My coworker can't be moved somewhere else because our office is very crowded and there isn't any space, but now he's been told he has to fix his personal hygiene immediately, and he was sent home because of it (my manager was literally about to throw up when he came over to see what was going on). He was also told very clearly that he must never sit at my desk again. HR has a tag on my chair as part of my ergonomic setup.

Of course, he was very annoyed, but he found out that it wasn't the smartest idea to get into a fight with me. A new coworker (a man in his early forties) decided that he wanted my spot, and that I, the woman, needed to know my "place." He comes from a background where maybe women aren't treated with the respect they should be. I'm respected at work, I've been doing this job for a long time, and management likes me. I mostly keep to myself, do my work, and help people when I can.

Anyway, M decided that my seat had to be his. I WFH two days a week, and he started using my spot when I wasn't there. Honestly, it wouldn't have bothered me much, except that I came in one morning and asked him to get up, and he was ridiculously rude while refusing. I don't start drama, but I finish it, so I got the manager involved and then he got up.

The problem is that his actual desk is right next to mine. Ever since he was told to get up, he has started to smell bad. Really bad. Like, stomach-turning bad. Other coworkers have said that it becomes more noticeable and worse on the days I'm in the office. He's still sitting at my desk on my WFH days, and now my chair smells horrible when I come back. I've started spraying it with Dettol disinfectant spray so I can tolerate it.

I genuinely feel like he's putting something on himself to make himself smell bad on purpose, hoping I'll give in and move. The problem is that I can't. My desk was assigned to me so I can feel safe, because I have severe PTSD after an assault that happened to me at work. No one can come up behind me or from my left side unless they've somehow learned to walk through solid walls:)

What am I supposed to do about this disaster? The smell is truly unbearably abnormal. I've started putting a small USB fan on my desk to push the air away from me, but it only helps a little, and if the cold air keeps blowing on me for too long, my arm that was previously broken (from the assault...) starts hurting terribly.

I work at one of the big hardware stores that you've definitely seen ads for, and there's a guy I met there about 12 weeks ago who still refuses to pick up his checks. Let's call him Leonard. Leonard has a small stack of envelopes on the counter in the break room with his name on them, and as far as I can tell, he hasn't opened a single one. Everyone at work has been whispering about it for a while.

Leonard seems like a good person. Quiet, keeps to himself, maybe a little odd or stiff in the way he deals with people sometimes, but he's not rude. A few days ago, while he was organizing stock in one of the aisles, I asked him why he leaves his checks and walks away. He said it was "for religious reasons." I gave a small laugh and said okay, but when you got hired you signed paperwork saying how you wanted to be paid.

He apparently told the manager the same thing, and at first they more or less thought he was joking or making some weird joke. Now I'm hearing from the talk going around that the higher-ups are very upset about it and might try to take legal action if he leaves another check lying there after the next pay period.

I asked him if there was another way they could pay him besides cash/check/direct deposit or whatever, and he said no, that wouldn't work. Then he said "that's not the point," and went back to work like nothing had happened.

The strange thing is that he's full-time and honestly works very conscientiously. He's not lazy, he doesn't cause problems, and he gets a lot of work done while he's there. I know they could fire him if this keeps up, but honestly he's one of the best people we have at work.

Has anyone seen anything like this before? What is the company even supposed to do if someone completely refuses to accept being paid?

When our second child was born, my husband and I sat down to run the numbers and see whether daycare even made sense, or whether one of us should stay home for a while. After adding everything up, we found that if we put our daughter in daycare, my husband's salary, after transportation, lunch, work clothes, and the rest of the random work-related expenses, would leave us with only about $6,200. So we decided it made more sense for him to leave his job and stay home for a few years.

He packed up most of his things from his desk and wrote a resignation letter giving them three weeks' notice, and had it ready. The next morning, he already had a meeting on the calendar with his manager, and his plan was to hand him the letter then.

Before he could say anything about resigning, his manager told him they were letting him go and wouldn't be needing him anymore.

They gave him seven weeks of severance and covered our health insurance for several months. He came home laughing his head off because he had literally gotten paid to do the thing he had been planning to do for free.

In the end, he stayed home for a little over four years, and for the first 16 months he was able to collect unemployment. When he went back to work, he started part-time and then moved to full-time. After that, he worked with a man who was getting ready to retire, and that man sold us his business.

By the time we bought it, my husband was making about four times what he had made at the job that fired him. And we still laugh about the whole thing to this day.

Without fail, every time I get back from my break, he has to make a snide comment like, "Lucky you, taking your full 45 minutes, huh?". It's like, dude, yes, of course? That's the whole point of a break.

He also loves to guilt-trip me. He'll sigh loudly and say something like, "This customer has been waiting for a while, but don't you worry, we'll handle it for you." All while I'm just trying to eat my sandwich.

I work in retail and we're always short-staffed, but that's a management problem, not something I'm supposed to solve by skipping my legally entitled break. The audacity is truly unreal.

I'm so sick of this lazy, self-important man. I swear I'm barely holding myself back from telling him off.

Guys, I'm in a bit of a bind. I was completely fed up with my old job after they promoted someone I had just trained over me. So I started looking for a job and got an offer from another company in pretty much the same field. I informed the new company that I had resigned from my current job and needed two weeks, and a few days later, I received an email saying that the job offer was no longer valid.

When I first informed my current company that I was leaving, my excuse was that they didn't give specific training requirements for a certification I was pursuing, unless I entered their structured development path, which I wasn't keen on. I'm wondering if I can go back and say I changed my mind about that development path? Or simply say I want to stay in my current position? Nothing was put in writing at all; it was just a friendly chat with my manager.

Honestly, I'm lost. I really don't like my current company and want to leave by any means, but I live paycheck to paycheck and absolutely cannot afford to be without a job.