r/OfficePolitics

Quick background: I work as an analyst at a small regional bank. A few months ago, a senior person in my department left and the role became vacant. I applied for it, and my manager told me that I was their first choice and that they intended to move me into it.

But now more than a month has passed with no actual change, and every time I ask for an update, a new explanation comes up. I feel like they're ultimately just stalling. At the same time, the old company I used to work for contacted me and offered me a similar senior role.

Would you accept the outside offer and stop waiting, or give the current company more time to follow through on what they said?

Looking for views on reporting a manager through an anonymous Speak Up/NAVEX channel
I’m considering raising a concern about my manager through my company’s Speak Up process, which is handled by NAVEX as a third party.
The concerns are mainly around:
What I believe is repeated favouritism towards one particular person in the team.
Limited focus on the development and progression of other team members.
Concerns around psychological safety and how people feel about challenging or raising issues with the manager.
A management style that, in my view, focuses more on internal politics/gossip than team delivery.
Similar concerns about management, development and team environment have apparently been reflected in survey conducted by company roughly the past 12 months.
I’m trying to be objective and would only report specific things I have personally observed rather than making accusations about the manager’s motives.
My main questions are:
Would these be considered reasonable concerns to raise through a Speak Up/whistleblowing channel, or does this sound more like a normal management/HR grievance?
If I report anonymously and the investigation finds that the evidence isn’t strong enough, could there be any negative consequences for me?
How does the investigation normally work when the person being reported provides a different version of events?
Has anyone here used NAVEX or a similar anonymous workplace reporting system? How was your experience?
I’m particularly interested in hearing from people who have actually gone through a similar process, rather than just general opinions.

Word leaked out that a relatively young, new manager suggested in a meeting with other managers of the same rank that my department should be eliminated because AI will be doing it all eventually anyway. First of all, without going into the specifics this is simply not true. In fact I would argue if anything the new manager’s job is more likely to be eliminated by AI before mine.

Supposedly the other managers shut the conversation down, but people are both nervous and pissed, especially since my company just filled a couple of open positions in my department. And people are suspicious of the leak itself. Why would this information be shared if not to make people anxious in order to squeeze more work out of us and tamp down any requests for more money, better work life balance, etc.

Ok, get it out, but afterwards how would you handle this situation professionally. We do have a union, and as much as I like unions our current leadership has been supine instead of standing up to management.

Curious to know…from your experiences..

“Work hard and you’ll get ahead”?
“Your company is your family”?
“Do what you love”?
“Job hopping is bad”?

What did you learn the hard way?

I worked my ass off for this guy, and I was literally managing almost his entire book of business while he sat there cashing the checks. For the holidays, he gave me a $30 Regal gift card. The nearest Regal was about two hours away and in another state. That was what finally made me start applying elsewhere.

I honestly cared about the work and the account, so I didn't just bail as soon as I got an offer. I waited until I had trained someone enough to take over what I was doing. When the time came, I walked into his office and told him I'd accepted another job and was giving notice, but that the handoff was already planned out.

When I told him the new role was with another company in the same industry, but that I wasn't doing the same work and wasn't violating the non-compete, he immediately called the chief legal officer and put him on speaker while I was sitting there. The CLO told me I "couldn't even clean bathrooms at a company in our field for 18 months." Then they brought HR onto the call, and HR told me that since I supposedly couldn't take the new job, they'd allow me to work three more weeks for the transition and then fire me for looking for work somewhere else.

They kept pressuring me to give details about what I'd be doing at the new place, and I told them I wasn't going to discuss it. After I left, the CLO from that company - a company doing about $7 BILLION/year in revenue - kept randomly calling me for a month trying to intimidate me. They also started contacting my new employer.

Thankfully, I'm not working for a garbage company now. The CEO at the new place stepped in and told them they were ready to fight it in court if that's what they wanted. Funny enough, the calls stopped very quickly after that. It was obvious they never intended to take me to court. They just wanted to scare me into giving up the new job.

Fuck companies like that. We don't have to keep putting up with this shit.

The company is Total Quality Logistics.

I had a late-stage interview this week with a growing SaaS company for a lead developer role. The coding exercise and the conversation with the manager had gone surprisingly well, and the pay range was very close to what I was expecting.

As we were about to wrap things up, the HR manager said, "Before we let you go, there's one more thing I need to ask you about..." and then she asked me, "Are you planning to start a family at any point in the next year or two?"

I honestly froze for a second. I asked her to repeat the question because I thought I must have heard it wrong. But no, she clarified and said, "We're trying to understand people's circumstances at home so we can plan headcount better."

