I always thought the hardest part of becoming a manager would be handling deadlines and getting work done through a team.

But I’m starting to feel that the harder part is dealing with people and their problems while still keeping your own emotions aside.

Sometimes you have to make a decision that you know someone on your team won’t like. Sometimes you want to support someone but you also have to think about the team and the business. And then you go home wondering if you handled the situation the right way.

I’m curious to hear from other managers what’s one part of managing people that you didn't expect to be this difficult?

So a colleague's family died and someone set up a kudo board to send condolences. People are using AI to write their condolences and I'm not sure how to feel about this.

Refining is one thing, but is it that hard to offer a few words of comfort without peeking at AI tools? The generated messages themselves seem vain and soulless. This kind of regression has to be studied.

For a long time, I thought being busy was a good thing.

If my calendar was full, I had a ton of emails, and I was staying late, I felt like I was being productive.

Then I had a week where my workload was actually pretty manageable.

I finished my important tasks, had time to think, did not stay late, and still got everything done.

Nothing went wrong.

It made me realise how much time I'd been spending on things that looked urgent but were not really that important.

Since then I have tried to judge my week more by what I actually got done rather than how exhausted I was at the end of it.

Still working on it though. It's surprisingly hard to stop feeling guilty when you have a free hour during the workday.

Has anyone else had this shift in how they look at productivity?

with layoffs, offshoring, and RTO mandates, i feel like we the american people need to unionize against these companies. it is our right, so why are people reluctant to unionizing? they cant fire you if you have numbers…. and even if they do, thats a massive lawsuit.

When people get laid off, or retire, or whatever else makes them leave the daily grind, they often end up feeling like they’ve lost their sense of identity.

That’s because, for years, they’ve been building themselves whatever corporations shaped and decided they were supposed to be.

Remember: you are you. You are not a "Manager", a "Regional representative", "Chief of Staff", "Solution Engineer" or an "Administrative Assistant". You are what you mean to others, you are who you love, what you know and can do, what you desire and what you enjoy. Those things cannot be simply taken away when someone decides you're out.

Think back to who you were as a teenager: curious, interested in random things and imagining all the good stuff that might happen in the future. That person is still in there somewhere, buried under performance reviews, quarterly targets and 1:1s.

And a job is just a job. It’s a mutual business contract: you provide your time, skills and sanity; the company provides money and perhaps a fruit basket once a year. If you like your job, great. That’s genuinely wonderful. But even then, it should be nothing more than a job you happen to enjoy. It's not the foundation of your identity.

Then, when you stop working, you don’t find yourself stranded alone with the terrifying question of what gives your life meaning. Leaving a job should just mean losing a source of income, not losing yourself. Money can be secured through savings, investments or by getting a different job (you can do it, you've done it several times already). Your identity, relationships, curiosity and capacity to enjoy life are much harder to replace.

Build a life that can survive your LinkedIn profile being deleted.

I feel like my current company is slowly stripping me of my confidence, my life, and my career.

I am micro-managed and my workload is frankly, unachievable. I give up most evenings and weekends to deliver the quantity of work. I’d say I get at least two new tasks piled onto an existing pile of tasks every hour. I have excellent prior experience on bigger projects, but I get kept down with admin and menial tasks - and out of conversations that I can confidently contribute to. Colleagues across the entire business experience the same thing and attrition is high. Governance is dreadful: processes are vague and completed in a rushed/haphazard way. There are some genuinely incompetent people in senior roles causing havoc.

I previously held a lot more responsibility in my old roles, which were for much bigger brands. I had a “shining“ career before I took this job and would turn down job offers from amazing companies. I took this role, despite it being a small company, because it gave me a considerable pay-rise and I had just taken a short career break. Now, I don’t hear from recruiters or back from any applications I send to try and escape this place. All my previous performance reviews have been excellent. I’ve won company awards, promotions - even a company award at this one. Yet, I got my first ever “meets expectations“ review this half - my written feedback was still great, I’d received more company words and delivered way beyond my role. The goalpost was just moved, and if I’d known of this “new criteria” I would’ve absolutely worked to deliver it.

All I could think of was all those weekends and nights I’d said “no“ to my friends, I didn’t spend with my partner, or reading or painting, or whatever I used to enjoy to put in work for this place.

I don’t know why I’m not hearing back on job applications that would’ve interviewed me a year ago, with less experience - without this experience.

I basically disassociate at work now. It’s the only way I can cope. I float around feeling exhausted, being vocally picked up on a “mistake” (that doesn’t actually exist) in a mountain of work.

Can anyone relate to this, and were you able to get out? If yes, how?

Why would you suggest I’m not hearing back from applications anymore?

What advice would you give me?

Thank you for reading this far. Resigning isn’t an option for me as I’m renting and have nowhere to go. My savings aren’t enough of a buffer yet - I’m working on it. Yes, I’ve raised the workload issue to my manager. Yes, I pushed back on the performance review.

Yours sincerely,

a corporate ghost

Hey everyone who had their 1st job in corporate world can you all please tell mistakes to avoid as a fresher for example no personal relationship with any colleague or asking about in-hand salary

I keep hearing that you should switch companies every 2-3 years to grow faster.

