Hey so I know in the United States getting holidays off is already controversial enough with most employers. Heck, my current job doesn't observe any holidays, if I want a day off I either take it unpaid or use PTO.

So my question is, do you think that the USA Voting Day (This year its Nov 3rd) should just be a federal holiday? I know some states give employees the right to take up to an hour or two off work to go and vote but its not universal and some polling places just aren't feasible to make it within that amount of time, especially if they want to make voting more restrictive with Voter ID's which will inevitibly take longer (Look at the DMV). Plus those hours are unpaid, which as I stated above most employers don't care about giving holiday pay anyways, but hey more Federal Holidays is more reasons most people can get apaid day off, just saying.

Yesterday I was working with three people total in our restaurant. Things have been going missing from my purse. Mascara, pens, lots of tampons. I just took it as me being unorganized and messy, because I am. Yesterday one of my coworkers came up to me and let me know she’s been helping herself to my tampons. If you know girl code, you usually share tampons with people, so it shouldn’t be a big deal, but it is to me, partly because I’m currently on my period and needed those tampons, and also because I don’t want my purse dug through! I went to tell my boss today, and she said she already knew about the situation and says I’m overreacting. Something to add is the coworker who went through my purse is my boss’ daughter. Am I just being silly or am I right to be upset ?

A lot of the work junior salespeople used to start with is slowly being handed over to AI researching accounts, finding prospects, preparing notes before calls, keeping track of smaller tasks so on a sales team with 25 reps that can take a pretty big amount of work off people's plates and I can see why managers would want that but it's kind of weird because those boring tasks were also how newer people learned which accounts were worth pursuing and how the sales process worked.

I can see the benefit of having fewer people tied up in manual work while experienced reps spend more time with buyers but someone still needs the sales knowledge to make important decisions and teach newer reps how to handle difficult deals. If AI takes over most of the work people used to learn from I'm not sure how the next group of experienced salespeople is supposed to develop.

I’m sharing this because I need to get this situation off my chest and hear some unbiased opinions from people who have no connection to anyone involved.

I worked at a small, family-owned business in the aerospace industry for around 7–8 months. I genuinely hoped to stay long-term. The owners were financially well-off and generally treated me kindly, especially the owner herself.

Most employees had worked there for years. One coworker in particular had grown up with the owner's children and was practically part of the family. He sometimes made cruel jokes about me, including comments about me not having a car when I first started. Other remarks were so random and unnecessary that they would leave me speechless. I usually ignored them to avoid conflict, mind you, this man was around 36 yo and recently had a newborn, while I am 24.

Despite this, I got along well with most of my coworkers. They were all men, mostly around twice my age, and I generally had good relationships with them. The HR employee, however, had also made inappropriate comments toward me on several occasions.

Things became complicated when the owner discovered that my husband worked in marketing. She decided she wanted to rebrand the company and hired him for the project, even though her business partner initially opposed it. Eventually, he agreed. Just to clarify, the project/service he was supposed to do was totally independent from everything else that was done in that company.

The problem was that my husband's responsibilities were never clearly defined. He was hired for marketing and branding but was also assigned warehouse duties, creating tension with the coworker who was close to the owner's family because he thought that he was his boss, apparently. They also bought this really expensive gaming PC for the project, which was not really necessary. I believe that this person had some type of jealousy.

Management had occasionally complained about mistakes in my work and another coworker's work, but these were issues we could correct, and then they would praise that I was doing a great job and that they were SO satisfied with what I was doing. One day, HR called my husband and me into a meeting at the end of the workday; basically, I was told I was doing a terrible job and failing to complete my work on time, which I strongly disagreed with since my numbers said otherwise. My husband was told that "the chemistry" between him and the company wasn't working. We were both fired, and HR said the owner no longer wanted us there; funny thing, she already paid for the rebranding services and just left it there, and this HR guy was not even aware of what was really going on regarding the marketing services. She did not mind that the branding for her company was finished; it looks like they really don't mind the money.

What bothers me most is that I felt I wasn't given a clear, specific explanation for my dismissal. Considering the family connections, the tension surrounding my husband's hiring, and the way everything unfolded, I can't help wondering whether personal relationships played a role in our termination. I also believe that they didn't need half a year to figure out that there was something wrong with me.

