Maliciously following instructions to the letter

Life never presents me with excellent opportunities to be maliciously compliant like this, or do I not possess sufficient malice to see them coming? Either way, when you maliciously comply at a place like your job, you risk people above you blaming you for every resulting catastrophe whilst not understanding that they basically asked you to do it.

It's a risky attitude, but I guess it's worth trying when you've done enough. Sometimes it's the only way they'll get it. Plus, you can enjoy the pleasure of telling management: 'But you told me to stick to my 9-5!'

At this point, I'm no longer hopeful, and I think managers only want things to work and don't care if it's their fault they're not working; even more, they'll avoid responsibility and put it on you to unburden themselves. Nobody seems to be able to handle things these days. So I think this employee will hear from management very soon this week and will be expected to solve every problem that comes up, even if that means working extra hours.

It will be up to her if she fights for those extra hours to be paid, lol; but after this incident, I think she will have an excuse to talk about it, as a strict 9-to-5 schedule didn't work. Sometimes management has to loose our support to learn to cherrish it. You don't know what you've got until it's lost, or something corny like that.

Anyway, has anyone pulled a tactic like this at work and succeeded? I mean, does management ever recognise their mistakes, or is it just a fantasy?

Sharing is caring, but what if you don't care for the people demanding you share with them?

As kids, we all learned that sharing with other people is a good thing. Whether it's the sparkly markers in your bag or the snack your mom packed you for lunch, we were always encouraged to share with our friends to show them that we care about them. We also hoped that by giving something to other people, we would eventually get rewarded in return.

As adults, we know that while, in theory, sharing is still as important as when we were kids, it's also not as simple. Adults don't have the same simple mentality as kids, where if you share something with them, they would want to do the same in return. They also have no problem exploiting a person's generosity and turning a kind gesture into an obligation, which leads many people to be wary of sharing something with other people, for fear that it would turn into an unexpected daily occurrence.

When saving money on a car repair somehow ends up costing you the whole car.

Some neighbors seem like they're not normal people. Some of them live their lives based on anger and stress, and always find a way to spread that negative energy among the people they live with or cross paths with. In the story shared by u/Top_Total_8787, he explains that he was fixing his car clutch that broke with his late dad's tools to save some money. He was in his complex's parking lot and was very mindful about not making a mess and being as careful as possible.

We all know that fixing a car can be a tiring situation, so he decided to go inside for five minutes to grab a glass of water and then get to work. He was so unlucky that during those minutes that he stepped away, he's crazy neighbor took pictures of the tools on the floor and the car, and reported him to the building administrator. His goal? I guess he was just having a bad day…

Of course, the company sided with the neighbor and sent the 18-year-old boy a lot of fines that he had to pay very soon. And not only that: they threatened to get the car towed, since it was not working, so he had to sell it as quickly as possible, making him lose a lot of money. Not only the money he was saving by fixing the car on his own, but also the money that he would have made if he had the car fixed and ready to sell.

That's what I mean when I say that some people are just mean. This man had no business reporting him and putting a bunch of fines on his table. I'm sure that he's aware of his situation, and he was just fixing his car to save some cash. It's an honest answer, and he was not doing anything wrong. Hopefully, the neighbor gets the revenge he deserves, and it's put in the correct place… maybe life can teach him a karmic lesson.

Human Resources classical technique: Deny,  Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender

If this isn't a red flag, then I don't know what is. Lately, I'm seeing more and more stories that reflect that Human Resources don't like workers asking pretty much anything.

Since when is being curious and organized considered a bad thing? This one is simply one of those strange reactions nobody can prevent.

I think this happening so early in the process isn't necessarily the biggest red flag about the job in general, though. It's also coming from HR, whom he won't be working directly with, so I wouldn't be so sure about rejecting the position in general. 

Either way, they are being too hot-headed, and they forgot to acknowledge that they didn't attach the information he had asked for previously. Would it be too petty to remind them? Of course not; it's a rhetorical question.

Maybe they're mad at themselves for not being efficient enough, lol. If I were him I would simply move on and try to never get involved with anything regarding the HR department.

Have any of you had an experience with an incompetent HR office in an otherwise good job? Or is this always a red flag about the job in general? Do you think the employee is making a mistake here?

