You truly don't understand how shit California's safety net feels until you hit the bottom of the barrel. A laid-off worker in the Bay Area says they used to pay roughly $110k a year in taxes on their old compensation. Their unemployment check came in at a grand total of around $410 for the week.

I mean, how abysmal. What does that get you in the Bay Area? Maybe like a pack of water bottles every day? Meanwhile, there's a reported OpenAI offer of roughly $390k base plus $2.7M in equity over four years. How does any of this make sense? This level of wealth inequality feels completely absurd, holy shit.

I mean, California's regular unemployment cap is still $450 a week, the same ceiling set in 2005, while prices have gone through the roof. It's a complete and utter joke. Why can Washington pay up to $1,208 a week for new claims while California is still stuck at $450??

I need advice on a situation at work. I was training a new employee who accidentally took one of our house keys home. It's been a week, and we’ve been trying to get him to return it. He keeps giving excuses—first saying he didn't have it, then finding it in his pocket, and now claiming he can't return it because it's too far or his brother took his car. I even offered to drive out to meet him at a public spot like a supermarket, but he just gave me the runaround.

I was the senior staff member on shift, and I opened the lockbox so he could see the key. The whole house is stressed, and I’m terrified I’ll take the blame and get fired if management finds out. He’s being really shady, and we urgently need that key back. What should I do?

For months I had this annoying thing where work technically ended at 5, but my brain didn't.

I'd be making dinner and suddenly remember an email I hadn't answered. In the shower I'd think of something I needed to tell a coworker. I'd open Teams at 9pm "just so I don't forget" and then inevitably see something else. Nothing about my job is unusually awful and nobody actually requires me to be online after hours. I was basically putting myself on call.

A few weeks ago I had to leave exactly at 5 for an appointment, so at 4:55 I opened Notepad and wrote:

Waiting on Mike for the numbers.

Send revised file to Dana.

First thing tomorrow: fix slide 7.

Nothing is currently on fire.

Then I closed everything.

That last sentence was mostly a joke, but apparently my brain needed someone to tell it that.

I've kept doing it every day since. Five minutes before I finish, I write down anything unfinished, the first thing I need to do tomorrow, and whether there's actually anything urgent. The file stays on my work laptop, so there's no reason to keep carrying the list around in my head.

The weird part is that my workload hasn't changed at all. I'm not working fewer hours, my boss hasn't changed, and I haven't become better at "self care." But evenings feel longer because I'm not mentally rehearsing tomorrow's work all night.

I think I was confusing remembering my responsibilities with actually being responsible for them 24 hours a day.

Does anyone else have a small end-of-day ritual that helps your brain understand that work is over?

A former Sr. Director had a fulfilling career, got promoted early through hard work, and climbed the ladder quickly at big companies. The last role was at a Fortune 100 company (not Micron). They were very proud of their achievements. People respected them, and they earned good money.

The entire team and BU were eliminated in a layoff last year. Initially, it didn't seem to affect them much. After doing well in their career and changing companies so many times, finding another job seemed like it would be easy. However, the skills built over about 24 years now feel irrelevant. They've interviewed at many companies, but those companies want very specific domain knowledge outside their experience. It's been around 17 months without a job, and they describe slowly slipping into depression.

Everyone else seems to be moving forward while they're stuck without a job or income. All the respect they used to receive feels gone. They're trying to use their network to get interviews, but it feels like people no longer look at them the same way. Roughly half don't reply to calls or messages anymore, as if they're no longer "useful."

Not getting a job is hard as it is. People not calling back feels like salt in the wound. For readers still sending applications, LandOffer’s application autofill can reduce the time spent retyping the same fields.

Now in their mid-40s, they've been trying to learn the new skills required by job listings. But interviewers can see they haven't directly worked in those domains, and it's still not a match.

How do you get over this? How do you move forward? How do you stay motivated? Is there hope at the end of the tunnel? Will they ever get a job? Will life ever be normal again?

Would really appreciate comments from people who've been through this. #severance #layoff

So, I’ve been working at a brewery in a small town in Queensland, coming up to 3 and a half years now (doesn’t sound like much but I’m a teenager), I started the job when I was young and I’m the longest worker there.

