So the entire office should organise itself around Maureen's paranoia?

According to this story, that's the case. Some people are so lost in their own delusion that they will attribute any action to some secret agenda. Of course, I don't think we should all walk on eggshells because of people like this, but in this case, I think it's fair.

Maybe after this, Maureen will realize she isolated herself. Did she really think this was the best way to feel invited to a group? I think it is one of those strange cases of negative self-importance. The person feels relevant, like everyone is paying attention to them, but in a negative way, like thinking everyone is thinking about them. The truth is, most people don't even notice us, and that goes for most people. It's bittersweet to know we're not that important, but it's nonetheless freeing.

This act of malicious compliance, or how I like to call it, 'petty decency', might push Maureen to the brink of her own delusion, but I think it is for a good cause. Everyone at the office, and hopefully even she, will realize how ridiculous it is to organise breaks like that.

The other, more mature option would be to directly address this issue with Maureen. Maybe all she needs is to feel seen and to realize she is making a fuss over imagined scenarios, but her coworkers chose a funnier path; let's see where it gets them.

I believe paranoid folks like this deeply wish to be included, but it would take a bunch of positive leadership qualities to actually achieve that, and I assume her coworkers just want to have fun and keep not caring about her.

Do you think this problem will get bigger and bigger, or will Maureen finally come to terms with the truth that nobody cares that much?

Do your kids have a 6th sense for snacks?

As a non-official superpower, kids can smell snacks from miles away, while also refusing to eat any regular food. Also, when they do get snacks, they like to save just one bite for MONTHS until it looks like it has come to life, just to offer it to you as a little gift later. If you refuse, they will scream). These are some of the unexpected wonders of parenthood nobody ever tells you about. Moments of parenting you could never have prepared for, and that gets you wondering: did I ever do this when I was a kid? The answer is yes, you absolutely did. We all did. 

As your respect for your parents grows every time your toddler takes on a new activity, or when your teenage child feels the urge to correct every grammar mistake, you start to wonder how you'll survive parenting. You already have a busy weekend of soccer mornings and birthday party afternoons. It feels impossible! I am no expert in childhood nor in time management, so you're on your own for that. However, if there is something I know, it's memes. I might not be able to fix your once-white-but-now-very-colourful couch, but we can help with the aftermath by making you chuckle at these images. It's just a couple of decades more before your kids have kids of their own, and you can go ahead and tell them: "I told you so…" (Exactly how your parents did to you, so let's keep the traditions going.) Maybe start saving some of these memes for your future grandparent self. 

Don't feel guilty, we know you love your kids, and you would literally make friends with the most annoying parents in the class so they could get a play date with their friends. Nonetheless, when they stand at your bedroom door staring like stalkers at 4 am on a Sunday, it's okay to laugh with some relatable pieces of comedy.  You can scroll through these while you wait for your kids to pick up their toys, which we all know means you will wait for what feels like forever. However, forever doesn't feel like such a long time when you have good memes.

Are written updates an advantage or only a different kind of bias?

We have to accept that verbal meetings give more influence to those who feel comfortable raising their voice, speaking, and making themselves noticed. Those meetings primarily benefit the socially dominant. Written updates, on the other hand, are more objective, and if everyone writes them, there is no social bias.

It happens a lot; in verbal meetings, we favour people who are more confident speaking, even if they objectively did less work, so opting for a written update regime changes the focus to what really matters.

Some people say not everyone feels comfortable writing, so we'd be exchanging one bias for another, but I'm not so sure about it. Lists are easy; they don't need special social skills or even writing skills. They are mandatory for everyone, and they just require having something to add to them.

If you can't write what you did on a simple list, maybe you haven't done that much. If some employees have a hard time writing, management should do something about that, but I definitely think writing is way easier than speaking in public.

Maybe some people don't like updates like this because they were succeeding using only their social skills, and now they have to get to work. It's normal; it takes time. We live in a society that consistently rewards that. I even get tired of reading internet posts about how upper management always rewards those who look stressed over those  actually working.

At any rate, this is just my opinion, and I'm open to debate if anyone thinks this is not the best route to take; I just want to hear consistent arguments as to why that is.

Nothing says "you're fired" like one last corporate lie…

Getting fired is no fun. Even if it was something you expected or not, walking into a normal workday and realizing it might be your last can be really nerve-racking. However, there's one thing that can actually make it better: comparing it with other internet users' biggest lies they've been told the day they were terminated. Because we all know it, sometimes companies need to shorten the staff, but they don't know how to actually do it. And we don't blame them: HR are people as well, and they get nervous when facing this situation. But… some of these reasons are not even believable.

