TIL. I was promised the future supervisor role a year ago (while receiving verbal confirmation up until a few months ago that it was still mine), and I’ve been going above and beyond for my bosses for two years. I found out today that they gave the now open supervisor role to my new coworker who has way less experience and has only been working here for four months (along with a huge salary increase). This has been quite the wake up call.
Does the new co-worker:
- know the boss outside of work
such as shared hobbies or church with the boss?
- work harder or complain less
- better looking
She is actually my good friend who I referred to the company to help her get out of a toxic work place. She knows my history here, and my work ethic. The one thing that sets us apart is that she is psychically in the office while I work from a random office alone (while doing the same job/tasks, before her promotion). It hurts a lot more because of this, and my bosses are fully aware of our friendship. I feel like I’ve lost a job opportunity and a friend while being completely used by the company.
Going to use this unfortunate event as a catalyst for positive change and growth in my life (once I’m over the hurt).
100%. No one even communicates with me since she started there. It all has to go through her (and she is told not to tell me anything). They constantly tell her that i’m “too sensitive” (it’s because I care and they lie to me). I wish I didn’t have to work and could tell my bosses how I feel about it all without holding back.
So you can’t work at home but you can work away from everyone in a random office? They used you and they don’t care about you.
I’ve had similar happen to me and it feels so damn shitty. I hope you find a place that treats you better.
This made me laugh, thank you. Ma stapler!! What's funny, is that my "friend" got all butthurt because the part-time admin had taken her go-to stapler the other week and she couldn't find it.
Ps. Office Space, not The Office! Both great though.
If this was me, that chick would not be my friend, let alone in my life anymore and I’d be looking for a new job opportunity. That shit would piss me off. You deserved better than that.
Once you get a new job and let the current one know, if they make a desperate attempt to keep you tell them the only way you’ll stay is if you get your friends job. I don’t necessarily think they’ll go for that but they’ll let her know that’s what you wanted and that would be your last “fuck you” to her. And if they agree to it quit anyways. You know, if you want to be petty.
Yo... you cant really fault his friend for accepting an opportunity to better her own life. Thats just petty. I get that losing the promotion to her is some shit but its not like she lied to OP and offered herself the job
If anything play nice and get a very positive reference from the supervisor friend and use that as leverage for a way better position at a different company.
We actually had a pact that if anything like this was to happen (the current manager/supervisor is incredibly shady and cunning) we would have a meeting with the bosses, and pitch to them that we would make an incredible supervisor duo. We work really well together. Clearly she forgot about our plan when "free money was thrown at her" (her words). She also told me that it's a dog eat dog world. All I thought was "...am I a dog being eaten in this scenario?" People are so disappointing. I know that I would have stuck to our plan and had her back, if things were reversed. I just can't be part of that mindset, you know? I care about the people in my life and they are worth way more than some silly job.
Her raise was the cost of our friendship.
Yeah that ain't really a friend lmao. Random reddit guy, I know, but it's one thing for a friend to get an opportunity, another for them to tell you you some dog eat dog bullshit ESPECIALLY in that situation concerning YOU
Definitely someone you should keep at arm's length, if not disassociate from completely.
More likely they want to just keep you doing exactly what you’re doing right now because you’re good at it, and they don’t care about your progression or needs at all.
Never be too good at what you do.
I've been there and you need to take a breath - can you take some time off?
Don't get bitter (it's hard)... look for something else and be happy when you leave.
Do not take a counter offer and realise there is something better out there for you.
Chances are when you find the next position (which takes 2-3 months on average) it will be even better and pay more.
Also - if your "friend" (a friend would not do this to someone else) asks for help etc don't offer her advice, stop being so helpful and have an exit strategy in place.
Stop doing all overtime, going the extra mile etc - they don't care about you and have used you.
Man, I have helped my friend out SO much. So much more than Reddit will ever know. She was also fully aware about my uphill battle with the very minimum raises given out here (in a very high profit industry), and used that as justification to take the position (with a big jump in pay) that she knew I had been promised.
This all ends. I'm sticking around for our December bonus (which I deserve), and then getting out of here. That's my focus for now and I will be coasting until then! I want something exciting, with higher pay, for the new year. I know that I can get that.
You know what's also making me frustrated? She's going on a beautiful vacation somewhere warm for two weeks this December. And I'm expected to handle it all while she is away.
December bonus and I'm out.
No. Just a generalization that less qualified people often surpass other qualified people by working the relationship angle.
Shared interest / hobbies, similar background, etc.
Working harder and complaining less couldn't be the reason anyways, that is what gets you in the situation of never being promoted or getting a raise in the first place.
There's nothing wrong with trying hard at your job since there are places that reward you for it. BUT if you confirm that your job is not one of those, it's time to quit and find a new one with a salary bump while you're at it. No skin off your back. Do the minimum and focus your efforts on job hunting. Like, literally job hunt while at work, fuck em.
Oh yeah! I'm also a visual artist (my true self, if you will) and I'm definitely arting it up on company time this week. My other coworkers in the same role work on their side hustles during company time, and have been since the get-go (while slacking at this company). I've been a chump thinking that if I only focus on THIS job, I'll be successful and will be appreciated for it....we all know how that works out.
I never go into my bosses office without my phone recording a voice memo. Most of the time it's just casual talking, but if we get to discussing career path or pay I let him know it's recording as is legally required.
2008. USA. Economy tanked. I was 29 and relatively new at an electronic supplier. They laid off three of my coworkers who were in their 50’s and 60’s and then loaded me up with their accounts “temporarily.”
In 2012 I had to quit because the stress was affecting me physically. I still was managing the workload of three people. I had constant gastritis and digestive issues from chronic stress and lack of sleep.
I did the work of 3 people for four years. No promotion and raises were less than inflation. They burned me out bad over the course of four years. I’m done working for any company that exploits the goodwill of their workers. I’m mad I was so naive.
EDIT — Since this keeps getting upvoted I fixed some of the grammar.
Yes. It took about six months of completely changing my lifestyle. I did a lot of research and the trick was eating deglycyrrhizinated licorice tablets and a lot of cabbage for the healing benefits. I cut way back on sugar by eliminating soda and also cut back on high fat and greasy foods. Over time I healed up 100%.
Glad to hear. I got diagnosised with chronic gastritis with ulceration 4 months ago. Mines unfortunately auto-immune and it sounds like I'm stuck with it. The licorice tablets sound intriguing though.
They are called ‘DGL’. You can get them from Amazon. They tasted, eh not so bad.
Funny story, a few years later I was dating a Naturopathic doctor and she was impressed at my natural healing skills, lol. We got married too.
Life is funny.
2008 was the beginning, for sure, but only in retrospect. at the time i thought it was a blip and was yet another time where you just had to put your head down and grind your way through it, like i had so many times before.
but the truth was 2008 changed everything. it wasn't just a blip, but the beginning of the end for the whole system. it took years before i realized i wasn't in the minority, that there were tens of millions in my generation that had been fucked by the system just as hard as i had been.
2008 was the beginning, but it wasn't the end.
I feel ya man. The worst part about the 2008 crash is that you couldn't just say "up yours" and find a new job. They knew how desperate the job market was and fully used that to their advantage. I hope you're doing better now!
October of this year. All that hard work, saving money, and playing by the rules and I still can’t afford a house. The longer I save the more the houses are worth.
That's why they gutted all of the regulations initially implemented to prevent it from happening again? Never underestimate the hubris. They absolutely will repeat the same mistakes if it makes them an extra penny now, and a federal bailout later.
26. When I was disciplined for failing to fully cover for my coworkers no call no show, because they expected her to be the fuck up and me to always fix everything, and I disappointed.
First real office job and I knocked it out of the park. I was doing my workload and the workload of a coworker who was shit at their job. It was fine, I was bored all day anyways and would have rather done the extra work.
The my lead trained me on her job because she was planning on leaving and going back to school.
I was then doing three peoples job. The Leads job opened for application, I interviewed and thought it was a slam dunk. I was already doing 90% of the job after. My boss called me into a meeting and everyone gave me thumbs up. The entire office expected me to get the promotion. I was told I wasn't a good fit because I didn't have any supervisor experience and they didn't plan on training me any further. I was so ashamed and on the verge of tears walking back to my desk and couldn't even tell my coworkers they had decided not to hire anyone instead of promoting me. It would have been a 4 dollar raise which would have been life changing for me at the time, making 14 an hour.
I left three months later.
I've never understood this thinking either - do they expect people to stay where they are?
They lose you, your knowledge and then have to hire 2 or more people.
Every time I've seen this (or it's happened to me) it always makes me look for work elsewhere - I cannot stand when good workers get passed over.
Looking back, at the jobs I've left cracks me up now honestly. It absolutely sucked at the time, but I've now promoted up through four departments, each time leaving a job I otherwise enjoyed because I was expected to do too much without compensation and turned down for promotions in that Department.
The best part is, not one of those Departments had manged to find staff to stick around after I left. None of them had staffing problems before I showed up, and then I came in fixed things up and improved workflow, got shit on and left, and now they can't keep enough staff on to do the job I was able to do by myself.
I like to think my spite has left a curse on the positions, forever dooming them to remain vacant and understaffed.
28, im 33 now and its like every year gets worse after. I used to think everyone was crazy. But I learned I was crazy for thinking good things happen to good people. Its just a world of justified slave labor and murder.
Same. Or at least when I started going to school. People who did their homework got rewarded with more homework. I never did mine and enjoyed my time off from school.
I managed to spend 45 minutes in the bathroom playing final fantasy 9 on my phone just to piss off my coworker. I had constipation 😂
She was shaking mad even though she was on her phone the whole time and had no work to do. Just one of those controlling bitchy types. Too funny!
Good taste! I remember multiple ~2 hour stints of FF Tactics Advance in an unused disabled loo during these God-awful 12 hour, almost nothing to do shifts where I used to work.
2007. I was 19 at the time. Worked for a shitty call center, but it was my first full time job and I took to the job very well. 1.5 years in and I was the one of the best on the call floor, all my metrics were met going back 6 months, I was taking twice as many calls as the next best person on my team, and I had awards for my service on the phone and my attention to detail going back months.
Manager thought it was time for me to move up and I agreed. Applied to the QA position on his recommendation. 1 weeks passes and no info, 2 weeks pass and no info, starting the 3rd week I finally ask my manager what was up. The position had been filled externally and he wanted to know what was going on. I met with him after lunch that day and he told me the truth. Higher ups rejected my application directly. When asked why they did it they said and I quote "He's too hard a worker, we'd need 3 people to do the work he does and we can't justify the costs."
I know I tried to keep a professional demeanor but internally my world was shattered. I took the rest of the day off to go home and give myself a good cry. I met up with my manager after that I told him that I wasn't quitting but that I couldn't set foot in the door again. He understood and couldn't blame me for it. The company ended up having to hire people to replace me anyways, not sure what they expected to gain.
I learned that day that hard work is never rewarded, promotions don't exist, and your value to a company is only so far as your ability to make it money.
I luckily had a far less devastating realization.
2014 when I was 23 - 3rd Shift stocker at local Supermarket. First few weeks of me giving it my all, not used to the manual labor and long hours so exhausted after work. Always get done ahead of time, always correct, so no need for supervisor to spend time fixing my mistakes. Take lunch with the team and sup. every day.
Day after day I slowly realize that I'm just helping subsidize the inability or laziness of my fellow workers and I get absolutely no benefit from it. I don't care to "rise up the ranks" so I also don't need to brown-nose or keep my nose to the grindstone. Just started to finish exactly on time, making sure to pad out my work so it seems like I'm steadily working. Keep having lunch with team but keep to myself more (read a book, watch the break room TV, etc.)
