THAT'S IT. YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!!!!! THANK YOU TO EVERYONE HERE WHO GAVE SOMEONE A THUMBS UP OR ANYTHING. WHEREVER YOU FROM, YOU ARE A PART OF THIS! THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH!

"Marx explained that social thinking changes under the impact of an objective crisis. And that's why many of you are in the room today." - from David North's lecture at Wayne State University on October 20.

...the biggest scam of the world is convincing everyone to work for sixty years straight, sacrificing their youth, dreams, time with their loved ones and personal freedom, all while being told that one day after decades of labor they'll finally get to enjoy life. the reality? by the time they retire they're in their seventies. their bodies are tired, health problems have begun and the energy they once had is long gone. what's left is only a short window to live freely. but it's not true freedom anymore. you're shackled by age, medication and regret. all those moments with family, friends and past have gone. traded for a paycheck and when you finally have time, you're too old to enjoy it. that's the real cost of a lifetime of work. remember that time is the most valuable currency and trading it all for work without living fully is the real loss.

So lately I've been fed posts across many different subs by the algorithm that are all trying really hard to make the riots going on in multiple countries look evil. I've checked out the profiles posting these and they're obvious propoganda bots. I'm pretty sure a bunch of the commenters are too. They really don't want the americans to get any ideas it seems.

But what makes me post about this to this sub and not r/conspiracy is that when I commented on a post about employees defending what looked like a BestBuy a few people got on my case. I basically said that I'm only paid half the living wage and that if I were in their situation I'd go on break in a safe place. It seemed to bewilder some of the people in the sub that I wouldn't risk my life for my employers.

So I was wondering, am I the weird one? Would you risk your life to defend your place of work? I suspect I already know the answer considering the name of this sub. What would you do if your job was being looted?

Something I've noticed in workplace culture, is how often managers seem to believe that being in a position of authority automatically makes their judgment superior to that of their employees.

There's this underlying assumption that managers are always right, employees need constant correction, and questioning management is somehow a sign of disrespect or unprofessionalism.

But I've noticed something ironic: the people who are constantly preaching accountability, professionalism, and receptiveness to feedback are sometimes the worst at receiving criticism themselves.

I think a lot of this comes down to something called status threat.

In other words it's easy to scream and give feedback from your ivory tower seat-- and a lot harder to receive it. They may fear that too much feedback will circulate back to their own bosses and threaten their own seat.

When people move up the workplace hierarchy, they often gain more than just a higher salary. They gain privileges, flexibility, decision-making power, and a certain level of deference from those beneath them. Over time, I think some managers begin to associate these privileges with their personal worth and professional identity.

They start believing that their position has earned them unquestioned trust and respect, rather than recognizing that trust and respect are things they should continue to cultivate.

So when an employee offers constructive criticism, questions an inefficient policy, or challenges a decision, the manager doesn't necessarily evaluate the feedback on its merits. Instead, they perceive it as a threat to their authority.

Suddenly, the conversation isn't about whether the employee has a valid point. It's about whether the employee is being insubordinate, difficult, or unwilling to accept feedback.

It's almost as though managers expect humility from their employees while treating humility as something beneath their own position.

I also think there's a broader structural problem here. Managers are incentivized to preserve their status within the organization. They receive higher pay, greater privileges, and opportunities for advancement, so naturally, some become invested in defending the very hierarchy that benefits them.

This can create a culture of bootlicking, where managers become more concerned with pleasing upper management and demonstrating their own relevance than actually supporting the employees they're supposed to lead.

And sometimes that means micromanaging, enforcing arbitrary rules, or insisting on being involved in every decision because allowing employees too much independence might make their own role feel less essential.

The irony is that I think a genuinely good manager should be comfortable making themselves less necessary in their employees' day-to-day work by developing their independence and competence.

I'm not arguing that every manager is like this, or that employees are always right. Obviously, management involves making difficult decisions, and sometimes employees need correction.

But having the authority to make a decision is not the same as having the wisdom to make a good one.

Being someone's boss doesn't automatically make you more intelligent, more ethical, or more deserving of respect than the people you supervise.

