I'm not Indian / Hindu, but we have a large number of employees from India and it's quite big presence where I live / work (in the US) and I'm thinking of throwing a small celebration (get together to mingle and order Indian sweets)

This year, Diwali falls on Thu Oct 31 and Fri Nov 1.

Thursday is Halloween and there's a big holiday party. Friday many people don't come to office so I hesitate to do it that day as we'd likely get very low turnout. Monday is the same (many work from home). Which means the celebration would be 3 days later

Is this acceptable or is it considered offensive? I know some cultural and religious celebrations must be held on a specific day and can't be postponed so checking if this is one of them

Thanks for any tips :)

I work in local government so the office doesn’t pay for parties because it’s taxpayer money. That’s fine; everybody understands that.

But management insists we have an employee appreciation party and to pay for it, they are selling merch with the government logo on it and expecting the employees to buy it. It costs $40 and only $8 of that goes to the employee party. I really don’t want to spend $40 on this but I am afraid of not looking like a team player. I am a supervisor so I’m pretty sure it’s expected that I be visibly enthusiastic about it, in words, actions, and clothing.

I just hate it. I wish we could shrug our shoulders and go “oh well let’s just not have a party.” Or I wish I could just say “here’s $10, keep the change and the merch.” No one really cares about the party outside of the senior managers and the party committee anyway, and even after selling this merch, we are all going to be expected to donate and bring food etc. Couldn’t we just not do this? It seems like a huge burden on the employees it’s meant to honor.

Do I dare not buy anything or should I just suck it up and figure that $40 (plus the inevitable donation later and the potluck contribution) is the price of having what’s otherwise a pretty nice job?

Any psychology models/reading can help navigate politics ? Like the DISC model ?
Find them utterly useless to read people and tease out their real intentions

Hello,

At the beginning of the summer I realized a co-worker, Person A, refused to speak to me. We used to be really good friends but suddenly she stopped answering any slacks or texts. We used to speak on the phone regularly. Note, we don’t live in the same state but have been work friends since college internship.

Naturally I assumed I must’ve done something to offend her in some way. I reached out about 2-3 times over the summer but to this day never received a response. It really shattered my self esteem because I assumed I must’ve done something really terrible for that type of treatment. I’m definitely the type to say something if I feel hurt. My therapist told me that I’d probably would know what I did since I’m an over analyzer and that at the end of the day I should move on since I can’t force them to speak to me.

However, I had to attend a company in person event. There, a mutual work friend, Person B, was acting weird with me and excluding some of us from activities. I didn’t think much of it since I wasn’t the only one she was being off with. This coworker is based out of the same as Person A.

After that, Person B also went ghost on me. Not sure why. For the past couple weeks I listened to my therapist and tried to move on. For context, I do not work the same type of job as Person A, so there’s never any overlap. Person B however is a peer of mine. We’ve been able to not cross paths so long given the size of the team and my specializations. However, we are now going to start working a big project that might take a number of weeks. She was assigned last minute to my work stream. I have reached out her (Person B) in the past apologizing like “hey sorry if I did anything truly wasn’t intentional.” But no response. Person B also makes me sad because we come from the same background and sometimes volunteer at similar orgs.

Im new to corporate (2 yrs not including internships) and my parents were blue collar workers. Not sure what to do/how to proceed.

Would love to hear your experiences

They are asking for business references but I have a long time family friend that really is a great reference for the particular job. We worked together as waitresses or assistant… But not currently . Is it better to leave off than include ?

What are people wearing for in person interviews these days?

She's my superior, but not my manager. But she's just a couple steps below that. See. My company has tiers, its not as simple as employee then manager. Anyways, I have a lot of experience in said industry, but I'm late to this company and I had to start at the bottom. And for whatever reason, this one girl is so unbelievably mean to me for no reason. Taking every opportunity to tell me I'm doing a bad job, when most of the time and handling just fine. Like the other day I just took over on a station, and less than a minute in she walks in and demands to know why I'm behind. When the work I'm doing takes 5 minutes before you can even see any result of my said work, so it falls on the person who I took over for. I explained this and she still demanded I do better. And this has been going on for quite a while, and I barked back, but I ignore it usually. But then today she did something idk I'm prepared to just let go. She breaks over her portion of the project we're completing together. And I tell her thank you and good job. And I hear her under her voice say "you're annoying". And at that point I detached from the situation. My plan is to go to my Head Manager and tell him I plan to go to HR about this. But, what would you do in this situation? I've also considered just pulling this person aside and addressing it directly. But I'm admitting not great with one on one confrontation and will likely mess it up. Not to mention considering I think this person has it out for me, they'll use this against me somehow.

