Author: Olivia

The sentiment has slowly shifted thanks to capitalism. You want food in your belly and a roof over your head? It's not enough to get your act together and do the right thing- You have to be doing it BETTER than someone else consistently, or in other words: doing better than others has become new “the right thing to do”.

Most people spend around 11 hours daily from Monday to Friday in work or work related tasks like getting ready and commuting. Then you have 2 days where you have to shove in all your hobbies and responsibilities and then the cycle starts anew. You are supposed to do this for 40-45 year. Then you get a small pension and if you are lucky you then have 20-30 years of free time during which your health and energy continuously deteriorates. If we get 4 working days and 3 free days every week and 6 weeks of vaccation instead of 4 or 5 we would have an actuay life and still be 90% as prodictive as we are with 5/2 days and just 4 or 5 weeks of vaccation. This model would be a life – what we have now is just a grind. I dont blame the people ripping of…

I’m 25 and I work at a coffee shop. I’ve been making coffee for eight years now—I’ve worked at specialty cafes and I’ve worked at franchise locations. Right now I’m at another franchise location. It’s not the highest paying place I’ve worked (I make minimum wage, $7.25) but the tips are really good. $30-80/shift. After having spent some time in this line of work, I’ve developed a sense of pride for it. I feel like I understand the job and it’s general philosophy really well, and I enjoy being a pleasant part of someone’s day. As a general rule, I always strive to do my best, but I especially try to go above and beyond in this job, especially since I can make more tips that way, too. Anyways, the owner of this franchise is completely removed from the process and only has a minimal understanding of how her business…

This happened on Monday morning and it's been stewing in my brain since then. I'm a VP in my profession and I just came from a staff meeting with my peers and my boss and boss's boss and a new consultant we are hiring for a specific study to be done. I just got back from a camping trip in a northern US location that is completely off grid ( a truly wonderful experience if you are looking to disconnect from our lifestyle of total connectivity). Unfortunately since I was disconnected till that moment I was not read up on the reason for the meeting. I was really more of a spectator at this point to a completely meaningless and reprehensible project. The context of the meeting was to hire an outside consultant group to create a study that would show the true negative costs to the employer and employers…

So after the Biden admin promised to cancel some student loans, lots of folks cried foul. They said it was robbing the poor to pay for the poor choices of the rich. If you have student loans, that was a choice you made. Pay them back! Here's the thing they don't understand: Many if not most borrowers did NOT make any such choice. Here's my story, and it's the same basic story I've heard over and over again from folks with undergrad student loans: Before college, my parents told me that they would be able to help pay for college. I took out a single loan for a manageable amount of money, and that was it. After college, I went to pay back that loan and behold! I discovered my parents had taken out hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans in my name to pay for my college. They…

That's it. I've done it in the past and all it did was tire me out mentally and physically.

So I've been working this job for a while, maybe a bit under 5 months. I've had no issues with the job, been told I do great by management, am liked by customers, etc. I've been talked to about an issue once, which I can easily explain away as a miscommunication/misunderstanding; basically I didn't know who the owner was and that pissed him off. Not that I was rude to him at all! My manager even ended that conversation thanking me for being mature and not taking anything personally about the interaction. This, I can't help but take a little personally. I got fired for picking up my water bottle. Let me explain, I had worked a shift, went home, and was on my way out the door somewhere, when I realized I had packed everything I needed except my water bottle, which I had left at work. No biggie,…

I am a director at my organization, and I am constantly busy 24/7. Multitasking is my strong suit, so I take on many different projects and do a ton of work for the VP and the director beside me. I'm a team player, and I enjoy leading. Today the CEO told me that not only does she have no idea what I'm working on, but she has no idea how I fill my time. She said that her perception is that my time is not filled, and that she never hears my name. She said that when she thinks of me, she doesn't see the impact I'm having on the organization and never hears about anything I do. I am completely taken aback and sickened by this. I give my all 24/7, even outside of regular hours. I also help people from other teams because again, I'm a team player.…

Little story about the time I worked with a bully in an office for a national non-profit, and how I used covid to land me one helluva better job. One woman in particular focused on me intensely. She was very two- faced. And it was over the pettiest, and most innocuous shit. She did it to take the focus off her and her lying about her time on the clock and other shady shit she was doing. The office i worked in, they leased out an office in a huge office building, i was alone. Huge office with like 5 other smaller office-rooms in it, but I was alone. Everyone “worked” from home. I was not allowed to because someone had to be there incase someone came in or a package needed to be signed for. In the 8 months I worked there, 3 times did a package needing a…