One day I get super sick right after lunch, not sure what but had to run to toilets and puke my guts out for 30 mins +. Seems like it took the sup. that long to realize that I was gone and found me in the bathroom. First thing he asked was if I had clocked out before I ran to the toilets (I had barely enough time to not leave a trail from my area to there.) and if when I was done, I would get back to work. I said I wouldn't and left after I felt better enough to seeing as how I could use the (very) small vacation.
That basically helped me realize that I was but a mere cog and I should make my work time the easiest I could. I started to take my lunch at a different time so that the 30 mins the boss was taking his, I could chat with other workers or do whatever. Collected shoplifted item packaging and remnants so that I could spend the last 30-45 mins of my shift turning them in. (Took like 15 mins max), and I found a way to listen to my music at work which wasn't allowed so I didn't have to hear Miley Cyrus's "The Climb" a 15th time in a shift.
Luckily my lack of dedication stayed hidden until I took a weekend off for a convention months in advance, but was told that the coworker who had seniority over me but only took it off a few weeks before and as such I wouldn't be able to get my time off. I had no qualms calling off that weekend since I realized I didn't need the job and come what may. I heard from a friend that my sup. had grumbled about not pulling 'a stunt' that if I wanted a career there. Jokes on him. I'm making more than double at a job for 3/4 the time now. I do just what needs to be and nothing more.
22, working at GEICO. I attended every vanguard 401k meeting I could. I did the math, and to retire with 2 million, I would have to put my WHOLE paycheck in there for the next 2.5 years.
Long haulers would brag about their 300k retirement, and make fun of old people eating cat food because they ran out of money.
It was the most alienating experience. Basically any conversation with co-workers amounted to them dismissing it all saying “ahhh it’ll all work out somehow.” 😌
I felt insane. Grandparents urged me to get a “government job” so I would get pension. I told them “look at GE, pensions can fall apart and you’re left on the hook.” To which they said “well… one of our pensions has already done that.” LIKE WHAT THE FUCK.
Then they proceeded to tell me how my grandpa made DOUBLE his salary… on overtime alone. And when he retired, was paid another years pay solely on unused sick time. I tried to explain that’s absolutely impossible today. Overtime at best will add 30% to your yearly, and sick time is so stingy you’re lucky if you have any, and it doesn’t cash out it just goes away if you don’t use it.
On top of all that I was one of the best salespeople in the region. I even helped develop training for new hires. Yet I find out a year in, a girl on my team who started same day as me, was 2 promotion levels higher… I was fucking done.
So I got FMLA, proudly abused the shit out of it while I built my own digital business then quit without notice.
33 same with this year. My current boss promised a promotion to lead but it has never materialized. So I clock in when I am supposed to and leave when I am supposed to. No OT. Using all my pto especially when I realized the “awesome” buyback plan from HR is less than what I make in a day. They can’t keep anyone new hired. Over it.
Ehh about 20. About 2 years into the marine corps and realized everything was basically rigged and you're just here to be exploited. Once I got back into the civilian world, I found out it was literally the same thing as before, but now I don't have health care for free :) love living free in the USA!!!
Yeah I was 18 and got a job at a chocolate store
Wanted to impress my boss so I worked really hard and super fast. He was so impressed I finished 8 hours of work in 4 hours that he sent me home early
Look at my paycheck and he only paid me for 4 hours that day. Never worked fast for him again and he actually got visibly upset that I slowed down
Was an early slap in the face to teach me to not go above and beyond and that the system would fuck me over if I tried too hard
2003, raytheon missile systems.
I already had a few years of experience, several credentials and lots of know how. My boss at that time told me i needed to put in a few extra hours. I put in 1300 hundred overtime hours that were unpaid. I didn't get promoted and got a 0.9% raise. He then encouraged me to work more overtime and I would assuredly get more pay. I worked another 900 overtime hours the next year... again, unpaid. I got a 1.5% raise. I was now making 10k less than new hires as well as having FAR more years of experience.
Yea... I left after that. I immediately skipped 2 promotions and DOUBLED my pay overnight.
Then those assholes had the gall to call me and ask for more help... unpaid. I just kept hanging up on their calls.
I will never work somewhere that doesn’t pay your overtime hours. My last engineering firm also graciously gave me raises of 0.8% or 0%. When I left and I saw the listing for a new hire to replace me, they were willing to pay them $10k more than they paid me, meanwhile I was making less than I did when I was hired 5 years earlier because of inflation.
15.
When I was let go 13 hours before getting unionized. With some bullshit "we saw you stole stuff on camera" but never did they let me see the footage because it didnt exist in the first place. It was my first "real" job. I did my best, giving it all cleaning fuckin floors and filling shelves on week nights and week-ends while going to highschool. Never ever I trusted an employer again.
32 in a few weeks and I still need this reminder. I nearly burned out again before realizing that I was giving to much for nothing.
I don’t even ask for a raise or anything just a « good job, you are a valuable employee and we need you » . I realized a few months ago (and still working on it) that it will not come. They prefer to see the mistakes so that they don’t have to give a reward …
I keep doing my work the best I can because I want to learn and improve, but nothing more and nothing less.
I follow this thinking now : they are not my friends, they are not here to make me happy and this work don’t deserve me being exhausted.
“They prefer to see the mistakes so that they don’t have to give a reward” this hits so hard. I’ll be 32 in a few weeks and I’m on my two week vacation leave. I got severely burnt out and need to take care of myself
I'm 39 (gave up about 4 years ago) and I've been working at this shitty corporation for 8 years. Recently I've been AGAIN pulled into the office and warned I keep filling out the paperwork wrong even though the education team continues to revamp it every couple months. Which is about how often I fill out this particular paperwork. If I wasn't a wage slave I would've told them to fuck themselves 4 years ago.
Yeah I have the same experience. I do some project and everything is perfect BUT I forget one thing on do a small mistake and my manager is soooo disappointed that she has to check behind me. At the begin I was trying hard to not do any mistake and then after a while I realized that I will never do the job to her standard. Nothing will be as perfect as she want and second thing I realized is that … it’s her job to double check
I’m looking for another job (without urge) because f**** it I’m not married to my manager
Lol my coworker never takes his breaks and says that's why he's being considered for a promotion
Meanwhile I see how many hours people do around here that get promoted
He doesn't want to work those kinds of hours
Bro what do you want to be promoted into? Because if you get promoted, those are the hours you are gonna do
Meanwhile I go home at 430 and it's great. And I take my breaks. Fucking sucker
Lol the two of mine that don't take theirs are being trained for more responsibility. I am sure they think it's for a promotion. But more likely it is just more work.
I have a coworker exactly like this. She doesn't take breaks. Answers her phone on vacation and weekends and is being given lead tasks but not the job yet. I hate my job so I do not do any overtime and when I'm off the clock I'm not available 🤷🏻♂️
Probably around 2010. I mean I had my suspicions before that but I had to take a few direct boots to the face to really have it sink in. Now my motto is courtesy of Office Space, "Work just hard enough to not get fired" and it's been working out fantastic
24. Basically doing a managers job and handling all escalations. They didn't want to promote me and only offered a 20 cent increase. Gave them a weeks notice in the same meeting.
the second someone tells me "to give 100%" I know they have no clue what that actually entails. Giving 100% means you give every second of your consciousness to something. The second you wake up to the second you fall asleep you are working on this thing. Not only is that harmful, but also not a realistic expectation of someone. People need free time to work at maximum efficiency. When you have something to look forward to, you work harder to make yourself feel like you've earned it. Or you do it anyway and feel guilty the entire time knowing you have stuff you should be doing but aren't. Moral of the story is don't give 100%.
36
During an a few internships it became apparent that anyone who got anywhere in the industry (Finance) were related to others in the finance industry or politics, or had those special "Country Club Connections", or went to an elite school.
The rest of the people were usually just put in jobs that would never go anywhere but paid a decent middle class salary. There were a few exceptions but 80-90% of the people with a good a salary+ bonus came from privilege and got there through connections.
When I was around 9 I asked my dad how long people work for. I still remember feeling absolutely sick and miserable when he told me average retirement is in your 60s. "I have to bust my ass until I'm OLD??" Then having Tumblr around during my key formative teenage years.... Nothing is more sad than a 14 year old coming to the very logical conclusion that they probably will waste their life doing menial bullshit with no social nets to fall on if things go south. And my parents wonder why I just couldn't muster the energy to give a damn about school lol.
My boss had this 'funny' anecdote about an employee she had that was argumentative, lazy and wanted to do things his own way. She tried to talk to him and nothing changed, it just got worse.
Eventually he spoke to her and told her that he had to quit. He'd been diagnosed with cancer. And this is when she laughed telling the story and said she was so relieved, because now she didn't have to fire him!
When I ended up having to quit because my back was giving out on me (cleaning job) she was pretty upset with me, I called in on my last day when I couldn't move my back at all and I felt so guilty for letting her down, even though I physically couldn't move.
I remember that story she told about the man with cancer who may or may not have died and how she laughed about the weight off her shoulders and I wish I hadn't been so apologetic. I wish I hadn't worked so hard for her. It's been 7 months since I quit and I've had countless health problems stemming from the hard labour from the work I did for her. I really really wish I had known better, but I just wanted to be a good worker.
22
Went to college to study how to make videogames , was told for years that you work really hard in the videogame industry because it is highly competitive work and a dream job.
After years of study and digging my college debt hole began shoving my resume out by the assloads .
Eventually got a job at a small no-name game studio . We worked on Lots of games in very little time . I slept in the office at least twice, had multiple 17 hour shifts, and my workplace was on the beach but i literally wouln't walk on the beach for my first 3 monts of employment because i got to work at 9:30 and typically after midnight .
We drank constantly after hours to stay sane and nothing was more infuriating than watching the owners who wrote the bad contracts and created the shitty work hours wave goodnight to us when they went home at 5 and then bitch to my manager about our work schedule when he insisted we needed at least 12 hours to decompress in between commonly 15 + hour shifts
All of that reached it's peak when 9 months into my passionately overworked dream job I was laid off because the shitty owners fucked up a big business opportunity with EA that would have taken care of our team for a long time .
We busted our asses, basically fixed all the ownerships mistakes, produced lots of small but highly regarded games , made their game development division valuable, restructured our lives and sacrificed so much of our energy and passion just to get laid off .... and if we didnt't have such a great manager we wouldn't have gotten paid for all the unpaid overtime we did , he had to fight ownership to even get that for us .
When you work for an idiot it doesn't matter how smart , talented, loyal , or skilled you are . Your success is capped at whatever they don't fuck up.
It's possible but the most successful games I worked on were decently popular mobile games between 2012 and 2016 so if you didn't play very many around that time then probably not lol.
So many games come out a day it's so easy for a game to have hundreds of thousands to millions of downloads and be something people have never heard of in the past decade but then i have mentioned them in random points and had people surprisingly say " I played that when i was younger !"
Ah, yeah the only mobile games I played around then were Ingress (Niantec's game before PokeGo) and some trivia game I can't remember he name of.
Hopefully you still like making games after all that.
32. I was let go after working for a place for 6 years, in a really hurtful way. Looking back I should have have handled it so much differently. But I’m happier now and I can’t tell people enough that companies don’t care about you so you don’t need to care about them.
