Ha! This is American life now.

It's not working. Crazy waits. The system is almost shutting down. People just aren't going to show up for work for homeless wages.

I'VE LITERALLY MET HOMELESS PEOPLE WHO WORK AT FAST FOOD PLACES.

Just break down already. It's overdue.

I want to see fast food lanes full of cars that aren't getting the orders filled.

I sat in the Drive-Thru at Burger King for over 20 minutes 2 weeks ago. Tell me this isn't a sign that it's breaking down.

I've been with this company for five weeks: one week of training and four weeks on the phones at a call center. By my second week, our manager was fired, and two people from the office stepped in temporarily while they search for a permanent manager.

Tomorrow's meeting is about our quarterly results, but apparently ownership also wants to discuss requiring everyone to keep their cameras on during their entire shift, with a daily Slack call running in the background.

Honestly, I find the idea pretty insulting. I understand accountability, but being constantly monitored feels more like a control issue than a solution. The funny thing is that, based on the numbers, I'm currently the top performer in the entire call center. I've handled over 800 calls in four weeks and booked more jobs than anyone else. The second-highest performer has been there for about four months.

The performance gap is also pretty obvious. A few people are handling roughly half as many calls as the top performers, while others regularly disappear with messages like, "BRB, my son woke up" or "Code brown, gotta take care of my kid." I don't want to judge people's personal situations, but the numbers clearly show that some people are doing significantly less work. And just using Remote work to be less present in work.

So I'm not sure what to do. I need the money, and the pay is good for me, especially since I get paid weekly. I'm not desperate enough to quit, but I also wasn't expecting to suddenly have to deal with constant camera monitoring after only five weeks with the company.

I'm going to see what they actually say in tomorrow's meeting before making any decisions. Has anyone else dealt with a situation like this? What would you do?

Work, eat, sleep and repeat. Funnily enough, I'm okay with my job and even like what I do for the most part, but the thought of years after years of this soul crushing dog eat dog world just makes me so tired. You guys have any copium or optimism I can huff a little lol.

It's funny because most of us work every day we can and they encourage us to prioritize our wellbeing. We all work our mandatory hours and some work overtime but to call us lazy is disrespectful when we literally do our job. The pay is low , there is no benefits, promotions are only given to people who are buddy buddy with the supervisors but they wonder why no one wants to stay longer.

Not only that but they ask last minute and act like we are responsible for management's poor planning or last minute non sense .

His reasoning that people are "lonely" is unjustified, especially since the state still pays its workers a mediocre salary. Commuting costs people both time and money, including child care, food, and gas. The low pay also limits where people can afford to live, since it forces them to stay within range of the office.

How do you protect yourself and remain effective when your manager/owner creates contradictory instructions, refuses to document critical information, withholds architectural knowledge, provides the WRONG architectural knowledge like repeatedly insisting a network topology that is not actually there as someone who has verified it repeatedly. Holds employees accountable for outcomes despite those constraints? How do you navigate this until you can find a better job because I do believe its deliberate. He once commented to the administrator with whom he has a codependent relationship with that the team trying to raise the maturity of the organization is effectively cutting his nuts off...what a male chauvinist pig.

Not to mention the guy has cameras on us, with microphones which is my understand is borderline wiretapping laws, but I have not been able to get proof that he turns those microphones on. Also he has promised me benefits that after the dates passed, he went back on that promise, a documented promise that on certain dates I would get this amount and on this date another amount and on this date another amount.

As the title says.

I was creating a new app, from the scratch, for internal use. At first, my managers and co-workers pretended to be very happy. "Wow, so cool!", "That's awesome". Now another guy, a professional ball-kisser, the no.1 ball-kisser in the world, stole my work. He's in charge now. Reason? No reason, he just "tried to create another version" . The funny part is that he admitted he rehashed my idea. I asked what's the point of creating another version, which is not better at all (by his own admission he used my idea), when I was doing all the work alone for months, and they were also positive about it.
The managers just said "oh well, let's see which one is the best, then we'll decide". But from the way they talk, they already decided. And it's not me, again.

This is not the first time they steal my idea and I get no credit for it. I do the work and someone else gets all the praise.

I know I'm a fool. But it still sucks.

I remember all that bs about working hard, motivation, be proactive yada yada yada.

How the f am I supposed to be motivated from now on?

I could look for another job, and I probably will. But for the moment, I'll just milk the cow doing the bare minimum. There's no point in playing a game that is rigged.

I’m dealing with a situation that’s slowly wearing me down, and I’m hoping someone here has experience with a similar personality type.

A colleague of mine, let’s call him Mark, was always hyper-competitive, even when we were peers. He measured everything against others, but what always stood out was how extremely guarded he was about his personal life. Zero sharing. Deflects every casual question. You can work next to him for years and know absolutely nothing real about him.