Sometimes you accept something, and then you fully regret it…

If I ever encounter the situation of receiving a free upgrade to business class from economy, don't doubt that I will accept it no matter what. I don't care if my family has to be seated next to a stranger and have a poor flight while I enjoy it. It may sound mean and entitled. But, in all due respect, it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I wouldn't give up for anything, as u/Gnorziak did. Is a free upgrade where I could actually enjoy the food I'm being fed and have enough leg room so that I'm not in a constant squat during the whole flight –yes, I'm pretty tall.

The nearest experience to something like this that I had was during a trip with friends. We were 4 friends going to the mountains together. Our plane tickets were really cheap because they were from an aircraft company that is known from their bad service. Two of the friends were seated together, and the other friend and I were supposed to also be seated together. But then the flight attendant came directly to my seat and asked me if I had any problem switching seats with a kid that was seated at the emergency exit. I accepted without thinking much about it. All to discover that people pay more to be seated there due to the amount of legroom that they provide.

I was so happy about it. It was a short flight, but the change was noticeable. I remember that at first I was afraid of accepting the change because being next to the emergency exit didn't sound good. But I didn't want to make the flight attendant's job more complicated. What I was going with this is that I changed my seat and left my friend alone, seated next to two unknown people. She was fine with it, as anybody would be. And she was happy that I got to sit somewhere where my legs actually fit. That's how most people would react if something like that happened to somebody who is traveling with them. 

She's a tad too much!

People need to learn how to say no. It's important and even therapeutic. Having a conversation where someone asks you something and you respond no, and your reasoning is a GOOD conversation. You don't have to say yes to any dumb offer that life throws at you. You are allowed and entitled to say no, even without giving an explanation. A question isn't a demand. It is a possibility that you are the one in charge to determine if you want to accept or deny. Nobody can force you to accept. You have every single right to simply say NO.

So, next time you get hit with some weird request that you hate and want to deny, do it! Nobody can force you to do ANYTHING. Say no, own your response, and be free from what other people dictate for your life. Be the one who handles the direction of your life. Choose wisely, however you want. Don't be like the people in the story below. Don't doubt. Just say what you really think about the offering someone just offered you. Say that you do not want to do it, and that's it. Once you do, you will realize what it is to be free. And also how saying no is not really a big deal. You are entitled to that! 

I'm sensitive to the smell of stinky hands.

Nobody wants to be a micromanaging coworker. It's one thing to be a micromanaging manager. It's not an ideal management style, but at least their employees are managed by the person who is supposed to manage them, not by someone else. When you're an equal to your coworker, you should not be going around telling them what to do about basically anything. If they smell bad, you should tell HR so they can address it professionally. If they're just plain annoying, there is very little you can say in the workplace that can actually fix that problem. If they're bad at their job, it's not like you can fire them! You might feel uncomfortable telling your manager that they aren't picking up the slack, because maybe that's not your call to make. The best thing you can do is just be friendly with your coworker and hope that they aren't a total disaster. 

Sometimes there are things that need to be addressed with your coworker that aren't as easy as asking them to pick up a shift for you. They might be saying a lot of unprofessional things that make the workplace uncomfortable. They might talk so much about unimportant things in your open-concept office that it's impossible for you to focus on the work that actually needs to get done. In cases like these, I can't emphasize enough how important it is to talk to HR. I know people say HR is there to protect the company, not the employees, but I highly doubt an HR professional will fire someone for mentioning a coworker who smells so bad they can't focus on work. If anything, they're probably not the only ones complaining about this issue if it's as bad as they say. The employee in this story desperately needs to talk to HR about his coworker, who wants him to stop washing his hands with scented soap because she is sensitive to the smell. 

We all cope with rejection in ridiculous ways

Maybe this is a hot take, but not everything we believe needs to be true. If we hold a belief that reinforces our self-esteem and doesn't harm anyone, is it really that bad?

I was talking about this the other day with a friend; she was telling me about this guy she dated who accused her of 'being afraid of love' when she left him, a thing that, according to my friend, wasn't true (otherwise I wouldn't be telling you this to make a point).

And she was reflecting on the kind of things we tell ourselves when somebody rejects us, only to keep our self-esteem intact while we process what we just lost. Those things can range from 'she (or he) is afraid of love', 'she loves me, but she doesn't consciously know it', 'he is going through a lot right now, and that's why he didn't fall in love ', or 'I was the one who got away'.

To me, as long as we're not trying to convince the other person of our narrative, or bothering them in any way or form, it's not that horrible to have a somewhat false belief or a petty outlook on some things.