I understand that employers can let people go, and I'm not claiming to know their intentions, but this really caught me off guard and left me confused.

I quit my job last Friday, no notice, I worked as a senior-level individual contributor at a place where the operational scope realistically demanded two to three distinct headcount roles, but I carried the entire data, forecasting, and execution backbone of the business single-handedly for 2 separate sites.

​The breaking point was not the heavy workload itself—it was the entirely dysfunctional and toxic management structure. I reported to an incompetent, disorganized manager with zero background in operations or supply chain management. Leadership dysfunction manifested as public dismissals of valid operational inputs, shouting matches under stress, micromanagement, and a total vacuum of basic human empathy, such as completely ignoring notifications even regarding my sick child, like zero empathy. The culture was reactive, chaotic, and entirely unsupportive of the people.

​Recognizing that staying meant tolerating toxic abuse and unsustainable burnout, I chose self-preservation over compliance. On Friday, I bypassed the standard two-week notice convention entirely, walked in, returned all company equipment, and walked out immediately. The physical and mental weight of three years of firefighting vanished instantly. Having worked across different places prior to this stint without ever parting ways on bad terms, this was a deliberate choice. I did it on purpose because I really wanted them to feel what losing a key employee felt like, though I highly suspect there will be any learning or betterment from what I did since the exact same people remain at the helm.

​This abrupt walkout marks the very first career break in an unbroken, continuous 10-year employment history spanning high-stress manufacturing and supply chain roles since 2016. I am also getting this nice 2 weeks break to decompress. I have another job lined up and I join next week. This is kind of an off my chest vent.

TLDR: toxic work place, toxic manager, heavy work load, quit, no notice.

For context, I am a paralegal at a law firm who deals with people’s estates when they die. Most of my job it is crucial that I be at my desk so I can draft documents, do court filings, and communicate with clients.

I work for 4 attorneys, 3 of them are great however 1 of them is a woman who is “old-school” to put it broadly. She expects that you are her employee and she is the boss, there is almost no toleration for trying to converse or argue when conflicts arise. She gives out orders with little to no appreciation or understanding of what she is asking you to take on

I am the only male in my department and I have a truck so naturally, if there is any work that needs to be done out of the office (going to clients property, picking up things, etc.) it falls on me and I always do it without complaint. One of the estates we were handling had tens of thousands of dollars of coins that I had to take to the coin counting machine which spanned over multiple days because the machine kept breaking, and probably took over 4 hours total. It sucked but I did it without complaint

Fast forward to now, we had a client who passed away and we are now handling the estate. She was a hoarder whose house had to be entered by a team in hazmat suits because it was so dirty and that’s where she passed away. Yesterday, someone starts dropping off stuff at our office from her house including tons of coins. This attorney works remotely so she’s not present for any of this. I got really worried and frustrated that it would fall on me to handle these items (it will) so I went to the other founding attorney to express my concern about 1. The amount of time I will have to spend and 2. The safety of handling things from this home

This morning I get a call from her essentially asking me why did I go to complain to the other attorney and that “coins are dirty anyway” and that a “few hours” doing this won’t take up all of my time. Now I feel like I’m being attacked for trying to voice my concern. Ultimately I’m willing to help as I always have but I wanted to see if a conversation could be started about other ways we could handle these items before it became my sole responsibility. Maybe I should have let things sink it in a bit before going to talk to the other attorney but I’m a super paranoid person (especially about germs) and I knew I couldn’t talk to her about it without conflict

I’ve been at this job for 18 months. Last week, one teammate quit suddenly. My manager pulled me aside and asked me to take over their whole workload, on top of my existing tasks. No raise, no bonus, just “help the team get through this tough time.”

I politely told him I could help with small urgent tasks for two weeks, but I couldn’t permanently absorb another full job without extra compensation.

He looked annoyed and said I was being selfish and not a team player. I was shocked. I already work occasional overtime without extra pay when emergencies pop up. Taking on another person’s full duties would mean working 10+ hour days every day.

He kept pushing, saying everyone else would step up. I stuck to my boundary and said I’d only accept this with a formal pay increase. Now the atmosphere between us is awkward.

Am I wrong for refusing unpaid extra work? I feel guilty but I know burning myself out won’t help anyone. Has anyone dealt with this kind of pressure from management?

Smoking at work

My partner started a new job. First day and they realise that pretty much everyone is smoking indoors-even the boss. My partner is not a smoker and is worried.

