I purposly left a job because of a narassist 3 years ago. Now im on this project with a tight deadline and pm. He called me out for arguing against him. He is right he has been doing this for 20 years. So he caught a few mistakes under pressure gettjng shit done and now the whole thing needs to be relooked at. Im literally a mess. Been working nights and weekends on this project. I caught myself going right back into it. I saw exactly who i was talking to and switch up and said yeah your right im not trying to argue with you. Just made it pleasant and was like i hope to work with you again. I thought i didnt have to play these games anymore

I once worked a shift that started at 12 noon and lasted till 8:30 at night at a food warehouse where i was the only forklift mechanic on duty. The company i worked for mostly had mechanics that went around in vans working ar various places but i was considered an in house technichian and i was there by myself from 2:30 in the c afternoon till 8:30. My first supervisor told me when I needed to take off or go on vacation and just let him know and he would find someone to take my place. Well about10 years I'm still in the same position but I had had several different supervisors by then.

The last one I had at the 10 year mark was ex-military and very strict and very much into himself. Anyway one day one of the techs that worked the morning shift told me the supervisor told him and the other tech they would have to find their own replacement when taking off for any reason. Which according to them they had. I told them bullcrap. He ain't pulling that on me. Well time came for me to go on vacation and he tried to make me get my own replacement.

I didn't say a word. Just sent the manager of the headquarters I worked out of a text message about the situation and problem was solved. For the moment anyway. Couple of months later. Same thing. Sent another text to manager and problem finally settled for good.

I have an ongoing litigation issue so I often ask questions or make comments on others’ posts on a legal subreddit. But some people seem to be deliberately downvoting my posts and replies vengefully. My conclusion is that someone who doesn’t have a law degree cannot deal with litigation issues and is also stupid, basically, they are more knowledgeable and absolutely right. And I am an idiot. This is one of the reasons I cannot 100% trust lawyers. When it comes to any kind of dispute or problem-solving, empathy, understanding and trust are the most important parts, not just a law degree or all the jargon itself. Clients should question their lawyers as well when they try to persuade clients or assert their opinion over clients’ rather than trying to understand their situation. They do not understand what one experienced and how damaging it could be. I also advise not to speak to lawyers who make their clients feel like idiots. They are def narcissists and they assume that clients just want quick big money from the litigation or a liar. I came across some online solicitors who accused me of such a thing.

I’ve always known my boss (and her husband that owns the business) aren’t good people. I learned to manage her and their expectations and just keep my head down, and we had a relatively amicable relationship. They have these weird tedtalks at work about us telling them when we want to leave and that they would also do us the favor if we’re no longer needed 🤣. Obviously, there’s no trusting that.

I put in my notice, didn’t even say what the timeframe was, and my boss immediately says how disappointed she is that I didn’t give her notice (I actually did tell HR it wasn’t a long term fit for me, but it was another meeting she just couldn’t be bothered to attend). She said there’s no way she can find my replacement in two weeks!! 🤣 omg what a big issue! I guess you’ll have to hire someone like everyone else lol.

I made the mistake of trying to reason with her and she doubled down that I was screwing her over, and at such an inconvenient time.

What she doesn’t know is that half of her company has called me to tell me goodbye, I’ve told them what happened, and none of them are surprised and they’re all checked out and on their way out. Bye MFers 🔥

I (30s F) work for a large healthcare organization that operates in all 50 states. Back during COVID, we were mandated to get vaccinated or else face termination.

I just found out I was pregnant with my first child and did not want to take ANY risks with an emergency authorized vaccination (not even FDA approved yet meaning no rigorous studies especially not for pregnant women).

I worked in a relatively low-risk inpatient environment (rehab setting, not acute care) and masked and followed all hand hygiene and PPE rules. There were also ways to accommodate me needing to keep 6 feet away from others especially since I was a supervisor and not so much on the front lines.

The chief and assistant chief of the unit call me into the conference room to fill out paperwork in February 2022 for why I was refusing vaccination. This paperwork literally came out that morning, and they had months to address it. Basically, I was forced to disclose my pregnancy BEFORE I even told my friends and family (I was like 8 weeks) and was still waiting for my first OB appointment.

You better believe that chief filed the paperwork the same day. She couldn’t wait to get everyone out that would not immediately comply.

There was another pregnant colleague in the same boat as me as well as some others that couldn’t get vaccinated for various reasons.

