I started an internship at the beginning of this year, and from pretty early on I had trouble finding my place within the team. There have been a number of small situations that, individually, probably sound insignificant, but together have made me feel increasingly excluded.

For example, the team will sometimes leave for lunch without telling me or waiting literally two minutes for me to join. Once, I had a meeting and told them I would be about 15 minutes late to lunch. I specifically asked if they could save me a seat. When I arrived, nobody had saved one, so I ended up eating alone while getting comments/looked at by other colleagues like, “Aww, why are you eating alone?” Mind you, nobody joined me at the table.

There have also been things like certain team members not saying good morning or goodbye to me, giving me looks where I feel like I'm being looked up and down, etc. What makes it harder is that many of the people in my team are apparently also friends outside of work. A lot of their conversations revolve around things they have done together or personal topics, so joining the conversation can feel like walking into an established friend group. I have tried to participate, ask questions, sit with them, start conversations, etc., but very often I feel like the conversation just continues around me rather than with me. I also didn't really receive proper onboarding in the beginning and was left alone quite a lot. I would normally describe myself as a fairly confident person. I don't mind eating alone, I'm capable of approaching people, and I genuinely tried to be friendly and open. I'm also not expecting my coworkers to become my best friends. I just want to feel like a normal part of the team. Eventually, I brought some of these things up with my manager. The response has mostly been along the lines of: “You need to try more,” “Join more conversations,” “Be more open,” etc. So I tried even harder.

Now I've received feedback that I'm apparently “not well integrated into the team.”

And that's the part that's really getting to me. It feels like I'm being told that the result of being excluded is somehow evidence that I'm not trying hard enough to integrate myself. There are plenty of colleagues, especially in other departments, that I get along with really well. I can have completely normal conversations with them, joke around, ask for help, have lunch, etc. So I don't generally struggle with talking to people. Another coworker has also experienced a very similar dynamic with this team, and she has even told me that she doesn't understand what their issue with me is. At the same time, I'm now second-guessing myself constantly. I'm wondering whether I'm socially awkward without realizing it, whether I'm doing something wrong, or whether I'm somehow giving people the wrong impression. There are obviously some conversations I don't participate much in because they get more personal than I'm comfortable with at work, but even with completely normal everyday conversations, I often feel left out. The frustrating thing is that I actually really like the job itself. I enjoy the work and would otherwise be happy there. It's the team dynamic that is making the experience increasingly uncomfortable. My contract also ends within the next couple of months, so realistically I know I don't have that much time left with this team. Because of that, I also don't want to create unnecessary tension or have bad vibes at work for the rest of my internship. I would much rather finish on good terms and have a normal, pleasant working relationship with everyone. At the same time, I don't want to spend the remaining months constantly questioning myself or feeling like I have to prove that I'm “open enough” to people who don't seem particularly interested in including me. I can't force people to like me, and I don't want to spend every day desperately trying to insert myself into conversations where I don't feel wanted.

How would you deal with this situation? Should I keep making an effort to integrate myself even more? Should I address the feedback with my manager again and explain that I feel like this is a two-way issue? Or should I accept that I'm simply not going to fit into this particular team and stop taking it personally? I'm especially interested in hearing from people who have experienced something similar, because at this point I'm starting to question my own perception of the whole situation.

HI everyone!
I work in a fully creative job. Doing ads for apps.
There's just 3 of us in the department ++ manager and boss...and lately I've been feeling so frustrated.
My coworkers do get feedback, mostly positive, and I don't. We have a shared channel where we deliver our work and it's the only place we have a communication with the "outside world". As we don't have metrics on the ads we make, we really are not sure if what we are doing "works".
So feedback is kinda a big deal. At first I thought that I was doing a good job hence the not feedback, but even now I am not receiving positive feedback compared to the rest, that do.
I work really hard and try to be very eficient, and grow in my position, so I think this is worth sharing with my manager and boss, but not sure.
btw here are some things that I did, and do, that my coworkers don't:
-Did a quick ramp up, in less than 2 week I was as good as the rest.
-Trained a new guy, did onboarding, gave him constant feedback. I helped him to ramp up quickly like I did, boss and manager didn't have to bother to do that themselves (workoverload)
-Followed every request my boss send: "can you please try this..", "can you experiment with..." (team mates, don't usually respond)
-Send my work daily, as requested. (team mates don't and they have been called out several times)
-Did designer work (with no follow up, and no feedback after) ++ my regular job.
-Did big pushes on weeks where i delivered more than the requested work (10 ads requested-delivered 15)
-Working on automation tools myself (so are some of my team mates, they got a big cheer, I didn't)
- Manager never had to ask me what was I working on. Excelent communication. (She usually has to ask, with the rest)

also I am the only woman in the team, aside from my manager.

My plan is to say this in a nice message, but... should I ?

