r/WorkAdvice

I am 17F and I work at a grocery store. I was closing the other night with a shift of 6-10. My store closes at 9, and sometimes we get out before 10. My company policy is that if you are scheduled for 4 hours, you get a 15-min break even if you are let out early. When I was trying to schedule breaks with a co-worker, he got upset at the schedule (it was weird bc of staffing) and told my closing managers that I wanted to take a break. Somehow, I ended up being told that if I took a break, I had to stay til 10 even if everything was done in the store. I would've had to literally stand there doing nothing for like 30 min just for them to prove a point while on the clock. I have never heard of this in my company. Generally, these managers are awesome, so I just decided not to take my break. Should I have taken my break? Should I do something about this now or just prevent it in the future? This is my first job, and I would really appreciate some advice. Thanks!

Edit: I am not saying its illegal. Its not. However, the company policy entitles me to a break. That is not up for debate. I'm not upset that I didn't get a break. It's that my managers were so comfortable with breaking policy when I have skipped breaks for them and stayed after my scheduled hours to help them. Its more of a respect thing than an "I wanted my break bc 3 hours is too much". Its not.

As I'm planning my way out of my current job, I still have to deal with 0 boundaries when it comes to working hours. My company's core operates in European time zone, but 90% of our clients are in the US, with a huge amount of them being in Pacific time, so the time difference is huge. I am the lead project manager of several clients, and as new clients come my way, the time of the weekly sync meetings has become absurd. I have meetings at 7am which are fine, but then meetings at 10:30pm, 11:30pm on Friday nights, and so on. I had mentioned to my manager that while I'm fine with waking up early for meetings, my limit in the evenings is 7pm because I take a language course, and on Fridays I simply want to spend time with my partner and/or friends.

The pay is absolutely terrible and way below what I should be earning, so I have no plans on making extra efforts like being online from 7am till 12am... how can I reinforce boundaries, when they are clearly not respected?

Hi. I’m 19 and I got my first job working in a grocery store a few months ago. I deliberately took a year out before college to work full time and save up for a car and accommodation for college etc. I was originally working five days a week, but a while back I was cut down to four. I didn’t complain, I was still making money and the extra day off was nice. This week I’ve been cut down to three. I decided to talk to my manager about it, because I was terrified I did something wrong. What she said was that I wasn’t good enough. That she wouldn’t trust me to open or close the shop and I rely too much on guidance from my coworkers. That she can’t give me full time hours anymore. That really sucks. I asked her how can I improve but she couldn’t give me an answer. I’m polite to customers, get all my work done and show up 10 minutes early for work daily. When it comes to relying too much on my coworkers, they all have been here much longer than I and they often do the majority of the work provided so to be honest I never get the chance to prove myself at work. I’m just really stuck because I like the job and I don’t wanna leave but if she cuts back my hours again I’ll have to. I just need advice. Please. I really wanna be the best worker possible. It’s all I have since I have no friends and work is my only social outlet. Somebody please tell me how I can prove myself and get back to working 4 or even 5 days.

Hi all,

I went into a role with an extremely small company, interviews were great, owner seemed great, and all was well. No insurance was provided although a generous stipend was offered.

Fast forward three months into the role, they let go of 1/3rd of our office staff, I resumed that position along with my current workload, company was sold to an investor with ZERO interpersonal skills-when I tried to explain my frustration with the workload and limited training they said no problems, only solutions-meaning they didn’t want to have to deal with it. Then I was told that I had to fill in for my supervisor for nearly half a year at the end of the year as they were going on vacation, all while almost exclusively training the new person they hired on what I barely knew how to do myself.

Breaks were also not taken and frowned upon. I would leave for 15-20 minutes a day after working 8-9 1/2 hours during busy season and my supervisor asked if I planned on doing that all year. Uhh…yeah.

They were also extremely micromanaging and would confront me with a list of things I did wrong (didn’t label something exactly how they wanted it, forgot to put a single photo in a folder) all while still dumping additional work on me that I couldn’t keep up with. There was frustration from other employees as I was never properly trained on specific things and they would EXPLODE, like children not getting their way, with zero grace and understanding of the position I was put in (I think it was more upset with my supervisor.) I get that but I was doing the best with what I had.

I received a job offer aligning way better with my needs and to be quite frank, this place was killing me. I have some health problems that I’m sorting out but I’m waiting until I have insurance through an employer as the states insurance blows even if it’s costly for one individual. Once I signed and returned the offer I left and didn’t look back.

I’m slightly worried that this will reflect on me negatively but I couldn’t handle it anymore. I suffer from anxiety and I keep worrying that they will reach out to my prior employer who will just shit on me, but there are two sides to every story, and if I was let go I would get zero notice.

