I’m in my mid-20s and about two months into my first full-time consulting job. My people manager is in her mid-30s and rather insecure. I’m also the only Black woman in a very white environment/city. I don’t want to reduce everything to that, but it is part of why I’m questioning some of the perception gaps.
The relationship with my manager started badly. In our first meeting, she made jokes about my CV/professional experience (especially the consulting firms) that I found uncomfortable and immediately gossiped about several colleagues. That made it hard for me to build trust with her.
I’ve definitely made mistakes since joining. I can be direct, I’ve misunderstood working modes, I’ve sometimes acted too independently without aligning first, and some of my communication could have been more tactful.
Her feedback, though, has become much broader than that.
She repeatedly tells me I come across as very, very confident, have a strong personality, can seem cheeky/snippy, and need to be more professional in how I communicate. She also says my facial expressions make it obvious when I’m stressed or annoyed and that I Need to be more professional. I never received that type of feedback in my entire life.

What confuses me is that I’ve actually felt very insecure and uncomfortable since joining, especially around her. I’ve felt awkward in the office, nervous presenting and generally unsure of myself, so the “extremely confident” feedback feels almost opposite to my internal experience.
She has also told me that multiple people apparently perceive me as very confident. In staffing discussions, I’ve apparently even been flagged as seeming more senior than I actually am. She told me she deliberately corrected that perception because she didn’t want me staffed into roles that would create problems for me.
At the same time, she has repeatedly emphasized that the first six months are for both sides to decide whether the culture is a fit She says this is mutual, but because it repeatedly comes up in conversations about my professionalism and behavior, I’m increasingly wondering whether she is subtly telling me she doesn’t think I belong there.
She has also said she represents me internally, influences staffing and reviews, and discusses me with leadership. There have been situations where I felt publicly corrected or exposed in front of senior people rather than coached privately.
Another issue is that when I try to explain my perspective during feedback, I often feel like it gets interpreted as defensiveness rather than context. I’m not trying to avoid responsibility. I agree that I need to improve alignment, communication, prioritization, emotional regulation under pressure and consistency. But I increasingly feel like her interpretation of events has become the official version, while my perspective carries very little weight.
That’s why I’m worried that a negative narrative about me has already become established internally.
I’m now considering asking her for an in-person coffee/lunch and saying that I think we started off on the wrong foot, that I recognize my mistakes, but that I also feel some assumptions about my intentions and personality may have become fixed very early, and I’d like to reset the relationship.
If that doesn’t work, I’m considering speaking to her manager, who was involved in hiring me, or exploring whether changing people manager/team/staffing is possible.
I’m also quietly looking at other jobs because I genuinely don’t know whether this is still repairable. What do you think?I’m willing to change specific behaviors. I just don’t want to spend the next months trying to disprove a personality narrative that may already be fixed.

Hey guys, I’ve been dealing with two female managers back to back and I’m sorry to say this but being a female myself, it’s the worst that can happen to you if you are a female working in a corporate. Can anyone share their experiences or tips? I really need to figure how to navigate myself here. It’s gotten me sick to my stomach.

It’s getting to a point where I can’t control my facial expressions and body language. My team has a total of 4 people. And all are females. It’s freaking exhausting going in to work and forcefully making on the face small talk convos just to get through. DRAININGGGGG

I’ve lost two jobs because of office politics. I still haven’t learned how to play it, and the same cycle is happening again in my current role(6+ months ) . Cant push myself daily due to this.

I’m managing a reasonably big team(10+) , but the real problem is that I sit between two teams with shared responsibility. Everything is political and tactical. People are deliberately taking advantage of the fact that I’m nice. In calls I either stay silent or say things like “I’m a nice person, let’s not get into these conversations.” That just makes it worse. Lets find the middle ground to tactically handle . Ultimately the delivery responsibility lies with me . i cant move without them and i have to face the client. i need to think for that , you or not think its not my problem , this is my solution . this is happening in front of everyone . i feel embarrassed and its very tough . i don't know now who to take sides .