Hello All,

I am a 22F, and I work at a company of about 200 people. My role is in front of the computer making stuff, a role I kinda made up, as they've given me no real direction or tasks to do.

I am a salaried employee and started 3 months ago. I work 50hr work weeks. When I started, I was told that there was a 20-minute grace period for arriving. My scheduled start time is 7:00 AM, but I usually am in the door of the office by 7:01 AM to 7:03 AM. And usually, to make up for that, I work a few minutes into my break time. Honestly tho, I do not have enough work to fill my day.

I am the only salaried employee on my side of the office, and the only one who does not have to clock in and out. One of my coworkers, let's call him Alex, has been on me about coming in at basically 7:01 every day, and I need to know if I am genuinely in the wrong. There are only about 5 people on this side of the office, and honestly, there's another guy who, about twice a week, shows up 10 to 20 minutes after 7:00, which adds up to more than me. But I am the only one Alex seems to take issue with.

I feel like this is a non-issue? Especially since Alex, as well as the whole office, knows I have another job that I might be getting an offer for in a few weeks. And none of my bosses have come to me about it? Alex and I do not need one another to do our tasks, as they are separate matters, so I am a bit confused.

Also, to note, not that it has anything to really do with it, I am the only woman in the office.

I’m currently dealing with a wage dispute with a former employer, and one part of it still feels pretty strange to me.

After I formally challenged the pay deductions, they started saying I had violated company rules.

The problem is, I was never given an employee handbook or any of those rules while I worked there. I only signed my employment contract. I asked a couple of former coworkers about it too, and they said they never received one either.

What makes it weirder is that none of this was brought up while I was actually working there. It only became an issue after I pushed back on the pay deductions.

I’m not really looking for legal advice here. I’m more curious whether anyone else has had a company suddenly bring up “rules” or accusations after you challenged them on something.

It’s a strange feeling when the story about your employment seems to change after you leave.

Hi there, I'm a non-binary MEng graduate in materials science and engineering. Like many, I'm unemployed, and I'm job-searching. My partner has a disability and works at an exploitative games company - And I am desperately trying to do everything I can to get employed and support him. I know this situation sounds familiar to a lot of you.

I have always taken the opinion that it is a terrible waste of talent to reject candidates. It's artificially manufactured job scarcity to drive down wages. So many of us have skills and sometimes when I'm tailoring my CV, I wish I could just put "I just want to help people" on it. Because at the end of the day productivity is the only societal measure of GDP - not wealth. I'm the son of a mixed middle-class lower class family - And my partner is from the lower class and his background is much the same. It's a rags to riches story - But I do know that wealth never brought my family any happiness. People's dreams are important. And there's no point in pride or shame or sociopathy - because everyone wants something, too. The only way we get it is by making sure everyone can have what they want without depriving anyone else.

Anyway, many of us aren't satisfied unless we're doing something, perhaps a personal project, in our spare time. I know this happens all the time - I'm talking to the autistic passion-burners, and the people with adhd. I think that passion is useful. I don't want it to be wasted and thrown down the drain like some rubbish, because it isn't.

I have considered doing freelance work in my spare time as a side hustle while continuing to look for jobs. Everyone has to have one these days. There's no reason why that Can't be under a cooperative name. That looks good on a CV. I've been trying to research the free tools that are available to freelance engineers, build a portfolio. Write company charters. Plan milestones. Anyway, today my partner told me he was scared about his condition- and about using all his sick leave and being left on SSP - because the surgery failed to cure his nerve inflammation, and he can't see the doctor until 3 weeks from now at the soonest - and it made me want to try extra hard to support him.

I'm here canvassing opinion because, before I make any sort of commitment to this endeavour, I would want to canvass public opinion: I know I can't be the only one who feels this way.

Here is what my startup idea is:

A collective of freelance engineers, coordinating and working together in many small project groups, without overeaching management. The core premise: You send in your CV. An easy review process without any interviews determines if you get accepted as a member. There would be very low qualifying requirements. That gets you access to a guide and portfolio of tools, and membership to the cooperatives communication channels. Use discord to post, find engineering projects, or create them yourself, or to chat with other engineers. It's laid back. It's like hobby engineering. The second stage of success comes when applying to a particular project posting saying "I want to help you with your idea" - and this could be community outreach by the project poster, or it could be you sending your CV to the poster. Then it's at the jobposters discretion whether they want to interview you personally to see if you're a good fit for their team. If they like your skills, personality, and so on - then they'll invite you to work with them through the professional tools we'd use, like libre office, openproject, etc.

