When you look for a job, you have to be prepared to answer some weird questions and comply with some weird requests.

And if you really need a job, you might even agree to the weirdest ones. For some reason, hiring managers have no issue making their candidates jump through hoops for a simple job, all in the name of the excuse of wanting to find out who they are and how they would behave in a workplace.

Most requests actually make sense. As much as we hate it, we get why most job candidates have to complete an assignment as part of the hiring process, or even take a test. We can even excuse the 5 rounds of interviews if the role is something truly important. An honest conversation is not the worst thing someone can do to get a job.

But there are some requests that are simply red flags, a big flashing sign that says "warning, you do not want to work with these people." When that happens, the last thing you should do is comply with this request. You are better off without a job than working for people who feel comfortable coming to you with these unreasonable asks.

The HR here, for example, asked a job candidate to bring her the original copy of their college degree, which many agree is not something commonly asked as part of a hiring process. If a hiring manager wants to verify a candidate's education, there are ways to do that, but asking for the original copy is not one of them.

Since the request sounded off for the job candidate, they decided to do some digging and see if they should simply comply or give up on the job altogether. When people found out that the job is a minimum wage job, they agreed that something is fishy. Eventually, the candidate confronted HR about it, which led to the whole deal crumbling to the ground…

Culturally, a commute was something that we had come to accept as a part of our working lives. But now, does the workforce accept commuting as a "requirement"? Or do we take exception to that idea?

This employee shared how they went to HR and demanded they be compensated for their time and cost of commuting into the office after their employer pushed a Return to Office mandate that forced them into the office 3 days a week, where they had previously been employed as full-time remote.

 

It's funny that commuting started off as a positive thing for workers who, in the 1880s after the first wave of the Industrial Revolution, were finally able to separate their lives from the dismal, soot-covered industrial sectors where they worked. This must have been, literally, a breath of fresh air for them and their families, as they were now able to take a horse-drawn streetcar and, later, a steam train or cable car, to their work and then home again. They didn't have to spend their entire lives among the pollution, now only their working hours. And their families no longer had to go to these areas at all, making a better future for their children.

We now know worker mass transit today simply as "commuting." And while commuting from a comfortable suburb into the city still presents a lifestyle choice, we now bear the cost of that choice begrudgingly and with frustration. 

We now associate commuting, not with the opportunity to be further away from our work and where we do it, but as a major inconvenience. All that time you could be at home with your family, instead spent cramped on a bus or subway full of complete strangeers doing our best not to make eye contact, or sitting in gridlocked traffic as all the drivers around us lay into their horns like a scream into the void, while also trying not to make eye conactFor years, the workforce, namely those with jobs on laptops, shifting cells in spreadsheets and flinging emails onto the next person's inbox.

But parents will make the sacrifice this time and sanity for the quiet, boring, predictable security of the suburbs for their families.

Why would they say they offer unlimited PTO if they are going to make a fuss over 8 days?

Why would someone offer as a job perk the fact that the employee would have the pleasure of enjoying as much PTO as they want as long as they have left everything in order before leaving, only to then call out the employee who uses it? This is either some horrible organization on the company's part, or some problem between coworkers. I could think of only three possible explanations for what happened in the story below.

Firstly, an employee complained that this employee was taking too much time off and leaving projects incomplete, which, according to the same employee, is not true, as he has been taking care of everything before leaving every time. Secondly, it could be something from upper management because they are using this perk an extreme amount, forbidding other employees from taking time off as they are always leaving. Which, according to this employee, is also not possible, as he has only taken 8.5 days off. Lastly, it could be performance-wise. Basically, the employee is not excelling at his job, so there is no value in keeping him if he's not bringing great value and is also taking this much time off.

