Which would you choose?

A few short years ago, I thought that remote work was here to stay. Nearly every white-collar employee in the world got a taste of one of the perks usually reserved for the upper crust, and I didn't think they'd let it go easily. Companies only allowed remote work for all their employees because they had no other choice, given the state of the world at the time. These days, remote work has returned to being a luxury. Many employees are holding onto their remote positions for dear life because they know they won't be able to find a new one in 2026. Unfortunately, if you're not independently wealthy and have to work a job for a living, you still have to do what your boss says. If your boss wants you to come into the office, there's really not much you can do about it. 

For some employees, a return to the office makes more sense. Some people work much better when they have to be accountable for showing up at an office every day of the week. If their entire team is in the office and needs to talk to each other throughout the day in a series of meetings, being in the same room helps build rapport, making the work easier and better. If you're starting in your career, you will get more out of being around your coworkers and mentors than someone who is going to retire in the next ten years. The young guy in this story has the chance to make a big career change, but he is hesitating because he's nervous about letting go of his WFH position. 

It's one thing to pick a fight with a front desk employee, but picking a fight with the entire staff seems a bit excessive.

Sometimes people are just insanely lost. When you are working in customer service, you are aware of the fact that not every customer is going to be nice. You even know that they aren't always going to have manners either. It's something that you either accept from the beginning or learn to accept over time. You even stop expecting it from customers, and when they do act kindly and correctly, it's the highlight of your day. Is usual to encounter people who are angry about something that you don't even know about, and they will expect you to fix it and blame you for it. That is the norm, so you accept it.

When you get a customer who acts like the one in the story below, you aren't surprised about it. You kinda accept it and try to de-escalate the situation as much as you can so we can avoid having to involve managers. When you see something like a previous communication the customer had to the place in the system where they describe them as unable to be helped or too angry to listen. Internally, you panic a bit. As if it was already setting you up for disappointment. You already knew the customer was going to be hard to manage, but the fact that the previous person had to give up is too much. The original problem escalated a ton. But there isn't much you can do. You still have to deal with them and do your best to not only help them but also calm them.

The hardest thing is when you realize that you've been talking for a long time and the conversation has stopped being useful. You are just two people discussing (one obviously shouting and sometimes even throwing a temper tantrum), going exactly nowhere. This person is not going to accept that the reason he's mad is his fault and that you cannot help him. So that's when you have to give up. The fight is lost. You either call security, refuse service, or call a manager. But you are done. And it's hard to accept, but you can't deal forever with a stubborn customer who couldn't even express himself nicely. 
 

Do you ask your married friends or single friends for dating advice? 

Either of them can help in different circumstances, so it depends on who you trust the most, and if your friends' marriage is actually successful.

A young woman shared on r/AITAH that she doesn't really trust her married friends to ask them for dating advice. The couple has been together for eight years. They met in high school and never dated anyone else. That is not a bad thing in and of itself, but they don't seem to have the healthiest of relationships. Besides, they've been together since they were teenagers and have no idea what it's like to date when you're an adult. That was this woman's reasoning, but she didn't want to say it to their face because she thought it might be hurtful. Instead, she went ahead and asked a different friend. When the couple found out, they felt offended and insisted that she tell them why she hadn't asked them. She finally did, and they got even more offended. 

The thing is, each and every one of us has the right to ask for advice from whomever we deem worthy of giving it. A person who hasn't been on a date since the early to mid 2000s has no idea what the dating world has become now and what it has to offer. Besides, if one wants to get married and enjoy a healthy relationship with a spouse, we most likely won't take advice from people who don't seem to be happy together or even respect one another. 

No one should give unwanted advice over a matter that is none of their business and haven't been consulted about. Even between friends, there are boundaries we all respect and that allow us to maintain a nice, healthy bond with the people we love. When we are asked for advice, we give it happily. When a friend chooses to go to somebody else, we respect their decision and support them the best we can.

Being a manager can sometimes be uncomfortable.