I've done a lot of interviews over the years, including some very awkward ones, but I've never encountered someone being that direct about something that is clearly not allowed to be asked. I calmly told her I wasn't comfortable answering, because it wasn't an appropriate question in a hiring process. She looked genuinely surprised, as if I was the one making it weird.

That pretty much killed any good feeling I had about the whole thing. I still thanked her for the interview, but I also told her I had concerns about a workplace that sees this kind of question as normal.

By the time I got home, I was still turning the situation over in my head. Has anyone else encountered something like this in tech hiring recently? I'm torn between reporting it somewhere, or just walking away and focusing on other roles.

tldr:my direct report overworked against goals year to date and wants to take a 1 month PTO. I argued with my boss and now the big boss wants to talk to me about it. Do I fight for my direct report or let it go?

I work In professional services and my company typically earns income through billable hours. As employees, have set utilization target (billable hours in a week /40) that are set based on level and are yearly attainment based. Utilization does not consider hours that are non-billable or administrative in nature. They are salary plus bonus potential and company policy is to be at 50% utilization or higher to even be considered for bonus.

My direct report is only maybe 9 months in since hire but is absolutely killing it. The clients love them, they don’t really complain and there is already talks about promoting them at year end. They have a utilization goal of 75% but are sitting at just over 100% since hire. Including non-billable hours, they regularly log 50+ hrs a week.

The project they are staffed on is expected to roll off at the end of October. My direct report has floated the idea of taking a full month of PTO after the project rolls off. Strictly mathematical, if they keep at current pace through end of October, they can do this and still far exceed their 75% utilization target.

I view this request as perfectly acceptable being that they have high quality work , still hit their utilization goal and would essentially be their reward for the great work thus far. My direct superior has advised against this as it is poor optics in terms of office politics.

I ended up making a big deal about it to my direct manager and word spread up to the managing partner who now wants to have a conversation about my “frustrations”.

Is my direct reports request unreasonable or is the company expectation unreasonable.

I'm a middle manager at a mid-sized office. I manage a team of 9 people. One of my employees is a young woman in her late twenties who's been trying for a while to go back to college and finish her degree. A few days ago, she asked me if she could change her schedule for about 5 months while she takes a course that isn't available online. She would leave early in the afternoon once a week and make up those hours on Sunday. Our whole office is WFH, so as far as I was concerned, I had absolutely no problem with it. And I've been telling her for years that she needs to go back and finish her studies.

My manager, "Sarah," the department manager, is an obnoxiously micromanaging and genuinely awful person, and supposedly any decision like this "has to" go through her. So I sent her an email, explained that I wanted to approve it, and said that all I needed was for her to give her approval with HR.

Her response? "Wow, she's really bold and entitled to assume we'd approve something like this. What is she planning to do if we say no - quit??"

I told my manager that yes, of course she has the right to quit if she wants to. She doesn't owe this place anything. I also said I'd be very upset if we lost her because she's great, she's been here for years, and this schedule change is temporary. Losing a good employee over a simple accommodation would be stupid and petty.

My manager did not like that response at all. She denied the request anyway, and we got on Zoom with the employee to tell her. The employee didn't even blink. She said, "OK, I expected that might be your answer, Sarah. I've already written my resignation letter and just sent it to you and HR. This is my 2 weeks' notice."

Sarah just sat there stunned. In that moment I got even more angry at my manager, but honestly I was fucking proud of my employee.

Side note: if I could go back in time and choose again, I would never become a manager at any company. You find yourself stuck dealing with everyone's bullshit, with almost no real say in anything, and somehow you're still the person employees have to hear corporate bullshit from.

Small org. We have a "data scientist" who vibe-codes his way through everything — process is a mess, but he somehow gets results. When he hands off modules to the dev team, things break, and instead of owning it he blames the devs for "not doing it correctly."

Normally you'd escalate, but he reports directly to the CEO, who isn't technical and just sees "results delivered." So devs eating the blame with zero leverage to push back up the chain.

How do you handle this when the org structure protects the person causing the mess? Document everything and let it speak for itself over time, try to get the CEO educated on what's actually happening, or something else entirely?