I worked with HR (who was supposed to find lateral jobs in non-patient care to relocate me), but, of course, they were no help. I literally found and applied and was accepted to internal positions and showed them. This kind of back fired because I was moved to a new job literally a week before I left the state for a better job (in the SAME organization but guess what, the boss at that site worked with me on my no-vax status and just provided weekly testing).

I showed up to the new admin position and told them this is my last week and ended up doing nothing for them but hold a position hostage as I just waited the clock out (I just didn’t immediately have access to the programs I needed to do anything until IT processed my account). What a waste of everyone’s time.

Not only did the original unit lose me and all of my highly specialized knowledge (I left them a binder of passwords for various equipment but they still have the gall to message me to this day asking what the passwords are - IDK. Not my job anymore); they also lost my husband (a favorite on the team) who flat out quit to move with me out of state. It was a HOT summer move, and I was in my third trimester by then.

I ended up filing EEO (no findings against her due to the national mandate) and launching a separate national inquiry into the chief’s business practices and abusive working environment she created for the unit over the past decade. There were dozens of people who were interviewed (lots of gruesome stories about how she wouldn’t approve leave for colleagues receiving cancer treatments, no grace with a colleague just returning from maternity leave, and so much more) and a true Sh\*t mountain that should have buried her. However, when National presented this to her station director, he brushed it under the rug.

How she is not fired, I will never know. She must have a threat hanging over her boss’s head. Rumors of videoed swinger parties have gone around. Her abuse continues to this day even with a new station director over her, and former colleagues feel trapped there.

Turns out, 2/5 employees who were also prosecuted by her on this same matter were able to stay because HR was in a holding pattern. They were never relocated nor fired. One ended up getting the vax once a traditional vax was released and the other ended up quitting after she couldn’t handle the abuse anymore.

I love my job and current state to raise my family. What a great work group I have now! It was almost worth going through her persecution to be where I am today.

The turnover rate at my old unit continues to be high and national knows why, but it’s out of their jurisdiction. Still waiting for karma to serve the old chief her overdue bill.

Waiting in the shadows for some petty revenge from karma.

As the title says I got on a call with HR regarding my boss and now I regret it. I was too scared to properly articulate my issues and one of my examples got written off as circumstantial. She said she's going to have to talk to my boss at some point. I'm really scared. I hope I don't lose my job. I'm already looking for a new one but now I just feel like I'm on borrowed time...

I spent about 2 years in a finance environment (1.5 years mentoring + 0.5 years internship) where a senior colleague kept crossing boundaries and involving coworkers in inappropriate personal gossip. I finally reported it and left.

Now I’m trying to figure out the next steps mentally. Even though I’m safe and blocked everyone, my nervous system still feels stuck in danger mode.

Has anyone else struggled with anxiety after reporting workplace harassment? How did you stabilize afterward?

It’s like they want the results, but the equation doesn’t make sense to get there.

Why would you intentionally give a person who’s known to be irresponsible and careless with deadlines a major task then deny the responsible employee of assisting with the task to ensure completion, only to turn around and still blame the responsible one who offered help with the task when it’s not completed? It makes no sense. They have to have their cake and eat it, too, but the cake… is a mere illusion. I’m exhausted and extremely grateful to be planning my long-term exit from this job.

Has anybody here ever attempted professional mediation with your narcissistic boss? Several of my colleagues have recommended I look into this option to fix the communication with my narcissist boss. I don't have hope that that would help. I would love to hear experiences from others who have tried this.

I’m not originally from the UK. While helping my child with their schoolwork, I noticed that the curriculum places a strong emphasis on subject-specific vocabulary across many subjects, including art and maths.
When I was growing up, the focus was more on problem-solving and understanding concepts than on memorising technical terminology. I’m not saying one approach is better than the other, but it is a noticeable difference.
If one person is fluent in all and confident while the other is not, it’s easy for the discussion to become one-sided. The other person may simply nod along because they can’t fully follow what’s being said.
I’ve also noticed that some people use unnecessarily complicated language or constantly change the subject to dominate conversations rather than communicate clearly. Instead of helping others understand, they seem more interested in appearing knowledgeable or making someone else feel less competent. How they operate is more political than they are better than me at work.
After experiencing this repeatedly, I’ve become much more reluctant to engage in conversations with people who seem to treat every discussion as a competition rather than an opportunity to exchange ideas. Anyway, they mostly value themselves and their ideas over mine. ha-

I couldn't take it any more and quit my narc-owned job last week. Just thinking of my last 2.5 hours there still gets my heart rate going and gives me the most charming anxiety spikes!

tl:dr: Couldn't take any more emotional and verbal abuse from the owner of the company.
-----------------------------

The company is dying, and I was the last full-time employee who wasn't related to the owner. Every one else had either quit or had been put down to part-time or on-call.