If anything, I think the more power someone has over other people's livelihoods, the MORE accountable they should be to criticism, not less.

Has anyone else noticed this contradiction? Why do workplaces place so much emphasis on employees being receptive to feedback while often giving managers a free pass to be defensive, controlling, or dismissive when the feedback goes in the opposite direction?

There should be a requirement for a physical “punch in” option. In 35 years of working, this is the first job that hasn’t had a keypad, desktop option, or a reliable timekeeping application.

It can take 15 minutes to “punch in.” I have to log into an iPad, which might need to update and ask for password reset. I then have to log in to three systems just to open the timekeeping app.

I’ll be present and available to work, but not able to be paid without texting a manager (meaning I then have to watch my time card for mistakes) on a regular basis. It’s very frustrating.

I’ll quickly preface this by saying by most work standards, my job is fine.

I’ve been in the retail industry for over 20 years. The company I currently work for is pretty high end and often deals with, unfortunately, the super wealthy elites with way too much money and far too few manners. Many of them clearly have a superiority complex and look down on anyone in retail, despite the fact that I have valuable knowledge of the product they need, and they don’t.

As a small victory, and a way of balancing things out, I’ve stopped calling people by titles. No “sir” or “madame”. I’ll still be polite and not in any way rude or disrespectful, but to me now “sir” has connotations of subservience. These elites already treat us with barely concealed contempt, so I’m not going to pander to their ego by using a title. If they want to be called sir, they can call me it first.

I know it’s a minor thing, and I’m sure many people will find it silly or think I’m wrong. But it’s actually helped my mental health at work.

A little background, I'm returning (begrudgingly) to an old job because I was recently laid off and need some sort of income. I left for multiple reasons, but just today I was reminded of the biggest reason of all: inability to be professional.

The app this place uses for scheduling has an internal group chat. I checked the group messages this morning and the owner of the business fully terminated one of the other employees and put her on blast for everyone to see. Explaining the reasons for his decision and calling them unprofessional, ending it with a clarification to not use the company as a reference in the future.

This has to violate some sort of privacy law, right? I'm so pissed that he just put her on blast in front of the whole company, it honestly feels like some sort of fear tactic to keep other employees in line.

...the biggest scam of the world is convincing everyone to work for sixty years straight, sacrificing their youth, dreams, time with their loved ones and personal freedom, all while being told that one day after decades of labor they'll finally get to enjoy life. the reality? by the time they retire they're in their seventies. their bodies are tired, health problems have begun and the energy they once had is long gone. what's left is only a short window to live freely. but it's not true freedom anymore. you're shackled by age, medication and regret. all those moments with family, friends and past have gone. traded for a paycheck and when you finally have time, you're too old to enjoy it. that's the real cost of a lifetime of work. remember that time is the most valuable currency and trading it all for work without living fully is the real loss.

I work in a dying media industry and I pretty much stay for the flexibility, because I honestly don't belong anymore.

I can mostly come and go as I please as long as my work is done when it needs to be done.

I still like the core of the job, but I've realized over the last 5 years or so that I've aged differently than my co-workers. As I've gotten older, I WANT to stay home after work. I don't want to host events, or go to non-profit fundraisers, or spend money on concerts and restaurants and sporting events so I can say I had a jam-packed schedule over the weekend.

These people thrive off running around and showing off their busy lifestyles. I don't have the energy for it (or the money).

Somehow they manage to watch a fuck-ton of television and movies despite their busy schedules while I prefer to spend my weekends doing fall yard work.

I can tell they find me very perplexing.

I don't know...it's really nagging at me lately how my job is so right for me in some ways but so utterly wrong for me in others.

Anyone else in a similar situation?

When companies publish codes of conduct, anti-harassment rules, and EEO reporting procedures, employees assume those documents mean something. That if we document mistreatment, report it through designated channels, and use the company’s own HR terminology, we expect to be protected at our jobs and in court.