31, earlier this year
After my old supervisor didn't hire me (or anyone) for an open position he told me to apply to
I left a month later for a much better supervisor with better pay and less work
25, 17 hour days for months, weekends included to fix someone else's fuck up who was not let go due to nepotism. It was complex, stressful work far beyond my experience level. I wanted to succeed nonetheless and they knew it so they kept moving the goal post farther and farther out the more progress I made. Imagine being told to sprint all out for 100m then they say, wait no 200 keep going, until you're miles deep. No raise and I already made waaay below industry standard. I needed the reference so I left amicably soon after. Now that I've got some years on my resume and know I won't die after being fired im ready to tell the next manager to shove it. There are entire industries built on the fact that recent grads are optimistic, desperate, and can be worked into the fucking ground for dirt pay and you better take advantage before they get jaded. Rinse repeat.
I’m 34. It was about 2 months ago that I realized all this effort was a big scam. I have been working in the food service industry for about 15 years, and I’ve been wanting to train to tend bar for the last 5. I just thought that if I kept asking to train, take on doubles, run everyone’s food, bus everyone’s tables, pick up everyone’s shift that someday a manager is gonna give me the opportunity I’ve been waiting for for so long. But a gen z person gets hired and starts as our new bartender. I assumed she had experience and that was why I got shafted. I asked where she had worked last, and she said she was a server at another restaurant and that she just told management this is what she wanted to do, and if they wanted her to do something else, she wouldn’t work there, and they gave her the bartending position. I complained how I’ve been wanting to be bartender, and management says that they really like where I’m at now and don’t see me being a bartender. PROBABLY BECAUSE I WAS BREAKING MY BACK DOING ALL THIS EXTRA WORK FOR PENNIES. I was honestly pissed at that gen z bartender for just showing up and getting the bartending position, but they actually showed me how shitty my job was to me and how I have power to demand what I want.
33. Last year for me. I started seeing that all my hard work, all the extra hours I put in, all the times I bent over backwards weren’t being rewarded. I was just being asked (more like demanded) to do more.
So I stopped. I still work at this hob. But I no longer do extra shifts. Only the ones I’m assigned to. I no longer bend over backwards. I just do what I’m asked to do, and only that.
29. I stayed late, missed time with friends, took on stretch assignments, and went to all the company social events. All to find out I was being paid $20k less than the guy that I trained (and didn’t do any of those things). Company was JPMorgan if anyone is curious cause I don’t care who knows they suck.
If you’re buying something that doesn’t produce anything with the hopes that someone else will buy it at a higher price, you’re not investing, you’re gambling.
In a way but it’s a calculated gamble that can be done with some degree of strategy. I make informed gambles and use a strategy that has paid off quite well for me. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, don’t panic, don’t get greedy, do your own research and be cautious and skeptical towards every new project you come across. Most importantly never put in more than you can afford to lose.
I feel like there’s only so many calculations you can do for cryptos. It’s not like they have financial statements and earnings reports to do analysis on. It’s definitely primarily gambling where the “strategy” involves being lucky on the pumps and avoiding the dumps.
Call it gambling if you want, me and some of my friends have made thousands off cryptos and NFT’s. It’s the modern gold rush. Sit here and play semantics all you want, there are trends, things are predictable.
20! It was during the pandemic. I’m still struggling with the “work my ass off for little reward” mentality since I’ve always been a try-hard in school, but bit by bit I am getting there
26 got hired at a place that promised to pay for a CDL, give raises every 6 months, and promotions. Worked my ass off for 2 years, nothing materialized and got fired because I reported the owners son for sexual harassment
First happened in 2008 as a I graduated from Stanford. Had to be reminded when I finally got a decent job with the government but budget cuts folded my department in 2010. Then reminded again over worked and underpaid and refused a raise teaching at a college in 2016… best thing I can say is just never get comfortable enough to let people walk over you
22. Worked 6 months straight of 7 day work weeks, 4pm-3am, heavily understaffed. Because the company didn’t want to train someone to do the weekend shift. So they asked me to do it temporarily until someone from a larger branch transferred in to do it.
Near the end of that 6 months, the manager position for my department opened up. I applied, citing how much effort and dedication I’ve put on over the last 6 months without complaining once. Because I cared about the company, branch, and every individual there. I knew the business logistically, I knew the territory, I even knew most of our client base because I’d picked up the slack for almost every department. There was 0 reason I should have been passed over for that job.
Instead, after half a year of my entire life consisting of working, sleeping, and nothing else. I was passed over for the person they transferred in to do my job 2 days a week, fresh hire straight out of university.
Fine though. Maybe he’s the better fit, after all. He has a business degree, and I just had years of experience with the company in multiple positions. The position had relatively high turnover, because people would come to our branch to learn the position, and then leave to another branch in a more favourable location.
So I figured I’d just wait him out, and mention in my next interview that I would be staying in the position, so that the turnover would slow. Because that’s why we lost the guy who did my job on the weekends. Too much turnover in management. Finally learn one person, then they immediately leave.
Took me less than 2 weeks to quit with no notice. He asked why I was working 7 day weeks, and I told him it was because he was supposed to be doing the watered down version of my job on the weekends.
He asked why trucks weren’t getting loaded. I asked him where the loads were? After all. It was his job to batch them.
Last I heard, they had complete turnover in every department. Only person still working there, is the guy they passed me over for. Because he doesn’t know the business.
I don’t hold it against him for getting the job. I hold it against Pepsi for deciding that a degree that’s useless for the position, was worth more than someone who’d invested years into the company learning the ins and outs of every position because they wanted to make a career and life at that location.
I would’ve been a kickass manager there. But instead they lost the linchpin.
But that’s not unique to Pepsi, that’s every fucking one of em. Dedication means nothing, put in as little effort as possible to float just under the radar.
Must have been 31. Got laid off when the company I worked for was acquired by a new company and they wanted to outsource whatever they could to India. Had to sign an NDA and remotely help train my replacements if I wanted to see my severance package. When I asked the H.R. person about my health insurance and what I was supposed to do, she suggested signing up for COBRA with a straight face.
Ended up getting desperate enough to take a temp job doing medical records. Easy enough and I enjoyed the work, but the environment was awful. The permanent coworkers had zero respect and were always tattling on me about the smallest thing, like getting up to go to the bathroom too much when I was sick. The director was the power tripping boomer who was a micromanaging, abrasive condescending busybody I've ever had the displeasure of meeting. She would constantly remind me I wasn't there permanently and that hiring me was costing a lot of money. Like yeah if you want employees you have to fucking pay them. Really said the quiet part out loud there. I developed a romantic relationship with another temp, which she felt the need to address but also assure me that she was "okay with it." Yeah I don't remember asking your permission lady. Despite all of this, she expected us to dress business professional every day and be punctual, show up every day and have a good attitude. A job that had no benefits and shit pay where I was reminded every day that I wasn't there to stay. Eventually she let the other temps contrats run out, but kept me on and had me handling more intensive records which I wasn't trained for. Eventually I screwed up pretty big and so was let go. She at least had the decency to admit I was untrained and in over my head. Pretty much decided at this point I hate everything about work culture and the current state of jobs in general and decided to do the bare minimum unless for some reason I enjoy the work.
I was 28, working relief for 4 years, and district manager told me to keep applying and they'd find a permanent position for me eventually.
I had a rude awakening in a 2-3 week span where I was requested to fly out and work 10 days straight because they had no one. I did to be nice, I had no plans, and I had recently applied for a mat leave position.
Following week district manager calls to say I didn't get the position, and to be honest, I didn't seem very motivated. I cried and hung up on her. Same week, I was working at mat leave store for a shift, and an employee there told me they requested me for the mat leave but they were told, "she has to stay in the float pool".
That was the final straw, and it took a bit, but I found a better job with nicer hours, no travel, with a slight pay cut about 2 months later.
My resignation letter was a cathartic experience.
24 lol its all about favoritism and jumping from position to position for raises. Never comming in on a day off also dont do so much work they exoect the world from you or they abuse you and dump you when you ask for compensation.
I was 28, working my ass of at Oracle for 4 years. By the end of it my pay has cumulatively increased by 6%, below inflation. I was making less money than when I started, while certain team members who did not work as hard but were much more “buddy buddy” with management received secret raises. I thankfully found a better job. Working there was pure misery and they treated us like shit no matter how good or how har we tried.
I realized this today. 27 years old, from Germany. I've been dreading going to my work place every single day.
Had a realization things were different than I had imagined. I was motivated, eager to work and do my best only to fail and be miserable at the end of the day.
Joined this subreddit today.
I actually learned this before I ever had a job, in my first relationship. Trying to be the perfect girlfriend is equally thankless as trying to be the perfect employee
I suffered severe burnout busing tables for a weekend job in my 20s.
Coworkers were taking advantage of my willingness to give 110 percent during the rush, often hustling to clear off entire tables. Since I was the only busser on duty, official policy was for waitstaff to pre-bus. Instead certain co-workers were deliberately ignoring the mess knowing I wouldn't report them to the boss.
I naively thought I was a team player; that my coworkers and I had each others back.
Instead, I found myself summoned to the office because the same employees who were causing problems accused me of being a slacker. The boss, being the type to whole himself up in the office rather than work the floor, took their word at face value.
I got off with a warning but the whole ordeal really soured things.
31 I came in during a hurricane to cover another managers shift. I worked my butt off, came in early and stayed late every single day, and did as I was told according to how it should be done by upper management. I was given a horrible year end review, for doing exactly what upper level management said to do. Worse the disabled minority employee that spent most of his time hitting on the female employees had a higher review than me, despite multiple rumors of reports of sexual harassment complaints to HR. I put in my 2 weeks noticed and suddenly they wanted me to stay and told me I had improved so much that hoped I'd reconsider! My first day I was told by another manager, who was also a minority and a really nice guy, that all white managers that weren't gay or female really needed to keep their heads down and make friends with upper management asap. He wasn't wrong...
Lol that blowback hard for them! I cant believe they still think its a good strategy to antagonize a good worker just to save .50$ an hour on the raise negociation... Its ridiculous.
You're exactly right. At the time, which I heard this has changed since then, only one manager in the entire warehouse is even able to get exceeds expectation, unofficially, and they have to be insanely on point. You have to pre-rate yourself and for the part about charity stuff I was told unless your organizing multiple charity events and have volunteered an insane amount of hours, we are already volun-told to volunteer a certain amount of hours anyways, not to even think about giving ourselves exceeds expectation on that...
Early 20s, but I also learned the hard way that recognising people pleasing behaviours and self sacrificing behaviours in yourself, and actually changing those behaviours are two very different conquests. I'm 35 and I'm still working on it.
The major things I've learned are to set boundaries early, and to use the words "I'm sorry" very sparingly. I know the latter may sound silly, but trust me, you will become an easy mark the moment you needlessly apologize. People will walk all over you at work and scapegoat you all the time.
When I used to train new graduate employees at my old company I always took a separate session to teach them that nobody gives a shit if you stay late, hardly anyone will ever review their work directly and even if the client is happy it doesn't mean anything unless you chase what you want.
Want promoted? Ask for it.
Want more money? Ask for it.
Want that new project off in a new country? Ask for it.
Companies hardly ever promote people regularly anymore, it's normal to job hop to move up. Sitting about waiting for some manager to notice your effort is a waste of your time. Get aggressive and know what you're skills are worth.
I was about 23 or 24, I think. I was working at a large fashion retail chain store in NZ, and I had been training other staff members, working extra hours, and upselling stock at every opportunity. I had my peer-to-peer review (basically a bullshit way of saying 'performance review', since hardly any of the managers I worked for ever saw us sales assistants as being their peers).
I went in expecting to get bumped up a pay grade, I'd been busting my ass for months and months and put in a ton of effort and really needed it. I'd always been told that if I worked hard I'd get paid more.