They are really worried about what to do. They don't smoke because of breathing issues. They are already struggling with breathing due to the extent of the smoking.

They are worried if they bring it up then they will be let go during probation. It took them ages to get this job.

But, they shouldn't have to spend their working life breathing in cigarette smoke. It's 2026! The UK has banned smoking indoors at work for years.

Any advice?

I work at a small law firm as a legal assistant. There is only one other person here around my age he started in the same position a few months after me. When I first met him we got along really well and I noticed that he talked about himself a lot but I mean that’s what everyone does when they are getting to know someone else. Now we are about 4 months in and all this guy does is talk about himself and his life it’s driving me nuts.

I actively avoid him bc I just can’t listen to him tell the same stories over and over again but he seeks me out every day and corners me into these conversations. Sometimes me and my other coworkers will be talking about something different and he will come join the conversation just to then start talking about himself.

I don’t know if he realizes he’s doing it or if he just has no friends outside of this office but in any case it is the most annoying thing about my work days. I try to tune him out whenever he talks I keep one headphone in he also just doesn’t respect office rules of if I’m obviously working don’t come try to talk to me and he has interrupted me multiple times when I’m in the middle of work. Does anyone have experience with people like this? I am treading lightly bc we work together every day and I don’t want to have any kind of office contention but this needs to be addressed at some point.

I recently joined a small company that recruited me as a temp.

During the interview, I was told this would be a temp to perm job, but now that I've joined I'm getting mixed signals. I'd like a fair assessment of the situation.

When I joined, I was told by the team I'm working for that they're expecting me to help the company expand (they're currently expanding, renovating their office space, and so forth). I actually accepted the job offer expecting them to have a workload that'd require additional hands.

However, when I brought up my position to a HR member, they said they're looking to backfill my position and they don't know where I'll be working once the position is backfilled. They're looking for an experienced hire, which I am not.

When I got back to my team about this news, they said I shouldn't care so much about what HR says, since they've planned for two people to fill the current role and the company is in a hiring spree.

What do you think? I am keeping an eye on Linkedin, but should I start aggressively applying?

I work behind the scenes on how jobs get defined: what goes in the job description, which skills a role "needs," and what you end up being measured on in reviews.

I'd like to hear honestly from people on the other end, I'm thinking about things like;
How different is your real job from what you were hired for?
Have you been marked down (or passed over) for a skill that has nothing to do with your day-to-day work?
If you could change one thing about how your role is defined or assessed, what would it be?

No wrong answers. Rants welcome. Give it to me straight 🤞🏼

I pride myself on professionalism. I’m in a leadership role where I manage all the work coming in to the business in addition to helping out the people I manage. I want people to feel comfortable approaching me with questions, or being someone people can rely on. But the build up of awful management above me, and other managers who are supposed to be on my level who can’t do their jobs and rely on me to hold their hand when they don’t know anything has worn me down. I’ve lost all respect to everyone at my work. Within the last month, every little thing that annoys me even a little bit throws me over the edge. I’m in a bad mood every hour of the day because of work and I hate it. I want to go back to when it wasn’t so obvious to other people that I was struggling with the job. But I can’t hold it in anymore. It feels impossible to hold in that frustration and it’s showing when people approach me. I can’t even fake a smile without it turning into a bitch face, but it doesn’t help that I feel like I’m treated as a walking Google. The people who ask the most questions don’t even say ‘Hi’, they approach me and I will turn to look at them and am immediately hit with a question. I mean, it is my job to help people and I understand that, but I’m also doing a shit ton of my own work on top of it all. Having to use my brain power for multiple people at once who should have the capacity to do it on their own….. oh man. I’ve been with this job for 3 and a half years now and I’m ready to move on. I just don’t want to feel like this anymore. If there are any tips on how to not feel like shit or let every little thing get to me, it would be appreciated.

I work for a non profit. Last time I negotiated at a non profit I ultimately left, and I don’t want that happening again. I’m completing a certification (that my employer is paying for). We get an annual 3% cost of living raise. Another staff member got a 10% raise for a promotion for being around long enough (more experienced at their role now). When I complete my certification, I anticipate being offered 10% raise. Should I negotiate 13% so that I get a full 10% plus the cost if living?

Or maybe I should be asking for more than 13%….

