Not all workplaces have ideal work environments. Some are breeding grounds for stress and hostility. In the article, employees with diverse experiences share workplace culture that made them wish they never applied to such an organization.
1. Never working as a bartender again
I was a bartender at a nightclub. The owner was a megalomaniac.
He would regularly make all the cocktail waitresses cry, skimmed our credit card tips, threw things, and was basically just a bad boss every night.
Then we would have "cleaning meetings". So we would all come in on a daytime Sunday and clean the whole bar. He paid us with pizzas. We all needed the job so no one spoke up.
God, I hated that place.
iBelieveInSpace
2. Scheduling time off in advance
I worked at a place that wanted everyone to schedule all of their time off, and I mean 100% of it, for the entire year, all at once, and a couple of months in advance. That is, you’d have to plan out all your time off for the entire year of 2022 in October of 2021. And worked around everyone else’s schedule too so there was full coverage.
It was a nightmare for everyone.
But they didn’t allow for the fact that people get sick. In an open-floor building. So people would just come in sick, which of course meant getting others sick. There was one spring when a lung infection sent six people to the hospital.
BananaOnionSoup
3. Law firm practice
My first job was as a lawyer. Private practice.
The owner/lead attorney was a straight-up sociopath (in my completely not-an-expert opinion). He could be charming and funny and generous and accommodating one minute and then become frothing-at-the-mouth verbally abusive the next.
He was also a micro-manager who insisted on checking every document and getting an immediate update on every court appearance, no matter how minor.
I tolerated it for a year. Then one day I went to court on a case in which the DA and I had conferred and agreed upon a next date to review a transcript of a prior proceeding.
Per my boss's obsessive nature, I had let him know about that conversation and the new date, even though I would be the one appearing so it really only had to conform with my schedule, not his.
When I went to court, we found out that the transcript would not be ready by that date and so we agreed upon another date a week later. It did not adversely affect my client in any way - he was not in custody and was fine with the date. After appearing on the case, I went to my car and dutifully called my boss to report.
He exploded. How dare I change a date without checking with him first!? He was in a rage, screaming into the phone, demanding I go back in and recall the matter.
I actually did go back in, request to recall it, and the judge - who was all too familiar with my boss - said, "No. If your boss wants to do something different, he can put the matter on the calendar and appear himself. I am satisfied with your work."
I went back out, called, and reported and he had another fit. I said, "You know what? This isn't working. I'll come back to the office and clean out my desk." And I hung up on him.
I found out later that he was floored by that, rushing out with his phone in his hand and staring at it in disbelief. His legal secretary, who had put up with him for 20 years said, "What happened?" He said, "She hung up on me!" She said, "Well, of course, she did."
When I got there, he begged me to stay and offered me more money (but never apologized). I ignored it and packed up. I did wrap up the cases I'd worked on but that was the end of that. I can put up with a lot but he took the cake.
madcats323
4. Crappy work environment
We worked in a company warehouse where there were 10-hour shifts, no music, and no talking.
Supervisors kept hounding us on the speed of our processing.
We had short breaks and lunches because it took 5 minutes to walk to the break room so a 30-minute lunch was actually a 20-minute one.
Not sure if this qualifies as “toxic” but it was an overall just crappy work environment.
SwagMoney_420__
5. Working at a startup
A few years ago, I got hired as a project manager at a product startup, after I quit a tech giant. I was fully expecting the startup job routine to be tough after working at the well-organized erstwhile company. I underestimated how terrible this office was.
I knew the branch boss in a nonprofessional capacity before. He was a nice guy, and he was the one who hired me when he knew I was available and I obliged.
Now the problem, I don't know where to start. Turned out this boss guy was actually a terrible person at the workplace and treated everyone like crap. That toxicity percolated through all levels of people at this small office. Everyone feared this guy but cared about nothing else. They abused each other openly as a matter of daily routine.
They absolutely hated the new guy (me) who was hired from outside because god knows why. The team meetings were shouting matches, with no real agenda or direction. Nobody listened to their managers or followed any timelines.
Everything was so unimaginably disorganized that I can't describe it. To quote an example, their software which is supported and integrated with their product has no version control. Due to the intense market competition, their servers had already been hacked twice and wiped clean twice (before I joined).
When I tried to bring some measures to fix these issues, there was pushback at all levels and nothing good came out of it.
