If you are the one demanding something, then it's on you to be responsible for it

Relationships evolve not only with the growth of each of the members of the couple, but also with how their lives change. Moving together, working full time, monetary issues, and having kids. That last concept is actually the most difficult one. Having kids can bring the couple together, make them feel more like a family. But it can also be the last drop on the glass that makes it break. Children are a lot. They cry, they scream, they tantrum. If your relationship isn't built on a strong enough foundation, then the whole building comes down with it. And you will be quick to blame it on the kids, but it's actually something deeper. 

Is hard to maintain a relationship through the good and the bad. But having meaningful and serious conversations along with lots of love can make the whole thing not that hard at all. Kids get in the way sometimes, but that doesn't make them less desirable. And I'm pretty sure that they aren't the full reason why couples break up, is usually just the last thing in a long list of problems. Your kids are the outcome of a relationship, and let's hope a healthy and loving one. So why would they be the reason it ends? It may seem like maybe there is something much more realistic bothering the two lovebirds that isn't really the reason they think. 

So if your relationship is struggling and the main issue seems to be about the kids, like the story below, talk to each other. Be honest and truthful to yourselves. Admit whether the problem is the kids or some bigger issue you are ignoring to avoid having to confront it. If the foundation is strong enough, then you can survive even a rough patch of arguments and disdain. No kid, school bus, nor anything can actually be the ruin of it. But it's important to stop with the arguing and start having meaningful conversations that can make the relationship move forward and continue being as loving as it was before. 

Have you ever burned a bridge with a friend over money?

It's not always a good idea to mix business and pleasure; that's why we have that saying. Things tend to get kind of complicated when you start owing each other money. That's what happened here, and it all but ended the friendship between these two women. When you agree to pay someone a certain amount of money, you should probably pay it. Trouble comes up when you try to back out of something that you've already agreed to. And if you can't afford it, then you should have never agreed to pay it in the first place. The woman in this story was trying to have it both ways, though. 

Friends love to do favors for friends. It's what bonds us and brings us closer together. House sitting or dog sitting is a great way to show a friend how much you care for them. They need something, and you're happy to provide it. But it's also not an easy task, especially if you have a particular dog. Some dogs require complex feeding, medicine, sleeping, and outside time routines. It's not always easy just to slot in and figure it out. That's where the money comes in. Folks pay good money to watch their pets. They're like members of the family, and you want to treat them as such. So even when a friend offers to do it, it's a good idea that you pay them, even if they agree to a little less than a stranger would. 

Should a referred employee be obliged to stay at a company long after their colleague gets their referral bonus?

In this era of total job market insanity, personally knowing somebody who has the power to get you a job can be invaluable. They always say that it is who you know and not what you know, and that statement has probably never been truer. With all those AI application sorting tools, fake job postings, and elaborate, multi-stage interviews out there, there is nothing quite like the reassurance that you may be able to get ahead thanks to help from a friend.

Of course, anybody who is going to do a thing like that is likely expecting there to be something in it for them. Most commonly, their employer has a scheme for referral bonuses, which requires that their recommendation both gets hired and stays at the company for a certain amount of time. Other than that, though, some people also just think they know an individual who is suited to the job, and who they would like to work with. If they get someone hired and it doesn't work out, it is understandable to be at least a little disappointed.

Maybe you aren't that good of a manager if one of your employees had to point that out…

Sometimes I seriously doubt whether anyone who is appointed to become a manager at a job is actually qualified for the job position. I remember at one of my previous jobs where I used to think that one of the senior employees who worked in the same position as I knew much more than the manager. It got to a point where the boss had to ask this employee for help. This was unfair in my eyes, as one of those employees should have gotten the position instead of an outsider with a good resume that actually wasn't qualified to manage that kind of workload.

This story in u/AskManagers made me think of all those managers who are completely unqualified for their job, and in return they end up having everybody suffer from that. There are always employees that have been in the company for a while, and that would have been very good leaders to the team. Instead of the person that was actually appointed for the job, and that actually shouldn't have been. I always think "why". Why were they appointed for the job if they are completely incapable of performing it the right way? Do they have some kind of relation with somebody else in the company? Did they lie on their resume? I don't know what it is, but it makes me sick that the company would rather give the job position to an idiot like that instead of a senior employee who is actually qualified to do it.