Truth is, the last option is the only one the employee didn't explain. So I would believe that is probably the reason why he's getting called out. He just took a couple of days, and he may be making sure that he has completed everything before leaving. But maybe, and just maybe, he's not great, or at least not great enough, to be taking PTO time off every chance he has. Sometimes we get great benefits in a job, but that doesn't mean that we can always enjoy them. If we are not core employees, we are probably going to get called out about things that others aren't. That's how corporate works. In this case, I would advise this employee to make sure that he proves his value at his job before requesting any other time off. 

What did he think was going to happen? 

We become much less adaptable as we age. We not only don't want to learn new things, but we also get worse at learning them because our brains have less elasticity. If someone has worked hard for their whole career, they might feel they don't need to learn any new skills once they're a couple of years out from retirement, because they don't think their company will fire someone about to retire. If you're a valuable member of your team who provides services that nobody else could do better, you might be right. But if you're just some bitter old boomer who doesn't do what you're supposed to do at your job, you shouldn't be surprised when your boss slips you a pink slip. 

The boomer dad in this story was shocked to be fired, but he really shouldn't have been. He refused to learn the new software, despite having a coworker teaching him exactly what to do. 

Workplaces love acting like they're offering "development" when what they really mean is a mildly expensive obstacle course

That's the scheme here. Companies hand over a stack of onboarding nonsense, bury one ugly little clause inside it, and later act like they loaned out a private tutor from the Harvard of printer maintenance. It's the same energy as a sketchy gym charging a cancellation fee because someone walked past the treadmill and read the sign. The paper trail is the product. The training is just the excuse.

This lucky employee was fortunate enough to lay eyes on a few stale videos, a PDF nobody would choose to read for fun, and maybe a slideshow with the charisma of a DMV chair. Then, somehow, that gets dressed up as specialized instruction worth real money. Sure. Everything makes sense here.

When 42 years of silence suddenly comes with a price tag.

Selling an inherited property should have been the final step after probate, but an old name on the deed changed everything. The owner's ex-wife, absent from the property since their 1984 divorce, was contacted during a quiet title action and quickly demanded half its value. Now, a decades-old technicality could stand between the heir and the sale altogether.

There is something uniquely frustrating about discovering that paperwork from decades ago can suddenly become today's problem. You can inherit a property, complete probate, find a willing buyer, and assume the complicated part is behind you. Then one forgotten name on a deed turns what seemed like a straightforward sale into a legal headache with roots dating back to 1984.

What makes this situation particularly interesting is the timing. According to the heir, his father's ex-wife hadn't lived there, paid the property taxes, or otherwise shown any interest in the land for 42 years. Yet once she was contacted because of the quiet title action, she allegedly wanted half the property's value. That's one dramatic way for an old relationship to make a comeback.

Of course, feeling that someone doesn't deserve money and determining whether they legally own part of a property are two very different questions. Her absence alone doesn't necessarily settle what her name on the deed means, which is exactly why having an attorney involved matters here.

Still, from the heir's perspective, the whole thing must feel surreal. His father passed away, he went through probate, and he finally arranged a sale. Instead of closing, he ended up dealing with someone from his father's marriage more than four decades ago. Some family history apparently comes with very persistent paperwork.

Why do bosses expect the maximum out of employees when they refuse to give the maximum in return?

In case someone forgot, employment works both ways. The need for a job to be done comes from the employee and the employer alike. Sure, an employee needs the job because they need the money, but no one would have been willing to pay money if they didn't need someone to actually do the job. So why do employers act like they don't need good employees as much as good employees need them?

Once employers started looking at employment as a two-way street, they might realise that if they expect their workers to care about the job, they should show the same amount of care to their workers. Think about it: the only employees who truly go above and beyond in their job are the ones who really like their workplace, and how can one like a workplace when it does not treat you right?

That is the major reason for the shift that happened in this workplace. Up until now, employees were shown full trust, never having their hours recorded, and granted the option to work from home for two days a week. Then, a new director showed up, who decided to institute many changes in the company, including a demand for a full return to the office 5 days a week.