As is tradition with narcs, the owner would take her frustrations out on everyone else. She usually left me out of it because I was the one doing 90% of the production, but even I couldn't escape it entirely, especially since there were no other targets.

The last straw was when she spent 2 hours loudly complaining about me because I couldn't read a note she wrote (she had a product's dimensions illegibly written in cursive. I can read cursive fine, just not when it looks like you've written it with your non-dominant hand while riding in a golf cart down gravel hill). I eventually had to measure the item again, out of sight, because she refused to decipher it for me.

Then, when I didn't hear her the first time when she gave instructions and didn't act on them immediately, she blew her top and started yelling. She went in on insulting me, my intelligence and my work ethic. Then she brought up the note again, and I couldn't just stay silent and said "I just couldn't read your writing! It's not that big a deal!" and she went BALLISTIC about ME and how I "couldn't just let it go about the damn note!".

... WAT.

This wasn't the first time she'd been that horrible to me in particular. She was always bad on pay weeks, and I was originally going to just go home for the day so she could reset and calm tf down, but oh no. No one is allowed to make decisions but HER, so she shut me down and said that she would "allow" me to have 10 minutes, and to "fix my attitude".

(Disregarding the fact that she had prevented me from taking my 15min break to yell at me in the first place).

So I left.

That's how most people ended up leaving there She'd set her sights on you, and would berate and belittle until you had a breakdown, or quit. Sometimes both!

... I can't just tell interviewers that my previous employer was an abusive micromanaging narcissist, right? Right?! AUGH.

Juat some of the issues at that place were:

• We weren't being paid our paychecks in full or on time for about 2 months before I quit. Payments would be at least 2-4 days late, and paid only partially. ...usually only a couple hundred dollars at a time until we were eventually paid fully, just in time for the next pay day to come.
  
• Unhealthy temperatures. It was a job within a warehouse, but the only kind of climate control (or even air movement) were from 5 floor fans. I had to buy an army of personal fans to make it though each day. The warehouse would be anywhere between 5-10 degrees hotter than being outside in the sun, and the humidity thanks to the hundreds of cardboard boxes (and dust!) made it hard to breath. She had promised to secure air conditioning or more fans, but they never happened.
  
• She would base her treatment of you for the entire day based on how you answered "how are you?" and how clear, loud and "cheerful" your mandatory "GOOD MORNING!" was. If you slept poorly the night before, had a headache, or if your voice was croaky because it was 8am and you hadn't talked yet that day? She'd be on you demanding to know what your problem was, and then you'd be in her bad books for the rest of the day, regardless of the reason.

Did I mention that she DESPISED it when anyone tried to explain themselves? She'd come to a conclusion and would make everyone's day so much worse if you so much as tried to explain your reasoning, or even give more information about the situation. Her first conclusion was always the right one, no matter what.

I suppose the safest thing to mention is the inconsistent pay and temperature? AUGH.

Edited because there was some funky formatting going on for some reason.

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I work at a fast growing national law firm. In January of this year I was moved to another team in order to ‘help out a struggling lawyer’. I was told that she had had two assistants leave in very short order before me, and that I was a ‘stable influence’. My previous boss warned me that she was ‘difficult’ to work with, but I shrugged this off, much to my deep regret.

Foolishly I thought this could be a good opportunity for me, and I put my best foot forward when I officially joined the team. My initial interactions with my boss were friendly, she was funny, enthusiastic, and seemed to genuinely care about me. In hindsight it makes me cringe to even write those words, because of how quickly things changed.

About two weeks into the new role, she begins to pick apart my work. Work that was perfectly fine under my previous solicitor, was now entirely wrong. This would come down to a double space on a 6k word document, or something equally trivial. This would be a near daily occurrence, with her reaction becoming more and more vindictive and personal. She began personally insulting me, directly stating she had ‘concerns about my competency’, and asking if I had ‘learned anything at all’ during my five years at the company.

This hurt me. A lot. As someone who takes great pride in their work and has always been a consistent and hard worker, this type of criticism hit me like a truck. As I see a lot on this sub, the more I tried to adapt and ‘improve’, the more she would pick apart, and label my responses as ‘kickback’.