Anyway, eventually I was let go by this same guy as I was considering quitting myself. This was because "I wasn't contributing enough", while they rejected any idea or improvements to that mess they called a project. The day I was terminated, I was actually somewhat relieved that I didn't have to come to this office ever again.
I was promised a separation package of a month's salary. But they backtracked when the date of payment approached.
Those few months were an absolute hellish experience that I can't ever forget and sometimes laugh about after all these years.
ani625
6. Publishing company
My old boss got foisted out of his old job as CEO of a multimillion-pound publisher - so he decided to set up a competitor.
He spent most of his time bullying the young women who worked there, trailing off in the middle of sentences and sucking up to anyone who stroked his ego. We were doing ridiculous things like publishing full academic journals for free because the editor would tell him about how great he was.
Nothing ever made any sense. One day you'd be doing your job as editor and the next you'd be told you were doing sales and not getting a pay rise because you hadn't done enough of the sales you didn't know you had to do.
His wife was HR apparently. She left after about a year and we never saw her, but she still got paid a salary.
Absolutely everyone hated him. He was a vile bully and you could feel everyone tense up as soon as he walked into the office.
Most people worked from home as much as they could and did a great job in spite of a general lack of direction.
He was generally rude and obnoxious towards me, but a couple of low points were him yelling at me over nothing the day after my grandmother's funeral, and when he walked into a meeting I was chairing to call me a "bad woman" for not making a drink for someone who'd just arrived. I was a senior member of staff. And he was a "feminist".
Eventually, he sold the company to a massive publisher and everyone except him lost their jobs. Thankfully I'd escaped by then. When he told them all he shouted at one of the managers for showing emotion about it, then whistled as he vacuumed the place for the new corporate overlords.
markneyspacepirate
7. Firing on the first day
A retail store I worked at had a manager trainee come in and on his first day, he immediately assumed authority. He told a co-worker to make the daily bank deposit when only upper management was allowed to. She refused, knowing the rules, so he fired her.
The actual store manager was pissed. Dressed the trainee badly. Of course that only made things worse. I don't know what happened when he actually became manager as I got myself transferred. But I heard he didn't last long as he had an overwhelming percentage of turnover.
LostNTheNoise
8. Working for a Big 4 company
I worked at a Big 4 finance consulting company and it was a nightmare. People were afraid of partners and directors, as they were megalomaniacs.
It made people mean to each other, isolated from others, and everyone was out for themselves.
It was a very cutthroat and competitive environment that I did not belong in.
sevencoves
9. The bosses I wished I never had
I worked for the maintenance department of a medium-sized city. There were 16 of us, all guys. It was worse than being in junior high. Everyone talked shit behind your back, second-guess everything you did, and told the supervisors every little thing that went on. There were 7 people who were considered managers and they were the worst.
Heaven forbid you had any sort of issue with any of them and you are in the boss’s office being told you're not fitting in or you’re overreacting or having your job threatened.
I mostly worked in the shop as a welder fixing and fabricating various things. It required lots of heavy lifting and moving. I would constantly ask for assistance and be turned down time after time. I was told any one of these guys could do my job and I’m not special. I had an old plastic chair to use when I could sit and work. One day it was gone.
So I found another one. After lunch, it was gone. Go to find another and my boss says I can’t have a chair because it’s not fair that I get to sit while I work and the other guys don’t. Yet they drive in their trucks from job to job, I assume sitting the entire time.
After working there for 7 years my boss told me I should not apply for the lead position that has become available. I didn’t have enough “life experience”. Maybe in 20 years, I’d be in a position to get the job. Mind you, I was 43 at the time. He then got mad at me weeks later for not applying for the job.
A buddy he went to high school with got the job with 2 years of experience in maintenance. I had almost 20. He then told me I wasn’t a good fit in this department anymore and that maybe I should look elsewhere in the city for open positions.
He then volunteered to help out in another department to get me out of his hair. First day at the new job the supervisor told me there was one stipulation to taking this job and I had to agree to it or be sent back. I had to agree to take his job when he retired in about 3 years.
My old boss and new boss are on the same level of management so their pay is the same. He punished me by sending me somewhere where my pay would be the same as his in 3 years rather than making me a lead and giving me a 2 dollar raise.