Most jobs have elements to them that people don't enjoy, and that is especially true for management roles. With more power comes more responsibility, and even the most hands-off and incompetent bosses have to deal with annoying or unpleasant tasks like enforcing dumb ideas from executives, mitigating coworker disputes, and handling layoffs. Few companies are going to hand out that marginally bigger paycheck for nothing.

At its core, being a decent manager involves a willingness to take responsibility. They should try to understand, to the best of their ability, how to work with their team and how they can get the most out of them. Sometimes, this also means admitting to their limits; not all employees are going to be the best fit for the roles that they work in, no matter what they do. That's just the way it goes.

At the same time, one of the core responsibilities of those in management is to provide references to those who leave their employment. Although some may argue this is one of the easier parts of the job, it can be a real challenge when there doesn't seem to be much that is positive to say. Just because somebody didn't fit in their previous role doesn't mean the same will happen with the next one.

Some boundaries only become obvious once someone crosses them.

Sharing an apartment with a close friend seemed to be working perfectly until one roommate developed a habit of helping herself to clothes without permission. What began with hoodies and jackets escalated into something far more personal, leaving the other woman feeling that her privacy had been completely violated and wondering how to confront the issue without destroying their living situation.

I live with a roommate, and I have the best relationship with her. Although we're from different places, we've found a way to get along really well, and our experience has been nothing but awesome. That being said, we're super respectful of each other's belongings and time, since this is fundamental when living together. So, when I read this story, I remembered some situations some of my friends had with their own roommates, and I couldn't help but laugh.

In this story, these girls are not only roommates: they are friends from college, meaning they had a relationship before living together that sets the tone for something completely different from mine, for example. Because of that, I wouldn't think it's outrageous that the girl is borrowing clothes without asking; maybe she felt that the other girl wouldn't mind. Now, I'm not justifying her behavior at all: I'm trying to understand her way of thinking when doing this.

I would suggest that the Original Poster talk to her and to set clear boundaries. Although they are good friends and I'm sure they get along very well, it's important to have those limits not be crossed so they can all have a good experience when being roommates. This doesn't mean that something wrong needs to happen, or that the relationship has to change: is only a matter of being respectful and understanding.

Bootlickers are everywhere; there's one in every office. 

Some people can't seem to function unless they are trying to be friends with the bosses to get some kind of benefit. An employee shared on r/TwoHotTakes that she has a coworker who does exactly that. There was a new head of sales assigned to their department to help them with performance. This woman befriended her quickly and started ignoring and being impolite with the rest of her coworkers. She even eavesdropped on their conversations to go and report to the manager what they were talking about. All her coworkers started distrusting her and stopped talking the minute she entered the room. Unfortunately for her, the manager was later fired because of her, ironically, bad performance. Now, the coworker is behaving nicely and is friendly with everybody again, trying to get on their good side. 

We have to admit that not all of our coworkers can be our friends. There are decent people out there, but it's not all of them, and even less inside an office. We don't know what these people do for a living, but some companies promote competition between their employees, making it harder for workers to be nice and helpful towards one another. Seems like it could be the case around here, although we can't know for sure. 

What we can know for sure is that it is better to avoid contact with that kind of opportunistic people, who will step on anybody for the chance of a promotion. In this case, her attitude ended up being counterproductive. She treated everyone like trash, became a snitch, and her manager-bestie was fired; she got no benefit from it, and now her coworkers don't want to get close to her again, since they've seen her true colors for once and for all. That's what happens when you're a bad friend and a bad coworker: people stay away from you, no matter how hard you try to fix it afterwards. Once someone sees you for who you really are, there are two options: either they stay with you because they like what they see, or they leave you if you turn out to be bad. 

What would you do if you were her coworker? Would you pretend that nothing happened, or would you give her the cold shoulder? 

After years of helping, one late-night emergency finally pushed her to draw the line.

For years, a mother of four regularly drove her younger sister to and from work, often sacrificing her own time and gas money. But when her sister demanded a last-minute ride that meant waking four sleeping children, she refused. Instead of finding another solution, the younger sister blamed her for "ruining" her future and risking her job.

