FAIL Blog

Employee Doesn’t Know How To Respond to an Overly Excited Email Announcing RTO: ‘I have a whole system at home: two monitors, good headphones, my coffee setup, my dog asleep under my desk. None of that is coming with me’

Olivia Arocena — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 10:45:00 -0700

Are we really that excited to return to the office?

Every week, a new scary RTO Reddit story emerges from the internet's trenches. We've finally gotten used to our work-from-home routines, only for them to come and take them away from us.

Now, all of a sudden, we have to think about traffic, vehicles, public transportation, fees, getting dressed elegantly, sharing with other people, preparing your food the day before and putting it in a lunchbox, and a long list of unwanted etcéteras.

I really don't understand why this is such a common tendency when everybody is having such a good time at home. Maybe they could offer the possibility for those who would rather go to an office (yes, they exist, and sometimes, I'm one of them) because it helps with time management, getting out of your house more often, and interacting with other people, basically.

At least for this employee, it will only be three days at the office. When all of the working-from-home thing started, I thought it was going to change the world so fundamentally that a lot of people would move out of big cities and the world would reorganize itself, and in some way it did, but right now there is definitely something pulling us back to old habits. Should we conform? And also, am I the only one who doesn't want to return to the office at all?

At least for me, going to the office should be reserved for days when you need to get out of the house a little and interact, something like that, at your own pace, but well, we'd have to restructure the entire economy of the world to do that, wouldn't we?

Free-thinker proposes middle schools should abandon academics, teaching students trades full-time: 'They don’t wanna sit in the classroom, and I don’t think they should.'

Emmy Pratt — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 10:00:00 -0700

That's certainly a unique idea!

Remember 10 years ago when everyone and their mother was telling young people to get degrees in computer science and learn to code? These days, that advice is incredibly outdated, but there was a time when everyone thought that was the only way to get financial security. These days, those same people are telling everyone to go to trade school instead of getting a traditional four-year degree. The guy who wrote this post is probably one of those people, and I question his judgment regarding pedagogy.

21 Cooking Fails for Optimistic Home Chefs Learning to Trust the Process (August 26th, 2026)

Cata Holmes — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 09:00:00 -0700

"Trust the process", they said… "It'll be fine", they said…

This time of the week has come, and it's one of the ones I enjoy the most. By now, cooking fails have become so familiar to me that I've fixed the issues that not being able to cook had caused me. And yes, I used to feel very bad about not being able to prepare a good dinner for myself, but I'm totally over that… I think.

The truth is that I don't have another choice, to be honest. Cooking is something that you either master and are super good at it, or you don't. There's really no in-between point. Well, maybe there is, because I know some people who can cook good dinners but are very bad at baking… or people who can cook but aren't fans of making bread. Anyways, I'm already starting to ramble.

If you're someone who can indeed cook and it's somewhat good at it, I don't think this is the story for you. Sorry, but it's the truth. But if you're like me and you were never able to master that thing we call cooking, then you're in the right place, my friend. I really hope the fails that I selected this time are going to be as funny as they are to me.

Laughing about the fact that I can't cook has really helped me get through that early disappointment, and had force to look for some other hobbies, and that's how I fell in love with running, actually. But that's beside the point. I think that when we are not good at something, we truly should keep trying until we come to the realization that that thing is not for us. It takes some time to reach that point, and a lot of things need to be happening for us to understand that maybe cooking… is just for other people.

If you're still at that point of realizing that these may or may not be for you, I'm here, and I encourage you to keep trying until you figure it out for yourself… in the meantime, enjoy these cooking fails!

Ohio homeowner returns home to find his neighbor's contractor has accidentally demolished his garage and things are missing from it: 'I really don't want to keep paying out of pocket while their insurance drags this out'

Brad Dickson — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 08:15:00 -0700

A contractor demolished much of this homeowner's garage after confusing his property for his neighbor's. Now the contractor's insurer is nitpicking and trying not to cover the full rebuilding cost.

It's always tricky when you start getting into market value and depreciation with anything. Insurance, resale, or otherwise.

42-year-old wife's birthday party facing complications after her sister got mad at her for supposedly not accommodating her husband's nut allergy: 'She went on a complete guilt trip, saying how "surprised and hurt" she was by our lack of consideration'

María Cetra — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 07:30:00 -0700

Not everyone is acting against you!

It has become insanely common to read stories where someone feels as if some people were doing things on purpose to bother them. As if they were actively looking for ways to make their life more difficult. They even believe that this kind of attitude is coming from friends and family members. People that supposedly love them are out of nowhere acting in favor of making their life harder. You hear how insane that sounds? I don't know if this comes due to entitlement or if there is something deeper to all this. They really believe they are being damaged by their loved ones out of spite or something.

The story of u/alalufra seems to be just another example of how persecuted these people feel just because they are not getting exactly what they want the moment they want it. Even though the family was actively looking for ways to accommodate the allergies the sister's husband has. But the fact that they were going to provide safe foods and safe dishes to eat and stop the risk of getting in contact with nuts wasn't enough. By the way, this person does not have a problem with being near that food. So the whole birthday wasn't an issue whatsoever. The real issue was, in fact, the people invited. They are the ones who had a problem with the accommodations, not the allergy.

These people need to understand that nobody is trying to damage them. They were invited to the birthday party because they are well-liked by the family. They were going to receive accommodations because the birthday girl really wanted them to come, and they were kind enough to explain this even before they asked because of how much they appreciate them. But no, these people can only see the bad side that doesn't even exist to begin with. Whatever. Is best to uninvite them and avoid a bad moment during the birthday party. And even take this into account the next time the family is thinking of inviting them to anything.

Tennessee employer gleefully changes projected profits following the wake of Dolly Parton's passing, planning on an economic surge from those chasing the icon's legacy: 'My boss posted to the message wall about how the company is gonna make lots of money'

Brad Dickson — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 06:45:00 -0700

Sometimes the context of a message is more important than the message itself.

This is an important thing to remember for leaders who may not fully grasp how their communications come across to staff.

This employee, who lives and works in Tennessee near the Dolly Parton statue in Sevierville, says their boss announced via a company messaging app that Dolly's reported passing would bring the business a surge in revenue. The announcement was oddly gleeful, and the disparity between the cold announcement and the absence of any remorse.

Well-reviewed employee is suddenly put on a PIP after asking for a raise: ‘If stepping back wasn't possible, why offer it? And if they simply want me gone, why not fire me?’

Olivia Arocena — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 05:00:00 -0700

Is this a process HR initiated or some obscure managerial tactic?

Something about this story is fishy. The timing is just off. Everything was going well, and he was receiving very good feedback until he asked for a raise, and suddenly a lot of 'anonymous negative reviews' started coming up out of the blue.

In an ideal world, the employee could contact HR, and they would protect him or at least try to intervene in the PIP with a little extra organization, but if you ask me, I think no matter what he does, he is already cooked.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I don't know a single example of somebody who has entered a PIP and survived. The only thing one can do in those cases, in my opinion, is to use the PIP time to search for a new job.

Obviously, asking for a raise shouldn't be viewed as a crime, but some organisations would rather dispose of anyone with ambition and hire a person with less experience who is willing to work for less money. It is just how it is.

At any rate, my opinion is very biased and very negative. Do you think this company is really trying to assess a normal productivity issue and is willing to keep this employee?

Or are these kinds of processes always a tactic? What do companies really get from PIPs if that were the case? Because if they fire him in the end, they will still have to pay compensation, right?

Guest brings cupcakes to friend's yard party, friend gets annoyed when she offers them to people without asking: 'She asked if I could buy more'

Ally Perry — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 04:15:00 -0700

If you bring food to a party, do you have to give up the right to know what happens to it?

Hospitality is a wonderful thing, but the nitty-gritty of how it should work can get complicated at times. In theory, all somebody has to do to host a good party is plan an event and create a good atmosphere, but the tiniest of details can end up having a huge effect on whether they are successful with that or not.

You don't have to be an event planner to acknowledge that refreshments of all kinds are a big part of party planning. Anybody who RSVPs is likely to want to be greeted with some kind of spread. Whether you do everything yourself or propose a potluck, there are multiple ways to go about this.