We should all get past the awkwardness that comes when someone is getting fired. I mean, if you want to fire me, be honest and tell me the truth to my face… because this is very uncomfortable as it is, but if you're nervous and don't really know how to cope with it and you tell lies about what's going on, it's only going to make the situation ten times worse. Nonetheless, and like I said before, the positive side to all of this is that we get to laugh years later when comparing all the lies together! And this is why we're here for, folks!

Some of these lies are so funny that they look like a cameo taken out of a TV show. People are straight lying to your face and pushing you to sign documents that don't really make sense with what they are telling you to your face, and you know that is going to affect you in the future. Also, how is firing someone not personal? I think it is the most personal thing that can happen at work! Unless there was a huge mistake or a big mess-up, if the company is letting yoy go is a 100% personal thing. That's what I mean by honestly: don't lie to me, don't make me feel worse.

Anyways, prepare yourself for the amount of dumb excuses HR ever said when terminating people's contracts… they are too funny to even be true.

If you encourage new rules, don't be surprised when your employers follow through with them.

Some bosses love setting up new rules without thinking about whether they will work or if they are even right for the work that is done at that particular office. And to me, that is simply and directly bad management. Not every rule will work in any office. You have to take into account the employees, the systems, the product, the clients, and so much more before applying a new rule. So, blatantly placing it as an obligatory curse can cause major disasters at the company. That's why not everyone is born to be a boss. A good one would have taken all that and more into account before making it a direct order. And then, a bad boss has even the nerve to act surprised when things do not work out, and they don't know where to hide. They want to blame somebody for the rule not working, but it's just their fault, due to their lack of abilities toa ctually be a boss. 

In this story, we get to see the reality of when you fix something that isn't broken --I love that phrase. This person, the boss, decided to change something that was working fine. I assume he had two reasons to do so: one, to avoid paying extra time to the employee, which is illegal. And two, because it was his way of making people understand that he is the new boss and he can do as he pleases. Well, he got exactly what he deserved. A new problem was born from trying to fix something that was working perfectly fine. He could have just accepted that he had no place to change anything, and everything would have been fine. But no, he needed to put his head in something that didn´t require anything from him. Sometimes, some bosses need to understand that not everything needs their opinion or supervision. You can just remain quiet. If anything needs to be changed, you will notice that there is a problem, like the one this boss created after changing things up. 

The generation divide often seems greatest at work.

The workplace is one of those environments where people who would never usually cross paths get thrown together to interact for eight hours a day, whether they like it or not. While this state of affairs is notorious for causing some friction, it is also a great way to expand your anthropological knowledge if you look at it the right way. Here are a bunch of individuals from walks of life that you may not be exposed to by choice, but they could teach you a thing or two about where they're coming from. It can be as interesting as it is annoying.

One of the most intriguing differences in the average workplace is age. Plenty of offices right now have employees who range from boomers to Gen Z, and it is fair to say that these generations don't always see to eye to eye. However, with the right attitude, a workplace like this can be a good place for people to try and understand those age groups that are older or younger than them. There is no need to be divided and bitter all of the time, not least when there is an opportunity to build bridges.

Sometimes returning to the office means that they're hoping that you quit…

Returning to the office is a big point of contention in a lot of workplaces. It seems to be happening at a pretty fast pace now that life is a little more normal than it once was and we're getting back to how things used to be. But so much has changed, and it's important to take the right lessons from that. Working from home allows employees so much flexibility that they don't always get in their day-to-day lives. And if you have a long commute, you were probably grateful for the time saved in your day. Commuting is not a fun thing to do. It can feel like it's eating into your free time in a way that your company doesn't recognize. 

The mother-in-law being a witch is supposed to just be a storytale.

What would you do if you were pressured into buying a house all to find out to be a storyline created by your mother-in-law so that you are now responsible for caring for your adult brother-in-law? Well, that is the story here, unfortunately for the people involved. It is sad how a mother decided to carry out a malicious plan that benefited herself and caused problems in his son's life and marriage. Is also sad that the only two people being involved in the whole situation are the women of the family: the mother-in-law and the person suffering this whole outcome. But what makes everything worse is thinking that a family that you marry into will do a well-thought-out plan just so they can delete themselves from the situation and the responsibility and put it on somebody else's shoulders. 

