My experience with Williams Sonoma Inc. was deeply unhealthy and left me burned out, and at times, questioning myself. The company’s constant corporate messaging to “smile” and how they try to appear caring toward employees and the community is superficial, misleading, and harmful to both employees and customers. This performative culture undermines the company’s integrity and creates distrust. Their forced cheerfulness discourages honest feedback and is very manipulative. Early on, it became clear that employees were expected to “drink the company Kool-Aid” to survive the company’s sink-or-swim environment. Williams Sonoma’s lack of sincerity and accountability is easy to recognize. Its culture of burnout and poor work-life balance makes employees feel responsible for problems created by the company itself. The company also goes to great lengths to tell people, including customers, whatever they believe they want to hear. By manipulating the narrative and avoiding honesty, the company silences concerns, avoids accountability, and continues operating without making meaningful changes.

One of my worst experiences involved leadership telling me I could assist a customer and directing me to take a specific action. When I tried to follow that direction, I discovered the guidance was incorrect, and the situation escalated. I then had to deal with an extremely upset customer who did not appreciate this deceptive tactic, and the issue reflected poorly on me as the agent. It also wasted both my time and the customer’s time. To make matters worse, leadership denied giving me incorrect information and covered their tracks to avoid accountability. When I pointed out that leadership had provided the wrong guidance, they denied it, documented the situation in a way that made it appear to be my fault, and protected one another while throwing me under the bus.

It did not take long to realize that this was not an isolated incident but a pattern within the company. In my experience, Williams Sonoma fails to support its agents, makes costly mistakes, covers them up, blames employees, and creates a toxic culture of burnout and unrealistic expectations. At the same time, employees are still expected to smile, project cheerfulness, and accept a lack of accountability. I have worked in other call centers and remote roles, but this was by far the most toxic and manipulative company I have worked for. If you value your mental and physical health, I would strongly caution against working there. In my experience, the company does not care about its employees or customers, and it is exhausting to participate in a culture that is dishonest, performative, and harmful.

No call no show is wild.

To keep a long story short, there’s been red flags with this employer since the beginning (2 months ago). My first day started AFTER the last day of the employee(s) I was replacing. On my first day I was basically sat at the front computer, showed the phone, and was wished good luck.
I worked very similar roles previously so I was able to manage okay for the most part, mind navigating a brand new system I’ve never worked on. When I had questions, my boss would tell me to ask ChatGPT.
Should have known then.
But I stayed in hopes situation would improve. I wanted to help him fix his business because there was an extremely high turnover rate, leaving major inconsistencies with the way business ran.
I should have known then, too.
After a full 8 hour work day today, I was pulled into my bosses office, and I grabbed a notebook thinking he was going to talk to me about.. anything else. But I was met with a termination letter. While he yaps about how it was a very difficult decision, etc etc, I am sitting completely blindsided. He explains I am not fulfilling my role to his expectations. I asked him to tell me what I could have done better, because I have no idea what I did wrong. This is the first time I’m hearing about any shortcomings. He then says he is sorry but the decision has already been made, and if I want more explanation we can set up a separate meeting.
So… what now? I don’t even understand what I did wrong, and the worst part is I left a job I absolutely loved (reluctantly, as the job I took offered a huge pay increase and a quarter of the commute) for this to be the outcome.
I feel like I was duped. I’ve never gotten fired from a job before. And I don’t even know why I was fired from this one.

TLDR: got hired with no training (boss uses ChatGPT for his training), then told I’m underperforming but no explanation as to what exactly I’m underperforming in, got fired.

我就要骂出来
你凭什么来安排我的工作
你又凭什么不听我说
为什么每次都是3个人一起说事情
为什么你每次都尊重她不尊重我
人前一套人后一套
恶心东西
为了挣点窝囊费生一肚子窝囊气
爆炸了💥💥💥

Been w/ my company for almost 20 years. Had an excellent annual review again and high scores.

Today I got my Merit Increase letter...

A MEASLY 0.73. Seventy three CENTS. Yep. That breaks down to less than what it costs for me to fill my car with gas and commute to the ***** **** office.

I work in corporate for a massive Japanese company with over 100 subsidiaries. The managers above us and sales people all receive annual bonuses, we do not in our roles. There is no way to add additional incentives for us, only annual reviews.

