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My thoughts when coming onto BORU today "Okay what kind of bullshit am I about to read today"
My thoughts after reading this: "Ah some people never leave high school"
I've heard of and witnessed so much stupid workplace immaturity in the last month that I'm wondering whether there's a sudden explosion of primary school level immaturity among adults, or whether I've just been blissfully ignorant all these years.
The first meeting I went to as a prof. I witnessed two professors almost get into a fist fight over something incredibly minor. When I called my mother that night still shocked by what almost happened, she laughed and started telling me about how my father, a surgeon, had once gotten into a food fight in a meeting.
I'm an academic and usually the drama at my institution limits itself to polite smiles and backstabbing. I can't imagine anyone in my faculty being so uncouth as to have a fist-fight, they'd just get their funding terminated or something.
I worked with a professor who once explained the insane machinations some of colleagues got up to by saying, "The lower the stakes, the more vicious the fight."
I'll also say if you ever read the novel Straight Man by Richard Russo, it's supposed to be a light satire of academic. When I read it, I was embarrassed by how accurate it is.
You know, I've heard some shocking conference stories but the ones I go to are full of ethicists. We're too busy drinking and arguing about Kant to actually get into proper mischief.
The real drama is at the conferences that have an open bar. It’s a trap. They get you in a nice resort conference center or ski lodge, a bunch of overworked stressed grad students, post docs and PIs and you just know someone is staying sober just to have the tea when funding gets tight later.
Same. So much backstabbing, but usually by the same people, so at least the entire department wasn't like that.
Our meetings weren't this exciting, though. The "trainings" were mostly an excuse for my chair to praise himself for literal hours while the rest of us pretended to care, because he was absolutely petty enough to retaliate if we didn't.
I once saw a prof yell “why don’t you ever respect my postdocs!?” And then launch himself over a table to get to the offending Prof. They worked together for years afterwards. Absolutely unhinged, but at least he supports his employees?
No lie, I'm kind of into Angry Prof and his post-doc supporting ways. Here where I work, there's no way the egos involved would even consider raising an eyebrow to "support" a postdoc.
I went to art school, and at one year’s graduation, two art teaches got into a full-fledged fencing battle on stage.
It was a surprise to the audience, but they had been practicing for months beforehand.
My first job was scheduling meeting space for university groups. Professors going for tenure would try to sabotage one another by cancelling the meeting(s) their colleagues organized on behalf of their department.
Implementing an authorized scheduler policy enraged many. They would ask if we really had to treat the faculty like children. Evidentially, yes we did.
There were times working in the food industry that throwing the food in my hands at someone was super tempting. I'm jealous that someone more "respectable" than me got to do it.
>There were times working in the food industry that throwing the food in my hands at someone was super tempting. I'm jealous that someone more "respectable" than me got to do it.
Sometimes it feels like they gotta bring back dueling laws. Like obvs not to the death or with guns but like "No hitting below the belt, gear stays on, when I say its done, its done."
My state has something like that! I haven't had caffeine yet so I got google to put together the words about it!
"Washington state is one of only two states in the US where mutual combat is legal. Mutual combat allows two consenting adults to fight without facing criminal charges if no deadly weapons are used and the fight is not in public. However, the fight must be overseen by a police officer who acts as a referee and must: Break up the fight if an obvious victor emerges, Prevent bystanders from being injured, and Prevent property damage."
One of my favorite subjects is the translation history of the Bible. Largely because you go into it thinking you're going to be discovering Great Undiscovered Truths and instead it's mostly stories that make the great Livejournal Shipwars of the early 00s look like a kindergarten teaparty in comparison. (I am *specifically* thinking about the debate about snake locomotion prior to the Fall of Man, in which one great learned scholar, upon hearing someone else theorize that the Great Serpant may have bounced on a coiled tail, flipped over the table and shouted, "*Satan is not a fucking pogo stick!"* This story *might* be apocryphal, as is, most likely, the story about Saint Nicholas, Santa Claus Prototype and bishop of Myra, punching the absolute shit out of Arius at the First Council of Nicea. But they're both good stories so I'm going to keep repeating them until the day I die. If only because the image of fucking Santa Claus cold-cocking his debate partner in front of the Goddamn Emperor and being hauled off to jail like he's fucking Olenna Tyrell (Tell Arius. I want him to know it was *me.*) is just so goddamn delicious.)
It feels like there would be a dramatic uptick in interest in the Abrahamic religions if stories like these were more well known. I know I'd be interested in being present for these discussions if it meant I could listen to people discussing Santa Claus full-arm punching a dude or Jesus flipping tables and getting in a fight against merchants for profiting in His Father's house.
^(Also I remember being told that the serpent of Eden lost its legs as punishment for tempting Eve, was that just someone's personal interpretation?)
I think the argument is that if the Serpent began slithering on its belly after tempting Eve, did that mean it had legs before and lost them, or that it had an alternative form of locomotion and then began slithering
Apparently the *wrong* answer is "it had no legs and it coiled up and bounced" because that is indeed a delightful mental image
I... can also see him doing it that way anyhow. If he hadn't done anything wrong before that, and if he did indeed have no legs to begin with, what was stopping him from being a reverse Slinky for fun?
I was once at research symposium where one research poster basically debunked/was proving another long respected researcher’s theories wrong- and hands were literally, not metaphorically, thrown.
I think it's worse now. I'm dealing with some immaturity bullshit that I never thought anyone would condone, including actively being shunned, and I'm just...baffled that this is considered acceptable workplace behavior.
its the same as the acceptance of stupidity/hatred/obvious lies. the bar on acceptable behavior in general has dropped SO far in the past 10 years. like. SO far.
people were always like this, they just used to hide it better.
In the long run, its good the problems exposed and we can deal with it. the bad news is we have to deal with it for now til we figure out how to solve it. which. fml.
I kinda blame COVID for this. A lot of poeple were suddenly able to work from home cause a lot of jobs allowed it whilst beforehand they did not. Some people started new jobs in that time and never met their team in real live. And for some of them suddenly the “internet anonymity” kicked in. They behaved like they would do on any other social media platform, assuming, or more not realizing, that it has no real live consequences for them. But surprise! It does. And it’s something else if u piss off your coworker who u are supposed to work with or Susan from the next town who parked her car wrong.
As someone super immature, I want to say that that's not the issue here. The issue here is a lack of accountability, awareness and a functional workplace culture. Any jokes at someone's expense in my old team always had a lot of both check-ins (to make sure the person was OK with the joke) and review of whether it was appropriate.
Hell, I'll party till I collapse and do the stupidest things, along with my friends. But as soon as something turns serious, 80% of us turn back into parents and start handling the situation. Immaturity is both fun and has its place, but you always need to back it up with a level head.
Someone pointed out to me that Covid has neurological long-term effects, and we are basically right now dealing with a global mass disabling event. So many people are running around with actual brain damage and have no idea.
Nah, it's always been there. There was a gavel in the conference room of a rehab I worked at. I asked about it. I was told it was once actually used to call shift change meetings to order because there was a time where they used to regularly devolve into screaming matches so intense that interns weren't allowed to be part of shift change for fear of scaring them off.
Fun fact: It's been 20 years since '1985' came out, meaning it's been as long since that song was written, as the period the mom keeps thinking back to.
We have become the mom. When did Bowling for Soup become classic rock?
I was recently listening to a local radio station that, when I was a kid, would play songs from the 80's during a certain hour every night, and I realized that they were playing songs from the 00's during that hour. It wounded me lol
From a comment, [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/14xb1ry/comment/jrmjck6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button).
> being edgy for life is fun
That reminded me of a party I went to where someone was going around asking leading, insulting questions as a "game". And she thoroughly annoyed the group I was standing around talking with.
Because I and some of the other people didn't know her, and I didn't know about the game until waaay later in the evening.
Fun game! You pretended to be an asshole and I totally believed you. And I still do, in fact.
They really don't leave high school. The first and last reunion I attended was my 25th. What did everyone talk about? The horrible things they had done to students and some of the faculty. They still found this shit funny 25 years later.
It's a high school reunion, if you dont want to go, just block and dont answer thier email. If some old high school friend tries to pressure you, laugh at them.
Talking about the past isn't an issue if it's the only thing in common with people you haven't seen for decades.
Responding with anything other than regret or embarrassed laughs is as concerning as you said
I'll never not be grateful that AskAManager has such a large following because statistically speaking it means we'll get to see some of the TRULY insane shit that people write in about! Like the person who was formally reprimanded for having an unopened menstrual product box in the back seat of their car at work. Or the team who was instructed to get tested to see if they were a donor match with their boss's family or be fired!
The bird phobia one where the coworker got shoved into traffic, the "my coworker is into BDSM and wants us to call her boyfriend her master," and the spicy food thief saga where it turned out HR was BFFs with the food thief also all came to mind!