Unfortunately, when we get a situation like this one where there is nothing left to do but accept the new manager, we just have to comply. Maybe a couple of months into the job, they will start to get the gist of how everything works and actually become capable leaders. In whichever case, there isn't much we can do about it other than complain to our coworkers. So it's better to just accept it. Luckily enough, they may even accept some constructive criticism that may expedite the process of them learning how to do the job they were hired to do. 
 

Different bosses do different weird things, and this one, for some reason, thinks he is running a cult with payroll and not a business, which would be almost funny if it were not so transparently manipulative that you have to wonder how many people have walked out before

So a volatile owner cancels all his meetings to beg and threaten an employee for hours after hearing about a possible resignation, which is the kind of behavior that would get you committed if you did it to a romantic partner, and should also put you in a jacket when there is a corporate structure involved. But it doesn't

He says he trusts this person more than his own wife and family, which is a confession that he has burned every other bridge in his life and now needs this one employee to pretend that his inability to maintain relationships is actually a sign of how special they are. He offers a substantial raise. He gets nice for the rest of the day. The next day he is the same old him.

He yells, accuses people of treachery, then calms down and acts friendly again, which is the cycle that keeps people off-balance and wondering if maybe they did something wrong.

We have to do something about this; I can't take it anymore

I miss when people had ideas, even bad ideas. I miss when organizing a schedule or a plan was more about thinking and planning, and less about prompting and then not even reading what came out.

The ideas AI generates are always bland; they always have too many words and are structured in a very correct way. They have hooks and build-ups, but they lead up to nothing. I really think no matter how 'smart' the technology is, it will never have the style or the wit of a good writer or a great thinker. And also, we need to stop.

It might sound great for those who are tired today and need to come up with a presentation in five minutes, but then your clients will notice it, your service will drop in quality, and very soon we will all be swimming in a pool of AI slop, desperate for some handmade thing, or a thought that sounds 'human'.

I think, especially in work environments, that some boundaries need to be put in place, and it's really not that difficult. AI is really easy to spot, and managers and bosses should put an end to its use. People who are working should be qualified to communicate what they are working on through chat or email without resorting to AI.

It's not that I'm against it; we only need to use it more as a tool and less as another brain. I'll say it again: AI's ideas are worthless, and if you've never tried making it help you write a text message, I suggest you try. It will come up with the cringiest, longest version of something a human would never say, and it would be ridiculous to receive, so please, let's all, collectively, stop this right now.

Do you have a place of work you would return to in a heartbeat?

While we all like to complain about work, our hope is always to find somewhere that truly makes us happy. We imagine that if we were to find a place of work that truly brings us joy, we would never leave it, but that is not always the case for many who have managed to do so. Sometimes, people find themselves leaving jobs they really like for reasons they can't control.

The main reason would be, and you might have guessed it, if the workplace itself decides it's time for you to leave, aka you get fired. Even if you really love a job, that doesn't mean you will necessarily get to keep it. Perhaps your boss doesn't think you're doing a good enough job, you might get replaced by AI, and maybe you are simply a victim of some inner politics you cannot control.

Either way, you find yourself without the job you liked so much, having to somehow find a workplace that will bring you the same amount of joy.

Which leads us to the question: if your old boss were to offer you the job back, would you take it, and on what terms? How much are you willing to sacrifice for a job you really like?

The employee below found themselves facing this decision, and it wasn't an easy one to make. They were fired two years ago due to business beyond their control, but recently, their old boss reached out to offer them the job back. Even though they liked the job, they weren't quick to accept the offer, especially after they asked about the pay. Apparently, all their old workplace is willing to offer is pay lower than what they got when they first started the job five years ago. As much as they might have wanted to return, this doesn't seem like a fair offer.

Are we really that excited to return to the office?

Every week, a new scary RTO Reddit story emerges from the internet's trenches. We've finally gotten used to our work-from-home routines, only for them to come and take them away from us.

Now, all of a sudden, we have to think about traffic, vehicles, public transportation, fees, getting dressed elegantly, sharing with other people, preparing your food the day before and putting it in a lunchbox, and a long list of unwanted etcéteras.