Fast forward: Mark got promoted and is now my direct manager.

Since then, it’s become unbearable. He scrutinizes every single thing I do. He watches my screen, notes tiny mistakes, and questions decisions that don’t need questioning. He’s incredibly observant, almost in a predatory way, and he clearly enjoys catching me off guard. The worst part? The smirk. That little quiet chuckle he does when he realises he knows something I don’t, or when he’s been proven “right.” It’s a smug “gotcha” reaction that makes my skin crawl. He’s cunning. He’s never openly hostile, always polite enough to stay out of trouble, but you can feel the mental chess game constantly running.

He still shares absolutely nothing about himself outside work, which makes him impossible to read or connect with on any human level. It’s all business on the surface, but with this constant undercurrent of competition and control.

For a long time I had this creeping feeling of being watched and controlled even at home, like he somehow had eyes everywhere. It sounds paranoid, but it eventually came out that colleagues are actually going to him and reporting generic stuff about me. He’s so observant and silent that he plants these suggestions and manages to destabilise people without raising his voice. One thing I have figured out, though: the moment his ego is touched, he absolutely loses it and gets furious.

I’m not trying to outplay him, I just want to do my job without feeling watched and silently judged all day. The smirking especially gets under my skin in a way I didn’t expect.

Have you ever worked with or for someone like this? How did you handle it practically and mentally? Any scripts or mindset shifts that helped you stay sane would be really appreciated.

Do you like it better? Or do you still work blue collar but, in a different field?

Apply, 72 hours I'm "eliminated" even though my work experience is exactly what they are looking for. Send a question, turns out no one monitors any of the e-mail boxes.

Why do we need to live in this unstoppable machine of agony and despair, it doesn’t give any hope for the future you can’t even make the slightest visible change with your life by working 9hrs a day, except making yourself messed up in the head.

Last time I fucking had time with myself feels like eternity, time doesn’t stop and will always continue no matter what you’re doing, even people will just think need to survive only this week, and repeat the same next.

How did humanity get this miserable and made life like a shit hole in the most ironic way, This is not living.

Workers who contacted the WSWS denounced the death threat and the silence of the top leadership of the UAW and its Solidarity House national headquarters.

Tanya, a worker at the Stellantis Detroit Assembly Complex-Jefferson plant, said: “As a UAW member, I find the threat that Raymond Jensen posted against Will Lehman disrespectful, an incitement and horrific. Something needs to be done to stop it. Even though we are all entitled to free speech, this crosses the line.

“It is not right if UAW officials are allowed to do whatever they want to do with no accountability. Workers are fed up and tired with the union because we don’t feel our voice is taken into consideration when it is time to vote, or that we have a say period.

“What Jensen did is way out of line. If things had been on the other foot and brother Lehman had done something like that, you can be sure all hell would break loose. It is time for the UAW to put a stop to these threats.”

Title. after over 30yrs on this planet i finally realized that i hate people and i love typing, so i want to get a job as a transcriptionist... but the field has been utterly decimated by AI. so now i don't know how seriously i should still be pursuing a career in it... i'm now looking for payroll jobs but nobody's hiring... RIP

Hi all

I live and work in the UK in an office job.

Last Wednesday I made a huge mistake and that was to assume my wife had cooked some breaded chicken - so I took it out the fridge in the morning, threw it in a rap and put loads of bbq sauce and cheese on top. When I came to eat it at work. I took a bite, could only taste the BBQ sauce and not that the chicken was raw. I only noticed after I had swallowed and was about to take my next bite at which point the now exposed part of the chicken was showing and, well at that point I knew.

On Friday I atarted to feel the effects come the evening, and I spent the rest of the weekend in bed or on the toilet.

So yeah, likely Salmonella poisoning. I read it can take up to 3 days for symptoms to show, which ties up, and that the symptoms will last generally between 4-7 days. I am currently on day 6 and just waiting for the diarrhoea to fuck off now.

Ive been at my office workplace for about 9 months now. Ive never once in that time period been off sick or even been late. Often I have stayed late to finish something off. Our job is non-stop and I appreciate that one person being off is a burden on the rest. On Monday, I took my first day off. Since then ive been remote working from my sofa.

Not one of my team leaders of managers have checked in on me, nor have all but one of my colleagues either. In fact, one of the team leaders I get on very well with and communicate outside work often via a three way message group with the one colleague that checked up on me. However, she has not once spoken to me since I gave her the heads up on Saturday that I was looking at Salmonella poisoning.

So whilst im struggling with this fucking food poisoning im still working from home and it is taking all the spare energy out of me I cant help but feel my workplace is pissed off with me that ive taken a day off sick and working from home. The silent treatment, the semi-abruptness when I call every morning to let them know ill be remote working again, moaning about the slightest thing ive not quite done right which I normally would have etc..the dept manager who I spoke to this morning asked "you not well enough to come in then?" after making it clear I am still suffering from Salmonella poisoning (therefore should only return to worl 48 hours after symptoms stop) just makes me feel that thry dont give a fuck about me and just bothered that im not at my desk.