One thing is for sure: it is easy to turn a good party into a bad one when you start to get weird about the food and drink. Every host has their limits, but ultimately, they benefit most from engaging in some well-managed generosity with their guests. Nobody likes to attend an event where somebody is obviously being stingy, for whatever reason.

'My dad turned into a furry': The cringiest midlife crises that people have had

Ally Perry — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 15:35:00 -0700

Life catches up with you before you know it.

Some people like to say that life is short; others say that it is longer than you think. One thing's for sure: we often perceive time and the age we are differently depending on what stage we are at. When we are kids, the years seem to go on forever, and as we get older, they pass by with an alarming speed. One day, there is a chance that we will wake up and feel the weight of every single hour we have ever lived up until that point, but it is also possible that we will slowly turn into one of those 80-year-olds who claims to feel 21 on the inside.

Given how weird and variable our experience of time can be, it is no wonder that it sometimes ends up influencing some strange decisions. To a certain extent, deadlines aren't real, and we can do almost whatever we want at any time in our lives. However, it is naive to assume that we can make radical changes and not expect other people in our lives to raise an eyebrow. While it is vital for us to eradicate the part of ourselves that cringes, there are occasions when it could be helpful to pay attention to it now and then. That is one of those things that is timeless.

Girl forbids her roommate's boyfriend from coming in during the week after he ate all the food she prepped for herself without asking: 'I finally lost it'

Giuliana Tiscioni — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 14:15:00 -0700

What do you do when people don't respect your property?

Every human has the right to establish boundaries regarding their personal objects, interactions with others, and a number of other things. When other people don't respect those boundaries, each person is completely justified in enforcing them in the way they see fit. Obviously, no one should exaggerate the situation, but it's true that some people don't get to understand the limit until you shove it in their faces.

That is pretty much what happened to a woman living with her roommate. They have an arrangement in which they share utilities but buy their food separately. They have different budgets and diets, so they just label what belongs to whom. The arrangement was working fine until one small incident happened. The roommates' boyfriend usually stays there a few nights a week, and he's mostly polite and doesn't get in the way, so they don't have any issues. That until the first woman came home from a long shift at work, planning to eat the food she had left in the fridge, just to figure out it wasn't there. At first, she thought she had miscounted and didn't give it much thought. But when the same thing happened two more times, she realized what was going on: her roommate's boyfriend was eating her food when he got hungry in the middle of the night. The roommate laughed it off like it was no big deal, but the first woman had had enough. She told her that now her boyfriend couldn't stay there during the weeknights as long as he kept eating her food (that he hadn't paid for or cooked, mind you). The roommate said it was unfair, and she was punishing her relationship for a little mistake.

It seems like no one taught the boyfriend how to read. If all the food in the fridge was labeled, why on earth was he taking things that belonged to his girlfriend's roommate? No one taught how to respect other people's belongings either. The solution was simple: the girl had to tell her boyfriend to stop taking things that weren't his. She didn't, and now she doesn't like the consequences. For people to live together in peace, boundaries must be respected.

Boss forbids supervisor from eating lunch with his employees because he thinks that socializing with subordinates will compromise work performance: 'I truly have a sick, sociopathic boss.'

Emmy Pratt — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 12:15:00 -0700

Shouldn't he want his employees to build close relationships with each other?

Everyone has a different opinion on friendships in the workplace. I know people who only hang out with their coworkers and don't have any other friends. They will go to Happy Hours five days a week and intentionally hang out with their coworkers outside of work hours! I can't imagine living that life, but if it works for them, then more power to them! Having friends in the workplace can be either really helpful or hurtful depending on how it works out. If you are able to maintain those relationships, they will be an important member of your network for as long as you live! If you and your friend have a falling-out, it's going to be awkward when you have to see them at the office five days a week for the foreseeable future.

Most of us are friendly with people at work, but aren't trying to make our work friends our best friends. You can give the PG story of what you did last weekend, but you're not going to tell them all of the crazy details. That is probably for the best. It helps you connect with your coworkers emotionally without compromising their perception of you as a professional. You don't want to end up as one of those people on the workplace harassment training video, do you?

A lot of workers don't like having any kind of relationship with their coworkers at all. They go to r/antiwork and talk about how annoying it is that we're expected to be friends with our coworkers in order to stay employed. Well, the guy in this story didn't do that. He took to r/antiwork to complain that his boss's boss didn't want his boss to eat lunch with his subordinates, aka him. Did you get all that? Don't worry if you didn't; it'll all make sense if you scroll down.

Neighbor uses homeowner's driveway as personal guest parking for the last three months, calls him “anti-family” when he wants to get her sister's SUV towed: ‘It's clearly marked’

Cata Holmes — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 11:30:00 -0700

Being a good neighbor is one thing, but surrendering your driveway in the name of keeping the peace is another.

What is it about neighbors that makes us always come across someone who turns living in a peaceful neighborhood into such a challenge? It's so easy for me: we all have our houses (and our driveways), and the only thing we have to do is respect each other's properties. That's it. So, when I read the story shared by u/tweekiezy so hard to understand, because there's this woman who is clearly crossing the line.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to use your neighbor's driveway… It's so easy to ask first, and then allow your guest to park their car there, if they're not comfortable with leaving them on the street. But they do need to ask first, because someone uses that driveway to access their home… I feel dumb even writing these words… feels so simple!

So why would you let your sister use your neighbor's driveway if you didn't ask first? This, of course, is going to cause trouble with the family next door, because you're not aware of what they're doing and whether they will need the space later that day. I realize now that some things are easier said than done, but when it comes to someone else's property, we have to be more careful and respectful.

And the cherry on top? The argument that developed due to the neighbor's relaxed attitude. When the homeowner knocked on her door to have that car removed, she responded, "to relax," since they were leaving "in a few hours". That's not an acceptable answer: if the owner of the driveway is asking you to move the car, you have to do it. Otherwise, the situation can get messier (which happened), and now there's a big issue with gossip on that street.

Like I said before: some things need to be addressed and asked before using them to avoid future problems with the people who are living next to you…

Job candidate pulls application after 8 interviews and when company demands ‘just one more’, shuts hiring manager down with a better offer: ‘Sorry it didn’t work out'

Cata Holmes — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 10:45:00 -0700

Job interviews can reach an extreme point where they feel like a full-time job you're not even getting paid for.

The people who are currently in the job market can confirm that it has gone insane. From the company's side, they know there're a lot of candidates for a single position, so they take the time to analyze and to interview all of them, and for the candidates, the wait can get so long without an offer that they end up feeling discouraged.

I don't really know the reason behind this, but certainly, it has turned into a very complicated game in which getting an offer sounds almost impossible. But I don't want to let anybody down… I'm here to deliver some positivity in this landscape and maybe share some helpful advice.

Or, at least, I'll try to get you something positive out of here!

In the story you're about to read, a candidate endured four rounds and eight interviews just to get him… absolutely nothing. But the worst part of all is that the company told him he was a perfect fit from the first day, and even made two false promises about an offer letter that never came. Because he knew that this was going to take a long time, we started having interviews in other places, hopefully, some more serious companies.

He ended up receiving an offer letter, but sadly, had to renounce the remote chance of getting the position in the first company, which sounded great and had some good referrals. When they told the hiring manager that he was going to accept this offer, they tried to convince him to have "just one more interview", but he knew where this was heading. If they were able to top that offer, then he was willing to accept it. But I guess the company was not really interested and told him it was not possible.

Sounds crazy to me that after eight interviews, they weren't able to provide an offer letter or any type of response… I don't know where the job market is heading with this type of hiring manager.

Successful lawyer expects her child-free sister, who's struggling to afford a family trip to Mexico, to babysit her two kids for free so she can have alone time: ‘She could cover a portion of my costs’

Cata Holmes — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 10:00:00 -0700

A week in a luxurious resort in Mexico sounds like the perfect place to disconnect and relax, but for this woman, the family getaway came with a big assignment: babysitting.

