Why do I hate work. Because only filthy and gross ass kissers get promoted and recognized. I like the work itself -doing hard work feels rewarding. Protestant work ethic! But the office politics is so gross and inauthentic.

I have been blacklisted at work.y attitude has prevented me from advancing professionally. How hurtful.. I actually feel like I’m too nice at work and overextend myself. My fault I know. I do have attitude but always thought it was an asset -quirky, speaks my mind and authentic. No, no no no. I was so wrong.

I am not a slave. I am a human being.

Work feels so wrong. Like the politics of it. Not the actual effort to do the work. 😑 work itself is noble. But the people. Man the people, egos and power trip suck.

I wonder if I could find a job where I didn’t have to interact with people…ok thank u for reading if you did. I had a bad day. 😞

Hi guys,

I’m working in hospitality in Australia - at a sports club

I put in my leave about a 8 weeks ago however my new boss didn’t approve it or look at it, so I resubmitted the leave a week ago and sent him an email regarding the issue.

Saying that I had to resubmit it if he can look at it and see if it can get approved. 1 day later he approved my leave for 3 weeks from end of July to mid august almost.

However I’m in management and it’s a medium sized sports club, our team has 4 managers that can close the venue including me, an extra duty manager that can open on weekends due to her family commitments and kids, and then we have our new venue manager that atm is currently jumping between 2 Venues, but he will be full time from June.

So then he called me 2 days ago saying how we need to discuss my leave as me and another coworker of mine are on leave at the same time for 2 weeks saying it’s not good for business. My coworker did put in his leave before mine aswell.

My boss said that we either have to shift my leave or take it later in August but I go back to uni in August so I wanna take my trip in July.

He said he will speak to me in person about it

I’m just wondering if he has any authority to say I need to cancel my leave even though he already approved it, he didn’t look at who else on his team is on leave so idk what to say / do I have already booked my flights for this holiday.

But he said to my other coworker that we both can leave that the person so put the leave in first has preference

My coworker who is going on leave at the same time sent an email saying that they can manage the rosters with us gone, because we have done this before. We go on leave the same time every year as our birthdays are in July / early August

Please tell me your thoughts or give any advice on this situation please
Much appreciated

TL;DR my colleague wants to have dinner with my boss when she's in town and bring our spouses. I don't want to bring mine, but my colleague is pretty insistent she wants our boss to meet her husband. I think I should tell my colleague that I'm not getting along so well with our boss right now, and I really don't want to bring my husband to this dinner. IDK, should that be an acceptable reason? I don't want my colleague to see me as anything less than a mature professional, and I worry this could impact that reputation (because I know often people at higher levels do these kind of couples dinners that I avoid at work)

My colleague and I work on a small team that's distributed across the country. Our boss comes to visit occasionally and we always go out to a nice dinner. We're fairly high level professionals.

My colleague thinks we should bring our spouses to dinner with the boss. I understand that. It's just not my thing. I really prefer to keep work and family separate.

I was just going to say... "On my last review our boss brought up some really surprising stuff and I'm in a spot where I want to keep firm lines between work and personal. Totally cool with you bringing your husband, I'm just not going to bring mine."

My colleague and I are not really close, but we are very friendly. Keeping a good relationship is important to me, and I don't want them thinking I'm immature or childish or something. But I worry about that because this colleague has worked at very high levels, where people often do this kind of spouse involved networking that I avoid. I'm kind of concerned she might look at me if I don't bring my husband and think I'm not really mature in the workplace. Whereas I think I could be the damn CEO and I'd rather not involve my spouse in my work.

I'm not willing to make up a lie.

In many organizations, workers anticipate that the work will vary. There are some weeks when the task load will be higher than usual, and priorities will shift frequently. However, there is an additional phenomenon that many workers encounter without understanding it fully. These individuals become available for work, they want to do something for their bosses, but all of a sudden, they are not provided with any tasks by their superiors.

There are no warnings in this case, nor any direct criticisms. The individual concerned does not have any uncomfortable talks with his or her human resources department representative. There is just no work assigned to him or her.

From the perspective of a worker, the situation may become quite confusing as it is not communicated formally what is going on. The individual is still employed officially; the worker must still report to work; however, the person becomes progressively detached from work-related activities.

The relevant recent article was published in the Journal of Business and Psychology and focused on the disengagement reactions related to laissez-faire leadership and job withdrawal behavior.

A softer form of distancing

In many organizations, managers are tasked with dealing with conflict, performance issues, and team communication. However, some leaders do not respond to discomfort in such an aggressive manner. They withdraw.

Instead of talking about the problem or making expectations clear, they start distancing themselves from the interaction itself. They give fewer assignments. They reduce communication frequency. They send out fewer invites for joint discussions. Employees might end up being marginalized without understanding the reasons behind it.