I still work for the same city and my boss will hopefully retire in the next 6 to 8 months. I tell all of the guys I liked in the old department to get away from there every chance I get.
jetsmetsrangers
10. Applying for the wrong job
A friend of mine and I applied for a summer job during university break. It was advertised as working at industry fairs as a hostess or something of that sort. Sounded good for the money they offered. We were to stay at a house they had rented for all their staff during those few months.
Long story short, that “work at industry fairs” turned out to be some sort of very aggressive house-to-house sales force operation. The hired staff were a colorful mix of ex-convicts, high school dropouts, and ominous wanna-be salespeople. The management was super sleazy and dodgy.
One of the first questions they asked when we arrived was if we were single because the guys in the group would probably want to know. You had to go through re-training each day you wouldn’t hit your quota for that day where you were screamed at/brainwashed for two hours straight.
On my first day, I was teamed up with an ex-convict who was doing this work because he needed to pay alimony or he’d go back to jail. He was actually pretty alright, a bit of a broken character but kind of weirdly caring.
And he basically told me to leave right away again because this work was nothing more than exploitation, barely legal, and just all-around crappy. I took his advice and my friend and I faked some emergency as we had to leave that night.
We ended up staying the night at the train station but we felt safer there instead of staying in that house.
The_Sceptic_Lemur
11. Trouble at kids’ store
At my workplace, they do a promotion called buy 3 get 3 free. they want every customer to do this. They also want every customer to spend $24+ with these.
So we had to keep track of our sales. We had to have an average of 3.0+ in units, and an average of $24+. It was stressful trying to get your numbers up. Literally, we would argue or walk away from the counter if we saw someone come up with less than 6 items.
And this is a kids' store. Kids come in with $5. They’re not looking to do b3g3 and spend a minimum of $24. Management would be on our backs if our numbers didn’t look good.
Then, we had to do this thing called DTI. It means we had to put on $200 worth of accessories for the shift to promote it around. We would be covered in bags, sunglasses, watches, bracelets, etc.
Then we had to enter it into the system, print the receipt, and keep it in our folder and if management saw you weren’t doing it or you weren’t picking accessories that matched, they’d be on you again.
Our boss would literally message our Instagram to try to talk to us. It made me delete my account because she just made Instagram so stressful.
[deleted]
12. Clash between manager and subordinate
I worked at a place where one manager had an issue with a subordinate. The subordinate’s mum was high up in another part of the company and came crashing down on the manager for essentially doing her job. She was offered either dismissal or a step-down.
The subordinate bought something but by error, it came up cheaper than it should have been. Because his mum worked there they made an example of him and fired him.
Always offered to train people to develop their careers to just use them to temporarily fill spaces while they reshuffled management and then practically discarded them
And coming to the end of one financial year we were instructed not to report missing stock as an expense and essentially told to ignore it.
pebkas92
13. Zero trust
I worked at a solicitor where there was zero trust between the partners and employees, everyone would have to carry a fob that you had to use to go through any door in the building, including doors to individual meeting rooms, kitchens, toilets, the stairwell, etc.
This wasn't merely a security measure this was also so that they could track exactly where you were at what time, they collected data, and that data had to match with your timesheet that you filled out yourself.
The last half hour of the day was spent standing in silence whilst our line manager checked the times of the fob data against our time sheets, we weren't allowed to talk, sit down, or use our phones during this time.. just stare at the clock on the wall waiting for it to reach 5 p.m.
In the morning you would frequently end up in a queue of people to enter the building as everyone had to fob individually to get inside, then to get to my department you either had to wait to use one of two lifts (there were usually about 150 people coming in at the same time, with a lift capacity of 6 people a piece), or take the stairwell to the 9th floor.
This would frequently mean that you would fob into the building but not get to your work area for another 5 - 10 minutes. I was surprised when I had to go to a "performance review" with HR because I had too many "late" on my record. This was three instances of being between 1 and 3 minutes late to my work area in 3 months.
The pay was terrible and no one liked working there so had a huge staff turnover.
Some people had some interesting ways of flouting this system though. One guy I recall would disappear for entire afternoons until he eventually got fired after being found to be spending 5 hours of his day hiding inside a large cabinet, he'd been doing it for months.
FeatsOfStrength
14. Workplace toxicity
I worked in the public works department for a township as an equipment operator (fixing roads, infrastructure, snow plowing, and waste management) There were 5 or 6 full-time people including the roads supervisor in our shop. The first 2 years were generally good, I got along with everyone, supervisor constantly praised me and my work.
