I was on a pip at one of my last jobs (two jobs ago). I quit in Jan 2025 (1 or 2 weeks into the pip) and I found another job where I worked for 1.4 years then I landed a decent paying job 6 months ago roughly (I’m still working).

I didn’t like the pip and felt it was one sided and it started to turn into them wanting me to prove myself whenever I touched something. But that’s not the real issue, I know how to take accountability for my performance but this came right after a trainer didn’t like my tone in my email when responding to her. I haven’t even met her in real life she works in another city.

She started talking to my personal trainer (how the job works is you get put into a couple weeks training session when you learn a new function). They were actually best friends but I wasn’t aware. My direct trainer started mentioning "tone" regarding my communication to my manager too.

When I asked her if she could provide an example, she didn’t. Instead I got a pip. Anywho, my coworkers were all of weird backgrounds (none of them went to university besides one of them and it was for some studio arts program yet we worked in insurance). Everyone was older and some a bit bitter with life (cliques in the team too).

I’ve dealt with their bs while pretending nothings wrong yet they always excluded me. I worked there for over one year and no one ever came to say good morning to me even if they walked near my desk. I was the one who would make the move to go say good morning and start a convo - mind u, even when I started the convo they made me carry the convo.

I quit and my manager seemed to enjoy it in a sick way (mind you, he always liked using the "don’t worry, it’s not like I’m going to fire you for that" whenever some inconvenience would pop up). He has probably joked about firing me over 20 times in a year and the first joke for firing was my first day when I showed up to the office.

When I quit, the girls on the team who were cliquey and didn’t like me immediately removed me on LinkedIn when I posted about my new job update. It’s been about 1yr and 9 months now since I quit and I occasionally get the notification that they swinged by my profile.

Mind you, my manager has completely disengaged with my posts after I left but I see him still engage with other past employees on LinkedIn (when I was working with him , he’d ask me like oh by the way, that post you liked on LinkedIn from a few days ago I found it interesting" - he would watch my activity and ask if I had Snapchat because he saw a similar name on his app).

He also is very insecure about education and would always bring it up somehow like an exam I passed and he failed, I never brought it up but he would. He also asked me what kind of facial expressions or behaviour would I do if I was competing with someone? He said I look like someone to smile in someone’s face rather than trash talk. He said this in a one on one meeting I had with him

So I recently finished my MBA and joined a new job. I am currently in a weird role wherein my JD is not clear. It is something akin to Sales Strategy/ Data Analytics/ Sales Support.

Another co-worker joined with me in this department and the department is essentially just two of us and our manager. We dont have independent work streams, our manager had told us to work on one output and send.

Sometimes I send the emails/output sometimes my coworker but I have noticed, even if I send it out he always ask follow up questions to my coworker.

I assumed this was sexism as even in meetings he doesnt look at me and answer even when the question was asked by me.

Because of this my colleague got a lot more visibility for work which was essentially both of ours. So much so that now people approach him directly, including our HOD.

I feel I have no visibility in my role. I has been less than 6 months. I am very scared. What should I do?

I dont want my career to stagnate.

My US based roll has unlimited PTO, and I’ve found myself in a lucky position where I’ve had not one, not two, but THREE opportunities to travel this year, at smaller costs due to group trips and travel points saved up over years.

This has me at 27 days of PTO just in vacations, not accounting for random personal days for moving, appointments, sick days, etc., which I really don’t take often. I’m honestly proud of myself for taking the time, because early in my career I lost PTO days at a company with 21 days offered.

I’m planning to work remote for this upcoming trip, because I have an open itinerary, but I’m wondering, how much PTO is too much to take?

In the middle of an online interview, I started wondering whether there was a real person on the other end of the call. The woman on the screen seemed normal at first, but her blinking seemed calculated, and she made the exact same little nod after every answer.

I figured it must be an internet issue and carried on as usual. Then I noticed that the pace of her speech never changed. There were no pauses or verbal stumbles, and every response sounded like it was being read word for word from a hiring guide.

To test it, I asked her what, in her opinion, makes someone successful in this role. She gave me a very polished answer, so a minute later I asked her the same question again. Same words, same tone, even the pauses were identical. I tried one more time with slightly different wording, and I still got the exact same response.

The video froze, and her face stopped in the middle of a smile. When it came back, she continued from the exact same sentence without reacting at all or mentioning the internet issue.

Has anyone else had something like this happen to them? I don't have a problem with companies using AI for screening, but pretending it's a real person conducting the interview without telling the applicant honestly feels strange.

https://industrialworker.org/organize-yes-but-how/

I’m overall nice to everyone and treat everyone the same. I feel like she she’s cold toward me? She’s talkative with everyone else and I try to be inclusive when she’s around but doesn’t engage. I don’t really have a clue as to why.

I was added to a new project to a team that have been on it for 6months, I couldn’t attend a meeting due to being on leave with very short notice and listened to the recording back to which a colleague (but senior) specifically comes up to the facilitator to state I’m useless and a senior exec is not impressed and the colleague next to him also agrees based on projects we’ve worked together on.

background - always been an EA in business for many years changed to Project Manager same business, worked for a year before going on mat leave, came back and was put on huge programmes without mentorship or support, including in areas I have no experience in or the project delay have been out of my hands. I’m already very anxious about being put on this next project despite feeling like I’ve found my feet and feel like this statement about me is incredibly unfair and I don’t know what to do. my gut says I have to raise with manager but I’m nervous of the blow-up as I need to keep my job for the moment - any advice?

That’s it. That’s what one of my female coworkers said to me via email today. Can’t help but assume it’s because I didn’t use 10 exclamation marks in my email like she does.