My experience at FedEx Office eventually led me to federal litigation (Sanders v. FedEx). Representing myself pro se, I learned appellate procedure and civil rights law under extreme pressure. In doing so, I uncovered a systemic problem that reaches far beyond my individual case: What happens when an employer’s policy language is broader and more accessible than the strict "magic words" required by some federal courts?

The "Magic Words" Trap & The Circuit Split

HR policies tell ordinary workers to report "harassment" & "hostile work environment" through EEO Compliance channels many (like FedEx) categorize this conduct under "anti-discrimination" policy. Most workers aren't employment lawyers—they don't know which specific phrasing a judge might later demand. They simply describe what is happening, reliance on policy definitions, and ask management/HR to intervene.

In my case, I submitted 6 internal complaints detailing targeted harassment that disproportionately impacted Black employees. Yet, when I faced severe retaliation—including a manager explicitly stating, "In order for me to approve you for any promotions, the HR stuff, that has to STOP" — FedEx argued (5th Circuit panel affirmed) that my initial reports were not "protected activity" because they lacked explicit legalistic racial framing in pre-adverse complaint.

This creates a dangerous circuit split:

The 5th Circuit requires employees to use formal legal phrasing in internal complaints to receive retaliation protection.

The 4th, 8th, and 9th Circuits (Okoli, Ogden, GoDaddy) apply a totality-of-circumstances approach, holding that reporting misconduct through designated EEO channels in reliance on company policy satisfies protected opposition.

The Human Cost

Litigation translates human trauma into sterile legal questions. Complaints become issues of statutory coverage; a destroyed career becomes an issue of causation. No court opinion can measure the agonizing uncertainty, loss of trust, and mental toll of watching an institution ignore its own promises and treat the victim as the problem.

An employer's own terminology and reporting structures must inform what an employee reasonably communicated. When corporate policies encourage reporting but courts penalize employees for using company language, the system isn't protecting workers—it's insulating employers.

hello, so i’m a 1:1 caregiver for a woman in a facility, i’m more of a companion since the staff there does all the changes, showers etc. i mostly just do feedings and companionship. i booked my trip to visit family 11/26,11/27, 11/30 and 12/01. i already book my trip due to the flights price going up since the holidays are coming up. i submitted my request yesterday. it’s a month in advance & im only asking for 4 days. i just hope they approve it. I know it might be a problem since im thanksgiving day. i’m curious to know what’s the policy at your job for vacation?

Maybe not unpopular, I don’t know. But I’ll explain.

We pass out flyers, get people to agree to a quote (insurance btw) and I don’t see a dime. The sales people get all the financial credit.

So why would I be asked to attend festivals, and such, for marketing when I’m not even slightly in marketing? Why would I sacrifice my weekends to attend events I don’t get compensated for beyond regular pay (not even over time because our boss will just have us make up for the extra hours by taking that time off on a weekday.) Or, how about I just work my normal hours during the week, and stay home with my husband on the weekend, instead of pretending to be enthusiastic about spending my personal time with people who don’t give a shit about my well being.

No thanks. There is zero initiative so I won’t be doing it.

While I’m at it, I’m also not going be “performing” for publicity on the company’s social media pages. I was hired to give my time, to do a specific set of tasks so the business can actually operate, in exchange for pay. Then go home. It’s not a circus. I’m not your monkey.

I’m in my early 30s, have a technical background, and completed further qualifications to become a master electrician. Over the past several years, I’ve worked in various industrial environments, most recently in a position with management responsibilities.

What affected me most wasn’t necessarily the technical work itself, but rather the workplace culture. I’ve repeatedly encountered environments characterized by derogatory behavior, racist remarks, a lack of self-awareness, and constant interpersonal conflicts.

At the same time, I often found corporate culture deeply contradictory. Companies would emphasize values like respect, openness, and teamwork, yet these principles were rarely reflected in everyday interactions. Much of it felt like a performance of professionalism rather than genuine professionalism.

On top of that, there was the constant sensory overload from noise and interruptions, along with time pressure and significant responsibility. Eventually, the combination of these factors took such a toll on my mental health that I was unable to work for an extended period.