This story is right up my alley since I'm the oldest sister of three. And I do have an entitled little sister as well, who is nine years younger. So, as you can imagine, she does whatever she wants around the house, and my whole family (including myself) do evetyhing she wants without question. That being said, I admire the position the OP took in this conflict and stopped being her servant and her personal chauffeur.

When it comes to family dynamics, problems often arise when certain roles become the norm. After years of helping each other, people can start expecting things you never really agreed to, simply because "that's how the family has always worked." In this case, the older sister had spent years helping her younger sister in different ways, and once she became a mom and started working, those rides to and from work gradually turned from a favor into an expectation.

But life happens, and things change, so it's totally okay for the older sister to refuse to drive the other one, because now she has four little kids that need her complete attention and cannot leave in the middle of the night to drive her sister to work. She will need to find a new way of getting to work if she wants to keep this job she has. And needless to say, this is not the older sister's fault at all.

Maybe just give the employee what he is working for if he deserves it

If you have a core employee, you do everything in your power to make them stay at the company for as long as you can. Core employees get perks that most wouldn't. They can arrive 5 minutes late, take too many coffee breaks, and get chatty. All because when they work, they do a better job than any other employee and in less time. So when you have the luck of encountering someone like that, as a manager, your main priority is for them to choose to stay at the company for as long as possible. They bring great value, and they are the best at their job. Yes, they can be a little lazy sometimes, but what they bring to the table is so important that you have to look past it.

If they one day decide that they want to leave, you do ANYTHING to convince them otherwise. The one in the story below thought that a raise would be enough. Well no. This employee wanted to be COO. If he had offered that, we wouldn't be in this situation. After all, what this employee is looking for is career growth and nothing else. There is no reason for him to stay after all, if what he's looking for, he's not going to get. That is how building your career works: if you can't grow anymore in some place, you need to change your direction, change companies, look for somewhere where you are appreciated, and you can gain the experience that you need and want.  

Finally, risking this employee is not only the loss of a great employee, but it is also more work for the others. Someone who brings so much to the table and does so much more than anyone else leaves a space that is bigger than you would imagine. His resignation doesn't only mean that HE is not going to be there anymore. It also means more work accumulating because he cared for more than what he had to. It also means that the excellent work will not continue to be excellent, and most likely will be deemed just fine. As a place that does sales, you need customers to be very happy with the work employees perform in their job, not just alright. So maybe, in this case, they should give this employee what he deserves, even if he isn't exactly qualified. 

Malicious compliance is an art form. It requires patience, precision, and a complete lack of regard for corporate dignity, and this IT worker? Well, he's an artist

For some managers, the green status dot is a productivity meter. Gray means slacking. Green means working. The actual output does not matter and the dot is the job. Exceptional managerial capabilities, you guys, just exceptional.

After more than a decade preparing for an IT career, a struggling job seeker faces contradictory demands from his parents who can't comprehend the modern hiring process and the state of the job market.

A lot of the older generations just don't realize how different things are, and just how painfully bad the job market is at the moment. This generational gap brings constant judgment around expectations that are wholly unrealistic. They'll tell you to "Take any job," when there are no jobs to take. To hand your CV to employers who aren't hiring. 

Sure, this is worsened by living situations where adult children in their late 20s, 30s, and sometimes 40s are forced to move back in with their aging parents after being laid off or fired and unable to find work. The parents recognize that there is a problem, but they fall short of recognizing what the problem is and how bad things are. 

Meanwhile you're completing dozens of applications a day to jobs that you strongly suspect mostly don't actually exist. Feeling less and less confident that you're going to find a job, and more burned out every day.

It might not help you find a job in this moment. But it's important to remember that we have too much of a tendency to attach our current employment to our worth. Just because you can't find work in your career or field right now, it doesn't mean that you have to give up on it completely. 

You can apply to a broader range of jobs, even entry-level ones in completely different fields that are available to you locally. Take things as they come, don't get too down on yourself, ignore the judgement of others, and suspend your own judgement of yourself for now.  