For the record. Idk that listing the age or gender matters. But it's just something that may require context.

I have a colleague who only comes in to help with a project or task at the very end and expects full credit for their work without giving credit to the group. This has been their MO for years. They are not a manager, they are a peer.

In addition to that, they will be assigned a project by a manager and they will pass the work to someone else. They only initiate the work and then have the other person complete it, come in at the end and take credit for all the work.

Also, they are never really working unless a manager walks by. Otherwise, they are socializing or not at their station.

The manager thinks they are doing great and keeps giving them tasks and projects. I know that everyone says to go to your manager, but I would rather it not escalate.

This person would probably play the victim if I approached them directly, and I would be labeled as the bad person who only cares about credit. The credit is not the main concern. I believe that everyone should be credited for their contributions. The fact this person is not working, taking credit for other people's work, and is okay with that is the issue.

What are some tactful and non-petty ways to deal with this person?

I (F21) am an intern at a small company. My company kept having issues with 1 problem that really boiled down to communication with cliënts happening way too late in the processes, which caused pretty major delays in their schedule.

They had numerous meeting about this and since this issue is not at all relevant to what I intern for, I stayed silent. I noticed the team putting a lot of the blame on this one coworker, which I'll call coworker A. I told them that, rather than him being slow, the issue lies that coworker B contacted the client for premission way too late (basically as soon as everything was done with resting, which is bad because clients can take long to respond (i.e. a month).

I said that I think it's weird that they'd sit around and wait for a response via email instead of calling them. At first I said this to coworker B with only 1 other person around and he kinda waved off the feedback and found excuses not to call. When the issue arose again in a team setting, I mentioned it again. The boss was with us so he couldn't make the same excuses this time and did call (and got an answer immediately after 3 weeks of waiting.)

The process is much smoother now for them (not all due to my help, but calling did help.) but the coworker has now been trying to discredit my character through my hobbies. I do enjoy gaming, but this coworker is trying to paint me as a game obsessed freak when I really don't game that much at all right now (40hr/w internship + 10hr/w travel time).

I've come to the conclusion they took offense to me singling them out with our boss present and now wants to discredit me in order to disregard future feedback and slowly go back to not calling.

For the record they keeps bringing up "are you gonna game this weekend" in a way that is meant to insult and make it seem I do nothing else than sleep, work, game, repeat.

I am unsure how I should handle this. My first instinct was to socially threaten him to air the comments he makes about others when they aren't there to them in passing, forcing him to shut it or face social consequence. The problem is, is that I have spoken out my frustrations with out boss before and I'm affraid he'll retaliate in this way.

My second idea was to just go straight to our boss and mention my worries. I think it's best route in order to keep my work image intact, but I'm affraid it'll either become bigger than it is, or coworker B will use his seniority to say he didn't do anything and doesn't know what I'm on about.

I feel like not doing anything at all would eat away at my credibility in the office bit my bit and I won't be taken seriously anymore (for the record, I am quite well respected in the office by everyone generally) and I have no intention of this changing.

How would you handle this situation? I'd like to know.

Hello all. I have been observing since a very long time that I have become our bosses’ soft target for getting reprimanded for little mistakes that anyone from the team does.

Some example for the mistakes; leaving doors or windows open when AC is on, leaving the pantry sink dirty, belongings carelessly lying around, things not in their place, lights or fans on when no one is using, etc.

In event of infrastructural problems such as technical problems in PCs, printers, AC, Plumbing, etc., I am assumed to be responsible for calling up and coordinating with handymen and make sure things are getting fixed.