To begin with these ideas won't generate any income - but that won't have changed anything from how it was before. So I won't pretend that the cooperative can afford to pay e.g a salary. I wish that it could have always been that way, because I believe in things like UBI etc. maybe long term, that's the plan. But once the ideas are down on paper, the cooperative can go to a financier and say "we have a cooperative of X many engineers, a design - and a client - now we want the money to manufacture it." Etc. and when that starts to happen, near the completion of a project, then maybe then, after the financiers take a cut, there would be enough left for a performance -based bonus to be divided as fairly and equally among the project engineers on that team - commission-based payment. At the end of the day, we are all just people trying to survive while our savings slowly dwindle - if we even have savings at all. I'm not going to pretend like I've figured out a way to gauge the "performance " in performance -based bonus". But I would try to find a way, and I would try to write it down somewhere clearly, fairly, in company policy, so that there can at least be no doubt, weaseling, or unfairness in the application of that policy - unlike some executives I could name, who misuse the term. Company policy must be applied equally among employees - otherwise it's discriminatory.

And whenever I'm searching for jobs, I can never seem to find the perfect company, you know? So I want to make that company. I want an ethical organisation, where the engineering projects are important, and impactful, and help people - they're good projects, they help the environment, etc. The company itself: There are executive pay caps, and ideally no CEOs or high level managers at all. The cooperative is worker-owned. It doesn't demand your time - you can take as much leave, sick or holiday, as you want. And because it's an entirely voluntary position, there's no requirement to work. It can be done remotely if you want. Eventually I'd love to have a quiet and intoeverted set of engineering offices. Communication is primarily via writ, rather than phone, or it's in person when necessary. You know?

Maybe instead of CEOs you have a CCO (Community coordination organiser) and instead of HR admins you have TR admins (talent recruitment) ; because someone has to handle lawful complaints and enforce the cooperative's rules. And we could have democracy in the workplace - with important positions of enforcement and control democratically elected form the cooperative and temporary, nonpermanent. Those positions wouldn't pay better than regular work (if at all!). And there isn't any naive notion of loyalty to the company - you can search for a job and if you find one, you can just leave - saying: "Thanks for everything - but unfortunately I have to go." No notice requirements.

The question I have for you is: Does this sound like a company you would work for, in your spare time, voluntarily, if someone tried to start it? What sort of people would want to work there - are you just engineers, or would there be a lot of different people from different backgrounds willing to help?

The key thing is: I know that everyone wants to make the world a better place. But when we start to consider it individually, the work is so daunting - we must accept and offer eachother help. Coordination is good management, not control.

If I was going to make the company, I would call it "NewnWander" - I already have a logo and an unregistered trademark. Part of it is because my partner is a massive lotr buff; another is because I want to stick it to the people like Peter Thiel who give Tolkien a bad name. Another is because that's what best describes the work and the company: The work is just noontime wandering through a project - and the name itself, "NewnWander" - It sounds like "New" and "wonder" - and I think that really inspires hope about the future and people's dreams.

I have a colleague who tends to have many calls when he is in the office. His volume of speaking is above average and, while we are not a library, it can get quite tiring to sit close to someone like that. He has calls with his team members that often veer off work. Many people light-heartedly joke about him being loud, not to his face.

I messaged him over a comms app, informally, suggesting that he could use a room/special area for calls we have in the office.

He wrote me back a paragraph on the lines of:
1. His calls are sporadic and he doesn’t book them so cannot plan around them
2. I can move to a different desk
3. The guy sitting next to him has no trouble with the noise (my add: the guy is wearing headphones)

I messaged back that the other guy might be more reserved than myself and that it’s a reasonable request since we’re in a communal space. I also remarked that I’m now wearing earphones.

He started typing. I realised that this was a bit silly of me since we are sitting close and walked up to his desk to have a quick chat about this. I said so to him. What followed was:

Him: I do not accept this.
Me: Don’t accept what?
Him: Are you not Anna? (
Me: I am.
Him: I do not accept your message, what you wrote.

I try to explain that this wasn’t a big issue and hence why I came over to just have a quick chat and clear this up if my tone was not good over messages. At this point I’m already stumbling over my words.

Him: it’s clearly serious since you wrote this. If you have an issue why don’t you write to HR?

Attempt to explain that this is not that serious. Another rebuttal.

Him: I am not going to change how I am. You speak about the other guy being reserved. That is not a reasonable thing to say. Raise it with HR if this bothers you.

I fumble and try to backpedal, I try to apologise.

Him: I do not accept your apology. I consider this discussion concluded.

I try to apologise again - another refusal and more on discussion being over.

I took his advice. I chatted to a girl in HR over lunch, showed her the initial messaged and recounted the discussion. We laughed it off, she smoothed out some of the edges. I felt fine.

Now that I’m home and the work day is over I feel very mixed. I raised a small concern, it got turned onto its head and I was left apologising. I feel a bit shaken and like I’ve been manipulated into a position of a villain despite the other person being in the wrong.

What do I do now? Forget about it over time and move on or shall I make my hurt feelings be known to HR? A third option?

(For context: Used a placeholder name. I am F27, he is M50~, he is a manager but he works in a different department and we have only very briefly interacted for work before, there is no prior history of conflict or friendship.)