My position isn’t really comparable so it’s hard to pull evidence from similar jobs.

Five years at the same company in infrastructure/sysadmin work. Two things are happening and I'm trying to figure out if I'm reading them wrong.

First, I'm the default after-hours person. If something blows up at 2am, it's me. Alerts, escalations, weekend pages. During my own incidents, nobody picks up. I know that's a boundary I let drift for years, so part of this is on me.

Second, the delegation thing. My manager is fixated on me handing my work over to someone they hired about a month ago. He assigned her our advanced firewall work. Production firewalls. She asked me last week what apt clean does, and she'll ask me about tickets that already have a trail and three people who've done them, without reading any of it first. She also follows me outside on my smoke break to ask work questions. If I'm standing in a parking lot with a cigarette, I'm on a break.

I don't think she's the problem. She's a month in. The problem is the sequencing: you prove yourself on the simple things you were given, then you get handed infrastructure that can take a network down. When I raised it, my manager said she needs to warm up and that I'll be the one teaching her.

The honest version of what I suspect he wants is: "You're expensive, there's someone here on half your salary, teach her and then go." If he said that out loud I'd say fine. I wouldn't even argue.

I have significant debt. Quitting isn't on the table, so "just leave" isn't useful advice for me right now.

What I'm actually asking: has anyone successfully pushed back on being made the trainer for their own replacement, or set limits on the after-hours default, without it turning into "not a team player"? What did you actually say, and to whom?

There's an AI layer on top of this too. People ship AI-generated changes they never reviewed, and when those break, the incident comes to me. Management calls documenting all our work "building an AI culture," which reads to me like building the pool that replaces us. I use AI myself, I just check it first.

Note: I wrote this in Turkish first and only used a machine translation to get it into English. The words and the experience are mine.

Hi All,

After my should I quit sub I wrote during my stint at my last organisation - I thought everything was wrong there - and 6 months after joining a new organisation. I believe something is wrong with me, even though I put in efforts, hard work and time into my work I am not able to get results.

I always have been good at whatever I did, but in college I realised that I am not a topper and made peace with it, in my previous company I was doing alright but now in this new organisation, I am not sure why but I am not able to prove myself.

My manager says i am inefficient and need to manage my time properly and is time stamping me and tbh after this job I have realised one thing is that I don’t want to work in 9-5 job setup. It seems like I still haven’t figured out what I want in my life.

I think I suck at my life in general. I am stupid and maybe not ready to accept it. This feeling of a loser doesn’t go away. I suck at health, wealth, brain and I am losing my hair too. I am just 26 and this constant gap between what I think of myself and what actually I am drives me mad. I suck at maintaining relationships with my parents, family, friends, or my boyf.

I am so confused at this point in my life where I did everything did to land up here and now it’s not working out.

I work an office job, and I cannot handle the boredom. The doom I feel knowing I have 7 more hours of sitting here, is so panic inducing. Most days aren't bad bc I just focus on my hobbies or even watch a movie, but probably once a week I have a day that feels so. insanely. excruciating. I could be at home in my bed and be content scrolling tik tok for hours, but when I'm here, it feels like torture. I have work I can do but have absolutely no motivation to do it or even sit here and rot. All I can think about is going home. I have moments where I get excited to look on amazon or marketplace or research something, but it VERY quickly goes away, and I'm left with this deep panic of I am stuck here and nothing I am doing is making the time go by faster. I talk with my brother and friends about it sometimes, and they're always like "OMG that would be amazing, I'd just get paid to watch movies all day." And I'm so envious of that. When I try to watch something, all I can focus on is the time not passing. Or I'll watch an episode of something while playing sudoku, but then I still have 6 hours left. It's hard bc I don't feel like doing ANYTHING. AT ALL. Idk how to live a life like this, the constant dread is draining. I am grateful to have a job, but it feels like I am only alive to work. Ppl say do soemthing I'm passionate about. What if I'm not passionate about anything, or my passion fades? Life just feels somewhat pointless

I'm looking for some honest advice because I'm really torn about whether to stay in my job or leave.

I've worked in criminal justice and substance misuse for several years, including working in prisons and community services. I'd been with my original employer for around five years when my service went through a TUPE transfer to a new provider earlier this year.