Heck, that's how I ended up working in a bike shop for a few years. I had just finished studying biology but had been working as a writer, social media manager, and editor. And, well, working in a bike shop had nothing to do with either of those things. I eventually went on to manage the shop, and I consider that experience to be invaluable despite the fact that it was a side step of my two possible career pathways at the time.

Take up some extra studies with online classes, get some extra experience by volunteering in your spare time if you need to pad out your resume, treat applying to jobs like a second job. But, by all means, keep your options open even when you land that temporary job. Don't get too lost or invested in that job once you find it. 

It might be exhausting, but it will get you to a better place where you can finally look back, relax your shoulders, and take a deep breath knowing that you have a brighter future. 

What makes a neighbor a "good" neighbor?

We used to think that having a good neighbor meant someone who becomes an actual friend of ours, someone who we felt comfortable knocking on their door, hanging out together, having shared dinners, and enjoying life together. We imagined our relationship with our neighbors like an episode of Friends, where the door is always open, and the love you have for each other is that of a family member.

We couldn't have been more wrong.

As you grow older and actually start living next to other people, you realize there is a huge difference between a neighbor and an actual friend. Expecting your neighbors to become your friends is truly a fantasy not many people get to live. Instead, you learn to appreciate what it really means to have a "good" neighbor, who is someone you never see, never hear, and never talk to.

So here is the bitter truth: the less interaction you have with your neighbor, the better. Any resident will agree that neighbors are not easy people to deal with, and they can cause a lot of trouble. They can be noisy, entitled, and even destructive to your property. Usually, the more interactions you have with them, the worse it gets. That is why most people don't wish for "friendly" neighbors; they wish for quiet ones, the kind you don't even notice if they are there or not.

The neighbor below is definitely not a good one, considering she feels entitled enough to "steal" other people's electricity. Since they are all living in trailers with the same landlord, this neighbor thought she could plug her amenities into someone else's outlet box. This resulted in her running countless electric products in her trailer, while her neighbor couldn't even turn on their AC.

When they realized she was responsible for the issue, they immediately took action, which resulted in her having no electricity at all. The only question is, whose fault was it?

Some managers live in a parallel universe where layoffs are a rumor and job security is a given. The rest of us live in the real world where every paycheck can be your last

A floor manager calls a meeting. Panic spreads instantly. One person blurts out a plea for clarity before the meeting even starts. The manager looks genuinely shocked that anyone thought this was about firings. The explanation lands like a reality check delivered by someone who has been paying attention.

Managers often share credit for the success of their teams, but when does this go too far? And what should employees do about it?When ego takes precedence over common sense… especially for those at the top, the organization is doomed. And managers who don't share credit for the success of their teams are setting their companies up for a massive backslide. Like this one who drove a top performer to go back to doing the bare minimum, which caused sales to tank and eventually led to layoffs.

In this story, shared with Reddit's r/MaliciousCompliance community, a tech startup refused to promote an employee to a Director's role, a level that she had already been contributing at. She began to put two and two together and realized that the reason she wasn't being promoted was that her boss was concealing her level of contribution and distancing her from her work and success. Their boss basically admitted that he was doing this intentionally so that he could take credit for her achievements. 

She stopped doing the work, making it clear she was going to work to the job description of her current role. The effect was evident almost immediately when her pulling back to her defined role saw sales targets and other KPIs missed as sales tanked.

She took the extra time and energy to work on herself and her own certifications, preparing her for her future. So, when she was eventually laid off from the now-struggling company, she was well prepared to make the next step, landing a job that was a perfect next step in her career and a solid bump up in pay.

Keep reading to see her account of events, and then we'll unpack the leadership and employment issues that are on display in this story.

Helping a friend buy groceries is a meaningful way to support a struggling family, especially when two children are involved. But a friend's generosity has its limits. And a shopping list including ribeyes and prime rib is one of them. 

A 26-year-old woman in today's story has helped her friend with groceries for three months, until she began noticing that her friend was making choices she would never make with her own money. It felt like taking a friend to dinner and watching them order the most expensive dish on the menu. She felt she was being taken advantage of, so she decided to cut her off respectfully. Or at least that's what she tried. 

