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…*

Feel like this song still resonates today and amazingly make decades ago. I think we all need Tracy Chapman back and not sure how no long knows this song overlayed with a video montage of the current state of affairs, like one guy spending 1/2 billion dollars to run ads, AI data centers, inflation, lack of access to medical access, wars, corruption, the E-list, you know, the people who got away with it, more corruption, massively job loss, farmers going bankrupt, Flock, American's not allowed to protest, social media blocking accounts. I think, Chapman's song is one that every one can get behind. So internet, do you thing because a revolution sounds like a Vote!

And if you want to downvote, please listen to song before you do and I will happily accept it.

She is a real gem and I wish this came back on the charts.

"Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

Tracy Chapman - Talkin' bout a Revolution

Litigation turns human trauma, loss, and injustice into sterile legal questions to be deliberated over, dissected, and dismissed.

It is a deeply dehumanizing process.

A traumatic workplace experience becomes a chronology,

A taped conversation you tape to prove the abuse becomes an exhibit,

A genuine complaint becomes a question of statutory protection,

A deposition where you reiterate the retaliatory admissions from manager after manager, a fulfillment of elements of Fed. R. Evid. 901(b)(1),

A ruined career opportunity becomes a debate over causation and legal standards.

That process is necessary. Courts must assess the record. But, a legal record can never convey the true cost of speaking up. The true toll that retaliation takes from the victim. The internalized sorrow from watching systems, people, and institutions repeatedly ignore and invalidate what happened to you.

It cannot capture the uncertainty, the loss of trust, the anxiety, or the fear of watching a situation work against you and realize that it was designed to all along.

It cannot capture the immense effort required to keep functioning while processing the betrayal of watching an organization—one that promised in its policies to protect you—treat you as the problem for years just to protect itself.

And then watching the legal system (which is already statistically favors the employers in disputes), do exactly what you feared it might do all along.

The Aftermath Never Ends: The endless hours spent reconstructing events, preserving records, learning complex court procedures, and trying to explain to people why an experience that looks simple from the outside has utterly consumed your life and infected how you view literally everything else big and small. Every interaction and outlook permanently tainted, poisoned, ruined.

That's Institutional Betrayal and Organizational Harm. Being Retaliated against by FedEx made me an expert on the topic.

A topic of systematic abuse, harm, and emotional scarring that I wish I never understood yet here I am with full clarity on the horrid topic thanks to what all I have experienced at their hands.

Litigation isn't just about a single promotion decision or constructive discharge. It is about how agonizing it is for an individual to challenge a powerful institution while simultaneously forced to learn the complex rules of the system in which that challenge must be made. All the while attempting to mend together a fractured mind, a shattered worldview, and a broken heart facing world you thought you understood one way only to learn its inverted alter is the real monster you need to push against.

I got hired at a retail job earlier this month to get back on my feet after a super rough stretch ever since a July car accident (someone ran into me) caused a HORRIBLE domino effect of being stuck at home ( I’m talking over 2 months stuck home) no income, super late bills, and more annoying stuff that will take to long to explain it all.

I completed most of the onboarding, but due to my situation, I didn't have a physical ID and at some point within the past year I had lost my Social Security card. I got a new ID on Tuesday the 20th and ordered a replacement Social Security card on Thursday the 22nd. Legally, employers are required to accept the official Social Security card receipt as a valid List C document for I-9 Documentation forthe first 90 days of employment. Not sometimes, not maybe, LEGALLY!

I waited all weekend for the store manager to return from vacation today so he could finish entering me into the system (my ID was entered before the weekend started). One weird thing he never gave me a schedule at any point he said I need to be fully in the system first to get a schedule. When I called him an hour ago to tell him I have my official social security card replacement “Reciept” he tells me, “We had to terminate you." He claimed it was due to federal law and a missed system deadline.

Shit is straight cap🧢so many red flags. The other employees and managers including the store manager himself made it seem like he was the only person who could enter me into the system, yet he was completely unreachable on vacation this weekend (not my problem) all the way until today. Also he left no other managers to atleast process my documents while he was gone. Also the email address he gave me on Thursday to send my receipt bounced back as a invalid email address💀basically while he was gone for “vacation” this weekend he let my onboarding profile time out while he was away. Then used some shit excuse like I took too long.

He told me I have to reapply…The absolute dumbest thing I’ve ever heard why the fuck would I reapply? Not to mention for a company this big across the U.S there’s an awful lot of red flags, the offer letter had no pay rate, no employment status or anything that normal offer letters should have. Also i actually had to ask him what the pay rate was because it was not listed on the indeed job posting and no pay rate listed in the offer letter or any of the onboarding emails, I needed money severely and desperately so I took the first job that wanted to hire me.

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?

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!

...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?

People making $100k more than me boasting about how they use AI for every email so that they don’t sound rude—what happened to social skills? Using AI for employee rankings…where did any of us consent to that? “Just use AI” whenever there’s a complex issue to be discussed… why?

It’s so distracting and time consuming and I don’t get it whatsoever. It’s also insulting.

Also… how do they reconcile being so reliant* on AI for everything with the continued RTO mandates. Like, are we in the future or not? Clowns..

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?

I’m 29. “Your 20s is supposed to be your foundation” is a lie. I worked two jobs to pay off my debt(should’ve filed bankruptcy). I graduated college last year with a degree in computer engineering and I can’t find a job. I spent 5 years in school for this. I worked overnights at a warehouse and worked as a server to cater around my school schedule. I have nothing to show for it.

I have very little dating experience because most people socialize on the weekends and I was working. I missed out on a lot of social events. Now I work a job that doesn’t even require a degree. I have the same job prospects as an 18 year old with a H.S diploma.

I had an interview to work as a network engineer. Got into the final round(4 rounds of interviews), they chose another candidate. I don’t know I’m just speechless at this point. Unfortunately I see why younger GenZ would rather not try at all or they can just become streamers and try to generate some sort of income.

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.

Our office introduced a new employee engagement system where managers track how much everyone contributes during meetings.

Apparently being quiet means you're not engaged enough, even if you have nothing relevant to add.

We had our weekly meeting today and it was ridiculous. People kept repeating what others had already said, asking questions they knew the answers to and adding random comments just to get noticed.

A meeting that normally takes 20 minutes lasted almost an hour.

My manager called it one of our most productive meetings yet. I genuinely don't know what these people are smoking.

"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.