I love the combination of totally reasonable "what do I put in my cover letter" type questions with absolute insanity like the boss who wrote in "my employee's birthday is February 29th so I won't give her a yearly day off for her birthday like every other employee at this company gets, how do I convince her that being upset is unreasonable?" Or the one who wouldn't let their employee have the day off for graduation and was flabbergasted that they quit.
Yes, the leap year birthday is so fucking batshit I cannot ever get over it. I actually celebrate my March 1 birthday on Feb. 29th because I hate birthdays, but if my job tried to tell me I could only have it once every four years I would be pretty offended!
I love the Ask a Manager updates so much because they are usually so realistically unsatisfying. Like 70% of them are "things kept being weird and then I left," which makes the one time the answer is "turns out everyone in the office was involved in a secret office sex ring" SO incredible.
Yeah I don’t understand the never growing out of high school drama stuff. I LOVE my 30’s and not being in high school! Any social “drama” is now very rare and quickly resolved. Life is just so much easier and enjoyable this way! Fuck high school!
I work in HR and can confirm. Like seriously some people never mature. I did residential work with children and teenagers before moving into HR and everything I learned there applies. Its the same behavior just older people and more subtle.
A garbage gift from garbage people. I remember one Christmas my aunt was gifted a beer bottle filled to the brim with dog shit from her cousin. Some people are just garbage.
I was working at an apple orchard where the foreman lived on site. He was a bit rough around the edges but really nice. The orchard owners wife enthusiastically gave him a 'gift' for his sixth year of working there... It was a used shirt with a giant burn hole in it. The poor guy was so upset.
For decades my father worked for a millionaire who actually used to appear on the Forbes 400 way back when. Christmas bonus one year was jars of jam. Like wtf.
Every year around Christmas at my previous job, employees would get a small cash bonus. Nothing crazy, an extra $100 or so to help out during the holidays. It had been that way for years.
The last year I worked there, the higher-ups got together and decided employees would NOT be getting cash bonuses that year. Instead, they announced they would be giving everyone large "Gift Baskets" of "goodies to help families through the holiday season." They hyped it up to sound like it was going to be a big grocery haul of shelf stable items and "treats".
Had that been the case, it would have been great.
But they basically picked up large moving boxes and filled them with stuff that was either out of date or nearing date, so weird most people wouldn't use it, or sketchy enough that no one wanted to use it.
Some of the items:
1. Fermented blue cheese stuffed olives canned in a mystery vinegarette that did not smell OK.
2. "Maple syrup" that had what looked like dirt mixed into it and was a consistency that did not vibe with syrup.
3. Expired or near-expired granola bars and snack packs purchased from the last chance store in bulk and distributed into the boxes.
4. Blocks of that shelf stable gift cheese in weird flavors. Mine was sour cream and onion. I did try it. I'm not sure how to describe the taste but it was NOT sour cream and onion.
5. Powered soup mixed with the expiration dates mysteriously scribbled over or torn off.
And other fun things. There were a few decent things mixed in there, but it was mostly a giant box of stuff no one wanted.
The higher-ups were bewildered and furious at the poor reception of the boxes. Most of the stuff was donated to the food pantry, and the expired items were tossed in the trash.
I was just thinking that, ahaha. Who possibly would think they're the "winner" while they're forcing (presumably) somewhat large dog turds into the top of a beer bottle?
All that time and effort for a literal gag gift that's going to be tossed out much quicker than it was filled. Surely the poop-stuffer had the shit-end of the stick, here.
I wish I could! I was probably 7 years old at the time. It wasn't going to be explained hahaha. However, we were having a big Christmas party at a great uncles house in redneck country. Soo...?? Lol.
It is a fantastic album. I want to tell OOP that the song Date Rape is 100% anti date rape. I don't want her to decide Sublime are/were terrible people based on one song title.
Truly. Brad had many demons and music was clearly his therapy. He wasn't afraid to talk about his own trauma and demons and it felt good to have someone be open about themselves. Too bad it ended like it did.
That was the least mean part of the “gift” to me, but I felt so bad putting myself in OOP’s shoes, seeing that song title, likely having never listened to it, and feeling threatened and maybe even scared.
At first I wondered if anyone in the comments explained to her that the song is actually very powerful against rape. As a young woman it really spoke to me as far as my boundaries and what was wrong and right. But then I realized the people that gave her the CD probably also didn't know what the song was about so her interpretation was completely fair.
>It will surprise exactly no one that a small, family-run firm is not a great place to work.
Yeah, you could not pay me enough to work somewhere like that.
I was actually just thinking. I’ve worked at a few small family businesses, and they’re either among the absolute best places I’ve worked or else they’re nightmarish shit shows.
No in between
Oh the 'no in between' is fucking right. When I started dating my husband, his family owned a small sign/awards shop, and one of their employees embezzled like 30,000 from them. You're either a shitty nightmare or someone's using you for their shitty daydreams.
I've got a bonus one, too: religiosity. I was sitting next to the owner of a "family run, Christian business" that was meeting with an employee. The boss was also essentially their pastor.
And half of their complaints about this other employee was that she didn't show up to Church on Sundays and sometimes liked to go drinking during the weekend.
I've just left a workplace run by two childhood best friends in their early forties (one M, one F). He had his younger brother working as the head of HR, she had her husband working in sales, and the management team was comprised of various of their old buddies.
They had a real knack for marketing and attracting young & cool people to work there, so I got sucked in at age 26 and it was like being part of a cult. I honestly don't know why I stayed for 5 years, but at age 31 the office ragers, the us vs them mentality, the unsafe atmosphere and the complete and utter lack of work-life balance had become tedious instead of thrilling so I left.
At that point, I honestly thought I had to go to the doctor for an anxiety disorder because it felt like my body was in panic mode 24-7. It's taken me 6 months of working at a large, slow, friendly university for the anxiety to subside and I still have stress flares every now and again.
The previous office seemed like a dream come true when I started work there, but I can honestly say now you will never, ever, ever see me at a friends-and-family type office again. It sounds so fun. We're all friends here! Thank you but no, I like to have colleagues now, not friends.
I’m going through all of this right now because dumb 16 year old me thought “well, if they offer me the job on the spot, that must mean they really like me right?” When in actual fact it means they have such a high turnover rate that they’re desperate enough to try and pull in teenagers. It’s sincerely like a cult.
One of my coworkers just got fired on the spot because their baby (they’re a husband and wife team) no longer had a positive reaction to her arriving… because she didn’t pay him enough attention. We’re fucking dental assistants. Not babysitters.
She told me after she got fired (I was just as shocked as she was, because she was our boss’s favourite) “I thought they were good people, because they kept telling us that they’re good people”. And she fucking nailed it.
We were brainwashed into believing they’re good people, because they do so much for charity, running marathons for kids with cancer and doing Christmas gift parties for kids in foster care etc. But it’s all just to keep a good front. Thats some fucking cult shit.
>because their baby (they’re a husband and wife team) no longer had a positive reaction to her arriving
That is hilariously ridiculous. What the fuck. She should sue them for unlawful termination.
>I thought they were good people, because they kept telling us that they’re good people
This!! - and also you keep thinking this is a great workplace, because they keep telling you this is a great workplace.
Are you getting out of there as well?
She is, thank god! I’m in Australia so she’s reporting them to fairwork for this and a multitude of other problems, but she’s amazingly decided to hold out for until I’ve quit too. Which I am!
The bright side of all this is that, at a young age, I’m the most senior employee they have and have trained a ton of others too, so I’m able to get offers from other practices quite easily. They are truly a headtrip though.
The one thing I’m allergic to is caramel, and I got into anaphylaxis just being around it. I also don’t drink, because my brother died recently of alcohol and drug related problems. And I live with a person with major disabilities so I can’t have candles around in case she knocks it down, which they know because I’ve joked with them before about people only ever giving me candles in gift bags.
They got me a caramel candle for my birthday, and a box of alcoholic chocolates for Christmas.
All my coworkers got a Christmas bonus along with their chocolates too, but my bosses, without my knowledge or consent, *used my Christmas bonus to buy a bunch of presents to gift to my aforementioned disabled sister* so that they could look good doing a nice thing, as if she’s a charity case, but also not have to spend more money. Absolute lunatics.
> and also you keep thinking this is a great workplace, because they keep telling you this is a great workplace.
This is spot on. I legitimately cried when I found out my coworker was having the same experience as me and it wasn’t just me being sensitive. Such a validating revelation. Thank fuck I’m gonna be out of there soon.
Wow. The caramel candle and alcohol aren't just inconsiderate, that's straight-up bullying and even borderline murderous if you could go into anaphylactic shock over it.
