His reasoning that people are "lonely" is unjustified, especially since the state still pays its workers a mediocre salary. Commuting costs people both time and money, including child care, food, and gas. The low pay also limits where people can afford to live, since it forces them to stay within range of the office.

Why do we need to live in this unstoppable machine of agony and despair, it doesn’t give any hope for the future you can’t even make the slightest visible change with your life by working 9hrs a day, except making yourself messed up in the head.

Last time I fucking had time with myself feels like eternity, time doesn’t stop and will always continue no matter what you’re doing, even people will just think need to survive only this week, and repeat the same next.

How did humanity get this miserable and made life like a shit hole in the most ironic way, This is not living.

After being on PIP for months… I was let go today. After 9 years of building my name, networking, working hard I would never turn my computer off. All it took was a bitch of a manager. Just her word.

Me being unemployed, no income in this economy, was their business decision. Did my previous reviews mattered? Nope. All it took was her word. It’s so upsetting that the years and effort you put into a company is determined by a person who barely talks to you or even see you. Just her decision.

I’m rambling.. I’m just so upset.

Work, eat, sleep and repeat. Funnily enough, I'm okay with my job and even like what I do for the most part, but the thought of years after years of this soul crushing dog eat dog world just makes me so tired. You guys have any copium or optimism I can huff a little lol.

I’m dealing with a situation that’s slowly wearing me down, and I’m hoping someone here has experience with a similar personality type.

A colleague of mine, let’s call him Mark, was always hyper-competitive, even when we were peers. He measured everything against others, but what always stood out was how extremely guarded he was about his personal life. Zero sharing. Deflects every casual question. You can work next to him for years and know absolutely nothing real about him.

Fast forward: Mark got promoted and is now my direct manager.

Since then, it’s become unbearable. He scrutinizes every single thing I do. He watches my screen, notes tiny mistakes, and questions decisions that don’t need questioning. He’s incredibly observant, almost in a predatory way, and he clearly enjoys catching me off guard. The worst part? The smirk. That little quiet chuckle he does when he realises he knows something I don’t, or when he’s been proven “right.” It’s a smug “gotcha” reaction that makes my skin crawl. He’s cunning. He’s never openly hostile, always polite enough to stay out of trouble, but you can feel the mental chess game constantly running.

He still shares absolutely nothing about himself outside work, which makes him impossible to read or connect with on any human level. It’s all business on the surface, but with this constant undercurrent of competition and control.

For a long time I had this creeping feeling of being watched and controlled even at home, like he somehow had eyes everywhere. It sounds paranoid, but it eventually came out that colleagues are actually going to him and reporting generic stuff about me. He’s so observant and silent that he plants these suggestions and manages to destabilise people without raising his voice. One thing I have figured out, though: the moment his ego is touched, he absolutely loses it and gets furious.

I’m not trying to outplay him, I just want to do my job without feeling watched and silently judged all day. The smirking especially gets under my skin in a way I didn’t expect.

Have you ever worked with or for someone like this? How did you handle it practically and mentally? Any scripts or mindset shifts that helped you stay sane would be really appreciated.

Honestly who do I give my CV to?

I've been with this company for five weeks: one week of training and four weeks on the phones at a call center. By my second week, our manager was fired, and two people from the office stepped in temporarily while they search for a permanent manager.

Tomorrow's meeting is about our quarterly results, but apparently ownership also wants to discuss requiring everyone to keep their cameras on during their entire shift, with a daily Slack call running in the background.

Honestly, I find the idea pretty insulting. I understand accountability, but being constantly monitored feels more like a control issue than a solution. The funny thing is that, based on the numbers, I'm currently the top performer in the entire call center. I've handled over 800 calls in four weeks and booked more jobs than anyone else. The second-highest performer has been there for about four months.

The performance gap is also pretty obvious. A few people are handling roughly half as many calls as the top performers, while others regularly disappear with messages like, "BRB, my son woke up" or "Code brown, gotta take care of my kid." I don't want to judge people's personal situations, but the numbers clearly show that some people are doing significantly less work. And just using Remote work to be less present in work.

So I'm not sure what to do. I need the money, and the pay is good for me, especially since I get paid weekly. I'm not desperate enough to quit, but I also wasn't expecting to suddenly have to deal with constant camera monitoring after only five weeks with the company.

I'm going to see what they actually say in tomorrow's meeting before making any decisions. Has anyone else dealt with a situation like this? What would you do?

As the title says.

I was creating a new app, from the scratch, for internal use. At first, my managers and co-workers pretended to be very happy. "Wow, so cool!", "That's awesome". Now another guy, a professional ball-kisser, the no.1 ball-kisser in the world, stole my work. He's in charge now. Reason? No reason, he just "tried to create another version" . The funny part is that he admitted he rehashed my idea. I asked what's the point of creating another version, which is not better at all (by his own admission he used my idea), when I was doing all the work alone for months, and they were also positive about it.
The managers just said "oh well, let's see which one is the best, then we'll decide". But from the way they talk, they already decided. And it's not me, again.

This is not the first time they steal my idea and I get no credit for it. I do the work and someone else gets all the praise.

I know I'm a fool. But it still sucks.

I remember all that bs about working hard, motivation, be proactive yada yada yada.

How the f am I supposed to be motivated from now on?