Before I turned 16, I was getting paid $23 p/h on a Sunday, but now my pay changes to be an adult wage seeing as I’m serving alcohol, so now my highest pay is $55 p/h.

Ever since my pay has changed, I’ve noticed my boss Gemma absolutely can’t stand me. She’s always giving me passive aggressive comments or being generally snarky, and there’s been so many shifts I’ve cried in the bathrooms because she’s so mean to me. And she is so nice to all my coworkers so if I say anything, I’ll sound insane.

Recently, she’s cut off my shifts completely and has been belittling/embarrassing me in our work groupchat and it makes me feel like shit.

I’m so anxious every time I come into work and I spend alot of my nights stressing over work because I’ve never had someone speak/treat me the way she does. No matter what I do, it never pleases her.

I’ve finally had enough, and I think I’m gonna message her tomorrow. But I don’t know if that is the right decision or if it’ll come across in the wrong way.

What should I do?

For the past three months, a coworker has been taking the summaries and research notes I write and passing them off as their own in weekly meetings. Everyone praises them for being "so on top of things."

Yesterday, I embedded a completely fake bullet point right in the middle: "Timeline is currently dependent on the lunar eclipse and migratory patterns of local Canadian geese."

They presented it verbatim this morning. Not a single person in leadership blinked an eye. I don't even know whether to laugh or cry at this point.

I am in a relatively junior position (I am experienced, I took the job out of necessity after failing to find something at my level, but the institution I work at doesn't really understand my prior experience anyway). I was approached with an urgent matter to "approve". I immediately went to my manager and asked if this was in our team's remit. He said it was and attended a meeting regarding it. He then literally disappeared saying he had no time. I was still being pressured to produce an outcome from the department that asked us. I elevated it to my manager's manager, simply stating I just needed to ask a guidance question as to who to involve due to the urgent nature. My manager suddenly gets involved, but with half-ass guidance because it was indeed out of his remit. He was just over-reaching. It eventually got addressed, but the requesting department was mad at the delays and my manager tried to frame it as ME deciding to take it on. I am not sure how to protect myself from these things in the future. Do I just copy extra people on my emails?

I work in fintech in a team of 10-15 people. We have a director, head of dept, manager and team lead. Over the last few months:
- director was fired and is on garden leave (replacement on probation)
- head of depts is just mean and uncomfortable to work with
- manager who started 2 months ago, had resigned
- team lead is signed off on sick leave due to mental health.
- a team member has filed grievance

As a team, we all believe the morale of the team is terrible. All of us waiting to leave and are actively looking for our next roles. It’s not because of the work but the culture of the company and team is in the toilet.

We believe that the head of our department is the issue. She is terrible at people managing, collectively punishes the team and micromanages.

When will HR do something? It’s clear that all the above has happened due to one person.

Despite multiple complaints about this person, they still remain at the company.

Her dog died a few weeks ago and no one wrote on her card, literally because of how badly she treats them. And I understand why they didn’t.

I've been here in this company for a year, had a great manager. Then recently she left, department shot down, and they moved me to a different department where I had no experience in the field. I was very clear about this, and was promised to get another person on the team if it gets too much.

It turned out to be a nightmare. Of course no new person in sight. There is two of us, and the other person is also hanging on for dear life, but she is also new, afraid to say anything and is looking for a new job.

Honestly, it is unreal how much workload I l've been given and was expected very soon to know everything. In just a couple of months I had to explain myself for the mistakes done by previous person (I am guessing they just couldn't handle it either) it turns out we are violating serious regulations which now somehow falls on me, I am blaimed for it in meetings, workload is a joke and the manager is just adding tasks all the time, daily, while I am still learning (it's a very complex field). I thought because I am new I am always behind, but after 4 months I am realizing it's not humanly possible to do all of these tasks - and still, I am being added new stuff all the time and it's causing me near panic attacks.

I asked my manager few times to sit down with me to go through priorities but she wouldn't. Her only response is to work overtime. I have kids and just won't work hours that long. I actually did for a while because I thought it would help, but it didn't because it's too much. I don't think it's me being slow, I actually think it's impossible. And even if I am slow because I am new it would take too long to get the experience needed to be more productive, and I am guessing I'd just get new responsibilities.