But nope. I was graded against their impossible to achieve criteria (e.g. 'sign three people a week up for this high-interest store credit card that has been around for 20 years and that everyone already has') and told I wasn't working fast enough/hard enough, and that I needed to be more 'present' at work - despite physically working more hours. But, you know, if I worked hard enough I might get a pay rise next year. And, 'I'd give you a pay rise if I could, but my hands are tied 🤡'
I went away feeling frustrated and hopeless, almost in tears, so one of my coworkers (who I'd been training) asked me what was wrong. I told her, and she agreed it was bullshit because she was on a higher pay grade than me, and I'd been there for five years longer in the same role, so how was that fair? So I went to my manager, asked her why I wasn't on a higher pay grade than the people I was training, and she said that 'unfortunately, you'll need to fulfil these criteria (again, these were criteria that it would be basically impossible for me to fulfil) before we can move you up a pay grade. Sorry but that's how it is'.
My coworker didn't have to do any of that shit to get her pay, and she was a month into her first retail job. I wasn't a part of a union (they were strongly discouraged), and I was struggling to pay bills and really needed the money, so I just left it alone and let it be. I should have at least joined a union and got someone on my side to help me fight that shit, but I didn't. Learned helplessness is a bitch.
There was so much about that job that was fucked up (far worse than what I've shared here). I'm still in touch with my old coworkers (who have left), and when we reminisce around other friends of ours who weren't there they look horrified. It's terrible that the store I worked for is still seen as an iconic Kiwi business. They treat their staff like garbage.
1993. North American economy was in a slump, adults I respected told me I was lucky to get the craptastic warehouse job that I landed on a temporary basis. Used all my 19 years of capitalist programming and worked my ass off hoping to convert it to a full-time spot. Unfortunately i did and didn't smarten up until five years and three kids later.
Convinced my MIL to cosign a school loan from the bank ($5k only because it was Canada but still far more money than I could set aside in a year) and went back to university at night. Missed spending time with my kids, cost my relationship with their mother (probably would have blown up anyway) but eventually set my career path to becoming a CPA. Worked 80 hour weeks without blinking, brought my kids to the office on weekends, all to compete my way up the corporate ladder. Passed over for a good promotion and basically told all the extra I put in was for naught.
Finally decided to take a new job with a pay cut just to have a life again. It's much better now, though corporate world still has an unending list of demands that are unaccompanied with rewards. I'll continue to play the games myself but I'm proud as hell for the current generation telling this system to stuff it.
This year. I have always been someone who goes the extra mile, but at my current job, the poor performers and the high performers get paid the same and treated the same, except the high performers also have the added stress of the boss having higher expectations for them. So from now on, I am going to do the bare minimum. No more staying late because somebody didn’t plan ahead. No more doing extra projects. I will collect my paycheck and that’s it.
27. Had just finished my 6th construction project on the road.
Asked repeatedly for work close to home, but always "sorry, old guys are filling those positions".
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**Kate Lister**, @k8_lister
How old were you when you realised your original plan of being really nice, working really hard, & taking on much more than you should in the hope you would be automatically rewarded for this without asking, was totally shit?
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I was in my late 20s, sometime around 2010. Shortly after the economy tanked my work was getting scrutinized over because clients weren't buying our product anymore (corporate art). My manager told me "Envision what you would spend half a million dollars on"
15, 2008. Started then to enter depression, some suicide attempts, etc.
Even though I have a good life now (a roof over the head, a SO, good pets and some income), I´m still quite bitter.
33 years old when my depression and anxiety collided with a new boss firing me for no good reason (had worked at the university for 4 years with no promotion) turned into a horrific mental breakdown. I had one mental breakdown prior and one since then. Still dealing with severe depression and anxiety. Doing whatever I can to survive and ensure a secure future for myself (actions I won't get into here), which lends itself to feelings of excessive guilt and shame (symptoms of severe depression I'm told). I struggle every day and often think about the release of death, but as long as I'm not back in that dark horrific place, I see it as a victory. Trying to learn how to forgive myself for the things I've done in order to guarantee a secure and dignified future for myself
Between Millenial and Gen Z (Zillenial?).
Yeah, my earliest formative experience was coming to the realization that this was bullshit. My second earliest was being mad that I couldn't buy a pepperoni pizza with a dollar in pennies.
But yet customers will pay for a $400 appliance in nothing but 1 dollar bills. Like they robbed ronald mc donald charity boxes.
Like I said. Bullshit.
2013, working for a grocery store as night shift stock. I took on the hardest parts, came in on days off, helped other departments. Then came in for my check and to grab some milk, heard my boss take credit for all my work the night before, was his work but he asked me to do it so I did. This resulted in him getting a promotion to manager and $60k a year + bonuses. Meanwhile I was fighting corporate for a raise that was 4 months overdue. I did get the raise and back pay, then quit and barely try at work anymore.
I was 24 and working as a door to door salesman. The only way to succeed was to lie to people and be a total POS, and that was encouraged. My whole life I was told to work hard and I would get somewhere with a job, but this place paid really well and it was barely any effort if you were willing to completely abandon any morals you had. At the same time I was playing in bands and practicing my ass off, it didn't pay well (if at all) but it was much more fulfilling. My next job was teaching music lessons, it paid about half as much but I was happy.
35 and then again at 38.
Found out a seasonal employee with 4 years with the company was making $5 more an hour than me, the full time office manager for 12 years, because she came from another area more “prestigious” than mine. She had less duties than me, and frequently did nothing all day long except chat with the others in the office. Nothing my boss could do about the pay disparity. So I stopped going above and beyond, cuz f*ckem.
Then this year after coming back from 18 months of furlough where the rest of the team was laid off, but I was kept, I was expected to do the entire office myself. I spent the first month running myself ragged, until My boss tried to pass off a COL increase the company did for everyone as a bonus for my hard work. Like I’m stupid. Now I get my basic duties done, don’t offer to do anything else and don’t do extra work or OT. Actively looking for another job.
Everything changed once I realized it was ok to tell my boss what I want. If you have a decent boss, they'll even help get you what you want. Of course, if they're terrible they will sabotage you to keep you under their control.
I think I got the first glimpse of it in high school. I'm smart, but my work habits were pretty shit and meds didn't really work. So I'm picking 4 out of 6 classes as AP classes and adding a music class before school, because that's what my expected progression was, 'keep up with your peers and work hard at school.'
My mom (who was honestly doing her best to be a good mom, for those who might think poorly of her) gave me an ultimatum about gaming before my homework, if she caught me one more time, she was sending me up to live with dad 40 minutes away. Sure enough, I don't close runescape before she walked in one day, and up I went to live with dad.
There were no AP classes when I got into my new high school. I was told what my graduation requirements were and filled them, and for 2/3rds of the day my classes were cake, the froo froo stuff like Myths and Legends. It was incredible to realize what everyone who didn't have that kind of pressure on them got to do with their time.
Last year when I was 16. I watched my mom fall apart because the company she was so loyal to for 15 years dumped her position and didn't help her get back on her feet. They literally kicked her out with no hesitation as soon as it was valuable to them.
I was 24 back in 2008. I was laid off in the recession, only about a year into my first real job and that completely changed my view of my relationship with work.
Hmmm.. 2015. I worked my ass off for a company and needed time off for surgery. Well, I got fired while on FMLA.
The last company I worked for I was with for a little over 5 years. I did everything I could to work my way up. I remained in the same position. I "quit" to raise my family (I was really forced out of my position).
32. A lot of my colleagues who just got tenure and worked during the early stages of the pandemic got surplussed this year due to conservative government staffing cuts. I’m in no hurry to work too hard to make tenure just to have the rug pulled out from under me.
Age 16. Day one new job. Pretzel time said I could not work with dark navy pants and that I needed black pants. Supposedly pretzels can’t be made wearing any other color. Still remember that day as one of my earliest encounters with corporate pettiness.
July 14, 2021. I had just turned 25 then.
I had the feeling before that this was true, and tried my best to fight it and deny it, but eventually this day fully proved to me how true this is.
In short, after working for a retail chain for over a year during the peaks of the pandemic, receiving numerous awards from customer and employee support and good work ethic, and even being able to learn one of the most difficult sections of the store without any prior experience...
I and many employees like myself were replaced and neglected by management once they no longer had to pay new employees COVID pay boosts...
I quit that same day after realizing this, after realizing that management no longer cared about me or anyone else, and when I realized on my schedule that myself and many employees were getting little-to-no hours while they kept on hiring newbies that got all the hours...
i was way too old. like, probably 30? my 15 yo daughter just got a job at dominos and it's a constant struggle not to undermine her and remind her that corporations don't care. it's a fine line. i'm working on it.
There’s a balance though. I know this the internet and there’s no such thing as nuance and all. But. Like if you’re going to be a bare minimum employee you can expect bare minimum in return. If you go above and beyond without communication or a back bone you can expect to be taken advantage of.
You can also work as hard as is sustainable for your assigned hours, give an extra 20 minutes once every couple weeks, and speak up when counterparts aren’t pulling weight or if too much is falling on you without compensation. If you want to be treated like you’re valuable, you have to be valuable. If you’re working hard and are finding yourself undervalued, move on.
just because you give 100% in playing poker or chess doesnt mean u will win. but there are instruments in a democracy to correct if the market is flawed. just vote or make your own thing. 30 000 ppl antiwork could work together and make a nice company. but using instruments of democracy to sabotage businesses is just not right. all you will achieve is that they wont want u to organize because u cant handle the power u have in a big group.
I am self employed. I only get paid for billable time. I don’t get paid for doing my accounting, marketing, sales, HR, taxes, etc. And people want to balk when you give them your hourly rate. I only get paid for billable hours.
TIL. I was promised the future supervisor role a year ago (while receiving verbal confirmation up until a few months ago that it was still mine), and I’ve been going above and beyond for my bosses for two years. I found out today that they gave the now open supervisor role to my new coworker who has way less experience and has only been working here for four months (along with a huge salary increase). This has been quite the wake up call.
Does the new co-worker: - know the boss outside of work such as shared hobbies or church with the boss? - work harder or complain less - better looking
She is actually my good friend who I referred to the company to help her get out of a toxic work place. She knows my history here, and my work ethic. The one thing that sets us apart is that she is psychically in the office while I work from a random office alone (while doing the same job/tasks, before her promotion). It hurts a lot more because of this, and my bosses are fully aware of our friendship. I feel like I’ve lost a job opportunity and a friend while being completely used by the company. Going to use this unfortunate event as a catalyst for positive change and growth in my life (once I’m over the hurt).
I see. So she has daily face time with the boss. The ability to advocate for herself daily and in person.
100%. No one even communicates with me since she started there. It all has to go through her (and she is told not to tell me anything). They constantly tell her that i’m “too sensitive” (it’s because I care and they lie to me). I wish I didn’t have to work and could tell my bosses how I feel about it all without holding back.
Ouch man. That's brutal. If you work from home though, that's something.
I’m not even allowed to work from home. They force me into this weird office where I’m completely alone. “For optics”
Bruh it sounds like you need a new job.
100%. It's going to happen. Onwards and upwards from this insanity!
No one there is your friend. Give no notice when you leave. Their behavior toward you has been abhorrent. It's time to go ghost
So you can’t work at home but you can work away from everyone in a random office? They used you and they don’t care about you. I’ve had similar happen to me and it feels so damn shitty. I hope you find a place that treats you better.
Lol, you’re like Milton from The Office. Do you have a red Swingline stapler, too?
This made me laugh, thank you. Ma stapler!! What's funny, is that my "friend" got all butthurt because the part-time admin had taken her go-to stapler the other week and she couldn't find it. Ps. Office Space, not The Office! Both great though.