It's not the first time that I've read about a family vacation going wrong. It's something normal, and it tends to happen more often than not, and it's for one reason only: expectations. When we're kids, we spend vacations with our parents and have a certain idea of what going on a trip means and what things tend to happen, and which ones don't. However, as we grow up, this can change and vary.

And the situation with these two sisters is a great example of this. The story posted in r/familydrama explains that she's a teacher and that going on this trip means a lot financially, and that she's been saving up so she can afford it. Her sister, on the other hand, is a lawyer and can easily fund this whole thing for her husband and two kids also.

But the problem is not really the money, rather that the expections a previuosly mention.

The successful sister is expecting that the teacher is going to be able to babysit her kids during the whole vacation for free, so she can enjoy "adult" time with her husband. She's thinking her sister is not going to have any trouble, considering she's child-free and she loves them… but this has nothing to do with love. It's about everyone enjoying the vacation and disconnecting completely from the routine. Unfortunately, babysitting is not part of the plan.

What the Original Poster is proposing is that the sister should cover some of the costs of her trip if she's expecting her to take care of her two kids… which, to me, sounds like a fair arrangement. Although it's not what she would want (since she doesn't want to babysit at all), it could be helpful for her to get some help with money, and instead of paying her back, she can babysit both kids, and the problem is solved.

Coworker asks colleague to drop them off at the airport at 4am, doesn't understand that it's not normal: 'This seems a bit extreme'

JR Atkinson — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 09:00:00 -0700

Would you drive a coworker to the airport?

Driving anyone to the airport is a big ask, no matter who they are. Even if you live relatively close, it's a whole thing. There's always traffic each way, and if you don't time it exactly right, then everything falls apart. It's a stressful operation best left to your closest friends and family. You certainly don't have to go out of your way to do this for a coworker. It's best to keep coworker relationships to a professional level, and not ask too much of each other outside of regular work duties. If the boundaries get crossed, then you might end up in a sticky situation. It's best to err on the side of caution, lest you wind up ruining a work relationship. But when you're in a new workplace, it might take a while to get used to the kind of coworker relationships they value. It's different everywhere, and every job comes with a different set of expectations. Everyone has different kinds of approaches to this dynamic, and you might want to try and adapt to someone else's way of life before you foist your own upon the situation. But you're allowed to draw boundaries anywhere you see fit. You don't have to bend to someone else's desires just because they want you to. The employee in this story, who shared their query to the r/work subreddit, was in the middle of figuring that out.

Illinois company forces employees to use their own phones to authenticate into company systems, leaving them wondering who should be paying their phone bill: 'They say it's for security, but they won't provide work phones'

Brad Dickson — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 08:15:00 -0700

At what point should an employer be providing employees with a work phone if they are consistently being asked to use their personal phone for their work?

During one of my first "adult" jobs, I needed a cell phone. The company provided one for me, and that just made sense.

During my second job, I still needed a cell phone, but I was surprised by my new employer's reaction. Shocked actually. The regional manager had been going over requirements for communication and contact for the role. Essentially describing the use of a company phone. I asked him at what point of onboarding I would be getting one. His response? "What's wrong with your phone?"

That answered a lot of questions right there and then. And, I maintain, if your employees have aspects of their job that literally require a company phone, you'd better be providing one.

Overworked employee gets tired of his boss making him work after hours every single day, so he reaches out to HR and sends all the proof of the unfair workload: 'An email was sent to the whole company saying Mark was "pursuing other opportunities"'

María Cetra — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 07:30:00 -0700

Sometimes HR is actually on the employee side, and that should be celebrated!

Having a horrible boss that uses their employee to do the work that this person doesn't want to do is actually extremely common. Unfortunately, corporate life can be awful sometimes. Is great to have a steady salary, benefits, PTO, even coffee at your disposal during your whole shift. But there is a horrible thing on the downside. Like having a boss who takes advantage of you to do things that he doesn't want to do, like the one from the story below.

Sometimes we feel as if we are exaggerating something that we feel. When you are a student, you tend to think that a teacher hates you, didn't you? Well, that also happens in corporate life. Is not uncommon to believe that your boss hates you. This could be true, and then you would have an awful boss. Or maybe you are exaggerating and thinking too much about someone who barely knows how you are. This dichotomy is actually what sometimes makes us not speak up during something unfair. The fear of making a big deal over something that was actually nothing.

My genuine advice for this kind of situation? If you feel like something unfair is happening and you are being taken advantage of by someone in a higher position than you . Reevaluate the situation, watch it from another angle. Make sure that is what's happening and not some kind of confusion. If you bring to HR a situation that is actually a misunderstanding (or could be seen as one), then you are putting your job on the line. But if you are sure, speak up. Maybe you are lucky like this person and can get it all figured out for the better.

Company refuses to reimburse employee for business travel expenses, claiming they didn't follow policy, leading employee to spend double on the next trip: ‘They paid up’

Bar Mor Hazut — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 06:45:00 -0700

Sometimes, the easiest way to show someone they are wrong is by following their exact instructions and letting them deal with the consequences.

Even though most companies would do anything to save money by refusing to give hardworking employees pay raises or by piling up work on people instead of hiring more staff, there are still many ways these companies waste their precious money. Whatever they "save" by acting cheap in one department gets thrown away in other departments, even when there are plenty of ways to cut these costs.

When you work for companies like that long enough, you learn that even if you come up with a solid improvement plan to save valuable money in these wasteful departments, you will most likely be met with rejection. Changes are often too scary for big corporations, so they would rather keep at it with what they know than introduce a change they don't want to deal with.

The only way to show them they are wrong is by following their instructions and heavily hurting their pockets in the process.

Take the employee below as an example. This employee goes on business trips twice a year, so they are familiar with the business travel expenses they have to submit every time to get reimbursed. After a few trips, this employee realized there are much cheaper ways to manage these expenses, and even offered them to the company in an attempt to save the business a few hundred bucks every trip. However, since these cheaper ways did not follow the policy, the company refused to give them a try, even after the employee insisted they cut major costs.

It was only after the employee followed the policy to the point that the company truly saw how much they were wasting by not listening to the employee who just wanted to help. All it took was adhering to the rules, and the employee got the company to open its eyes to new possibilities.

Two-person office forced to use a fancy phone system with hold music, so workers play the owner’s son-in-law’s terrible CD as muzak, and the requirement gets dropped as soon as a VP hears it

Etai Eshet — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 04:15:00 -0700

Two office workers get a fancy phone system designed for a headquarters staff. The owner insists on hold music. The office has Slayer fans and weird music listeners. Neither personal collection fits a client-facing phone line

Unless that client is me, because I'd much prefer Slayer or something weird than the stuff organizations usually have.

I myself was lucky enough to have to call a certain service provider last week. A service provider that had the courtesy of letting you decide whether to wait for a representative to answer or have them call you back *sometime* if it's not urgent. Which in itself is funny because why would I choose to CALL if it wasn't URGENT?!

But what made it so fun was that they were so eager to remind me of that option that they had a muzak track of around 10 seconds playing and then a recorded bot message saying: to have us call you back *sometime*, press 1. To stay on the line and wait, press 2.

The track was 10 seconds long, and the wait? The wait was over 15 minutes.

Which means my phone number field was their number, then the numbers I pressed to get to the specific service I needed. Then fifteen thousand, twenty-one hundred, sixty-six consecutive TWOS.

So fun.

Anyway, the story below reminded me of just how fun that was, so I just had to tell y'all.

Now let's get to the story.

Dad refuses to pay for daughter's college tuition if she chooses an arts degree, despite being able to easily thanks to a $3 million inheritance, daughter and wife disagree: 'She absolutely hated this'

Brad Dickson — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 18:40:00 -0700

Is it better to be average or below average in a massive pool of graduates? Or excel in a niche field that you are passionate about?

Friend gets tired of carrying his friend's suitcase for miles, so he asked them to hold it for 5 minutes, and they denied, then he snapped in anger towards them: 'Out of anger, I said, I’ll cancel the hotel reservation since it’s under my name"'

María Cetra — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 15:00:00 -0700

Maybe a trip is the best way to find out if your friendship is real or not.