A brief context of our office’s set up… Team has six members currently and two bosses. I used to be a junior and had a couple of senior team members when I joined. Presently, I am the senior.

Irrespective of my seniority in this office, I have been taking all the nagging about these issues from the boss while the others are ignoring and carrying on with their work.

At one instance I have pointed out to one of the bosses that I do not throw food in the sink, therefore it’s of no use telling me personally, rather address the team collectively once and for all. While you are addressing everyone, no one but I am listening and it’s not helping.

As a senior member, I offered to convey his message to the team and he agreed. But I am still getting into these situations time and again.

My job description absolutely does not require me to do these things. No one from the team has to. But running a small studio requires collective responsibility of things and no one else but me seems to understand.

I do not understand what to do at this point anymore. Thinking of suggesting boss to segregate responsibilities formally rather than voluntary approach in such matters.

Being a senior, I now have one or two members under me and I have greater responsibilities in my project which outweigh the office’s infrastructure and logistics or keeping and eye on coworkers etiquettes.

I’m still fairly new to workplace culture and without a mentor quite confused on how to handle this situation. Any advice is highly appreciated. Thank you.

I have this co worker who frankly grosses me out! Coughly and clearing her throat constantly, burping like 5 times on a row and like it comes from her stomach, sneezes in her hand. Gross! Her hair looks messy and she looks like she just rolls out of bed in the am.

She is moody also. When she first joined the department she was really quiet and I greeted her and she was kind of cold. Didn't say bye in the end of day. Keeps her cubicle door closed. So I stopped saying jgood morning. Then she starts to say good morning but almost in a mocking sarcastic way. I say good morning back.

Other than her being my neighbor thankfully I don't have to deal with her but rarely. She talked to me the other day about an idea she had so I invited her to join me in a mtg and sent her an invite. She never accepted or declined it. So I just went to the mtg. Without her. The next day I said nothing and she says sorry she missed the mtg. I said oh I just figured u couldn't make it. She then asks what was discussed and I just gave her a general overview and then she starts giving ideas. To which I cut her mid sentence and said feel free to email so and so or set up a meeting with her directly.

Then her boss asked her to enter an order for her cost centre as I don't have access to it. She comes over to me and says actually I can do it by adding the cost ctr....I said really? I didn't think that was possible. Anyhow I said...don't worry, I will do it! Even though she could have done it quickly.

Another day the mtg room she supports was having issues with the equipment and asked her to help....she starts walking with me and then says....I am going to lunch. I sa8d...thanks for ur help! Luckily another coworker was nearby to help troubleshoot.

The next day I decided I had enough of her games and just focused on my work and didn't speak to her o= make eye contact. End of the day she comes by to wish me Have a good Thanksgiving and I said yeah you too, extra day off!

What gives? I find her behavior inconsistent

I feel like I should ignore her and go about my day....I feel she is trying to test and sabotage me.

My question is how I can climb corporate ladder?

I am currently 35 and worked so many jobs but never had a proper stable position.

I currently work in 100 employee Company in downtown Toronto as an IT Helpdesk in IT department .My job is to troubleshoot any tech issues within these 100 employees, which sometimes get stressful as we are only two people handling 100 employees. I am currently on contract as I have 2 year prior experience in IT.

The other person I work with is a senior employee and he's been in organization for for awhile. He is the one who hired me and a good person. But the problem is he keeps mentioning that I don't know the basics of servers and domains also lot of other things. But I believe that is not true what I really lack in is communication skills and handling other people. Currently taking online courses to master my craft. But they are not certificates just courses.

The other problem is I always finding myself getting my manager pissed off on something, where I work my ass of and quickly respond to all tech issues. Recently I made my manager pissed to work hybridly on friday. I requested my team to let me work from home on fridays as fridays are very slow. My team gave me permission but I decided to come to office for few important tasks and go home after the tasks are done.

My manager was in office at the time and noticed that I went home after coming for few hours. Before I left I talked to my senior employee as I directly work with him. He told me yes you can go home I'll talk to the manager.