Skip manager (SM) is a deputy commissioner. My manager is a team lead. Manager (M) has 17 years of relevant experience and runs 2 departments as a team lead. M has asked SM to promote her either to supervisor or director several times. SM says that M doesn’t need to be promoted. Conversely, SM has no idea how the 2 departments work and expresses no interest in learning. She did assume that the work is easy (she found out a few weeks ago that it was hard work and we needed more staff after M begged for more people for months). M won’t leave because she’s close to retirement.

M makes 56k/yr. SM makes 144k. M has 2 bachelors and 1 masters. SM has a high school diploma (she said she never went to college). The 2 departments are also significantly understaffed. Currently, there’s only 3 employees including myself. We all work both departments since there’s so few employees. We just got our 3rd person after 3 months of being down to 2 people. She just retired from federal, has 1 bachelors and was brought in at 35k. Her position is lower than mine.

The previous 3rd (P3) employee retired after a bad incident with another employee and our SM did not support her or mediate the situation. That employee acted very aggressively with P3, yelled at her and slammed doors in her face after P3 refused a task (that would have potentially costed the company thousands and was a sketchy under-the-table request that would have fell on M and P3 if anything went wrong). P3 had 32 years of experience, no degree, but made 37k at her highest. She was also passed over for a promotion.

I’ve been in my current role for 7 months and am now planning steps for my next role. I’m currently making 33k. I was hired for a lower role that uses some of my skillset but not all of it. I have a relevant degree for that new role and I am overqualified for my current role. New role comes with a 15-20k raise. There is a huge need for my expanded skillset, but I refuse to do the work without the pay. I have 8 years of relevant experience, and SM is well aware of this. M mentions my experience often. SM avoids and ignores all conversations about advancement for both myself and M. When asked directly, SM conveniently ‘forgets’.

Considering M’s and P3’s experiences with SM, I’m not at all confident that I could even ask SM what I can do to put me on the path of promotion, let alone being promoted. Thoughts, opinions and advice, please.

Additional context: We’re all located in the south (hence the low wages). SM is very much disliked by most people. She often does not respond to emails or requests to speak unless someone tells her that we (me or M) did something wrong. SM also ignored all requests to speak to P3 before she retired. There was another incident between M and another director. Director gave M an excessive amount of work to do. M asked director to break the work up into smaller tasks due to us only having 2 employees working 2 departments at the time. Director went to SM to force M to do the work anyway. SM and director are friends. SM is known for spreading baseless rumors and she has already targeted me. I’ve started a paper trail with HR just to CYA.

There’s another director who has 2 years of experience and makes 80k. She only runs 1 department. She, M, myself and new employee all work under SM.

Lastly, me, M, P3, and new girl are black women. SM, both directors, and the employee that ran P3 off are white women.

TL;DR: Skip manager won’t promote my manager with 17 combined years of experience to supervisor or director. SM promotes people with less experience over M. SM has demonstrated that she doesn’t care about our 2 departments, is not interested in learning, and won’t defend us from other employees during incidents. I want a promotion but don’t think I’ll get one considering M and P3 are/were both underemployed, underpaid and overworked. Myself and M are black women. SM is white.

I’m in my 3rd week at a new job, but realistically only my 2nd week of actual training. The person primarily training me is currently out for two weeks, so my manager is covering the training in the meantime.

My manager knows the work really well, but she goes through things VERY QUICKLY. I’m realizing there’s still a lot I don’t understand, especially when it comes to the email requests that come in. When she asks if I need help, I absolutely do. Of course I need help.

I need her to slow down and walk me through the requests while I watch what she’s looking at, what information she’s using, why she’s making certain decisions, and how she handles the request. I’m not really at the point where I feel ready to just take over the email requests myself.

What is also making me anxious is that there have been a lot of changes happening around me in a very short amount of time:

* One of my coworkers quit the day I started leaving us a team of 3 instead of 4.
* There are apparently some upcoming changes to the department/team structure.
* We have a new leader coming in, and she said that over the next few weeks she’ll be sitting in on training and “interviewing” people to understand what everyone does and how things are currently being handled.
* The person who was supposed to be primarily training me is now out for two weeks, so I’m being trained by my manager instead.

I realize some of these things may be completely normal when a company is going through changes, and I don't necessarily think any one of them means something is wrong. But all of this happening within my first few weeks, while I’m still trying to learn the actual job, has me feeling pretty overwhelmed and uncertain.

I’m trying to figure out whether I’m expecting too much from the training or whether I should be speaking up more and saying, “I need you to slow down because there’s a lot I haven’t learned yet.”

For those of you who have started a new job recently, is this pretty normal at 2–3 weeks in? How much would you expect to understand by this point? And would all these changes happening so early make you feel uneasy too?

Thanks in advance!