I'd be so sad if one day I'd discover that the people I consider friends for so long are actually entitled and ungrateful. But the worst thing wouldn't be the discovery in itself. It would actually be the fact that there were probably a bunch of signals before that I just decided to ignore.

People change, sometimes for good, sometimes for the bad. And people can, in fact, change dramatically and become unrecognizable, but it is not one day to the other. Is actually a process that takes time. Sometimes people were kinda awful from the beginning, but you didn't notice because it was just little comments that you didn't particularly like, but that weren't that big of a deal to actually condemn them. The actions took over. You started to feel uncomfortable, but probably brushed it off as just a bad day. Till you realize. You realize how awful they are treating you and how, for so long, you thought you were being understanding, only to discover you were actually just allowing this person to mistreat you.

And when you get tired like u/PutridSignature4927 did in this story. There is no coming back. The only solution is "grow apart". Which is just a nicer term for getting out of there. You may try to talk things out, and I would encourage that decision. But the truth is that nothing is going to change. Some people are like that, and we have no choice but to fully accept it and move on.

Content freelancer refuses to take client back after they tried to replace her with AI, then came back to offer 40% less than what they paid before: ‘They failed’

Bar Mor Hazut — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 14:15:00 -0700

They should have offered her 40% more, not less.

Anyone who has worked with clients knows they tend to approach any work you do for them as if you always have to prove why you are worth the money they pay you. Even though they willingly hired you to do the job, they still act as if they believe it's not worth the money, and they could have done it themselves for a lot less.

Most clients, once you actually provide the work, will come to the understanding that what you do is actually important to their business, while some will back out after a few months with the claim that they want to try to do it alone. Or, in the case below, with the help of none other than AI.

You know it is only a matter of time before they eat their hats and come crawling back to you.

This content freelancer, u/NegotiationStrict473, posted a story about how brands tried to replace them with AI and miserably failed. Like any business that just discovered the wonders of AI, they thought they could do their marketing alone with these tools and were shocked to see their numbers plummeting after posting these AI-generated videos everyone hates.

So, after this experience tanked, the brand had no choice but to come back to the freelancer and offer to take them back. However, after they stupidly cut ties with this freelancer and after they suffered from their experiment, you would think that they would offer to pay the freelancer much more than before. But no, the offer they put on the table was actually 40% less than what they paid the freelancer before they went the AI route.

So they broke the previous agreement, failed with their experiment, learned nothing, and then came back expecting a discount.

Even though the freelancer could use the money, they don't think it's right to accept this insulting offer. But what should they do instead?

Gilfriend gets upset at boyfriend for letting his friend come over for "boardgame night" with his new girlfriend, and she thinks that is breaking a boundary: 'This is the first time it happened, so I didn't know that we have this particular "rule"'

María Cetra — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 13:00:00 -0700

Maybe your girlfriend IS acting extremely toxic… And I promise you that is not good.

Relationships are weird, because imagine being one full year together and then discovering that your girlfriend is actually extremely toxic and insecure. Some people shouldn't be in a relationship. I don't mean that they should remain single forever. But maybe instead of focusing on finding a couple, they should be concentrating on bettering themselves and forming a better relationship with themselves and their self-esteem before jumping into a relationship. Not everyone is mentally prepared to accept an adult relationship, because part of it includes not acting like a teenager after every minimal inconvenience.

Jealousy is the way our brain demonstrates our own insecurities. Thinking that your boyfriend is cheating on you, whether it is true or not, is a representation of our own fear. The inside thought behind the pure jealousy is the fear that we are not enough, that someone better is going to appear and our lover will leave with them instead of staying with us. This kind of train of thought can have different motives. It can be that your couple is shady or isn't proving/showing you how much they love you, which makes you think that maybe they aren't fully interested in you. Or maybe it's just a representation of the fact that you don't even like yourself, so you don't fully believe that this person loves you.

Boss reschedules weekly 9:35 AM meeting to 9:32 AM, berates employee at 9:33 when he's a minute late: 'I would have assumed it was a mistake and still joined at 9:35.'

Emmy Pratt — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 12:15:00 -0700

What kind of boss schedules a meeting at 9:32 exactly?

If your day is made up of constant meetings, you know they can sometimes run over. You get into a flow state of talking about something, and suddenly you forget that you have a one-on-one meeting with your boss that you're 5 minutes late for. Sometimes, meetings don't start exactly on time because everyone is trying to figure out how to connect the Zoom to the TV in the meeting room so that everyone in the office can see everyone in the other office. You have less of an excuse for being late to a meeting when you're meeting in the same office as the people you're meeting with, but it's still not the biggest deal in the world, especially if you're only late by a mere minute.

If you work in an industry where people aren't crazy, you can be a couple of minutes late to a meeting without your bosses flipping out. There's a difference between it taking one minute to log on to Zoom and routinely being 20 minutes late to meetings. Any reasonable person would understand that, but the boss in this story is not reasonable.

For some reason, the boss of Reddit user RotaryPhoneDialer decided it was a good idea to move their Monday morning meeting, which is always at the same time. He didn't move it an hour earlier or later. He moved it three minutes earlier than usual, and then asked RotaryPhoneDialer why they were a minute late. Obviously, something fishy is going on here, and some internet sleuths offered their insights into why a boss would do such a thing to their employee. Spoiler alert: they might be on the cutting room floor soon.

'It all started when the internet...': Pour a dash of these laughs into your morning coffee for extra energy (August 25, 2026)

Elna McHilderson — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 11:30:00 -0700

Do you LOL every single day?

As a meme expert, I can say with confidence that you must meme every single day. Whether you create your own, DM the group with a million, or scroll through some to make yourself laugh, it is an extremely important part of your day. Why is that? Because a dad without LOLing is simply a day lost. You're going to tell me that you enjoy days when you don't laugh? When you don't even give a little smirk and blow some air out of your nose? Uh-oh, bestie. You deserve a better life.

Let me tell you about the days I did not even smile once: During these days, the light in my eyes started to leave, it was hard to talk to the people close to me, and my heart felt so heavy that I could hardly get out of bed. Searching for certified specialists helped a bit, but I needed something else. I need a way to smile, even just a little bit!

Cue memes. This was a tool on the internet that actually helped! Laughter, even just a little bit, every day started to bring the light back into my eyes. It also helped me communicate with close ones around me again, and sending memes to your therapist is also helpful.

So, meme on your lunch break, on the bus home, while you have a snack, or whenever! Just make sure you smile and LOL. It's worth it and us meme experts are here to help!

Employee accidentally exposes coworkers who were using AI to respond to emails and confidently providing wrong answers: ‘There's definitely a "well look who's the favorite now" vibe from a couple people’

Olivia Arocena — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 10:45:00 -0700

New issues arising with the AI revolution

I get it; it's a terrible position to be in. Sometimes we reveal things accidentally that compromise other people's work.

Low-key, we wish we'd never said certain things and that they were discovered some other way that left us out of the equation. If we're lucky enough, that could happen, but if we are asked about an issue directly, the chances of the issue revealing itself decrease a lot.

We'd have to lie and compromise our work ethic only to cover for someone else's mistakes. This employee got half his team put under review over a comment he made to a manager without thinking too much about it.

As bad as this sounds, I side with the employee this time because he was honest and didn't mean to cause harm. I think this was an honest mistake, but it could definitely cost him some friends at the office or mess up the work environment a little.

The other option would've been to keep quiet and talk about it privately with his coworkers first, so they would have time to fix their mistakes before they got discovered, but honestly, I think pleasing everyone isn't that easy, and that's precisely what happened this time. An omelette was made, and a few eggs were broken.

Sometimes, you simply have enough on your plate, and your manager comes in and asks you something, you simply answer with good intentions, and then it causes some trouble.

This employee posted this story on the /careerguidance subreddit and is asking what he can do, from now on, to improve his tense situation with his coworkers. What would you advise him to do?

