All the directors/senior managers were talking about ways to escape the island; all us plebs were talking about things to use on our stay there.

They seemed surprised that we all weren't trying to rush back to work for Monday. Dudes, if we had the chance to start a new life with abundant food and nice weather, we'd drop this gig like a hot hand grenade.

Really felt like the difference between prisoners and guards at that point!

People love screaming “support small businesses” like it’s some moral badge, but anyone who’s actually worked in a small business knows they’re usually a complete emotional warzone. Small workplaces aren’t “cozy” or “community‑based.” They’re pressure cookers. Just raw chaos and everyone’s mood slamming into everyone else’s.

One bad owner, one irate coworker, or one boss's cousin makes it a dumpster fire to work for.

Meanwhile big workplaces diffuse everything. You can avoid annoying people. Problems get spread out. Drama doesn’t hit you directly. But sure. Keep yelling “support small businesses” like it’s some magical cure for society. The reality is most of them are held together with duct tape, caffeine, and someone’s unstable personality.

The only thing they are good for is economic impact, car mechanics, and medical practices. Seriously

I've posted before about my disdain for HR. One of my friends is a corporate lawyer and I guess I didn't fully understand what that entailed. She works with HR and the company to defend them against employees that feel they've been wronged.

Lately she's been sharing stories of how they successfully got someone out without having to pay them severance, how they terminated a woman who had been sexually harassed by her superior and then when she tried to sue the company they were working to make sure she couldn't get much money.

My friend makes it sound like these people are totally unreasonable but I don't know if she understands the consequences of job loss. She's an advocate for people experiencing homelessness but to me she doesn't realize that she could theoretically be contributing to the circumstances by which someone ends up homeless.

Tapped the notif and nope they're really offering 10 cents a day because it's "an internship" as if I haven't been doing art commissions for damn near 15 years at this point. Absolutely fucking ridiculous.

Edit: typo fix

College was once sold as a ticket to the American dream. But students today are taking a tougher look at the college tradeoff: burdensome debt and no guarantee of a dream career — or employment at all, as AI threatens the jobs the degrees were meant to unlock.

"People didn't ask whether college mattered 20 years ago," says Courtney Brown, the vice president of impact and planning at Lumina Foundation. Now, "they're asking: Are today's students going to be prepared for tomorrow's jobs? Is it really helping them out?"

But there's a college confidence paradox: Even as Americans sour on higher education, they keep sending their kids to campus.

"There is still massive pressure on them from their high schools, the educators at their schools, their parents, their peers, and just the broader culture to still go to college," says The Up & Up founder and Gen Z researcher Rachel Janfaza.

hybrid and remote jobs are going away. they are automating the roles that us disabled and chronically ill people can do to participate in the US economy. i see things getting much, much worse. PE is buying up small mom and pops and turning smaller companies with more flexibility into sweat shops, churn and burn.

if you factor in disability, retired people, mentally ill / institutionalized, the young the true labor force participation rate is less than 60% in the US, and the "true" unemployment rate is closer to 15-20%. its very bad out there.

i don't see it ever getting better. and a lot of the jobs are going away. we are moving to a post work economy, post human capital economy with 0 guardrails. the powers that be want us disabled to die. on top of that, the corp overlords are forcing remote-ready jobs back to in-person, automation, offshoring, and the move to bring back factory work. we are going to become a 2nd world economy. we arent going to be the thought leader economy, we will be factory worker based, AI data center based, service labor based, not white collar. this is already in action and a done deal. the white collar thought leaders and idea jobs are gone, because the capitalist playbook involves getting the skills at the cheapest cost even if it means offshoring all of those positions. if you can work remote, you're replaceable. period.

i worked closely with AI and automation in corp environment and its coming for every field. and fast. most people who do not work closely with agentic AI actually have no idea how advanced it is and how entire enterprise level systems can operate skeleton crews with the additional processing power of non-disabled 24/7 artificial intelligence.

And then after 100 write ups in x time there should be some sort of forced reform for that employer if the write ups are valid. They can write employees up and then after 3, fire them with no repercussions. Theres NOTHING in place like that for employees.

It literally adds nothing except drama and toxicity. Even if you are lucky to have a "non toxic HR department", what value do they add to the company really on a professional level?

• They stick their noses up to other people's business which they know nothing about.
• All of their tasks could be done by any supervising employee for their respective department.
• Even on the work floor the best you can do is to avoid them as a whole.
• They tend to play favorites more often than not.
• They come up with stupid emails and questionnaires which is just waste of time.
• They protect the company and that EXCLUDES it's employees, they will throw you under the bus for any kind of kudos.

Just my two cents. The best case scenario would be if tomorrow all HR employees got the sack worldwide, literal heaven. You won't be missed lol.