It became obvious the supervisor was playing us off of each other, getting us to rat out the other. This guy would hide in the bush to try and catch us slacking off. I caught on to his crap and stopped playing his games, just did what I was told and tried to get along.
For the next few years, I watched co-workers take credit for work I did, and then let them throw me under the bus for their messes. One of my co-worker's favorite sayings was ” This never happened guys” Then he would tell the boss his mistake was mine.
In every job I’ve worked at I’ve been praised for how hard I worked, and my strong work ethic, until this place. No matter how hard I worked, I was called lazy. A few times I snapped and went to my supervisor and called him on all the various happenings and he’d tell me what I wanted to hear and things would be good for a few days.
This job drove me into depression I sold my soul for good benefits and a pension plan. I finally just checked out, did what I was told no less no more, and stopped going out of my way to talk to any of them. It became apparent there was a seasonal employee the supervisor wanted to give my full-time spot.
The funny thing is if he had come to me and said that was what he wanted I would’ve said ok and quit. I had just had enough.
I had already spoken to a local construction company I worked part-time at about coming on full-time with them and the owner was whenever you’re ready I’ll have a job for you.
Ended up going in one Wednesday, and was told they wanted to see me in the office. Slid a paper across the table saying I was being terminated immediately, but no reason why. Offered me a nice severance, and paid for me to consult with a lawyer on the deal (she was a friend and would have looked it over for free, but I told her to charge them whatever she wanted).
She said she could get me the job back but I’d have to work with those jerks again and guaranteed they’d have it out for me. She said it was a pretty good severance deal, I was done so I didn’t even care.
I was fired at 7:30 a.m. 8:30 a.m, I was working for the construction company and stayed there for many years until the owner died and his son took over, but that’s another story.
Much less stress, work with a great bunch of guys, and I’m not constantly looking over my shoulder.
CBRSuperbird
15. Mandatory overtime
I worked at a place with mandatory overtime, five minutes before leaving on Friday afternoon and they’d yell mandatory overtime for Saturday and sometimes Sunday and you had to be there or be fired, no excuses.
People missed family weddings and funerals, couldn’t be home with sick children, and hearing sobbing in the bathroom stall next to yours was common. It was when jobs were extremely hard to find and no one risked being fired. Benefits were insanely good so I tried to transfer departments several times and it was always blocked.
My last year there we worked 12 hours a day Monday to Friday, 10 on Saturday, 8 on Sunday for over nine months straight including holidays. My husband would drive me the hour each way on weekends just so I could get a little more sleep in the car.
On my birthday our car broke down on the way home and I had a complete meltdown. I didn’t even put in notice, I didn’t call, they called to ask where I was and told me I was written up and I told them to shove it and they begged me to stay. Not just no, a big NO.
WillaLane
16. Meaningless work goals
So much backstabbing and trying to climb at my workplace. They would routinely deny raises because you "met" expectations but did not "exceed" them like they wanted. A way to play favorites.
They would time you stocking a shelf. If you could do it in say 17 minutes your new goal was 16 minutes.
Very grinding work constantly.
They didn't hire people with special needs because that would ruin the experience of a laid-back lua for patrons. Obviously, they used other reasons "officially" to not hire.
tjcrew_throwaway
17. Getting lower pay
I work in a restaurant as a Hostess in Russia, Sergiev Posad. This is a very beautiful place, but you have to work over 12 hours each time. And there are no specific tasks. You always have to go against yourself to deal with guests or bosses. Now I am working here because of my studies- I can freelance at this restaurant.
When I was 15, I also worked at some place for a month, that was my first job ever, and the manager didn't give me the salary. She just told to me 'You have to be grateful I gave you a lot of knowledge' I was shocked. This was my first job and they didn't respect my work.
Everyone except me has a bit higher rate of the salary. When I asked my director why I was in such a situation - she suddenly told me that I hadn't passed some exams (No one passed them).
So, when I asked my colleague to know her rate from the director, the director told her the rate, but also she said 'This is private information, You don't have to tell about it to someone else' I laughed a lot when I knew that. In Russia, there are no laws about salary privacy. Now I’ve found a more pleasurable place to work.
nonnifiparvulis
18. Days off
I worked in a place where we had 5 days a year to take off for both vacation and sick time. If you had a doctor’s appointment they would question you a whole lot and say stuff like- oh that’s nothing! My best friend died and her funeral was at 11. They asked if I would be back by 1130.
