I remove asbestos for a living in Colorado, USA. I was at work the other day (5/8/24) prepping a large containment (2 floors, ~40 hotel rooms fireproofing scrape) and all that was left to do was button up a few areas on our final layer of plastic sheeting.

I noticed a thick smell in the air, a familiar smell, and I realize what it is. Asbestos has no smell but the fireproofing we are removing has other stuff in the mix and smells earthy even through my respirator filters.

I high tail it out of the containment and meet another crew of guys coming from upstairs doffing tyvek suits and heading towards the personnel shower/decon unit.

It is then that it dawned on me I was sent to work in a contaminated environment because the job is behind schedule and my company jumped the gun on doing gross removal, before having adequate engineering controls in place and just decided not to tell me anything. I was working there with several other guys helping finish the containment. I thought the other crew was tearing down our last work area and I had no idea that they were doing gross removal under my nose.

I spoke with my supervisor about it demanding answers for the negligence and I was told I too was making sloppy mistakes by leaving my "contaminated" respirator filters out in the open (they were brand new, never used) I told him they were new and that he was sort of changing the subject and he doubled down and basically said "I don't know what happened or why. But if I don't like something I just leave." Basically implying I should just quit. I stormed out of there so mad and I called the office and told them how my supervisor was being adversarial for no reason and that I just want some accountability.

Fast forward an hour later and the owner of the company comes. I give him a statement of what happened and he accused me of threatening to call osha (i never threatened anyone) and kept trying to gaslight me into saying i did something wrong. This is all while forgetting my name and having no sympathy for what happened. In the end I stuck by my guns and didn't fold to his pressure and he apologized for the incident and basically said we are going to do better as a company. I basically said sh*t happens and tomorrow will be a new day and that was that. I'm now looking for another job but I make 66k a year here and it's the most I've made and up until this point, it has been a safe work environment free from drama. Mostly venting but if anyone has any advice I'll lake it. Thanks for reading

TLDR: Sloppy work practices got me exposed to a high concentration of asbestos with no warning or due diligence on my supervisors part. Met with contempt from superiors.

This was such a horrible job and I've only been there for a short time. The hazing and bullying were overwhelming. Employees were literally making fun of me for being disabled, among many other microaggressions. I've never experienced anything like it. Even started therapy, a first for me.

Is it worth doing an exit interview? My last day is a few weeks from now so I'm worried about retaliation if I say anything negative. Would it even help future employees?

Edit: I guess I didn’t make it clear enough. This supervisor and I do not get along. He has made a concentrated effort to get me fired. He previously used to be my supervisor and I made a request that he no longer be my supervisor. He knows we’re not cool.

I have a supervisor at work who I have issues with. For my own privacy I’d prefer not to get into the nitty gritty.

He sent me a text on Christmas wishing my family a merry Christmas. This upset me greatly. During a time when I was supposed to be relaxing and enjoying my family I was thinking about my troubles at work. We don’t normally text as a way to communicate and work and we don’t communicate on a personal level at all. For reference, the last time I had received a text from him had been in June. Since Christmas there were a few texts concerning reporting times due to weather in February.

Post holidays I asked some of my coworkers if they also got a text. It was a mixed bag of responses.

I didn’t respond to the text on Christmas and other than asking some of my coworkers if they also received a text I didn’t mention it at work. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he upset me.

He sent me a happy Mother’s Day text today. I’m at work so I said something to my direct supervisor. He said he’d say something to him but also said he was sure he probably sent one to all the other mothers. I didn’t tell him about my informal survey after the holidays.

Am I being unreasonable to get my hackles up about his text?

I'm not sure if this is the right place to talk about this, and I am sorry if it is not, but I really wanted to share my experiences about a former job I had about 4 or 5 months ago.

I want to be careful about how much I say for fear of ruining my own anonymity. I may even delete this soon after I post it, but I wanted to talk about it, even if briefly. Basically, my boss was horrible, and I'm pretty sure I was in a hostile work environment.