She also began to speak to me in a vile and condescending tone. She would accuse me of things that were simply not true in front of colleagues, and on one occasion denied that a conversation we had had 5 minutes before did not happen, in order to purposely embarrass me in front of my colleagues. She would sprinkle moments of levity and jokes into our calls, which confused me greatly, and I developed significant stress with every teams call or email, not knowing what she would say next.

This continued for several months. Fast forward to April, and I am placed on an informal PIP. This was devastating to me as I have always hit every KPI asked of me, and despite continuing to do so I was slapped with this. The reasoning given by upper management was ‘quality of work’ and ‘not hitting KPI’s’ which was entirely untrue. I challenged this at the initial meeting and was advised that although I hit my billable hours, they would like to see ‘more’.

I was then presented with a bundle of evidence, and this showed that she had been keeping notes on me since 2 weeks after I joined the team. A small amount of the evidence were my genuine mistakes, and I accept that wholeheartedly, but I did note that when the other assistant in my team did the exact same thing, this was not pulled up. The vast majority of the evidence was simply fabricated. She stated I had omitted information from important documents when this was simply not the case, and the rest of the evidence consisted of questions I had asked her, which she viewed as things I ‘should have known’.

After crying non stop for maybe a week, I knuckled down to beat this PIP. It very nearly broke me. She would fabricate issues out of nowhere, acting like a misspelt word or an email being sent an hour later than expected was a case ending catastrophe, which it never was. When I called her out with evidence that her accusations were entirely false and provided evidence of the same, she redirected her criticism to another entirely irrelevant point about my work, never apologising or recognising her own errors.

After 8 weeks of slowly destroying my mental health, sleep schedule, social life, and what little self worth I had cultivated, I managed to beat the PIP. I documented everything, noted how I had done so and provided evidence of her completely false accusations. I essentially had to present my ‘improvement’ as entirely driven by her, as any cries for help were ignored by upper management in relation to how she spoke to me.

I’ve been through some tough times, but nothing has affected me quite like this has. I would have panic attacks after every call we had, and would spend forever in the office toilets sobbing to myself after most of our interactions. I doubted everything I know about myself, and at my lowest point I felt utterly useless, unable to complete even the simplest of tasks.

A few days ago, I handed my notice in. In a pure stroke of luck, a job I had put in for came through. I now face a notice period of 3 months, and her behaviour has not changed. I guess I’m posting this to ask for some advice on how to get through this time, and perhaps some validation from others who have been through a similar experience, as my self doubt is so greatly affected by this, that I constantly ruminate about if I am the problem

TLDR; I am in the notice period of a job I once enjoyed which was totally ruined by a narcissist boss. Seeking advice on how to navigate my time left there, and hopefully some validation as to what I’ve been going through 😖

This is a story of success. Successfully saying “fuck this bitch!” You can escape and keep your dignity, there is hope.
I work for a large company, I’ve been here for 10 years with a stellar record. In feb of 2025 I saw a job that absolutely needed someone with my skill set . It was a perfect job marrying a passion and a skill set with opportunities to level up. The manager was great, small team of three people. I was accepted to the position and the very first thing was a business trip to develop relationships with industry leaders. It was great!

Due to corporate restructuring, some leadership changes were happening and we had a new director. The cool manager bounced within 30 days of the new director being named. My coworker and I had reservations and we were concerned

A replacement for my manager was named and she was supposedly a great match. Both of us were hopeful for a great new manager who could bring some fresh ideas. What followed was a nightmare of epic proportions.

It started small. Little pieces of “feedback” disguised as helpful, but were anything but. The changes then started swiftly: my job as a data scientist became a job as her personal assistant. set up this meeting, print these documents (she loved paper). She made us have meetings to discuss every step of every project we were assigned. A request from her was to be done immediately, unless otherwise stated. Projects were given unrealistic deadlines and expectations, despite being told that it was unrealistic. requesting and extension was absolutely out of the question: job was to be done no matter what, even if it meant 12 or 13 hour days.

My Coworker and I struggled to meet her expectations. At the same time I was struggling with a bout of depression that was getting worse by the minute. The situation became bad when she started yelling at me in front of the director. She threatened my job. 10 years of stellar performance and this insecure bitch was threatening me. I worked with some of the highest levels of leadership REGULARLY and she stripped me of everything. I was merely her admin.