I had to drive and the receptionist had already agreed to cover for me. When I got pregnant they waited until like a day before my due date to learn my job. Then they called me 3-4 times while I was in the hospital. I should’ve charged a consultant rate.
I told them I was resigning two weeks before my baby was born.
classiercourtheels
19. Unpaid overtime
I worked at a trademark renewals company as an admin assistant. The culture in that office was basically that if you're not working 2 hours of overtime a day, you're being lazy, and the workload was allocated accordingly.
However, only 10 hours of overtime pay can be claimed per month, and the rest has to be taken as leave within a short timeframe. And you can't just take leave any time, because everyone's so overworked, so most of it ends up getting lost. So you were pretty much expected to work nearly a week's worth of hours for free every month.
MrLuxarina
20. Low payment
It was a startup construction company. Got hired to install custom kitchen cabinets in new homes. They changed my pay rate to $3 less than what was agreed on from the start, and then could only have me work for a few days a week.
There was little training and the management would get drunk while berating me as I worked.
Finally, the boss pissed off these cabinet shops so badly that they refused to use him (me). Then, it had me doing general construction work and doing a full-on remodel on my own while paying me $14 an hour.
Finally, I just left because he told me he had to borrow money from his mom to pay me. Mind you this guy is pushing 50 years old!
stalebagel4u
21. Call centre bonus
I worked in an inbound call center where there was a fixed bonus sum available each week, split between all call handlers. The amount of the week's bonus was written up on a whiteboard first thing every Monday morning.
Each time throughout the week the manager deemed somebody to have handled a call imperfectly, their name was written on the whiteboard along with the amount of money that would be taken off the shared bonus sum.
Any morale or camaraderie that may have been present was, like the bonus, invariably all gone by Wednesday.
JimmyBallocks
22. Instant hiring was a red flag
I worked at a technically-not-illegal borderline scam that sold internet door to door. I was desperate for a job and they hired me instantly. It should have been a red flag.
You had no wage but got paid by commission when you booked an internet contract. The job boasted that the regulars made twice a good monthly wage, plus it had corporate training that would get a qualification.
In truth, you went door to door, bothered the civilians (I don't even know if going into a complex unannounced is legal), and tried to convince them to buy with borderline and sometimes overt lies.
Lying is encouraged, and questions were discouraged. When you didn't have contracts you should try harder and it was your fault. I'm a terrible liar and love research. When I had my doubts I searched them and immediately they came up as a scam.
I had stayed for a month and left immediately then.
elenifan
23. Unpaid test days
I only worked there for 2 unpaid test days and didn't get hired. It was a shop of a pizza delivery chain in my hometown, I wanted to deliver pizza for them at 18.
As I said, it was unpaid. The first day was fine as I was just accompanying another driver, the second day I went by myself with my own car, only payment was a free pizza for doing real work. But fine that was agreed upon.
The guy I went with on day 1 drove extremely recklessly, enough for me to get scared of being with him in the car and that takes a lot.
Also, The car that belonged to the shop was on the brink of falling apart. I live in Germany so there are many regulations for cars, quite sure this one didn't fulfill them.
The worst of all is that after working 2 days unpaid, they told me they don't hire females for delivery because they have had problems with violence. Yeah sure but they let an 18-year-old girl work unpaid by herself for a day while letting her hope she will get the job.
After it was all said and done, I was glad I didn't get the job. This would not have been a good time.
mycrazyblackcat
24. Hard-to-please manager
My indirect manager hates my direct manager. She comes to me for issues that are above my pay grade. She'll ignore any attempts I make to steer her towards my boss. She is so hard to recruit for.
One of her departments had a revolving door of employees. Those who can deal with her are stressed from having to work short-staffed.
She was complaining to me about a candidate who wanted to give her current employer a more than 2-week notice because they are short-staffed and want a 20% increase in pay. But she does not know that I'm giving them a secret 3-week notice and I'm getting a 20% increase with my new employer.
pbnchick
25. Nitpicking on the choice of words
It was an insurance company. There was so much toxic positivity. They were so critical of anything and everything you did, down to how you pronounce words. Not even if you said the word correctly, it was down to regional pronunciations. Even your choice of words when you were on a call was evaluated.