Problem/Goal: I work in a BPO and manage a supervisor who is also a close friend. She has consistently missed deliverables, fails to follow through on tasks, and frequently complains about additional responsibilities. My manager is now pressuring me to consider letting her go.
Context: Our team recently had system issues that caused backlogs, so everyone was asked to pitch in through OT or taking calls. She chose to take calls but was locked out of the required tools. I submitted a ticket and told her to follow up because I would be on PTO. When I returned, I learned she never followed up, so I had to do it myself.
Previous Attempt**:** I’ve conducted several coaching sessions regarding her performance, but the same issues continue. She has also said she feels targeted during coaching. I’m concerned she may retaliate by filing a labor complaint or claiming constructive dismissal. I want to handle this fairly while protecting myself and the company. What’s the best way to proceed?

I'm still kind of shocked. I work at the check-in desk at a commercial gym, and they just brought in someone new for the early shifts. That means he's supposed to arrive around 4:35am so everything is ready before we open at 5:20.
I'm usually there around that time anyway because I work out on my days off, so I went in expecting to find him already getting started. I arrived at 5:28 and found a group of members standing outside, and the whole place was dark. No lights, no music, nothing.
I texted my boss telling him there was no one here opening the gym. He was also supposed to be there to show him how everything works, but he's just moved into another role, so honestly it seems like he doesn't really care much anymore.
So neither of them showed up, and of course I ended up being the one who opened everything myself. The doors, the lights, the front desk, the locker rooms, everything. The new guy didn't show up until a little after 8:10am.
When he walked in, he looked at me like he was saying, "Wait, I had a shift today?" And I told him yes, man, this was your opening shift. You've already been trained on this.
Then he asked me to help him write a message to our boss. I told him no, honestly and clearly. It's your responsibility to explain. I'm not going to help you make being almost three hours late look better.
After that, he also asked me not to tell the floor manager that he was late. I told him I had already told the GM when there was no one here, so she'll probably find out anyway. And honestly, I don't care.
The girl who left the job before had the same problem with coming in late and then coming up with weird excuses, and almost everyone knew what was going on. I'm not covering for someone else like that again. Anyway, I just needed to vent, because seriously, what a way to start a shift.

I can't tell if this is burnout, age, or just what happens after enough time in corporate environments.

But I've been noticing this same strange thing in a lot of smart people at work, myself included. Especially people who used to be sharp, vocal, full of opinions, and always switched on.

After a few years in office jobs, they become... Smaller in some way. Not exactly quieter socially. That's not the point.

It's more like something inside them becomes quieter.

They don't challenge bad ideas in meetings as much anymore.
They stop having the energy to explain the same point again.
They say "yeah, okay" a lot more than they used to.
It feels like you're watching them ration their emotional battery throughout the day.

The weird thing is that these are often the reliable people and high performers. The people everyone trusts. Not careless or checked-out people.

This hit me recently because I did the same thing. A fellow manager suggested a very weak approach, and I had a whole argument ready in my head. And then I simply... Let it pass. Not because I agreed. I just didn't want to spend the energy.

I don't feel like this is burnout in the classic sense. It feels more like gradually turning into a highly productive background character.

Is this just a natural part of working to live, or do companies unintentionally condition people to become like this? I'm curious to know if other people have noticed this too.

Hi, so it’s been a year since I work at Deloitte USI, where in I had been working on a very difficult public engagement, and my manager was very micromanaging and it became very difficult for us to give updates and also work. So it was around working 2 shifts a day spending a day shift in working and other in updating trackers and being on calls for no reason just to keep the manager posted about what is really happening only for her to go and blurt on the client call that team is inefficient and not working well, although during appreciations it was all her work.
So there were multiple escalations against her from other teams and managers, so the senior manager had questioned me regarding it and lying about it was not a good option so I told whatever it was honestly about all the personal comments being made. There was no scheduling with her for about 4 months and I am back with her for the next whole year. The senior manager considered our requests but again has scheduled me along with her and has been terrible since.
The SM has a sort of weird team- all of them who know nothing and just girls who are pretty, work is terrible and exhausting. I was a part of the team and I was given to-dos for almost a week in a day to finish, where in my colleagues had 3 work papers for almost 3 months to finish and rest along. There was a weird groupism for those who have worked on goodwill and those who haven’t. There is horrible politics going around and I am scared about my promotions at this firm.

exactly like I do I work at a very small company; there are 7 of us in total. We're a solid team, we get our work done, and everyone's Slack status goes dark at exactly 5 o'clock. We might do a group dinner or team-building thing maybe three times a year, but it stays very professional.

We all live in roughly the same area, about 10 minutes from each other. And even though we're close to one another, no one has ever suggested the whole carpooling idea at all. And since there's a lot of roadwork these days that has made the 15-mile commute take 75 minutes, the manager gave all of us a decent allowance to get e-bikes for commuting.