After recovering, I tried making a fresh start with a different employer, hoping things would improve. Unfortunately, I encountered many of the same problems. I’m now unemployed and trying to figure out where to go from here.

I do genuinely enjoy technical and analytical work. However, I’ve developed a strong aversion to the working environments I’ve experienced in the trades and industrial sector.

I’m now wondering whether I should simply acknowledge that this career path, regardless of my technical abilities, isn’t right for me and pursue an entirely different direction through university studies.

The alternative would be to build on my existing qualifications and experience while finding a role outside the traditional industrial environment. The problem is that I struggle to identify specific career paths where I could make meaningful use of my electrical engineering background without ending up in similar working conditions.

There’s also the uncertainty of whether changing industries would actually solve anything, or whether the same organizational dysfunction and interpersonal problems exist everywhere.

On one hand, I’m reluctant to walk away from years of professional development and the relatively good earning potential that comes with it. On the other hand, continuing down a career path that has already seriously affected my mental health, purely for financial reasons, doesn’t seem particularly rational either.

I’d be interested to hear from people who’ve faced a similar situation. Did you make a complete career change, or did you manage to apply your existing qualifications in a different working environment? And most importantly, did the change genuinely improve your quality of life?

I've been working at a company for a few weeks, and I'm struggling with its working culture.

The company handles client projects and requires employees to track billable and non-billable hours. Employees are expected to account for practically every hour of their working day, with no gaps in their timesheets, documenting what they've done hour by hour.

I've worked at several companies before, but I've never experienced this level of monitoring, especially in an administrative role where tasks don't necessarily come in a continuous stream. I have ADHD, and this kind of micromanagement makes it difficult for me to feel comfortable at work.

What's worse is hearing management make comments like, "If you don't like it, just leave," or "Do you want me to fire you?"

The problem is that I've been unemployed for months, finding a suitable job has been difficult, and I need the income to contribute to my family's household expenses. I've also had several short employment periods over the past year, and I'm worried that leaving another job too soon will make my CV look bad.

I'm considering staying for at least 12 months while looking for something better, but I'm struggling with how to cope without letting the stress affect my health.

I am still on probation, is there anyways that I can cope with that?

Yeah, I’m mostly bitchin’ but Bear 🙃 with me, I’m new here.

Almost every day a new story is published, sorry for the need to scroll.

Greetings and welcome to my bucket place - a place where I drop my heavies first and my pebbles last. I’m respecting the core values in everything you will read here. Call it cleansing or just rage, I’ll do my best to illustrate as funny as I know, my experience working with a world furniture manufacturer, let’s call it Steeworks. ‘Cause funny enough, it still works although it was acquired recently by a smaller fish from a Mississippi town from Iowa.

I started at Steelworks round about 10 years ago when the big honcho was Jimbo, luckily I got transferred quickly to good ol’ Europe. Here began a decade of adventures in the marketing world.

… and all will be continued in the next days, I promise. I’ll make sure to move this project forward with foreseeable success.

*To be continued…*

**Part II**

Around 2015 in their infinite wisdom, the top bread of leaderpoop decided to lease an expensive piece of residential in the middle of Munich and make a copy of mother ship from Great Rapids, the LINC (short for Leaderpoop and Interference).

The gargantuan effort completed in summer of 2017 was a great motivation for different teams to receive and spend budgets on business-unrelated items. Prior to the move in the big city, the dream teams would land in the airport and a shuttle will do like an hour on autobahn to a village like city, close to the border with Austria, Tulpeheim, where there were some offices, some production lines and a bunch of proud people working to serve. Because of this not many people from Great Rapids would travel here but when the big buildings were open in Munich, the interest in travelling “to meet the colleagues” suddenly peaked.

Everyone was talking about cross-pollination, creating a community of practice, cohorts, team cohesion, privileges, global collaboration, smart tactics, agile governance - short for a masters and servants game.

I landed in Munich as part of the marketing team in the middle of 2016 and my first months were spent into navigating a chaos of google slides with hundreds of iterations from bathroom stickers to documents ment for print, online, internal and external use. In the middle of this hurricane I started to meet the local leaderpoop team and decided to keep a daily diary with how everything went, the decision that were taken, and especially the efforts done to cover up their poop.

