Month: September 2023

My partner works in a small office for the US branch of a company. The office hierarchy is a bit screwey and most people have 2+ roles. I.e. HR is also IT. Around 4 am my partner got these phantom notifications of old text messages from August between her and her work bestie. They somewhat pertained to a uniform budget but also venting about another coworker. When she clicked on them they went nowhere and was only able to see them when she checked notification history. She uses her personal cellphone that was loaded with some kind of company software that created a secondary profile for work apps and such. Nothing in the privacy policy addresses personal cell phones in this manner. She was emailed earlier this morning about this uniform budget by the HR/IT person. Very strange if this is a coincidence. But if its not, A. Can employer…

How do you advocate for yourself in the workplace? I tried to advocate for myself and this is how it went. I’m (25 f) and a housing case manager at a non profit. I help veterans experiencing homelessness get placed into housing. For context on what I do: I help clients find housing, pay for security deposits/applications, assist with utility bills, refer them to employment services/services to help claim disability or SSI. I also try to slowly get them to start contributing towards their rent and discuss saving money. When I tried to advocate for myself this is what happened: I enjoy what I do and my manager is super supportive. However, when I asked at my year mark for a raise, I was told the company does not do that. I was extremely frustrated and expressed that to my manager. I told him that I find it hypocritical that…

Some company policies are so stupid that they actually deserve to be broken. For example, I've been given flack over dress code and punctuation “violations” … seems reasonable if it's common enough right? Not really, especially if they're monitoring our bathroom breaks. Which makes me curious, what are some of the worst policies you've encountered or caught wind of?

I've worked in retail/restaurant jobs for about 20 years, working and living in South Florida. I'm almost 40 and don't have anything to show for all my hard work. I've been struggling lately and I'm interested to know how I would go about looking for a union job. Are there any I can start in, with the experience I have, or no experience in another field, here in Miami? What's the best way to search for union jobs?

I work as a waitress in a sushi place with the restaurant and sushi bar on the ground floor (so the customers can watch the staff members make sushi) and the back kitchen on the first floor (the place where we cook rice, prepare starters and deserts and clean dishes). That means we have to carry a lot of kitchen stuff (plates, jugs, glass etc) through a very narrow stair to navigate between ground and first floor. That’s honestly very annoying and kinda dangerous because there’s no handle whatsoever and the cooks often spill stuff on the floor (including the stairs). That’s exactly what happened, one of the cooks spilled cooked rice on the stairs : I slipped on the rice (the stairs are white…) and fell while carrying a tray of clean water jugs. They almost all broke into thousands of pieces on the floor and I managed to…

I was burned out before this, the review period before I went above and beyond for 4% raise that was really a pay cut with inflation. Still, I've gotten good to excellent performance reviews across the board. But now that they confirmed merit has no bearing on pay, I can barely bring myself to do the bare minimum. I haven't checked my email in a month. I'm stuck going between apathy and anxiety over my poor performance. My manager wants to have a meeting to discuss my decreased work quality but what's the point. Bad work pays the same as excellent. I'm anxious about losing my job (almost 5 years in this position) but I think it would hurt them more than me. I never wanted this to be my career and it would push me to make a change. The office has been chronically understaffed practically since I was…

When the RTO was announced earlier this year, there was discussions around forming a union. Since then, 11% of the workforce has been laid off, they’ve made our benefits worse, every indication is that we will likely have to forego raises again despite record high inflation, and I’m guessing when the benefit portal opens next month, there will be a significant increase in the cost placed on the employee. Given everything, and with everyone having to go into the office starting next week, I think it’s prime time for the rubber to hit the road. I have zero experience with Unions or unionization but in looking into it, it seems that joining an existing union is likely a better route than trying to form a brand new one. In looking for what may be a good fit, I found Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU). I’d encourage everyone to…