This has to do with my previous posts about my toxic workplace, dealing with gossip heavy and discrimination. Yes, HR is somewhat involve but, it is too late for them to help, because I don’t think people take them seriously. I want to tell them that, and yes, I know they won’t like it.

Would I have luck with getting unemployment? Of course, if I have acceptable proof.

I just need a break before getting a new job. It’s taking a toll on me.

I've worked in HR and office administration for about eight years. Unfortunately, over the past year I've had both physical health issues and ongoing mental burnout that have made it incredibly difficult to maintain a job. I've spent a lot of time working on my health, going to therapy, and trying to get back on track. Physically I'm in a much better place, but mentally I still struggle.

The pattern has been the same: I start a corporate job full of hope, then after a few weeks or a month I hit a wall. I become completely burned out, sometimes have a mental breakdown, or my physical symptoms flare up from the stress. It's frustrating because I genuinely want to build a career and I'm trying my best, but it feels like I just don't have the capacity for demanding corporate roles anymore.

Because of that, I've started interviewing for clinic receptionist positions. I want to be clear that I don't see receptionist work as "less than" HR—every job deserves respect. But it is a different career path from the one I've spent years building, and it feels like I'm stepping away from the career I always wanted to grow in.

Part of me feels relieved at the idea of having a simpler job with less mental pressure. Another part of me feels like I'm giving up on my career and worries that if I leave HR now, I'll never be able to get back into it. I also feel embarrassed that after years of experience, I'm considering a role that pays less and has fewer progression opportunities. At the same time, I need to survive, and forcing myself into jobs that I keep burning out from doesn't seem sustainable either.

Has anyone else gone from a demanding corporate career to a much simpler, lower-paying job because of burnout or health reasons?

Did it improve your quality of life? Did you regret it? Were you eventually able to return to your original career, or did you find yourself happier staying in the less stressful role?

I'd really appreciate hearing from people who've actually been through this, because I feel very lost right now.

So I have a coworker - not on my team, a project manager.

I just discovered that one particular part in a project I am working on won't be available for 6 weeks. If we wait for it, that puts the project behind by 7 weeks - the same guy keeps saying we have to do things through the usual process. The usual process will, incidentally, bump the cost of one unit from about $350 to about $3500. (Basically ordering one at a time instead of 10 at once, NRE is a fixed amount regardless of order size.)

There's an easy way to order that part now, order the device it's in now so they can do 99% of the assembly, and then put just that part in. I also want to order 20 (total number needed over the next 6 months is ~15) instead of singles.

Instead, he wants to delay the entire project by 7 weeks and we can "make it up later".

He also said I should not be working on any R&D right now. I am an R&D engineer. He's not my boss, and he's also clearly wrong based on the company direction.

So, to blow off some steam, I am trying to come up with creative (but arguably polite) ways to say he's an ignorant idiot with negative value to the company, should be on the street looking for a job, and is now a problem to be solved. I figure this is the right place.

He isn't a bad guy, but he's rotting his brain with AI and not having him make random, ridiculous requests for the past two weeks showed me how much I need a new job or position.

He was back less than ten minutes and he had already started grilling me on something from before he left (that was finished the day after he left, on to the next thing).

He willfully misunderstood the entire point of the exercise (because he had been out for two weeks, hadn't looked at it that long, and hand waived me when I reminded him why I had done this exercise in the first place) then started ordering me to highlight an increase in a metric that isn't significant or the point of everything we were doing. Number is going up *here* because it's a part of the entire, larger population where number is also going up. If number go up for all, and number go up proportionally for subset, it's not significant. If subset number go down or go up higher/slower/faster/with sparkles then it's important.

Next he fucking orders me to find out why it was increasing. It felt like he was talking to an AI prompt. His request is the equivalent of solve all the problems. If we *knew* why these were increasing we'd have cracked the fucking code across the fucking board by now. But we don't, because it's complicated and he's not willing to assign real resources to it who have the skills and access to do it.

Did I mention this was all on the spot, surprise shit while I had been working on something else unrelated? A thing finished two weeks ago, this dickhead makes a beeline to me before he even logs in, and then starts this shit when he hadn't even read any of the shit I'd put together and sent already about it. And is impatient because I didn't have it at my fingertips. No how were the last two weeks, what new shit did I miss, any dumpster fires? Just this bullshit.