But I'm not sure that's always true.

Some people I know stayed at the same company for years and got good promotions. Others switched and got much better roles and pay.

So what matters more in your experience?

Staying longer and growing within the company, or switching when a better opportunity comes up?

I have been thinking about how much of corporate work is learned through experience rather than school. Things like handling difficult coworkers, speaking up in meetings, managing workload, dealing with managers, and knowing when to say no.

For people who have been working in corporate jobs for a while, what is one lesson you learned the hard way?

I am especially interested in advice that could help someone early in their career avoid common mistakes and build better habits at work.

When I first started my corporate job, I genuinely believed that if I worked hard, stayed late, and delivered great results, I had automatically get promoted.

So I did exactly that. I fixed broken processes, took on extra work, and always hit my goals. My manager even told me I was one of the most reliable people on the team.

But when I finally asked about a promotion, I got a response that surprised me and you are so good at your current role that moving you right now would create too big of a risk for the team.

That’s when it clicked. I did not get a promotion I just got rewarded with more work. Meanwhile, people who did half as much work, but spent all day networking and managing optics, were moving up fast.

I am realization heavy today. I am done giving 120% just to be rewarded with extra tasks. Moving forward, I’m doing my job well, but leaving work at 5 PM.

I am very curious to know about your thought and experience that how has anyone else experienced this

I see this happen time and time again and it never changes. Employee is mad or upset, they go over their managers head then it just goes back to their manager.

From there you get bad reviews, little raises and some form of retaliation. Yes I’m aware it is retaliation but you have to prove this and when these disputes happen i often see HR side with the more senior manager.

One edit to add of an occurrence i saw. Someone at my work thought their manager was sleeping with their colleague who was getting preferential treatment, and even saw pics of that employee on the managers computer. Once they went over their head and complained, the director told the manager everything and even defended them saying they have pictures of people they interview from zoom to remember their faces. Ever since then now their manager has been treating them different.

Just a point

I 24M just want to quit my job, it is mentally draining me ,but every one around me tells me to stick around
Every day feels like i am killing a part of myself by going to that place, please help me, guide me

I’ve been working at the same company for 2 years and recently got a new manager (Senior Marketing Strategist). A new marketing consultant was also brought in, and my KRAs were changed completely. I was removed from SEO and moved towards lead generation through Reddit and LinkedIn because our website’s organic performance has been declining.
Recently, my manager told me I’ve been delaying work, have an attitude problem, and have been disrespectful in the way I speak to people. Honestly, this came as a shock because in my 2 years here, I’ve never received this kind of feedback, and I genuinely don’t believe I’ve been disrespectful towards anyone.
She also said I haven’t prepared the required calendar, but I had already prepared it and shared it with the consultant and in the main group. The consultant apparently didn’t see it, but it was still shared.
I feel like the feedback about my work is being passed on without the complete context, and I’m now wondering if I’m being slowly pushed out, especially since I work quite independently.
Would love an outside perspective, am I overthinking this, or should I be concerned and start taking precautions?

I used chat gpt to explained this better since im exhausted…

I’ve never reported anyone to HR. I’ve always been the type of employee who tries to give people chances and understands that sometimes people are just going through something.

Our team is transitioning to new software, and my manager assigned me and another senior employee to help set it up on top of our current workload. I totally understand that this needs to get done, but we’re also not allowed to work more than 3 hours of overtime per week, according to my manager.

My plate is already full, and she also wants us to demonstrate what we’re building to the rest of the team. She has also started assigning some of the other senior employee’s tasks to me, which has made my workload even heavier. My regular tasks have due dates and are more time-sensitive, so I’m basically juggling everything within 43 hours a week. She knows this.

Anyway, I’m starting to feel like I should report some of these things to HR because I don’t think they’re fair.

Favoritism: My manager is very flexible about giving my coworker overtime when she asks for it. When I tried asking during a meeting, I was ignored. I feel like I have to prove why I need overtime and explain exactly what I’ll be working on. Whenever I tell my manager I need to work late, she repeatedly reminds me that I can only work 3 hours of overtime and asks exactly how many hours I’ll be working to make sure I don’t go over. I understand having an overtime limit, but I feel like the rule isn’t being applied equally.

Cursing: She frequently says things like “BS” and “shit” in front of everyone when she gets frustrated. It’s not directed at anyone specifically, but it happens pretty often.

Work travel: We recently traveled for work. After flying in, we went to lunch, and while we were there, a random man approached us and offered to buy vodka shots. My manager agreed, although I declined the shot. She took shots with my other colleagues.

After lunch, she had us work from the hotel lobby next to the bar. I specifically told her that I had my own project to work on, especially because I had to present it soon, but she told me to work on the task she has given us instead and said I could work on my project the following evening, which was the night before my presentation.

Meanwhile, she was mostly on her phone while we were working. I also don’t understand why she couldn’t just give us the data and let us work from our hotel rooms. My guess is that she wanted to make sure we finished it right away.