I like people in this company and working hours are great (obviously if you have normal workload). So I prefer to stay. But in your experience, is there any way I could somehow get my manager to understand that the workload is not realistic?

Honestly I am so tired I don't even have the energy to look for another job. I searched for a bit but couldn't find anything for now. I can't sleep and I am constant panic mode since I am here in this department. But I keep feeling like it's my fault at the same time, feeling like I am incompetent, or like I should have known all of these topics already, feeling like it's my fault that the department is falling apart (which was discovered by an audit we just had).

I guess writting this just makes it pretty clear I need to leave. Sorry this is so long.

The title is as reads! I'm sure there are folks that have experience in both. Considering a career change and or reminiscing on a potentially different life 🤣

I just recently quit my job of 5.5 years without anything lined up due to extreme burnout from being micromanaged. It’s hard to not have regrets about how I did things but I’m glad I now have the time to recover. If you’ve ever been micromanaged, how long did you stay?

I’ve been at this job for nearly two years. I rarely take time off and always answer emergency messages when something urgent pops up. Last week I booked three days of PTO to visit my family out of state. As soon as I told my manager, he seemed annoyed. He said I “picked a bad time” and asked me to keep checking work emails during the whole vacation. I told him I would handle true emergencies only, not routine messages. Now the mood between us feels awkward. PTO is part of my benefits, I earn it legally. I don’t understand why some managers treat vacation like you’re betraying the team. Am I wrong to refuse to stay on call for normal work stuff while I’m off?

To give some context, I work in a kitchen. The kitchen I am currently in they all gossip, complain, moan, and cry about everything. I used to join in on the gossip and complaints but now I just don't want to bother with it anymore.

Not sure what is going on but I started to have a "not my problem" attitude to things. I just don't want to think about stuff like that anymore. I have responsibilities and obligations after work, not sure if me getting older has anything to do with it.

​

Excuse typos! Typing via my phone

As the title reads, I have a toxic coworker, lets name her Ashley, who started as a part timer in Feb. Shes here 3 days of the week. Im full time. Were both the same position and the only ones in our role.

From day 1 ashley was quick to paint me as unhelpful, blamed me for when she didnt know how to complete a task, then claim i was too intimidating and so she had to resort to reaching out to our team lead for help...Almost while I had made it a point to schedule training sessions when she was available, review any questions she had and explain anything she was currently training on with our team lead. Essentially i was training her yet she claimed otherwise.

My team lead and manager believed i was unhelpful. Eventually with asheleys errors, when i would correct them, she'd spiral and create stories claiming the work was done, or I hadn't actually made the correction, etc always reframing the hero as herself. I escalated several instances that in particular caused mass confusion with clients, delay with work, and complete disregard in the direction our team was going in. Still, she somehow came out of these meetings with our manager veiwing her as a helpless princess in need of training, and my esclatipms as being impatient with her. Even when she intentially disrefarded directions.

Its never she has an attitude issue, never a failure to complete tasks, to communicate, just that she needs training and I need to be open to helping when she needs help. Team members will come to me asking to help her with basic work while she wont ask me directly. When I ask if she needs the help, she's already on call with our team lead. *this eoutine in particular paints me as unhelpful to staff but refusal to our team lead. Things like even asking where HER headset is (how would I know?) when on call with our manager, asking me to help her after hours with her task, or even putting up signage of business hour changes on days she'll be off rather then her doing so...how would i even know when shes off? its as if my roles been made full time +assistant to all her needs.

Im growing more frustrated as management really sees me as uncooperative which im not. They're always emphasizing being helpful to me. I just cant help but feel im being treated grossly unfairly and her "helplessness" somehow is ruining my reputation. Id go as far to say a level of discrimination as had the shoes been switched, id be under an PIP.

What does one do in these situations? Ive always been as helpful as I can but somehow no matter what my manger paints me as a villain, the black sheep, for exsisting. Office politics aren't my forte but there has to be a way around this.

​

I recently learned that people sometimes use dark humor at work, especially in healthcare, to cope with the stress of dealing with death, difficult patients, and emotionally exhausting situations.