The only thing that is a favorable outcome from this whole thing is that if they set a boundary now, then I will set a boundary into the future. Is important that they stand their limits si that they are not involved in a situation like this ever again. 

This guy's workplace treats resignations like a breakup where one person refuses to accept that it is over. He hands in a notice, offers a clean handoff, and is met with a reaction that basically says:  "We would rather set a cardboard box on fire than watch you walk out with your box of stuff"

Notice periods were invented by businesses in the first place because they make transitions less painful for BUSINESSES. But this story proves they only work when both sides of the 'employee leaving' coin can act like adults. 

And here it fell apart because Boss decided the fastest route to closure is to usher the person out before their badge even stops working. A bold move that might have made him feel powerful in the moment, like slamming a door before the other person can say one last thing. But imust've felt much less powerful when the work that person was supposed to finish stays floating mid-air with nowhere to land.

What a great way to say "thanks" for all the hard work he has done over the past 15 years. 

In an ideal world, all of your requested PTO will be approved every time. After all, you earned your PTO by working for the company, so you should be able to use it whenever you see fit. Unfortunately, that's not always the case in every company. Some companies do have "busy seasons" that aren't the best times to take off, but if you work at one of those companies, you usually learn pretty quickly when the "busy season" takes place and can plan accordingly. If it only spans six weeks in the summer and six weeks in the winter, then it's pretty manageable. If the busy season is 10 months out of the year, you can't even really call it a season, can you? 

Some jobs inflate their importance. They act as if it is impossible for you to miss a week of work and still keep the business afloat, even though everybody knows that is not true. They cancel your PTO requests at the last minute because things are "just so busy," even though they were just as busy the week before, the week before that, and the week before that. They just want to control their employees because they think it will get more work out of them, even though it will do the opposite. An employee who is well-rested after a vacation will do better work than an employee who hasn't had a real week off in years. 

The employee in this story just wants to go on his honeymoon with his wife, but his job canceled his PTO request at the last second. He doesn't know whether to quit now or let his job fire him.

Two brothers questioned why they were offered a fraction of their apparent inheritance while their uncle contacted them through social media, requesting they sign a dubious legal document and resisting providing any formal accounting

Whenever a key member of an extended family passes on, it can literally tear a family apart. Not only is the glue that was holding all the cracks together now gone, but the advantage-seeking members of the family are all scrambling to pick up all the proverbial candy that is scattered on the ground like a big piñata. 

Would you drive 5 hours just to get coffee with someone?

Friendship is worth everything, but is it worth a 5-hour drive? Sometimes friendships change as you get older, and there is nothing wrong with that. The people you used to be around all the time may take a backseat, while others get pushed to the fore. Things might get in the way of you being friends, like distance, children, or marital status. We all go through different seasons of life, and our friends are there to help us through them. I like the phrase "A reason, a season, or a lifetime" for this reason. Not all relationships have the same effect on us. Some are only temporary. This can be hard to face, though, when it's happening. You want to hold onto the things that may have served you in the past but might not serve you in the future. It can be hard to grow apart from a friend. You feel it happening, and you wish you could hold onto it with all you have, but you can't. This is okay. Not everything is made to last forever. The woman in this story was learning that the hard way with a friend who refused to make compromises for her. It's not easy to maintain a friendship into adulthood. You have to carve out time and energy for it. If both of you aren't willing to do this, it will suffer. 

Sometimes all you need for a higher position is confidence

It's not that you lack the skills or that you don't know your field; you just have to get used to your new role and realize you won't have to wait for approval anymore. Instead, you will be the one giving direction.

When companies hire someone to be in charge of a project, they want to feel at ease knowing things are being taken care of, and if you show the tiniest bit of insecurity or lack of proactivity, you will not give them that confidence.

For me, this story is about the 'fake it till you make it' technique. It's not that the employee who got a higher position should pretend to have knowledge they don't have, because I don't really believe that can last. But I do think he needs to get the memo and start giving what the company wants from him, which is basically more confidence, so they can chill and do their jobs without having to worry about whether the marketing team will be all right.

The employee from this story and I agree on one thing, though: marketing is full of buzzwords, and a lot of people in the industry don't really know what they're doing or use outdated tactics; but those things can be used to our advantage if we play our cards right.