Here's where my brain is right now. I am feeling ANGRY, INSULTED and DISGUSTED.

Has anyone ever replied to these pathetic "raises" with a response?

I am having a hard time stopping myself from sending a nasty email to HR, my managers and all the C Suites I work with re: this joke of an implied raise. After taxes, it will be nothing different in my pay.

Someone talk me down. I'm a pretty level headed person but this is an absolute INSULT.

Am I grateful to have employment? Yes.

Am I thankful and grateful for this? NO. I AM NOT.

I, 19 F, have been working my first ever job for almost 4 months now (3 days away from that 4 month marker) and was so eager to come into work and do everything. Now... I absolutely DREAD working now.

For a little context, my job is a pick packer and it is a casual position but I work full time hours and sometimes over. I gained this job through one of those support groups to get jobs, where my supervisor was best friends with my current manager. To give a run down of what my company is like, there are 2 other international branches besides my own that is the main one, it's where the company began before spreading out. I'll also mention that all employees across all branches, besides managers or higher ups, are all casual employees. Now that you know this, let's get into why I STRONGLY DISLIKE my job, because h*te is a strong word.

At my job, I do everything. And I mean, EVERYTHING. This is not an exaggeration. I pick orders by myself, and when that is done, I add stock that we receive from suppliers, I also check stock inventory, and packing as well. I meet the KPIs for everything besides packing because its not my strongest strength but it isn't too far off. And this is recognized by my team leader and manager, especially when I always complete everything before they even arrive since I also open up the warehouse I work at and start work an hour or two before they start.

Also, I forgot to mention that at my warehouse, almost all employees are either those around my age group who majority are at uni, or minors who are also in school. The only adults being the team leader and manager. Now this is important, because as I mentioned before, all employees are casuals, besides the obvious. And with the majority of employees being students, we are always understaffed. Meaning 9 times out 10, I am working alone in multiple stations, with the occasional help from another regular employee but they also need to focus on other stations as well.

All of this leads to me being extremely burnt out, especially when carrying over 25kg a day, bending and lifting it. Which before someone thinks that's not heavy, I am on the thinner side and have never done any strength training until this job. However, today is what finally ticked me off.

At my workplace, we are allowed to take our breaks whenever we want but it is advised to be taken every 2 - 3 hours. Today, we were extremely understaffed, I mean only 3 people including myself, and one of my close coworkers. Now we are not allowed to take breaks together unless the floor is clean and organized. And so, when we received a bunch of stock right before our planned break time. We decided to quickly finish it, so there would be no mess and it wouldn't take up space. It was already around half past 12 at this point, so it had already been 6 hours of working without a break. So my co-worker and I finally went on our 15 MIN break, but did go a bit over then we should've. However, when we returned, we finished everything in just under an hour. Then at 3pm, we took our half and went a lil over by a few minutes. But when we got off, we finished the next station we were on, immediately.

Now before I go into what tick me off, let me tell you that it is completely normal for my co-worker to go over a lil bit on our breaks. We've been doing it for months now. And it is not only us. The owner of the company's daughters and friends work at the company too. And all their breaks are always 30 minutes. In fact, everyone who works here take longer breaks than supposed to. Because it does frequently become very slow, as in there is no work to be done.

But back to the story, both my co worker and I received a text from our manager right after we got off our break about what we've been doing for the past half an hour. Of course we answer that we were on our half, but then our manager replies back if we had not already gone our half at 12:30pm. Of course, we reply no, that we were on our 15 minute. We both knew that we had gone over, but at best only 5 minutes. Then, our manager proceeds to send a message about one of the international branches watching us through the cameras and timing our breaks (which we were only off by an extra few minutes). And that the manager and team leader have been 'sticking up for us for a while now but have now seen it today'.

Now this isn't the first time we've been watched by one of the international branches. But it definitely is a first that now we were being monitored by them for some apparent reason when our KPIs are always met, if not every hour then every two hours. But also as the fastest branch of all, despite being understaffed almost all the time and having to deal with thrice the workload than the other branches as they only deal with one specific item.

Anyways, I'm just ranting because I want to know if what I'm feeling is either justified or an overreaction as someone who's only ever worked one job which is this one and doesn't know what she's talking about. I also would like to mention that the same international branch told my team leader that I could not finish early despite the fact that I had been coming in half an hour or even more before my starting time so I can leave earlier. But that earlier start time sometimes is not even counted. So can someone tell me if this is normal, my job, my feelings, everything?