I know I should have informed manager before leaving. But I am not in direct contact with my manager as she is very strict. And its also a thing when everything goes smoothly without trouble then nobody knows. But when the trouble comes then you start thinking (i could have should have would have) etc.

Apparently he didn't inform the manager and on monday my manager  gave me shit for leaving early on friday and i got in trouble for stealing hours.

Eventually the issue was resolved and I still counted my actual hours but I am always considered a low class employee or the one who can't do things proper.

I see other employees always seem happy and confident and chit chating all the time, leaving early for home, taking days off, going on vacations and their managers still love them. Where I found myself always begging for contract extensions and still getting shit on so many times. They can't even give me full time position as they say there is no full time position for helpdesk.

I am not very smart or cunning kind of person. I'm usually very following the tasks on hand. I realized throughout my career that I always get in trouble and struggle so much to get in good standing position where I can have more money for my offspring.

So is this normal guy can climb corporate ladder faster or am I stuck in this contract to contract lifestyle.

If someone can guide and share few tips that you used in your corporate career that would be great.

Thanks

Been working at this tech role for four years now and 3 years under my current supervisor. Lately, I've been getting comments about how I'm gonna try and take my bosses job or how I'm trying to make him look bad and get him fired. I've also received a comment about how I'm going to be the next CEO of the company in a mocking way. I've also had one coworker calling me a snake and told me at the beginning that he doesn't trust me. Yet, this same guy is making me do half of his role and acts friendly towards me when the boss is around but belittles me on Teams chat.

I'm a pretty introverted guy. I don't mingle much with coworkers. I simply clock in and do my work. I've even won employee of the quarter once with my current boss recommending me for it.

I don't want to quit yet since it's good paying job and with the tech landscape being more uncertain, I simply can't leave this stability behind. It's just I've been dreading coming into work with what seems like hostile or passive aggressive coworkers. Pretty much sick and tired of being treated like shit. Just need some advice or insight from anyone that had to deal with this before.

https://preview.redd.it/9o1jtmkymssd1.png?width=1840&format=png&auto=webp&s=c220b12da2544202a42d6d79ca29736d83a4f32a

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I 26M work with this 33F and she has grown to not like me (even though ive been nothing but good to everyone on the team). My manager loves me and has made it clear by even telling me how much he likes working with me. This girl however just doesn't like me and she has made it clear she doesn't. in general, she has a bully like behaviour followed with her having a clique at work. She has lightly bullied me before once at the lunch room in front of everyone by treating me like im different in a bad way.

As part of the job, we send transactions to someone on the team and they have to approve it (takes about 3 minutes to do). Her and I would do it for a few weeks then she just started telling me how her system isn't working anymore (this almost never happens to anyone but I didn't question it the first time just to give the benefit of the doubt) and to ask someone else. She then messages me directly saying she'd like me to send her the details differently (overall she just made things very complicated for such an easy task) but I said I already found someone.

I send her another one the next day and she gave me the same excuse and said to do it her way by sending it differently. I sent her a message saying this "no worries, I found someone else to approve it. on a side note, just stroking my luck, Emily. Let's say your system doesn't work for the next couple of weeks (or months at that), what are you going to do about it? I'm just curious to know what you usually do in general when things don't go your way in your life or at work for that matter. Again, this is just a harmless curious-driven question to which you aren't obligated to respond to if you feel it isn't necessary"

How do I deal with her going forward. she always acts not so kind around me and I can see she she might not like me but I want to make it work. maybe she'll come around

I’m struggling to understand them at work. They are overly confident, but they appear to have mental health issues.
So, I thought I should try to figure them out and be more flexible, but they don’t seem to have any empathy and don’t care.

One example, Gen z want to be a lawyer, bosses to our manager. Shame on management for allowing that behaviour.
One time, I asked Gen z not to use my personal belongings from my desk, and Gen z literally had a mental breakdown, and had to have a meeting with management about it. How can this person become a lawyer?

Surprisingly, I thought all you have to do is be human with them, but they are more of alien species. Any pointers would be appreciated, thank you.

I'm 26 F working in sales joined an MNC in Mumbai one month back.

My previous company was not giving me the growth I wanted so I switched into different product industry.