Going over my entries I realize now that many if the decisions made back then, would influence the outcome of today, many people were brought just to play second violin for a particular leaser, and every member of top brass was actually on the look out for political power and not to make the best thinking for economical decisions.

Looking back on those first days in Munich, the situation can be similar to the beginning of a start-up. There was funding available, everyone was excited, no one had any idea what to implement, every other hire was seen as the lord and savior, but flopped rather quickly. Sometimes it felt like everyone in the leaderpoop team had a serious case of FOMO.

*To be continued…*

**Part III**

And off we went!
It was a glorious summer day when the LINC got open. So naturally, a lot of people from the US traveled to Europe with some spending more than two weeks in Munich, doing important cohesion work with the team members. But what is work without a bit of fun? I’m not talking about lunches and dinners though. I was invited of a Friday evening in a high class club. On the WhatsApp group shared in advance the buzz of this event was growing. The girls were sharing outfit ideas, boys were obviously boys, while the director that came with the idea of going out, a Brad Pitt lookalike, would throw memes with “approved, submit to payroll”. He drove a black rented Porsche, wore a Hawaiian shirt, flip-flops and shorts and smoked a cigar. Hollywood.

The night was extremely intense as the champagne would flow on our table every hour. Brad Pitt poured generously and made moves to literally every girl at the table. Finally, after midnight he and one of the newly hired hotshots, disappeared briefly. When both returned, but not at the same time, the guy was exuberant and told everyone “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”.

Next Monday, during an important strategy session, were we mapped the campaigns for the rest of the year, he “accidentally” opened a folder where he had images from another party that happened during the weekend. I swear, it felt like a gag from The Office. In the pictures, well… it was the whole leaderpoop team. Apparently they all went to an Alps mountaintop retreat for two days of team bonding. The business meeting illusion took like five-six shots, then the images described what happened more after. You don’t get to see every day, the whole team sunbathing. Nor drinking directly from the bottles. Nor acting as spoilt teenagers, bragging about everything. Our personal Brad Pitt was proud and stood tall, as he drenched everyone under the table with his heavy drinking. “It seems my liver is still young” he smiled and winked to the new hotshot he disappeared Friday night. “I’m in the shape of my life” he boasted, making our new colleague blush.

We heard stories afterwards. Rented cars, penthouses, easy women, private parties, and expensive chefs brought to cook exotic dishes. And Oktoberfest was only one and a half months away, and already there were plans for encores.

*To be continued…*

**Part IV**

The Local Sales Team.

With Oktoberfest around the corner and the well-known opportunity for other leaders to visit Europe, the leaderpoop team came up with a plan to host an event in the week before the start of the Beer festival. It was certainly not cheap as all hotels are booked way in advance for the festival and for each change in your bookings you get charged accordingly. Add the numbers with the first-class tickets and business-class tickets bought with little time to spare, but these are just small details.

Again, the mighty marketing team together with the brand positioning one, and mixed media production team somehow came up with a plan and after countless hours of meetings, back and forth, escalating and proofing assets of various types, I was part of a three man team presenting our product to the leaderpoop team and the sales teams across Europe and Gulf region. I remember entering this large room on the top floor and having the feeling that something was afoot in the air. For sure was not the multicultural mix, nor the obvious fragmentation of the group. The whole leaderpoop team was placed in front, in the best furniture the company could offer. A bit on the side, some colleagues from the US forced to sit in some high chairs, like some kind of trophies. On the sides, UK, Spain, and some other directors serving the rest of the world. In the middle, the French and the Germans, split apart by a row of tables with snacks and drinks. The Germans were pissed and their posture was passive aggressive. My two colleagues presented their bit in the meeting, I was left with the part where we covered European dealerships and integration of their customers in the event. I was about to end, when the German Sales Director rudely interrupted me and asked: “Ok but when is the party?”. I have heard stories about the local sales events ending with a big party where everyone got to be a teenager again. My answer was not convincing because I was asked again: “How much did you budget for the party?”. I tried to avoid the question when his voice boomed again: “No party, no event, no sales”.