If I were him, I would do my best in my higher position and show so much confidence that they trust me. If it doesn't work, at least you gain experience, and if it does, you earn a more senior role! It's a win-win situation.

I've seen people change their managers' opinions of them, so I hope this junior-turned-senior employee succeeds. Do you think he has what it takes?

 

Apparently, a free and new fence wasn't good enough for these entitled neighbors…

Neighbors… what a complicated subject. They could be the best people you could ever meet and trust them with everything you have… or they could be the worst and actually make the experience you have in a neighborhood or at home very complicated. In my personal experience, I've never had issues with the people who lived next door, and that is taking into account that I moved a lot growing up. So, when I encounter stories like this, they really surprise me by how mean and entitled people can be.

Something that sparks dilemmas with neighbors is a shared fence. We know that it is an object that belongs to both families, although one takes care of it more than the other. In the story we have below, the homeowners wanted to change the fence because it was falling apart. It was moldy, unpleasant to look at, and not safe at all. Of course, they went up to their neighbors and discussed the problem. They weren't as worried about the situation, so in the end, the homeowners paid for almost the whole replacement, about 90% of it.

And they made a good replacement: now it had a metal post, so it was going to last far longer than a wooden one. It's safe to say that it was a good investment. 

There was a little change, though. The husband preferred not to see the posts, so they were installed outside of their property line, facing the neighbor's home. Before doing this, they checked with the HOA, and they had a city permit to do this, so it's not like they made a decision that broke the law. It's all very legal, and they have fences with other neighbors, and some of those are located inside others' properties, so they didn't think much of it.

The neighbors showed up at their place and were angry that the posts weren't located on the property line. Their response was that they could pay for them to be removed and positioned on the property line, but of course that didn't happen.

Working from home is a blessing and a curse at the same time

You're on your own; no one is there to police what you're wearing or whether you've taken off your pajamas in the last three weeks. You promised it wouldn't happen to you, but your schedule got messed up, and sometimes you work until one in the morning because you lost the entire afternoon to showering, cleaning the house, and a trip to the grocery store.

Every Monday you tell yourself you will start working at normal hours, but temptation knocks on your door, and the next thing you know you're doing laundry when you should be writing a report, and writing a report when you should be eating dinner and relaxing.

It's terrible, but it's beautiful to be free. You get to know yourself and your relationship with time, whether you're organized or whether you leave everything to the last minute. It's wonderful! But hey, at least you're allowed, and if any day you feel like it, you can sleep in; you don't have to get in traffic; you don't have to go out on days when it's raining.

We can complain about lots of stuff, like all the time we spend in front of a screen, but those of us who have had the experience of working jobs where we had to show up very early, or had to use our bodies a lot, or maybe customer service jobs, aren't we a lot more privileged now? Choosing when to go to the office or walking our dogs during lunch break?

We have to learn to manage our time better, and also, we should learn to be thankful for what we've got, right?

Has any of you developed a really weird habit since working from home?

Nobody said that becoming a manager was going to be all fun and giggles…

Proving yourself at work and actually being a good employee can lead to a promotion. In our heads, being promoted is the end goal in the corporate world: you finally reach the position where you get to manage people, maybe your own office, and then, and there, you can relax. Now, many of the managers that I've met love their job and dealing with people. If you think about it, they have to be on top of their game all day just to keep things going and on track. However, there're a few cases in which becoming a boss doesn't really line up with some people's preferences.

This IT employee was offered a management position, and he took it with no hesitation. He used to be a Solutions Architect and actually improved the workflow at the company a lot by fixing some mistakes, so he became very valuable to the team. On paper, the position looked great: better salary and a huge opportunity to grow his career. But the downside is that he realized that he hates the part that comes with having people in charge. And yes, this may be the hardest, but for others it is the most rewarding. 

The employee only has to manage two people, but they have "big egos," so every day there's a different conflict that needs to be addressed, and he finds this to be totally tiring. They have a lot of arguments with different developers and other coworkers, so he's always having to intervene and fix these problems in order to proceed with projects. Secretly, he confesses that if he were offered his old position back, he'd take it, no doubt. But we know that going backwards in your career is not possible and not well seen.

In the comments section, most readers seemed to understand his frustration and shared some personal stories that made him feel better. He hopes that in a year, he can learn to enjoy the role and to cope with it. But for the time being, he's doing his best.

Are we policing what people do with their free time now? Should extremely tired moms make even their free time productive?