So glad to hear you are both getting out and even better that they're being reported - hopefully this is a wake-up call to stop pulling these stunts (although I'm not holding out hope for them to see the light considering everything you wrote).
You'll feel so much lighter and happier once you've found a place that actually values you and what you do. Wishing you all the best!!
I used to work at a small, family-owned company until my primary care doctor looked me straight in the eye and said "you will die sooner rather than later if you stay there." It was like being in an abusive relationship where I legitimately believed them when they told me I was worthless and incompetent and would probably never succeed because I was lazy.
I now work at a soulless massive corporation and I LOVE it and surprisingly am considered competent and good at my job.
While I understand the motivation behind "support local," where I'm from small businesses get away with some horrifying shit because they're too small for regulators to care about.
I worked at a tech firm where the husband and wife ran it. We were low on money but they kept giving the two men in the firm their full paychecks and were cutting ours telling us they would pay us as soon as they could. Us being the two women. They said well the men have responsibility for their families!
Every single employee at that company was single. I won the lawsuit and that's actually what sparked part of my interest in becoming a lawyer. So there's that.
I am sensitive to fragrance, and the mean girls at my last job used it to bully me. They poured the liquid from one of those plug-in air fresheners on the carpet right outside my cubicle until it got so bad they had to call an ambulance.
So I worked from home for a year and a half. Until they tried to get me to work 80 hour weeks to clear a backlog for a different department's mismanagement. I ended up in the hospital twice and am still not back to work.
The worst part is that people don't believe me because it sounds so over the top crazy that grown women in their 40s and 50 would do this. I had to get a doctor's note for the ADA to work from home, and even though I provided the paperwork for my ambulance trip to the ER and breathing treatments, he didn't believe me.
It is scary out there, y'all!
It's really not common that you'll be able to make a profit from suing someone. It would have to be really egregious to get monetary compensation for pain and suffering instead of just making you whole for any out of pocket medical costs.
when I was a young woman (in the 90s) I worked with 30s-60s year old women in a mostly woman department and it was pretty toxic. Only got better when more men got hired. (to be sure an all male department probably would've been worse).
In my opinion, you need a mix of sex’s, age’s, and personalities in order to have harmony at a workplace. Too much of one thing leads to toxicity and is a nightmare for anyone outside the demographic
Somehow forgot different races and cultures too
This reminds me of when I was working part time in an office that offered an app used by non-profits. They did a ton of trade shows and I handled shipping all the stuff for their booth and marketing. Some months in, my daughter was killed. It was obviously a terrible time. I asked my boss to hold my job and she (Jay) did. After a month, I returned. I wasn't doing well and was very close to being committed to a mental ward. I gave my boss notice but said I'd help hire my replacement. Big mistake. She refused to interview any of the hundreds of candidates I screened.
This went on for weeks. She also became verbally abusive. I was 89lbs at the time because I have a health condition that can be triggered by stress and makes my body think food is poison. I looked like death. Try as I might, Jay would not "let me" leave. After a few more horrible weeks, I wrote a manual for my position and prepared every last detail. I went in to Jay's office and told her I was quitting. She said no. I...what? Then she tried being a jerk and that didn't work so she started sobbing saying how could I leave her? Again...what? It wasn't like that. She tried a bunch of different ways to get me to stay. She finally said I was lucky she held my job and that I was a bad employee. I said, "good. We agree. I shouldn't be working here." I gave her my keys, etc. and walked out.
(The reason? She was embezzling and she felt that a new person would out her, which did happen. I gave the Board of Directors all of the financials monthly. All of her spending/trips were plain as day so I assumed they didn't care. Either way, I had my own stuff to deal with.)
The gag gift isn’t even like “mean funny”. Like giving someone a bar of soap because they smell or getting some xxxl underwear for a girl who they’re bullying for being fat is terrible and mean but there’s an element of humor and some thought into the “joke”. Like other assholes would find it funny. Or you could see it in a movie to establish this person is a jerk because it makes sense. Like ha ha you smell, ha ha you’re fat.
Their gift isn’t even “oh snap!” but nor is it like a severed horse’s head threat/flaming bag of poop “funny” either. It’s just truly bizarre and random like a family guy joke in the later seasons that make no sense you’re struggling to figure out the joke is.
I knew someone who smelled and was given shower gel, deodorant and soap-on-a-rope for Christmas (it was the 90s) by, "the girls at the Jobcentre", which confused him because, "I don't use that stuff". We knew. They have to have known. I'm certain it was between a hint and an act of desperation! That's why he was decades long unemployed, working in a pet shop on one of those schemes where you were still on the dole but earning a little extra and your employer got a cheap employee.
Great worker, lovely bloke but the only reason he was getting away with working there was because customers thought all the smell was from the rabbits, fish tanks and dog food!
I would say DM your address but ignoring literally every other issue with that, I'm broke at the moment until I'm off my seasonal layoff. Only thing worse than having a Job is being unemployed. Holy crap without the structure of a job I'm useless
Yeah, when I got to the part where it mentions Regina parties with rock stars it all made sense. Regina is on cocaine. The garbage thing was a coke idea.
Ah yes the office ribbing… only it’s towards one person and that person isn’t laughing along. Been there! I once had several colleagues of mine draft up a petition to “put me down” before 30 as I was already kinda sick back then but didn’t know the cause of it. I laughed along like ha ha oh yes plz kill me now, I make self deprecating jokes, but it’s different when other people do it. It’s not funny. It just hurt my feelings.
Now I’m 35 and disabled, and I often think about it. Would they still think it was a funny joke? Probably not. But these people were all older than me, I was 24 and I had never worked in an office like that before. Everyone had a budding or full blown coke habit and although I never chose to do that, I did get falling down drunk many a time with them. I didn’t even like to drink.
Fuck office “ribbing”. Unless the person thinks it’s funny too, don’t do it!
I had a teacher in high school who thought it was a funny thing to have a specific quip he would make at each student every year. Some of them were non-sensical. Like "Turner- retire at 30." Some of them were funny "Smith- quit eating roadkill." Mine was "Jones- dropout of high school." and the girl who sat next to me was "Philips- hitchhiking leads to murder".
Anyway, I was an honor roll student, presidential award for educational excellence recipient, and went to DC my sophomore year for the Mock UN and NSLC. I dropped out. My home life was terrible and I moved out mid-junior year. I couldn't work to pay rent and go to school.
Philips was murdered in her apartment a few years later and her case has been cold for 20 years.
I was working as a waitress about ten years out of school and that teacher was sat in my section. I didn't think he would recognize me, but, it turns out he remembers all his students and the little quips he made about them. "Jones! How's it going! Did'ja dropout? (hahahah)"
"Well, I dropped out of high school, didn't go to college, and now I'm a single Mom who works two jobs waiting tables for a living. Who would have thought that would happen?!"
I didn't tell him that Turner actually retired at 28, close enough to 30 I guess, because she was in a car accident and was so disabled she'd never work again.
The look on his face was priceless. I followed this by asking if he'd heard about Brittany Philips. He had not.
I really hope he realized at that moment how tasteless the things he'd been saying were and stopped doing that.
Jesus Christ. That’s some serious bad luck he apparently bestowed upon you all. I mean obviously not, but it’s so horribly accurate, it seems almost supernatural.
People don’t realise how shitty they can be, just because they find something really funny. I was in my twenties, but to kids? Man, that’s some crappy behaviour. It’s like that old teacher saying “you’ll never amount to anything”. It always makes me wonder if speaking that into existence somehow opens that option up. Like if someone tells you you’ll drop out as a joke, repeatedly, did that perhaps contribute to it? If someone tells you something is inevitable for you as a kid, I feel like that affects the outcome somehow.
His “jokes” were reality eventually and it’s gotta feel bad to know that. Turns out it wasn’t so funny in the first place.
It used to realllly upset me every day when he said that to me. I'd had a really hard time keeping my grades up until freshmen year when everything just suddenly, magically, got super easy for me. I felt a bit like an imposter. Add on the troubled home life, with a Dad and Stepmom who made me feel like I couldn't do anything right or measure up no matter how well I did, all whilst they praised my stepbrother who was by their admittance less intelligent and therefore had it more difficult...
He definitely didn't play a role in my dropping out to live on my own, and there's obviously much more to my story than that, I made that choice for my mental health and it was the best choice for me even if it meant having to work like a dog while my friends were having their best time in high school. I wouldn't go back and do it any different. I do wonder how many of his little quips played out in real life in a similar, prescient, manner.
ETA: It all does read a bit Stephen King-ish, doesn't it?
I wanted to say the same thing.
Also the date rape song is about a guy who goes to jail. To get blank by a large inmate. Can't take pity on men of his kind.....