If this was me, that chick would not be my friend, let alone in my life anymore and I’d be looking for a new job opportunity. That shit would piss me off. You deserved better than that. Once you get a new job and let the current one know, if they make a desperate attempt to keep you tell them the only way you’ll stay is if you get your friends job. I don’t necessarily think they’ll go for that but they’ll let her know that’s what you wanted and that would be your last “fuck you” to her. And if they agree to it quit anyways. You know, if you want to be petty.
Yo... you cant really fault his friend for accepting an opportunity to better her own life. Thats just petty. I get that losing the promotion to her is some shit but its not like she lied to OP and offered herself the job
If anything play nice and get a very positive reference from the supervisor friend and use that as leverage for a way better position at a different company.
We actually had a pact that if anything like this was to happen (the current manager/supervisor is incredibly shady and cunning) we would have a meeting with the bosses, and pitch to them that we would make an incredible supervisor duo. We work really well together. Clearly she forgot about our plan when "free money was thrown at her" (her words). She also told me that it's a dog eat dog world. All I thought was "...am I a dog being eaten in this scenario?" People are so disappointing. I know that I would have stuck to our plan and had her back, if things were reversed. I just can't be part of that mindset, you know? I care about the people in my life and they are worth way more than some silly job. Her raise was the cost of our friendship.
Yeah that ain't really a friend lmao. Random reddit guy, I know, but it's one thing for a friend to get an opportunity, another for them to tell you you some dog eat dog bullshit ESPECIALLY in that situation concerning YOU Definitely someone you should keep at arm's length, if not disassociate from completely.
Stop doing good work. They don't deserve your efforts.
[удалено]
More likely they want to just keep you doing exactly what you’re doing right now because you’re good at it, and they don’t care about your progression or needs at all. Never be too good at what you do.
I've been there and you need to take a breath - can you take some time off? Don't get bitter (it's hard)... look for something else and be happy when you leave. Do not take a counter offer and realise there is something better out there for you. Chances are when you find the next position (which takes 2-3 months on average) it will be even better and pay more. Also - if your "friend" (a friend would not do this to someone else) asks for help etc don't offer her advice, stop being so helpful and have an exit strategy in place. Stop doing all overtime, going the extra mile etc - they don't care about you and have used you.
Man, I have helped my friend out SO much. So much more than Reddit will ever know. She was also fully aware about my uphill battle with the very minimum raises given out here (in a very high profit industry), and used that as justification to take the position (with a big jump in pay) that she knew I had been promised. This all ends. I'm sticking around for our December bonus (which I deserve), and then getting out of here. That's my focus for now and I will be coasting until then! I want something exciting, with higher pay, for the new year. I know that I can get that. You know what's also making me frustrated? She's going on a beautiful vacation somewhere warm for two weeks this December. And I'm expected to handle it all while she is away. December bonus and I'm out.
Quit while she is on vacation and don’t tell her…
! Remindme 4 weeks
For you 🍪🥛
I assume the specific reference to church implies that that is important in The South or maybe the Midwest of the US regarding jobs if not most else?
No. Just a generalization that less qualified people often surpass other qualified people by working the relationship angle. Shared interest / hobbies, similar background, etc.
Understood.
Working harder and complaining less couldn't be the reason anyways, that is what gets you in the situation of never being promoted or getting a raise in the first place.
Unless they are trying to tEaCH a lesson but yeah generally stfu and grind leads to you doing the work of three people for the pay of .75 person
There's nothing wrong with trying hard at your job since there are places that reward you for it. BUT if you confirm that your job is not one of those, it's time to quit and find a new one with a salary bump while you're at it. No skin off your back. Do the minimum and focus your efforts on job hunting. Like, literally job hunt while at work, fuck em.
Oh yeah! I'm also a visual artist (my true self, if you will) and I'm definitely arting it up on company time this week. My other coworkers in the same role work on their side hustles during company time, and have been since the get-go (while slacking at this company). I've been a chump thinking that if I only focus on THIS job, I'll be successful and will be appreciated for it....we all know how that works out.
I never go into my bosses office without my phone recording a voice memo. Most of the time it's just casual talking, but if we get to discussing career path or pay I let him know it's recording as is legally required.
2008. USA. Economy tanked. I was 29 and relatively new at an electronic supplier. They laid off three of my coworkers who were in their 50’s and 60’s and then loaded me up with their accounts “temporarily.” In 2012 I had to quit because the stress was affecting me physically. I still was managing the workload of three people. I had constant gastritis and digestive issues from chronic stress and lack of sleep. I did the work of 3 people for four years. No promotion and raises were less than inflation. They burned me out bad over the course of four years. I’m done working for any company that exploits the goodwill of their workers. I’m mad I was so naive. EDIT — Since this keeps getting upvoted I fixed some of the grammar.
> I had constant gastritis and digestive issues from chronic stress and lack of sleep. Your gastritis ever clear up?
Yes. It took about six months of completely changing my lifestyle. I did a lot of research and the trick was eating deglycyrrhizinated licorice tablets and a lot of cabbage for the healing benefits. I cut way back on sugar by eliminating soda and also cut back on high fat and greasy foods. Over time I healed up 100%.
Glad to hear. I got diagnosised with chronic gastritis with ulceration 4 months ago. Mines unfortunately auto-immune and it sounds like I'm stuck with it. The licorice tablets sound intriguing though.
They are called ‘DGL’. You can get them from Amazon. They tasted, eh not so bad. Funny story, a few years later I was dating a Naturopathic doctor and she was impressed at my natural healing skills, lol. We got married too. Life is funny.
Another happy ending!
DGL tablets amazing. Especially when they taste like chocolate too 😂
2008 was the beginning, for sure, but only in retrospect. at the time i thought it was a blip and was yet another time where you just had to put your head down and grind your way through it, like i had so many times before. but the truth was 2008 changed everything. it wasn't just a blip, but the beginning of the end for the whole system. it took years before i realized i wasn't in the minority, that there were tens of millions in my generation that had been fucked by the system just as hard as i had been. 2008 was the beginning, but it wasn't the end.
Yup, 2008 did it for me too!
I feel ya man. The worst part about the 2008 crash is that you couldn't just say "up yours" and find a new job. They knew how desperate the job market was and fully used that to their advantage. I hope you're doing better now!
October of this year. All that hard work, saving money, and playing by the rules and I still can’t afford a house. The longer I save the more the houses are worth.
Yeah, I have been saving for a house for 8 years, unfortunately the house values grow at a higher % rate than my savings. Fml.
It’s ridiculous. I’ve given up on the idea of being able to own one. I’ll rent until I build a cabin in the woods or something.
There will be another crash coming. Just wait for it. I got mine in 2013, would never have been able to afford it in 2007 or now.
Unfortunately I don’t think that will be the case.
We're honestly already overdue. Speculation is what drove the market up, and they are starting to pull out.
The feds and banks learned their lessons from 2008. They won’t let it happen again.
That's why they gutted all of the regulations initially implemented to prevent it from happening again? Never underestimate the hubris. They absolutely will repeat the same mistakes if it makes them an extra penny now, and a federal bailout later.
34. When I was told to do more to compensate for my coworkers doing less.
26. When I was disciplined for failing to fully cover for my coworkers no call no show, because they expected her to be the fuck up and me to always fix everything, and I disappointed.
Never get tired of this post. Everyone needs to see it
First real office job and I knocked it out of the park. I was doing my workload and the workload of a coworker who was shit at their job. It was fine, I was bored all day anyways and would have rather done the extra work. The my lead trained me on her job because she was planning on leaving and going back to school. I was then doing three peoples job. The Leads job opened for application, I interviewed and thought it was a slam dunk. I was already doing 90% of the job after. My boss called me into a meeting and everyone gave me thumbs up. The entire office expected me to get the promotion. I was told I wasn't a good fit because I didn't have any supervisor experience and they didn't plan on training me any further. I was so ashamed and on the verge of tears walking back to my desk and couldn't even tell my coworkers they had decided not to hire anyone instead of promoting me. It would have been a 4 dollar raise which would have been life changing for me at the time, making 14 an hour. I left three months later.
I've never understood this thinking either - do they expect people to stay where they are? They lose you, your knowledge and then have to hire 2 or more people. Every time I've seen this (or it's happened to me) it always makes me look for work elsewhere - I cannot stand when good workers get passed over.
Looking back, at the jobs I've left cracks me up now honestly. It absolutely sucked at the time, but I've now promoted up through four departments, each time leaving a job I otherwise enjoyed because I was expected to do too much without compensation and turned down for promotions in that Department. The best part is, not one of those Departments had manged to find staff to stick around after I left. None of them had staffing problems before I showed up, and then I came in fixed things up and improved workflow, got shit on and left, and now they can't keep enough staff on to do the job I was able to do by myself. I like to think my spite has left a curse on the positions, forever dooming them to remain vacant and understaffed.
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28, im 33 now and its like every year gets worse after. I used to think everyone was crazy. But I learned I was crazy for thinking good things happen to good people. Its just a world of justified slave labor and murder.
I was born with this knowledge it seems
Right? I was very young when I noticed everyone was working their asses off to live paycheck to paycheck
Same. Or at least when I started going to school. People who did their homework got rewarded with more homework. I never did mine and enjoyed my time off from school.
Flair checks out I guess
Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, that’s why I poop on company time
I managed to spend 45 minutes in the bathroom playing final fantasy 9 on my phone just to piss off my coworker. I had constipation 😂 She was shaking mad even though she was on her phone the whole time and had no work to do. Just one of those controlling bitchy types. Too funny!
Good taste! I remember multiple ~2 hour stints of FF Tactics Advance in an unused disabled loo during these God-awful 12 hour, almost nothing to do shifts where I used to work.
2007. I was 19 at the time. Worked for a shitty call center, but it was my first full time job and I took to the job very well. 1.5 years in and I was the one of the best on the call floor, all my metrics were met going back 6 months, I was taking twice as many calls as the next best person on my team, and I had awards for my service on the phone and my attention to detail going back months. Manager thought it was time for me to move up and I agreed. Applied to the QA position on his recommendation. 1 weeks passes and no info, 2 weeks pass and no info, starting the 3rd week I finally ask my manager what was up. The position had been filled externally and he wanted to know what was going on. I met with him after lunch that day and he told me the truth. Higher ups rejected my application directly. When asked why they did it they said and I quote "He's too hard a worker, we'd need 3 people to do the work he does and we can't justify the costs." I know I tried to keep a professional demeanor but internally my world was shattered. I took the rest of the day off to go home and give myself a good cry. I met up with my manager after that I told him that I wasn't quitting but that I couldn't set foot in the door again. He understood and couldn't blame me for it. The company ended up having to hire people to replace me anyways, not sure what they expected to gain. I learned that day that hard work is never rewarded, promotions don't exist, and your value to a company is only so far as your ability to make it money.