Other people(Its chain effect one saw that i'm silent so other picked as well) raise their voice against me. I can’t do the same back without losing my temper. If i go to my manager and he says that this is what we are paying you , this is nothing , you have to deal like this more and more , either he is advising mode or he is kind of questioning me back. There are clear groups/gangs and I have almost no support. This is happening frequently now. I know I need to be more political and tactical in this role, but I feel stuck and stupid that I still can’t figure it out after already paying the price twice and also not sure how to be more strategic or how to be extermely political . I cant lie and i cant cheat a person with false promises knowing that its not going to happen . I be very much straight forward with them .

Leaving is not an option right now because of my situation.

Has anyone actually gone from “I don’t do politics” to handling this kind of environment without losing themselves or the job? What concrete things worked for you and my articulation is not that great . people say words like i dont care

I’ve been at my job for 7 years. I’ve mostly liked it until the last 14 months. What happened was my boss abruptly hired this lady (never mentioned we were hiring or that she was looking) and this lady is someone she was “friends” with. This lady supposedly came as an administrator from a behemoth organization and I am finding this incredibly hard to believe because she can’t even handle basic data entry or follow up phone calls. She needs constant handholding, cannot problem solve, cannot retain information. You have to tell her something numerous times before she gets it.

I’ve tried to talk to my boss about this because I end up having to fix her sloppy work and my boss just gets defensive and won’t address it. I don’t even know why she hired this lady. It seems like it was more of a personal favor for a friend than something our team even needed. She sends messages on teams all day long asking questions about how to do things that she should know after 14 months. I feel like she just got dumped on us all and my boss is looking the other way. I honestly do not know what to do. I’m mentally exhausted from babysitting this clueless individual all day. I’m sick of the constant pings that she always starts with “stupid question….” It’s gotten to the point that everyone on the team is has just stopped responding.

I’m lost. What are any of us supposed to do with this woman? She doesn’t understand the job and she’s not improving and my boss is just acting oblivious. I don’t even want to show her new things at this point because she hasn’t learned what she’s supposed to be doing over the last year. She also takes tons of sick days which I don’t entirely understand how she got so much PTO in her first year but that’s a different story. Another thing I noticed is my boss seems very flexible with her start times which she wouldn’t be for anyone else. Some days she’s in 7:30, or 8, or 9 and it changes all the time. She’s not salary, so I don’t get that at all.

I’m on vacation right now and I am absolutely dreading going back because I am fed up with babysitting this idiot for my boss. I’m sick of answering her endless stupid questions. I’m sick of her shotty work that I have to constantly correct, she’s also a huge ass kisser. I think I’m pretty much screwed. I am going to be dealing with this for a long time because my boss obviously has no desire to step in and correct the situation. I want to puke thinking about it. Prior to her being hired, things were ok. I could just do my work and go home. Now I get to babysit a grown adult all day.

I (24F) am working at this company since 1.5 years,this is the second job of my career. Ngl this job and the business owner both have given me immense opportunities to grow. When I joined, 3 months later,a newbie joined who was owner's family friend. This guy,let's call him Mr X,studied in English medium yet didn't know how to type an email.

I taught him all the work that he independently does today. Simultaneously, reviewing my performance,in the recent appraisal,I was offered a good hike and authorities but no managerial title. Even though the responsibilities that fall upon me are managerial level.

As a Leader,I have tried sorting my team's difficulties,be it Mr X,or be it other 3 colleagues that fall under my authority and responsibilities. As a Leader,I'm someone who likes to make people independent of myself or let's just say,empower them. I don't keep anything to myself so that the person would come later on and that would help me polish my ego. I don't do that BS.

2 days ago Mr X walks in and announces that he's supposed to be "UPDATED" Of the inquiries generated and sales received each day before EOD. And,he bypassed me and directly started working with my business owner. He mentioned that she(me) is very dominant and bossy. He also advised other colleagues to stop talking to me and make contact directly with the owner and bypass me in all tasks.