No more flexibility for the employees led the star worker to show no flexibility on his side too. This meant that he went from being the guy who always showed initiative, stayed late, was always the one his boss could count on, to the guy who arrives every day at exactly 9 AM and leaves at exactly 5 PM, and never does anything that's beyond his job description. Why should he give his above and beyond when the company doesn't do the same for him?

Since he isn't doing anything wrong, his boss can't blame him for anything, but that doesn't mean that he will be around for much longer. What does that mean? Keep reading to find out.

Money issues between family members sound like a horrible idea.

Why would someone's financial problems be another person's responsibility? The idea of a student loan is to manage the burden that it would cause to the family by delaying the payment of education till the student starts working a full-time job and can actually afford it. Of course, it would be better not to have to depend on something like this. But the truth is that as tuition has become more and more expensive, most students nowadays need them. They are the thing that defines whether or not they attend university and receive the education they want. They have become so valuable that the idea of not receiving that support terrifies families and causes severe anxiety.

In the story below, we encounter a student whose parents not only cannot afford tuition at all, but they are also unable to get approved as cosigners for student loans due to their poor credit score and their high debt. This causes them to resort to their families for some support. They aren't asking them for any financial help, such as direct money or deposits. But they are trying to convince a family member to be the cosigner, as they are unfit. In the agreement of someone lies the educational future of their daughter.

When this aunt gets asked to do this, she starts to feel pressure because the reality of all this is that, even though they aren't asking her to give them money directly, they are expecting her to make a financial commitment that, if it goes wrong, she would have to pay for. Is an immense risk, and she isn't sure she wants to commit to something like this. The position she is in right now is uncomfortable, as she said no, and now her family is mad at her. But what would you do? It's an incredible risk that I wouldn't dare to take part in at all. She would have her finances depending on the responsibility of a teenager who was never taught by her parents how to manage her finances. It seems like more of a risk than a way of helping out her niece. 

Tips on how to unsuck your soul

Having a 9-5 can drain you if you don't know how to handle it; you can spend your entire life stuck inside that loop, so it's mandatory to search for alternatives to make your life enjoyable again.

Some jobs are too tiring, and the only alternative is to change, but other jobs are ok, and what needs changing is our routine or our attitude for the rest of the day.

For example, if I get out of work and take a nap, I'll run out of energy and mess up my entire schedule; I have to control myself, so I don't do it. And if I don't keep my house tidy or my plates clean, I also run out of energy, so aside from work, it's good to get those things out of the way quickly, so I have energy to do something else after work.

Ideally, household chores shouldn't keep you from enjoying your free time. The solution to this problem, for me, is to get them done very quickly, at a specific moment of the day, so they don't take up much of your time. I put on a podcast and try to have fun while I clean or cook, so that when I get off work, I can focus on things I actually enjoy.

Would you volunteer to work on your day off if it meant you got paid more? 

Every employee has different priorities. Some employees would work every single day if it meant they were getting paid more, because they're trying to save as much money as humanly possible to achieve their life goals. Other employees will only do the bare minimum required of them because they value their time outside of work more than making as much money as possible. Any normal employer understands that most of their employees will be in the latter category. They do their work, they go home, and they don't do extra work until they're back in the office the next day. Unless you're paying your employees an exorbitant amount of money, you really cannot expect much more from them than that. Unless you tell them from the beginning that they'll have to work nights and weekends, you shouldn't expect them to do so for little or no extra money. 

The employee in this story is annoyed that he is being voluntold to work on a Saturday. It would be different if he had a shift at his company on Saturday, but he doesn't. His boss wants him to work a private event at the office. Because none of the employees are volunteering to do it, the boss is threatening to assign the volunteers himself. This sounds like a great place to work at…not!

Do you have your memes in a row for the workweek ahead?

