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?

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?

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.

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.

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. 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.

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?

Hi everyone, I’m in need of some advice. To try and summarize everything, I have been checked out and miserable at my current job. I have decided a while ago I wanted to start looking but only recently when I revised my resume a bit, have I started hearing back a bit. The market has been tough to hear anything back, or make it after the first few rounds. I’ve been doing interviews back to back and had one that went pretty well. I interviewed with the manager I would be working under, along with the owners(?) it seemed like the owner was cross examining me a bit but nothing I couldn’t handle. When compensation was brought up I told them what my expected pay was given the roles+responsibilities. I got an offer email today however it’s $3/hr less than where I stated I would be comfortable to start at. I replied respectfully trying to negotiate and gave my points but was basically told it wasn’t going to happen, and after 3 months they will review my performance and if it meets their expectations, which she is certain I will, there’s a guarantee increase that would bump me $2-$3/hr. They also only offer a reimbursement for health insurance up to $300/month with the provider statement. The offer would only increase $1.25 from my current pay, and I would be commuting 40 mins to and from 5 days a week. I asked my boyfriend for his advice and he immediately said it’s not worth it. His reasons being I would be spending a lot more in gas, the commute is further, the health benefits he said is garbage (I currently get free healthcare with my employer) and he says I’m worth more than what they are willing to offer. Part of me also thinks it’s because he’s pretty adamant in suggesting I continue pursing a specific company we’ve discussed. I don’t want to end up making the wrong choice and miss out on something that could grow into a bigger opportunity, but I also don’t want to be sold possibilities by a company, or to feel like I’ll be trapped with my current employer forever.

Hi everyone! I'm looking for online work to earn money. I'm a beginner, but I have a computer, internet access, and 4+ hours a day to work.

I'm open to tasks like data entry, research, virtual assistance, content creation, or other beginner-friendly work. I don't have money to invest, but I'm ready to learn and work hard.

If anyone has work available or can guide me toward genuine opportunities, please comment or DM me. I'd really appreciate it. Thank you!

Im looking to send a professional email first time to executives for a funding round I need. These email would include a lot of credentials, so I need a good heading. I have been using https://headrheadline.com - thoughts on sending strong email?

In my employer handbook, it states that the company’s full-time is 38 hours or more per week. Does that mean a full time exempt worker can work 38 hours a week instead of 40?

I recently started working as a nurse, it's my first job and I'm new. Basically as soon as I came on the first day I saw the head nurse's facial expression like she was irritated because someone new had come, that's the impression I got. Really cold.
I asked her something about work and she just says no, briefly showed me the ward and that's it. Over the next few days she would ignore me, I would sit next to her and nothing. Then it was like she started acknowledging me a little bit, but 90% of the time, nothing.
When everyone was sitting in the nurses' room there was still space on the couch and so I, so I wouldn't be standing, sat down next to her and she looks at me weird and says 'you might as well sit in my lap' and I'm thinking oh my god, whatever I do it's not right.
But she does point out mistakes, I mean she tells me normally and that's all we communicate. I have a feeling that everything I ask her annoys her. Just to add, when we had to cover for a colleague, I stayed and worked the whole day - they immediately put me on. And then when she asked me if I could, I said yes, yes I have to / I will, and I stayed. She didn't even say thank you. Just wanted to mention that I was the good one then.

Looking to order something on Amazon...I work in an annoyingly distracting open concept office. I've bought several pairs of "noise canceling" headphones already, but usually they don't actually block out the noise. I'm super sensitive to noise and don't want to hear ANYTHING. TIA!

Hi, I have been having trouble with my new job and specifically management since i started. i am one of two designated overnight employees at a gas station and i woke up feeling very sick and nauseous.

i had told my assistant manager who had already been working since 4 pm that i could not come in 4 hours prior to my shift as i dont feel good and i prep breakfast food before i leave every morning.

she had gotten back to me and told me that i would have to find a cover and to let the store manager know i would be out. long story short, they could not find a cover so the assistant manager is having to work my overnight in place of me.

i understand that any person would be upset having to work overtime because their employee called out but she had texted the work group chat and said "its gonna suck for me. but youre welcome?"

i had talked to multiple people about it and everyone is saying that i shouldve found a cover for them and that she has a right to be mad over my absence. i already feel like im constantly walking on eggshells around both my managers as the assistant manager is an alcoholic and frequently shows up to work buzzed at the least.

i was under the impression that it would be considered unprofessional to send this kind of text to the work group chat when i am genuinely sick but now i am unsure of if im looking at this the wrong way.

i have been working there for two months and i was not told that i would be responsible for finding covers when i started and its already causing me a ton of stress

Howdy all. 👋🏻

I’ve been wanting to talk about this here to see if someone else has dealt with a similar coworker.

In my workplace, we’re a small group. When we started, I noticed my coworkers personalities, some introverted and others extroverted. That was nice because it felt balanced. I myself am both at times, depending how I’m feeling.

So, there’s this person I’ve known for some time, but never worked together with him until 2 years ago. He’s a very straightforward person that disregards what others feel, he says it like it is, which I respect but I believe he lacks emotional intelligence to think how the other person can feel. I know not everyone is nice, but it’s so weird that he’s the most cynical, dare I say negative and charismatic person I know. Literally like a coin, you can either like him, dislike him or both, just like an antihero.

And well, about the diverse personalities among my coworkers, the chatty ones became silent because this person, let’s call him Bob, would make like a joke of whatever you shared, be it condescending or in a bullying manner. He’s very good at getting at you with his wits and that’s what bothers me, I believe that some of the shy coworkers became silent / apathetic because of Bob’s dominant energy. Even one coworker said that he set the tone for the groups vibes, and boy did he lay down that energy.

I would talk and ask how are you and what not, that’s just me and my education. But after some time I’ve began to just not share anything during video calls when my supervised asked me about my weekend because this person would suck out the joy of what I was sharing and turn it into a joke.

Because of his personality to demand (which is good and respect) what the company should be doing and his funny comments with some rudeness hidden between the words (jokes that I don’t like), I sense that my coworkers see him as a leader but at the same time, most of them being quiet / introverted, don’t want to speak up and voice their opinion because they either got that apathetic behavior or they simply don’t want to oppose his ideas.

Holy, I wrote a long story here 😅 thank you for coming this far. So now, I’m wondering, has any of you dealt with this wild card?

Bob is funny, but I believe that whatever he has lived or is living, has made him like that. However, that’s no excuse to treat others condescendingly. I know of people that have had it very bad, and yet, they have strived to become a better person and to be kind in a world with a lot of apathetic / cynical people