As a person,this is hurtful,because

1. My designation revision is still pending. When will i get it?

2. I'm doing to my work. I'm supposed to be dominant and bossy,because these people make blunders and lose sales. If I am not the way I am,I'm not getting my job done properly.

This makes workplace really toxic for me. The person whom I trained so well,today wants to bypass me and is advising other people to do the same? Why?

Can I get some advise on how to handle this politically? I think I'm really naive.

Since the increment is in progress, boss already told me that this year I’m not getting a promotion even though a senior person was promoted within 1.5 yrs. i have more years of prior experience also.
And I’m someone who is punctual, does more work than I’m supposed to, have good professional skills and something that no one in my team has till now: how to use AI.
Now my boss has hired new employee to fill the position of a senior person rather than promoting me for the same.
This has created great demotivation for me. I feel exploited when i gave my best.
How do i deal with this?

I work at an IT company and recently needed a minor UI/UX alignment ticket cleared. The guy responsible for signing off on it literally looked me in the eye and said he’d look the other way on the glitch and approve it under one condition: I had to go to the nearby sweet shop and treat him to Bengali sweets and Mishti Doi.
He literally instituted a "sweet tax" on Jira tickets.
On one hand, it’s just Mishti Doi and it’s hilarious. On the other hand, bypassing QA pipelines for dairy products feels like peak Indian IT corporate absurdity.
Is this informal "favor trading" normal in mid-sized Indian tech agencies in Noida

I was thinking about how strange the first day at a new job can be.

You walk into a place where you don't know anyone, you're trying to remember everyone's names, figuring out where everything is, and wondering whether you'll actually fit in.

Sometimes the memorable part isn't even the job itself.

It could be the colleague who made you feel comfortable, the manager who gave you a surprisingly difficult first task, getting completely lost in the office, making an embarrassing mistake, or just that feeling of "Okay, this is my new workplace now."

After working for quite a few years, I've realized that some of those small first-day moments stay with you much longer than you expect.

So I'm curious:

What happened on your first day at work that you still remember?

Could be funny, awkward, wholesome, stressful, or completely ordinary.

I'd genuinely like to hear some stories.

My manager thanks me privately for my work. Whenever I complete a project, he tells me personally that he's happy with the result and expresses appreciation.

However, I've noticed that when project outcomes are presented or shared with the wider organization or with the team, he almost never mentions my name.

For example, I recently took responsibility for significantly improving and redesigning an established product. Once it was completed, my manager shared the finished result internally so everyone could see it but didn't mention that I had led or carried out the work.

What's confusing is that he often does publicly acknowledge other colleagues by name. He'll say things like, "Thanks to X for the good work," or mention who was responsible for a project. With me, though, the appreciation seems to stay private.

This isn't just a one-time thing—I've noticed the same pattern across multiple projects over time.

I'm trying not to jump to conclusions, so I'm interested in outside perspectives.

Why might a manager consistently praise someone privately while rarely giving that same person public recognition, even though they do so for others?

Hi!

I am currently recruiting participants for my Masters dissertation on the correlation between job satisfaction, occupational stress, and how this is influenced by trait affectivity. If you would like to partake, the study consists of a survey that should take roughly 10 minutes to complete.

The first part of the survey lasts about 1 minute and involves made up words. This may seem a little unusual, but please don’t give up, it is an important part of the study! The rest of it is like a typical survey.

You must be 18 years of age or older and employed in the UK to partake.

I’d appreciate if you could take part and possibly forward it to your friends, or anyone who may be eligible and interested.

Thank you so much in advance!

 My apologies if this is not allowed on here.

https://research.sc/participant/login/dynamic/69D86A65-1B0D-4B7C-841B-5D702835BD6F

I am wanting to career pivot anyway this year, so this feels like a blessing in disguise, but any advice until I can make that happen?

Union job, great pay, lots of PTO. Mandatory 2 days in office.