Everyone agreed, of course. And when I finally got my bike, I was honestly really happy. I got a little too excited and suggested to the whole office that we meet at the bike trail and ride to work together as a group one day. My manager refused immediately and told me: "No thanks, that involves more social interaction than necessary."

I can't describe how happy that rejection made me. I have absolutely no desire to create a "family" with my coworkers, and knowing that they feel the same way is truly a blessing. Honestly, this is the best way to live without stress.

After 6 months without work, I finally got a job offer 🥹 After about 130 job applications, 15/16 interviews, and 6 months without a paycheck and an unreal amount of stress, I was offered a great job today at a very nice company

I wanted to share this because I know people say this a lot, but for anyone else struggling with unemployment or feeling stuck in their job hunt, please don't give up - honestly, it's the only way forward, and you'll get there in the end

If you were able to get a job before, you can definitely do it again, no matter how hard things are right now. Sometimes we all just need a bit of luck to come at the right time ☺

Wishing everyone lots of luck in finding the careers and roles they want!

I just sent out 6 offers for roles we're trying to fill this week. Every one of them accepted immediately. No pushback, no counter, not even a small request for a higher base salary.

Guys. I'm not going to get into a war over a few thousand extra dollars. Hiring managers usually have a pay band, and you can give any somewhat reasonable reason that you want a better starting salary, and I can usually get you something.

The reason I don't put the highest number in the first offer from the start is that HR will start asking questions. But if you ask? Your chances are very good as long as you give me some kind of explanation: years of experience, certifications, market rate, cost of living... It doesn't have to be a courtroom-level argument. It just needs to seem logical and credible.

The easiest pay bump you'll ever get in your life is before your first day of work. Seriously, just ask for it. That's all there is to it.

I started a new job earlier this year. My department is absolutely wonderful and I can see myself having a long career there. However, my specific team is victim to a very toxic work environment due to our manager’s narcissistic behavior. She’s very rude and condescending. She bullies different people on our team (I was actually warned about this from my coworker), gate keeps information, and keeps us very siloed from each other, as well as the greater department. In addition to this, my probation was extended due to needing more training (my manager hasn’t made time to properly train me in certain areas or pair me up with someone who can.) Upper management has stepped in and plans to restructure my role and move me under different leadership with a team that is more aligned with the goals of the program I manage in the next month or two.

I’ve been told by others in the department that my manager is a known problem and has had issues with many employees and clients. I was also told that mgmt is rallying for me and know that I am a great and needed addition to the dept. I’ve been trying to be patient, but my anxiety has been through the roof these last few weeks.

I recently had a one-on-one meeting with my manager. I want to note that this weekly meeting is my only opportunity to speak her directly, as she is very unavailable and keeps her door closed. Sometimes I mention things via Teams or email, but don’t always get responses and/or can’t get in depth until our weekly. On top of this, the weekly meetings are pretty tight and follow her agenda so there isn’t always room to discuss other items (I recently addressed this).

During our meeting, I was revisiting an idea I briefly touched on. As I’m going into detail about my thoughts and proposed changes, she just cut me off and start raising her voice at me. Saying that we have already discussed this (no we haven’t) and started to pull out a document that the my predecessor was working on (none of this information or documentation was previously shared with me) that somewhat aligns with my ideas. She berates me, telling me I’m not inventing anything new, and criticizes my approach, even though at this point she hasn’t let me explain what that is, my action plan, etc., and is just assuming she knows my plans. I was also getting the feeling that she thought I was criticizing the last person because I pointed out some discrepancies with the documentation I was provided. I kept trying to speak but she was going on and on with the tirade. I could feel the tears coming on and turned off my camera to try to calm down. When she asked if I was still there, I hung up and sent a message saying I needed to excuse myself. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to keep myself together.

I wanted to speak to our head HR liaison about it because I wasn’t sure where to move from there. I don’t want to escalate it to our actual HR dept, but I wanted speak to someone to cover myself and make sure there is a path forward. I feel like it needs to addressed and I don’t want my manager to try to twist the situation or use it to retaliate against me later or try to terminate me.

Unfortunately, our liaison wasn’t there so I ended up speaking to my manager’s boss, who is the one working on rescuing me from my current situation. I thought she would be a good person to speak to but unfortunately, the second I sat down in her office, I started crying again. I went in there to get some more information about where we were with the restructure and then pivot to the incident, but I just jumped into talking about what happened and then sort of blacked out and just rambled about how I don’t know what I should even be prioritizing anymore because of conflicting feedback from my manager, tension between us, lack of space to talk about my ideas and address concerns, etc. I was given advice on how to move forward with priorities, etc, told to trust the process, but the actual incident wasn’t addressed. I’m not sure if I should still talk to our HR liaison or address the situation with my manager directly on Monday. I wanted to go back to review the recording of the meeting (my boss records everything) to see if I overreacted and/or find a solution but she removed my permission from seeing it which feels very shady.