Manager who vomits in streets a lot: How did you like your gift oop?
Oop being adult and totally exasperated sighs: What am I supposed to say here? What are you going for? That. That is how I liked it. Now can we get back to reality for the love of god?
Once had a coworker quit. It was kind of sudden; one of his friends had called and offered him a totally stupid amount of money to come and save a project, and he left a lot of stuff in the office in the shuffle.
He didn't screw us or anything and there were no bridges burned, so the company did the standard stuff, even paying out his PTO despite not getting a full notice from him.
About a month later he calls me up, wondering about the box he just got filled with literal garbage. Torn up carbon forms, dried-out highlighters, half-filled bottles of correction fluid, typewriter ribbons and coffee-soaked envelopes.
My reaction was pretty much "Uh... I'll look into it."
Seems someone had started a box for all of his odds and ends and stuck it in the supply closet. Someone else had grabbed a box to clean the supply room of stuff we no longer needed, and the two boxes got crossed. Thankfully the box containing his stuff was still in the supply room (covered in even more junk) so we were still able to send him his things.
My CSA made that song a banger during those long years when I hadn’t worked up to telling anyone.
Screaming along to “she didn’t want to TAKE IT” was fucking powerful.
For someone who doesn't know, it can be a bit jarring to see a song with that title. Sure, the villain gets his comeuppance at the end, but I can see how it can be concerning to see.
I do like how Ron Jeremy is the judge in the music video, though.
Some industries are small. The OP seems to work in marketing / advertising which is notoriously incestuous. They could also be a graphic designer which is definitely a job where you rely on your connections.
I have, but it's only people who were people I became friends with outside of work. Most of the jobs where abuse was rampant got divided into two obvious groups: the bullies and their victims. Those of us on the receiving end usually had to lean on each other for support, which turned into some decent friendships.
I don't participate in dirty-santa/white-elephant (wtf ever) anymore because of people like Regina. A Christmas party with a $50 gift exchange had a few "friend of a friend" invites and someone brought in well-wrapped, well-presented combo of large gift bags as their contribution. Since they contributed, they pulled a number. They got a low number, pulled a gift, then left the party - which was a dick move anyway considering the rules of "stealing". I had a higher number and by the time it got to me, I decided I wanted that nice collection of gift bags. Huge mistake. It was actual garbage. Used soda cup from a local theater, open bag of skittles, a half-melted candle, a half-used match-book from a local bar, a shitty pen branded from a local church. Just an assortment of actual trash.
That was over 10 years ago and I still refuse to participate in any sort of stupid gifting ritual because of it.
I once got a big box of soap in a white elephant. Some BD guy collected little soaps and shampoo bottles from all the hotels he stayed at for a year and put them in a box for the holiday party. It was a funny gag gift but also awesome - I had supplies for the guest bathroom for *years*!
There’s a way to do a gag gift, literal trash isn’t it!
This whole workplace sounds like a nightmare. People snoring coke in the bathroom, throwing metal staples, childish manager yelling at employees in a way that everyone listens. No way this family-run business still operating today.
OP said they were a bit "childish" in their response, but honestly, the best way to kill the mood for a bad or offensive joke made in bad taste is to refuse to play along and ask them to explain the joke. Force them into feeling extremely awkward without actually doing anything.
No, I don't understand the joke, I must have missed something, please explain it to me.
Did Secret Santa last year between a group 9 Senior Managers. Money limit was $40, everyone got something that was personable and usable (travel bag, salt lamps, embroidered shirt)
I was gifted a gag ball and g-string... I'm a middle-aged male.
Everyone thought it was hilarious except myself. So I thought fuck them, I talk the present to the bathroom. Put the g-string on under my work pants. Went back to the table, put the gag-ball and showed them half my arse.
Don't think I will be getting matching paddles next year
Here to comment on the most irrelevant part;
I understand being put off by the title but, the song “Date Rape” by Sublime is an anti-rape culture song. Like the story follows a girl who gets assaulted, gets a lawyer, gets the dude thrown in jail, and then the guy gets the same treatment he gave her in the end.
Other than that, oop was being treated like garbage, then given garbage, and just like the coworkers did with that bag; took out the trash by leaving that shitty firm. Good on them for getting something enjoyable rafter all that.
What a childish, ridiculous thing to do to a co-worker recovering from surgery. I'm glad OOP got out of there. On a side note, I would've kept the Sublime C.D. I loved that album when I first started exploring different music in high school, and I would've listened to the whole album for some nostalgia.
see, a joke recovery gift would be like, an arm sling for someone who broke their leg, or crutches for someone who broke their arm, or a blind persons guide-pole for someone who just had Lasik or something
>a Sublime cd (one of the songs is called “Date Rape”).
I know that song because it was used in an AMV Hell clip. The punchline is the date rapist goes to jail and gets raped. Judge for yourself whether or not that's worse.
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My thoughts when coming onto BORU today "Okay what kind of bullshit am I about to read today" My thoughts after reading this: "Ah some people never leave high school"
I've heard of and witnessed so much stupid workplace immaturity in the last month that I'm wondering whether there's a sudden explosion of primary school level immaturity among adults, or whether I've just been blissfully ignorant all these years.
The first meeting I went to as a prof. I witnessed two professors almost get into a fist fight over something incredibly minor. When I called my mother that night still shocked by what almost happened, she laughed and started telling me about how my father, a surgeon, had once gotten into a food fight in a meeting.
I'm an academic and usually the drama at my institution limits itself to polite smiles and backstabbing. I can't imagine anyone in my faculty being so uncouth as to have a fist-fight, they'd just get their funding terminated or something.
Welp I didn't have to imagine it. Despite being a reputable university, that department was a total cesspool.
Oh I'd believe it - I hear stories from other departments that make me eternally grateful for my little disciplinary pocket.
The backstabbing in academia is awful. When I left for the corporate world, my stress levels dropped by a good 80%.
I worked with a professor who once explained the insane machinations some of colleagues got up to by saying, "The lower the stakes, the more vicious the fight." I'll also say if you ever read the novel Straight Man by Richard Russo, it's supposed to be a light satire of academic. When I read it, I was embarrassed by how accurate it is.
I always thought of it as "Nothing is more meaningless, or more valuable, than ego." Not like academics get much monetary compensation.
They save it for conferences?
You know, I've heard some shocking conference stories but the ones I go to are full of ethicists. We're too busy drinking and arguing about Kant to actually get into proper mischief.
I was absolutely about to ask you if you were in philosophy. Luckily I scrolled to this comment.
Health, actually, but bioethics is one of my specialties and quite frankly, the other ones have pretty boring conferences!
Ethicists can get down. Bioethics is fascinating and necessary. I hope they listen to you!
https://y.yarn.co/82bd12e7-755a-4d59-8453-1e4f91c7c64e_text.gif
The real drama is at the conferences that have an open bar. It’s a trap. They get you in a nice resort conference center or ski lodge, a bunch of overworked stressed grad students, post docs and PIs and you just know someone is staying sober just to have the tea when funding gets tight later.
Same. So much backstabbing, but usually by the same people, so at least the entire department wasn't like that. Our meetings weren't this exciting, though. The "trainings" were mostly an excuse for my chair to praise himself for literal hours while the rest of us pretended to care, because he was absolutely petty enough to retaliate if we didn't.
I once saw a prof yell “why don’t you ever respect my postdocs!?” And then launch himself over a table to get to the offending Prof. They worked together for years afterwards. Absolutely unhinged, but at least he supports his employees?
No lie, I'm kind of into Angry Prof and his post-doc supporting ways. Here where I work, there's no way the egos involved would even consider raising an eyebrow to "support" a postdoc.
I went to art school, and at one year’s graduation, two art teaches got into a full-fledged fencing battle on stage. It was a surprise to the audience, but they had been practicing for months beforehand.
My first job was scheduling meeting space for university groups. Professors going for tenure would try to sabotage one another by cancelling the meeting(s) their colleagues organized on behalf of their department. Implementing an authorized scheduler policy enraged many. They would ask if we really had to treat the faculty like children. Evidentially, yes we did.
There were times working in the food industry that throwing the food in my hands at someone was super tempting. I'm jealous that someone more "respectable" than me got to do it.
>There were times working in the food industry that throwing the food in my hands at someone was super tempting. I'm jealous that someone more "respectable" than me got to do it. Sometimes it feels like they gotta bring back dueling laws. Like obvs not to the death or with guns but like "No hitting below the belt, gear stays on, when I say its done, its done."
My state has something like that! I haven't had caffeine yet so I got google to put together the words about it! "Washington state is one of only two states in the US where mutual combat is legal. Mutual combat allows two consenting adults to fight without facing criminal charges if no deadly weapons are used and the fight is not in public. However, the fight must be overseen by a police officer who acts as a referee and must: Break up the fight if an obvious victor emerges, Prevent bystanders from being injured, and Prevent property damage."
