Data isn't always everything, although it is often the most visible. 

In this Reddit story, an act of malicious compliance around tracking and timesheets raised a very important question about the fact that any time spent tracking time more thoroughly is actually wasting it.

We often think that our increased ability, aided by technology, to log and record every amount of data but one thing we often don't think about is just how much time and resources all of that data that we can track takes to process.

All of that data and increased insight itself can become an occlusion, as systems feed you data you're never going to get around to processing. All the while, more pours in and decreases the likelihood that you're ever going to get to it.

Plus, whatever you are focusing on becomes its own bias, and the more you focus on a single or few key metrics, the more workplace behavior will distort to meet it. But the invisible work is equally as important as the KPIs you're tracking (try explaining that in a board meeting), and the more time you spend forcing people to perform to a standard, the more you're eating away at those tasks.

As a manager, too, all of that micromanagement becomes a massive time sink; just as soon as you're having to spend all of your time worrying about what everyone else is doing, you can also count on the fact that you're not getting anything done yourself.

That works for some managers who have none of their own work to do, but for everyone else there's just no way that would be possible. 

This employee sought to get around their new boss's micromanaging scrutiny of their timesheets and decided to bombard them with so much information they couldn't keep up.

Sometimes a relationship ends but one part is unaware of it

I've been in this situation so many times, almost always on the aware part, but either way, it never ceases to be heartbreaking. Friendships, sadly, sometimes take the worst part of romances, and people in them exhibit behaviours such as nagging and jealousy outbursts; or you find out one day that you are much more important to your friend's life than that person is to you. That, I think, is what's happening to the woman who shared the story below. Also, there is some difficulty setting boundaries and being assertive going on, but we'll discuss that later. I just wanted to preface what I'm going to comment on about this story by saying that it would be great if friendships were the place where we could let all that programming from romantic relationships fly out the window, and just enjoy ourselves and be free.

When should our nitpicking stop?

In these modern times, there's a pretty widespread idea that our partners should be there to satisfy our every need, and that we should be so pragmatic as to leave them ASAP if there is a very minor box they don't check. Evidently, I do not subscribe to that way of thinking, and today I'm going to explain why.

The woman who found herself in this desperate situation states she has no resources left to solve it and that it is a deal-breaker. And who are we to judge her? We'll just stick to using the story as an excuse to do our own bull session.

Can a take-home assignment become intellectual property theft?

Isn't this just a wonderful vengeance story? As a writer who has been working for a while, I had to complete multiple assignments during interview processes, and it never occurred to me that recruiters might be using my work without paying me a single penny. I just can't get over the fact that a company would actually do that. But I guess sometimes these things can happen.

That's why I got so thrilled when I read that the applicant installed a tracker on his design work, to check if those people would actually use it… and as a matter of fact, they were. But not only the used it: they rejected the applicant. That job position might have ended up being a total scam… Is it possible for companies to pretend they need to hire someone only to get a job done for free? I'm might be losing hope in the work industry if this is true…

I believe we can all learn from this situation and just be a bit more mindful when job searching. While taking a home assignment can be a legitimate part of the interview process, it does create opportunities for companies to steal the work and not pay for it. Although many companies act in good faith and they really want to test the applicant, being careful about it is a smart move.

Wow… it really surprises me how competitive the job market is getting. I remember a couple of years ago, it wasn't really common for companies to send homework for you to do in order to test our skills. But now, with so many applicants, it's the norm. I guess the rules are changing for both ends, so taking care of your work and demanding what's yours seems pretty reasonable.

Let us know in the comments what you think about this designer! What would you have done?

Question: When is it okay to park in a handicapped parking spot?

Answer: Only when you have a permit to park in a handicapped parking spot. If you don't have a legal permission to park in an accessible parking space, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for you to park in one. 