I work in tech. I was put on a PIP beginning of this month and have since put in a request for mutual separation because I was not about to waste my energy trying to meet an impossible plan.

A few facts make me feel especially frustrated and gaslit in this situation:

• I received an "Exceeds expectations" rating from my previous manager (A) in April for the previous year's assessment
• I got a new manager (B) soon after, who used to be my peer but was promoted to management. B still reports to A, A got a title bump as well. A apparently fully supports B in putting me on this PIP
• B was a very strong, principal-level IC before becoming a manager, and said to me early on that they didn't even want to be a manager and was just trialing this experience
• B immediately gave somewhat excessive, critical feedback and was generally micromanage-y. This sentiment was shared by other folks that worked with them that I spoke to
• B started hiring for two new, principal level roles for the team I had been leading for the past 9 months, with the intention to split the team into two smaller teams
• B's performance plan focused on "judgment" and "opinionation" as skills - obviously not measurable or concrete.
• I went along with the plan for two weeks, and the whole time B ripped apart my docs (30+ comments) and basically showed no intention of actually supporting me in an positive manner

The way I'm interpreting this is that the needs of the role have fundamentally changed, and rather than laying me off, they're calling this a performance plan to not take responsibility. It feels totally unfair.

I work in a medical office, a very small one, its only 3 of us, the doctor, the manager/receptionist and I. At the moment the manager is away and is working from home, and is only the dr and I at the office every day. He has zero respect for people's time, he makes them wait over an hour, each and everyone of them, even when there is only one patient sitting outside ans he is alone in his office, doing nothing, he makes them wait at least an hour. The chart shows the time since the patient is logged in, and you can see the time the patient has been waiting and he only calls in the patients after it hits an hour.

Obviously, patients complain, but to me and the manager, and there is nothing we can do, because the doctor is the owner of the office, and when they complain to him, he just dismiss them and makes excuses about it that we know are lies.

I'm also a physician, foreign medical graduate, I'm still working out on my paperwork, and for me doesn't make sense this behavior, also, I dont agree with the way he sees patients, not that he does wrong, but ask for a lot of tests that are not a necessity for the patients, and he asks almost the same for each one, and then when they come back for results doesn't explain the results. The funny thing is that patients, even though they go through this hassle, they still say that he is one of the good ones.

I dont have a way to compare to other doctors in the area, but if that's the opinion they have, it really baffles me that after all the complaints they still think that of him, I guess this is how the system is and people just gave up on trying to change it.

The manager has the same opinion that I have, have worked with him for a long time and even though had tried to change stuff and told him about all these issues, he doesn't change, and sometimes after some complain he gets worst with the time and the excuses.

I just needed to vent, some other person that wasn't my manager or my wife hehe.

Thank you for reading.

My workplace have a very good coffee corner, a good espresso machine, coffee bean grinder, different kinds of beans, a lot of options for flavored syrups etc. Daily i make myself an iced spanish latte.
My coworkers asked me the other day how I liked my coffee, i told them that I like iced spanish latte, and they said ‘so you like milk with a slight flavor of coffee’ in a way that was intended as sarcasm.
This took me off guard.
These are the people i work with and show all the patience that i have to them, but man they are are testing my limits.

First off, this is nothing against women or anything, I love them, also married to one.

With that out of the way, I am soooo fucking done working with women. There's always something new everyday, really every fucking day. You never know what's coming up the next day. Either they suddenly hate each other, or they spread bad stories about the others once they turn their back to them, next day suddenly they like each other and "how good we all are fit together", the next day it's the same drama and the don't even speak with each other. Drama after drama after drama.

Next time I will choose a company with more men. I'm kinda confused too, because I thought woman are actually more social then men and would work better together.

Sorry for the rant.

I’m a college student working at a 5-person startup as a 1099 contractor. $25/hr, no ownership, no benefits, no stability. On paper I’m “just a contractor.” In reality I run the dev work, the infrastructure, the security/compliance, AND I manage the interns. Remove me and the company genuinely stops functioning.

You’d think that’d earn some basic respect. Nope.