I was a manager for about 12 years until a few years ago and I always made a point of checking in on my workers if they were ill, ensuring them to rest up and come back when possible but not to kill themselves by coming back too early.

For me its just bad management if someone feels like I do because I've dared to be off.

Working in corporate for over 10 years. It gets worse and worse overtime. When I started these many years ago, the management came directly from people that worked on product, were really practical people, even without degrees but totally connected and knew what they were talking about. Then at some point MBAs started taking over and this is when hell started. No time for anything, everything is presentation, when there are real production issues they never know how to respond except creating some unnecessary workshop that will be forgotten within next week. They overwork employees not with real work on product but with extras like presentations, some unnecessary statistics and they hate being bothered with any technical details. When around 10 years ago we could achieve a lot, now we’re struggling with any project as even the requirement gathering phase is endless corporate hell phase with focus on colors of font and tens of unnecessary meetings.

I had a chronic illness and depression for 16 years that prevented me from working full time for my entire adult life til last year. Then once I recovered I was dealing with the economic crisis and job shortages, now I finally have a job, my first full time role, I can’t believe I worked so hard on my physical and mental health for the “privilege” of being a full time slave to a company that doesn’t care about me, treats me like a cog in the wheel and all my daily energy is spent going there, recovering from being there, or making plans for when I’m next there (meal prep etc.)

I hate it so much. I’m glad I’m better but I don’t want this life.

I’m in school right now, studying for my dream job, but in the meantime I have (and have had to for the last decade) to work an awful food-service job. I work for a restaurant that is doing very well right now, and at a franchise that is doing especially well. They are CONSTANTLY bragging about how well the company and franchise is doing, which I find to be incredibly tone-deaf considering the shit pay myself and my coworkers see.

I’m an assistant manager here, and I make 17 an hour. The work they expect from me for that is worth, in my mind, much more than that. I’m only working this job because it’s been so hard to find something better (let alone any job at all). It has been soooo hard to find the motivation to get up at 6 AM to drag myself to this shit job, and I come home every night dreading the next day.

I know I have a better future on the horizon, I’m in school, but that isn’t the case for many of my coworkers. They’re stuck earning wages that won’t last a week, and most of them don’t seem to care. Most of them work to please the corporate managers, and I hate to see it.

I did 8 interviews (5 actual interviews, 1 working interview, and 2 “meet and greets” that were interviews in disguise) for a well-paid management position with a Fortune 500 company after losing my last job. I even traveled 6 hours round trip for the final interview. I nailed every interview step along the way and someone I know that is high up in the company said I had it in the bag. After the last interview, the VP told me I would be reached out to “in short order” regarding next steps. That was over a week ago. 48 hours after the final interview I sent an email to everyone I had emails for, thanking them for their time and allowing me the opportunity to interview for the position, etc etc. You know, the thing that all the professionals say is the right thing to do. I heard nothing back. Not even a “thank you for the email we will be in touch soon.” Nothing. I reached out to the HR person yesterday because they haven’t paid me for the paid, in person working interview where I spent an entire day getting a feel for what the position is. The thing I have on record as being a paid working day. Nothing. The HR person has read receipts on and I saw they read it, but heard nothing back; and they’re usually very quick to reply. Like 2 days max after every interview step to inform me of what the feedback was and what the next steps were.

I felt very good about my prospects for getting this job, so I hadn’t applied to anything else in the meantime. Which was a failure on my part. I even dropped $500 I didn’t have on a nice suit because that’s what they said would make a good impression. It got me all the way to the final interview, so I guess it wasn’t a waste, and I can use that for other interviews, but that $500 could have gone to help with bills.

So now I’m scrambling and my severance is running out. I’m back to looking for another job and in a position where I don’t really have any other choice than to accept whatever shitty bullshit job comes my way. This fucking blows and the thought of suck-starting my rifle looks better and better each day (I wouldn’t do that, I have a wife and kids but goddamn it sounds enticing).

Anyway, I don’t expect anyone to reply to this. I just had to get this off my chest.

So recently I had a job interview that I thought went pretty well. The job seemed like a good fit and I answered any questions they had pretty well.

Then after a few weeks I found out that the department manager who had interviewed me only liked hiring through headhunters because it's more convenient. By convenient she meant that it's easier to get rid of them if they don't work out, because their HR actually makes them put in work to fire anyone.

So then my question is, why the hell would you interview someone, knowing you were never going to hire them because they applied directly? It wasted my time, it wasted her time. I feel so absolutely disillusioned about.... practically everything anymore.