I'm going to preface this piece by saying I don't agree with either the husband or the commentators in this post. I thought my point of view would be the most obvious, but apparently, it isn't. I can understand why exhausted moms feel so lonely these days. Modern life not only isolates them, and all of us, for that matter- but it also punishes them for looking for a somewhat escapist way to spend their (very little) free time.

The usual problem is that much of the housework moms do is invisible. Only their kids know it. A normal job is public; it's backed by a contract, has a schedule, a workweek, and most importantly, it's paid accordingly! A mom's job is viewed only as the natural thing for her to do.

This sort of story always amazes me because fathers know very well how tiring it is to care for kids all day.  

This issue about how people use their free time goes deeper than this, though. People not only judge mothers for how they use it. In my opinion, if we're not finding ways to let go of the mind and truly relax, free time is pointless.

Of course, we should find places to relate socially and not be in our heads or with screens all the time, but come on, are we going to be that hypocritical and judge a mother of two toddlers for escaping to TikTok sometime?

Maybe I'm exaggerating, but the husband's reaction to what his wife is commenting on is a little bit tendentious, and frankly, it's openly dismissive. If I were her, I would take it very seriously. It's very easy to come home when kids are tired and pretend you are doing all the work.

Some people need clearer boundaries to understand rejection

It's ok; not all of us understand things so quickly. Some of us need very clear words and actions to get the message.

Of course, I'm being sarcastic here; many people desperately need some very basic social skills, and it's unbelievable that at a certain age we still have to face this type of encounter.

We've all been there at some point; we probably didn't behave like that, but it's normal to like someone and interpret their ambiguity as them liking us back. That shouldn't mean we're completely certain about the other person's feelings. We should always keep a safe margin of doubt, at least until there is explicit confirmation. Until then, our advances should be subtle, and we should always wait for a voluntary response from the other.

But what happens when somebody never understood this very basic rule of human behaviour? Is it our job to teach them?

I frankly think we don't have to; instead,  we should protect ourselves, and every time we see someone like this, activate the toughest boundaries protocol ever. When implementing something like this, it's important to remember we're not doing it to teach the other person anything; we're doing it for ourselves and ourselves only.

We know rejection stings, but those who were rejected should face the truth: our empathy shouldn't exceed our self-love. We should always protect ourselves first, even if that means being unkind, because (clearly) our kindness is misinterpreted as openness to being close to someone we don't want to be close to.

Has anyone else had an experience like this with a coworker who couldn't read the room? What did you do to neutralize  it? Do you think involving HR is important in cases like this?

If you want people to work through the holidays, you have to give them the right motivation for it.

Everybody needs a break from their job sometimes, and this is never more important than when a big holiday comes around. Employed or not, most believe this is a time to relax a little and enjoy spending some time with their loved ones. It is hard for any work project to compete with that. 

Nonetheless, some roles have to be performed every day of the year, no matter what. Some companies also simply prefer to be open year-round, and that is something that employees have to accept. This isn't always easy, but more often than not, employers are willing to understand that. They will give some financial incentive for working when almost everybody else with a job is on vacation.

Money will always be the best motivator for the majority of employees, so it is usually fairly effective in ensuring that at least some people will be working the holidays. Take that away, though, and it will be a lot more doubtful whether enough workers will be willing to commit. Why give up that precious time just to be at work like normal?

Many important life events are just coincidences that happen because you were in the right place at the right time

I often think about it; maybe your mom and dad met at a concert that one of them wasn't going to, and their friends made them go. Maybe you stop a random girl in the street to ask for the time, and she ends up being the love of your life. I mean, what are the odds? But it happens.

If you think about it hard enough, everything that happens is a string of really weird coincidences, so it wouldn't be weird if, on any random day, something that completely changes the course of your life happens by chance.

We don't need to attribute it to fate; it's not necessary to think it was preestablished. It could be that a lot of minor things piled up to cause major things, and coincidences are only a reflection of that.

What we can do to stimulate fate or life, whatever you call it, to put us in experiences is simply to go out and look for them. It doesn't matter how big or small they are, because according to this post's commentators, a lot of random and small things took them to surprising destinations.

So I would just say, get out there, meet people, be out and about, and good things are going to happen to you. Life will move, and you will have love and experience; that is the best thing to have in this very brief experience we call life. What are we doing if we're not looking to see what's out there? We have to let life show us.

Do you think you do anything in your day that connects you to the possibility of something important happening to you?