Author: Olivia

I had a friend as a teenager who attested to himself not being rich and that his parents were simply people who worked hard. He told me that his father had failed all of his A-Levels (British university entry qualifications) and that his mother had been forced to leave school at 13 and go to work in her parents' shop. They are now upper middle-class. I checked his father's LinkedIn profile and it turns out he went to private secondary school before studying further to become an independent financial advisor somehow, though no university is mentioned. I don't know anything about his father's parents but to be able to go to private secondary school implies some kind of wealth to begin with. Also, he hired his wife who dropped out of school at 13 in a salaried role at his business. I'm in my early 20s. I'm frustrated. It's not…

A few weeks ago I asked my work if I could work fully remote so that my wife and I could move out state to not only escape increasingly unlivable pricing, but to be near family in the wake of my soon to be first kid. They have officially denied it with something along the lines of “if we let one person do it, we have to let them all do it.” And I'm just thinking “let them all do it then??” Currently, their policy has us coming into the office every Monday + the first Tuesday of the month. They recently changed it starting July and we will need to be in the office for a mandatory 2 days a week. Typical arbitrary reasons like 'cooperation' and 'culture.' Except what do I get for making a 22 mile (one way) commute to the office? I sit down with my…

So my boss is bad at excel. Put simply she doesn’t know the difference between “rounding error” and “error made while rounding” and asked me to “fix it” So I told her that sometimes it feels like she’s the kind of person who would walk into a Wendy’s and ask for a lawnmower. She said it shows lack of entrepreneurial creativity that I didn’t source a lawnmower for resale or develop a burger shaped like a lawnmower. My reply was “if I were a Wendy’s employee and left my cashiers station to drive over to Home Depot, bought a lawn mower and came back to sell it, the customer would have already gone to Home Depot and I’d have been fired for abandoning the register. If a manager did that they’d be fired by the franchise owner. If a franchise owner did that they’d be fined by corporate for being…

Years ago I was 30 and looking for 2nd shift work so I could finish my degree in the daytime. I got hired as a material handler at a light industry company. The pay was like $8.50/hr which was sadly considered kind of good in 1995 for a low-skilled job. And I think there was a $.50 shift differential. I'd been out of work for a few weeks so I was desperate and dead broke. The company was somewhat well known because it was family-owned and the founder had died of lung cancer. So the company had a no smoking policy for all employees, even off the clock. Talk about “we're like a family here!” This was so controversial it got the attention of 60 Minutes, who did a story on the place. But by the time I started, new owners had taken over and did away with that policy.…

Just got back from circle k, they're doing a sales competition (location that sells the most cookies gets a bonus) Cookies aren't so expensive that it's a problem to buy, but they're gas station cookies–how much could it have cost to make these in bulk? Just frustrated that the majority of the profit from selling the cookies goes to shareholders and directors. They didn't bake the cookies, they aren't selling the cookies, they just own the company and told their workers “if you try harder, you *might* get paid more”. Everybody works harder except the people at the top and only a couple of people who are working hard gets some small share of the profit generated by working harder. it's frustrating but I still bought the cookies at the end of the day, what can I do as a customer to directly help the workers and not the shareholders?

I work as a PM for a project based company. Company's revenue has been trippled this year from past two years but same no.of people are working. Therefore everyone is overworked and unhappy. Now my for my project only me and my boss are working. I work more that 50 hrs a week due to my 8.45 hrs working everyday. I give my 100% when I am at work and try to do as much as tasks within the day. But due to high workload, I am not able to complete all the tasks. My boss wants me to work overtime and on weekends. He is like my happy days are over and I should constantly be overworked and brain drained. He makes me guilty for not staying back after work hours.As a PM the work I do everyday is mostly about solving problems of the project which is time…

29F, I’ve been supporting myself since I turned 18 and got thrown out of the house for standing up to my dad. I managed to finish my final months of high school and graduate from my aunt’s couch but I went straight into the working force, deciding I had very few options with no guidance. I have worked at least 40 hours a week since 2012, very rarely was I unemployed for long periods of time and often I had two jobs at once just to pay the bills and have small necessities in life. Yet at this point I can’t afford an apartment with a stove or a kitchen sink. My car was once my freedom but now the payment and insurance is a necessary evil to get me to and from a job to pay for said car and housing. I felt like I was finally ready to…

Yesterday, I was told “stay busy today! There's x, y, and z to do! If you finish everything come find me and I'll give you more stuff” meanwhile, you go to another department and they're just chilling doing work as it comes. No micromanagement, everyone works cohesive with 0 issues. Like. Stop treating us like children, if there's nothing to do, I'm going to take a breather.