20+ Jobs that sound fake but actually pay really well for those considering an out-of-left-field career change: 'Bear removal expert'

Brad Dickson — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 10:00:00 -0700

We're all searching for that job that pays really well, takes little of our time, and doesn't require that much effort, but still somehow leaves us feeling that our purpose in life is fulfilled. This job exists almost as a fantasy. And like being in an alternative "indie" rock band in the 00s or 2010s, you kinda had to be born into it.

Employee develops crush on boss, gets fired for not acting on it: 'I just wanted to do the right thing'

Ally Perry — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 09:00:00 -0700

Does romance ever have a place in the office?

The workplace has started many a love story, but that doesn't mean that all of them are good ones. When it comes to our professional life, developing relationships that are anything other than platonic and focused on the job comes with a lot of risks. If a relationship ends up not working out, then perhaps a career trajectory won't, either.

This is not to say that it is always a bad idea to date somebody who you have met through work, but it is definitely something to be approached with caution. We all know that relationships outside of the workplace can be explosive when they do not go well, and mixing in office politics can only make that worse.

From this perspective, getting romantic with a coworker is probably best avoided. If things go well, it could be the start of something much more enduring than a career, but if they don't, there are all kinds of problems that could happen. Blending these two areas of life together requires a lot of care that, quite often, those who pursue relationships through work are not interested in exercising.

'I’m sure plenty of people would find that pathetic, but I honestly don’t care’: 31-year-old man realizes the traditional life he envisioned isn’t really what he wants, and there’s no point in buying a house just for the sake of building equity

Olivia Arocena — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 08:15:00 -0700

Questioning Life Paths In Your Thirties

There comes a time in everyone's life when we can't help but question the path society expects us to follow.

Sometimes we question it and realize our desires differ from the ones society imposes on us, and we have to confront the fact that our path might look different from other people's.

In theory, all that sounds wonderful, but if we decide to live a life different from what was expected of us, we're met with a lot of resistance from the environment and sometimes, even from ourselves.

The fact that this person posted his decision on Reddit with so much peace shows me that he is about to live a life full of freedom and enjoyment, and that he is breaking free from expectations that didn't come from him or his family.

Luckily, in this day and age, there are lots of alternative paths you can explore without being judged, and in my opinion, this is one of the best eras to be different.

Once you make the decision, you tend to meet other people who think like you and realize there were always so many options available that you didn't know about. Some people say that's when 'the net appears'.

To me, it's never too late to live a life that we're proud of and march to the beat of our own drum. If we're not doing that, who are we trying to please, really?

This Redditor got this off his chest, and it got me thinking: am I living for myself? Honestly, I'm inspired.

Sister doesn’t want to babysit her baby niece as her daughter has just started daycare and now she has 6 hours to herself: ‘I just have zero interest in watching anyone else’s children no matter the circumstances.’

María Cetra — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 07:30:00 -0700

Being family doesn't mean you automatically become a free nanny.

Sometimes family members will assume that just because you are family, you have to do stuff for them without complaining. These activities for which you have to take time off your life to do are going to be called "little favors", but they won't be that little. They can go from providing a home to somebody to cooking or cleaning for them. They are actual tasks that take time and effort. And the worst thing is that you won't get out of them no matter how busy you are. They will be mentioned as "helping out", which makes them impossible to say no to or to be believed when you use an excuse to get out of them, no matter if the excuse is real or not.

The worst thing about this kind of commitment is that you never fully agree to them. It's mostly just something that is expected of you because you are related to the person who asked for the favor. In this story, the sister requests that the aunt babysit the niece. Why her? Because she's family. Why for free? You guessed it! Because she's family. Being related is the only explanation for these compulsory requests that have no way out. Or maybe they do, but you have to take into account the fact that if you get out of these tasks, then you will become a villain. A bad person that can't even do something for family members. But I will say, sometimes it is just better to be the villain.

Saying no can be extremely hard, especially when it's to family. But learning to use that powerful word in your favor will save you from becomimg a people pleaser. The word no is a way out. It makes us free. And we have every right to use it. That's why I fully support this woman, this aunt who already has a child that she wants to concentrate on. This mother who is tired and doesn't want to take more responsibility when she's already tired enough. But what do you think? Do you believe that we have to do everything for family? Or are boundaries our new motto?

Wife cheats on her husband with her boss, gets divorced and married to her boss, now she thinks her husband is cheating on her and gets mad at her friend for not supporting her

Giuliana Tiscioni — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 06:45:00 -0700

You reap what you sow…

They say friendship should be unconditional. The thing is, our friends sometimes do things that completely go against our personal morals and beliefs, and sometimes even the law. Forsaking ourselves in order to be "supportive" is not okay, especially when those people come back complaining and crying because everything went wrong. Each person is responsible for their actions and the consequences of their decisions. Maybe they don't like them, but they have to live with the choices they made.

A woman posting on r/AITH told the story of a friend who's not very happy with the outcome of her decisions. A few years ago, her friend Claire cheated on her husband with her boss, who was also married at the time. Her friend told her that what she was doing was wrong, but Claire insisted that she and her boss were in love. Eventually, it happened as it does every time, and Claire ended up expecting the boss's baby. Everything started blowing up in the air after that: Clair told the boss's wife, and she lost it completely and publicly shunned them both. The boss was crying and complaining, saying he wanted his wife back and didn't want the baby. When he realized his wife was not coming back, he proposed to Clare, and after their divorces, they got married. Fast forward to today, Claire is expecting their second baby, and she's convinced that her husband is cheating on her. She complains about it to her friend all the time, and the friend is exhausted. She told Claire she'd had enough, and she's done having sympathy for her, after which Claire accused her of being a terrible friend.

The thing Claire doesn't understand is that she's facing the consequences of her own poor decisions. She chose to cheat on her husband; she chose to marry a man who clearly didn't love her, and she chose to ignore her friend's advice. What made her think her husband wouldn't cheat on her as he did with his first wife? They say "once a cheater, always a cheater," and sadly, they're right. Claire might not want to acknowledge it, but in this scenario, she is the bad friend and the bad person, just like her husband.

Brands replace content creators with AI, when numbers tank they try to get creators back with lower pay: 'They are back in my DMs offering 40% less than what they paid me before'

JR Atkinson — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 05:00:00 -0700

The company in this story failed to realize that they no longer had the upper hand.

It seems like everyone these days is looking for a shortcut. Certain tools have found ways that companies can easily cut corners and get work done in less time than they did before. But does that mean you're sacrificing quality? Almost always. It certainly did in this situation. Customers don't like it when the companies that are selling to them treat them like they're easy to trick. Nobody wants to be bamboozled or have the wool pulled over their eyes, and AI-generated content is a huge way to do that. You may be able to summon up a video selling your product in a manner of minutes, for cheap or for free, but that doesn't mean it's going to be effective advertising. Customers can tell when you've cut corners, and they start to lose trust in the product. That's what was happening in this situation, which someone shared on the antiwork subreddit. They were a content creator who had a pretty longstanding relationship with a brand. They were providing a service for them and were enjoying the business relationship. Everything changed, though, when the brand replaced them with AI. You hear of this starting to happen, but this was an especially direct replacement. When the market responded with its takes, though, the brand came crawling back to the creators. The issue, however, is that they wanted to have their cake and eat it too. Keep reading for the story and see what commenters had to say.

Company forces fully remote employees to return to the office after 4 years of successful remote work, begins charging them $80 a month to park outside the building: 'I'm seriously considering just quitting over this'

Brad Dickson — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 04:15:00 -0700

This employer made office attendance mandatory… and then footed the employees with the bill.

Just who is going to give your company that next great idea, and who is going to put in all of that above-average work, when you've demoralized your workforce and forced out your top minds?

Manager cuts all employees hours from 30-40 hours per week to 10-15 hours per week, leaving facility barely functional: 'The AC was stuck at 82 degrees during the 95+ degree heatwave.'

Emmy Pratt — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 15:00:00 -0700

It's like they're trying to get their employees to quit!