Most of the time, as the initial sting fades away, we can casually accept that the other person didn't want us that much, and that's it.

Plus, 'The one that got away' is a controversial concept because most of the time, if we have someone who got away, we've mainly kept them as a fantasy, and we don't actually know if being with them in real life is as fantastic as we imagine. The fantasy creates the allure.

Either way, this Redditor has a completely different opinion on the topic, so let's read it! I also want to know what you think.

Everybody makes mistakes, they are truly measured by how they deal with the aftermath.

Judging someone because of a mistake they made is not really fair. You can't expect people to never make any mistakes. We are all humans, and a misstep here and there is bound to happen to every single one of us. How we view mistakes, learn from them, and try to fix them is what others should judge.

When someone is unable even to recognize their fault, we tend to criticize them for it. Grown adults should be able to look a mistake in the eye and admit they are to blame for it. Furthermore, we expect people to do what they can to fix the problem they caused by making the mistake. Even if they fail, it's the thought that matters; it is the attempt to right a wrong that proves that people can do better.

Which is why, when the HR agency in the story below made a mistake, the employee wasn't quick to judge them for it and waited to see how they would handle the aftermath.

It all started when this employee put in a time-off request for July and noticed that it took a long time for it to be acknowledged. Still, since the employee had enough documentation for the vacation request, they took the time off with their boss's approval and returned to work immediately after. However, the day the employee came back, they noticed that their card wasn't working, and no one could figure out the issue. Checking their email, the employee found out that they had been fired because HR forgot to enter their time off in the system, which led the agency to believe the employee was simply missing days of work without approval. 

With no one able to address the mistake, the employee had to pack up and leave. However, it wasn't long before the agency called them to own up to their mistake and asked them to come back to work. Should the employee comply, or is that mistake too grave to forgive? Scroll down to find out more.

Should a boss have a say in how an employee spends their lunch break?

While time that is off the clock is technically the employee's own, there is no denying that there are probably going to be some limits on how they can spend lunch. Most employers are going to frown at somebody who takes longer than they are supposed to, and they probably shouldn't be doing anything that is going to affect their ability to work when they come back from their break. 

That being said, work life and the corporate world in particular are full of rules about how employees should act and present themselves if they want to succeed, and a lot of them are not all that sensible or fair. Office politics goes far deeper than just avoiding any massive drama; it seeps into every aspect of a role, even the stuff that feels like it shouldn't matter. 

This is something that can be a struggle to adapt to for those who do not have a lot of experience with it. However, the nature of the business is that they are probably going to learn has some serious consequences. It is just the way that corporate life works.

At 23, she's paying grown-up rent without getting the grown-up freedom.

This girl is in a tight spot… no question she reached out to the community in r/Advice to see if someone can help her figure out her at-home living situation. According to her statement, she's 23 years old, working a full-time job of 40 hours a week, and makes a little over 2k every month. Her parents are charging her $1,200 every single month so she can live at home… that's an insane amount of money for her salary and for still living at her house.

Now, the issue here is that she really wants to move out, but because of how high the rent is, she can barely save any money.

She not only pays that huge amount of rent, but also has her car payment, insurance, phone bill, and she has to buy groceries for the house twice a week. Up until now, she had managed to save only $300, and we all know that's not enough for anything… not a deposit and nothing really to access an apartment.

If you ask me, I think the bigger issue is with the parents, honestly.

To begin with, what's the point of charging your kids that big amount of money? I'm not sure what they're doing with the money, but they are literally holding her daughther back in life. They know they are charging her more than half her salary and still expect her to pay even more money. This looks like they are retaining her and enabling her to get her own place. 

At the same time, I'm not sure what the relationship is between them. Maybe it would be a solution for her to talk to them about lowering the amount of rent until she can save enough for a deposit and finally move out. Some Redditors suggested that she could move to a shared house or apartment and rent one room. At least to get out of the house and be able to save more money. That sounds like a good idea to me!

Becoming a first-time mom is a hard job as it is; they don't need us to put more pressure on them.

