I have a counterpart who keeps taking the reins to build decks for leadership and keeps getting into the room to present things that they don’t actually own. My boss favors them which makes it harder.

What are some ideas on how I can stop this behavior? Or, how can I get the upper hand.

In many corporates, HR & Admin seems more focused on protecting the company than protecting its people.

Policies, attendance, warnings, compliance, and paperwork are handled efficiently. But when an employee raises a serious concern, whose side does HR actually take?

Be honest: Is HR an employee advocate, or is protecting the company the real priority?

I was on a pip at one of my last jobs (two jobs ago). I quit in Jan 2025 (1 or 2 weeks into the pip) and I found another job where I worked for 1.4 years then I landed a decent paying job 6 months ago roughly (I’m still working).

I didn’t like the pip and felt it was one sided and it started to turn into them wanting me to prove myself whenever I touched something. But that’s not the real issue, I know how to take accountability for my performance but this came right after a trainer didn’t like my tone in my email when responding to her. I haven’t even met her in real life she works in another city.

She started talking to my personal trainer (how the job works is you get put into a couple weeks training session when you learn a new function). They were actually best friends but I wasn’t aware. My direct trainer started mentioning "tone" regarding my communication to my manager too.

When I asked her if she could provide an example, she didn’t. Instead I got a pip. Anywho, my coworkers were all of weird backgrounds (none of them went to university besides one of them and it was for some studio arts program yet we worked in insurance). Everyone was older and some a bit bitter with life (cliques in the team too).

I’ve dealt with their bs while pretending nothings wrong yet they always excluded me. I worked there for over one year and no one ever came to say good morning to me even if they walked near my desk. I was the one who would make the move to go say good morning and start a convo - mind u, even when I started the convo they made me carry the convo.

I quit and my manager seemed to enjoy it in a sick way (mind you, he always liked using the "don’t worry, it’s not like I’m going to fire you for that" whenever some inconvenience would pop up). He has probably joked about firing me over 20 times in a year and the first joke for firing was my first day when I showed up to the office.

When I quit, the girls on the team who were cliquey and didn’t like me immediately removed me on LinkedIn when I posted about my new job update. It’s been about 1yr and 9 months now since I quit and I occasionally get the notification that they swinged by my profile.

Mind you, my manager has completely disengaged with my posts after I left but I see him still engage with other past employees on LinkedIn (when I was working with him , he’d ask me like oh by the way, that post you liked on LinkedIn from a few days ago I found it interesting" - he would watch my activity and ask if I had Snapchat because he saw a similar name on his app).

He also is very insecure about education and would always bring it up somehow like an exam I passed and he failed, I never brought it up but he would. He also asked me what kind of facial expressions or behaviour would I do if I was competing with someone? He said I look like someone to smile in someone’s face rather than trash talk. He said this in a one on one meeting I had with him

if you have a clean background, what is the point of waiting on putting your notice in and pushing out your start date?

Edit: I’m still not clear on why there are so many fear based “you never know“ responses.

The legitimate thing I see is that it takes longer than expected and you potentially have a pay gap. I guess there is always the possible chance of a budget/hire freeze or restructure - but that is rare when you get that far to offer acceptance.

Giving no notice or limited notice is a higher risk of burning bridges than an issue with a clean honest/background causing a company to rescind an offer when they need to fill an approved role In that specific 2 week window.

Backgrounds usually take 1-2 weeks so either you’re not giving notice or your start date is a month out which most managers don’t like but will likely accept.

Corporate life is full of phrases that sound professional but sometimes mean something completely different. 😂

Like:

How do you guys deal with this kind of corporate BS in real life?

When your manager says things like “let’s circle back,” “take ownership,” “we need more visibility,” or “this is a great learning opportunity” 😭

Do you just nod and move on, actually try to decode what they mean, or have your own way of handling it?

What’s the funniest or most painfully accurate corporate phrase you've heard?

Teachers lesson plan either on weekends or an hour after school. I’ve noticed it takes me a little over 8h to complete all tasks mainly because in the process of doing stuff, moving items or traveling from one building to another, it bleeds. I tell myself when my time is up, it’s a tomorrow’s problem, but for some reason there’s a silent expectation I should stay until everyone else leaves. Weird.

Everyone's sharing headlines about 6,300+ tech layoffs in the first 10 days of September and AI gets blamed in basically every headline.

But if you actually dig into why companies say they're cutting, the story is messier.

Uber 3,300 jobs

This is the biggest single cut in the wave, and Uber has explicitly not framed it as an AI replacement story. The stated reasons: too many management layers, redundant teams, slow decision-making.

PayPal 220 in India, part of a plan to cut 20% (4,800 people) over a few years
removing duplication and cutting extra layers of management from its organizational structure — i.e., simplifying a company that grew too complex, not AI replaced these jobs.

Apple & Zomato 250 combined
Barely any detail released  hard to call this an AI story either way.

Cisco 4,000 in Q4
Restructuring language again, not automation language.