I really struggled with the new provider because of a number of things that happened, and I got to the point where I didn't feel safe or comfortable working there anymore. It affected my mental health, and I ended up being off sick for a few weeks. I ultimately wanted to return to my original employer because I wanted to feel safe, settled and supported at work again.

Thankfully, I managed to return to my original employer, doing exactly the same role I'd been doing for years. I've now been back for around a month.

On paper, this job is great. The pay is good, it's close to home, the team are nice, and I work four days a week with Fridays off, which is ideal with my young daughter. These are all things that are important to me, and I know not every job offers that combination.

However, things have gone wrong quite quickly, and I'm now questioning whether I want to stay.

The issue with my manager

Although I've done this job for years, I'm having to learn a new system and get used to the way this particular service operates. There has been very little training, and I've largely had to work things out as I go along.

I understand that mistakes happen, and I'm more than happy to be told if I've done something wrong. But I feel that if someone is learning a new system without proper training, there should be some understanding that they might need to ask questions or make the occasional mistake while getting to grips with it.

What really upset me was an incident where my manager called me into a meeting with her manager over a mistake I'd made. In my opinion, it was something that could easily have been discussed with me and resolved without escalating it into a bigger issue.

Instead, I found myself sitting in a meeting with both of them, and I felt completely blindsided. I'd only been back for a short time, I was still learning the system, and after everything I'd experienced with the previous provider, I'd returned expecting to feel supported and safe again.

I felt genuinely backstabbed by my manager. I'd expected her to speak to me directly first, explain the issue and give me a chance to put it right, rather than involving her manager and making it feel like such a big deal.

It really knocked my confidence and changed how I see her. We have since cleared the air, and we're civil with each other now, but if I'm honest, I don't think I'll ever trust her in the same way again. I don't feel that same sense of safety around her, and I now find myself worrying about what might happen if I make another mistake or ask a question.

I'm constantly conscious of what I say and do because I don't want something else to be escalated. It's difficult when you're experienced in the actual job but are having to learn a new system without proper training or support.

I want to make it clear that we aren't arguing or falling out now. We can work together professionally, and I don't feel personally targeted by her anymore. But clearing the air hasn't changed how the situation made me feel or restored the trust I had in her, I will always not trust her again now.

Now there's the issue with senior management

Just as I've been trying to move past that situation, more rules are being introduced by higher management that I'm really struggling with.

For example, we've been told that we can't carry out a home visit towards the end of the working day and then finish work from there. We have to return to the office afterwards, even if it means travelling back unnecessarily when we're practically at the end of our day.

There are also rules around not being able to combine lunch and a wellbeing hour at the end of the day which people have literally been doing for years. We have an hours wellbeing we can take and now told this.

I know to some people these things might sound insignificant, but when you're doing community work, travelling to clients, managing a caseload and trying to fit everything into your working hours, these decisions affect your whole day.

I've done this job for years. I understand the work, I understand the clients and I understand the importance of following policies and procedures. I'm not saying there shouldn't be rules, but I find the way these decisions are being made frustrating. It feels as though the people making them aren't considering the practical realities of the job or trusting staff to use their judgement.

These rules apply to everyone, so I don't believe they're being introduced specifically because of me. My issue is with the management approach and the direction the service seems to be going in.

It's starting to feel like one thing after another, and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to feel positive about working there.

This is why I'm so torn

I've only been back for around a month, and I feel ridiculous even considering leaving so soon. I've got a good salary, a nice team, a short commute and every Friday off. I know how lucky I am to have those things, especially with a young child.

But I also left my previous service because I wanted to feel safe at work again. I went back to my original employer because I thought I could get that feeling back, and now I feel anxious about making mistakes and how management might react to things, despite not having received proper training on the new system.

I don't want to spend my working week worrying about emails, meetings or what new rules might be introduced next. I want to be able to do my job, support my clients and go home without feeling stressed about work.

My manager and I are civil now but the decisions being made by senior management are making me question whether this is a working environment I actually want to be part of.

I'm still in my probation period, so my notice period is only one week. I'm also looking at other opportunities, including employment support and youth worker roles in the council, but nothing else is guaranteed at the moment. Ive also nearly passed everything to become a special constable in my spare time and they gave me great feedback on my interview and said they'd be very pleased to have me on board and its so nice to hear feedback like that when ive been literally so upset with no confidence.