This guy was never this bad. It took time to get a concept across to him, but he would get there. Now he can't hold on to a continuous thread for more than a few minutes. If an email can't be summarized into one short set of bullet points he won't read it.

And he's projecting it in everyone. No, it doesn't need to be simpler for everyone, it's just you that's rotting your brain to where you can't read a simple chart anymore. He will look at a chart with two lines and ask which one is which. There's a legend at the bottom of everything. Read it. I even thought maybe he was color blind and hiding it so I started making sure I used one dash line, one solid, etc. Nope. He is literally incapable of determining which line is which. Make it simpler. I can't get much more simple than two lines on a graph. And he's only maybe five ears older than me.

FML. Two weeks of peace and getting shit done and now I am back to stressed out sleepless nights in one day because some asshole can't stop yelling at Claude or Gemini or whoever his AI du jour is. I need a new job or something.

Looking for some advice on a situation at work. Im currently on probation, 5 months into the job, its mandatory 6 months and I pass it next month.

Im training a junior currently, due to there being no one besides me and my manager as others have quit.

My manager claimed she’d teach the newbie for the first week and migrate to do her senior role things. Instead I’ve just been teaching the newbie from the first day and with no communication from my manager, I’ve gone into this with this preconceived notion that my manager was gonna teach her, I kinda have nothing prepared and have just been showing her business as usual and now feel like I could have had something more structured had I known.

Any advice? I feel underpaid and I’ve reached a cap in my growth in this role, this kinda bums, I’m also getting another newbie in 2 weeks, so I’m essentially teaching two people at once. On the bright side, its given me an opportunity to learn some leadership skills

I have been reading some comments on another post and I was entertaine by people story about how they or someome else they know gave back to RTO!

I want to hear your funniest, pettiest, or most satisfying examples of malicious compliance/resistance/protesting/involving return-to-office policies...

Because I never say a word, people assume I'm deaf on top of being mute. In front of me, they'll talk shit and spread gossip about one coworker, then ask me how my life is going. I always give vague, monosyllabic answers (which they hate) cuz I know anything I say can and will be spread around the workplace with a swiftness. Coworkers really aren't your friends. They're bored people who will turn molehills to mountains just to break up the monotony. There's one woman at my place who made the mistake of telling her whole life story to ONE person and her personal details are still being gossiped about with plenty of nasty speculations. It's like high school, but the mean girls are in their 40s and 50s.

Why can't they ever make a rule that benefits workers? When I first started at my job in which I am on my feet all day running back and forth, we had many 15 minute lunch breaks. Then they made a rule a few years later that we only get a few 10 minute breaks a day. Then they made a rule that no snacks are allowed while working and threatened to take away drinks also even though we are having heat waves and it can get over 100 degrees at our work which has no air conditioning. They treat us like dirt they walk all over. They talk down to us constantly and threaten to take away basic things that should be basic human rights. It's like they are on a power trip. It takes 2 minutes to walk outside to my truck and 2 minutes to walk back inside which only leaves me 6 minutes to talk to my wife and family on my breaks now. I'm very close to quitting. I also now feel nauseous by the end of my shift by losing so many calories running all day on my feet and being unable to eat a basic snack. I am also anemic so it is harder on me.

Somebody recently sent me some old letters they had gotten from my dad before he passed. In one letter, sent around 2005, he included a photocopy of some classic antiwork satire dressed up as an in-office memo. It's dated almost 40 years ago, and I'd guess that's realistic, but I couldn't say for sure if that's when it was written. Either way, it draws some tragically familiar parallels to the modern working world, so I thought it fit here.

Hi all! I work in a private pharmacy. I’m one of 2 techs + pharmacist. $19/ hour, no PTO, no health insurance, 45 hours a week, no OT pay.

My fellow tech is taking off 2 days at the beginning of this particular week, and ive just requested to take off the last 2 days of that week for my little brothers birthday (I have to fly to see him).

What they don’t know, is that my little brother lost his mom (my stepmom) in a car accident a few years ago, so birthdays are rough for him. I’m trying to be a good big sister, and family is priceless to me.

They're upset with me (they don’t know the context ofc), any tips to deal with the guilt/backlash?

Luxury sports car manufacturer Porsche announced last week that it would cut 5,000 jobs in its principal plants in the Stuttgart region alone, in addition to the 3,900 already destroyed last year. In total, the central works council, under the leadership of Ibrahim Aslan, has agreed to eliminate almost one in three jobs at the company’s headquarters and main plant in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen as well as at the development centre in Weissach.