Facing this crisis, the leaderpoop team created an extraordinary committee to accommodate and accelerate the implementation of all valuable requests coming from the sales teams. What followed were two weeks spent in daily two jour meetings were the participants would come up with crazy ideas and our role was to reduce the damage on the overall budget, that was also a question, as we were given an interval not a lump sum.

Eventually all wishes came true mostly because the leaders were not ready for confrontation. They redirected a big chunk of the marketing budget to renting a large venue hall, catering, and hotels.

In the day of the event, a rather chubby boss like type, stormed one of the strategy meetings and loudly asked the presenter to cut it short, as he doesn’t want to have his head spinning at the party because of marketing junk. He laughed out loud when the paid speaker, a renowned author, part of the managing team of the Peter Drucker foundation tried to but fondled and answer.

Needless to say, that party was mentioned after as the biggest breakthrough of that event. The sales remained average maybe…

*To be continued…*

AI could make society richer while making human labor less necessary. But if people still need jobs to afford what the economy produces, who benefits from all that progress?

This is more than a question about automation. It is a question about who owns the systems that produce wealth, who controls them, and why our survival should depend on our economic value to someone else.

Under capitalism, most people earn a living by selling their labor, while those who own productive assets receive income from what those assets produce. This system has generated enormous wealth, but it also concentrates ownership and economic power.

AI could deepen that divide. If machines do more of the work, a greater share of the wealth could flow to those who own those systems while workers lose income and bargaining power. Even if new jobs emerge, society could become richer while many people struggle to afford what it produces.

An economy can produce abundance without making it accessible. Technology expands what we can produce but ownership and political choices help determine who benefits.

Market value has never been the same as human worth. Raising children, caring for loved ones, and supporting communities all matter, even when markets don't adequately reward them. If a machine can do your job more cheaply, that changes the market value of your labor, not your value as a person.

So why should survival depend on employment?

People need food, housing, healthcare, and security. Access to these necessities should not depend entirely on whether someone can sell their labor at a price the market accepts. Work can offer purpose, connection, and independence. Society will still need people to perform difficult and essential tasks. But rewarding work and making survival conditional on it are two different things.

We could guarantee basic necessities through public services, provide income independent of employment, and broaden ownership of the systems that generate wealth. Workers and communities could have a greater say in how those systems are governed.

None of these ideas is simple. Scarcity would remain, difficult work would still need to be done, and questions about incentives, funding, freedom, and control would remain. But these challenges do not make our current arrangements inevitable or establish that private ownership and profit should remain the dominant principles governing society.

If AI makes human labor less necessary, we could spend our time inventing new jobs simply to preserve the link between work and survival. Or we could reconsider why that link exists in the first place.

We don't know how far AI will go. But we can already ask what productive success means if its benefits remain out of reach for the people who need them.

If an economy can prosper while needing less of our labor, why should our right to live securely remain conditional on providing it?

And if the economy no longer needs our labor, what do we owe it?

Perhaps the more important question is this: if our survival no longer depends on our economic usefulness, what kind of freedom could we build together?

Further reading:

The Simple Macroeconomics of AI  - Daron Acemoglu (2024).

Automation and Rent Dissipation: Implicationsfor Wages, Inequality, and Productivity  - Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo (2026).

As my dad advise me to not cause as much issue with my boss and tired to get him on your side for more leniency, I will have to break that promise and have to go talk to him (in full mandarin that I am not good at) that I ask for unpaid leave for 1 day to do other commitments like my election job and its going to be awkward.

My biggest mistake is expect my boss to actually remember I ask for a day off that is approved in writing after he forgot I am supposed to clock out early but kept me in a hour more and the team meeting that kept me an hour past my shift which I am annoyed already.

If my unpaid leave got denied, then I am screwed and will lose out on my massive 1 day payday and will lose a good amount of respect for my boss. I work 6 days a week 42 hours a week (lunch is unpaid), can I at least move my day off earlier?