u/AdhesivenessNew6817

Real zombie behavior I don't want to call them bots, but honestly I can't find a nicer word.

They're just... Weirdly invested in things that don't matter that much. I can't make myself care about a company to that extent, no matter how good the salary is. The idea that there are people capable of keeping up this act for years is genuinely insane to me. I'm 25, and honestly I can't imagine myself doing this for even another 8 months - the manufactured panic, staying late for no reason, and then getting upset because I won't stay after work hours just because the whole team is staying.

And it's not just the extra work part. They also monitor the stupid rules in the first place and enforce them enthusiastically. Like, has no one ever told them they're not the classroom monitor anymore?

Why is my manager upset that I logged off a bit early on Thursday? Why is he calling me afterward to interrogate me about it? Why does any random day off have to be "approved" like I'm asking permission to leave the classroom?

The whole thing feels wrong. And what makes it even more annoying is that other departments here don't seem to have this nonsense - but my current manager specifically is exactly this type.

[I work in India. Indian managers are fucking awful. I want to work in New Zealand or almost anywhere else]

This was a few years ago, but something happened recently that brought it all back. I was talking with my manager, and he was upset because his old manager kept pinging him while he was on a trip. Then he told me: I would never do that to you.

But he had, actually. And it wasn't even vacation time. It was a few days of bereavement after my dad passed away. I was spending those days going through his things and trying to be there for my brother. And my manager still contacted me to finish something his manager wanted.

So when he said that, I reminded him about it. He said: Yeah, but that was urgent. I wouldn't have contacted you if it wasn't. But if it was really that urgent, I wouldn't have been the only person who remembered it.

They'll ask you to plug back in when you're supposed to be off, and it's easy to think: I'll just do it because they'll appreciate it later. Honestly, they probably won't. Take your time. Turn off the notifications.

One of my engineers gave their three weeks' notice this morning and said the main reason was that another company was offering them better work-life balance. It caught me by surprise. I asked them if there was anything specific I could change on my end, like reducing their workload or adjusting some of their responsibilities, but they didn't give many details. I also suggested they take a month off before making the decision final, but they said they had been sitting with this decision for a while and were sure.

They've been on my team for about three years. Our relationship was good, the rest of the team liked them, and their work was good. I promoted them about 10 months ago. Overall, they had a positive attitude, and the few complaints they raised, I tried to address quickly.

The part that's making me pause is that I had always seen our setup as very reasonable. The company is fully remote. We need 4 hours of overlap so people are available for meetings, code reviews, collaboration, and things like that. The regular meeting load is a 25-minute all-hands and a 40-minute team sync each week. Other than that, most things are async. We don't really do hard deadlines unless there's an incident, outage, or recovery work that needs immediate attention.

We have unlimited PTO, but we also need people to take at least 5 weeks off, including one stretch of at least 10 consecutive days. We shut down for a week around the Fourth of July, a week and a half around Christmas/New Year's, and every third Friday in the summer. Engineers do have on-call, but it's a rotation every 12 weeks and only during normal business hours.

Personally, I feel like this is one of the best work-life balance environments I've worked in, which is why I genuinely don't understand. Is there something obvious I'm missing and need to look at more closely before other people burn out or leave? Could there be work-life balance issues that someone wouldn't feel comfortable saying directly to their manager?

my manager and I got each other. The spending limit was $25. I got her a specific scented candle she was always talking about and kept on her desk. It was about $18, and to make the gift nicer, I also got her a small, hand-painted pot for one of her succulents, because she loved the plants on her desk so much.
When it was my turn, I got a greeting card. Inside it was written: 'It's been so great working with you! Your gift is to organize the supply closet.' I let out a little laugh, thinking it was a gag before the real gift, but then my manager smiled widely and snatched the card from my hand to read it aloud to the whole team.
A few people let out awkward laughs. The HR manager, who was her lunch buddy, asked if there was a real gift. My manager said she would 'hook me up' later. Everyone else got gift cards, nice mugs, and things like that. And I sat there feeling like an idiot.
The 'hook me up' turned out to be her taking me through a nearby coffee drive-thru. She got me an Americano on the company's dime and spent the entire 15-minute drive talking about how hilarious her 'joke' was. She never once apologized.
I was smiling and nodding and trying not to cry into my coffee. The $18 isn't a fortune, but money was tight for me and I had decided to skip getting a small thing for my brother to stay within the gift exchange budget. I found a new job about four months later and pretty much ghosted her during my last couple of weeks.
To top it all off, HR contacted me afterward and asked if I had received a gift. I was honest and told them she bought me a coffee with company money. The HR lady said she was disappointed to hear that and that she would handle it. Of course, nothing happened. Meanwhile, my manager's office smelled amazing and her plant looked lovely in its new pot. I hope she tells this story sometimes and gets the dead silent stare she deserves.