Or wait, is the saying with ducks? Ducks, memes, whatever- are you ready? I sure am. I always have my memes in a row before the start of my workweek. I wouldn't be able to survive the capitalist wheel if I didn't! Your boss doesn't want you to know this one trick: Meme on the company dime. Why send a regular 'ole "circling back" email when you can send a meme of a dog chasing its tail? It basically means the same thing. And it makes you seem like a chill af coworker. Who doesn't want to be the chill coworker? Even if you're a manager, in fact, even more important for a manager! You have to meme to be understood and respected. 

Then again, I work for and about the memes, so maybe my office dynamics are different than most… You might as well try it though! Even if it just gets your office bestie to LOL during the 9am meeting, it's worth the meme. Memes are like a little bit of PTO during your day. You can't take another week off because you used all of your PTO, and sickdays… But your boss can't stop you from scrolling on your computer as you go about your day. How do they even know what you're scrolling through? Maybe it's through the email chain with Karen from marketing or something. 

Whatever kind of office dynamic you have every day, may it be filled with memes. Here is a whole quarterly report's worth of them for you and your coworker to LOL to. 

Is it wrong to wear the same thing to work every day?

Some people value simplicity in their lives. If they can automate something, they will. There are lots of ways to do this in your day-to-day life. Maybe you have a go-to breakfast that you eat every day during the week. You don't change it up, and it's one less decision you have to make in the course of a day. Maybe you have a specific schedule that you keep for exercising. You know if you deviate from it, everything will fall apart, and you'll be completely thrown off of your rhythm. Sometimes it's easier just to make a decision in advance, so you simplify your life in the moment. Another great way to do this is through your choice of wardrobe. Sometimes, when you wake up in the morning, the last thing you want to do is pick out an outfit. You're feeling uninspired, and like you don't own anything that you want to wear. But you know that certain things just look good on you. You can't usually go wrong with a button-down and jeans. If you choose to wear this every day of your life, then that's one less decision you have to make in the morning. Plus it gives you an air of eccentricity. Some of our most ingenious leaders have done this. It certainly isn't something that you have to make fun of somebody for.

"Just because you usually sit somewhere doesn't mean you own the chair, Jasmine."

Everywhere you go, there are seats, and people who use those seats. In school, every student had a chair and desk in the classroom, and a place to sit at lunch. In cafes, restaurants, and libraries, people find a comfortable place to sit and do whatever it is they came to do. There are chairs everywhere, and we all share them. 

There isn't a single place we can think of, other than someone's home, that grants someone the option to claim a seat as their own. The world isn't divided into assigned seats, and unless you bought the chair, you have no claim to it, and should expect others to abide by rules you made up in your head.

That is what we would have said to the coworker below, called Jasmine, who for some reason thought she owed 2 of the 5 chairs in her workplace's break room. 

It is one thing to claim ownership of a work desk and chair, which we can understand why some people prefer to assign. But the seating in a break room is open for all; no one can claim they have a bigger right to sit in one of them than someone else. The fact that Jasmine decided she owns not one, but two seats in the office she worked at is truly baffling, and we were even more baffled to learn that she actually came up to one employee and demanded they move.

The first time she did it, the employee decided it was not worth the argument and moved. But when she came up to the same employee for the second time and asked them to move out of a completely different seat, the employee decided enough is enough. She doesn't own the seat; she has no right to demand it, and it's time she knows it.

Industry secrets? I'm always in for this gossip…

When you start working in an industry, you end up discovering things you never expected to know in the first place. It happened to me. I remember when I started working with an insurance company, an industry I knew absolutely nothing about. I started with some training that gave me a general idea of what insurance was and how it worked, especially what payments were attached to it. But when I started to actually work, I ended up discovering so much more. How it was managed, how people were paying for it, what it covered. I even learned about state laws and permits. I went from 0 to 100 in almost no time. It was insane.

This wasn't particularly useful for me per se, but I realized that because of reading insurance documents all the time, I now knew how to read other relevant documents and how to look for the information I needed in no time. I also learned how to get to a real person when calling other insurance companies in no time, which was the most useful thing of all. Nowadays, I can call whatever company number and go through their IVR system in two seconds to get to the real person. I also practiced so much math that I can do calculations quicker.