Motherhood is one of those jobs that last a lifetime. Once someone becomes a mother, there's no turning back. It's a full-time job that will last forever; no quitting, no getting fired. It's one big adjustment to make 

Labor and raising a child are hard enough on their own, and all moms need their family's support to make everything a little bit easier. It's a very confusing and vulnerable time. They are adjusting to their new lives as much as the newborn babies, and they can surely benefit from the other women in the family's experiences. Of course, every mom and every baby is different, so they'll need to find their own way to do things and their own routine. We can't always know what is best for them, but we try to help as much as we can. What we don't know for sure is that they don't need us critiquing them, making snarky comments, or making them feel bad. 

Sadly, a mother-in-law didn't show enough empathy to her daughter-in-law at the moment of having her first baby. They had never had the best of relationships, and the mother-in-law never thought that the woman her son chose was good enough for him. She was never openly antagonistic, just passive-aggressive and a pot-stirrer. When it was time for the son and his wife to have their first baby, the mother-in-law asked to be in the delivery room with them, and she was allowed. However, as soon as the contractions started, she approached her daughter-in-law and said: "I just want to make sure the baby's actually my son's." The young woman was baffled, and since she didn't want to make a scandal, she simply looked at the nurse, who understood the job and took the mother-in-law out of the delivery room. Now, the family is saying the son's wife can't take a joke and that it wasn't such a big deal. She doesn't feel that way, and fortunately, her husband supports her one hundred percent. 

Is this story really proof you can't trust any coworker?

Workplaces aren't like any other place; if you have a nasty fallout with a friend from the gym, you can easily switch gyms. If you have a fallout with one of your bosses or coworkers, it's much harder to avoid them, and the fight comes with the anxiety of your income being at risk; ultimately, your survival ends up entangled in the work drama.

When we have a rigid belief system, and something happens in our life that reinforces those beliefs, we tend to write it off as the ultimate proof we needed to justify the way we're living.

I personally don't believe relationships in life should be so formulaic. A lot of people (myself included) have found amazing, lifelong friendships at the workplace.

You should definitely learn to spot behavioral red flags in people, in any place, not just at work, but that doesn't mean distrusting everyone; there are good people out there!

After reading this story, I was left with the impression that this employee already had trust issues, and this particular situation she went through only confirmed her bias, but the conclusion she drew from it is not the only one you can get to, in my opinion.

Maybe this experience isn't telling her to stop trusting coworkers, but telling her to stop trusting shady people.

When this 28-year-old employee asked her boss to communicate his requests and criticisms more clearly and directly, defining duties and performance expectations, it started an escalating series of conversations that resulted in them walking out on the job. Now she thinks she was fired, but her boss is saying she resigned. Either way, the abrupt dismissal was especially confusing given her boss's previous praise of her professionalism, personality, and performance.

The kids may not be alright.

Older people have almost always despaired of the younger generation in one way or another. Now that internet culture has amplified everything to do with generational differences, though, things seem to have been taken to another level. First, the millennials got all the judgment for being obsessed with what happened on their phones (never mind the fact that Gen X and Boomers came to be even worse than them in this matter). Then Gen Z promised to be the first fully 'digital native' generation, and we got to see the effects of being raised on brainrot in real time. Now, Gen Alpha is an amplification of that.

We were all just kids once, and no doubt about it, everybody has acted kind of stupid in their time because of their age and lack of experience. However, it is important to show a willingness to learn and grow out of that. While this always comes more easily to some people than others, some are getting worried that the latest generations of teens and young adults are not interested in going in that direction. There is a difference between being inexperienced and just being totally inept.

You win some, you lose some, and usually that's fine. Then there are the food-lottery losses. Those that wait until you have planned an entire dinner, gone grocery shopping, lugged every bag home, washed your hands, tied back your hair, and started developing main character energy for your own cooking show.

When the grocery store gives you a decent avocado instead of a tiny green cannonball, the delivery order arrives with all its parts, or your leftovers have not developed a fluffy, furry personality overnight. These are small victories, and we take them where we can get them.

But when you're halfway through the recipe and the universe reveals that the bacon is 99% fat, or the chocolate you planned on melting for a cake is, for some reason, a powder. I, for one, would make the nearest food thermometer blow its cap just from the temperatures inside of me rising.

Was she right to tell him what's going on with his money?

Inheritance is one of those things that is not frequently discussed in polite society, and for good reasons. It's kind of a morbid reality that young people can come into a great sum of money after the passing of their grandparents or parents. No aging person wants their kids and grandkids to be waiting around for them to pass away, hungry to get a piece of the fortune they've been building up over the years. Putting a monetary value on your relationship with your familial elders eats away at your soul. It's best to try to enjoy the time you have with your elders for as long as you can, because once they're gone, you'll finally know that their presence was worth more than all the money in the world. 