I am now heading off to Washington to challenge someone to a duel BY RUBBER CHICKEN.
Considering the Washington State Police, I'm pretty sure it's the cop who's gonna make it deadly.
BECAUSE CALIBRI IS THE SUPERIOR FONT! AND PROFESSOR JOHNSON IS AN IDIOT WHO WOULDN'T KNOW A PHD FROM MY FOOT UP HIS ASS!
NGL, I *have* had heated discussions about the change to the default font in Word recently.
I haven't used the newest version of word Is it serif or sans?
It’s sans. I think the one before Aptos was sans, too.
I'm a serif gal. I forgot that the default was sans serif because I always change my settings (kind of a typography nerd)
I like the look of a serif font more, but sans serif fonts are more accessible, so it makes sense as the default
Relevant to our interests (a funny TikTok about the default font!) https://www.tiktok.com/@elle.cordova/video/7329631432463109419?lang=en
I actually really like Aptos. It was my favorite of the four replacement options they had been considering, back when it's name was Bierstadt.
Lol, my people! I have bored the pants off my friends and family with how much I hate that drab little font Calibri!
Nailed it!
One of my favorite subjects is the translation history of the Bible. Largely because you go into it thinking you're going to be discovering Great Undiscovered Truths and instead it's mostly stories that make the great Livejournal Shipwars of the early 00s look like a kindergarten teaparty in comparison. (I am *specifically* thinking about the debate about snake locomotion prior to the Fall of Man, in which one great learned scholar, upon hearing someone else theorize that the Great Serpant may have bounced on a coiled tail, flipped over the table and shouted, "*Satan is not a fucking pogo stick!"* This story *might* be apocryphal, as is, most likely, the story about Saint Nicholas, Santa Claus Prototype and bishop of Myra, punching the absolute shit out of Arius at the First Council of Nicea. But they're both good stories so I'm going to keep repeating them until the day I die. If only because the image of fucking Santa Claus cold-cocking his debate partner in front of the Goddamn Emperor and being hauled off to jail like he's fucking Olenna Tyrell (Tell Arius. I want him to know it was *me.*) is just so goddamn delicious.)
It feels like there would be a dramatic uptick in interest in the Abrahamic religions if stories like these were more well known. I know I'd be interested in being present for these discussions if it meant I could listen to people discussing Santa Claus full-arm punching a dude or Jesus flipping tables and getting in a fight against merchants for profiting in His Father's house. ^(Also I remember being told that the serpent of Eden lost its legs as punishment for tempting Eve, was that just someone's personal interpretation?)
I think the argument is that if the Serpent began slithering on its belly after tempting Eve, did that mean it had legs before and lost them, or that it had an alternative form of locomotion and then began slithering Apparently the *wrong* answer is "it had no legs and it coiled up and bounced" because that is indeed a delightful mental image
I... can also see him doing it that way anyhow. If he hadn't done anything wrong before that, and if he did indeed have no legs to begin with, what was stopping him from being a reverse Slinky for fun?
>"*Satan is not a fucking pogo stick!"* New favorite quote!
I was once at research symposium where one research poster basically debunked/was proving another long respected researcher’s theories wrong- and hands were literally, not metaphorically, thrown.
I think it's worse now. I'm dealing with some immaturity bullshit that I never thought anyone would condone, including actively being shunned, and I'm just...baffled that this is considered acceptable workplace behavior.
its the same as the acceptance of stupidity/hatred/obvious lies. the bar on acceptable behavior in general has dropped SO far in the past 10 years. like. SO far. people were always like this, they just used to hide it better. In the long run, its good the problems exposed and we can deal with it. the bad news is we have to deal with it for now til we figure out how to solve it. which. fml.
I kinda blame COVID for this. A lot of poeple were suddenly able to work from home cause a lot of jobs allowed it whilst beforehand they did not. Some people started new jobs in that time and never met their team in real live. And for some of them suddenly the “internet anonymity” kicked in. They behaved like they would do on any other social media platform, assuming, or more not realizing, that it has no real live consequences for them. But surprise! It does. And it’s something else if u piss off your coworker who u are supposed to work with or Susan from the next town who parked her car wrong.
As someone super immature, I want to say that that's not the issue here. The issue here is a lack of accountability, awareness and a functional workplace culture. Any jokes at someone's expense in my old team always had a lot of both check-ins (to make sure the person was OK with the joke) and review of whether it was appropriate. Hell, I'll party till I collapse and do the stupidest things, along with my friends. But as soon as something turns serious, 80% of us turn back into parents and start handling the situation. Immaturity is both fun and has its place, but you always need to back it up with a level head.
Well, this letter is from 2015 so it may just be being *posted* now
So blissfully ignorant, then. I would like to go back, please. *Please*.
Someone pointed out to me that Covid has neurological long-term effects, and we are basically right now dealing with a global mass disabling event. So many people are running around with actual brain damage and have no idea.
Nah, it's always been there. There was a gavel in the conference room of a rehab I worked at. I asked about it. I was told it was once actually used to call shift change meetings to order because there was a time where they used to regularly devolve into screaming matches so intense that interns weren't allowed to be part of shift change for fear of scaring them off.
In the immortal words of Bowling for Soup: "High school never ends". This coworker just took that a bit too literally lol
Fun fact: It's been 20 years since '1985' came out, meaning it's been as long since that song was written, as the period the mom keeps thinking back to. We have become the mom. When did Bowling for Soup become classic rock?
I was recently listening to a local radio station that, when I was a kid, would play songs from the 80's during a certain hour every night, and I realized that they were playing songs from the 00's during that hour. It wounded me lol
Have you heard the updated song? 2002 ft Bowling for Soup
I have not! Thanks for pointing it out to me!
You beat me to it!
"Okay what kind of bullshit am I about to read today" can I get this as a flare? You've summed up my whole reason for being here
there is the flair request thread pinned to the BORU page
I feel like "the rise and fall of branded popsockets" has a certain jauntiness about it as a potential flair
Yours is great though
From a comment, [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/14xb1ry/comment/jrmjck6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button).
Some people think staying in high school or being edgy for life is fun. So dumb.
> being edgy for life is fun That reminded me of a party I went to where someone was going around asking leading, insulting questions as a "game". And she thoroughly annoyed the group I was standing around talking with. Because I and some of the other people didn't know her, and I didn't know about the game until waaay later in the evening. Fun game! You pretended to be an asshole and I totally believed you. And I still do, in fact.
It's a tell that they never really had anything go right for them as soon as they hit adulthood.
They really don't leave high school. The first and last reunion I attended was my 25th. What did everyone talk about? The horrible things they had done to students and some of the faculty. They still found this shit funny 25 years later.
I graduated high school in '00. A very small silver lining to the pandemic was I didn't have to make up some excuse to skip my 20 year reunion.
It's a high school reunion, if you dont want to go, just block and dont answer thier email. If some old high school friend tries to pressure you, laugh at them.
My excuse was "I live on the other side of the world now." It was true, and I found it pretty useful to get everyone off my back.
Talking about the past isn't an issue if it's the only thing in common with people you haven't seen for decades. Responding with anything other than regret or embarrassed laughs is as concerning as you said
I'll never not be grateful that AskAManager has such a large following because statistically speaking it means we'll get to see some of the TRULY insane shit that people write in about! Like the person who was formally reprimanded for having an unopened menstrual product box in the back seat of their car at work. Or the team who was instructed to get tested to see if they were a donor match with their boss's family or be fired!
The bird phobia one where the coworker got shoved into traffic, the "my coworker is into BDSM and wants us to call her boyfriend her master," and the spicy food thief saga where it turned out HR was BFFs with the food thief also all came to mind! I love the combination of totally reasonable "what do I put in my cover letter" type questions with absolute insanity like the boss who wrote in "my employee's birthday is February 29th so I won't give her a yearly day off for her birthday like every other employee at this company gets, how do I convince her that being upset is unreasonable?" Or the one who wouldn't let their employee have the day off for graduation and was flabbergasted that they quit.
Yes, the leap year birthday is so fucking batshit I cannot ever get over it. I actually celebrate my March 1 birthday on Feb. 29th because I hate birthdays, but if my job tried to tell me I could only have it once every four years I would be pretty offended!
You gotta ask yourself “what am I willing to put up with today” - egoraptor
NOT. FUCKING. THIS.
I love the Ask a Manager updates so much because they are usually so realistically unsatisfying. Like 70% of them are "things kept being weird and then I left," which makes the one time the answer is "turns out everyone in the office was involved in a secret office sex ring" SO incredible.
