Bitey Bite Bite

Every workplace has at least one manager who treats power like a loyalty program. At this one, it is the supervisor who refuses to approve a simple unpaid day off. The worker follows all the steps, clears it with HR, and even checks the fine print, confirming it is allowed. But the boss insists on a made-up rule, paid time off only. No unpaid days, no exceptions, no logic. She even claims HR backs her up, which would be impressive if HR had not immediately confirmed she made the whole thing up.  

Now I don't want to come off as condescending, but the woman who shared this story has somewhat childlike wonder, but not in the cute, pure sense. Because when a grown person, who has lived for a couple of decades on this planet, should know what to expect from certain situations. Don't get me wrong, I admire the innocence and would love to have even a tiny bit of the optimism and belief in decency her story is giving off, but like, what do you mean: "Is there any reason for her to do this even after HR has spoken to her? This whole situation just makes me feel weird because now I feel like she's purposely giving me a hard time" ?! 

Of course she's purposely giving you a hard time! She's your supervisor and that's kinda how the world works.

This manager treats every minor inconvenience as a personal affront and every subordinate as a scapegoat for his own lack of planning. He operates on a hair-trigger, fueled by impatience and a man-child temperament that makes every workday feel like navigating a minefield for his coworkers. Most of the employees in this office deal with it by shrinking into their cubicles, hoping to remain invisible. Then there was Thom.

Thom understood something fundamental about the office layout that the boss, in his frantic self-importance, completely overlooked. The boss occupied the prestigious corner office at the front, while the communal printers were stationed at the very back. Between these two points sat the cube farm, a narrow gauntlet of grey fabric and rolling chairs.

Whenever the boss sent a document to the printer, he didn't just walk to retrieve it; he launched himself like a sprinter out of the blocks, hyper-focused on the destination and oblivious to the human beings in his path.

While most people would clear the way for a charging bull, Thom decided to become a human speed bump. The moment the laser printer began its mechanical whir—a sound that acted like a starting pistol for the boss—Thom would stand up.

Just as the boss reached top speed, Thom would emerge from his cube. Sometimes, he was carrying a ceramic mug filled to the absolute brim with scorching coffee, necessitating a pace that would make a snail impatient. Other times, he would develop a sudden, heavy-footed waddle toward the restroom that effectively barricaded the aisle.

To the boss, it looked like a series of unfortunate, clumsy coincidences. To an outside observer, it was clear that Thom was mirroring the boss's movements with precision, ensuring a collision was inevitable.

Family traditions might be on the brink of a big change for this family, in which 6 of the 7 siblings planned to show up empty-handed to a potluck meal. 

A good family meal is a wonderful thing. Oftentimes, even when the meal isn't specifically a potluck, everyone will contribute a little something. Maybe one person brings green beans, one person brings cake, and someone else brings mashed potatoes. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, just enough food to feed your loved ones. That way, one person isn't stuck with the formidable task of cooking for a couple dozen people! It just distributes the work amongst the attendees. 

Sometimes, though, you just simply do not want to cook a single morsel. It's the holiday season, you're tired and overworked and your fingers are aching from wrapping presents for the kids. So instead, you could go out to the store and get some premade food and put it in a dish to take to the family get-together. It's not a perfect solution, but you could just tell people it's homemade if you want to, and probably no one will question it. You might even get some compliments on it! 

Perhaps the worst option, though, is to commit to an event where you're expected to bring a dish, and then back out at the last minute. I think the host would rather you be 20 minutes late so that you can rush to the grocery store to get your assigned food, instead of just showing up empty-handed. 

As this sibling shared, not 1, not 2, but all 6 of their siblings bailed on this potluck dinner at the last minute. I definitely feel for this person who tried to arrange the dinner, only to be left with nothing to feed their family members. But perhaps this big of a failure is a redirection — maybe they should just get pizzas next year, instead of requesting that all these reluctant cooks spend hours in the kitchen. It's okay to make your own traditions, even if they don't match the traditions you grew up with. Or, you could have a potluck where everyone is encouraged to just bring precooked food. Or, you could have every sibling Venmo you some money to get a meal catered. There are so many options that allow a family to still gather and have a wonderful time together, but also alleviate any burden of cooking and all the prep that goes with it. 

We all have done or said things to sound cool, but the vast majority of us try to retire this habit in middle school.

This temp employee started working at a New York office job after having recently moved from London. When he introduced himself to his supervisor, she was elated that there was another British person at the company and vowed to introduce him to his fellow Brit. However, when the temp employee finally met Mark, he instantly knew that something was off.

Sure, he was speaking in an obviously faux British accent, but he was also totally unaware of the geography of Britain. That was the true giveaway. Can you imagine being this desperate for cool points as an adult? I understand how hard it is to be yourself and to make yourself interesting to others, but that does not mean that you should go off and reconstruct your entire identity. 

Let me start off completely off point with a note to my beloved manager Brad: A Yeti cup, a Carhartt hoodie, and $1000 is all I want for Christmas.

Now that we got that point across (Ahem ahem, Brad), we can move on to what's actually happening in the sad yet unsurprising situation our hard-working construction worker is sharing. And if you ask me, even though there are a couple of things at play here, first and foremost, it's the usual clash between expectations and reality.