I said "Let's get this sorted out for you" on a call instead of "Let's fix this". And no, there was no script to follow, you were just supposed to be helpful, compassionate, and polite. They gave out criticism under the guise of training and improvement.
I lost nearly 30 pounds, dipping down to under 100 pounds. I was on so many medications for anxiety and depression, my hair started falling out...it was awful. But they made it seem like I was putting too much pressure on myself to be perfect, not that they were basically putting me in a constant state of flight/fight/freeze because of their unending criticism and lack of training.
I actually developed C-PTSD from this job that I struggle with to this day. Thank God I left it.
CoquetteBrunette
26. Internal and external factors
It was a hospital where I worked in security. I'm going to have to divide the reasons into two separate elements, external and internal.
External: It was literally the most violent place I have ever worked in my life, and I worked in nightclubs before. Constant brawling and assault by both visitors and patients. But another thing that made it worse was we had a completely absent law enforcement that never ever did anything to intervene.
The whole two years I worked in that hospital no one ever got arrested no matter how bad their behavior was. By myself, I filled out over 100 incident reports with the police, including that with all of my coworkers and that number would add up to the thousands, easily.
Not a single one of them was ever followed up with a criminal investigation of any kind.
That hospital was a free-fight zone. You could beat the living crap out of any random person you wanted to on those grounds and never serve a day in jail for it.
The police wouldn’t even show up.
Internal. There were a lot of troublemakers working at that hospital. Some of them were only there to see what kind of trouble they could cause every day. We had a maintenance worker who did everything he could to sabotage everything he could get his hands on. And his supervisor never did anything about it.
The nurses were terribly preoccupied with gossip and inappropriate behavior. One nurse actually tried to bully me into doing a medical procedure simply because she didn't like handling catheters.
And we had at least two doctors dodging malpractice suits, and every time you heard of something they did, you knew they had no business practicing medicine. The Simpsons only had one Nick Riviera, we had two.
Patches67
27. Quitting after five years
I worked at a fast food place for 5 years and was treated horribly there. They put me back in the prep area and told me to get comfy and that that’s where I would be for the whole time I was employed. I should have quit then, but I needed the money.
The boss had obvious favoritism in regard to some of the employees and would treat the others like they were expendable. One thing was that they could call in “sick” when by their Facebook post they were out partying the night before and definitely hungover that morning.
The boss also said that they couldn’t give us raises because they didn’t have the money to put in to give us a raise, But they would travel twice a month and go to the beach for the weekend. One time they even ignored calls during one of the trips.
What was bad was one of the pieces of equipment broke down, and they never provided the book that had the numbers to call when equipment broke down.
The straw that broke the camel's back was when I got cut down from 30 hours to 12 hours one week for going to a my great-uncles funeral whom everyone knew I was very close to and denying me bereavement
I took my shirt and hat, put them in a bag, and about tossed them through the drive-thru window and said: “I quit”.
I got a call from a friend that said the boss was cussing up a storm and said that she would make sure I never got another job for the rest of my life.
Jokes on them because I have been working at a place for nearly two years now, have gotten three raises, and a promotion, and am currently in training to be promoted again.
RevealConscious5589
28. Workplace violence
One time I was literally 5 minutes late to the office because my carpool wanted to stop by the gas station. After screaming at us for several minutes, the owner stood up, walked over, and punched out a glass door with his bare hand.
One of his construction workers replaced the door and swept up the glass within like 10 minutes, while the owner sat silently bleeding at his desk.
cptndv23
29. Work during Covid
I worked at a law firm. We were made to come to work during the peak of the pandemic and forced to eat lunch together with no social distancing/masks. The boss followed no precautions and went to several meetings.
There was a covid outbreak in the office in mid-April and he expected everyone to work from home in spite of suffering from Covid. The days we worked from home were considered to be leaves and resulted in loss of pay.
totemscorpio
30. Gender discrimination
On the first day during orientation at my new place of work, a corporate woman told me to my face "Well men typically don't pay attention to anything".
Then she followed up by "Uh oh he might report me!" That company is a nightmare. Good riddance because I made 10k off unemployment. They preach anti-discrimination while being the most hateful group of leftists I ever met.