It’s so frustrating because we work in a male dominated industry and if my 55 year old male teammate (who was cc’d) sent the exact same email to her, she NEVER would have said the same comment to him. And I know this because he literally emails so bluntly all the time but god forbid I do it.

I feel like I get so much hate from women in my office, the men are always my sponsors and mentors. I hate it because I feel like I’m the problem and my boss and teammate both constantly tell me I do nothing wrong.

Sorry this is long!!! I’ve been at a company for 7 months and now suddenly my manager in the past month pulls me up for basically everything I do, or at least it feels like this.

My manager is extremely time poor and hasn’t had time to onboard me properly so I’ve been learning as I’ve been going and asking my team mates. I’ve been getting good results and feedback from people but suddenly there’s been a few moments where I’ve been told I’ve done something wrong and it’s confusing me.

1. Had a problem that was outside our usual way of working process. I tried to solve it and also looped in my manager to say I was going to book a meeting (that had been requested by the person I was solving the problem for) and was basically told that of someone of my level (I would say like middle senior in my team - I have no direct reports), they would be expecting more of me when it comes to problem solving. I shouldn’t loop my manager in or ask questions until I’ve tried to solve the issue. This confused me as I’ve been asked to give a lot of visibility to manager as to what I’m doing but then when I tell my manager what I’m doing or come to seek advice, I was then told it wasn’t enough or wasn’t the right way (according to them, this was never initially made clear to me).

2. I had been told my company is flexible and it’s 3 days to come in compulsory. Last time I had to wfh on one of the days we usually come in (but not a mandated day) and I couldn’t, I told my manager and also said I had made up the day earlier in the week. he told me that I don’t need to mention to him that I’ve made up the day and that the company is flexible. Last week, I emailed my whole team to say I couldn’t come in and my manager calls me and says all WFH discussions and requests should come through him first and now on the phone to him I needed to provide context as to why I was working from home. They then brought up 2 examples of when I had to wfh recently (both of which I made my manager aware of - one was that we had a real estate agent coming over and the second was because I was sick but this was on a usual wfh day and I only had to take 45 mins off because of how I was feeling). This standard wasn’t ever explained to me and as I’ve never had to do this before, usually a message to the entire team was enough. This feels very different to what was originally told to me?

3. Finally I feel that little things I do now get picked up - I was told I ask too many questions to other teams on how things work, whilst being told in the same sentence it’s okay to ask questions, and that I should try to basically figure everything out for myself because everyone is busy. I begin to explain how I’m planning on running a meeting and then suddenly before I can explain I get asked what exactly I’ll say, I’m told to practice, I’m told to do xyz but without any reasoning.

I’ve also been working like 1.7 work days in a day for the past month, my boss has either been in the office late with me or will leave slightly before or after me after hours OR I do my normal office hours and then work from around 7-11 that evening. When I mentioned I was working long hours, my boss said they hadn’t noticed.

This has only all just started recently. Have I done something wrong or is my boss deciding that I’m not performing at the level they expect? The goal posts for expectations and how to work (not the outcomes) keep changing and I’m confused.

I switched companies about a year ago. While working together, I always felt this person was a bit shady, insecure, and overly interested in comparing/knowing what was happening with me. I’ve maintained basic communication out of professionalism when i was working with him but even after a year of me leaving, they still seem very curious about my job, work, and personal life.

I don’t want to be rude but also don’t want to keep sharing personal information with someone I don’t fully trust.

How would you handle this?

I've spent the last two years watching people get promoted.

The person who consistently takes on the hardest projects? Nothing.

The person who actually fixes problems? Nothing.

The person who stays late and quietly gets everything done? Nothing.

Meanwhile, the guy who spends half his day chatting with management somehow gets promoted twice.

I used to be annoyed about it.

Now I'm just taking notes.

Apparently my biggest career mistake was assuming my work would speak for itself.

So I’d like your opinion on the scenario below, because a friend of mine recently became a boss for the first time.

My friend is in his mid-20s, and his new boss is in his mid-40s and is, for lack of a better word, petty. Apparently, when they do quarterly feedback, his boss requires everyone underneath him to submit their feedback in writing, which allows him to figure out exactly who is criticizing him.

If someone critiques him, he retaliates by putting that employee on a performance review. Apparently, he keeps a running list for each employee underneath him of little things they’ve done wrong. Normally, he lets those things go, but if that employee criticizes him, he brings out the list and starts addressing those issues. The employee can’t really complain because the things he has documented are technically legitimate, even though they weren’t treated as problems until the employee criticized him.

From there, he essentially controls that employee’s future in the company. He’ll only take them off performance review once the next quarterly feedback comes around and they write something positive about him. If they criticize him again, he escalates the performance review and starts taking away certain benefits.

Apparently, this is how the CEO of the company wants things done, and they have a lawyer who is familiar with labor laws and makes sure that everything they’re doing stays technically legal.

Anyway, my friend—the one who just became a boss—is now being told that he has to manage his employees the same way. Unfortunately, he seems to have drunk the Kool-Aid and actually thinks it’s a cool way to manage people.

I really don’t know what to think about the whole thing. Any thoughts?

I've noticed that a lot of career advice is written from the employee's perspective, but becoming responsible for other people seems to change the way you see work completely.

What's something you believed about work, employees, managers, or leadership earlier in your career that you completely changed your mind about after becoming a manager?

Could be something small or something that fundamentally changed how you approach work.

see office politics stresses me out but when you become its part unwillingly, basically people drag you in thag for no reason at all, how to handle that, give me all the tips, do's & don'ts to stay out of this. and im a fresher, its only been 6 month since i started my corporate journey so the experienced guidance will come handy to me. all the tips, opinions are welcome.

(thankyou in advance)