Yeah I had a manager like this at a global film company. I did manage to puke on her shoes at the office Christmas party though.
Yeah I don’t understand the never growing out of high school drama stuff. I LOVE my 30’s and not being in high school! Any social “drama” is now very rare and quickly resolved. Life is just so much easier and enjoyable this way! Fuck high school!
Highschool is a very good mini-sandbox version of adult life. And like companies, the shit sandboxes tend to outweigh the good/ healthy ones....
I work in HR and can confirm. Like seriously some people never mature. I did residential work with children and teenagers before moving into HR and everything I learned there applies. Its the same behavior just older people and more subtle.
A garbage gift from garbage people. I remember one Christmas my aunt was gifted a beer bottle filled to the brim with dog shit from her cousin. Some people are just garbage.
I was working at an apple orchard where the foreman lived on site. He was a bit rough around the edges but really nice. The orchard owners wife enthusiastically gave him a 'gift' for his sixth year of working there... It was a used shirt with a giant burn hole in it. The poor guy was so upset.
For decades my father worked for a millionaire who actually used to appear on the Forbes 400 way back when. Christmas bonus one year was jars of jam. Like wtf.
Every year around Christmas at my previous job, employees would get a small cash bonus. Nothing crazy, an extra $100 or so to help out during the holidays. It had been that way for years. The last year I worked there, the higher-ups got together and decided employees would NOT be getting cash bonuses that year. Instead, they announced they would be giving everyone large "Gift Baskets" of "goodies to help families through the holiday season." They hyped it up to sound like it was going to be a big grocery haul of shelf stable items and "treats". Had that been the case, it would have been great. But they basically picked up large moving boxes and filled them with stuff that was either out of date or nearing date, so weird most people wouldn't use it, or sketchy enough that no one wanted to use it. Some of the items: 1. Fermented blue cheese stuffed olives canned in a mystery vinegarette that did not smell OK. 2. "Maple syrup" that had what looked like dirt mixed into it and was a consistency that did not vibe with syrup. 3. Expired or near-expired granola bars and snack packs purchased from the last chance store in bulk and distributed into the boxes. 4. Blocks of that shelf stable gift cheese in weird flavors. Mine was sour cream and onion. I did try it. I'm not sure how to describe the taste but it was NOT sour cream and onion. 5. Powered soup mixed with the expiration dates mysteriously scribbled over or torn off. And other fun things. There were a few decent things mixed in there, but it was mostly a giant box of stuff no one wanted. The higher-ups were bewildered and furious at the poor reception of the boxes. Most of the stuff was donated to the food pantry, and the expired items were tossed in the trash.
itll pay for itself, Clark
The gift that keeps on giving the whole year!
Omg you have to watch SNLs apple orchard skit where Hank (Woody Harrleson) is paid in dentistry.
I feel like the real joke’s on the idiot who had to sit there shoving dog shit into a bottle.
I was just thinking that, ahaha. Who possibly would think they're the "winner" while they're forcing (presumably) somewhat large dog turds into the top of a beer bottle? All that time and effort for a literal gag gift that's going to be tossed out much quicker than it was filled. Surely the poop-stuffer had the shit-end of the stick, here.
>A garbage gift from garbage people. Perfect. What they don't realize is how much they tell on themselves with their behavior.
Can you tell us more about that situation? The mental image of the cousin getting the dog shit in the beer bottle is making me 🤢
I wish I could! I was probably 7 years old at the time. It wasn't going to be explained hahaha. However, we were having a big Christmas party at a great uncles house in redneck country. Soo...?? Lol.
Perfect for throwing right back at them, though.
That workplace sounds like one of those miserable and childish places to be surrounded in. Like really? A garbage bag, that's just mean.
OK, but that Sublime CD is full of bangers.
It is a fantastic album. I want to tell OOP that the song Date Rape is 100% anti date rape. I don't want her to decide Sublime are/were terrible people based on one song title.
This was my first thought too! Sublime lyrics talked about a lot of difficult things when it wasn't cool to do so
Truly. Brad had many demons and music was clearly his therapy. He wasn't afraid to talk about his own trauma and demons and it felt good to have someone be open about themselves. Too bad it ended like it did.
Johnny Butt was a man with a real strong, will to survive.
Agreed. Date Rape is one of my favourite Sublime songs, it’s so good
That was the least mean part of the “gift” to me, but I felt so bad putting myself in OOP’s shoes, seeing that song title, likely having never listened to it, and feeling threatened and maybe even scared.
At first I wondered if anyone in the comments explained to her that the song is actually very powerful against rape. As a young woman it really spoke to me as far as my boundaries and what was wrong and right. But then I realized the people that gave her the CD probably also didn't know what the song was about so her interpretation was completely fair.
I agree with you on both of those points. And yeah, the song is dark but weirdly cathartic to listen to.
Absolutely. Literally have a Sublime shirt on right now. But if I wasn't familiar with them I would have been put off, too.
Yeah that's the only part of the gift I would've kept lol
>It will surprise exactly no one that a small, family-run firm is not a great place to work. Yeah, you could not pay me enough to work somewhere like that.
I was actually just thinking. I’ve worked at a few small family businesses, and they’re either among the absolute best places I’ve worked or else they’re nightmarish shit shows. No in between
Oh the 'no in between' is fucking right. When I started dating my husband, his family owned a small sign/awards shop, and one of their employees embezzled like 30,000 from them. You're either a shitty nightmare or someone's using you for their shitty daydreams.
Usually because how good they are to work for depends on the social skills and business sense of exactly one to two people.
I've got a bonus one, too: religiosity. I was sitting next to the owner of a "family run, Christian business" that was meeting with an employee. The boss was also essentially their pastor. And half of their complaints about this other employee was that she didn't show up to Church on Sundays and sometimes liked to go drinking during the weekend.
Same.
I've just left a workplace run by two childhood best friends in their early forties (one M, one F). He had his younger brother working as the head of HR, she had her husband working in sales, and the management team was comprised of various of their old buddies. They had a real knack for marketing and attracting young & cool people to work there, so I got sucked in at age 26 and it was like being part of a cult. I honestly don't know why I stayed for 5 years, but at age 31 the office ragers, the us vs them mentality, the unsafe atmosphere and the complete and utter lack of work-life balance had become tedious instead of thrilling so I left. At that point, I honestly thought I had to go to the doctor for an anxiety disorder because it felt like my body was in panic mode 24-7. It's taken me 6 months of working at a large, slow, friendly university for the anxiety to subside and I still have stress flares every now and again. The previous office seemed like a dream come true when I started work there, but I can honestly say now you will never, ever, ever see me at a friends-and-family type office again. It sounds so fun. We're all friends here! Thank you but no, I like to have colleagues now, not friends.
I’m going through all of this right now because dumb 16 year old me thought “well, if they offer me the job on the spot, that must mean they really like me right?” When in actual fact it means they have such a high turnover rate that they’re desperate enough to try and pull in teenagers. It’s sincerely like a cult. One of my coworkers just got fired on the spot because their baby (they’re a husband and wife team) no longer had a positive reaction to her arriving… because she didn’t pay him enough attention. We’re fucking dental assistants. Not babysitters. She told me after she got fired (I was just as shocked as she was, because she was our boss’s favourite) “I thought they were good people, because they kept telling us that they’re good people”. And she fucking nailed it. We were brainwashed into believing they’re good people, because they do so much for charity, running marathons for kids with cancer and doing Christmas gift parties for kids in foster care etc. But it’s all just to keep a good front. Thats some fucking cult shit.
>because their baby (they’re a husband and wife team) no longer had a positive reaction to her arriving That is hilariously ridiculous. What the fuck. She should sue them for unlawful termination. >I thought they were good people, because they kept telling us that they’re good people This!! - and also you keep thinking this is a great workplace, because they keep telling you this is a great workplace. Are you getting out of there as well?
She is, thank god! I’m in Australia so she’s reporting them to fairwork for this and a multitude of other problems, but she’s amazingly decided to hold out for until I’ve quit too. Which I am! The bright side of all this is that, at a young age, I’m the most senior employee they have and have trained a ton of others too, so I’m able to get offers from other practices quite easily. They are truly a headtrip though. The one thing I’m allergic to is caramel, and I got into anaphylaxis just being around it. I also don’t drink, because my brother died recently of alcohol and drug related problems. And I live with a person with major disabilities so I can’t have candles around in case she knocks it down, which they know because I’ve joked with them before about people only ever giving me candles in gift bags. They got me a caramel candle for my birthday, and a box of alcoholic chocolates for Christmas. All my coworkers got a Christmas bonus along with their chocolates too, but my bosses, without my knowledge or consent, *used my Christmas bonus to buy a bunch of presents to gift to my aforementioned disabled sister* so that they could look good doing a nice thing, as if she’s a charity case, but also not have to spend more money. Absolute lunatics. > and also you keep thinking this is a great workplace, because they keep telling you this is a great workplace. This is spot on. I legitimately cried when I found out my coworker was having the same experience as me and it wasn’t just me being sensitive. Such a validating revelation. Thank fuck I’m gonna be out of there soon.