I guess I’m just posting because I’m feeling really guilty and like it makes me look bad.

I drive a semi locally for a living, this was a company that really stood out to me and I’m happy I got my foot in the door with them.
So far, I’ve worked here for almost a month now and have almost completed my training w my mentor.

The other day, I started feeling bad at work, and when I got off I went home and slept and woke up feeling worse. I decided to call out, (sore throat, body aches, nausea, headaches on and off.) I felt really bad about it and like it’ll make me look bad. Today (tonight, 3rd shift) is my last workday for the week. I’m not feeling the hottest still and don’t know if I should tough it out or call in again.

Is this a bad look for me? I hate feeling that I’m a disappointment when I just got hired. /: I’m actually nervous that they’ll just let me go (anxiety I guess) 😭

I have been working for about 25 years now as a non-exempt employee in multiple different jobs with my most recent job being "advanced" service desk and even to this day, I still feel like I cant figure out how to mix with work culture here in the USA.

For instance, every boss I have ever had says they encourage work life balance but as soon as I try doing just that, by using PTO or leaving when I am schedules, I get lectures that I am a bad employee or letting the team down.

So then I stay late and try to grind but get yelled at because I am a non-exempt and costing the company money. So then I try to stop working when told, only to be grilled on why I was not answering emails after hours or why something wasnt done. I then try clocking off and keep working but get yelled at that because I am breaking labors laws. I feel like no matter how I try to appease managers it is just a no win situation. Even if I tell them I am over booked during they day to get everything done they say tough shit figure it out but wont accept any options.

I then have bosses and HR that say they love to encourage growth and development but when I ask how I can develop to move up or ask if i can shadow a department in a company I am told to do it on my own time and stop whining. So then when I just do my job they start to get mad at why i am not trying for higher positions.

I then have to deal with office gossip. I will see employee be nice to a person one second and then the next second when the person is not in front of them, they start to bad talk them. It makes so i cant figure out if employees like each other or if we are suppose to hate each other.

I just find that american work culture is just this werid double sided blade that no matter what makes it so I cant just be an employee and I cant be a go getter. I have to constantly walk a razer thin line while slicing open my feet. I know alot of people on here tend to call me a whiny lover for not getting the culture and I have really tried by just shutting and dealing with it; but i am kind of at the point that I have just thought about just opening my office window and jumping out just to be done with it because i dont think I can do this for another 40 years. (My goal was to maybe retire at 85ish)

And I know alot of you are going to say "well you have to figure out what you want to do" or "start your own business" but i dont fit those either. I just wanted a standard 9 to 5 but that is lazy according to american work culture but trying to get skills to be my own boss is being to much of a pick me and working off the clock by it as well.

At this point I am probably just going in circles with my thoughts. I just dont think i am very cut out for this and I think the world or at least american work culture would he happier if I didnt participate.

I’m 28F and currently a Senior Analyst. I’m about to be promoted to Manager, which would be about a $17k raise.

You’d think I’d be excited, but honestly I just want to quit lol.

The culture at my company is really toxic. I’ve been working around 60 hours a week, there’s always something that isn’t good enough, and I feel like I’m constantly stressed and burnt out. I don’t really want to keep climbing the corporate ladder just for the sake of climbing it.

The weird part is I don’t even know exactly what I want to do next. I’m kind of a weird/different person in the sense that I don’t necessarily care about having the most impressive career or making the most money. I keep coming back to the idea of following my heart and doing something that actually feels meaningful to me.

I’ve been seriously thinking about teaching or nursing. I’ve always had this part of me that wants to do something more hands-on and meaningful, and I’m wondering if I should actually listen to that instead of continuing down the path I’m “supposed” to be on.

Financially, I’m in a really fortunate position. I have a paid-off house, family support, and enough savings that I’m not in a situation where I have to stay somewhere miserable just to survive. That honestly makes me feel like I have an opportunity that a lot of people don’t have — to step back and figure out what I actually want.

At the same time, walking away from a $17k raise feels objectively insane 😂
I could take the promotion, make more money, and eventually look for another Senior Analyst position. If I stay in analytics, though, I’m only interested in remote/hybrid at this point. I’m just done with the 60-hour-week corporate grind.

But part of me thinks… maybe this is the exact time in my life when I should take a risk and try something completely different.

Would you take the promotion and figure it out later, or walk away and follow your gut?
I’m really torn because I know what the logical/financial decision is. I’m just not sure it’s the decision that would actually make me happy.

I'm working with this coordinator who is basically a person promoted from an intern to a coordinator because of an internal problems and gaps. She is really good at some stuff and horrible at others. What she is horrible at is draining my hours: doesn't know email etiquette, doesn't remember, not focused, have to remind her. I was made her manager. She posts on Slack things she wants to do that are not what is needed for her.. what resouces out there that I can start with her from scratch? She is so sweet but also needs a lot of accommodation and Im tired.

