Month: November 2023

I've been working in construction and home improvement industry since the early 2000s. In 2019, I opened up my handyman business, and since then, things have steadily progressed. This past year, I made the most since opening but I don't think I can work as much as I did and continue a healthy, stress-free life. I'm always tired, I have problems with my neck, back and that's causing nerve pain. I'm also becoming extremely unmotivated not only to work for my business but even at my home. It's becoming depressing. I feel like a jerk complaining about this but sometimes it just helps to vent.. I can't bring in laborers. They are slow, don't care, usually the work is sub par, and tools become missing. I'd also hate to close the business down because most companies in my field pay extremely bad ($18-$22 per hour) when I'm making over $50-$100…

A few weeks ago I was completely blindsided by the company I had been with for 5 years when they told me my position had been eliminated due to budget cuts. The company always said how they treat each other like family and the usual bs. But when it came down to throwing half a million dollars at a nationwide advertising campaign, they chose to get rid of me to cut costs. I was the Senior Graphic Designer and was there for 5 years. There was also a Graphic Designer who was there for two years. They kept her over me because I was more expensive. Seniority and nothing but stellar reviews for 5 years meant nothing. The cherry on top was that the week they let me go, I was in the middle of refinancing my house to take care of some debt, and I had just found out…

I worked for a small tech startup with very reputable investors a few years ago and the whole thing went south. Real south. They basically decided they weren’t making a product, they were starting a religion (not being hyperbolic), and their employees were followers who had to help spread the word. It ruined quite a few people’s lives, at least for a bit. They broke people down, isolated them from colleagues and family, and tried to build them back up in the founder’s delusional image. Anyway, the company is all but done (everyone’s been let go but the CEO is pretending things are ok) and a few of us have spent this time picking up the pieces and comparing notes, emails, screen recordings (that so many of us thought we should start recording things was probably a red flag). I have been approached by some mutuals to either work on…

Isn’t it crazy how all of these companies keep laying people off like cattle being sent off to the butchers but the CEO of Accenture got over $30 million bucks in pay? It’s insane how companies can fuck over people who work so hard for many decades and then the CEOs have to make some sort of sob story as to why it’s good for the company but they still get paid a fuck ton of money even if the company’s performance isn’t “good”.

It’s been this way for me for years now. I used to be more open with my colleagues in previous jobs but got burned so many times. Now I’m reserved. Not unfriendly. I just don’t talk about really personal stuff and I stay out of office gossip, and political/religious conversations my colleagues have. I am polite, I love to help when needed, and I don’t mind the casual conversations. “What are you getting into this weekend” sort of stuff. I just don’t spill the sensitive topics. In my opinion, unless they are specifically work related, sensitive personal matters are not for the workplace. I also don’t join in the social lunches my coworkers have every day. I use my lunch to get some alone time, to decompress, read. It’s nothing personal, and I’ve explained this to them, I just need to be able to have quiet downtime to take on…

Before, we used to “meet”. That's what humans do. Now we “connect”. That's what you do with your bluetooth devices. Or “sync”, that's what you do with watches. Before we used to “employ”, now we “leverage”. There's a million other examples. Maybe I'm just too sensitive, but I can't help but feel like all of this is there to subtly take our humanity away and make us all subconsciously think of ourselves as machines. Machines that aren't supposed to get tired, burn out, never make mistakes, and will be replaced if they ever do.

Hello, I'm looking for people's perspective on this situation. I started a new job in July this year. I knew when taking on the job there would be a 4 month period of initial training where no PTO could be used. Taking me up until the end of November 2023. The training is taking place in a nearby city which is a 2 hour commute each way, 5 days per week. This has been a struggle but the job seemed worthwhile as when I'm done with this part of the training I will transition to 4 day weeks, working 9-10 hour shifts. The training academy is separate from the office back in my home city, where I will be working from come December. I emailed my to be manager from the main office looking to take 5 days PTO in April 2024. They took about a week to get back…

So we have an all-hands meeting. They serve dinner. It’s great. Got into the presentation, and it came to light that last week, they did a “spin the wheel” event with prizes in HR. Mind you, this is a massive company with hundreds of employees. Some don’t work near HR. (Like a mile walk on our campus). Come to find out, people were winning all-expenses paid trips across the USA to ski. Steak dinners in our fanciest restaurant, ski gear, and more. Thousands of dollars worth of prizes. Except no one knew about it unless you went into HR that day. Not many people do; why would they?! So it was almost a gift to themselves or the random one-off employee. Everyone was heated—especially the graveyard shift. TLDR: HR did a raffle and didn’t tell anyone about it. Won the prizes for themselves when it was “company-wide”