The office is about to shift to new location, At the time of joining I thought the manager who took my interview will be my immediate boss but on my appointment letter they mentioned someone else as my reporting boss.

This boss seems a bit rude and conservative I will give you some examples. They are not giving proper training schedule, the manager is saying that new joinee need to learn on their own, she is not even interested in giving training on product or system. I have informed main manager to give proper schedule and tell me what is expected from me in this training.

Colleagues are also not friendly. I have 5 years of experience but they treat me like I'm kind of alien sometimes. I have had good experiences in terms of office colleague and this is something I don't like.

I really want to do this job because this is what I like doing but the people are making it difficult. Can you give some suggestions on how to deal with this?

Ps : I lost my father three months back and did not take any break because they wanted to join me immediately. I feel drained sometimes because of this behaviour from superior and colleagues.

Seeking Advice on Managing Anxiety and a Challenging Boss

Hi everyone,

I’m reaching out for some advice on how to handle a tough work situation that’s affecting my mental health. I've been in my current job for a year, and I feel like I misjudged the leadership style here. I used to think working under (F) leadership would be beneficial, but it’s turned out to be quite the opposite.

My boss’s behavior has been a source of anxiety for me, and I’m worried about how it might be affecting my reputation at work. Here are some specific issues I’m facing:

1. Unscheduled Calls: I often receive random calls from my boss throughout the day, which usually centers on their opinions, and I feel pressured to provide my thoughts.

2. Justification of My Role: When I try to express my opinions or push back, I’m often asked to justify my position.

3. Gossip About Colleagues: There’s a constant discussion about how other colleagues are behaving, which feels unnecessary.

4. Comparisons: I frequently find myself being compared to others, and I receive feedback that feels more critical than constructive.

5. Intrusive Questions: My boss often asks personal questions and seems to judge my decisions, which adds to my discomfort.

Given the uncertainty in the job market, I’m hesitant to make a move but feel increasingly anxious.

I’d love to hear your experiences and suggestions on how to navigate this situation effectively. Any tips or insights would be greatly appreciated!

We were having an office party. I made a peach cobbler and some sous vide beef with jus gravy and white truffle. People were complimenting my cooking and I blurted out “I don’t want to be the basic guy that brings a veggie platter, pizza, Shwarma, or a shrimp ring to an office potluck.” Just tin that moment the director of an adjacent team part of the same Directorate (work in gov) walked in with a veggie platter. It was my first time meeting him as he was new and just joined. My jaw was wide open. He didn’t seem to bothered by it but i felt so rude. What do i do.

So, here’s the deal. My team has these weekly brainstorming sessions (designer team here), and two weeks ago, we had one as usual in the afternoon. Everything’s going fine until J, a coworker, pops into the meeting for literally 3 minutes and says, “Guys, I’ve got an emergency, gotta go.” And we’re all like, damn, that sucks, hope everything’s okay. We assumed something serious, like family stuff or whatever, and he just dips.

Anyway, the meeting goes on, super intense, all our brains are fried by the end of it. Fast forward to that night, I’m home, chilling, scrolling through my phone, and what do I see? A pic from some coworker I met at a random work event like a year ago. And guess who’s in the picture? J. AT A WHISKEY TASTING. Apparently, it was one of those office events, and I guess he decided that was more important than, you know… working with us?

FOR MORE CONTEXT: the whiskey tasting venue is far from the office but the weekly design meeting is taking place in the office. I assume he quit the meeting early to make it there on time.

Like, sure, it’s not breaking any company rules, and yeah, it’s his “right” to go to these events, but it still feels super shady. He could’ve just said, “Hey, I got invited to this whiskey thing,” and been upfront about it. But nope. Now I’m stuck feeling like we all worked our butts off while he’s out there sipping whiskey. And, of course, when the boss checks in, J’s gonna get credit for the work we did.

So now I’ve got this big, awkward feeling in my chest, and I kinda want to call him out for lying. But I don’t know… should I? Has anyone been in this situation before? How do you even start that conversation without it blowing up? Any advice would be appreciated!