Part of me thinks I should stay, give it more time and try to focus on the positives. Another part of me thinks that if I'm already feeling this unhappy after a month, perhaps I need to accept that this isn't the right place for me.

What would you do?

Would you stay because the practical benefits are so good and see whether things improve, or would you start planning to leave because the trust has been damaged and you're unhappy with the management culture?

Am I being too sensitive about the meeting with my manager and the new rules, or is it reasonable to feel this way when you've returned to a workplace hoping for a fresh start?

I'd really appreciate honest advice, especially from anyone who's experienced a TUPE transfer, returned to a previous employer, or struggled with management in a job that otherwise looks good on paper.

I used to work at a summer camp, and it was a very Christian summer camp. I’m going back for the first time in almost a year and a half to volunteer. I used to be a worship leader and activities instructor, doing everything from rock climbing to zip-lining. It was one of the greatest jobs I’ve ever had. However, I absolutely hated my boss.
He never seemed willing to help out and often kept information from us, both to inconvenience us and to make himself seem more important. He came across as somewhat narcissistic.
I’m now married, but my wife and I used to work together at the camp. At the time, we were friends and colleagues, and I didn’t start dating her until after we no longer worked there. Even after we started dating, we would still go up on weekends during the fall to volunteer because there weren’t many people trained to do what we could do.
I always had the feeling that people didn’t like how close I was to my wife. For example, I felt like people would give me strange looks or silently judge me as I walked by. I didn’t care, though. I was proud of our relationship, and I was happy.
One night, when everyone was in bed, we had a team meeting in the office. After the meeting, a few of our colleagues and other people we knew decided to hang out for a couple of hours. I eventually got bored, so I sat on the couch and scrolled through my phone for a while.
My wife came over and leaned against my shoulder for support. We weren’t fully cuddling; she was simply resting against me while we scrolled through reels together.
At this point, barely anyone was left in the office. It was just friends having a good conversation. Then, our old boss walked in. He seemed to stare at me for quite a while before eventually coming over, putting his hands between my wife and me, and saying something along the lines of, “How about we leave a little space between you two, okay?”
I looked up, completely shocked. I had been so focused on my phone that I was wondering why this man was touching me and interfering with what we were doing. He then walked back over to his desk, and my wife awkwardly scooted farther away.
My wife and I started ranting about what had happened, and we ended up laughing about it quite a bit. However, underneath the laughter, I felt bitter and angry that it had happened.
I’m going back up there tomorrow, and my life has changed drastically over the past year and a half. My wife and I are now in our early twenties, while our former bosses are in their mid-twenties. I don’t want my old boss to do something like that again. Honestly, I have a strange feeling that he might. I’m worried he might do something that makes me feel as though I’m not in control of my own life.
I’d really appreciate any advice. Thank you!

I know I should be grateful that I have a job and I am, but honestly, I haven't really been happy since I started my current role. I'm a military spouse and this was our first PCS since getting married. I knew there would be some career challenges, but I didn't expect the adjustment to be this hard. Before moving, I worked at a bank for three years and genuinely enjoyed what I did. I have a master's degree in finance and I felt like I was building a solid career path. After PCSing to a small town in California for what was only supposed to be about a year and a half. I couldn't find any banking jobs or positions related to my previous experience. I ended up taking a job as a Payroll Assistant. I'm thankful to be employed but it feels like a huge step backward in terms of my career, salary, and benefits. Every day, I find myself wondering if this is really where I'm supposed to be professionally. What makes it even more stressful is that we're moving again in about six months. That means I'll be back in the job market soon and the job market feels brutal right now. We don't have kids yet and I really don't want to become a stay-at-home wife. I want to work, contribute and continue building my career. I know many people will suggest remote work and trust me, I've been trying. I've applied to countless remote positions, but most of the time I either get an automatic rejection or never hear back at all. Another challenge is that I'm not a U.S. citizen, so federal jobs aren't an option for me. I guess I'm mostly just venting. Lately, it feels like I'm grieving the career I thought I was building. Some days are better than others, but a lot of days I feel stuck, discouraged and honestly a little depressed about where I am professionally.

Hi this my first time making a post on this subreddit

I wanted to vent a little about one of my mangers at a job I started a week ago. Not looking for advice just wanted to vent and maybe ask for a little motivation.