DriftKingZee
31. Spy among teachers
I worked at a school for kids with learning disabilities. Many of the teachers were prejudiced. One teacher with a doctorate in education actually told the kids that mammoths didn't have trunks because she once went to a museum and the skeleton had no trunk bone.
I was kind of a teachers' assistant for a disabled girl and the teachers tried to use me to spy on each other, one even gave me a notebook where I was supposed to write down my observations.
I think they were trying to get their younger (more idealistic) colleague fired. Of course, I refused to have any part in that at all.
ThreepwoodMac
32. Missed exams due to my manager
This was in Abu Dhabi, I was a 3rd-year Audit Associate in 2017/18. There were no accountancy classes available for the subject I wanted to sit the exam for in the city I was based in, so asked my Engagement Manager to let me attend classes in another city.
I offered to start work way early and come back to the office for additional work after class and commute. He accepted.
2 weeks into the classes and tuition paid, he told the engagement senior to stop me from going to classes meanwhile he went back to his country to attend to his sick father.
He stopped me from sitting that exam for a whole year.
During that year, I asked HR to transfer me to another city office for ease of classes using the manager's correspondence as an example. Eventually, I moved to the other office and started passing that and other exams.
That manager was let go during the same year.
HistoricalSeason1721
33. Worked for three days
When I was interviewing for a job at this Contraction/Contracting company, someone quit at 11:00 a.m. This should have been a red flag. I later saw her walking out of the business crying.
I lasted 3 days, was given no instruction on what to do, and didn't know how to use the phone system. I was fired because I wasn't a team player. I later found out that they hired a lot of people mostly women to do assistant jobs and then fired them. Like a revolving door.
The woman who ended up staying at the company dressed like they were going to a club and not to work. I dressed professionally. I didn't fit what they wanted for the company.
They would fire these women for the slightest nothing or make them so miserable that they quit on the spot.
The men who came in as the contractors or the men who did business with them never were fired unless they did something like using drugs on the job or some other serious offense.
baronesslucy
34. E-commerce company
I worked at a factory that was basically a smaller, french-only version of Amazon. You would get a bigger bonus the more you produced, which obviously triggered competition.
If you even dared to get an order of "small" items that were, by extension, faster to grab and pack, you would get insulted and harassed by older employees who felt they were entitled to the fast products.
On the other end, if you were thrown on a line with exclusively heavy or big stuff (like bags of 15 kg of dog food), and so you were, of course, slower than the guy packing pens by the dozen, management would come down on your ass because they would only see the numbers and yell at you to go faster.
I held on for three full months. Never set foot in one of those ever again after that, despite many calls to go work there again.
People usually stick around for a couple of weeks tops, and nobody wants to go there. Going to work for that company was basically the student's Vietnam in my region.
Firaxyiam
35. Job threats
For some time I was working in a warehouse. We had hourly pick rates that we had to hit as our jobs would be threatened if we didn't hit them. Due to rushing, we would sometimes miscount.
For example, if 100 was ordered 101 was received instead.
Our bosses would then reprimand us for the error and threaten our jobs for making errors. Every job there had hourly rates to hit.
We were constantly monitored via CCTV and we would have to explain why there was a gap in our scanners not being used for more than 5 minutes at a time.
ThePinkVulvarine
36. Getting caught in the middle of a clash
I was working at the office for a housing service for disabled people. The President of the company took a loan out from the account containing their social security money, without asking anyone in accounting if it was legal to do so. They all covered for him.
They also promoted someone not from my department to oversee my department, and she was exactly zero help to me as a new hire because she had never done the job.
The other women all hated her because they hadn't had a manager before that, and I got caught in the middle.
They pretty much refused to train me, and the manager kept assigning me new tasks to handle even though I had no help or support and had no idea how to do the task she assigned.
I left after 6 months.
[deleted]
37. Favoritism
I worked for two months at a movie theater, it was one of those fancy theaters that served actual food and I worked in the kitchen.
I always did all my work, and more than that, I did everything as well as I could, but my supervisor always tried to take advantage of how well I worked and wanted to give me as much responsibility as possible, while he favored the waiters who never did anything, were always late and were totally unprofessional.
I mean I know we were all kids but a job is a job, and the supervisor coming in late with them, while hung over and just bossing me around was wrong. I wasn't gonna let that happen, so yeah I went over his head to his supervisor.