Now, I'm not preaching to anyone to become a lone, emotionally self-sufficient wolf, if anything, I would generally suggest the opposite. I'm not for all the anti-codependency stuff, we're human, that's part of how we operate - It takes a village and all that. But I'm just saying, expecting opens a door to disappointment. Especially when it's work-related, so to sum up what I'm saying i'll just quote the great Charlie Daniels, who sang: "I ain't asking nobody for nothin' If I can't get it on my own."

I recently found out an interesting ability my mind has: being nostalgic about things I did not experience and being homesick for places I've never been.

Now I'm sure there are loads of spiritual related explantions, but I personally am not a huge believer of that kind of stuff. And there are some philosophical concepts I feel could make it make sense, but for now, I'm not looking to name this strange phenomenon and instead focus on the time I led a simple life on a ranch in Montana during the 1970s, even though I was born in 1992 and have never been anywhere near Montana.

I'm bringing this up because this story reminded me of the pretty worn-out cliche scene of neighbors borrowing a cup of sugar and sending their kid with a piece of the baked goods the cup of borrowed sugar helped bake, which I'm sure is much rarer nowadays, when you can DoorDash a sprinkle of salt if you're willing to pay $16 for it. Tell me "Where Have All the Good Times Gone."

And for the sake of the guy who shared this story, I hope someone makes a DoorDash for power tools, hedge trimmers, ladders, drills, and cords, because his neighbor sure seems like he could use that service.

So, instead of sugar, this guy's neighbor went right to the toolbox and set up camp, and each borrowed tool disappeared for longer than the last, each return felt less like a favor and more like a miracle. And now, when there's a shiny new pressure washer in the picture, he's suddenly outside acting like it's a joint purchase. 

This matriarch was not having it with her former daughter-in-law, and honestly, we don't blame her.

Her 28-year-old son has a 5-year-old daughter with his ex "Anna," who now has a committed partner of her own and a child with him. The matriarch always tried to include all the children at family gatherings, since her granddaughter has a strong relationship with her mother and step-sibling. 

This year, they all decided to do a family outing at the zoo for the Holidays. This was planned well in advance, and the matriarch handled all the tickets and gifts she was planning to bestow on her granddaughter. Then, two hours before the long-awaited event, Anna called with a last-minute change. 

Apparently, this was typical of Anna, who did not like how generous her former mother-in-law has been to her daughter over the years. Perhaps she felt threatened by her behavior. Regardless, the matriarch was not having it and decided to disinvite Anna and her boyfriend from the event. She even went so far as to use the exact phrasing Anna used to explain her reasoning. We love to see the pettiness! 

I think a lot of us go through this period as teenagers and into young adulthood, where we feel like strangers to our parents. Our parents still see us as their children, and we see the restrictions that our sheer proximity to them places on our lives to be

But it is important at that age, and perhaps it is socially biological, the young fledgling leaving the nest, the young male lion leaving the pride to find his own way. We need to feel as if we have some independence and build our own lives; we need to figure things out and make mistakes. Not doing this at this vital point in our development will only put us behind our peers and tragically leave us short of the maturity and experience that we might never discover.

Of course, along the way, we will realize that our parents were right about a lot of things. And we will find, as we age, that life has limitations and constraints of its own that we were blissfully unaware of and unable to see in our early days as young adults.

But in any loving and healthy family relationship, this estrangement from our parents should be a phase that emerges in our teen years, not one that becomes the norm as children, emerging due to their uncaring approach to us. We should not be forced to make ends meet on our own as children, to be pushed aside and forgotten by them in favor of the favorite child. We should not be strangers to our own parents as children in their home, our home. 

Love, responsibility, and obligation are essential pillars of family, but they can not exist without each other or without reciprocation. Obligation can not simply be forced upon someone when they haven't been given love and shown that there is an obligation there in return.

Working in retail spaces means you have to plaster a smile on your face even when entitled customers try to get on your every last nerve. In customer-facing roles, you don't have enough time to worry about your comfort; upper management is solely focused on your output, how you approach customer satisfaction, and keeping you in your place. If customers and management don't degrade your morale, they have less power to exert over you. We all know that customer service is about give and take, but most customers prefer to take without giving back anything, even baseline moral niceties.

If you've ever worked in a customer service role, specifically in the retail or restaurant sector, you are well aware of the fact that the customer is always right, even when they aren't. Forget about putting your best foot forward and standing up for yourself; you have shelves to stock and customers to apologize to for no reason, silly! Sometimes, it seems like certain customers purposely take "the long way home" so they can make your life more difficult. "The long way home" includes asking questions that don't make sense, complaining to you about something you can't change, and ridiculing you when you're not a robot with access to all of the information in the entire world.

This retail employee recounts what we call the "unholy trinity" of entitled customer hardships in customer service roles. No matter how hard you try, you will be faced with one, two, or all of these scenarios, wherein you'll be expected to keep a straight face the entire time. Last time we checked, we are human beings, not robots. If they want an employee who will be a bystander to customer nonsense, maybe they should work more quickly and find an AI to do it for us…

What does the employee consider the most common scenarios in the customer service realm?

"One part 'customers don't read,' one part 'customers expect us to know everything/be psychic.' [Or] expecting us to memorize prices."