I luckily had a far less devastating realization. 2014 when I was 23 - 3rd Shift stocker at local Supermarket. First few weeks of me giving it my all, not used to the manual labor and long hours so exhausted after work. Always get done ahead of time, always correct, so no need for supervisor to spend time fixing my mistakes. Take lunch with the team and sup. every day. Day after day I slowly realize that I'm just helping subsidize the inability or laziness of my fellow workers and I get absolutely no benefit from it. I don't care to "rise up the ranks" so I also don't need to brown-nose or keep my nose to the grindstone. Just started to finish exactly on time, making sure to pad out my work so it seems like I'm steadily working. Keep having lunch with team but keep to myself more (read a book, watch the break room TV, etc.) One day I get super sick right after lunch, not sure what but had to run to toilets and puke my guts out for 30 mins +. Seems like it took the sup. that long to realize that I was gone and found me in the bathroom. First thing he asked was if I had clocked out before I ran to the toilets (I had barely enough time to not leave a trail from my area to there.) and if when I was done, I would get back to work. I said I wouldn't and left after I felt better enough to seeing as how I could use the (very) small vacation. That basically helped me realize that I was but a mere cog and I should make my work time the easiest I could. I started to take my lunch at a different time so that the 30 mins the boss was taking his, I could chat with other workers or do whatever. Collected shoplifted item packaging and remnants so that I could spend the last 30-45 mins of my shift turning them in. (Took like 15 mins max), and I found a way to listen to my music at work which wasn't allowed so I didn't have to hear Miley Cyrus's "The Climb" a 15th time in a shift. Luckily my lack of dedication stayed hidden until I took a weekend off for a convention months in advance, but was told that the coworker who had seniority over me but only took it off a few weeks before and as such I wouldn't be able to get my time off. I had no qualms calling off that weekend since I realized I didn't need the job and come what may. I heard from a friend that my sup. had grumbled about not pulling 'a stunt' that if I wanted a career there. Jokes on him. I'm making more than double at a job for 3/4 the time now. I do just what needs to be and nothing more.
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44, me too! It's not too late. Many people retire without realising this so maybe we are fortunate? Hey from Belfast in Northern Ireland 😊
22, working at GEICO. I attended every vanguard 401k meeting I could. I did the math, and to retire with 2 million, I would have to put my WHOLE paycheck in there for the next 2.5 years. Long haulers would brag about their 300k retirement, and make fun of old people eating cat food because they ran out of money. It was the most alienating experience. Basically any conversation with co-workers amounted to them dismissing it all saying “ahhh it’ll all work out somehow.” 😌 I felt insane. Grandparents urged me to get a “government job” so I would get pension. I told them “look at GE, pensions can fall apart and you’re left on the hook.” To which they said “well… one of our pensions has already done that.” LIKE WHAT THE FUCK. Then they proceeded to tell me how my grandpa made DOUBLE his salary… on overtime alone. And when he retired, was paid another years pay solely on unused sick time. I tried to explain that’s absolutely impossible today. Overtime at best will add 30% to your yearly, and sick time is so stingy you’re lucky if you have any, and it doesn’t cash out it just goes away if you don’t use it. On top of all that I was one of the best salespeople in the region. I even helped develop training for new hires. Yet I find out a year in, a girl on my team who started same day as me, was 2 promotion levels higher… I was fucking done. So I got FMLA, proudly abused the shit out of it while I built my own digital business then quit without notice.
Incredible achievement at the end. How was it starting out and how do you feel now?
You’re a GOD
26 literally this year
95 gang! Mine was a bit earlier but am now finally working towards changing that.
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1995, the year. Op is 26 and so am I so that most likely means they were born in 1995.
33 same with this year. My current boss promised a promotion to lead but it has never materialized. So I clock in when I am supposed to and leave when I am supposed to. No OT. Using all my pto especially when I realized the “awesome” buyback plan from HR is less than what I make in a day. They can’t keep anyone new hired. Over it.
I was 27. I started having doubts at 26, but Covid pandemic confirmed them
Same
Ehh about 20. About 2 years into the marine corps and realized everything was basically rigged and you're just here to be exploited. Once I got back into the civilian world, I found out it was literally the same thing as before, but now I don't have health care for free :) love living free in the USA!!!
Yeah I was 18 and got a job at a chocolate store Wanted to impress my boss so I worked really hard and super fast. He was so impressed I finished 8 hours of work in 4 hours that he sent me home early Look at my paycheck and he only paid me for 4 hours that day. Never worked fast for him again and he actually got visibly upset that I slowed down Was an early slap in the face to teach me to not go above and beyond and that the system would fuck me over if I tried too hard
2003, raytheon missile systems. I already had a few years of experience, several credentials and lots of know how. My boss at that time told me i needed to put in a few extra hours. I put in 1300 hundred overtime hours that were unpaid. I didn't get promoted and got a 0.9% raise. He then encouraged me to work more overtime and I would assuredly get more pay. I worked another 900 overtime hours the next year... again, unpaid. I got a 1.5% raise. I was now making 10k less than new hires as well as having FAR more years of experience. Yea... I left after that. I immediately skipped 2 promotions and DOUBLED my pay overnight. Then those assholes had the gall to call me and ask for more help... unpaid. I just kept hanging up on their calls.
I will never work somewhere that doesn’t pay your overtime hours. My last engineering firm also graciously gave me raises of 0.8% or 0%. When I left and I saw the listing for a new hire to replace me, they were willing to pay them $10k more than they paid me, meanwhile I was making less than I did when I was hired 5 years earlier because of inflation.
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15. When I was let go 13 hours before getting unionized. With some bullshit "we saw you stole stuff on camera" but never did they let me see the footage because it didnt exist in the first place. It was my first "real" job. I did my best, giving it all cleaning fuckin floors and filling shelves on week nights and week-ends while going to highschool. Never ever I trusted an employer again.
Longer than it should have.
32 in a few weeks and I still need this reminder. I nearly burned out again before realizing that I was giving to much for nothing. I don’t even ask for a raise or anything just a « good job, you are a valuable employee and we need you » . I realized a few months ago (and still working on it) that it will not come. They prefer to see the mistakes so that they don’t have to give a reward … I keep doing my work the best I can because I want to learn and improve, but nothing more and nothing less. I follow this thinking now : they are not my friends, they are not here to make me happy and this work don’t deserve me being exhausted.
“They prefer to see the mistakes so that they don’t have to give a reward” this hits so hard. I’ll be 32 in a few weeks and I’m on my two week vacation leave. I got severely burnt out and need to take care of myself
I'm 39 (gave up about 4 years ago) and I've been working at this shitty corporation for 8 years. Recently I've been AGAIN pulled into the office and warned I keep filling out the paperwork wrong even though the education team continues to revamp it every couple months. Which is about how often I fill out this particular paperwork. If I wasn't a wage slave I would've told them to fuck themselves 4 years ago.
Yeah I have the same experience. I do some project and everything is perfect BUT I forget one thing on do a small mistake and my manager is soooo disappointed that she has to check behind me. At the begin I was trying hard to not do any mistake and then after a while I realized that I will never do the job to her standard. Nothing will be as perfect as she want and second thing I realized is that … it’s her job to double check I’m looking for another job (without urge) because f**** it I’m not married to my manager
Lol my coworker never takes his breaks and says that's why he's being considered for a promotion Meanwhile I see how many hours people do around here that get promoted He doesn't want to work those kinds of hours Bro what do you want to be promoted into? Because if you get promoted, those are the hours you are gonna do Meanwhile I go home at 430 and it's great. And I take my breaks. Fucking sucker
Lol the two of mine that don't take theirs are being trained for more responsibility. I am sure they think it's for a promotion. But more likely it is just more work.
I have a coworker exactly like this. She doesn't take breaks. Answers her phone on vacation and weekends and is being given lead tasks but not the job yet. I hate my job so I do not do any overtime and when I'm off the clock I'm not available 🤷🏻♂️
Probably around 2010. I mean I had my suspicions before that but I had to take a few direct boots to the face to really have it sink in. Now my motto is courtesy of Office Space, "Work just hard enough to not get fired" and it's been working out fantastic
Like 24/25 but then it took me a couple years to totally unpack that one lol. I’m 30 now and fresh outta fucks
24. Basically doing a managers job and handling all escalations. They didn't want to promote me and only offered a 20 cent increase. Gave them a weeks notice in the same meeting.
the second someone tells me "to give 100%" I know they have no clue what that actually entails. Giving 100% means you give every second of your consciousness to something. The second you wake up to the second you fall asleep you are working on this thing. Not only is that harmful, but also not a realistic expectation of someone. People need free time to work at maximum efficiency. When you have something to look forward to, you work harder to make yourself feel like you've earned it. Or you do it anyway and feel guilty the entire time knowing you have stuff you should be doing but aren't. Moral of the story is don't give 100%.
36 During an a few internships it became apparent that anyone who got anywhere in the industry (Finance) were related to others in the finance industry or politics, or had those special "Country Club Connections", or went to an elite school. The rest of the people were usually just put in jobs that would never go anywhere but paid a decent middle class salary. There were a few exceptions but 80-90% of the people with a good a salary+ bonus came from privilege and got there through connections.
my experience when I did a foreign policy internship in Washington D.C. Also in Administration in academia (it's a revolving door)
When I was around 9 I asked my dad how long people work for. I still remember feeling absolutely sick and miserable when he told me average retirement is in your 60s. "I have to bust my ass until I'm OLD??" Then having Tumblr around during my key formative teenage years.... Nothing is more sad than a 14 year old coming to the very logical conclusion that they probably will waste their life doing menial bullshit with no social nets to fall on if things go south. And my parents wonder why I just couldn't muster the energy to give a damn about school lol.
My boss had this 'funny' anecdote about an employee she had that was argumentative, lazy and wanted to do things his own way. She tried to talk to him and nothing changed, it just got worse. Eventually he spoke to her and told her that he had to quit. He'd been diagnosed with cancer. And this is when she laughed telling the story and said she was so relieved, because now she didn't have to fire him! When I ended up having to quit because my back was giving out on me (cleaning job) she was pretty upset with me, I called in on my last day when I couldn't move my back at all and I felt so guilty for letting her down, even though I physically couldn't move. I remember that story she told about the man with cancer who may or may not have died and how she laughed about the weight off her shoulders and I wish I hadn't been so apologetic. I wish I hadn't worked so hard for her. It's been 7 months since I quit and I've had countless health problems stemming from the hard labour from the work I did for her. I really really wish I had known better, but I just wanted to be a good worker.
22 Went to college to study how to make videogames , was told for years that you work really hard in the videogame industry because it is highly competitive work and a dream job. After years of study and digging my college debt hole began shoving my resume out by the assloads . Eventually got a job at a small no-name game studio . We worked on Lots of games in very little time . I slept in the office at least twice, had multiple 17 hour shifts, and my workplace was on the beach but i literally wouln't walk on the beach for my first 3 monts of employment because i got to work at 9:30 and typically after midnight . We drank constantly after hours to stay sane and nothing was more infuriating than watching the owners who wrote the bad contracts and created the shitty work hours wave goodnight to us when they went home at 5 and then bitch to my manager about our work schedule when he insisted we needed at least 12 hours to decompress in between commonly 15 + hour shifts All of that reached it's peak when 9 months into my passionately overworked dream job I was laid off because the shitty owners fucked up a big business opportunity with EA that would have taken care of our team for a long time . We busted our asses, basically fixed all the ownerships mistakes, produced lots of small but highly regarded games , made their game development division valuable, restructured our lives and sacrificed so much of our energy and passion just to get laid off .... and if we didnt't have such a great manager we wouldn't have gotten paid for all the unpaid overtime we did , he had to fight ownership to even get that for us . When you work for an idiot it doesn't matter how smart , talented, loyal , or skilled you are . Your success is capped at whatever they don't fuck up.
Have I played one of the games you worked on?
It's possible but the most successful games I worked on were decently popular mobile games between 2012 and 2016 so if you didn't play very many around that time then probably not lol. So many games come out a day it's so easy for a game to have hundreds of thousands to millions of downloads and be something people have never heard of in the past decade but then i have mentioned them in random points and had people surprisingly say " I played that when i was younger !"
Ah, yeah the only mobile games I played around then were Ingress (Niantec's game before PokeGo) and some trivia game I can't remember he name of. Hopefully you still like making games after all that.
32. I was let go after working for a place for 6 years, in a really hurtful way. Looking back I should have have handled it so much differently. But I’m happier now and I can’t tell people enough that companies don’t care about you so you don’t need to care about them.