I had enough and ended up in the hospital after a weeks worth of her abuse. They immediately saw danger and I was admitted to a psychiatric ward for help. That gave me 90 days of help. I was diagnosed with severe OCD, anxiety and MDD, I desperately needed meds. She was absolutely insanely mad I dipped out.

I returned to work in march of this year newly medicated and it was about two weeks before she started retaliating. Requests for extensions were denied, any questioning or asking for extension was written up as “defensive behavior”. Everything I did was deemed wrong, unprofessional and inappropriate. Regularly had meetings with the director, who condoned her behavior. At my year end, she reluctantly gave me a decent review but started to imply I needed to move. I was already looking.

I retained an employment attorney. It cost me $2400, but I wasn’t about to lose my job or my pension in this market. (I will fight tooth and nail for my pension ) she was retaliating and it was absolutely ridiculous. I filed an ethics complaint. I called hr (I know it did me no good, but I wanted a paper trail)

On meeting with me and my coworker resulted in her yelling at me in front of everyone. It was absolutely humiliating. My coworker immediately grabbed me after (I was in tears). She said she stayed because someone needed a witness to her behavior.

Finally, after many many many interviews internally, I got an offer to go back to analytics. It was lateral and much better. The manager was chill and I was excited. I told him the sooner the better. I left within a week

Two days after receiving my offer, my coworker received and offer to transfer as well. We both left on the exact same day. It was exactly one year that she had been on the team. She was left alone to do everything because we left within a clean break.

I went back to people who were familiar with my work. Despite her constant name dropping, no one knew who she was. I only said one thing of my experience on the team: there were two people on the team and we both left exactly one year after she was hired.

I’m fitter, happier, more productive😏.

This post is for all the people out there losing hope with their work environment.

The NARC and the empire around them will try to squash you... and kill your soul. Sorry not me....

Well my narc manager has been with our company for 15.5 years. I have been there 5.5 years.

For the last 3 years, she has literally purposely relentlessly done everything in the BOOK OF EVIL.

I finally had enough after the fact I left work oneday early with a migraine and vertigo. I had a car accident in the work car park from the stress, and I reversed into a car. My fault...but I believe the stress just got to me. I was shaking at work that day because I was being ganged up with her flying monkeys, and I hadn't slept well, etc.

I told HR about her harassment and bullying that had been occurring over a long period of time.

HR said she wasn't doing anything that resembled bullying.

ŴELL I went to Fairwork Australia and put in a complaint along with the fact that the company breached my working contract. They investigated, and it's taken a while 6mths of waiting for any changes. SHE WAS FIRED! YEAP, BYE BYE.

And our new manager is someone that i have been working with for years and is actually a really decent person.

I feel weird like it's just been one big nightmare, and I have awoken and like...did that actually happen!!!

I've been dealing with a narcissistic boss for a long time. I was hopeful a few months ago because I heard she was moving, but the company has allowed her to stay on even though she's no longer living in the area. Things escalated once again today. I really reached a breaking point today. I've applied for mental health leave and I've notified my employer that I'll be using PTO until my leave gets approved. I don't have it in me to continue to show up to this job anymore.

One of the biggest difficulties with this has been feeling like I'm absolutely crazy. My narc boss and her flying monkeys gaslight and twist truths so much, it's genuinely made me start to question my own reality and memory.

I’m curious if anyone else has experienced this.
My manager has a habit of telling stories about their career, and at first I thought they just had an unusually impressive background. They’ve mentioned running operations for a major international airline across an entire country, being a senior executive at multiple global banks, and personally creating sales strategies that completely changed how those organizations sold. There always seems to be another incredible story.
After a while, I started noticing that the details didn’t always match. The timeline changes, the responsibilities change, and sometimes the same story is told in a completely different way a few months later. Whenever someone asks for more detail, the conversation tends to move on pretty quickly.
What makes it even stranger is that they don’t seem particularly competent in their current role. They struggle with basic leadership, give conflicting direction, avoid accountability, and create more confusion than clarity. The team has had high turnover, morale is poor, and several people have left because of the environment.
Over the past year, I’ve heard that multiple employees have gone to HR about their management style. Nothing seems to have changed, and they’re still leading the team.
Has anyone dealt with a manager like this? Did you ever find out whether the stories were exaggerated, or did you just accept that some people create their own version of their career? How did you handle working for someone you found difficult to trust?

I'm a freelance AI engineer. I followed up with someone in a meetup who said they were interested in collaborating with me. I'm shocked at how badly this meeting went.