Has anyone been in a similar situation?

I work for a non-profit counselling agency. I love my colleagues as people but I am often irritated by them for various reasons.

In particular, I have a colleague whose office is beside mine and we share a wall. Sound proofing is not good. They talk so loud. So so loud. I hear them huff and puff, the sound of them typing aggressively, burping and farting, slamming their door. They’re a very nice person, often gifting me with food from their garden or offering to make me a speciality coffee with their personal espresso machine. They are very kind. My irritability is not their problem, so I am not interested in complaining to my manager about it.

I thought about asking my doctor for a work accommodation. I see most of my clients in-person, so asking to work from home is not really an option. I thought about asking my employer to supply noise cancelling headphones. I thought of just buying them myself. I’m going crazy and I’m scared one day I’m just gonna snap on them. I don’t want that.

Any other advice/tips/suggestions? TIA

I started through a public service/apprenticeship-type program and eventually became a full-time Constituent Services Coordinator at a small state agency. The function was still pretty new, so a lot of the job became learning the agency, answering calls/emails, connecting people to resources, tracking cases manually, and figuring out processes as I went.

Over time, my role expanded heavily into a financial assistance/grant program. I now spend a lot of time reviewing applications and documentation, requesting missing information, responding to applicants, troubleshooting our CRM, dealing with escalations, and helping leadership track individual cases. At the same time, I’m technically still responsible for constituent services and some outreach.

I can admit I haven’t handled every part perfectly. Tracking and follow-up became inconsistent at times, I sometimes got pulled toward whatever was most urgent, and I probably should have raised workload conflicts earlier instead of trying to absorb everything.

At the same time, I’m realizing the job itself has become extremely broad. I’ve basically been some combination of frontline constituent contact, resource navigator, data/tracking person, workflow designer, and grant processor.

I recently started a Certified Public Manager program, and learning about Lean/process improvement, capacity, bottlenecks, standard work, and program management has changed how I look at the experience. I’m realizing I’m genuinely interested in public administration and operations, but I think I’d benefit from my next job being in a larger or more structured organization where I can develop deeper expertise.

I currently make around the mid-$70Ks, so I’m not looking to take a huge pay cut just to escape. I’ve been applying to state/local government roles in program coordination, grants, housing, operations, and analyst-type work. I’m also considering an MPA and exploring whether law school makes sense long term.

For people who’ve been in government/public administration longer than me: what would you target next? Program analyst/management analyst? Grants or program administration? Operations/process improvement? Constituent services in a larger organization?

And if you had an early-career job where you were given a lot of responsibility before you really knew how to manage all of it, did moving into a more structured organization help?

I’m grateful for what I’ve learned, but I increasingly feel like this chapter has run its course and I want my next move to build on the experience rather than just run away from a stressful job.

I recently got a job through a temp agency. The company the agency has sent me is a medical assembly company for the spine. the supervisor told me that they have an hour break in which is paid. i am trying to finish my onboarding documents online but came across a form that will wavier my meal and rest day. Should I sign it to not mess with production or not? this is very new to me and apparently is a thing in Minnesota.

Recently some of the people on my floor got moved around and the co-worker who burps a lot thankfully was shifted to the other side of the floor. However a few weeks later I've been moved too....and the burping is back. Do I say something? I'm a team manager but he is more senior than I am.

I’m honestly pretty confused about what’s happening at work.

Until recently, I was doing what felt like the workload of 3 people. I was constantly busy and had a lot of responsibilities. But suddenly, my line manager has started delegating most of my work to other people. At this point, I probably have only around an hour’s worth of actual work to do each day.

As far as I know, I haven’t done anything wrong. I haven’t received any negative feedback or been told that there’s an issue with my performance. That’s why I’m wondering if this could be something personal, although I obviously don’t know for sure.

My main concern is whether this could hurt my career growth. If I’m no longer being given meaningful work or opportunities, I’m worried that I’ll stagnate while everyone else develops.

I’m thinking of waiting a few more months to see how things play out and then potentially leaving if nothing changes.

Has anyone experienced something similar? Is having your workload suddenly reduced a red flag, or could there be an innocent explanation? And would you stay and wait it out, or start looking for another job now?

In search of some help on how I can be a better employee in my work place. I, 18M am currently working at a local little caesars in my town and am wondering if anyone who is/has worked anything similar or the exact job can help me become a better employee and how I can improve things or if there are any tricks I can incorporate when doing any kind of specific task, i.e. is there any sort of way I can speed things up when making sauce or is there any tips for working in a fast food environment in general? (I've been working here for about a month and a half and haven't been able to get a whole lot more hours due to my subpar skills.) So any advice would be greatly appreciated thank you.