If you come from a family without generational wealth, you might feel bitter about people who are able to finance their entire life on windfalls from inheritance. After all, someone who gets $2M from an eccentric uncle didn't work hard to achieve their riches. Even if they had a close relationship with their late family member, that's not tantamount to doing the work required to make $2M from nothing. Inheritance only really benefits the people who were set up to succeed in society from the day they were born. A ton of people who receive inheritances had their college tuition paid for by their parents, grew up upper-middle class, and would've been well-off financially even without receiving life-changing amounts of money from a loved one beyond the grave. 

Sometimes, people are jealous of the money that someone receives under horrible circumstances. The kids in this story just lost their parents, and even though their aunt is taking care of them, it seems like she might be after their money. What do you think?

Sometimes you have to make a big effort for something that you want.

There is this new trend of not forcing people to do things that they don't want to, which is excellent, but also if it's something that they NEED to do. We, humans, have obligations, things that we don't want to do at all, but we have to. Life is like that. You have to do things you don't want to, and you have to deal with it. You can't cry your way out of it or say no. That isn't an option. So you just do it and deal with it internally, as nobody cares if you want to do the thing or not. They just care that you do it. That is what it is like being an adult.

In the story below, we encounter a girl who I actually feel sorry for. She doesn't want to learn how to drive a car. She's afraid of it. Unfortunately, she has no way out of learning, as she needs to if she's going to move to her aunt's house. She HAS to learn. Even if she's afraid, even if she doesn't want to. She has time and resources to do so, but she can't wrap her head around it. And I get it. It's hard. But the only way that she gets to live with her aunt is by learning to drive. So she needs to weigh the choices and see if this fear is going to dictate her life or if she will.

She has another option, one she doesn't like. She can move to another family member's house. It's not ideal, and it would be better for her to live with her aunt. But that decision is completely up to her. Either she learns and gets what she wants, or she doesn't and deals with the consequences of it. She has to make that choice, not her fear, not her family. She has. And I'm sure that if she tries, she's going to succeed. So let's hope she ends up learning and living where she wants. 

An office managerial rom-com couldn't be better for the office culture

Look, if your managers have rose-tinted glasses on, trust me, you're gonna have a blast at your job, and it won't matter if your performance isn't the best; they'll be prone to forgiving you, so make sure you protect (and even encourage) any secret romance that might be flourishing in the higher spheres right now.

Also, with that, be prepared for their first fight and how all that negative energy will be transmitted to you. It will likely be a '500 Days of Summer' situation, but well, I wouldn't wish that upon my worst enemy, so I hope it's not.

Either way, it's funny that it's even happening; at least to me, some gossip to discuss with my teammates over long, boring work hours while sippin' on some disgusting coffee is the best thing that can happen. Plus, we can watch it live! And it's supposed to be secret! I mean, could it get any better? A soap opera director couldn't have written a juicier plot, and honestly, I kinda wish I was the protagonist.

Are we all thirdwheeling right now, or is it just me? Gosh, when is it going to be my turn? I'm waiting for my boss to hire a cute guy; that's my excuse. Having an office crush is the most effective motivation there is to put in the extra work, if you know what I mean. I'd be showing up with a full face of makeup at 7 am sharp, for sure.

Of course, there is the minor detail that this employee can't even ask a basic question because the two lovebirds are very distracted, loving each other, but isn't it better? Maybe he can even leave work early, and no one would tell, lol.

Desperate times call for desperate measures

I don't know if you've ever been there, but when you suddenly need money, everything becomes an opportunity to get it. That jacket that's been sitting in your closet for ages? Fair enough, it's time to (desperately) sell it. That present you didn't like? It's about time to return it.

It's not easy to be in a desperate economic situation, but in any case, that's not your friend's responsibility; you shouldn't make them 'pay' for that. There might not even be a problem asking them for the money if you need someone to lend it to you, but I don't think they should give you money just because the store refused to give it to you and only gave you store credit.

On the one hand, it's incredibly ungrateful and, dare I say, distasteful, but on the other hand, it just makes no sense.  

Is it normal to expect this from a friend who kindly gifted you something? Wouldn't it be better to just ask for the money if you need it than to make it about a gift? Is the gifter friend beeing too nice about it?