According to research published in the Journal of Business and Psychology, laissez-faire leadership is characterized by low involvement, delayed decisions, and limited feedback. Studies cited in the research associate this leadership style with role ambiguity, stress, and lower job satisfaction among employees.

Also, the silence speaks volumes. The worst part about the situation is that there is no clarity. Employees will have to guess whether it is due to organizational problems, poor employee performance, or the start of the divorce process.

Why do some managers disengage quietly?

Another aspect of the situation might be attributed to something known as “moral disengagement” within organizational psychology. As stated in an article in the Journal of Business Ethics, moral disengagement permits individuals to separate themselves mentally from any ethical ramifications of their behavior. In the workplace setting, this could manifest itself in a number of ways.

For managers, not being willing to communicate directly with someone can become an excuse for depriving them of any tasks at all, as if they were justified or unavoidable. The effect here is one of exclusion on the manager’s part, as he or she will avoid communicating with the person in question and hence distancing himself or herself from him or her.

The behavior itself may not necessarily be intentional or malicious. In some cases, it could be driven purely out of avoidance of conflict. However, its effect on employees will probably not be negligible.

The psychological effect on employees

Work provides not only money but also an identity, order, and a feeling of contributing something.

As soon as tasks stop appearing for no apparent reason, the person starts doubting whether his contribution in the company is needed. The lack of clarity itself creates stress since there is nothing to work out or react to.

Ambiguity may be detrimental to trust. Lack of communication makes employees guess on their own what is happening. Minor changes in the workplace acquire extra importance. Silence becomes synonymous with judgment.

Emotional ambiguity often impacts performance way before any actions are taken.

How employees try to regain control

A certain set of employees counteract such situations in a proactive manner.

The same studies mention "job crafting" as an initiative, whereby the employees take responsibility upon themselves to change some aspects of their job, acquire new duties, etc., all in pursuit of engagement and meaning in their professional activity. They do not stand idle but try to build some structure on their own.

In healthy organizations, such behavior might lead to increased motivation and resilience of workers.

Nevertheless, there are certain boundaries of such initiatives. The fact of the matter is that not every worker possesses sufficient power and freedom to independently define his/her new obligations. Prolonged disengagement on the part of management may undermine individual efforts.

This explains the importance of communication.

Withdrawal from a job quietly does not seem like as flashy a move as discipline, but that does not mean it will not change the dynamics of the office.

It is not just formal policies that drive an employee’s actions; it is the messages sent about feeling included, respected, and psychologically safe on the job. When leaders withdraw without communicating, the implications reach farther than just one person.

December is the most operationally complex moment of the EA role. Posting my actual setup because last year's holiday gifting disaster (vendor ghosted 40 shipments, half came in wrong sizes despite correct spreadsheets, finance was furious) forced me to rebuild from scratch. The team is 200 people across 3 offices plus 28 priority clients my principal gifts personally. The corporate gift companies in my stack this year: Swaggy Shop. 200 internal staff, code-based redemption where each person picks their own item and size, ships direct. For year-end internal gifting Swaggy Shop has been the corporate gift companies setup that works because self-serve removes the operational failures that broke last year: no sizing spreadsheet, no wrong-size returns, no me-explaining-vendor-failures to finance. Goody. Top 10 priority clients getting curated premium boxes, the swap feature has saved me twice with dietary restrictions I didn't know about. Higher per-gift cost but appropriate for the tier where the gift itself needs to be the moment, not just an artifact of remembering the client. Local florist in each principal-meaningful city. 18 second-tier clients, same-day delivery in their cities, more personal than a national gift service. Adds vendor complexity but the relationship value is worth it for clients in specific cities where the principal has actual ties. Handwritten cards. Everyone gets one, internal and external, from my principal. This is the actual gift. The branded items, the curated boxes, the flowers are all just anchors for the card. EAs new to the role often have this backwards. Three things that broke last year and how I'm preventing repeats. Written December cutoff date in every contract (the ghosting vendor had no written cutoff). Recipient-picks-own-item everywhere possible (makes wrong sizes mathematically impossible). Tracker pings me 5 days before each vendor's cutoff so December 22nd is never the day I find out about a delay. How are other EAs handling 200+ staff operational complexity? Specifically curious about anyone managing more than one principal's gifting calendar in parallel.

I’ve been the sole worker on my team (besides my boss) and when I got hired everything was a mess, no systems, no onboarding no nothing. My boss got caught in a very important project and I basically had to teach myself everything related to the job and take care of the day to day of the company. When that project was finally done, (about a year and a half later) she hired a friend of hers above me, who I had to train and onboard. I didn’t get any feedback (I asked for it) on what to improve or anything of the sort. On the contrary I was consistently told I did a great job and was praised about my skills and brains. I’m disappointed and heartbroken.