Not even for five minutes, not if you stay in the car, not in any scenario. That spot is reserved for people who need it, and for a good reason. There are enough people who need it anyway, so don't be a reason someone can't park in a spot they deserve. It isn't worth the risk of preventing others from using it, it isn't worth the fine you might get for illegally parking there, and it generally doesn't make you a good person. Just look for a different spot, even if it takes a few extra minutes out of your day.

All of that is very clear to the customer who shared the story below, but apparently not clear enough to the drive-thru employee who told them to park in the spot in the first place.

This customer did everything right: They made an order on the app so they wouldn't have to wait for it to be ready, they went through the drive-thru line, and accepted the fact that their order might take a few more minutes to be ready. But when the employee asked them to wait for the order in the handicapped parking spot, the customer finally said no. This was not something they were comfortable doing, and they had no problem saying that to the employee. Why should the customer risk getting a ticket because their order wasn't ready in time? And who is the employee to decide who can park in an accessible parking spot?

Who determines our relationship to love and marriage?

At first, I thought this was yet another story about a guy getting cold feet right at the moment he is asked a big question. This is how it always goes for me: everything seems to be going fine, and at some point, I decide to bring up some variation of the 'what are we?' question, and all we had goes up in flames. I think this is a fairly universal experience and not just my bad luck… Right?

Well, this wasn't the case at all for the young woman who shared this story, although it has some similarities with it which we're analyzing later. Also, his dragging the mother into the debate is all very cliché, but I'm not going to be prejudiced about this or project my love life frustrations onto it; the commentary will go in another direction, I promise.

Food can look different in different cultures, but it always means practically the same thing. Humans have gathered around food since forever and have also constructed countless rituals surrounding it. Feeding is one of our first contacts with the world around us when we're babies and are fed by our mothers. Most of the time, food signifies love, community, connection, nurture, interdependence, etc.

Having said this, what happens when the food we're being offered is not yummy, and it feels like it's being pushed down our throats? That's what we're about to find out. The story below was shared by a tired sister who doesn't know how to take care of this growing issue surrounding her sister's rather nasty appreciation displays.

When help is not helping

I think there is something to say here about a road paved with good intentions, but anyway. Sometimes we analyze a situation and come up with the best solution we can think of, and we end up breaking something that was steadily functioning. The key to success might be communicating our plans to fix the thing instead of doing it as a surprise, but well, everybody makes honest mistakes, and it even feels unfair to call a situation like this a mistake.

This good-willed employee spent hours of her days doing something she thought would benefit the entire department and ended up finding herself in a very awkward position. What would you do in this situation?

Why do some people see financial independence as a threat to commitment?

Okay, I'll totally admit that I feel compelled by this story. I am the older sibling, and I will always do whatever it takes to help any of my sisters. No matter what. Even if that involves money. And I think any sibling would do something like this… So, this anecdote could easily have happened to me. That's why I think I'm very invested.

What I don't get is why the boyfriend is so upset with the older sibling. I mean, of course, she was expected to help her sister, and since he has been around for three years, I believe her behavior is very normal. I understand that he's heartbroken and that he wants to keep the girl, but taking it out on the sister is definitely not the way to go. Especially when he's blaming her for the separation. 

I understand the position where the OP is sat. And, let me just say, she has no business with the boy and for sure doesn't have to try to comfort him in any way, or try to be in his shoes. She's there for her sister, as she has always been. Now, I'll say that I'm curious about the little sister's approach. What's on her mind? Because, essentially, her ex-boyfriend is calling her immature and demanding that she pay him back for the very expensive lifestyle they indulged in while being together. That's a bigger fish to fry. 

I'm very amazed by how the boyfriend thinks that the little sister is following money, when I'm sure there's a reason why she's leaving the relationship. And the OP clearly states at the top of the story: "she's not impressed by money". I hope the boy can see that there are more reasons behind the breakup, and demanding money is never going to help the situation. I'm curious to see what you think about the conflict. In my opinion, it is a very interesting thing when money interferes with family problems.