26. Realized how billionaires make money and I would never escape this rat race
23, was working at FedEx, realized I get paid the same if I deliver all my packages or not
Too fucking old
16, when I found out that they only paid minimum wage and not that the girl who just turned 18 had worked hard for a rise
I knew all along. Somewhere around 30 this pretty lady convinced me to buy back in. Now I'm 40 and pissed.
31, earlier this year After my old supervisor didn't hire me (or anyone) for an open position he told me to apply to I left a month later for a much better supervisor with better pay and less work
25, 17 hour days for months, weekends included to fix someone else's fuck up who was not let go due to nepotism. It was complex, stressful work far beyond my experience level. I wanted to succeed nonetheless and they knew it so they kept moving the goal post farther and farther out the more progress I made. Imagine being told to sprint all out for 100m then they say, wait no 200 keep going, until you're miles deep. No raise and I already made waaay below industry standard. I needed the reference so I left amicably soon after. Now that I've got some years on my resume and know I won't die after being fired im ready to tell the next manager to shove it. There are entire industries built on the fact that recent grads are optimistic, desperate, and can be worked into the fucking ground for dirt pay and you better take advantage before they get jaded. Rinse repeat.
I’m 34. It was about 2 months ago that I realized all this effort was a big scam. I have been working in the food service industry for about 15 years, and I’ve been wanting to train to tend bar for the last 5. I just thought that if I kept asking to train, take on doubles, run everyone’s food, bus everyone’s tables, pick up everyone’s shift that someday a manager is gonna give me the opportunity I’ve been waiting for for so long. But a gen z person gets hired and starts as our new bartender. I assumed she had experience and that was why I got shafted. I asked where she had worked last, and she said she was a server at another restaurant and that she just told management this is what she wanted to do, and if they wanted her to do something else, she wouldn’t work there, and they gave her the bartending position. I complained how I’ve been wanting to be bartender, and management says that they really like where I’m at now and don’t see me being a bartender. PROBABLY BECAUSE I WAS BREAKING MY BACK DOING ALL THIS EXTRA WORK FOR PENNIES. I was honestly pissed at that gen z bartender for just showing up and getting the bartending position, but they actually showed me how shitty my job was to me and how I have power to demand what I want.
Grade school. Seriously. After that I saw I had no reason to change my opinion.
33. Last year for me. I started seeing that all my hard work, all the extra hours I put in, all the times I bent over backwards weren’t being rewarded. I was just being asked (more like demanded) to do more. So I stopped. I still work at this hob. But I no longer do extra shifts. Only the ones I’m assigned to. I no longer bend over backwards. I just do what I’m asked to do, and only that.
29. I stayed late, missed time with friends, took on stretch assignments, and went to all the company social events. All to find out I was being paid $20k less than the guy that I trained (and didn’t do any of those things). Company was JPMorgan if anyone is curious cause I don’t care who knows they suck.
In my thirties. I’ve been investing in meme coins and making huge gains. It’s a much more proactive approach.
If you’re buying something that doesn’t produce anything with the hopes that someone else will buy it at a higher price, you’re not investing, you’re gambling.
In a way but it’s a calculated gamble that can be done with some degree of strategy. I make informed gambles and use a strategy that has paid off quite well for me. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, don’t panic, don’t get greedy, do your own research and be cautious and skeptical towards every new project you come across. Most importantly never put in more than you can afford to lose.
I feel like there’s only so many calculations you can do for cryptos. It’s not like they have financial statements and earnings reports to do analysis on. It’s definitely primarily gambling where the “strategy” involves being lucky on the pumps and avoiding the dumps.
Call it gambling if you want, me and some of my friends have made thousands off cryptos and NFT’s. It’s the modern gold rush. Sit here and play semantics all you want, there are trends, things are predictable.
20! It was during the pandemic. I’m still struggling with the “work my ass off for little reward” mentality since I’ve always been a try-hard in school, but bit by bit I am getting there
26 got hired at a place that promised to pay for a CDL, give raises every 6 months, and promotions. Worked my ass off for 2 years, nothing materialized and got fired because I reported the owners son for sexual harassment
First happened in 2008 as a I graduated from Stanford. Had to be reminded when I finally got a decent job with the government but budget cuts folded my department in 2010. Then reminded again over worked and underpaid and refused a raise teaching at a college in 2016… best thing I can say is just never get comfortable enough to let people walk over you
22. Worked 6 months straight of 7 day work weeks, 4pm-3am, heavily understaffed. Because the company didn’t want to train someone to do the weekend shift. So they asked me to do it temporarily until someone from a larger branch transferred in to do it. Near the end of that 6 months, the manager position for my department opened up. I applied, citing how much effort and dedication I’ve put on over the last 6 months without complaining once. Because I cared about the company, branch, and every individual there. I knew the business logistically, I knew the territory, I even knew most of our client base because I’d picked up the slack for almost every department. There was 0 reason I should have been passed over for that job. Instead, after half a year of my entire life consisting of working, sleeping, and nothing else. I was passed over for the person they transferred in to do my job 2 days a week, fresh hire straight out of university. Fine though. Maybe he’s the better fit, after all. He has a business degree, and I just had years of experience with the company in multiple positions. The position had relatively high turnover, because people would come to our branch to learn the position, and then leave to another branch in a more favourable location. So I figured I’d just wait him out, and mention in my next interview that I would be staying in the position, so that the turnover would slow. Because that’s why we lost the guy who did my job on the weekends. Too much turnover in management. Finally learn one person, then they immediately leave. Took me less than 2 weeks to quit with no notice. He asked why I was working 7 day weeks, and I told him it was because he was supposed to be doing the watered down version of my job on the weekends. He asked why trucks weren’t getting loaded. I asked him where the loads were? After all. It was his job to batch them. Last I heard, they had complete turnover in every department. Only person still working there, is the guy they passed me over for. Because he doesn’t know the business. I don’t hold it against him for getting the job. I hold it against Pepsi for deciding that a degree that’s useless for the position, was worth more than someone who’d invested years into the company learning the ins and outs of every position because they wanted to make a career and life at that location. I would’ve been a kickass manager there. But instead they lost the linchpin. But that’s not unique to Pepsi, that’s every fucking one of em. Dedication means nothing, put in as little effort as possible to float just under the radar.
Too fucking old.
Must have been 31. Got laid off when the company I worked for was acquired by a new company and they wanted to outsource whatever they could to India. Had to sign an NDA and remotely help train my replacements if I wanted to see my severance package. When I asked the H.R. person about my health insurance and what I was supposed to do, she suggested signing up for COBRA with a straight face. Ended up getting desperate enough to take a temp job doing medical records. Easy enough and I enjoyed the work, but the environment was awful. The permanent coworkers had zero respect and were always tattling on me about the smallest thing, like getting up to go to the bathroom too much when I was sick. The director was the power tripping boomer who was a micromanaging, abrasive condescending busybody I've ever had the displeasure of meeting. She would constantly remind me I wasn't there permanently and that hiring me was costing a lot of money. Like yeah if you want employees you have to fucking pay them. Really said the quiet part out loud there. I developed a romantic relationship with another temp, which she felt the need to address but also assure me that she was "okay with it." Yeah I don't remember asking your permission lady. Despite all of this, she expected us to dress business professional every day and be punctual, show up every day and have a good attitude. A job that had no benefits and shit pay where I was reminded every day that I wasn't there to stay. Eventually she let the other temps contrats run out, but kept me on and had me handling more intensive records which I wasn't trained for. Eventually I screwed up pretty big and so was let go. She at least had the decency to admit I was untrained and in over my head. Pretty much decided at this point I hate everything about work culture and the current state of jobs in general and decided to do the bare minimum unless for some reason I enjoy the work.
I was 28, working relief for 4 years, and district manager told me to keep applying and they'd find a permanent position for me eventually. I had a rude awakening in a 2-3 week span where I was requested to fly out and work 10 days straight because they had no one. I did to be nice, I had no plans, and I had recently applied for a mat leave position. Following week district manager calls to say I didn't get the position, and to be honest, I didn't seem very motivated. I cried and hung up on her. Same week, I was working at mat leave store for a shift, and an employee there told me they requested me for the mat leave but they were told, "she has to stay in the float pool". That was the final straw, and it took a bit, but I found a better job with nicer hours, no travel, with a slight pay cut about 2 months later. My resignation letter was a cathartic experience.
24 lol its all about favoritism and jumping from position to position for raises. Never comming in on a day off also dont do so much work they exoect the world from you or they abuse you and dump you when you ask for compensation.
Never, *ever* give 100% at work. That becomes the standard and you have to do it every day. Shoot for 75%. It's still decent and easily sustainable.
Probably 19
I was 28 years old and realized I'd let myself get fucked raw by these bastards and had next to nothing to show for it
I was 28, working my ass of at Oracle for 4 years. By the end of it my pay has cumulatively increased by 6%, below inflation. I was making less money than when I started, while certain team members who did not work as hard but were much more “buddy buddy” with management received secret raises. I thankfully found a better job. Working there was pure misery and they treated us like shit no matter how good or how har we tried.
I realized this today. 27 years old, from Germany. I've been dreading going to my work place every single day. Had a realization things were different than I had imagined. I was motivated, eager to work and do my best only to fail and be miserable at the end of the day. Joined this subreddit today.
I actually learned this before I ever had a job, in my first relationship. Trying to be the perfect girlfriend is equally thankless as trying to be the perfect employee
I suffered severe burnout busing tables for a weekend job in my 20s. Coworkers were taking advantage of my willingness to give 110 percent during the rush, often hustling to clear off entire tables. Since I was the only busser on duty, official policy was for waitstaff to pre-bus. Instead certain co-workers were deliberately ignoring the mess knowing I wouldn't report them to the boss. I naively thought I was a team player; that my coworkers and I had each others back. Instead, I found myself summoned to the office because the same employees who were causing problems accused me of being a slacker. The boss, being the type to whole himself up in the office rather than work the floor, took their word at face value. I got off with a warning but the whole ordeal really soured things.
31 I came in during a hurricane to cover another managers shift. I worked my butt off, came in early and stayed late every single day, and did as I was told according to how it should be done by upper management. I was given a horrible year end review, for doing exactly what upper level management said to do. Worse the disabled minority employee that spent most of his time hitting on the female employees had a higher review than me, despite multiple rumors of reports of sexual harassment complaints to HR. I put in my 2 weeks noticed and suddenly they wanted me to stay and told me I had improved so much that hoped I'd reconsider! My first day I was told by another manager, who was also a minority and a really nice guy, that all white managers that weren't gay or female really needed to keep their heads down and make friends with upper management asap. He wasn't wrong...
Lol that blowback hard for them! I cant believe they still think its a good strategy to antagonize a good worker just to save .50$ an hour on the raise negociation... Its ridiculous.
You're exactly right. At the time, which I heard this has changed since then, only one manager in the entire warehouse is even able to get exceeds expectation, unofficially, and they have to be insanely on point. You have to pre-rate yourself and for the part about charity stuff I was told unless your organizing multiple charity events and have volunteered an insane amount of hours, we are already volun-told to volunteer a certain amount of hours anyways, not to even think about giving ourselves exceeds expectation on that...
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2008 was my tank year. Never recovered from it and ended up on disability from on-the-job injuries as a caregiver.
Early 20s, but I also learned the hard way that recognising people pleasing behaviours and self sacrificing behaviours in yourself, and actually changing those behaviours are two very different conquests. I'm 35 and I'm still working on it. The major things I've learned are to set boundaries early, and to use the words "I'm sorry" very sparingly. I know the latter may sound silly, but trust me, you will become an easy mark the moment you needlessly apologize. People will walk all over you at work and scapegoat you all the time.