I am growing more concerned, but I’m also so embarrassed and want to avoid any drama or tension. I’m also worried about being perceived as problem employee. I really love this job and I work for a very large employer in my city. If I can’t maintain good standing here, it will hurt my job prospects. Reddit, please give me advice!

Hi everyone, I work in a big company and my department decided to organize a week-long business trip in a really nice setting, a villa in a tropical climate - so far so good -. Howerver, the organizer of the trip told us early on that we would have to share rooms (not so good already). Since I'm fairly new in the company I ran with it and submitted the appropriate travel requests regardless.

Today, the organizer dropped the bomb. Since the department has a low budget for the trip, we're going to be sharing double beds in the accomodaiton. I feel like it's totally insane, but when this was announced none of the 10+ participants protested. I talked about it to a colleague from another dept. and he also thinks it's insane.

Furthemore, while they at least organized rooms by gender, it turns out all the rooms for women are already full and one woman will probably have to sleep in a room with men (!), potentially going as far as sharing a bed since there's a limited amount of single beds.

At this point, I don't know what to do, but I clearly do not want to share a bed with a coworker. On the other hand, I don't want to be ostarcized and end up getting fired over this matter neither because I can't afford to lose my job right now. I tried to raise up the matter jockingly during our last meeting by saying I would be calling dibs on a single bed, no one seemed amused and the organier said that if It was also an option to sleep on the terrace on a sunbed. It seems like the director and crownies wanted to organize their vacation on the company dime no matter the cost and I'm an hostage of this situation. Please advise.

I’ve been in my team for around 3 years and, until recently, I’ve generally had a very good reputation with leadership. I’ve consistently taken on extra work, joined calls after my official hours, and built dashboards that ended up being used by senior leadership.

My official shift is 11–8, but I usually leave the office around 6 because my commute is nearly 2 hours. This was raised once about 3 years ago, I explained the situation, and it was essentially accepted. I’ve followed the same arrangement since then.

Recently, leadership discussed having me build/train an informal team of around 5 people, allocate work, join calls, understand requirements, and essentially take on team-lead-type responsibilities.

Since I’m eligible for accelerated promotion this year, I asked my manager whether taking on these responsibilities could support that. He repeatedly discouraged me and said accelerated promotion would be difficult. I eventually said that if I’m taking on significantly more responsibility without meaningful progression, I don’t see the incentive.

Since that conversation, I feel like the tone has changed.

Concerns about my leaving at 6 have suddenly resurfaced, but instead of anyone discussing it with me directly, they were escalated to my senior manager.

There was also feedback about me cancelling two meetings over \~1.5 years — one because I was sick and gave advance notice, and another because someone double-booked my calendar.

My senior manager was previously extremely supportive and had told me she would support my promotion when there was an opportunity. Now, during the period when I’m asking about accelerated promotion, I’m receiving frequent feedback emails.

Another issue is how some of this feedback is happening. We regularly get last-minute requests and changing requirements for decks. Something may be requested urgently, and then a day or two before the deadline, the requirements change completely. Recently, things like a missing dollar sign or a small data issue were being highlighted heavily, despite the fact that I wasn't given much time to work on the deck in the first place.

For the next deck, I deliberately contacted my senior manager almost 3 weeks beforehand and asked for an outline so I could start early. I didn't receive one, so I created the outline myself, got it approved, and submitted my draft well ahead of the meeting.

Then, a few days before the call, the requirements changed again — slides had to be removed, graphs changed, summaries added, etc. Some of the data being added by others wasn't cross-checked until the last minute either. This caused the entire process to become rushed, delayed dependent decks, and ultimately required people to work over the weekend.

What frustrates me is that I’m actively trying to prevent these problems by starting early and asking for requirements in advance, but I'm still being criticized when last-minute changes create problems.

So I’m aware I could be viewing everything through the lens of frustration, and I genuinely want an outside perspective.

Am I overthinking normal workplace management, or does this sound like I’m being treated differently because I pushed back on taking on additional responsibility without corresponding career progression?

Would you stop going above and beyond unless the additional responsibility is formally recognized, or continue trying to prove yourself?