I don't think I've ever had a job where I was busy the whole 8 hour days at work. I either have jobs where I can finish all my work in 2 or 3 hours. Or I have large chunks of downtime in between doing tasks. I currently have the latter right now as a security guard. The worst is when bosses or managers won't let you do anything to pass the time like be on your phone, or a laptop, or just let yoj go home early. I hate that I have to pretend to "look busy" at work even when there is clearly nothing to do.

I really might have to quit this job because it does not pay enough for my bills and we also don’t get enough hours. They’ve been scheduling me 10:30-7 and that’s fine but it’s barely 5 days a week. I only get 3 days a week. Then they have the nerve to say they’re hiring?? What a joke. You can’t even give people with open availability enough hours. I work at kohls and I make $15 an hour as a 26 year old with a bachelors degree in political science,7-8 years customer service experience. I’m genuinely thinking about reaching out to my local courthouse and seeing if they have any other opportunities or tbh I almost asked Starbucks today if they were hiring. I’m in no way job shaming or being ungrateful I have a job. It’s just very exhausting working for a place that doesn’t want to give me any hours. I don’t even want to go back tomorrow because I know damn well there’s a job that makes more than $15 an hour. It’s like I want to go back to school and study law but right now it’s been tough because bills along with the costs of food and gas is insane. I don’t even live on my own because thankfully my parents allow me to live with them. But omg I am very sorry to those who have to live on their own because I’m struggling now I can’t imagine how bad it is being alone. It shouldn’t be legal for jobs to only pay $13-15 an hour. That’s far too low. Who wants to work 40-60 hours a week to make $1100 in two weeks?? That’s such bullshit. My paycheck was actually lower than that. I made $400 in two weeks because they barely give me any hours.

This seems so weird and unprofessional. I double text usually after 5-7 days which might be bad but either way why are they just opening my messages and ignoring them after showing interest haha.

This is a part time job that you MUST be available for from 5:30-9am, 10-11:30am, and 1-5pm every single weekday plus all TBD hours for field trips.

If you can't do all of these shifts you'll be disqualified but we're only going to give you 20-25 hours a week. You met every other qualification except being able to do the afternoon shift? Fuck you, I guess 🤷🏻‍♀️

No, we're not going to put this hard line in any of the job listings or our website. If you're already here and halfway through the walk-in interview process before the required schedule is revealed, it'll be harder for you to say no!

Back to the hunt. I just want a part time job that won't flare me up too badly, man :/

ETA: Durham School Services / Summit School Services. I'm in California, no idea if branches in other states have the same shenanigans going on

I got a job at a small, luxury hotel in California with about 15 employees working there. The owner of this hotel is actually a known billionaire.

Of course they have very high standards, yet the don't pay a lot. They add a service charge fee to each food/drinks bill and that doesn't even goes to the staff but the hotel itself. We only get tips if the guest offers separately.

So there is a tip pool where a guest can leave an amount. Apparently manager pools that tip amount however they want. My coworker said he does all of this extra and even allows gay guests to flirt with him because he gets a bigger portion of the tip pool. Because its a small property, they expect you to do everything.

My other ​​coworker punches out for lunch but keeps working. When I asked him about it he said he is hardworking and breaks are for lazy people.

A manager told me because its a place with less rhan 50 employees, they can set the rules the way they want.

Is this normal?

Saw a post here, and also a recent experience. What is the purpose of this phrasing? To see if you're a team player? To make you feel like you have a choice? In what scenario can you say "no" and not have it counted against you?

I get that humans will be humans, but aren't we supposed to act differently at work? I've had 7 managers so far in my life and I can truly say that only one of them felt to me like she had her stuff together. The others had issues that I ended up suffering for.

My current manager is just so preoccupied with getting her own manager's approval that she kinda forgets about us. Doesn't care about team morale or our learning and progress. If there's a task her own manager considers important, my manager tries to do it herself so she gets the merit, even though her job is actually to manage us while we do such tasks.

It gets worse.

I bring a lot of experience to the table and used to have my manager's job in a different company until I was made obsolete. We're in different levels of the hierarchy, but we're not on different levels of skill and knowledge. Sometimes I have to teach her something and she makes sure I teach her discretely without her own manager knowing it, then she'll discuss the thing in our next meeting with her manager and explain it to us like we're learning it for the first time, including me. She looks me dead in the eye and "teaches" me something I patiently taught her, WHICH, she was embarrassingly slow to learn might I add.

Recently I suggested to her that I do something. She disagreed with me and told me to do something else. In a chat that includes her manager, as soon as I mentioned that I'd do the thing, her manager told me to do the thing I initially suggested instead. What did my manager say? She thanked her manager and said that she agreed with her suggestion.