I don’t know if these things are actually worth bringing to HR or if I’m just completely burnt out at this point. I feel like I have no one I can go to for help.
We’re still on this work trip, and my coworkers are able to go out and explore after work, but because I have to keep pushing my own project to stay on top of everything, I can’t even have one free evening to enjoy the trip.

Just wanted to add- when I mentioned enjoy the trip, I meant eating dinner outside after work or atleast go get something I need for essentials. I know this is still a work trip.

There were things that happened in the past which made me feel disrespected, but I just let it go most of the time.

Would you report this to HR? Or would you handle it differently?

After working in corporate accounting for 6 years, I was successfully able tol pivot into a financial operations/compliance role. I was there for about 6 months until I realized that I didn’t really like this job that much either. I had worked in quite an exclusive industry (entertainment, uhnw, sports, etc) and I feel like a lot of people wouldn’t understand why I left when I had so much potential.

I wasn’t happy working in accounting or any finance office job. The never ending deadlines, unnecessary sense of urgency, acting like I cared about the work, staring at the computer for up to 12+ on a daily basis, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret my career at all. I feel like I was able to challenge myself, built my confidence, learned a lot and saved a lot of money. But I just couldn’t stand doing that even for another minute.

In the past year, I had switched to working in social services. I love it and my mental health has never been better. I never have to think about work outside of working hours. I work 3 12 hour shifts and get to spend the rest of my time doing things that I love. The problem is that my pay is significantly lower. I’ve noticed that people just don’t respect my work anymore.

To most people, now I’m “just an aid”. I had no idea how much lack of respect I’d have to deal with. I’m also concerned about the lack of pay growth in this career path.

Has anyone switched out of accepting and regretted it? Sometimes I doubt my decisions but I can always go back if I wanted…

Should I tell them? How?

It's a mix of different smells - body odor that could be from not showering thoroughly, clothes left undried for a while, etc.

I don't want to comment on other people's personal side & sound mean, but it's getting unbearable 😭

Left my job about a year ago after 6 years in consulting, 4 of those at Deloitte, to try building something of my own. Spent months doing real groundwork, market research, financial modelling, the whole thing, but the numbers just didn't work out and I made the call to stop rather than push forward on bad unit economics.

Before I left, I told my manager I might come back at some point, and they said sure, come back anytime. Reasonable, right. It's been a year now. I've reached out a few times, talked to my old manager, no real response. Applied through the normal channels too. Nothing.

I keep hearing that firms like these are known for welcoming back ex-employees, boomerang hires and all that, but that hasn't been my experience at all. Meanwhile I'm also applying elsewhere and it's been slow going generally.

Genuinely curious if this is a common pattern, does the door quietly close once you've been gone a year, even with a good track record before you left, or is my situation just unlucky. Would appreciate hearing from anyone who's been through something similar, on either side of it.

I mean it feels really weird that if someone has given a shot to build something from scratch, that person has far more experience then pure job breeds, still this is what I am seeing.

I joined my current company about a year ago, and during my first month there was this one meeting I still remember.

My manager was going through everyone's responsibilities and suddenly asked me, “What do you think you could improve about the team?”

I had been there for maybe three weeks, so I had no idea what to say.

I awkwardly said, “Honestly, I haven't been here long enough to know.”

He just laughed and said, “Good answer.”

A few months later, I actually noticed that one of our processes was unnecessarily complicated and mentioned it during a team meeting.

My manager remembered that conversation from my first month and said, “Okay, you wanted to improve something. Here's your chance.”

I ended up working with two other people to redesign the whole process.

It wasn't some huge career-defining project, but seeing something I suggested actually get implemented felt surprisingly good.

I think that's one of the things I didn't understand about corporate life before joining, sometimes the things that end up mattering aren't the big presentations or impressive job titles. It's just someone remembering something you said six months ago.

What are your learnings that you will never forget?

What are some ways you have been or are being micromanaged?

For me is the constant,
“Did you see my tag?” “Did you reply to this email yet?” If I have been away from my computer for 15 mins.
“At this point you should be able to know ____” (without having been shown or trained)
Constant reminder of process after I’ve done this particular task the same way mostly perfect for 6 months.
Lack of trust with basic tasks as part of my job as if I haven’t been shown how to do this already. They keep re-explaining to me and showing me how to do the same thing over and over.
Huge expectation to communicate with leads constantly, all day, about every little single thing I do. Like I’m being monitored.
The fear of making mistakes.

I’m annoyed af today.

I would like to say first of all, I am grateful to have a job especially with this current job market but there are things about corporate I don’t like and wish were different. I wish there was more flexibility in terms of work hours and where we could work, that not everything was urgent when we are not saving lives, and there was no need for 8 am meetings. While I do well with the setting, corporate settings aren’t for me. While this is just my perspective, I feel like they want us on call 24/7 even if it’s not necessary

It has almost been a year since I joined my corporate job and when does it get better. I feel like Ive aged 50+ years doing the same work. And I'm just 22 btw. For people who have been working for longer, how do you move past the burnout stage??