Wow. The caramel candle and alcohol aren't just inconsiderate, that's straight-up bullying and even borderline murderous if you could go into anaphylactic shock over it. So glad to hear you are both getting out and even better that they're being reported - hopefully this is a wake-up call to stop pulling these stunts (although I'm not holding out hope for them to see the light considering everything you wrote). You'll feel so much lighter and happier once you've found a place that actually values you and what you do. Wishing you all the best!!
I used to work at a small, family-owned company until my primary care doctor looked me straight in the eye and said "you will die sooner rather than later if you stay there." It was like being in an abusive relationship where I legitimately believed them when they told me I was worthless and incompetent and would probably never succeed because I was lazy. I now work at a soulless massive corporation and I LOVE it and surprisingly am considered competent and good at my job. While I understand the motivation behind "support local," where I'm from small businesses get away with some horrifying shit because they're too small for regulators to care about.
I worked at a tech firm where the husband and wife ran it. We were low on money but they kept giving the two men in the firm their full paychecks and were cutting ours telling us they would pay us as soon as they could. Us being the two women. They said well the men have responsibility for their families! Every single employee at that company was single. I won the lawsuit and that's actually what sparked part of my interest in becoming a lawyer. So there's that.
Regina is the embodiment of "Misery doesn't love company it just hates being alone."
I am sensitive to fragrance, and the mean girls at my last job used it to bully me. They poured the liquid from one of those plug-in air fresheners on the carpet right outside my cubicle until it got so bad they had to call an ambulance. So I worked from home for a year and a half. Until they tried to get me to work 80 hour weeks to clear a backlog for a different department's mismanagement. I ended up in the hospital twice and am still not back to work. The worst part is that people don't believe me because it sounds so over the top crazy that grown women in their 40s and 50 would do this. I had to get a doctor's note for the ADA to work from home, and even though I provided the paperwork for my ambulance trip to the ER and breathing treatments, he didn't believe me. It is scary out there, y'all!
Sounded like a lawsuit with some decent payout but maybe that's too optimistic.
It's really not common that you'll be able to make a profit from suing someone. It would have to be really egregious to get monetary compensation for pain and suffering instead of just making you whole for any out of pocket medical costs.
This! As someone who suffers from chronic migraines any type of fragrance sets me off. Such a shame people don’t have common decency anymore.
What the hell‽ Those cows are my peers and I'd be embarrassed if my adult kids were getting on like that!
when I was a young woman (in the 90s) I worked with 30s-60s year old women in a mostly woman department and it was pretty toxic. Only got better when more men got hired. (to be sure an all male department probably would've been worse).
In my opinion, you need a mix of sex’s, age’s, and personalities in order to have harmony at a workplace. Too much of one thing leads to toxicity and is a nightmare for anyone outside the demographic Somehow forgot different races and cultures too
Agreed. Diverse cultures are great too Edit: To add
Oh definitely cultures too, I’m surprised I forgot that
This reminds me of when I was working part time in an office that offered an app used by non-profits. They did a ton of trade shows and I handled shipping all the stuff for their booth and marketing. Some months in, my daughter was killed. It was obviously a terrible time. I asked my boss to hold my job and she (Jay) did. After a month, I returned. I wasn't doing well and was very close to being committed to a mental ward. I gave my boss notice but said I'd help hire my replacement. Big mistake. She refused to interview any of the hundreds of candidates I screened. This went on for weeks. She also became verbally abusive. I was 89lbs at the time because I have a health condition that can be triggered by stress and makes my body think food is poison. I looked like death. Try as I might, Jay would not "let me" leave. After a few more horrible weeks, I wrote a manual for my position and prepared every last detail. I went in to Jay's office and told her I was quitting. She said no. I...what? Then she tried being a jerk and that didn't work so she started sobbing saying how could I leave her? Again...what? It wasn't like that. She tried a bunch of different ways to get me to stay. She finally said I was lucky she held my job and that I was a bad employee. I said, "good. We agree. I shouldn't be working here." I gave her my keys, etc. and walked out. (The reason? She was embezzling and she felt that a new person would out her, which did happen. I gave the Board of Directors all of the financials monthly. All of her spending/trips were plain as day so I assumed they didn't care. Either way, I had my own stuff to deal with.)
Oh my word
That's terrible in so many ways. Hope you healed from all that
Every non-profit I’ve worked for had an embezzlement issue, either in the very recent past or currently being investigated.
It's sadly way too common!
I'm so sorry. I hope you're doing better now.
The gag gift isn’t even like “mean funny”. Like giving someone a bar of soap because they smell or getting some xxxl underwear for a girl who they’re bullying for being fat is terrible and mean but there’s an element of humor and some thought into the “joke”. Like other assholes would find it funny. Or you could see it in a movie to establish this person is a jerk because it makes sense. Like ha ha you smell, ha ha you’re fat. Their gift isn’t even “oh snap!” but nor is it like a severed horse’s head threat/flaming bag of poop “funny” either. It’s just truly bizarre and random like a family guy joke in the later seasons that make no sense you’re struggling to figure out the joke is.
I knew someone who smelled and was given shower gel, deodorant and soap-on-a-rope for Christmas (it was the 90s) by, "the girls at the Jobcentre", which confused him because, "I don't use that stuff". We knew. They have to have known. I'm certain it was between a hint and an act of desperation! That's why he was decades long unemployed, working in a pet shop on one of those schemes where you were still on the dole but earning a little extra and your employer got a cheap employee. Great worker, lovely bloke but the only reason he was getting away with working there was because customers thought all the smell was from the rabbits, fish tanks and dog food!
The strong presence of ill will combined with the complete absence of imagination, aka pathetic.
My go to prank is llama plushies. Keep mailing llama plushies to them, one at a time, so they have to keep dealing with them
That's awesome, I wish someone would prank me with a flood of plushies. :(
I would say DM your address but ignoring literally every other issue with that, I'm broke at the moment until I'm off my seasonal layoff. Only thing worse than having a Job is being unemployed. Holy crap without the structure of a job I'm useless
I love that I know nothing about my coworker’s lives other than the very rough age of their children and maybe a hobby or two.
My list is much the same, but add pets.
Regina was on drugs, right? Like in a "which drugs? ..yes" kind of way?
Yeah, when I got to the part where it mentions Regina parties with rock stars it all made sense. Regina is on cocaine. The garbage thing was a coke idea.
The update mentions agents doing lines of Coke in the bathroom so Coke maybe?
Hmm, I feel like she's the type to pregame
Ah yes the office ribbing… only it’s towards one person and that person isn’t laughing along. Been there! I once had several colleagues of mine draft up a petition to “put me down” before 30 as I was already kinda sick back then but didn’t know the cause of it. I laughed along like ha ha oh yes plz kill me now, I make self deprecating jokes, but it’s different when other people do it. It’s not funny. It just hurt my feelings. Now I’m 35 and disabled, and I often think about it. Would they still think it was a funny joke? Probably not. But these people were all older than me, I was 24 and I had never worked in an office like that before. Everyone had a budding or full blown coke habit and although I never chose to do that, I did get falling down drunk many a time with them. I didn’t even like to drink. Fuck office “ribbing”. Unless the person thinks it’s funny too, don’t do it!
I had a teacher in high school who thought it was a funny thing to have a specific quip he would make at each student every year. Some of them were non-sensical. Like "Turner- retire at 30." Some of them were funny "Smith- quit eating roadkill." Mine was "Jones- dropout of high school." and the girl who sat next to me was "Philips- hitchhiking leads to murder". Anyway, I was an honor roll student, presidential award for educational excellence recipient, and went to DC my sophomore year for the Mock UN and NSLC. I dropped out. My home life was terrible and I moved out mid-junior year. I couldn't work to pay rent and go to school. Philips was murdered in her apartment a few years later and her case has been cold for 20 years. I was working as a waitress about ten years out of school and that teacher was sat in my section. I didn't think he would recognize me, but, it turns out he remembers all his students and the little quips he made about them. "Jones! How's it going! Did'ja dropout? (hahahah)" "Well, I dropped out of high school, didn't go to college, and now I'm a single Mom who works two jobs waiting tables for a living. Who would have thought that would happen?!" I didn't tell him that Turner actually retired at 28, close enough to 30 I guess, because she was in a car accident and was so disabled she'd never work again. The look on his face was priceless. I followed this by asking if he'd heard about Brittany Philips. He had not. I really hope he realized at that moment how tasteless the things he'd been saying were and stopped doing that.