I believe you learn useful stuff at every job, and when I say everyone, I mean it. You may think that being a server you will just learn how to deal with people, but the truth is you will probably also learn about food, cooking methods, and even etiquette. So if you want to learn more about other industries, especially the secrets they hold that can make your experience as a customer a 100 times better, then read the thread below for some juicy gossip. 

Do you answer when karma calls?

There is a reason John Lennon wrote a song called "Instant Karma." Receiving the consequences of your actions immediately isn't a bad thing, even though it might feel like it in the moment. It is a valuable life lesson. Sometimes you are the one helping the universe to give out karma, and other times you are the one getting the lesson. It's nothing to squander! 

Take this shopper, for instance; she went out to do some much-needed shopping. A day to herself to get all of the things she's been putting off on her shopping list. Finally, she's made it to the store. However, she notices a young employee following her around. She was curious about it, but didn't pay too much mind to it. She even tried to ask them for some assistance while shopping, but they sheepishly avoided her. Again, she paid it no mind and continued her shopping. 

She checked out, spent around $500, and started to leave. That is when she was stopped. The employee who had been following her around demanded she empty out her purse. She was wearing a tiny purse at the time, so she thought they were kidding at first, but nope. The situation escalated, and she decided to empty her bag. Of course, no stolen goods were in there, and the employee tried to walk away from the situation. 

However, she was not about to let this judgmental employee get away without any consequences. 

After repeated electrical overloads prevented her from properly cooling her bedroom, a 24-year-old tenant disconnected her neighbor's unsafe extension cord and locked access to her assigned outlet. But the move left he wondering whether or not she had done the right thing since it left her 60-year-old neighbor effectively without power.

Heat waves make people do some pretty crazy things. And are well known for bringing simmering neighborly tensions to a boiling point. 

A 24-year-old tenant discovered that her neighbor, a woman over 60, had been using an extension cord. The neighbor was running two air conditioners and an industrial fan, along with her indoor and outdoor lighting. The additional power demand on her own circuit left the tenant with too little power to cool more than a small section of her bedroom during this latest round of hot weather. She wanted to help the 60-year-old woman out and asked the neighbor several times to reduce her electricity use and only keep necessary devices to keep the circuit from overloading.

When I first read her account of events, I thought there was something wrong with the neighbor's utility connection, but after rereading the original post, it appears that the issue with the neighbor's own utility connection only came AFTER the tenant had locked her out of her own utility box. So this really just leads me to believe that the whole thing was really just about stealing her power in the first place and tricking the tenant into playing for her power, or just hoping that she would be too much of a pushover to say or do anything about, as she had until this point. 

Dealing with extreme temperatures within your home and not being able to do anything to escape it becomes a concern. But I don't think that the hot weather was the neighbor's primary concern. While it's important to be neighborly and help people when you can, this has well-past escalated to the point where it's the landlord's responsibility to do something about this. 

I think it's pretty safe to say the tenant, the woman who shared this story with an online community, isn't in the wrong. But by no means does that make anything about this situation acceptable.  

You only turn 40 once, or that's the saying, I guess…

I find it a little weird when people plan a birthday trip or weekend. It gives a little bit of main character syndrome. But I guess it could be a nice thing to do with a group of friends and use it as an excuse to travel or do something fun, like camping. But when you organize something like this, you have to be conscious that some people may not go either because they can't take a full weekend off, because it's expensive, or even because they don't want to spend such a long time with your friends who aren't them. In the case of the story below, it had a little of everything. This user didn't like the idea of camping at all, so when she got the invitation, she thanked her friend but advised her she wasn't attending.