I really don't understand why this is such a common tendency when everybody is having such a good time at home. Maybe they could offer the possibility for those who would rather go to an office (yes, they exist, and sometimes, I'm one of them) because it helps with time management, getting out of your house more often, and interacting with other people, basically.

At least for this employee, it will only be three days at the office. When all of the working-from-home thing started, I thought it was going to change the world so fundamentally that a lot of people would move out of big cities and the world would reorganize itself, and in some way it did, but right now there is definitely something pulling us back to old habits. Should we conform? And also, am I the only one who doesn't want to return to the office at all?

At least for me, going to the office should be reserved for days when you need to get out of the house a little and interact, something like that, at your own pace, but well, we'd have to restructure the entire economy of the world to do that, wouldn't we?

That's certainly a unique idea!

Remember 10 years ago when everyone and their mother was telling young people to get degrees in computer science and learn to code? These days, that advice is incredibly outdated, but there was a time when everyone thought that was the only way to get financial security. These days, those same people are telling everyone to go to trade school instead of getting a traditional four-year degree. The guy who wrote this post is probably one of those people, and I question his judgment regarding pedagogy.

"Trust the process", they said… "It'll be fine", they said…

This time of the week has come, and it's one of the ones I enjoy the most. By now, cooking fails have become so familiar to me that I've fixed the issues that not being able to cook had caused me. And yes, I used to feel very bad about not being able to prepare a good dinner for myself, but I'm totally over that… I think.

The truth is that I don't have another choice, to be honest. Cooking is something that you either master and are super good at it, or you don't. There's really no in-between point. Well, maybe there is, because I know some people who can cook good dinners but are very bad at baking… or people who can cook but aren't fans of making bread. Anyways, I'm already starting to ramble. 

If you're someone who can indeed cook and it's somewhat good at it, I don't think this is the story for you. Sorry, but it's the truth. But if you're like me and you were never able to master that thing we call cooking, then you're in the right place, my friend. I really hope the fails that I selected this time are going to be as funny as they are to me.

Laughing about the fact that I can't cook has really helped me get through that early disappointment, and had force to look for some other hobbies, and that's how I fell in love with running, actually. But that's beside the point. I think that when we are not good at something, we truly should keep trying until we come to the realization that that thing is not for us. It takes some time to reach that point, and a lot of things need to be happening for us to understand that maybe cooking… is just for other people.

If you're still at that point of realizing that these may or may not be for you, I'm here, and I encourage you to keep trying until you figure it out for yourself… in the meantime, enjoy these cooking fails!

A contractor demolished much of this homeowner's garage after confusing his property for his neighbor's. Now the contractor's insurer is nitpicking and trying not to cover the full rebuilding cost.

It's always tricky when you start getting into market value and depreciation with anything. Insurance, resale, or otherwise.

Not everyone is acting against you!

It has become insanely common to read stories where someone feels as if some people were doing things on purpose to bother them. As if they were actively looking for ways to make their life more difficult. They even believe that this kind of attitude is coming from friends and family members. People that supposedly love them are out of nowhere acting in favor of making their life harder. You hear how insane that sounds? I don't know if this comes due to entitlement or if there is something deeper to all this. They really believe they are being damaged by their loved ones out of spite or something.

The story of u/alalufra seems to be just another example of how persecuted these people feel just because they are not getting exactly what they want the moment they want it. Even though the family was actively looking for ways to accommodate the allergies the sister's husband has. But the fact that they were going to provide safe foods and safe dishes to eat and stop the risk of getting in contact with nuts wasn't enough. By the way, this person does not have a problem with being near that food. So the whole birthday wasn't an issue whatsoever. The real issue was, in fact, the people invited. They are the ones who had a problem with the accommodations, not the allergy.

These people need to understand that nobody is trying to damage them. They were invited to the birthday party because they are well-liked by the family. They were going to receive accommodations because the birthday girl really wanted them to come, and they were kind enough to explain this even before they asked because of how much they appreciate them. But no, these people can only see the bad side that doesn't even exist to begin with. Whatever. Is best to uninvite them and avoid a bad moment during the birthday party. And even take this into account the next time the family is thinking of inviting them to anything. 

Sometimes the context of a message is more important than the message itself.

This is an important thing to remember for leaders who may not fully grasp how their communications come across to staff.