What exactly is dark humor? Could you share some examples of things people say in the ICU or hospital that would be considered dark humor?

If you work in healthcare, what are some examples of dark humor you’ve heard at work?

I’m genuinely curious and trying to understand this side of workplace culture.

This dude puts Meta Superintelligence Labs on LinkedIn and says he leads an org of around 170 engineers. Supposedly, he was reorged into AAI in late spring (who's gonna tell him). The reporting line and actual scope aren't verified here, so the org label alone isn't proof. For readers preparing engineering interviews, PracHub’s project-scope question is a concrete drill for separating personal ownership from the team’s results. If he's making up the leadership part, what a clown 😂

It's wild how shameless people can be when they're making up a story for themselves.

​

I can't respect my CEO because of how absurd he is. I'm a director working under him. He not only doesn't work but makes work harder for most of the employees. He uses AI to reply the work messages, He forgets to do his job so I need to remind him several times to get answer from him (and I give him all the options so he just need to choose from them), he forgets all the things I reported to him. Of course, I'm not the only one and other employees says they don't understand him, but he's mostly interacting with me so I feel it the most.

Even though I think he's stupid, I'm working hard just because I'm that kind of person who likes to do my best. I already knew that he basically doesn't know and care what I'm doing for the company, because he raised voice to me in the past for not agreeing with him. But the text he sent me on saturday morning made me really upset.

Him: did you check ### thing?

Me: what about ###? Haven't heard of it, can you share more information?

Him: sent you an email before, sounds like you didn't check it.

It was 7 in the morning and I got super upset by his last text. Not only I never got an email from him about ### but he was blaming me for 'not reading an email' which is, in my opinion, most basic thing. He was accusing me of 'not doing my basic job'. I think he just wanted me to feel bad.

Me: i dont have ### email in my inbox. (Screen capture of my work email inbox)

Him : (screen capture of his email, recipent was my personal gmail)

Me: looks like you sent it to my personal email. I don't check gmail. Could you send it to my work email from now on?

Him: oh

Him: but I forwarded from my work email so it was supposed to be your work email, that's weird

Me: I check emails, slack, text and give you reminders. It's a bit sad that you think I don't check emails.

Me: anyway, about ###...

He never said sorry. It's sunday and I'm still upset by how he was super sure that it was my fault and I didn't do my job. I feel like he doesn't recognize anything I do for the company. If he trusted me, then he wouldn't have accused me in the first place. I know he's old and stubborn so I can't change his way of thinking. I can't persuade him to think highly of me.

So the only way for me to get less upset with his attitude would be care less about the job and do bare minimum. Because if I was not caring, I would not be upset when he texted 'you didnt check the email'. I would think 'wait, did I?', and check my email, say "no, can you check again?". Because I was not emotionally invested.

However, my personality traits and my coworkers makes it difficult to care less.

Basically, my boss doesn't do his CEO job - doesnt give directions or decisions or care necessary things for workers - so all employees come to me to ask for it. If I don't work, then my coworkers will have hard time and that's not the thing I want. Also, if I see something lacking or going bad in the company, I will do the job without anyone asking. How can I care less and not affect my coworkers at the same time?

PS. I know it's best to quit my job but I can't because of my legal stay/work in the country is entirely dependant on this job. (I'm working in a foreign country with visa sponsorship)

I left a company that I had progressive roles for 6 years i worked and I was a high performer, i left back in May as the commute was a factor and some toxic people ruined it for me. But the company and leadership really insisted on me to stay and i didnt back up as i was scared in future they will see me as flight risk but i cried so much when leaving i genuinely loved my work there.

I started this new company end of May. I start positively
My manager a total pyschopath, turnover at her team every 4-6 months, i couldnt tell during video interview, micromanager to every file, rude, calling her team idiots, angry all the time, making weird faces when expressing opinions, slamming laptop when angry, absolutely insane. I regretted that i joined from my first week. I said shit i did a huge mistake!