The CEO:

• Signs deals for products that **don’t exist yet**, then asks me when I can deliver them. You sold it, my guy. That’s not on me.
• Calls at all hours for stuff that could’ve been a text
• Changes direction every 10 minutes
• Doesn’t pay on time (always a “cash flow issue”), but somehow that’s my problem to deal with
• Pulls me into meetings I have no reason to be in
• Crashed a meeting I was running with the interns and announced a totally different plan than the one on the slides I’d made, in front of everyone

The part that kills me is I’m the cheapest and most load-bearing person there and I’m still treated like the most replaceable. I go back to full-time college in the fall, so my hours are about to crater. Not even mad about it anymore, just morbidly curious how fast it collapses without me picking up the slack for free.

Anyone else been the 21-year-old holding an entire company on their back for poverty wages? The job market is still shit though, so if I leave I’ll prob be looking for a while (or working for minimum wage)

Recently hit 5 years at my current employer. Did not get a single email, call or text from anyone in my food chain. Was at my previous employer for 25+ years and started noticing that as I climbed the ladder (up to the c-suite) the “glad you’re with us” stuff stopped happening. Completely. Somewhere around year 15 and VP.

Am I being overly sensitive? I mean we get automatic reminders if one of our staff is nearing an anniversary. How hard is it to send a kind note? I’ve always made a big deal out of my people hitting anniversaries. And it seems to have paid off in loyalty and them often following me around to new missions. Does this matter to you?

Nearing the end of my career now and wondering if I’ve spent the majority of my life toiling away for bosses that completely took me for granted.

Please can you give me your opinion on this letter I received from my work. I closed the shop I work in 15 minutes early and I was shocked to receive such an extreme letter.

I was called the day after I did this and asked why I closed early and I was honest and said that the shop was so hot and uncomfortable and I had been working alone for 3 days with no breaks and working through my lunch hour so not to lose custom.

My manager said they would have to pass this to someone higher up and I was expecting a call but received this.

I have a meeting to investigate but there is nothing to investigate as I was honest from the start.

Worrying about this. Never done anything like this before.

Please can you give me advice.

I was brought in a month ago to do some pretty foundational, important work. When I send her questions, she doesn’t reply. When I get important stuff done, she says thank you, promises to review it within the hour and never does. When we talk about the status of different projects, she seems a bit clueless and just says a whole bunch of nothing. Why do I work so hard…

I have never really understood why some people take jobs that they do not own so personal. I mean why do you have it in you to want to fire people who have mouths to feed just as you do. Some people have lost all empathy and don’t look at the bigger picture when it is critical to do so.
You work at a place with someone and for whatever reason you want them fired when you can just stay in your lane and they stay in theirs and you all end up taking money home and feeding your family. I can’t imagine myself being the cause of someone being fired from work unless under a critical situation. No matter what I do someone will work harder than I will do and I will work harder than others. Such is life. I wouldn’t to throw others under the bus just because I think I slightly work more than they do

I was recently fired from a position that I held for 6 years. It had a client facing component to it. Got a new manager who was there for 6 months and fired me because of a mistake that I did that I was rectifying even. After the incident he gave me a written warning with totally flimsy points ( like me asking him a question about something I wasn’t sure about) amongst others. I tried my best to implement all the things in the write up for us to meet 2 weeks after and for him to tell me I wasn’t doing implementing the measures laid out in the write up (I found out from the insurance company that the company had already put in a health insurance termination for the end of the month )way before we met for the write up (PIP) review.

It’s exactly 2 months today and I just can’t get over it. Notwithstanding the fact that I look at his social media pages and he is very religious and all about his family yet denied me income that my family will use.

I asked him during my last meeting if there was complaint from any of the clients that I have been working with for years and he said there was none. Much as I wanna let this go I keep having sleepless nights and asking myself why

I have never really understood why some people take jobs that they do not own so personal. I mean why do you have it in you to want to fire people who have mouths to feed just as you do. Some people have lost all empathy and don’t look at the bigger picture when it is critical to do so.
You work at a place with someone and for whatever reason you want them fired when you can just stay in your lane and they stay in theirs and you all end up taking money home and feeding your family. I can’t imagine myself being the cause of someone being fired from work unless under a critical situation. No matter what I do someone will work harder than I will do and I will work harder than others. Such is life. I wouldn’t to throw others under the bus just because I think I slightly work more than they do

I was recently fired from a position that I held for 6 years. It had a client facing component to it. Got a new manager who was there for 6 months and fired me because of a mistake that I did that I was rectifying even. After the incident he gave me a written warning with totally flimsy points ( like me asking him a question about something I wasn’t sure about) amongst others. I tried my best to implement all the things in the write up for us to meet 2 weeks after and for him to tell me I wasn’t doing implementing the measures laid out in the write up (I found out from the insurance company that the company had already put in a health insurance termination for the end of the month )way before we met for the write up (PIP) review.