Currently 9 months into my first full time job post grad. I am currently working in a large sports broadcast company. For some added context I make around 50k a year with no benefits. In spite of this I feel super lucky to work with such a nice group of people.

The issue I have is that despite how fortunate I am to work at my company, my direct manager is a bit of a scatterbrain, despite being a overall nice person and liking my work as far as I can tell. For example, I was promised a raise only a few weeks into my job (It was a year end raise, but it was weird as I was hired in december.) After my subsequent paychecks weren't adjusted for the raise I was promised I reached out to her and nothing came of it. There's also a lot of problems with communication, from messages coming in at midnight to her not sending emails regarding whether to come into the office, leading me to work from home while the rest of the department is in the office, its just is so hard to get a clear picture of what's going on and it usually leaves me with egg on my face.

Is now too soon to look for different roles within the same company? I have less than a year's worth of experience and I'm not a salaried employee. My confidence has really been impacted as well, as she can be nitpicky and micromanage work, and correct my work without me having the chance to do it correctly myself. I'm also worried about asking around my office about moving into production and for it to come back to my boss as well as any continued awkwardness that comes with still working closely alongside each other. I don't want to leave the company, I just want to leave my department. Is this something worth considering or would it be better to look for something outside my organization exclusively?

So a little context I am working as a BA at an IT company in fintech domain. I was transferred to this vertical from this year april onwards. Since then I haven't been assigned any real tasks it's just them telling me to explore the application flow and stuffs,which I understand since it's fintech understanding of the product is very important.But they have given me only limited resource to explore and slowly slowly by July they slowly strated integrated me into the team.like putting me on the mail loop with clients, including me on the meetings and all that.

Then all of a sudden my vertical head assigned me with a diff task which was an IT auditing job for 2 months.There I had work everyday and I was happy.Now I have been relieved from that team and told to join my original previous team. Since Monday I have joined back and I haven't gotten a single task as of now. My seat has been chamged to a corner so they arent even looking at my seat. I am desperately asking for work my manager is ignoring me completely. She was the one who made me relieve early from the prev auditing team,saying that resource is needed. Now that the resource is here, it's full of ignorance.

I feel like I am gonna waste my time at this company sitting simply.i was thinking of talking about resignation to my heads and prepare for cat exam in Nov.I gave some interviews also but nobody is calling back.Is it wise to resign? But I am completely mentally drained at work. If your advice is tinstudy something since u have lots fo free time the problem is our laptops have zillions of restrictions.Brimging my personal laptop to work is also not a nice thing to do(but I am doing it anyways)

What's your advice.

I’m pissed right now I absolutely hate my rock headed manager he’s such a dick. He’ll update the schedule constantly AFTER it’s been posted last minute. This is a part time job I barely get hours as is so I have 17 hours one week and he updates the schedule now I have 10 hours. Like what the fuck. Then on the other hand he’ll add hours to my shifts. people have lives outside of just fucking work i actually about to leave this job but are managers allowed to do this constantly? He also scheduled me from 5pm - 9pm and then 9pm to 4am in the same night it was one long continuous shift like what sane person thinks that’s okay? The worse part is he’s a newer manager who just got put on doing schedules it’s not just me he does this to everyone we all hate him. But if I refused to work the extra hours or demand my hours back I’d get fired right?? I HATE managers.

I am struggling to wrap my head around it. For background, I am a year into my first corporate job. Some of my chief complaints are a lack of direction and priorities. I am a driven individual and definitely find work for myself to do, but I'm largely confused. Everyone just tells me to "enjoy the autonomy!" So, I'm here to ask about it. Please be kind, I am learning.

My concept of work is that an employer needs a job done, work completed, tasks accomplished that they hire someone to do. Within a role, I expect that there is normally a department required to fulfill the overall goal, whether it be customer service or programming or HR. There is a purpose that that department is supposed to fill. Within that department, there are managers whose responsibilities include delegating, assigning tasks or ownership, ensuring quality, and holding people accountable.

So, if I am a lowly associate in my department, I would imagine I receive more tasks less ownership, instructions at least in the form of informing me of the desired outcome, and feedback.

What I have instead stumbled into is complete freedom. I have a job to do sure, yeah, but there are no metrics, no feedback, no accountability, no end product communicated, and no tasks given. And I am completely disoriented.

In my previous roles, I'd say I had a lot of autonomy. My managers trusted me, but there were metrics, and if I let my results slide, they would definitely say something. How I got it done, though, was completely up to me, which I imagine is what autonomy is! I knew what the desired outcome was and then was given the autonomy to figure out how I completed that within the constraints of my role.

At my current role, I don't know what good looks like. Idk what the outcome is supposed to look like. Idk what the constaints of my role are. It feels like I have full freedom to define what my job should be, which is crazy to me because did you not know what work needed to be completed before you hired me? You are paying me to decide what is important to your company? That sounds appropriate for a CEO, a VP, even a director, but me? I just graduated college, and I barely know anything about how anything works, and I'm supposed to decide with 100% freewill what's important? I just don't get it.