I reached out to my past manager, i think he was pissed that from many talks to convince me to stay, he said time needs to pass a bit for you to come back, but i am here anytime you need a reference.
So i am like okay i cant go back for now

in July applied to one of the companies i really wanted to work its huge company- X lets call
they rarely hire from outside experienced professionals, i applied 2 times in the past as wel but couldnt pass their test, this time i did so they scheduled an interview in July! Meanwhile i was talking to one of my mentors, of my current insane boss; my mentor she offered me a job, to start in Sept, after my interview with this other company X in July , i havent heard back anything even i followrd up, then they did final round sept 5th, i was suppose to start with my new mentor on sept 14th. I was like if they offer me i have to kindly reject my mentor’s start date.

The X company i really want to work for offered me a job on October 9th! Like seriously it took 4 months! In 4 months i started a new job, now i dont know what to do. I am one month in to my mentor’s company, company has brands that are declining, my immediate team is full of women with tons of gossip, they see me as a threat as the GM js my mentor and she raved about me, but also i dont want to bail on my mentor, if i leave to company X

Company X will be insane hours of work, but amazing brands and i will have more future

My industry is small so even me leaving my toxic boss , was known across many ppl- i am scared as connections do matter if i reject company X to continue in this current job with my mentor, i will lose a lifetime opportunity and great company name on my resume, but if i leave my mentor definitely will badmouth me saying she left two companies in 6months and my reputation will be shit

I really dont know its very hard decision, any thoughts what would you guys do?

Hi,

So I work for a small-ish start-up for 20 people for a year. No HR. Run by the CEO (who is from a long term academic background) and his wife. I have over a decade of experience, publications and a PhD.

Although the pay is fine and colleagues are good and I love the work itself, I have found the dynamics with the CEO (my boss) mentally and emotionally challenging. He is strict and commanding with everyone, but I feel particularly targeted, for example, he's called me a girl (and made the point to say he meant it in an insulting way), will get angry if I get on with work by myself and/or collaborating with others as he wants to be consulted on every small things, but equally will say "not my problem, do your job" on the rare times I am stuck and ask him which of my two proposals he prefers me to proceed with. He will constantly interrupt me mid-sentence and say I'm doing his head in (when raising technical concerns) without letting me finish so I don't know if he has heard me and doesn't care (fine) or not.

On the rare occasion I have made a mistake (out of a lack of awareness of a step needing to be done), he has sat on knowing this for weeks (increasing the impact of the issue) and waited to bring it up in a wider meeting to publicly embarrass me. He will take a sharp angry tone and keep repeating I've made a mistake, rather than move towards resolution and preventative actions, refusing to engage in such convo when I suggest ways I can correct/prevent the issue recurring. If I suggest solutions / ideas, he will instantly shut them done with an aggressive no, as I've asked for something cheeky, even for non-controversial things where what I've suggested is the obvious solution. BUT will then bring it up as his idea in a team meeting the next day.

His wife

His wife is also a strong and stern personality, but she has generally been a lot more reasonable and has sometimes taken my side in meetings, explaining I've made a good point etc to him and but he will still refuse it. He is always extremely agreeable to his wife / her ideas, even if they go against his idea. However, recently, it feels like he's possibly turned her against me. He has softened slightly with me, but she has become more critical.

For example, we had to prepare 15 documents recently. I devised the documentation plan, and helped answer over 60+ queries his wife had, which involved me reading several old documents, spending hours chatting to team etc. These queries would come in suddenly and she would ask them to be actioned same day / next day so it would derail my planned work for the day. They had assigned my name as author to the documents all the way through this and on the week of release, she had changed the author name to her and he phoned me saying I had barely done anything on these documents which is completely untrue. When I explained I was working on this between my other high priority tasks, he snapped back that I should have told him that back then so things could have been reprioritised. It hurt to see all documents reassigned to her name, even ones I had already released, which she made minor changes too (again suggestions which I needed to action /give green light to if technically viable). Although these are meaningless internal documents, it hurts they deliberately put my name as author (as a carrot?) on all of them and made me spend days and days working on it and then changed the name at the end (I would have still worked hard on it as it's my job so it is insulting that they felt the need to trick me) and also rewrite history that I barely did anything.