If I were a manager and I wanted to encourage my employees to quit so I didn't have to fire them, there are a couple of things I would do right away. I would make sure they have extremely high expectations placed on them that even the most hard-working employee couldn't meet without hours of unpaid overtime. I would cut their hours so they cannot make a living wage, even if they beg and beg to be put on the schedule more often. If those things don't work, there are plenty of other ways to get people to want to quit! Luckily for my coworkers, I'm not an evil person, and I wouldn't do either of those things, even if someone asked me to. I think it's so cowardly to cut somebody's hours and hope they quit instead of just firing them like you want to. Sure, you might have to pay out unemployment or severance packages, but at least you can sleep at night knowing that you didn't intentionally cause someone else harm at the workplace.

Unfortunately, the manager in this story doesn't have the same ethics. One worker posted to r/antiwork to share his story of his manager putting employees in a genuinely dangerous situation while trying to force them out of the workplace. While commenters gave him good advice as to how to deal with this situation, it's hard not to be sad about the fact that this is even legal.

Man demands restaurant server leave him alone on first date, misses out on second date because of lack of service: 'My job is to guide people without being overbearing'

Ally Perry — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 14:15:00 -0700

Never underestimate the power of being nice to your server.

Anyone with common sense can understand that jobs that involve serving the general public can be pretty tough, mainly because of the people who seem to have no common sense whatsoever. What is even worse is those who clearly know better, but decide not to behave better because of whatever petty vendetta they happen to have going on.

For those who work in hospitality, healthcare, or customer service, it is usually just a part of their work that they have no choice but to deal with. When the customer is always right, taking too strong a stand against their behavior can put a much-needed job on the line.

However, there are times when the opportunity presents itself to safely teach a customer a lesson. While it might not make them learn in the long run, it is satisfying to bring these kinds of people down a peg. At the very least, the employee may not have to deal with the delight of their custom again. In hospitality in particular, it is wise to remember that the service that a customer receives is a privilege and not a right.

‘The pretty ones get picked first at the market’: Family makes nasty remarks to 22-year-old because she isn’t married yet

Olivia Arocena — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 13:00:00 -0700

Those dreadful family gatherings where everyone is suddenly interested in your love life

I don't know if it's just me, but I'm always on this side of family gatherings, and I have to say It's genuinely soul-crushing, and it's something that has to stop.

It's enough to have an entire society telling you what you should or shouldn't have accomplished by a certain age; we don't need our closest family members repeating the message.

Quite frankly, the message itself is dated. In the best-case scenario, the person receiving it genuinely doesn't want a partner or isn't looking for one, so the comment lands on deaf ears. But what happens when someone who is actively looking for a partner and can't find it has to listen to something like that?

Whatever happened to being kind? Do those people really think they are helping us find a partner by rushing us or saying that we can't do it because we're not pretty enough or are not trying hard enough?

I don't think commenting on anyone's relationship status is a good thing if it's not something the person being questioned generated themselves.

There is nothing worse than feeling lonely and rejected in the place you should feel protected and cherished. We all have our failings and our pains, and if we really see someone struggling in an area of their lives, we should try to find a way to help them, not mock them for 'failing', really.

Also, 'failing' for who? Who installed those standards and time limits in the first place? I'm not going to say she should 'cut everyone off', because I know that's extreme, but what would you do in her situation? Because I know trying to be strong isn't enough; those comments hurt even if you have the healthiest self-esteem.

Employee gets blamed for boss's poor performance after boss disappears for 6 weeks, employee collects evidence to show HR: ‘I had not heard one complaint’

Bar Mor Hazut — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 12:15:00 -0700

The best part of being a boss is blaming your mistakes on your employees. Isn't that great?

Think about it. You have a few employees under your wing who take your instructions and follow your lead when it comes to getting work done in your department. For all intents and purposes, they must listen to everything you say and work accordingly. What a fun power trip, are we right?

Not to mention, having people working for you means that you can throw them under the bus whenever you feel like it: missed a deadline? Blame it on the new hire. Sent a client the wrong document? Tell them you weren't even the one to make the document. Are you behind on all your tasks? Report to HR that it's some random employee's fault. You cannot go wrong if everyone thinks you did nothing wrong. And if your employees try to claim otherwise, well, it's their word against yours, and you are the boss.

If we were to step inside this boss's mind, we imagine his thoughts would sound something like what is said above. He had no problem disappearing for over 6 weeks with no explanation to his employees, and then blaming the team's poor performance on one of his top employees. Since he works remotely, the only one who actually noticed his absence was this employee, and while the poor worker tried to hold the fort while the boss was gone, they still received a warning from HR accusing them of a lack of productivity.

Obviously, the one who dropped the ball is the boss, but the employee would have to work really hard to prove they are not the one to blame. It takes a lot of work to get HR to take an employee's side over management's side, which means the employee could use all the evidence and documentation they can find. Will they be able to pull it off? Keep reading to learn.

Manager debates whether to warn employee that he's getting fired after helping him get the job in the first place, gets told to stay out of it: ‘Nothing to gain’

Bar Mor Hazut — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 11:30:00 -0700

What obligations do you have for someone you hired?

Most would say that since you got the person the job, you don't owe them anything afterwards. But if you know the person outside of work, you might feel differently.

Let's back up a little.

Imagine you work in a job you actually enjoy, with people you truly like and doing something that you really care about. Now, imagine a friend asks you to help another friend of theirs get hired at your workplace, so you do your best to help. You make the connections, you talk this person up, and you get them hired. So far, so good.

But since this person is just a friend of a friend, you might not know how they actually function in a workplace, and since you got them a job, you are about to find out. Turns out, they are not the best employee out there. They are lazy, have an issue with consistency, and often get distracted. Still, they manage to keep their job at your workplace for 4 years before their mistakes become too much for the company to deal with.

This leads you to find out that this friend of a friend, who has also been your employee for the past 4 years, is getting fired in a few days. Which leads you to question: Do you have a certain obligation to warn them beforehand, or should you just let it play out and stay away from the drama as much as possible?

While it makes sense for you to feel responsible for this worker, giving them a heads up might actually lead to more trouble, which is why most of the commenters on r/managers advised the manager to keep quiet and not warn this friend of a friend about their upcoming departure from the company.

Couple organizes wedding and decides to save money on food for their guests, only serving appetizers: ‘I, and about 30 other ravenous guests went to a pizza place across the street to eat’

Olivia Arocena — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:45:00 -0700

Saving money by avoiding food isn't an okay practice when you have guests.

Technically, it wouldn't be okay either if you were the only one starving, but at least you wouldn't be forcing other people to join you on the ride.

Maybe the couple could've told everyone who was invited that this is what they were going to be dealing with. Evidently, they knew that saying it out loud would've caused controversy, so they didn't. Maybe if they had told everybody, nobody would've even shown up to the party, and they knew that.

It's not that your friends only love you for what you can serve them, but it's normal that after 6 hours of dancing, they are hungry and they might want to leave to eat something (pizza).

I mean, they were clearly willing to pay for their food, so maybe they could've charged for it; at least they could have made that option available.

In situations like these, we see that for many people it's more important to organize the event and take pictures than to actually enjoy the party or entertain their guests. What's it all for in the end? For Instagram?

Anyway, let's read the story and conclude for ourselves whether the guest is exaggerating or this is a case of ridiculous priorities. Would you have done the same?

Sibling finds out that dad took brother out of his will without telling him, while he is still making plans, counting on receiving that money: ‘I feel uncomfortable knowing this and saying nothing.’

María Cetra — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:00:00 -0700

Maybe don't plan your financial choices with somebody else's money.

Something that is not exactly common in other countries that aren't the U.S. is getting to choose how much money and what of your things goes to whom. In most countries, if you pass away, your children get your inheritance. Maybe you can add somebody else to your will, but you cannot get your children out of your testament, at least not without proof that they don't deserve it. I think that getting to choose who gets what is great. It gives the person who has the money and property the right to give them to the person they want to, the person they think deserves it, not just who the law decides. But I also understand how it can be problematic.