This employee, who lives and works in Tennessee near the Dolly Parton statue in Sevierville, says their boss announced via a company messaging app that Dolly's reported passing would bring the business a surge in revenue. The announcement was oddly gleeful, and the disparity between the cold announcement and the absence of any remorse. 

Is this a process HR initiated or some obscure managerial tactic?

Something about this story is fishy. The timing is just off. Everything was going well, and he was receiving very good feedback until he asked for a raise, and suddenly a lot of 'anonymous negative reviews' started coming up out of the blue.

In an ideal world, the employee could contact HR, and they would protect him or at least try to intervene in the PIP with a little extra organization, but if you ask me, I think no matter what he does, he is already cooked.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I don't know a single example of somebody who has entered a PIP and survived. The only thing one can do in those cases, in my opinion, is to use the PIP time to search for a new job.

Obviously, asking for a raise shouldn't be viewed as a crime, but some organisations would rather dispose of anyone with ambition and hire a person with less experience who is willing to work for less money. It is just how it is.

At any rate, my opinion is very biased and very negative. Do you think this company is really trying to assess a normal productivity issue and is willing to keep this employee?

Or are these kinds of processes always a tactic? What do companies really get from PIPs if that were the case? Because if they fire him in the end, they will still have to pay compensation, right?

If you bring food to a party, do you have to give up the right to know what happens to it?

Hospitality is a wonderful thing, but the nitty-gritty of how it should work can get complicated at times. In theory, all somebody has to do to host a good party is plan an event and create a good atmosphere, but the tiniest of details can end up having a huge effect on whether they are successful with that or not.

You don't have to be an event planner to acknowledge that refreshments of all kinds are a big part of party planning. Anybody who RSVPs is likely to want to be greeted with some kind of spread. Whether you do everything yourself or propose a potluck, there are multiple ways to go about this.

One thing is for sure: it is easy to turn a good party into a bad one when you start to get weird about the food and drink. Every host has their limits, but ultimately, they benefit most from engaging in some well-managed generosity with their guests. Nobody likes to attend an event where somebody is obviously being stingy, for whatever reason.

Life catches up with you before you know it.

Some people like to say that life is short; others say that it is longer than you think. One thing's for sure: we often perceive time and the age we are differently depending on what stage we are at. When we are kids, the years seem to go on forever, and as we get older, they pass by with an alarming speed. One day, there is a chance that we will wake up and feel the weight of every single hour we have ever lived up until that point, but it is also possible that we will slowly turn into one of those 80-year-olds who claims to feel 21 on the inside.

Given how weird and variable our experience of time can be, it is no wonder that it sometimes ends up influencing some strange decisions. To a certain extent, deadlines aren't real, and we can do almost whatever we want at any time in our lives. However, it is naive to assume that we can make radical changes and not expect other people in our lives to raise an eyebrow. While it is vital for us to eradicate the part of ourselves that cringes, there are occasions when it could be helpful to pay attention to it now and then. That is one of those things that is timeless.

What do you do when people don't respect your property? 

Every human has the right to establish boundaries regarding their personal objects, interactions with others, and a number of other things. When other people don't respect those boundaries, each person is completely justified in enforcing them in the way they see fit. Obviously, no one should exaggerate the situation, but it's true that some people don't get to understand the limit until you shove it in their faces. 

That is pretty much what happened to a woman living with her roommate. They have an arrangement in which they share utilities but buy their food separately. They have different budgets and diets, so they just label what belongs to whom. The arrangement was working fine until one small incident happened. The roommates' boyfriend usually stays there a few nights a week, and he's mostly polite and doesn't get in the way, so they don't have any issues. That until the first woman came home from a long shift at work, planning to eat the food she had left in the fridge, just to figure out it wasn't there. At first, she thought she had miscounted and didn't give it much thought. But when the same thing happened two more times, she realized what was going on: her roommate's boyfriend was eating her food when he got hungry in the middle of the night. The roommate laughed it off like it was no big deal, but the first woman had had enough. She told her that now her boyfriend couldn't stay there during the weeknights as long as he kept eating her food (that he hadn't paid for or cooked, mind you). The roommate said it was unfair, and she was punishing her relationship for a little mistake. 