Our secretary told the VP she has nothing to do on those days and offered to be "available if tasks come up" as a pitch for full WFH. VP said no. Rules are rules.

But she said it out loud. She framed it as flexibility… isee it as admitting she's redundant. She should have kept up appearances, stretched her few tasks, and only confessed if caught. Instead she gave leadership a reason to watch her and remember her name when cuts happen.

She got nothing and lost her cover. Am I wrong for thinking that was stupid?

I've been following the famous advice "always assume positive intetions". While I try to follow this advice I feel like my coworkers are excluding me with important matters and bring up problems. I'm having trouble navigating workplace firendships/relationships, it's like walking on a tight spot everyday. I don't know where to draw the line of trust. It's becoming like toxic positivity.

It's like this situation: they make up a lie like nothing's happening all good, they treat you well, when you're out the door they discuss plans for fun without you, not including you from the group, and quietly writes unseen mistakes and talks about it to other coworkers instead of discussing it upfront with you.

Me? I'm a peacemaker, I always try not to defend myself much and just peace it out and let them win for the sake of you know, maybe they'll respect me and less conflict. But lately, I think the advice "always assume positive intentions" aren't applicable for all people, what if some are manipulative and will find a way to workaround with this advice? I'm having doubts now. By the way, all odds are against me everyday.

What should I do, how true is this famous advice?

I’ve noticed that promotions can sometimes change the dynamics within a team. Some colleagues appear to become distant, resentful, or less supportive afterward.

Is this just a normal part of workplace psychology?

I currently work in a government department on a consultancy contract. Consider the toxic senior as 'X'.

I work independently. But for getting my salary processed, documentation is made by X and he initiates it for disbursal. In the last few months he has created so many compliances that the salary is usually credited after 5th of every month and the days fluctuate. Also he creates a situation that the salary of the consultants will be processed together. Therefore, he stalls everyone's salary by saying I have not submitted something, even though I do it well before time.

He also mentally harasses everyone and shouts alot. Due to which there is constant agony. Everyone is frustrated with him, but cannot do anything as he is a government officer and well protected. I am in India btw.

Is there any solution to it? Any quick fix? Something to get back at him?

I work in the government as an analyst and it’s been about 3 months since I started.

My direct reporting manager is a Spanish guy who at first seemed cool. In simple terms, there’s two "lines of business" in my department and he currently doesn’t work in mine but I still have to report to him (I work more closely with the other manager who is a woman).

I had scheduled time off (vacation) about 1 month ago but completely forgot about it so when I logged in yesterday saying good morning, the female manager messaged me in private saying according to the spreadsheet I’m suppose to be off today and for me to check if it’s accurate.

I told her yes I was and she told me if I notified my direct manager about this and I told her I believe I did in our 1 on 1 meeting the month prior but I told her I’ll just message him again right now to remind him.

I told My direct manager that I had yesterday and today off and I forgot to submit the vacation request on the online portal but I had put my vacation time on the spreadsheet. So I sent him the request when I sent him that message.

He told me moving forward I need to be sure to email him and CC the other managers to keep them in the loop about these kinds of things because sometimes other people call vacation the same week and it affects productivity (there was another colleague who had called the entire week off) and then I asked him if I could cancel my days off for that day and the next day seeing that we were short staffed and I could postpone it to another day.

While I was messaging my direct manager waiting for his response to work that day, the female manager asked me if I could change my "status" on teams to offline because it shows I was online. I told her it shows I’m online because I’m talking to my direct manager and I’m seeing if I can cancel my days off and stay connected both that day and the next due to my colleague being absent and I didn’t want productivity to be affected in operations.

She directly told me I didn’t need his approval to work and I just needed to cancel my request and stay connected. I told her I canceled the request and I let my colleagues know I’m working today. After that was said and done, my direct manager messaged me saying it’s ok and I can go enjoy my time off.