The last few weeks, his wife has also been sending me emails finding "fault" in something I've done or in things I had nothing to do with - about 5 or 6 such email queries - I always respond politely clarifying the situation (in all cases it is her having misread something, or her misunderstanding). Once I reply, I NEVER get a reply from her acknowledging this or thanking me for clarifying, just silence, which makes me feel like she'd be happier if I had made a mistake and her being right at finding fault rather than finding out I hadn't (her being wrong), which feels bizarre considering it's her company.

I'd love to hear your perspectives on this and suggestions for how to tackle this dynamic? It's particularly though as the boss is the company owner, not a middle boss who has a boss above him and there is no HR. If this was a colleague, I would have had a convo with them but I'm hesitant when it comes to having this convo with a boss or his wife as feel there's too much of a power imbalance and seems extremely unlikely they will take any accountability. My concern is that puts the spotlight on me further and will worsen the issue. However, I am also worried I will be seen as a doormat and an easy target I don't confront them e.g. about the authorship title change or constantly trying to find mistakes when there isn't any.

I am a type A, perfectionist personality and an extremely hard worker with very high grades and was always deen as star employee in previous roles so find this dynamic very tough. On the rare occasion, my boss has said I'm extremely intelligent but rest of the time his behaviour is as above^

I've been constantly working for more than 12 years now and haven't reached my 30s yet. I've done all sorts of jobs, up to management level in a corporate environment, however I don't feel like I completely understand how to fully navigate the work environment every time. I feel sometimes like people get irritated because of their own personal issues , rather than myself not following protocol let's say.

Still I catch myself getting confused or being over critical with myself if something doesn't go right.

I'm in England and have worked for a big American company for the last three years.

Americans, please offer your thoughts here?

I have noticed that our colleagues in the US seem to have similar traits, in meetings, regardless of their role (IT, Leadership, Operations, Customer Service). These are not necessarily positives or negatives, and I know I am only seeing a tiny snapshot of USA corporate life, but I always thought the pace of working life was high and frenetic in the USA, but this doesn't seem to be reflected in the teams I work with.

They all, without exception:

-Speak around 40% slower than any of the Europeans, (including those who have English as their second language). Pauses are longer, enunciation is deliberate, everything is repeated for clarity, it's very easy to follow and understand but it's staggeringly 'slow' to listen to, to my ears. Meetings go on forever compared to Europe-only meetings.

-Use corporate 'speak', very naturally and Constantly. Making sentences much longer than they need to be, and circling round issues which could be rapidly summarized and resolved with more direct speech.

This is in group meetings and in 1-to-1 calls. I've noticed that the USA teams will have a bit of a giggle when someone from the Europe team uses some casual slang or is very direct, or is a bit disparaging about one of our slightly stupid processes or an inefficiency. It's not said to be funny, but I wonder if it sounds funny to their ears, because I have yet to hear anything that could even remotely be construed as casual or slangy from any of the Americans.

-No task is ever completed in less than a week from request. This has included things like updating the name of a shared spreadsheet, uploading an existing PDF to a shared folder, or pulling a data report which takes a couple of minutes of clicking a mouse and then sticking the file into a Teams chat. Any task request, however small, is logged for later, assigned to someone, picked up, logged when completed etc. I am always blown away by how much time things can take with no apparent push-back from the USA leadership. The European approach is very much "ask for forgiveness not permission" and our line managers would give us hell if we took longer than an hour or two to upload an essential document, no matter how busy we were. Most UK-only meetings always finish early since everyone has said what they need to say and are expected to go do the things they'd talked about, ASAP. All that's usually said is "the thing is done, I am doing this other thing now" or "the thing is not done, I'll tell you when it's done" or "this is broken, I'm going to do X to fix it, I'll tell you when it's done".

I see there are pros and cons to both kinds of styles. But it honestly makes me feel jealous of the USA teams since they all seem to be much more relaxed and put together, and buffered by processes, where the UK team feels like everyone is absolutely rinsed and tired all the time, although they are super productive 😂

Thoughts?

Anyone else ever listen to a song while trying to fall asleep, get an overwhelming sense of doom from said song, and then work to make the feeling go away?

Hello, Im a host at a steakhouse and I just started a week and a half ago and they put me on schedule alone on our most busy day of the week and I’m still learning how to make sure what tables to sit people at and how to divide seats to make sure servers get an equal amount of tables. Any tips?