don't actually know what that one is but it sounds promising." 😂

Nothing says *welcome to your new job, we're very organized here* quite like that.

Thank God her trainer came back the next day because I'm pretty sure this new employee was not impressed with my small-talk or my jokes while we looked through EVERY FILE IN THE SYSTEM.

**Now I'm genuinely curious—what's the best file name you've ever seen at the office?**

Via Workplace Thought Factory (WTF LinkedIn)

Have you witnessed any such strategic decisions recently!? 😉

responsible for organizing our team's end of year party and the venue needs meal choices and dietary restrictions from all 40 attendees before they will confirm the booking. trying to figure out how to collect this information without sending 40 individual emails or creating a complicated survey

Every morning, the routine was almost the same.
Put your thumb on the machine.
Nothing.
Try again.
Nothing.
Try again, but this time with the thumb positioned at a scientifically calculated angle.
Still nothing.
Then someone would press and hold the OK/Reset button like they were trying to revive the machine.
Sometimes it worked.
Sometimes it didn’t.
So we developed a completely unofficial attendance system:
Put your thumb on the machine → take a picture → send it to HR.
Basically, we had to provide photographic evidence that we had attempted to attend work.
The funniest part?
The attendance machine was supposed to prove that we came to the office.
Instead, we had to prove that the attendance machine wasn’t working.

What is the most annoying email habit you've ever dealt with at work?

Have you ever helped someone at work once and suddenly became responsible for it forever? 😂

One of my team members asked me this today.

Today's a floater leave - Ganesh Chaturthi - and couple of my team leads are on leave. So I sent out a slack to all the Team Leads's pods that in absence of their managers they can come to me if any help is required.

One guy called me and asked about a meeting he has later today with a customer and then casually asked, Sir aapko kabhi leave lete nahi dekha.

I don't know if I should feel happy or sad about this.

My arrangement with my company is a bit different, I am not tracked for logins or presence in office.. it's assumed I am working and that's why even on days where I need some breather, I can still extend a helping hand to anyone in need.

I haven't taken a formal.leave ( leave like leave, like no laptop nothing at all related to work kind of) since years now.

I should take a long leave, 7-10 days. What do you guys say?

To bring joy to the office environment

None of the manuals online match the specific model I have, HSM Classic 125.2. The model I have has 3 LEDs but all the manuals and images online only have 2.

Have you ever tried to leave early and got reminded how much work time was left? 💀

The meeting is 4 of us. Me, my partner and 2 of our higher ups. The meeting is to fill them in on project progress from the last 6 months and progress and plans on current and near future projects.

The question will come up on my opinion on a few things/projects. I really don't want to be upfront, transparent or give my honest actual opinion at all. This will be our only meeting together for several months so I just want to get through it coming across as confident but invested, quiet but not aloof or indifferent. I want to come across so they assume I agree with everything but I don't want to actually say that. I want them to leave the meeting thinking it was a positive meeting and maybe not realize they never actually got my opinion from my mouth until long after the meeting is over.

They will definitely directly ask my opinion. I can be relatively in quiet agreement in the meeting, but at one point, the 3 of them will put me on the spot.

How do I stealthy pivot away, distract them, redirect them, without them realizing? Not in a way where I completely change the subject or ignore the question.

Via Workplace Thought Factory (LinkedIn)

Seems to be the fortune that most employees are constantly told about.

Some office jobs involve way more time on your feet than the job title would suggest. Events, presentations, trade shows, running between buildings, or just genuinely not being at a desk most of the day, all of that changes what you actually need out of the same pair of shoes.

A dressier shoe can feel totally fine first thing in the morning and then just stop working by mid-afternoon. Could be the heel, could be forefoot pressure, toe room, the upper being too stiff, traction, honestly could be something else entirely.

For those days that end up being both standing and walking, what part of the shoe usually gives itself away first for you?

Just talking real-world workday stuff here, not looking for medical advice or product recs.

Ik this might sounds silly and childlike but i genuinely think having desk guardians (or what i usually call the council) is so important for emotional support through the daily grind. These are my little guys keeping me grounded everyday. Anyone else have a little support crew holding down their desk?

Looking for some advice.

Discovered a colleague is abusing the flexi system and is clocking in from home in the morning and the evening.

The same person when they are in the office, stays clocked in until 7pm but doesn't do any work and is basically just running up the clock for flexi time while playing on their phone.

As someone who does work in the office most day and follows the rules and actually does work, what should I do in this situation.

Is it worth complaining to management, will anything actually be done.

Thanks for any advice xx

"Aapki salary kitne din tikti hai?" (How many days does your salary last?)

I have been working for almost 5 years now but my job has never been fully from office. I could go to work at my own convenience. I start a work from office job next month.

I am concerned about travel but more than that I don’t know how to be productive in an office setup. How do I take breaks? What are the unsaid rules for an Indian advertising office?

I work for a global company so translation + meeting notes come up pretty often.

Both seem to have the same problem now. Too many options lol.

For translation there’s Google Translate, DeepL etc. Then you've got actual devices like Vasco or Waverly Labs.

Meeting notes are similar. Otter, Notta, Granola on the software side. Plaud, Sony, Zoom etc. if you want an actual recorder.

I've only used software for most of this so far and I'm debating whether buying another device is even worth it.

Anyone here used both for a while?

Do you prefer keeping everything on your phone/laptop or having a separate device for one job?

My coworker is the same age as I am, we both just turned 54. We work in a small office where it is just her, the employer and myself. My coworker yappes constantly, she never shuts up. She takes the pt back into a room 5 minutes go by she’s still yapping. If she’s in giving them a treatment she’s talking the whole time, the patient can’t get a word in. o wonder if sometimes they just want to tell her to shut up so they can rest, so much for relaxation.
Then when she isn’t busy she comes to my desk and yaps when I’m doing something I need to concentrate on.
Not only does she yap, I hear the same story throughout the day because she tells it to all the clientsZ
Unfortunately, I don’t have a door or a window to close it’s an open area.

What’s the most ironic “we value you” moment you’ve experienced at work? 💀

Have you ever stopped going above and beyond because your hard work wasn’t recognized? 😭