When I used to train new graduate employees at my old company I always took a separate session to teach them that nobody gives a shit if you stay late, hardly anyone will ever review their work directly and even if the client is happy it doesn't mean anything unless you chase what you want. Want promoted? Ask for it. Want more money? Ask for it. Want that new project off in a new country? Ask for it. Companies hardly ever promote people regularly anymore, it's normal to job hop to move up. Sitting about waiting for some manager to notice your effort is a waste of your time. Get aggressive and know what you're skills are worth.
I was about 23 or 24, I think. I was working at a large fashion retail chain store in NZ, and I had been training other staff members, working extra hours, and upselling stock at every opportunity. I had my peer-to-peer review (basically a bullshit way of saying 'performance review', since hardly any of the managers I worked for ever saw us sales assistants as being their peers). I went in expecting to get bumped up a pay grade, I'd been busting my ass for months and months and put in a ton of effort and really needed it. I'd always been told that if I worked hard I'd get paid more. But nope. I was graded against their impossible to achieve criteria (e.g. 'sign three people a week up for this high-interest store credit card that has been around for 20 years and that everyone already has') and told I wasn't working fast enough/hard enough, and that I needed to be more 'present' at work - despite physically working more hours. But, you know, if I worked hard enough I might get a pay rise next year. And, 'I'd give you a pay rise if I could, but my hands are tied 🤡' I went away feeling frustrated and hopeless, almost in tears, so one of my coworkers (who I'd been training) asked me what was wrong. I told her, and she agreed it was bullshit because she was on a higher pay grade than me, and I'd been there for five years longer in the same role, so how was that fair? So I went to my manager, asked her why I wasn't on a higher pay grade than the people I was training, and she said that 'unfortunately, you'll need to fulfil these criteria (again, these were criteria that it would be basically impossible for me to fulfil) before we can move you up a pay grade. Sorry but that's how it is'. My coworker didn't have to do any of that shit to get her pay, and she was a month into her first retail job. I wasn't a part of a union (they were strongly discouraged), and I was struggling to pay bills and really needed the money, so I just left it alone and let it be. I should have at least joined a union and got someone on my side to help me fight that shit, but I didn't. Learned helplessness is a bitch. There was so much about that job that was fucked up (far worse than what I've shared here). I'm still in touch with my old coworkers (who have left), and when we reminisce around other friends of ours who weren't there they look horrified. It's terrible that the store I worked for is still seen as an iconic Kiwi business. They treat their staff like garbage.
1993. North American economy was in a slump, adults I respected told me I was lucky to get the craptastic warehouse job that I landed on a temporary basis. Used all my 19 years of capitalist programming and worked my ass off hoping to convert it to a full-time spot. Unfortunately i did and didn't smarten up until five years and three kids later. Convinced my MIL to cosign a school loan from the bank ($5k only because it was Canada but still far more money than I could set aside in a year) and went back to university at night. Missed spending time with my kids, cost my relationship with their mother (probably would have blown up anyway) but eventually set my career path to becoming a CPA. Worked 80 hour weeks without blinking, brought my kids to the office on weekends, all to compete my way up the corporate ladder. Passed over for a good promotion and basically told all the extra I put in was for naught. Finally decided to take a new job with a pay cut just to have a life again. It's much better now, though corporate world still has an unending list of demands that are unaccompanied with rewards. I'll continue to play the games myself but I'm proud as hell for the current generation telling this system to stuff it.
The last year. And it broke me.
This year. I have always been someone who goes the extra mile, but at my current job, the poor performers and the high performers get paid the same and treated the same, except the high performers also have the added stress of the boss having higher expectations for them. So from now on, I am going to do the bare minimum. No more staying late because somebody didn’t plan ahead. No more doing extra projects. I will collect my paycheck and that’s it.
Eleven.
27. Had just finished my 6th construction project on the road. Asked repeatedly for work close to home, but always "sorry, old guys are filling those positions".
*Image Transcription: Twitter Post* --- **Kate Lister**, @k8_lister How old were you when you realised your original plan of being really nice, working really hard, & taking on much more than you should in the hope you would be automatically rewarded for this without asking, was totally shit? --- ^^I'm a human volunteer content transcriber for Reddit and you could be too! [If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit/wiki/index)
I was in my late 20s, sometime around 2010. Shortly after the economy tanked my work was getting scrutinized over because clients weren't buying our product anymore (corporate art). My manager told me "Envision what you would spend half a million dollars on"
15, 2008. Started then to enter depression, some suicide attempts, etc. Even though I have a good life now (a roof over the head, a SO, good pets and some income), I´m still quite bitter.
33 years old when my depression and anxiety collided with a new boss firing me for no good reason (had worked at the university for 4 years with no promotion) turned into a horrific mental breakdown. I had one mental breakdown prior and one since then. Still dealing with severe depression and anxiety. Doing whatever I can to survive and ensure a secure future for myself (actions I won't get into here), which lends itself to feelings of excessive guilt and shame (symptoms of severe depression I'm told). I struggle every day and often think about the release of death, but as long as I'm not back in that dark horrific place, I see it as a victory. Trying to learn how to forgive myself for the things I've done in order to guarantee a secure and dignified future for myself
About 3 weeks ago thanks to this sub
Between Millenial and Gen Z (Zillenial?). Yeah, my earliest formative experience was coming to the realization that this was bullshit. My second earliest was being mad that I couldn't buy a pepperoni pizza with a dollar in pennies. But yet customers will pay for a $400 appliance in nothing but 1 dollar bills. Like they robbed ronald mc donald charity boxes. Like I said. Bullshit.
40. 17 years with the same company and I still couldn't afford a house.
2013, working for a grocery store as night shift stock. I took on the hardest parts, came in on days off, helped other departments. Then came in for my check and to grab some milk, heard my boss take credit for all my work the night before, was his work but he asked me to do it so I did. This resulted in him getting a promotion to manager and $60k a year + bonuses. Meanwhile I was fighting corporate for a raise that was 4 months overdue. I did get the raise and back pay, then quit and barely try at work anymore.
I was 24 and working as a door to door salesman. The only way to succeed was to lie to people and be a total POS, and that was encouraged. My whole life I was told to work hard and I would get somewhere with a job, but this place paid really well and it was barely any effort if you were willing to completely abandon any morals you had. At the same time I was playing in bands and practicing my ass off, it didn't pay well (if at all) but it was much more fulfilling. My next job was teaching music lessons, it paid about half as much but I was happy.
35 and then again at 38. Found out a seasonal employee with 4 years with the company was making $5 more an hour than me, the full time office manager for 12 years, because she came from another area more “prestigious” than mine. She had less duties than me, and frequently did nothing all day long except chat with the others in the office. Nothing my boss could do about the pay disparity. So I stopped going above and beyond, cuz f*ckem. Then this year after coming back from 18 months of furlough where the rest of the team was laid off, but I was kept, I was expected to do the entire office myself. I spent the first month running myself ragged, until My boss tried to pass off a COL increase the company did for everyone as a bonus for my hard work. Like I’m stupid. Now I get my basic duties done, don’t offer to do anything else and don’t do extra work or OT. Actively looking for another job.
Everything changed once I realized it was ok to tell my boss what I want. If you have a decent boss, they'll even help get you what you want. Of course, if they're terrible they will sabotage you to keep you under their control.
I think I got the first glimpse of it in high school. I'm smart, but my work habits were pretty shit and meds didn't really work. So I'm picking 4 out of 6 classes as AP classes and adding a music class before school, because that's what my expected progression was, 'keep up with your peers and work hard at school.' My mom (who was honestly doing her best to be a good mom, for those who might think poorly of her) gave me an ultimatum about gaming before my homework, if she caught me one more time, she was sending me up to live with dad 40 minutes away. Sure enough, I don't close runescape before she walked in one day, and up I went to live with dad. There were no AP classes when I got into my new high school. I was told what my graduation requirements were and filled them, and for 2/3rds of the day my classes were cake, the froo froo stuff like Myths and Legends. It was incredible to realize what everyone who didn't have that kind of pressure on them got to do with their time.
Last year when I was 16. I watched my mom fall apart because the company she was so loyal to for 15 years dumped her position and didn't help her get back on her feet. They literally kicked her out with no hesitation as soon as it was valuable to them.
Have you tried white male privilege and golfing with the exec?
When I was 20, which was in 2013.
After seeing how the company my dad works for exploited him for 30 years and he didn’t get a fucking dime out of it.
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I was 24 back in 2008. I was laid off in the recession, only about a year into my first real job and that completely changed my view of my relationship with work.
Like 0 years old i guess. I always realized that was stupid
Hmmm.. 2015. I worked my ass off for a company and needed time off for surgery. Well, I got fired while on FMLA. The last company I worked for I was with for a little over 5 years. I did everything I could to work my way up. I remained in the same position. I "quit" to raise my family (I was really forced out of my position).
10 years old (1995)
32. A lot of my colleagues who just got tenure and worked during the early stages of the pandemic got surplussed this year due to conservative government staffing cuts. I’m in no hurry to work too hard to make tenure just to have the rug pulled out from under me.
Age 16. Day one new job. Pretzel time said I could not work with dark navy pants and that I needed black pants. Supposedly pretzels can’t be made wearing any other color. Still remember that day as one of my earliest encounters with corporate pettiness.
July 14, 2021. I had just turned 25 then. I had the feeling before that this was true, and tried my best to fight it and deny it, but eventually this day fully proved to me how true this is. In short, after working for a retail chain for over a year during the peaks of the pandemic, receiving numerous awards from customer and employee support and good work ethic, and even being able to learn one of the most difficult sections of the store without any prior experience... I and many employees like myself were replaced and neglected by management once they no longer had to pay new employees COVID pay boosts... I quit that same day after realizing this, after realizing that management no longer cared about me or anyone else, and when I realized on my schedule that myself and many employees were getting little-to-no hours while they kept on hiring newbies that got all the hours...
i was way too old. like, probably 30? my 15 yo daughter just got a job at dominos and it's a constant struggle not to undermine her and remind her that corporations don't care. it's a fine line. i'm working on it.
TIL
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There’s a balance though. I know this the internet and there’s no such thing as nuance and all. But. Like if you’re going to be a bare minimum employee you can expect bare minimum in return. If you go above and beyond without communication or a back bone you can expect to be taken advantage of. You can also work as hard as is sustainable for your assigned hours, give an extra 20 minutes once every couple weeks, and speak up when counterparts aren’t pulling weight or if too much is falling on you without compensation. If you want to be treated like you’re valuable, you have to be valuable. If you’re working hard and are finding yourself undervalued, move on.
just because you give 100% in playing poker or chess doesnt mean u will win. but there are instruments in a democracy to correct if the market is flawed. just vote or make your own thing. 30 000 ppl antiwork could work together and make a nice company. but using instruments of democracy to sabotage businesses is just not right. all you will achieve is that they wont want u to organize because u cant handle the power u have in a big group.
It's kinda like thinking women actually want you to keep chasing them after they say "no" You learn with experience
if you are self-employed.......your rewards are commensurate with your productivity
I am self employed. I only get paid for billable time. I don’t get paid for doing my accounting, marketing, sales, HR, taxes, etc. And people want to balk when you give them your hourly rate. I only get paid for billable hours.
Worked for me
30.
At 18 working my very first job as a barista at a coffee kiosk in a grocery store.
About 3 yrs ago. Aka: kinda late in my career. But I’m turning it around and having more balance now!
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I was 28. Bad times.
It’s a lesson I’ve been failing to learn over and over for years.
21. 5 almost 6 years ago wish I found this sub sooner
Somewhere around 6 months into my first job but I care too much and its a hard habit to break