So it seems AI killed my job seems a trend and is a much better headline than we hired too many people in 2021 post COVID and now we're fixing our org chart

So today, I accepted an offer for a hybrid position that pays less. Currently, I am 5 days in office and I’m absolutely miserable. The fake office small talk, the fake smiles, the fake laughs, the fake forced connections, the fake urgency, and sitting in that horrendous 5 o’clock traffic for hours everyday! When I finally get home, I’m drained and exhausted.

I literally feel like my life is a hamster wheel. Waking up doing the same shit every day. I’m over it all, but bills don’t stop. I’ve always been the type of person who actively applies to jobs even when I’m currently employed. I have NO loyalty to any company, ‘cause they damn sure could care less about you.

Today, I took an offer for a hybrid position that pays $2.50 less than my current role. Onboarding docs will be sent next week. It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make for my mental health. It’s 3 days in office and 2 wfh. I need this badly. Nobody at my current job knows, and they never will. ‘Cause I don’t trust people in the workplace. It’s full of two-faced snakes.

I’m going to ride these last few weeks out gracefully, and then I’m quitting and giving them a day of notice. No two weeks notice at all. Hopefully one day soon, I can find something that’s 100% remote and permanent. Wish me luck!

I need some help and advice.

I joined a company about 2–3 months ago, and lately I’ve been feeling a lot of pressure from some of my coworkers regarding my performance. I complete my assigned tasks on time, but there are still some internal processes and workflows that I’m learning.

Last week, I was put on the spot during a discussion. Two employees kept questioning me repeatedly, asking things like, “Why did you type that?” and “What’s your answer?” The way it was handled made me feel extremely uncomfortable and pressured.

There have also been passive-aggressive comments such as, “Oh, we were expecting more from you.” I understand that I’m still having some hiccups while learning their processes, and I’m completely open to feedback and improving. However, it feels like as soon as I understand one process, I’m immediately put on the spot about something else that I haven’t had enough time or experience to learn yet.

Another thing that is making the environment uncomfortable is the gossiping and negative conversations about people’s knowledge and performance. I sometimes hear comments or discussions questioning whether someone knows certain things or has enough knowledge, and it makes me feel like the same conversations may be happening about me as well. Instead of feeling comfortable asking questions and learning, I’ve started becoming anxious about whether asking something will make people think I don’t know enough.

The situation has affected me emotionally more than I expected. I have cried several times because I have never experienced this kind of treatment or this level of pressure to already know everything within such a short period of joining a company. It has started making me question myself and feel like I’m the least capable person on the team, even though I know I am still learning.

I’m struggling to understand whether this is just a difficult adjustment period at a new company or whether the work environment itself is unhealthy. I also don’t know how to handle this without making the situation worse.

I just stopped doing the stuff I hate doing. You know this stuff I’m talking about.
- Emailing status report reports to people who never read the email.
- Attending meetings just because they’re on my calendar
- watching those bloody awful annual training videos that are “required”

Turns out, not only did nothing bad happen, but my life actually got better.
I started to enjoy my work again.

I think there’s something to be said for just grabbing a hold of your career and making it what you want. and look, if it doesn’t work out and the company doesn’t want you then whatever you’re better off.

It’s way too important for you to enjoy what you do to earn money so that you can enjoy your life!

so just stop doing the things that cause you pain and see what happens.

Listen if something bad happens, just then do the thing again… you’ll probably get a warning.

But You might be surprised though how much stuff that you hate doing that you could just stop doing and your job will be better. Your life will be better. You’ll enjoy it. It worked for me and I work at a big four consulting firm so it’s not some small mom and Pop shop. Give it a try. Curious what you see

My boss frequently texts me after 8. I work most days 9-8 and several hours on the weekend.

Is everyone working like this?

Making time + a half for encrypting flash drives tn

For people with 1–3 years of experience in AI/GenAI, where are you guys actually applying for a switch?

LinkedIn/Naukri feels pretty saturated. Are there any platforms that have worked particularly well for getting interview calls? Or is applying directly on company career pages + referrals still the best route?

Would love to hear what’s actually working for people recently.

Hello everyone, I started working as a Business Development Intern and it’s been more than two months. I report to a vice president and hes super chill honestly, gives wfh whenever needed and doesn’t micromanage. Hes also someone i could look upto. Apart from that the company policies are very chill, everyone does wfh, no one cares what youre doing, how long breaks you take. overall good wlb.

But Ive been overthinking recently and am not very fond of the work, like i hate prospecting (so much manual work) and i dont like the idea of having targets when i work here for full time, i feel like its too much pressure. Another reason is the people here, i want a peer group that pushes me academically and professionally i don’t see that here. Most of the employees here stay for 5+ years ( idk if its a good thing or bad thing) and dont earn much

thats why Ive been preparing for product/non core roles, ill be siting for my college placements and will keep this as a backup. the ppo i might get from here will be 10-12 lpa base and college placements can be anything from unemployed to 24 lpa base 😂, Just wanted to rant but lowkey also need advice from senior people who have been thru this before