The friend is a working mom who supports two children and an unemployed boyfriend, so the woman offered her financial help with groceries, hoping to relieve some pressure and help them catch up. The woman began spending between $150 and $350 on their groceries each month. Forgotten items added another $50 to $100 too. However, it was all going well until the latest Walmart order, which cost $250. While reviewing the shopping list, the woman noticed convenience foods, frozen meals, chips, and snacks that were unlikely to last very long. Those choices caused some concern, but the expensive meat was the real breaking point. 

She had offered financial help, not an opportunity to upgrade the family's shopping habits while an unemployed boyfriend benefited from her generosity. And more importantly, her covering the groceries wouldn't solve the household's larger financial problems. It's reasonable that she felt uncomfortable when her money wasn't used as she expected, so she decided to end the arrangement. 

Just because you aren't in debt doesn't mean that money is just growing in your pocket.

Student loans are such a complex matter because they are incredibly useful to pay for college without having to work many hours at a time, but they are still debt and have all the negative parts of it. Being able to pay for university because your parents saved in a college fund is extremely privileged. Not many have that kind of luck, and if they do, it doesn't necessarily mean that the school tuition for the whole time you spend studying in it is going to be covered. Thousands of young adults rely on student loans to pay for education, and some even have financial aid or a part-time job.

After you finish your education, it can take you several years to fully eliminate the student debt you took when you were 18. Like the case of this student in the story below. He is 27 years old, and he just finished paying off his. That is such a long time, and it makes the whole process stressful, as you start believing you will never get rid of that debt. So, knowing how hard it was for him, his parents asked him if he wanted to help them out with paying off his brother's tuition.

Now, it was really hard for this user to get rid of the debt. He has been living a cheap lifestyle for years and working since he was studying. He just got free. Now he has other plans for his money. At least he wants to save it. Now, with his parents offering, he feels in an awkward position. He loves his brother, but getting into a commitment this big when he just got free from another one seems not only a risk but also uncomfortable. He wants to save for his future, not be spending more money on somebody else's education. Would you do that kind of thing for a sibling? Or would you focus on building better financials for yourself and your future? 
 

What is it with people so full of themselves who do what they want without caring how it affects others?

The issue with self-centered people is that they won't admit when they are wrong. That's what happened with this aunt and her 8-year-old nephew. The boy's mom shared on r/AITH that her boy was organizing his own party, since he has a taste for organization. His aunt is usually referred to as "the fun aunt." She stepped in and said she would make things more interesting and that all children like surprises. The mother wasn't sure, but she let it go. The day of the party, the aunt disappeared for 20 minutes and came back with a guy disguised as a dinosaur. The birthday boy was afraid of that kind of costume, so he ran off and locked himself in his mom's room. The aunt never apologized, and her sister is not happy with calling her "the fun aunt" anymore. 

Some adults who don't have children sometimes have issues empathizing with them. They think they know best because they are adults, and children still don't know what they like or want. This kind of thought is the one that usually leads children to keep a distance from their family later in life. It sends the message that they don't really care about their opinions, wishes, or needs, and they should just agree with everything because they are kids. 

What they don't realize is that, even though they are young, many kids have a strong personality and already have an established sense of what they like and what they don't. While it is not possible or healthy for them if adults give them everything they want, some exceptions can be made under special circumstances, like the kids' birthday. If a kid is excited over planning their birthday the way they want, and what they ask for is doable for the family, there's no reason to suddenly change the plans and do something that, from the adults' perspective, is better. The child will be stuck with a party they don't like. If the aunt had been a little less self-centered and acknowledged her nephews' plan, her sister wouldn't be mad at her, and she would still be called "the fun aunt."

After paying for their own children's college, do grandparents owe the same financial support to the next generation?

One couple thought they had finally reached the stage of life where they could enjoy the rewards of decades of hard work. But after announcing a long-awaited trip to Europe, their daughter argued that the money should go toward her child's future instead. The disagreement escalated into an ultimatum involving access to their grandchild.