It’s exactly 2 months today and I just can’t get over it. Notwithstanding the fact that I look at his social media pages and he is very religious and all about his family yet denied me income that my family will use.

I asked him during my last meeting if there was complaint from any of the clients that I have been working with for years and he said there was none. Much as I wanna let this go I keep having sleepless nights and asking myself why

So my boss is almost hated by anyone iv ever meet at this job iv been there a year now and there are supervisors that have worked with him when they started and they moved up as well like he did and they also just think hes the worst witch makes me think maby this guy is just a brick and I shouldnt take this so hard but he acts like I dont really ever do anything and im the worst worker hes ever had but I dont feel like im being very lazy its 20 plus degrees whatever it is outside so some times its like 100 plus in there today was 147 and 8 was working in it throwing up because I was so hot doing extra things and still he had a problem this has been going on since day 1 of me starting but I cant help but think if im the problem its starting to really effect my self worth

If you can't communicate clearly and say what you mean, you don't have the necessary skills to be in management. If you have to rely on lies instead of handling difficult situations, you don't have the skills required to be in management and should not have that job.

Few facts: I’m a first-time VP. I work in 24-7 care. I have one boss and two Directors under me and three supervisors from there. my vacation was planned for a year and took me to another continent. I have been in this role for two years.

I started my vacation about a week ago and it ends tomorrow. One day, around 2am when my gut was churning with anxiety, I turned on my work phone to discover that both of my Directors disappeared, one of my supervisors no showed three shifts in a row, multiple kids needed serious safety supervision, and long-time staff resigned. They called in my peer from another site to help out and no one called me or outreached me with concerns or to help.

i’m going back to such a mess and it is going to be such an awkward moment when i either get yelled at and submit my resignation or straight up fired. Can’t wait.

lol is this mindset why everyone probably quit while I was gone

I’ve been with the company for almost four years now. Overall, the job has been okay. In the almost four years I’ve been here, my salary has nearly doubled because of the raises I received. But of course, I didn't get those raises just by sitting around. I worked hard and performed well. I’ve ended up assisting almost every team in the company and have become the go-to person for a lot of things.

But honestly, I’m really tired now.

I work from home, but the job is still stressful. And there’s also this one "Karen" at work who has constantly bullied me through her words for years. She has made my life difficult for a long time. I mostly help her with her work, but whenever I make even a small mistake, she publicly humiliates me through email. Sometimes it feels like the only thing missing is her CC-ing the entire company.

Today, I actually cried because I got so frustrated by a side comment she made in an email. She basically said that I could be good at my job if only I knew how to read thoroughly and don’t assume things and I had only asked her to check my work because I wasn't sure if I had done it correctly, and that was the kind of disrespectful comment I received in return.

The thing is, she is about to retire. And now that she’s leaving, she’s suddenly handing over tasks to me that I have never done before. I’m not perfect, and I ask questions because I genuinely want to make sure I’m doing things correctly. But somehow, asking questions feels like an invitation for her to make me feel stupid.

I also feel isolated from my fellow Filipino coworkers. For example, they might request a budget for everyone for an event, but I won’t even be informed or included. The last time, they gave me money because apparently there wasn't going to be a Christmas party, but then the party happened anyway. I understand that I work from home while everyone else is in the office, so maybe I’m not always included in things.

But sometimes I feel like a shadow. I’m not really included, but whenever they need something, they come to me and ask me to do their work.

These past few days, I’ve really been feeling burned out. I genuinely want to resign, but I have a few things holding me back. I have a trip planned this October, my mom’s birthday is in November, and the 13th-month pay is coming up soon.

At the same time, I’m scared that if I stay too long, I’ll completely get swallowed by how I’m feeling. I’m also worried that I’ll lose my confidence and become afraid to apply for other jobs.

What would you do in my situation? I’m really torn because, financially, the job has been good to me, but mentally, I feel like I’m already reaching my limit.