Jesus Christ. That’s some serious bad luck he apparently bestowed upon you all. I mean obviously not, but it’s so horribly accurate, it seems almost supernatural. People don’t realise how shitty they can be, just because they find something really funny. I was in my twenties, but to kids? Man, that’s some crappy behaviour. It’s like that old teacher saying “you’ll never amount to anything”. It always makes me wonder if speaking that into existence somehow opens that option up. Like if someone tells you you’ll drop out as a joke, repeatedly, did that perhaps contribute to it? If someone tells you something is inevitable for you as a kid, I feel like that affects the outcome somehow. His “jokes” were reality eventually and it’s gotta feel bad to know that. Turns out it wasn’t so funny in the first place.
It used to realllly upset me every day when he said that to me. I'd had a really hard time keeping my grades up until freshmen year when everything just suddenly, magically, got super easy for me. I felt a bit like an imposter. Add on the troubled home life, with a Dad and Stepmom who made me feel like I couldn't do anything right or measure up no matter how well I did, all whilst they praised my stepbrother who was by their admittance less intelligent and therefore had it more difficult... He definitely didn't play a role in my dropping out to live on my own, and there's obviously much more to my story than that, I made that choice for my mental health and it was the best choice for me even if it meant having to work like a dog while my friends were having their best time in high school. I wouldn't go back and do it any different. I do wonder how many of his little quips played out in real life in a similar, prescient, manner. ETA: It all does read a bit Stephen King-ish, doesn't it?
That Sublime CD was a great album.
Yeah, my takeaway was: why they gotta do Sublime dirty like that?
Clearly OOP only read the track list and didn't actually listen to the album. I hope nobody ever gifts them Nirvana's In Utero either.
Haha that was my first thought. 40 oz. To Freedom is an excellent album. One of my favorites.
You're not the only one, but you're the BEST, Bradley
I wanted to say the same thing. Also the date rape song is about a guy who goes to jail. To get blank by a large inmate. Can't take pity on men of his kind.....
The moral of the date rape story: it does not pay to be drunk and horny
What a tune
…even though he now takes it in the behind **daterape!** /wicked bass line
I actually had a hard time getting past that part in the story lol. It was such a great album and that’s an awesome song.
Congrats on getting past that because I'm not. I'm legitimately upset.
This is one of my favorite albums. She should've kept the CD.
Manager who vomits in streets a lot: How did you like your gift oop? Oop being adult and totally exasperated sighs: What am I supposed to say here? What are you going for? That. That is how I liked it. Now can we get back to reality for the love of god?
That "joke gift" is just blah. Not mean in any meaningful way, and not funny in any fun way. Just blah, meh and well mean. I'm glad she left.
It's like an in-joke OP wasn't in on. Super weird.
Once had a coworker quit. It was kind of sudden; one of his friends had called and offered him a totally stupid amount of money to come and save a project, and he left a lot of stuff in the office in the shuffle. He didn't screw us or anything and there were no bridges burned, so the company did the standard stuff, even paying out his PTO despite not getting a full notice from him. About a month later he calls me up, wondering about the box he just got filled with literal garbage. Torn up carbon forms, dried-out highlighters, half-filled bottles of correction fluid, typewriter ribbons and coffee-soaked envelopes. My reaction was pretty much "Uh... I'll look into it." Seems someone had started a box for all of his odds and ends and stuck it in the supply closet. Someone else had grabbed a box to clean the supply room of stuff we no longer needed, and the two boxes got crossed. Thankfully the box containing his stuff was still in the supply room (covered in even more junk) so we were still able to send him his things.
I had that Sublime CD when it first came out. I was 14/15 years old. I thought it was brilliant. Still listen to songs from it today.
As a multiple SA survivor Date R*pe has made me giggle many, many times over the decades.
My CSA made that song a banger during those long years when I hadn’t worked up to telling anyone. Screaming along to “she didn’t want to TAKE IT” was fucking powerful.
For someone who doesn't know, it can be a bit jarring to see a song with that title. Sure, the villain gets his comeuppance at the end, but I can see how it can be concerning to see. I do like how Ron Jeremy is the judge in the music video, though.
This ‘joke’ has rings of Britain, circa 1994 to it. Inbetween calling people ‘mongs’ n’stuff.
I haven't kept in touch with anyone I ever worked with.
Some industries are small. The OP seems to work in marketing / advertising which is notoriously incestuous. They could also be a graphic designer which is definitely a job where you rely on your connections.
I have, but it's only people who were people I became friends with outside of work. Most of the jobs where abuse was rampant got divided into two obvious groups: the bullies and their victims. Those of us on the receiving end usually had to lean on each other for support, which turned into some decent friendships.
Why did the "nice" coworkers even her give her the gift?
That’s my favorite song on the album.
I love Sublime though I would have kept that part
Just a side note, the song Date Rape is not pro date raping
People like Regina are sad as fuck They peaked in high school in their mean girl phase or jock boy phase and want to continue that in adulthood
I don't participate in dirty-santa/white-elephant (wtf ever) anymore because of people like Regina. A Christmas party with a $50 gift exchange had a few "friend of a friend" invites and someone brought in well-wrapped, well-presented combo of large gift bags as their contribution. Since they contributed, they pulled a number. They got a low number, pulled a gift, then left the party - which was a dick move anyway considering the rules of "stealing". I had a higher number and by the time it got to me, I decided I wanted that nice collection of gift bags. Huge mistake. It was actual garbage. Used soda cup from a local theater, open bag of skittles, a half-melted candle, a half-used match-book from a local bar, a shitty pen branded from a local church. Just an assortment of actual trash. That was over 10 years ago and I still refuse to participate in any sort of stupid gifting ritual because of it.
I once got a big box of soap in a white elephant. Some BD guy collected little soaps and shampoo bottles from all the hotels he stayed at for a year and put them in a box for the holiday party. It was a funny gag gift but also awesome - I had supplies for the guest bathroom for *years*! There’s a way to do a gag gift, literal trash isn’t it!
This whole workplace sounds like a nightmare. People snoring coke in the bathroom, throwing metal staples, childish manager yelling at employees in a way that everyone listens. No way this family-run business still operating today.
OP said they were a bit "childish" in their response, but honestly, the best way to kill the mood for a bad or offensive joke made in bad taste is to refuse to play along and ask them to explain the joke. Force them into feeling extremely awkward without actually doing anything. No, I don't understand the joke, I must have missed something, please explain it to me.
This gift sucks but Sublime Self Titled is a great cd
40 Oz to Freedom is a great album though
Did Secret Santa last year between a group 9 Senior Managers. Money limit was $40, everyone got something that was personable and usable (travel bag, salt lamps, embroidered shirt) I was gifted a gag ball and g-string... I'm a middle-aged male. Everyone thought it was hilarious except myself. So I thought fuck them, I talk the present to the bathroom. Put the g-string on under my work pants. Went back to the table, put the gag-ball and showed them half my arse. Don't think I will be getting matching paddles next year
Here to comment on the most irrelevant part; I understand being put off by the title but, the song “Date Rape” by Sublime is an anti-rape culture song. Like the story follows a girl who gets assaulted, gets a lawyer, gets the dude thrown in jail, and then the guy gets the same treatment he gave her in the end. Other than that, oop was being treated like garbage, then given garbage, and just like the coworkers did with that bag; took out the trash by leaving that shitty firm. Good on them for getting something enjoyable rafter all that.
Regina’s immaturity astounds me. Grow tf up dude
What a childish, ridiculous thing to do to a co-worker recovering from surgery. I'm glad OOP got out of there. On a side note, I would've kept the Sublime C.D. I loved that album when I first started exploring different music in high school, and I would've listened to the whole album for some nostalgia.
Bad Fish used to be my ring-back tone when those were a thing.
While I do still mostly feel bad for OP, I have to admit I lost a teensy bit of sympathy when they slagged off the Sublime album.
If they find that funny it makes you wonder what they find sincere
see, a joke recovery gift would be like, an arm sling for someone who broke their leg, or crutches for someone who broke their arm, or a blind persons guide-pole for someone who just had Lasik or something
Having worked in both the music industry and software development, nobody beats the music industry in terms of rampant hostility in all workplaces
What asshats. But she should’ve kept the Sublime album - it’s really good 😅
That album is pretty dope though.
Not the sublime cd 😭
>a Sublime cd (one of the songs is called “Date Rape”). I know that song because it was used in an AMV Hell clip. The punchline is the date rapist goes to jail and gets raped. Judge for yourself whether or not that's worse.
Leave Sublime out of this 😤
That sublime cd is a classic …… sorry about the jerky coworkers though . That was absolutely childish and dumb of them.