We're not born knowing how to not be anxious around love, and our first experiences with it are filled with all-or-nothing scenarios. I remember how I felt every time my high school sweetheart didn't immediately text back. I would succumb to the deepest pit, thinking my life was definitely over. At that age, it's very hard to tell the emotional mind that the other person might be occupied and has not spend its afternoon thinking about how to destroy you.

Truth is, we learn all this from experience, and this puppy love might have to go through its own lessons to become a more established form of partnership, but we'll be here to analyze and discuss how things got to this point and what the boy can do about them before it's too late. Or is it already too late?

Unpaid volunteers are a special resource. They cost nothing; they show up out of pure goodwill, and the correct way to manage them, if you ask the manager in this one club, is apparently to treat them worse than paid employees while also expecting more

Having roommates usually means having them into consideration when making important housing decisions. 

One roommate handled an entire sublease arrangement without consulting anyone, then expected his housemates to help cover the cost when part of his plan didn't work out.

Waking up to a "you'll be mad but" text is the kind of relationship event no one wants to attend. That prefix is doing a lot of work. It means the person already knew, decided anyway, and is now managing your reaction rather than asking for your input.It's the kind of text that would make the liquid metal in my internal thermometer blow through the top and blast a hole in the ceiling, cartoon style.

Is it really betraying if you are warning someone else over your own personal experience?

The line between family loyalty and being loyal to your own values and moral can get confusing quite easily. This man was mistreated by his own brother while working together and tried to warn future business partner about his brother's true intentions. People might call it an unnecessary and tacky move. Family members might be against your actions but isn't betraying your own values to save a family member a cowardly act as well?

The phrase "barely any cost to you" is one of the most reliable signs that someone is about to ask for something expensive

There is a whole genre of family financial requests that works by reframing someone else's hard work as a resource that should be shared on demand. The logic goes like this: you have something, I need something, the gap between those two facts is your problem to solve, and if you disagree, you have forgotten where you came from. It is a guilt trip with real estate ambitions.

Something as good as a gathering with friends can end with the discovery that your friends aren't who you thought.

A cookout with friends, music, and decorations sounds great. Well, it can go wrong quickly. When somebody hosts a gathering, the guests are expected to either contribute or bring something so that the burden is not only placed on the hostess. This is common knowledge among most people and cultures, but that doesn't mean that everybody respects it. When you organize something like this, you have to be aware of how your friends behave with this and then make the decision of whether you want to host or not.

In this Reddit story, the user described that when he realized that a lot of people –who aren't his friends– were going to come, he figured that he would have to pay even more, as those people didn't have the behaviour of contributing to them. When I read that the story changed the topic to me, it went from being screwed over for money to pay for some other people's party to the lack of manners that some individuals have.

Being a decent human being involves not expecting everything to be taken care of by somebody else, especially if you aren't even friends with that person. The entitlement that the people in this story had is incredible. First, the friend expecting this user to pay for everything just because, then the other friend that started to invite people without consulting or even contributing anything, and lastly the guests who did not care who was paying for everything as long as it wasn't them.

Maybe the problem wasn't just the friend, maybe it was the whole friend group, with their lack of accountability and the poor manners they have. 

Very distant family member's funeral or your kid's dance recital?

Blended families can be hard sometimes. There is some kind of expectation floating around that you have to love the blended part of the family the same as the one you are biologically related to, and usually that is very possible to achieve, but not always. It is hard for some people to pretend they care that much for people who aren't biologically related to them, especially when no emotional bond was ever built with them. In those cases, is it really necessary to pretend? There are people that we like and people that we don't, pretending we like everyone the same, just because they are family, seems very hypocritical.

In this Reddit story, a mom is forced to choose between going to her father's mother-in-law's funeral, whom she explained they don't usually visit or have a relationship with, or going to her daughter's dance recital. There wasn't really a choice to make. She had decided from the beginning that she preferred her kid's activity over anything else. Her father was quite understanding at first, thinking she was going to come to the funeral alone and was just explaining the absence of the rest of the family, but that was not really the case. The mother wasn't going to go either. She had a previous commitment that she preferred. 
Hearing that someone is putting other people over you is hard, is understandable that the father feels taken aback and the mother-in-law finds it improper, but the truth is that the decision was up to the mother. She is the only one capable of dividing these things for herself. If she prefers to be present at her daughter's dance recital, then there's not much anyone can do. They can be mad at each other all they want, but that won't change the mother's choice in the matter. 
 

