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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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!

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?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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. 

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.