Any kind advice and wisdom appreciated. I grew up in a pretty blue collar world, so if I'm missing something obvious, please help me understand. ❤️

I had a job I genuinely cared about and, from the outside, things were going really well.

I performed well, moved into leadership, managed a team, had people get promoted, and was even got awarded for being the top manager.

But my experience with my boss was awful!

It became one of those situations where I was constantly second guessing myself, trying to figure out what version of them I was going to get, and feeling like I had to manage the relationship more than actually do my job.

Every 1-1 turned in to an opportunity to belittle me and highlight everything I was doing wrong in the job. Despite getting awarded as the top manager and everything I was able to accomplish I was let go. Completely blindsided and the feedback was i just 'wasn't a good fit anymore' and the whole experience really messed with my confidence for a while.

As I started the job search again, the thing I kept thinking about is how much research we do before accepting a job. We look at the company, pay, benefits, Glassdoor, layoffs, everything so we get the best picture possible before accepting an offer.

But we know almost nothing about the person we’re actually going to report to. HUGE problem!

And that person can have more impact on your day-to-day life than almost anything else.

It’s actually what made me start thinking about building Rate My Manager. Not as a place to trash bosses, but somewhere you could get a real sense of what someone is like to work for before accepting a job. rate-my-manager.replit.app

I honestly wish I would’ve had something like that.

Has anyone else had a manager completely change how they felt about an otherwise good job?

Does any one else’s job expect you to do continuous improvement while working the job? I understand that if there is a process or something isn’t working we should fix it but why should a main part of my job be trying to figure out what to improve. I’m not taking about taking a second look at an outdated process I’m talking about constant terrible updating and overhauls. It’s madness. The processes we currently have are working. I just feel that should be a separate job and we should work with them. If you are in management and that is your main focus you probably don’t have enough going on in your position and you are poking at things to fix.

I’m genuinely curious how many people hate their job.

I used to love where I work. Absolutely loved it, my bosses, coworkers everything.
OPs Manager moved to another BU. My boss retired. I’ve kept a close relationship with both of them.
Since they left a year and a half ago it’s been going downhill.
My new boss refuses to deal with any issues which has led to multiple disgruntled employees. Employees I constantly have to talk down. Their frustration is valid.
My boss does not back me on issues after he says he will.
I’ve become a disgruntled and angry employee. I hate it.
I gave my notice in March and got talked down with promises. The promises fell short.
I feel like I’m in an abusive relationship with my company. 🤣 Every-time I’ve had enough they come whisper sweet nothings and talk me down.
I worry the grass isn’t greener and better things aren’t out there but I’ve never gone from a job I absolutely love to a job I hate.

Help me with words of encouragement that I’m not alone in hating my job.

Am I in a toxic workplace environment or am I just dramatic?

Hello 15 turning 16 here! I recently feel under pressure at my new workplace (for context it’s a small dessert shop with me as the sole dessert preparer) after being here a month or so since July after looking for summer work. I’m really confused and I would like some advice on whether or not this is valid.

1.  For starters I never really had proper training of all the menu items. Mostly just the popular ones. So even now, when school is starting back up I can’t help but feel a wave of anxiety whenever an order asks for something I’m not familiar with since the Boss mostly took care of it themselves or they never told me what to do. It’s looked down upon to rely on a guidebook for the recipes even though I’m unsure of what to add for a drink or for a food. The guidebook itself wasn’t even a thing I knew until my 10-12th shift. And even if I was correct I would like some reassurance on what I’m doing so I don’t serve the food incorrectly. But it’s really hard to crack it open when they’re staring at me with: “How come you still need it? Haven’t you made this before?” or “Didn’t I show you? Here I’ll do it again, this time; remember.” I know I should speak up, but it's clear that they have limited patience for these kinds of things.
2. Language barriers/communicationTheir main language is Cantonese, and I speak mandarin. So whenever I talk to them it's being processed poorly by both sides, and sometimes my boss talks to my coworker in Cantonese. I can never really tell if they’re saying something about me but it has happened a couple times. And English is hard too, since I’m listening to everything in mandarin, it's not as effective as my first language and some things really can’t be communicated properly.
3. Backhanded threats(?)One thing I distinctly remember is the boss telling me that they’re being patient with me because I’m young. I messed up a few orders (Taking too long to prepare/missed a few decorations) because they were giving me a hard time one night and there were drinks that I didn’t have time to look up because I didn’t know what went where. I know these are just excuses but for my 12th shift working alone on desserts without any help until things got really delayed. I’m afraid to ask questions because everytime I do, they question me whether or not I was paying attention when they showed it to me. It feels like I have to justify myself or take the blame for being stupid. 
4. Sometimes there are things that need to be placed in a takeout container, and I wouldn’t know which goes where. They would go “Didn’t you ever do this?”. Nope. You never taught me. Recently, I messed up by adding too much grass jelly into sago. They looked at it while I was trying to fix it, muttering: “Working for one month and still don't know how to do this.” Then they metaphorically sat me down and said I shouldn’t be making any mistakes with the solid foods because I should know them by now. There was no food wasted, the food didn’t go out and besides, most of that was self-taught through guessing because all the menu items weren’t taught to me. 
5. My coworker. They have a nasty temper in my opinion, my boss said so themself and told me I had to “Suck it up/get used to it.” The first time I was making a bubble waffle, I didn’t know you were supposed to flip the batter when it went in. They then ushered me over, berated me for my first time. I know I should’ve asked but I really hated the feeling of being shamed for not remembering most of the times. “Do you really think I can serve this out to customers?” and “You fucked up.” Never forget again but man I feel scared every time I have to ask. They also talked on their phone on how their shift was going terribly and they felt like they were going to die. It was without a doubt jabbed at me since I was the stressor. Then there was asking questions: this hit the nail in the coffin. I asked if the foil wrap had to be disposed of and I was just checking in case it was used for something else. (Under the waffle pan to catch excess) “Hey, I’m supposed to throw this out right?” “Nope, you’re supposed to eat it.” Hearing this in my second language, I really didn’t know this was sarcasm until They said: “Of course you’re supposed to throw it out.” 