If you don't have a good relationship with your children, it's not that weird not wanting them to =get your money when you are out of this world. You can think they don't deserve it. After all, those things that someone will call inheritance are your things. You worked hard for them. Nobody else. So maybe you should have the right to decide who you want to keep them with one day. I also understand that maybe you weren't close to your parents, or at least not as close as your siblings. And getting removed from their will because of it and favoring your sibling may be really hard for someone. Is not even about the money. Is about how displaced you may feel in that case.

We could discuss several things about the story. Like the fact that the father is expecting their child to keep a secret from their sibling about something of utter importance. But I think the worst part of all this is actually how the sibling is planning how they will use the money once they receive it, even though the parent is still alive. I think that no one should be making financial decisions with money that isn't theirs. And even less to be assuming that they owe an inheritance just because they are family. I would suggest this sibling concentrate on what they have instead of waiting for some money that is never going to come their way.

Company announces RTO, requires four in-office days, eliminates assigned desks, and tells workers to find whatever seat they can while executives keep empty private offices

Etai Eshet — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 09:00:00 -0700

Picture a company that treats office space like a budget airline. Everyone gets assigned a seat until they don't.

Then passengers fight over overhead bins and tray tables while first class stays empty. The executives keep their private offices. Those offices sit vacant most days because leadership apparently does not need to follow the same attendance policy they designed.

Boss denies employee’s bereavement leave, schedules "mandatory fun" team event after working hours instead

Brad Dickson — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 08:15:00 -0700

There's no fun that's as fun as mandatory fun. Especially when you have serious personal concerns that you can't help but let your mind wander off to. When the last thing you want to be doing is spending your evenings putting on a performance tor your boss and coworkers.

Really, the words like "compulsory," "mandatory," or even "obligatory" should never be used to describe "fun" unless there's an "is not" in there somewhere.

Couple shows up 15 minutes early to a DND session, which causes the master to start to state EVERY TIME that they can’t come before the arranged time: 'I'm just so confused as to why showing up 15 minutes before the agreed-upon time is so atrocious'

María Cetra — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 07:30:00 -0700

Maybe not everything is a right or wrong situation.

I love finding stories that make people disagree about who is wrong and who is right. We usually read about clients throwing temper tantrums in stores, or entitled coworkers who use other employees for their benefit. In those stories is always so obvious who is right and who is wrong. Maybe someone will disagree, but they are usually unanimous in their opinions. I like finding stories like the one from u/thatonestrangekid where we can discuss different points of view about a simple situation.

Just to get a brief summary, what happened is that a group of friends usually hangs out at a house to play Dungeons and Dragons. The DND (for short) Master is the one who hosts. He told everyone what time to be there and everything. One couple that was invited to the gathering got there 15 minutes early. They knocked three times before the master got out the door. He was severely angry at this, as they had arrived too early and he was still getting ready. After that event, every other time they gathered, this master would send very explicit messages reminding the attendees that they had to arrive on time, not before. Now the couple thinks that all the messages are a little too much for just one time they were early.

Now, we can say a lot of things about this. First that comes to mind is that if you are early, you shouldn't be knocking on the door multiple times. If you are early, knock one time and go wait in your car if no one gets out. Secondly, the master is taking it a little too far. They were just 15 minutes early, not an hour. And lastly, even though I get that this is too much with all the messages, I think the couple still doesn't get that being very early is also not being on time. But what do you think? Is there someone wrong and someone right? What would you have done if people arrived too early to your gathering? Is being too early not being on time?

Girlfriend confronts her boyfriend after she wanted to get a case of water that they saved for emergencies because she had finished the one in the kitchen, and her boyfriend said no: ‘His entire energy is clear that he doesn’t want to be around me’.

María Cetra — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 06:45:00 -0700

I get the prepping for the apocalypse thing, but maybe just buy groceries for the stash AND normal use.

I get that couples get into arguments. It's part of the deal. Especially when you are living with someone, is common to have issues between each other. It's normal and even healthy. But how the people that are part of the relationship react to the problem is the real question. If it's a debate where they try to compromise and pay attention to what the other person has to say about the matter, then I think that the discussion is going to be great for the couple. But if they get defensive and start blaming the other person for everything that's wrong with the relationship, then maybe break up.

You don't have to have a boyfriend. If he's not treating you right or how you think you deserve, then maybe give up. You can talk and try to fix things. But if every discussion just creates a horrible environment where you feel sad and lonely, then you don't need to stay with that person. Relationships can end, and it's not the end of the world. Is normal to have issues. It's normal to stop loving, is normal to break up. It's a mess up to stay with someone even though they mistreat you and make you unhappy. You deserve better than that.

So maybe the story below is just about how a boyfriend is so obsessed with having a stash of food that he can't comprehend that her girlfriend wanted water, and as there wasn't any, she wanted to take one of the cases from the emergency stash. But I don't think that the problem is just that. I think the real issue is about the lack of understanding and the poor communication that this couple is facing. It's not about "the thing". It's about how the boyfriend dealt with it, and, in this case, it was awful. So maybe it's time to take a look at your relationship and evaluate whether you want to stay in it.

Employee shows proof of why you should stop applying for jobs online: ‘Luck? Maybe idk but it worked for me. I think this approach is worth a try’

Olivia Arocena — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 05:00:00 -0700

Everything offline is cool right now

This is so true. I mean, I got my job by applying online, but that's beside the point. Most of the jobs I got in my entire life were found outside the internet. And it's not because the internet didn't exist (I'm not that old, thanks). It's because the selection process becomes much easier when the people who are going to hire you see how you present yourself and interact beforehand.

Right now, companies have AIs reading through thousands of AI-made resumes, and it's much harder to be selected, even if you are the most qualified.

This is only random Reddit advice, you can take it or leave it, but I think there is some truth to it. Of course, it doesn't work for every field.

In some companies, you can't even get to the front desk without being stopped by security, so you'd have to slide your resume under the door and hope for the best, and that makes absolutely no sense. But for a lot of industries, applying in person still works just fine.

To the 'in-person job applying' theory, I'd add that asking your friends and people you know about open positions you might be interested in has a much higher success rate at getting an interview than applying online.

I think this will be a tendency going forward; anything offline will be considered of much higher quality.

If you can prove you wrote your resume without using AI, you will instantly be considered a genius. If you have enough social skills to introduce yourself at a company and leave your resume, you will make a great first impression.

It always works like that: things that become scarce become more valuable, more chic, more elegant. So if you're looking for a job right now, I wouldn't completely rule out applying online, of course, but I would definitely ask as many people as I can about open positions at their jobs, and I'd leave my resume in person everywhere I can, especially if it is a small business and the owners are there.

Hey, I and OP might be helping everyone get ahead of the curve here, right?

Employee noticed that a coworker was stealing products from the store where they work, she took it to management and got fired, it was the boss's nephew: 'Over the course of three years, he’d taken over $10K in unpurchased merchandise'

María Cetra — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 15:00:00 -0700

She just tried to do the correct thing and got fired!

Doing the right thing sometimes puts you in a worse position than doing something that you know is wrong. This story is crazy, and it got me thinking about all the times when people do the right thing, what they "have to do", and it ends up making things bad for them and not for the person that did the incorrect thing in the first place. This applies especially to work issues. There are millions of stories of employees going up to management to complain about some coworker behavior or their lack of work, and they end up getting a target on THEIR back instead of the coworker that was not doing their job correctly. Is this a thing of bad management? Is it just easier to blame the person that points out the issue instead of the person who causes it? Are the people in management hiding something?

I find it so sad the fact that stuff like this is always happening and nobody seems to care enough. You are putting your job more on the line by being a "snitch" than by behaving incorrectly. Your coworker may be stealing from the company, and when you point it out, people start to treat YOU differently. And I mean that in a bad way. They will isolate you and stop trusting you with anything. While they will steal, be friendly to the thief. Even the company will side with them under an invented principle such as "not wanting to cause drama".

It's awful how some managers and companies will prefer not confronting a theft over losing a good employee that was so loyal they even tell the truth about some coworker's suspicious or improper activity. That is what makes employees keep their mouths shut when things like this happen. It seems better not to get involved and just let it slip. Which, in the end, just causes irreparable damage to the company and the way employees perceive said company. I still think that it is the correct thing to be truthful and bring things like this to management. But I wouldn't blame somebody else for not doing it.