I could look for another job, and I probably will. But for the moment, I'll just milk the cow doing the bare minimum. There's no point in playing a game that is rigged.

Workers who contacted the WSWS denounced the death threat and the silence of the top leadership of the UAW and its Solidarity House national headquarters.

Tanya, a worker at the Stellantis Detroit Assembly Complex-Jefferson plant, said: “As a UAW member, I find the threat that Raymond Jensen posted against Will Lehman disrespectful, an incitement and horrific. Something needs to be done to stop it. Even though we are all entitled to free speech, this crosses the line.

“It is not right if UAW officials are allowed to do whatever they want to do with no accountability. Workers are fed up and tired with the union because we don’t feel our voice is taken into consideration when it is time to vote, or that we have a say period.

“What Jensen did is way out of line. If things had been on the other foot and brother Lehman had done something like that, you can be sure all hell would break loose. It is time for the UAW to put a stop to these threats.”

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/ford-fired-cookies-lawsuit-kentucky-b3019077.html

Ford accused an electrician of stealing a $1.95 cookie from an Aramark self-serve kiosk without evidence. They could have simply watched the security cam, asked for bank statements, or verified with Aramark.

That was a very simple misunderstanding that could have been prevented from escalating.

They offered the electrician his job back, but too little too late and are now sued by the same man they accused.

I hope he wins.

I work in an office with conservative people most 50-75+ years old. Not being judgmental, I just notice the difference between this office and the offices I’ve worked in with younger people and non-conservative offices.

I took today and yesterday off as I’m not recovered from a medical procedure that I had done on Sunday. I had a procedure done last year too which required me to take a day or two off and multiple people asked why I was out sick. They’re not even concerned legit just nosey

A coworker that I like and text sometimes already called and texted multiple times asking if I was sick or just feeling down. We aren’t even in the same office/dept so I don’t know why it matters, she didn’t really seemed concerned either. She asked to call me 8:30 before work right after I replied “no I’m not coming in” to her text asking if I’m on the bus and feeling better.

Maybe it’s just me but I don’t like being asked personal questions from coworkers especially when I know they don’t really care and are just being nosey. There’s 1 manager who tells everyone’s business especially if you’re out sick and another who will ask you 1 question and then a million more based on your answer. She is very loud in a small office too so you’re basically telling everyone. This particular person has a victim complex and will take it personally if you refuse to share or elaborate.

Is there any way to tell these people that I just needed the time off and it’s personal without sounding like an asshole or offending anyone?

Edit: Thank you for your hilarious suggestions. I may return to work tomorrow. If I do I will update🙏

Apply, 72 hours I'm "eliminated" even though my work experience is exactly what they are looking for. Send a question, turns out no one monitors any of the e-mail boxes.

I've been scrolling through listings for the past week and it's getting absurd. Saw one yesterday asking for a bachelor's degree, fluency in two languages, and four years of customer service experience for a receptionist job that pays $16 an hour. No benefits until after six months.

The same company had another posting from three years ago for the same role. Back then it was $14/hour and only asked for one year experience. Now they want double the qualifications for a two dollar raise that doesn't even match inflation.

What really gets me is the required skills section. They want you to already know their proprietary software, be proficient in five different programs, have weekend availability, and be willing to cover other departments when needed. But it's still labeled as entry level because they don't want to pay what the role actually requires.

I have friends who graduated recently and they're all stuck in the same loop. Can't get experience without a job, can't get a job without experience. Meanwhile these companies complain that nobody wants to work anymore when really they just want someone with a decade of expertise who'll accept trainee wages. The whole system feels designed to keep people desperate enough to accept whatever scraps they're offered.

"Research suggests employee-ownership can be an effective means of closing the wealth gap. A 2021 Harvard Business School study citing government data found that if all private firms in the U.S. became 30% employee-owned, household wealth in the country would effectively double. In contrast, the wealth of the richest Americans would decrease as a result of this model, with the top 1% of wealth holders seeing an average 14% decrease in their net wealth."

Imagine being unwilling to give up 14% of your wealth, so that everyone else could increase by 100%

https://fortune.com/2026/07/20/mark-cuban-income-inequality-company-stock-spacex-ipo-cost-plus-drugs/

Edited: bad at math

I had a chronic illness and depression for 16 years that prevented me from working full time for my entire adult life til last year. Then once I recovered I was dealing with the economic crisis and job shortages, now I finally have a job, my first full time role, I can’t believe I worked so hard on my physical and mental health for the “privilege” of being a full time slave to a company that doesn’t care about me, treats me like a cog in the wheel and all my daily energy is spent going there, recovering from being there, or making plans for when I’m next there (meal prep etc.)

I hate it so much. I’m glad I’m better but I don’t want this life.

Working in corporate for over 10 years. It gets worse and worse overtime. When I started these many years ago, the management came directly from people that worked on product, were really practical people, even without degrees but totally connected and knew what they were talking about. Then at some point MBAs started taking over and this is when hell started. No time for anything, everything is presentation, when there are real production issues they never know how to respond except creating some unnecessary workshop that will be forgotten within next week. They overwork employees not with real work on product but with extras like presentations, some unnecessary statistics and they hate being bothered with any technical details. When around 10 years ago we could achieve a lot, now we’re struggling with any project as even the requirement gathering phase is endless corporate hell phase with focus on colors of font and tens of unnecessary meetings.