What an awful attitude the daughter had. There's a point in life when people need to understand they don't have to receive things from their parents anymore. We all end up being grown adults who have to find a way of living on our own, and forget that our parents once helped us. In this case, this daughter needs to understand this point and move on with her life.

Her parents were super nice and gave every kid a fund for college, which is more than other parents can afford, and they all used it for that and other things. But once this is used and the kids started getting married and having a life, they cannot pretend the grandparents are going to be there to fund their own kids' colleges and other stuff, and should not get mad about this. 

I also don't like when the daughter threatens the parents with not letting them see the baby, which is so bad and wrong in so many ways. I hope that the parents are strong and don't give her money for her kids' college fund because they are scared of not seeing the kid. This is not going to happen anyway. I don't think the girl is immature enough to prevent their own parents from being with the kid; it doesn't make sense.

Landlords who treat tenants like temporary guests who should be grateful for the privilege of living in their moldy shoebox are truly fascinating. And this one just became even more fascinating when the tenant buys a house, and the whole power dynamic flipped like a pancake.

So, A renter pays 850 for a 500-square-foot apartment in a major city. Four years of stacking cash while tolerating slumlord conditions. The goal was always to leave for good. A baby arrives. A three-bedroom townhome gets purchased in a quiet part of town. The lease ends September 30. The property manager loses his mind.

If you offer to do something nice for someone, do it as they like. They never asked you to do it in the first place.

Why would someone offer to do something nice for someone else's birthday, only to do what they like instead of what the birthday person asked for? If you offer, you need to comply with the demand. Some people see the offering to do something as a way to do what they like. As if it were an opportunity to benefit themselves rather than the person they are making the offering for. That's exactly what happened in the story below.

If a friend told you they were going to help you paint your house, you accepted and told them it needed to be purple, but when you came home is green. How would you react? Would you be happy they did you the favor of painting your house? Or would you be mad they painted the color THEY liked instead of the one you asked for? Would you regret accepting their offering? Well, you probably would, especially if green was the color you hated the most. That is just another way of putting the situation of this story. The sister wanted a lemon birthday cake she was going to get for herself. Her sister offered to do it for her as some kind of gift. She agreed, but it had to be the lemon cake she liked. All that just to get a cake the birthday girl couldn't eat because it had the only ingredient she had told her sister not to add into the mix.

We can obviously anticipate how the birthday girl felt. Her sister had asked her multiple times if she could add the extra ingredient, and every single time she said no. Then why do it? Easy, she thought she knew best. Instead of doing what her sister wanted and actually liked, she did what she trusted was going to be the best. She couldn't admit that she was wrong by doing that, ruining the birthday cake for the one person it was important for. 
 

What request can a boss ask of an employee that is simply too much to ask for?

Plenty of times in the workplace, we find ourselves doing a task that makes us think, "I'm definitely not supposed to do that". These types of tasks usually start with a request from the boss, and even though we know the boss is asking something that is way beyond our job description. At first, we might consider gathering up the courage and telling our boss, "No, I'm not doing that," but many employees might not actually say those words out loud. Instead, we bottle up our feelings, swallow our pride, and get to work. Our need to keep our jobs outweighs the need to stand up to our boss when they make demands like these, so we fulfil them as fast as possible and get on with our day.

There are some tasks, however, that you might not agree to as easily. Demands that cross a line that even a steady income cannot make up for, something like what the boss below tried to ask of the System Admin employee.

This boss on r/pettyrevenge knew that the employee had experience with Photoshop, so he asked them to alter invoices after they were generated so that the company could charge clients for work that wasn't actually done. Basically, the boss asked the employee to take part in the company committing fraud. This was a request the employee could not comply with, no matter what. So, the employee informed upper management about the boss's request, and when they did nothing to stop him, the employee decided this was not a job they wanted to keep and turned in their two weeks' notice. 

A request like this might make you appreciate the tasks your own boss gives you, you know, things that don't make you question your workplace's integrity. At least the employee didn't let their boss drag them down with him. The employee even decided to teach the boss a lesson before they finally left the company…