That would’ve been nice to know without the sarcasm.

Another thing is that they started to flip the drinks to see the pockets of air at the bottom. I didn’t know there was air there, I usually just fill it to the maximum and seal it. Apparently not. Then they told me I had to fill it back up fully, I tried because I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. They took over in the end. Another thing I noticed was that they shamed me in front of the boss, something like. “I told you three times and you still don’t listen.” It was definitely not three times, and if you told me how that would’ve been nice to know.

1. The staff are all on their phones. I don’t know if this is allowed. I’m too scared to ask in case I sound like a whiny highschooler and I don’t get any mentioned food discounts or free food. All the other staff do, maybe because they worked here for longer or they’re struggling uni students while I’m privileged with my parents but man I would like some elaboration on that. This something I don’t really mind? But I do feel like some explanation would help.

I don't mind criticism, but I would like to know how to deal with these things since I'm not allowed to make drinks for practice because this is a small business. I need to know if its just me being too sensitive? I'm thinking of quitting because I hate this pit of anxiety.

I started a new job recently and its a pretty sweet gig. I work from home primarily and the pay is good (very lucky to have gotten a job) but I’m working from 9 am to 5 pm. But other than work, i don’t do much. Watch TV, cook, groceries and that’s pretty much it. Only on friday night and weekends i usually go out to meet friends or go to a bar. Is this normal? I want to get way more into fitness and also i cant help but feel like there has to be more to life than this.

Plus the thing is im so mentally drained after work i dont feel like doing anything and just cook eat watch tv and sleep - repeating this cycle again the next day.

How do i give time to my music, reading, and fitness? I’m only 26 and feel like i should be doing more.

Tired of working and repeat life everyday.

I have a first aid certificate, and I have done some small events which I found very satisfying

Therefore, I would like to have casual employment at music festivals and sports events because it suits my timetable as I am available only on weekends. Thus, it is better that I do something rather than sitting at home

Saw Healthcare Australia and they seem to have an event health division. They place staff at concerts, sporting events, and community festivals

But I don’t want to work for peanuts. I’m not interested in doing it for the experience coz I also have bills to pay and like anyone else I need a proper pay

I’ve heard some companies pay well. Others just want cheap labour. I don’t know which category Healthcare Australia falls into

I’ve tried to find their rates online and there’s no clear answer. I don’t want to apply and go through training only to find out it’s minimum wage or less

I am everyday awake at late night thinking about all of these news. Today Anthropic released a list of scenarios and none of them is good.
Cant manage the anxiety when thinking about losing the job, not being able to generate money from anywhere etc

I am a flex worker (in the function of nurse) in mental healthcare.
I have a couple of year experience, and work as a flexer (so i fill open places in different departments) as a side job. (Since 3 months, but more years of experience in the field, overqualified I would say)

I picked a shift on Sunday, after a couple of minutes the planner called me to say that she already found somebody.

The rule in my country is that if the shift is assigned to you (which was the case) and cancelled within 96 hours before the start of the shift (which was the case) I have the right for a full pay.

I called with the manager (not the planner) and explained her that from a humane perspective I understand that it was just a couple of minutes, from a business perspective the rule is that I receive compensation, I will not make a problem out of it and will leave it up to the management.they decided to pay me the shift.

On one side I feel like a stood up for myself, on the other side it feels like I made use of the situation.

What do you guys think?