It seems like no one taught the boyfriend how to read. If all the food in the fridge was labeled, why on earth was he taking things that belonged to his girlfriend's roommate? No one taught how to respect other people's belongings either. The solution was simple: the girl had to tell her boyfriend to stop taking things that weren't his. She didn't, and now she doesn't like the consequences. For people to live together in peace, boundaries must be respected. 

Shouldn't he want his employees to build close relationships with each other? 

Everyone has a different opinion on friendships in the workplace. I know people who only hang out with their coworkers and don't have any other friends. They will go to Happy Hours five days a week and intentionally hang out with their coworkers outside of work hours! I can't imagine living that life, but if it works for them, then more power to them! Having friends in the workplace can be either really helpful or hurtful depending on how it works out. If you are able to maintain those relationships, they will be an important member of your network for as long as you live! If you and your friend have a falling-out, it's going to be awkward when you have to see them at the office five days a week for the foreseeable future. 

Most of us are friendly with people at work, but aren't trying to make our work friends our best friends. You can give the PG story of what you did last weekend, but you're not going to tell them all of the crazy details. That is probably for the best. It helps you connect with your coworkers emotionally without compromising their perception of you as a professional. You don't want to end up as one of those people on the workplace harassment training video, do you?

A lot of workers don't like having any kind of relationship with their coworkers at all. They go to r/antiwork and talk about how annoying it is that we're expected to be friends with our coworkers in order to stay employed. Well, the guy in this story didn't do that. He took to r/antiwork to complain that his boss's boss didn't want his boss to eat lunch with his subordinates, aka him. Did you get all that? Don't worry if you didn't; it'll all make sense if you scroll down. 

Being a good neighbor is one thing, but surrendering your driveway in the name of keeping the peace is another.

What is it about neighbors that makes us always come across someone who turns living in a peaceful neighborhood into such a challenge? It's so easy for me: we all have our houses (and our driveways), and the only thing we have to do is respect each other's properties. That's it. So, when I read the story shared by u/tweekiezy so hard to understand, because there's this woman who is clearly crossing the line.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to use your neighbor's driveway… It's so easy to ask first, and then allow your guest to park their car there, if they're not comfortable with leaving them on the street. But they do need to ask first, because someone uses that driveway to access their home… I feel dumb even writing these words… feels so simple!

So why would you let your sister use your neighbor's driveway if you didn't ask first? This, of course, is going to cause trouble with the family next door, because you're not aware of what they're doing and whether they will need the space later that day. I realize now that some things are easier said than done, but when it comes to someone else's property, we have to be more careful and respectful.

And the cherry on top? The argument that developed due to the neighbor's relaxed attitude. When the homeowner knocked on her door to have that car removed, she responded, "to relax," since they were leaving "in a few hours". That's not an acceptable answer: if the owner of the driveway is asking you to move the car, you have to do it. Otherwise, the situation can get messier (which happened), and now there's a big issue with gossip on that street.

Like I said before: some things need to be addressed and asked before using them to avoid future problems with the people who are living next to you…

Job interviews can reach an extreme point where they feel like a full-time job you're not even getting paid for.

The people who are currently in the job market can confirm that it has gone insane. From the company's side, they know there're a lot of candidates for a single position, so they take the time to analyze and to interview all of them, and for the candidates, the wait can get so long without an offer that they end up feeling discouraged.

I don't really know the reason behind this, but certainly, it has turned into a very complicated game in which getting an offer sounds almost impossible. But I don't want to let anybody down… I'm here to deliver some positivity in this landscape and maybe share some helpful advice. 

Or, at least, I'll try to get you something positive out of here!

In the story you're about to read, a candidate endured four rounds and eight interviews just to get him… absolutely nothing. But the worst part of all is that the company told him he was a perfect fit from the first day, and even made two false promises about an offer letter that never came. Because he knew that this was going to take a long time, we started having interviews in other places, hopefully, some more serious companies.

He ended up receiving an offer letter, but sadly, had to renounce the remote chance of getting the position in the first company, which sounded great and had some good referrals. When they told the hiring manager that he was going to accept this offer, they tried to convince him to have "just one more interview", but he knew where this was heading. If they were able to top that offer, then he was willing to accept it. But I guess the company was not really interested and told him it was not possible.

Sounds crazy to me that after eight interviews, they weren't able to provide an offer letter or any type of response… I don't know where the job market is heading with this type of hiring manager.