Employee who was abruptly laid off is asked by the company that fired them to request assistance with removing their admin access: ‘Can I respond requesting payment for my time to do this?’

María Cetra — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 14:15:00 -0700

If you fire an employee out of nowhere, then don't expect them to do you a favor. They don't owe the company ANYTHING!

If you got fired out of nowhere, and a couple of days later you were asked to help out the company by doing something only you know how. How would you react? I would ask if that task would be completed by me as an assistant or consultant and how much the pay would be. I don't think that even when a company mistreated and didn't care for you. I do believe that work connections can get you really far and that a cordial relationship with everyone who has employed you or been a coworker is not only useful but also preferred. Is important to be nice and take some advantage of the fact that you connect with people in your field.

Factory worker walks out after 27 years when manager scolds her for falling behind while helping a new hire, company publicly claims she was "slow and inefficient"

Cata Holmes — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 12:15:00 -0700

After working 27 years in the same place, helping coworkers, and becoming the person everyone relied on, falling behind for one shift was apparently enough to turn those years of dedication into a very loud goodbye…

There're so many wrong things with the story posted by u/AndromedaRed9 that I don't know where to start. I'll say, though, congrats to this woman for staying at the same job for almost 30 years. That's a big accomplishment only a few people can say they have on their record. Sadly, after those long years of service, it's very hard to see that she will probably quit her job after the horrible way the manager treated her for falling behind on her shift while helping the new worker.

If you ask my own thoughts on this matter… well, sit down and grab a drink cause I'm about to start venting.

Firstly, was this a mistake? Meaning, she fell behind on her shift because she was there helping this man; was that a mistake that she had to avoid, considering her years of experience? After 27 years, I'm sure this was not the first time she had to help a new employee understand his responsibilities and walk him through them multiple times. For working in a factory, it sounds like it could be something pretty common.

Now, maybe the company wanted to fire Janice, but didn't know how to do it. Mainly because she's been working there for a long time, so she knows EXACTLY how to get things done and how everything works. But also, after 27 years, it's a very expensive and complicated process to fire her… so maybe, by posting that horrible thing and talking nonsense about her, they make her quit rather than fire her… and BINGO, their problem is solved.

Of course, this is awful behavior, and a very childish one, if you ask me. No way posting something that every single employee in the factory is going to get access to, talking horrible things about one of your most valuable employees, is something that I will approve. Sounds something very mean, immature, and just awful.

Manager refuses to fund underperforming employee's training on critical thinking, claiming it's “wasting money” on a failing employee

Bar Mor Hazut — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 10:45:00 -0700

What is the point of keeping an employee who fails to do their job?

We are firm believers in giving someone a real, proper chance when they start a new job. We hate it when we hear of employees getting fired a week into a new role because they didn't live up to some unrealistic expectations from management. Getting good at a job requires proper guidance and hard work, which cannot happen in a matter of days. It takes time, patience, and effort from all parties involved.

That being said, there should be a time frame by which a new employee should be measured. While you can't expect an employee to become excellent at their job within a week, if they still struggle after two years, it might not be the right job for them. Keeping an employee for that long while they fail to meet expectations is as odd as firing someone as soon as they were hired. Give it time, sure, but too much time is also a real issue.

The manager who shared the story below on r/managers on Reddit has raised some questions regarding their inability to fire an employee who's been underperforming for the past two years. No matter what this manager did, the employee refused to get better at her job. She doesn't want to receive feedback; she hates being given tasks, and she fully knows this is damaging her place in the company, yet she doesn't care.

Recently, she asked her manager to attend a training on critical thinking, which the company would have to fund. But why would they spend money on an employee who is basically one foot out of the door? She clearly isn't good at her job; why should her manager pay for more training?

But then again, if the manager doesn't want to give training a try, why didn't they fire the employee already? What is the point in keeping someone who can't and won't do better?

Employee is tired every time she calls her coworker she puts her on speaker, so she takes advantage of that and starts saying truths that expose her coworker: 'Now you know how I feel every time you put me on speaker without asking.'

María Cetra — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 10:00:00 -0700

Sometimes you have to do some uncomfortable things to make yourself clear on your boundaries.

People will sometimes act as if they understood you when you explained a boundary, but then continue to act the way they were acting even though you explained it made you uncomfortable. Why is that? Are they dumb? Do they just not care? Are they bad people? I'm actually not really sure why this happens, but I know it is extremely frustrating. Sometimes the worst part about putting boundaries is not the conversation you have to have, but the fact that you have to reinstate them every two minutes because people aren't able to actually and fully understand them.

I hate the people that have this attitude of not really paying attention to you or what you say. Or maybe they do pay attention and just decide to do the complete opposite of what you asked for. I don't know. But this is especially frustrating when it happens at work or with coworkers. You have to see that people every single day, so if they don't stop doing that thing that bothers you, then it would mean that you will have to put up with that thing every single day, for years.

This story in u/JustNoCoworker is a great example of how to deal with this kind of person, especially when you have to work with them every day. The employee was tired of her coworker putting every work phone call in speaker mode in the office, as it made other people able to hear it and she felt like she wouldn't be able to speak freely. So she gave her coworker a taste of her own medicine. She decided to vent all these coworker office secrets so that everyone was able to hear them, and she would finally understand how she feels when she puts the phone calls on speaker mode. It worked. So good for her! So maybe this is the way to deal with people like this: a taste of their own medicine works like a charm.

Supervisor demands analyst complete report unpaid on a Saturday, analyst logs in just to CC the VP of the company in his reply—supervisor gets reprimanded, analyst gets 3 hours pay: 'After that, no one ever tried calling me outside of working hours'

Brad Dickson — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 09:00:00 -0700

Working from home blurs the line between what is work and what is the employee's personal life. This skew in work-life balance can have knock-on effects on the rest of your life if you're not careful. But how do you handle these types of situations?

Well, CCing an upper manager who has a handle on these types of things should do the trick. This does, of course, rely on there being some leader in the organization with their head screwed on straight.

Mom asks boyfriend to pay for her son's sports fees, despite her having $50K in savings, and him only having a couple of thousand dollars: 'I contribute more than she does for our shared expenses.'

Emmy Pratt — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 08:15:00 -0700

Why should he have to pay for everything?

One thing I'll never understand about straight relationship dynamics is the expectation that the man always pays for everything. If I were in that dynamic on either side, I'd be so stressed out. If I had to pay for everything, I'd be eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for every meal in between dates, and hoping that I could save a little bit of money for retirement. If I were always being wined and dined, I would be stressed on my partner's behalf. After all, I don't want to be a princess who expects fancy dates all of the time! I don't want my partner to see me as a financial liability.

I think it's important that each partner be considerate of the other's financial situation. You might think it's reasonable for your partner to take you out to dinner every single weekend, but it's probably not if they're making $50K. You don't have to do walks in the park for every date, but if you demand luxury and your partner can't afford that, it's not going to be good for your relationship in the long run.

The boyfriend in this story makes a great salary, but he has very little to show for it because he's been providing a pretty comfortable life for his girlfriend for the past seven years. It's not like she makes no money. She makes $80K and has $50K in savings, but she still wants her boyfriend to pay for her son's sports, along with nearly everything else in the household.

New manager suggests getting rid of entire department because "AI is going to do it all soon anyway": 'Why would this information be shared if not to make people anxious?'

Brad Dickson — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 06:45:00 -0700

AI hasn't yet lived up to its promise of revolutionizing the workforce and replacing entire industries of workers. But that hasn't stopped eager managers everywhere from proposing doing exactly this. But just what exactly are they hoping to accomplish by hanging this over their employees' heads?

Nothing makes you feel good like hearing leadership actively disparaging your work. Or being cynical about achievements. This usually occurs when a leader feels insecure about their lack of productive knowledge. That or annual requests for raises

Especially when it is a new leader hired externally who, for some reason, feels a need to put down veteran staff. It's almost like they're insecure about their own lack of experience and feel a need to make that experience less important. Funny how that works.