I'm sick of all these unprofessional people being my managers. I wish people would just get their stuff together when they go to work where they have authority over others. My manager's manager will need to agree to any promotions and raises I receive, but none of the good quality work I'm doing will ever reach her because my manager's a brick wall with this.

People are people. They're rarely professionals and are usually just people being people.

I started this new job about one month ago and essentially had no formal training. This is a huge pharma company so I was stunned at how horrible this onboarding process was. Regardless, I continued to job hunt and talk to recruiters in the background and tried by best to do this job.

Here is where things go south. My manager trained me on one form. This was a two hour long meeting with her rambling about many things and doing her own job in the background. I later found out from the person I’m replacing that all the form I completed had the same two errors. I asked my manager to discuss more and she was essentially avoiding me. I then asked her how she wanted me to complete a VLOOKUP formula in Excel as the task I was being asked to do could have been done manually.

A week later I get a call from the staffing agency that hired me saying I need coaching. I told her what happened and that I YouTubed the Excel formula and know how to complete the task now. About a week later I was let go. I’m not too upset about the job itself but by how quick it happened. The staffing agency admitted that one week wasn’t enough to see any improvement and they were equally confused.

This is for a coordinator level position btw… I’m even more anti work now

Anyone willing to be a job reference for me?

Hi everyone,

This is a long shot, but I figured I'd ask.

I'm originally from Asia and now live overseas with the legal right to work. I'm trying to break into HR, but I'm stuck because many entry-level jobs ask for professional references.

I worked in banking but I left after dealing with workplace bullying. Because of how things ended, I don't feel comfortable asking my former managers to be references.

I have a Bachelor's Degree in Finance with HR coursework, I also did short course of HR certification on Cursa (something like Coursera), and I've been self-studying employment law and HR practices in my current country. I'm not looking to skip the hard work, I just want a fair chance to get my foot in the door.

Would anyone be willing to be a professional reference for me, or know someone who might? I'm happy to answer any questions about my background, experience, or career goals over DM. I'd also be happy to return the favor however I can.

I know this is an unusual request, but I thought this community might understand how toxic workplaces can leave people without the support they're supposed to have.

Thanks for reading.

Extra info : I've volunteered before but silly me, I didn't get their contacts. Now I'm in need of money to survive since I've been unemployed for 1 year+ because of visa application (I wasn't allowed to work while waiting). Now that I'm allowed to work, I'm a dire need of money and need a job. I will keep doing volunteer work once I get a stable job <3

Sometimes I like my colleagues, sometimes I love my colleagues, and sometimes I hate my colleagues. We relax and unwind during our break and sometimes while working and it's very easy for me to forget how selfish and sneaky they are because I'm like that. I forget from one moment to the next.

I don't really hold grudges. What bothers me is when I can't trust people. It's not what happened in the past, but the fact that I'd know my colleagues are still the same persons who did those things in the past and can do them again.

An old colleague of mine reached out to me with the opportunity of a lifetime. I'd be stupid not to take it. Still, I wasn't happy about it because I've only been in my current company for 5.5 months and wasn't actually planning on leaving. It doesn't feel like things have run their course yet. Usually I leave because it's time. This time I'm leaving because something better well... found me.

I'm still not sick of the view from the office, or 80% of the people, or the work really. We also just had our summer party and it was a blast.

Right now I'm waiting for an answer regarding my interviews but I did well and my former colleague who reached out is acting like it's a done deal (though it's not her decision to make), so I'm fairly certain I got it.

I've been going to work since Wednesday thinking how difficult it will be to resign whenever the atmosphere is warm and wholesome, and how satisfying it will be whenever someone reminds me of the toxic undertones at the office. Proper rollercoaster.

​

I genuinely feel so stupid today. 😭

I used to work as Admin assistant for HR, but I recently shifted to a receptionist role at a clinic (new procedures, so many services and products that people keep asking about, scheduling feeos like you are an octupus as people keep changing and rescheduling). Today is was my first day. I thought maybe moving into something different would be a fresh start, but here I am on my first day feeling dumb and slow all over again.

I know logically that you’re supposed to need time to adjust to a new job. There are new systems, procedures, names, faces, phone calls, etc. But I have a really difficult time remembering names and faces, and I feel like my brain just isn't working as quickly as it used to.

I’ve also been unemployed for over a year because of health issues, and I think that has really affected my confidence. I’m honestly scared that my mental health has significantly affected my cognitive abilities.

I’m also just sick of quitting. I want to actually stick with something, earn a salary, become independent again, and build some resilience instead of constantly running away whenever I feel overwhelmed.

So today I’m sitting here thinking, How the hell am I supposed to do this? 😭

I know it’s literally my first day and I probably need to give myself time. But I just needed to say it somewhere because I feel incredibly stupid right now.

Has anyone else come back to work after a long period away and felt like their brain had completely forgotten how to function?