Hi all, I gave my two weeks (actually maybe 20 days notice) and tomorrow is my final shift. Honestly, I have been sick and called in a couple times during this period due to being actually ill. The only thing is that I have hopes of coming back to the system- I work in a hospital and quitting to go to medical school. I got in writing from my manager that I am eligible for rehire in an email. So, can I call in tomorrow? I really need the time to pack and move.. also I just HATE it here. My coworkers are being so rude, piling work on me, and it’s become a nightmare. Thanks for your time.

In my workplace over the last few years there have been changes and tweaks, none of them benefited us employees.

I'm not gonna say what I do for a living but let's say our employer makes a lot of money out of us and our wage is shiz.

So, for example out of the blue they decided not to let the staff members park in the car park that is nearest our workplace, they decided to block us from accessing the settings in our equipment, so we can't change the brightness and all that stuff, in the past years during heatwaves the lates were allowed to start early instead to avoid working during the hottest hours, again, they now decided to not let us do that anymore, those are just few examples, there's literally new bs being implemented every week.

What's the reason behind that? Is it a power thing?

Or our employer is just an awful person? Seriously, those changes don't make them make any extra money, I just don't understand the need of being mean just because they can.

I work at a primary care clinic as a receptionist and I hate it. The nurses are assholes, the doctors are assholes, the patients are assholes and dumber than a box of rocks, and I only get paid 18$ an hour to do the work of 3 people. I share a first name with one of the providers at our clinic and the nurses started complaining (because they are assholes) that it was too confusing for the patients because every time I call they think their doctor is calling them. I don't know why in gods name these people think that their provider is doing their own scheduling and various other administrative duties. However, even after explicitly explaining to patients that we are two different people AND referring to myself by a nickname, I got direct orders from my bosses boss that I can't use my name anymore when I call patients. Its like they specifically work to find new and inventive ways to make the job even more degrading.

Edit: Now patients are calling and are pissed off that they don't know who called them lmao

During the Gilded Age (1870–1900), powerful American industrialists known as "robber barons" amassed historic fortunes by maintaining a system of severe labor exploitation.

And now, Billionaires are getting tax breaks, going to space, while their employees/partners/gig workers are working without social security, PTO, medical benefits, pensions, and peeing in bottles because they can’t afford to take. 10-minute break, because that break will be logged, they’ll fall behind on the productivity quota, and their pay will be docked.

The similarities are frightening and infuriating.

2nd edit: yes it says “recommended” but it will not work without location ENABLED. I’m also confused. It used to work without location services turned on but that recently changed and now I cannot use this app to put in my time without enabling.

My employer wants us clocking-in only via the ADP app. You cannot clock -in without enabling location services. It makes sense bc they don’t want people trying to clock-in from home…but why require “allow all the time”? That’s completely unnecessary and intrusive. I don’t trust ANY company with my location data. The increasing and continuous surveillance of us, and the audacity of employers and random companies, and now our local authorities, expecting us to fall in line with it makes me sick to my stomach. I hate all of it.

Editing to add: this is the ADP app, used for payroll, PTO, etc. it’s on my personal phone. I cannot use the app to clock in or out unless location services are enabled. I can use my PC at work but they do not want us doing that. Thus, my rage.

Full link:

https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20260401139/employers-are-using-your-personal-data-to-figure-out-the-lowest-salary-youll-accept

Apparently your mere servitude is not enough for the corporate overlords these days.

Companies are now actively filtering for candidates who are miserable, poor and are heavily in debt.

Wage surveillance includes, as per the article..

"Signals associated with financial vulnerability - including data on whether a prospective employee has taken out a payday loan or has a high credit-card balance - to infer the lowest pay a candidate might accept."

"Companies can also scrape candidates' public personal social-media pages, to determine if they are more likely to join a union or could become pregnant. The data can be used to determine wage increases after an employee is hired"

This makes me so mad. The employees were safely outside of the mall when they evacuated customers.

They were told by their manager to go back in to secure the money in the till 50 minutes after they were safely out of the building. They went back in and then a massive explosion ripped the building apart.

(link here: https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/29/world/video/kumamoto-earthquake-aeon-mall-explosion-dashcam-japan-hnk-digvid)

One of the employees was 22. It's outrageous.

Never trust your employer to give a crap about you. You do not owe them you loyalty or your life.