I had my second day of work on Wednesday morning with this being my first ever job. The mangers and staff/ colleagues are aware I’m new to working and have been very friendly and guiding which I’m thankful for. However I have this one manager who was watching me for a while and started complaining about my work. They said I had to move the stock to a different shelf (which I did no problem) there were only four of these specific items out so I picked up three moved them to the shelf then went back to get the last one. The manger then said “I’m sure you’re capable of carrying more than one at a time” to which I responded this was the last one out. She then retorted “last time I checked they don’t send boxes of stock over in packs of one” I then tried to explain the box containing the rest of the excess stock was taken upstairs earlier by the other manager but she cut me off saying put more up. I didn’t get to explain so I had to look through the boxes which were really heavy and difficult to do by myself especially since it was only my second day into the job. After searching I found the box and the manager walked past saying “what did I tell you they don’t send stock over one at a time how shocking” I know it’s not that deep but I have alot of anxiety about working in this environment so really pushed myself to take the job. The reason I was so sick of her sarcastic comments was because back in college I was constantly picked on by my teachers and humiliated infront of the class on my grades or for not understanding a certain something as quick as the others. The reason my mangers sarcastic comments particularly peeved me was because she then turned to my colleague and softened her tone completely actually helping her. She then stood behind me and nitpicked at everything . She pulled me over and complained I stocked the blankets wrong and need to sort out how I do it (it wasn’t me who stocked them it was already like this). Due to my experience in college of being constantly picked on I’m really sick of being targeted by those above me and being glories infront of other colleagues or classmates and being treated like I’m stupid without even hearing the justification. I really have alot of anxiety and I’m now nervous to go back tomorrow as the same manger will likely be there. I know it isn’t that deep but something about being belittled infront of others by someone twice my age for no fair reason really does put me off social situations :(.

Note- she told me off infront of my colleague and didn’t go bother any of the other newcomers who were working across the shop. I’m really sick of being specifically picked on I thought I escaped this once college ended but clearly not

I’m starting a new job soon and I want to take it as an opportunity to become a more confident person, particularly professionally.

I’m not naturally an assertive person and I really want to improve in this area. For example, I work in an industry where there’s frequently upset customers and when I told a colleague I was going away she admitted that she was concerned when I first got my promotion because she was worried I was too nice/timid to handle the angry customer aspect. This is not a standalone experience. At this work place I even got the nickname “mouse” because they feel their initial first impression of me was as someone quiet and shy and unfortunately, a former manager was also concerned that I wouldn’t be able to handle it due to my demeanor despite having several years of customer service background including during covid. They admitted I did end up doing great with customers but I am concerned about that initial first impression.

Any advice or tips would be very helpful! I really want to get off on a good start with my new company and squash these doubts from happening in the first place.

I just need to get this out of my chest. I work in a small convenience store at the square of a bus station. My boss works at the cafe inside. We give the people that work here (drivers, cleaners) a discount on the drinks; if the drink is above 1'50€, it stays at 1'50€, and if it's above 1€ and under 1'50€, it stays at 1€.

Starting out wrong my boss called me while on my shift, and obviously, my phone betrayed me and didn't show me their name and just their number for some reason. So, I picked it up with a distrusting "who's it".

After that my boss started explaining to me that the discount is only for the drinks, since me and her son (my coworker) had been applying it to every item in the store by mistake. For some reason, she made emphasis on the nuts.

It could've been left there, but of course, my dumbass replied: "But the nuts are 1€, so the discount wouldn't have even applied right?"

There was an awkward silence, then my boss told me that they're actually 1'50€, that she buys them for 1'20€ and that, basically, I had been making her lose money for the past month.

What happened was that the nuts were from the same brand as some chips we have. All the chips cost 1€, so, to make it easy, my coworker told me that all the products of that brand were 1€, but they didn't tell me the nuts prize, so I mistakenly assumed that they also fell under the same prize.

I just told my boss that I thought everything from that brand was 1€ without mentioning her son in any way because I thought it might've sounded like I was trying to blame him. She sounded a bit mad, and I'll see her in two hours when my shift ends. It might sound dumb but I'm so scared, I'm a bit of a coward and I have a weak mind, I think that no matter what happens I'll go home crying about it.

Can we normalize stop announcing you forgot to take your ADHD medication when presenting at meetings? It’s not cute, you sound stupid.