[deleted]
38. Blessing in disguise
During a messy breakup with an abusive ex, my store manager told me to try not to have emotions at work. Upon deciding I was depressed, he told a team leader to deal with me because he was “broken too”.
Oh well, I married the team leader at least. Now we’re broken together and hate that guy. Also turns out I have autism so now I have a reason for poor emotional regulation and a crippling fear of emotions at work.
MrsScienceMan
39. Work Slavery
I worked at a luxury perfume packaging factory.
It was impossible to go out, take in the air, or see the light of day from the moment we entered the factory until it was time to come home, Even smokers were not allowed to smoke during breaks.
After 7/8 hours without smoking, I can tell you that people were tense.
DavidTaroz
40. Interpersonal issues
I worked at a workshop for 6 years (16 - 22) and after a few management changes, our location started to have a lot of issues.
They hired a manager who had no experience with the company and no real leadership. She was just tired and sad, and that person in their mid-40s who has worked retail forever and just generally hates their life, understandably.
We had one employee who was in their mid-50s and would gossip and create cliques with the teenage/early 20s employees. It caused all these problems, and people got fired because we weren't making any money, it was a mess.
The company actually decided to close that location, telling the entire management team "We don't have room for you at nearby stores, so you can either quit or choose to go work there as an entry-level employee, so we aren't firing you."
After closing the store they reopened a new store in the same mall 6 months later.
That's how bad that store was, it was easier to get rid of every employee, close the entire store, and reopen it than to try to fix the interpersonal issues some angry grandma created.
makethatnoise
41. The feeling of being left out
I worked at a place where, on my first day during orientation, the HR woman told me to never come to her with my problems, to figure it out myself.
I was the only woman in my department and the men would leave work early to go golfing together, not even asking me to join.
I felt so powerless because it seemed like a petty thing to bring up with my boss (who initiated the golf outings) but knew the HR woman wouldn’t do anything about it. I lasted 10 months there, left and started freelancing, and never looked back.
noiceandtoight
42. Quitting after a mistake
I worked for a company that processed foreclosures. I only lasted three months because I hated the lawyers and the managers were constantly on a power trip.
I made one small mistake (emailed a nonprivate-type question on a procedure to the wrong person in the company), and I was chewed out by three people. They made me feel like I had just strangled a puppy, and I quit the next day.
Damn_el_Torpedoes
43. Two-faced
My first job after college was alright at first, but the place slowly became unpleasant.
We had an extremely toxic employee who tried to put everyone against each other and try to get everyone unmotivated. He'd tell me and someone that the boss there was a bad person and we shouldn't work for him, while he'd tell the boss that I should be fired right away.
Unfortunately, my old boss didn't really do anything to recover the motivation, and everyone eventually started moving to other positions. There was also an instance where someone stole a lot of money and nobody did anything about it.
He'd also be really tight on paying people up, and checks would always bounce or not go through. He'd also send people to work on houses (he had a side business) as well.
blukirbi
44. Absolutely no day-off
Truck driving company I worked for. They would commonly call you in to work on your day off.
When I first started, I worked 2 weeks straight, then on the night before my first day off I got hammered. The next day they called me at 3 a.m. to ask me to come in.
Obviously, I was still drunk, I couldn't even remember where I was, so I refused to come in. The culture at that place was so bad that literally all my coworkers were pissed at me that I wasn't able to come in at a moment's notice at 3 am on my first day off in 14 days.
remotetissuepaper
45. Breaking free from a manager
I worked in a government call center, and we had this manager that HR was friends with and treated everyone badly. She would go out of her way and against company policy to find any mistakes we made no matter how small and was rude condescending and nasty.
She hit my friend over the head with some rolled-up paper as a joke and HR did nothing. She gave written warnings out like candy.
She accused me of something really serious that I didn't do and when I sent her proof that I didn't do it she doubled down and said that I did it to HR.
I asked for leave to look after a sick family member and she took me into a room alone to demand to know what my family members were doing and where they would be and why I needed to look after my sick family member.
We were also overstaffed for the days I wanted off.
She demanded that I have a meeting alone in a room with her 30 min before I clocked on and wouldn't take no for an answer even after I broke down crying on the floor.
I quit that job in January and she tried to ignore my letter of resignation. My new job now pays $15000 more than her salary.
Chocolatejellyfish1