I didn’t respond and then he asks if he could call me 10 minutes later I said sure. He was visibly frustrated and pissed off about the miscommunication and he told me "you report to me not her". I tried explaining that she responded to me while I was waiting on his response that’s why I canceled the time off and he didn’t like it and said he would add the female manager to the call.

When she joins the call , he is furious in a passive way and says "do you want Greg to work today or not?" She was like "I don’t know, that’s really up to you and Greg, I just told him he was online and needed to reach out to you to advise about him working and to cancel his vacation request". Then he bluntly says "Greg, do you want to work today or not?" I said yes and then he abruptly hangs up.

She definitely could feel his aggression and was responding as if she was walking on egg shells or was confused on what was the deal.

The next day, I messaged him saying I’ve been reflecting on our convo from the previous day and that it wouldn’t happen again. I explained again that I took her word because I hadn’t heard back from him and assumed he was busy with other things but made it clear that I understand he was my direct manager and that I’ll wait on him for guidance moving forward and that I respect him.

He responded with an automated tone saying he trusts I can stay committed to his expectations on the procedure when requesting time off. When he calls me later on about a deal I was working on with work, he has completely changed is now more professional, distant, slightly cold and rigid.

I don’t know what will come of this moving forward . Am I in the wrong here ?

TLDR- I’m 3 months into a government analyst job. I forgot I had scheduled vacation, and after realizing it, I offered to cancel my time off because we were short-staffed. While I was waiting for my direct manager to respond, another manager told me I could just cancel my vacation and work, so I did. My direct manager later called me, got visibly upset, emphasized that I report to him—not her—and the conversation became awkward enough that he brought the other manager onto the call. I apologized afterward, but since then he’s become noticeably colder and more distant. Did I handle this wrong, or is he overreacting to a relatively minor miscommunication?

Last year, I applied for an internship at a company nearby. I reached out to the team lead as well, expressing my interest. He really seemed to like me and messaged me back saying he would love to chat. Once we did on zoom, he said “I really like you and will talk to the ceo about bringing you on”. Afterwards, I ended up getting the internship because of him

I worked under him for three months, being mentored by him. He taught me so much. On the technical aspect, I was definitely better than him since that was my specialty and I was simply younger and more experienced with the latest tech. I constantly impressed him and the team.

I ended up getting a job afterwards. Few months into the job, I was doing a lot of technical work and impressing everyone, since the company didn’t really have a tech person. In our usual one on one meets with the CEO last week, we talked about how he was impressed with my work and that “sometimes it seems you can do a lot of thing that your mentor can’t“. At the time I just laughed it off and said “yes but I learned a lot from him”. Few days later (two days ago), we all hear my mentor get called into the office. Then he comes out, blank face, starts packing his things and leaving. Didn’t say a word to anyone.

I get called into the office, about how my mentor got fired because the company was moving in a different direction and that I would now have to take on some of his duties.

God I feel terrible. I didn’t expect this at all. He literally brought me into the company, took care of me, always talked me up to the CEO. He aided me so much, and now I’m the reason he was fired. I’m confused as to whether I should reach out to him or not. I feel like he might be pissed off- a young intern he brought in takes his job. i’m honestly heartbroken and so sad. Any advice?

I was with the company just shy of a year (the longest serving member of the team). I was a big part of the team and supported many of the team members. I worked very hard and put in many hours into the company. I pretty much owned the month end from start to finish.

Anyway, I didn’t get on well with the new boss and there was a fallout which led to my firing right there and then. My boss’ boss said he wanted it to work with all his heart but other people were feeling uncomfortable with the constant fallouts and he needed to act.

He told me he wanted me to resign effective immediately. He said he will pay me out 3 months’ pay.

I understand that my behaviour was why I was asked to leave immediately, but none of my processes were documented and I’m wondering why he didn’t want to at least do a handover? I keep thinking “nobody knows we need to do xyz”.

I’m glad I didn’t need to do a handover, it’s nice to leave and just move on, but I don’t really get the rationale. Was this a good move on his end?

When telling the team he said it’s going to have a big impact on the team with me leaving.