That was always a possibility: people not attending, and when you plan something like this, you have to take it into account and understand it. It's a part of it. But then the story goes on. This birthday girl decided to add a new plan, going out to dinner with her two friends who aren't attending the camping trip. It sounds nice, but in reality, it became kind of a last-minute compromise they were obliged to attend because of denying the camping invitation. Truth is, this restaurant is quite expensive, and this user already had plans of going to it that same day with her boyfriend –they are on a little break, but they are still going to dinner for his birthday.

All this started a whole drama. The birthday girl was mad for different reasons. Firstly, her friends weren't coming to the camping trip, and it bothered her. Secondly, she wanted to have dinner to compensate, and one of her friends is opting out because she has plans with her "ex-boyfriend". And lastly, that same friend isn't accepting of coming to the camping trip so they can at least celebrate together. In this case, I won't tell you which side you should be, is up to you, reader. What would you do? Cancel the boyfriend's dinner and do the friend's one? Go on the camping trip? Don't go anyway and celebrate later on? 

A company forced employees back into the office, laid off half of the department, and then doubled the survivors' workloads without raising their pay.

Since the Return to Office (RTO) mandate trend started to pick up steam in late 2022, it has long been theorized that these were just thinly veiled layoffs, designed to single out those who wouldn't (or couldn't) return to the office before assessing what other cuts needed to be made. Over time, as more companies adopted this new "trend," more and more employees who had been enjoying the benefits of working from home for years were suddenly faced with an unpleasant awakening.

The employee in this story shared how their company ordered remote employees back to the office four days per week, claiming that in-person work would improve collaboration and help teams work faster. Employees faced long commutes while daily meetings continued on Teams anyway because staff were spread between multiple offices. One month later, the company laid off roughly half of the employees' department with little warning.

We'll take a look at this original story that an employee shared about their company's RTO mandate that was then followed by layoffs, then we'll talk about the trends that influenced this before ending by looking at some of the advice that was shared in the original thread. 

When cohabitation is too hard

Having roommates must be one of the most challenging experiences one can have. I've had many roommate experiences, and whether the person is your best friend, a random stranger, a coworker, or whoever you can imagine, living together is tough. It doesn't matter if you are both organized or clean; maybe you fold laundry in a way that makes your roommate mad. You can't escape making the other person uncomfortable, somehow, with something you might deem normal.

Of course, real virtue lies in being fair, patient, and forgiving even when we're annoyed, but many things that happen in roommates' experiences are far from virtuous. That said, throwing away other people's things, even if we don't like them or consider them trash, is never ok. What struck me the most was that when this roomie described the objects the other woman brought home, she wasn't describing actual trash.

She wasn't throwing away plastic wraps, napkins, receipts, or dirt; she was throwing away wall art, knick-knacks, and vases. You are allowed not to like them, but you definitely shouldn't throw them away without her permission. I wonder what she would do if her roomie threw away her decoration elements.

I understand that extreme times require extreme measures; I've done ridiculous things myself in roommate situations, but I believe she has now unlocked the door to more chaos, and things are probably going to get worse. Do you think she has a chance to fix things, or is it already too late?

HR has turned a chill warehouse into a bizarre mix of punishment and summer camp, with daily scoldings for talking and mandatory parking-lot games on the clock

Workplace nonsense like this makes you wonder whether management is trying to improve morale or just invent new ways to waste it. The job itself sounds monotonous but survivable: pack goofy little products, keep your head down, and let the day move. That worked fine when the place had a "just do your work, and nobody bothers you" vibe. Then the expansion hit, and suddenly someone decided a warehouse needed both a pep rally and a boot camp.

Even for me,  a guy looking for comedy anywhere, that's where the comedy here turns sour. HR keeps bringing in people who don't stick, the aisles get packed, the mistakes pile up, and then everyone gets lectured like they personally engineered the chaos. Nothing kills team spirit faster than being blamed for the consequences of bad hiring. It's like getting yelled at because someone invited thirty cousins to a one-bedroom apartment and then acted shocked there was no room to breathe.