If you knew your company pays you less than 5% of what you earn them… would you stick around?

Unless you know how to get an inside look at the company's financial sheet, it's quite impossible to know exactly how profitable you are to the company you work for. Obviously, they make money off of you; they wouldn't have hired you, but exactly how much they have left after they pay your salary is not public knowledge that you can easily access.

When your job includes working with clients, you might be able to get a better idea of how much your work earns the company if you manage to find out how much the client is paying them. If a client pays your company $50,000 for your work, and you get $10,000 out of it, well, it should be easy enough to calculate your profit compared to the company's. Then it's up to you to decide if that's a fair trade.

The employee below, who worked as a UX architect for a company, discovered that while a client paid the company $70k for their work, they only earned about $1500. This meant that their employer sold their work for x23 what they paid them, and we can all agree that this is a terrible trade.

The even worse part was that the employee never got a chance to quit after finding that out, and instead got fired by the greedy boss. Luckily, the employee was not left without a job for long, as they quickly joined the client's company and started doing the work in-house, while the original employer was left without their biggest client.

By firing this employee, they signed the company up for failure, and within a year, the company completely crashed. All while the UX architect got to hold on to their actual work, and get paid much more for it…

They shared their full story on an online community, and you can read it all down below. Scroll down to do so, and after that, check out this story of a manager who bans employees from sitting on chairs during their shifts.

When did RTO become more expensive than going to a nice dinner?

We all had heard those crazy stories of workers going back to the office, only to find out that their productivity decreased or it wasn't really necessary. However, nothing really struck me like the story I'm about to share with you today. This anecdote was posted in r/remotework, and many Redditors were so confused as to why these people had to go back to an office only to work isolated.

Let me explain a bit more about this situation. According to u/Embarrassed-War9550, the company insisted on going back to work collaboratively, so everyone packed their laptops and went to the office, like every other person. When they arrived, they realized that management had built these "collaborative pods" to enhance concentration. As you can imagine, the goal was another one.

Essentially, those were actually phone booths, with a telephone, a desk, and a chair, created for people to take Zoom calls, etcetera. In other words, workers were commuting to the office, paying for parking… only to end up working exactly like they did at home. Is that the best way to start the week? Or even your "back to the office" story? (Sarcasm, please).

The best part for me, and what made me feel a bit better about the story, is that every employee had to fill out a survey after the workday, exposing their thoughts on that "genius" phone booth idea. And let me just say that the majority didn't keep their mouth shut, and just played around with the options, the same way leadership had played with them.

Have you ever helped a struggling friend out and as a thank you received stealing accusations? 

There are few things more frustrating than realizing that someone you've spent years helping has apparently decided you're the villain in a story that doesn't even make sense. We've all had that friend at some point. The one who's always going through something. The one who needs a place to stay, a ride somewhere, a favor, another favor, and then one more favor after that. And because you care about them, you help. Not because you're keeping score, but because that's what friendship is supposed to be.

The problem is that some people get so used to receiving help that they start treating it like an entitlement. What gets me isn't even the missing $100. Honestly, the money almost feels irrelevant by the end of it. The real issue is the logic leap. Imagine losing a dispute with your bank, waiting months for a response, being told that no error was found, and somehow concluding that your friend must have stolen the money.

How do you even arrive at that conclusion? I think what makes situations like this so upsetting is that they're rarely about the thing people claim they're about. The $100 isn't the problem. The ATM isn't the problem. The denied claim isn't the problem. The accusation is just the final symptom of a friendship that was already falling apart. Because if you genuinely trust someone, your first instinct isn't to accuse them of theft. I don't think that would ever be an option to me.