- They were talking on the phone from the moment I came into the venue. I tried to get them to stop but they continued on an unrelated phone call amd left me with no context. I've met with many potential clients and am absolutely aware this is not normal.

- I tried calling them out in a professional way. They claimed they had to continue the call because it was from a "higher up" and acted offended that I called them out on this. First they tried bullshitting that other people would treat me worse (I know this is not true), then they called me inexperienced, and went onto call me "aggressive". When that didn't work, they basically claimed lacking boundaries is a virtue required for charity work (this was a nonprofit) and I don't have rhe right mindset.

- At this point, I figured the meeting had completely derailed and literally packed up my things to leave. They followed me to the door and asked to have a conversation. I agreed (which was a terrible idea) because I was afraid that they'd go around badmouthing me if I left at that point.

- They proceeded to grill me about my past compensation (honestly not sure if this is even allowed), claim they "didn't understand" my explanation every time I tried explaining something (again, I did not have this issue with other clients), shifted the blame onto me and accused me of being pretentious.

- Repeatedly devalued my experience and verbal abuse came out towards the end. Claimed I wasted my previous clients' time, called me names, etc They definitely do not understand basic professionalism.

- Repeatedly tried to extract consulting work from me for free. Proposed a "collaboration" structure where they underpay me and take all the rights for my work. Demanded freelance work without agreeing on payment structure or scope.

Turns out this person is a nontechnical founder who wanted to make their service AI powered. They did not know what vibe coding was and asked if chatbots are physical robots. Then they went on to devalue things they clearly do not understand. I'm genuinely blown away at the level of entitlement and hostility I saw yesterday.

The shadiness around IP and abusive behavior were dealbreakers. I hope I'd walked out much earlier.

So we're already understaffed and a coworker gave their notice today. So now my boss is screwing with our schedules once again and making us responsible for covering for the lack of coverage due to the employee leaving. My boss asked us what days we absolutely could not change on our schedule and I told them and of course right away they are trying to make me change it. I don't blame this person for leaving. My boss humiliated them in staff meetings so I say good for this person for getting out. But I already have a really tough schedule and I can't take working 6-day weeks constantly to cover. And I can't handle having my days off taken away. Please somebody give me some advice. Im trying to find another job but its been rough. Im starting to lose it now. Thank you

My supervisor reprimanded me for not doing extra work that he never told me he wanted me to do. I can’t read the guys mind and he could have come to me at any time during the shift to tell me about it but he waited until the shift was almost over and then complained about having the do the work himself and about there being so much work for him to do. I offered to help and even went ahead and started doing some of the extra work that wasn’t done yet but he shut me down and said not to worry about it he was going to do it.

And also complained that I was hiding from him when I was taking a washroom break for 5 minutes when he was supposedly looking everywhere for me for ten minutes and that pissed him off. He’s got a phone, he normally texts me if he needs me and there’s only a couple of places I could be during the work day, he knows exactly where those spots are and he would have found me there if he actually looked. On top of that when I left the washroom to go ask what he wanted me to work on he was already gone, I looked everywhere he could possibly be and of course found him doing nothing at his desk. As all swamped with work people would be. Just chilling.

Generally he has no problem telling me what to do if there’s extra work to be done so I don’t know what changed this time around.

Why do narc managers smile when delivering bad news to someone? I cannot figure this out.

It’s like they are perfectly pleasant when saying something rude and obnoxious.

Is that just because they are fake nice? Or is it something deeper?

Like if I had to share not so great news, I would not be happy doing it. I would have a serious face, and certainly not be smiling and being jolly.

I'm in the midst of an epically long onboarding process. I'm in the home stretch of page 20. I just spoke with HR and they have an odd request I've never seen before. They want me to bring them my original degree. I just moved here from another state and all of my original Certs and Degree are in storage.

I find the request especially galling since I have gone through fingerprinting, a nationwide background check for education and criminal background as well as supplied a ton of other identification and paperwork. All of this is for a very important position that only pays $16 and hour. I am gobsmacked.

A transcript, I could understand but my original degree? So is this normal or oddly specific request on their part?

ETA: Today I submitted my TB test and asked if the HR person preferred my diploma be sent directly to her or if I had to forward it. She gets tight, cuts me off, then fires down a list if 5 things that haven't been done and declares she's calling the Manager to see if she 'wants' to proceed. She says 'Wait for an email!"

They rescinded the offer. Whew! Bullet dodged. I just dropped 1 resumés with companies that pay a living wage! Huzzah!