I worked closely with my direct supervisor because my role required it. I was often asked to handle urgent tasks, additional responsibilities, and work beyond my original scope, so naturally we communicated more often than usual. But somewhere along the way, people started seeing that differently.

What made things frustrating was that we all used to rant together about work and random things openly. It was normal in the team culture. Nobody treated it as a serious issue before. Then suddenly, things I said privately started getting repeated, reported, and used against me.

I noticed a shift where it felt like everything I said was being monitored while similar behavior from others was ignored. Eventually, it also started feeling like certain higher-ups were encouraging people to report me or build issues around me when those same things were never considered problems before.

The environment slowly became uncomfortable to work in because it felt like people were waiting for mistakes or looking for reasons to escalate things.

I’m honestly just glad I sensed the shift early enough to prepare myself before things escalated further.

Leaving was still scary, but staying somewhere that no longer felt healthy for me didn’t make sense either. Hoping for better environments and better people moving forward.

I've been a nervous wreck for the past 48 hours because of this interview. Public speaking and interviews are my biggest anxiety triggers; I almost always have a panic attack in the middle of them, and I'm generally terrible at selling myself. To make matters worse, this was a bilingual position, and I knew they would test my French. I was so worried about my accent and that I would mess things up and look like an idiot.

I was literally on the verge of canceling. I spent the morning texting my sister a million reasons why the job wasn't a good fit anyway and why I shouldn't bother going. But guys, I'm so glad I pushed through.

My hands were shaking a little at first, but I didn't have a full-blown panic attack! I wasn't stumbling over my words like I usually do, and I felt confident in my answers. And the best part? When they had me speak with the native French speaker on the team, he told me my accent was great, and after he left the room, the hiring manager said he is a very hard person to please and has never been impressed by any candidate's French before!!

Usually, I leave an interview and replay every stupid thing I said in my head for hours. Not this time. I genuinely feel good about my performance. I really hope I get this job (the office is gorgeous, the benefits are amazing, it's a four-day work week, and the salary is a 20% increase from my current one), but honestly, even if I don't get it, I'm just so proud of myself for showing up and facing my fear instead of running away like I wanted to.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this achievement with you all because I'm over the moon right now. Wish me luck to get accepted!

Here’s a more professional and clear rewrite of your message:

I am a Senior Software Engineer and was recently put on a PIP based on feedback mentioned during my performance review. One of my teammates, who is one level junior to me but has been in the project for many years, seems to have a strong influence within the team because he knows the project inside out.

I feel he often talks negatively about me to the manager or other senior team members. Even during my show-and-tell sessions or API/code design reviews, he tends to put me on the spot publicly. For example, he questioned why I had done certain refactoring even though requirements had evolved, and also asked why I use GitHub Copilot. I feel constantly judged and challenged by him.

Since I am relatively new to the project, I am still learning the system and domain knowledge, whereas he already has years of context and relationships within the team.

At this stage, I am trying to understand the best way to handle the situation professionally. Should I raise my concerns with my manager, or should I focus only on delivering strongly during the PIP period? Also, what are the best strategies to successfully pass a PIP in this kind of environment?

One thing I’ve observed is that there are usually two groups in the corporate world. One group is closer to the CEO/managers/leads, and they usually seem to be doing better in terms of growth and opportunities. The second group is more average and often complains about the first group.

What I’ve noticed is that people in the second group are often jealous of those who are close to management. They start calling them things like “CEO ka beta” or “uthaao.”

From your experience, what’s the better approach? Is it better to build strong relationships with leadership, or stay completely apolitical and neutral?

I really feel like I see this exact phrasing in so many job ads.

I've even heard managers say verbatim: "This role is high-speed, and if you can't keep up with that pace, you won't fit in here."

Am an intern and am kinda friends with my boss , we get along and we always threw jokes .he is willing to hire me after the end of my internship and one day i asked him if he’s satisfied with my work , he told me am actually satisfied with claude’s work , implying that all of my work is actually AI generated m i got really offended and i responded impulsively saying “: if you really think that am only using claude to do my work , why do u want to hire me ? Drop it and buy claude pro , he will probably do the job for you, and also accept your bad jokes “ ( was my response that bad ? 😭) he was mad and told me i think I overestimated the good will between us , so going on let’s just stick to professional interactions. I said fair enough , without apologising about my behavior or discussing the boundary he set . Now a week passed and he’s treating me in a very cold way , i feel guilty about what i did and i feel like i’m lossing the “cool boss” version to the passive version of him , that I actually hate .

How can i fix thingss? Would apologising to him after a week make a difference? Or should i ignore what happened and move on and try to find a way to earn his trust again ? Am afraid he will reconsider hiring me after what i said , or he will see me in a different way and stop relying on me .