I work with someone in the same department that is technically higher up sthan me but I don't report to her in any capacity. She keeps assigning me tasks to do. Today she asked me to do a report I've already done for 3 months and completed the one she was asking for (August 31). This was also checked off in 2 different tast trackers. She didn't ask anyone about this report, just assumed no one was doing it. I'm so frustrated with her acting like a know it all. We were working on something together yesterday and she just straight up ignored what I said and added a completely different comment on the working paper. I always just bite my tongue because I'm not one to cause a fight at work, but man, I just want to headbutt her.

Hi everybody I just got a new job but I got ghosted by two of my referees that I had delivered really great projects for. They said I had been good and they were happy to be referees but when the time came didn't answer my calls or text or emails.

Both GMs. Trouble is they are referees for recent jobs so I kind of need them.

It's a new one on me has anyone been through this before and worked out how to get back in touch?

My manager does not have any experience in regards to my department but his boss loves him since he is her puppet. And so from being an HR intern he climbed upto a manager in an altogether contrast department manager. So his boss hired another specialist and a senior specialist(that is me). He pretty much is taking credit for the work that his team is accomplishing. What are the ways to handle this issue?

Recently in my company, i have been using one of the floating desks, sometimes they occupy and sometimes its free, so i captured one desk for the past month and it was just me who was using it, but since the past couple of days some new sr joinee has taken it over, i believe its the work of an evil counterpart, how should i respond…

I work in the tech sector as a software engineer. I joined my current team in December 2023 and in one of discussions ( early 2024 ) with my manager about career growth, he asked me to do some tasks which are important for a promotion. They had a project in place which wasn’t working well, so I was tasked to improve that, which I did and with minimal help.

Since this task I was doing was very new for me, I took my time to do my research, set up experiments and finally deliver what was expected of me. Now this entire thing took 3-4 months of time as I has no domain expertise of the work when I stated, but gained the knowledge to improve things while working on it. I even worked on weekends without any pay just to deliver the expected results.

My manager on the other hand, had 25 years of experience on the same task and didn’t offer to help me at all during this time. He is very busy with all that goes on in the company, but now he often says that he’s not sure why I took so long to finish this task, and what have I been really doing for the past 3-4 months.

It’s actually hurtful and humiliating to hear that from him again and again, especially when I had put my heart and soul into this and actually made the thing work better than expected.

Fast forward ( early September) , when I asked him about completing all the expected deliverables for growth in half the time, and expressed my interest in a promotion, he berated me like anything and started highlighting things which weren’t directly related to my role like making pretty presentations and also listed out things which I should do which were never discussed before. He also said I’d like you to grow in other places you would work.

My team has all PHDs and there is a lot of learning, however there is no room for growth. Plus I’ve been told that there would be no bonus next year. To be a senior you have to wait atleast 5 years. I’m really not sure what to do here. Stay and learn more, or leave and look for a better high paying job.

5 months ago I started working at a job with cubicles. This is my first time being at an office where you can literally hear a pin drop when it gets quiet. So there is no such thing as someone having a private conversation here. I'm used to working in an environment where if someone else is there, they are there to relieve me. Me and this person went to onboarding together. So we became fond of one another as we went through the ins and outs of orientation and training together for the first 2-3 months. The problem is I really get irritated that this person comes to my desk randomly. I wear earphones (as we are able to with this new company I work at) so when they walk up I never hear them. They think it's funny to stand there for as long as it takes for me to notice them as oppose to making their presence known like all my other coworkers do, out of courtesy. jumped the first few times and they began to laugh and say things like " if I was a snake in the grass I would've bit you" I decided to say "| really don't like that you pop up while I'm working." If that's not enough they don't pop up for help from me or for me. Just to be random and talk about nothing. They just invalidate how I feel. I've said something 3 times and they still keep popping up.

So today I really drove the point home that they threw me off focus and now I may make a mistake on the case l'm working and they completely ignored my frustrations and kept talking about the nothing they walked up to my desk to discuss.

Help! How would you address this? I genuinely want to understand. This person isn't all bad but l'm still on probation and I just can't make mistakes behind someone else's carelessness and inability to read the room! v