So, I am a new lawyer, and I have only been practicing law now for about 8 months. While I was still in law school, I started working part time at a prosecutors office during the spring of my final year, with a job lined up to be an assistant prosecutor once I graduated from law school (and pass the bar, although I was already practicing before I got my results in).

Believe it or not, there is a mechanism in my state that allows for law students to more or less be practicing lawyers as long as they are being supervised by an attorney, and if they are working for the state.

Anyways, I got hooked into this place through some professional connections. I was pretty excited and was looking forward to starting my career there. A ton of attorneys start off doing APA work.

My boss was the newly elected prosecuting attorney, and my first day at work was during her first week in office.

Things were already off to a bad start. I saw her on numerous occasions yell, belittle, and shame people in the office (and in court) for usually minor and fixable mistakes, or even for asking her questions. An APA who was there for 14 years had left after about a month or two of her being in power, and another APA who replaced the last one walked off the job after about two months, calling my boss a POS bully in a goodbye email while my boss was on vacation (I did not find out about this until much later).

While I was off work studying for the bar, she lost several staff members who had been there for many, many years, including the ones I mentioned before.

Initially, I just blew off her behavior. I told myself that she was under a lot of stress. After all, she was just elected into office, and she was trying to make meaningful changes to the office on top of trying to do the job. She is also well known in my legal community, and a lot people spoke well of her, so I figured I was not seeing the real her, but now I think I might have been.

She was also paranoid about one of our associate judges who was the former prosecutor until he took the bench. She hated (and still does hate him) with an absolute passion, and believes he is out to get her.

I personally don't think he is, but I guess that is another story. Also, she is not a fan of the other associate judge in her county, because believe it or not, he was an APA to the judge who was the former prosecutor. She once called him his "puppet."

Anyways, once I got back from taking the bar, I started working full time, and it was absolutely horrible. I did not mind the work, but the environment this woman created was insane.

I'm not sure how many people are aware of how things are in my profession, but they don't really teach you anything practical in law school. I went into my job not really knowing how to do it, and my boss did not seem to care. I could not really go to her for any sort of guidance (believe it or not, I actually think I got more guidance from the public defenders and the judges than her). But, whenever I made any sort of mistake, she was certainly happy to chew me out about it. Needless to say, I had some really embarrassing moments in the courtroom that I am going to have to live with the rest of my life. To be frank, I think all she really cared about the most was just being able to dump cases on me.

So, the months drag on, and I continue experience and observe all kinds of horrible abuse from her. Yelling, gaslighting, hateful emails to my coworkers, etc. I told myself to keep being patient, and that things would get better.

The final straw for me came when she decided to go on her second vacation. It was the Friday before she was leaving. She and the utterly loyal paralegal (who had been with her for 14 years) she brought with her from private practice were not in the office that morning. I show up at about the time I usually do, and I noticed there were a few of my coworkers chatting in front. I did not pay any attention and just made my way to my office so I could get to work on my stuff for the day.

As I go about my business, I begin to hear more voices out front. More of my coworkers were chatting out there, and I could hear they were talking about our boss. I decided to stay in my office and keep working, but I began to overhear them sharing their awful experiences. I decided to go join them.

This is when I found out about all the other horrible things she had done that I did not know about. There were too many to remember, so I'll list what I can and what I think are the worst examples.

She had apparently thrown objects at one of my coworkers. At one point, she had aggressively thrown boxes into a corner off of a counter when someone had asked if something needed to be done with them. More scenarios when she was degrading, belittling people, and shaming them.

It was at that point I lost patience. I told myself I had to get out of there. I was dealing with what was probably the most manipulative person I had ever met in my life.

The thing is, she would do things in cycles. I would describe her has a narcissist who love bombs. She would go on awful sprees of terror, and the turn into this kind, loving person who knows right when to smile and laugh, touch your shoulder, etc. She also would buy people in the office little gifts after these episodes (probably to try and smooth things over). Then, after a while, she would start her crap up again.

And to be honest, it did work on me at least two or three times until I finally figured out what was going on.

The coworker who had objects thrown at her quit while she was on vacation. Then, I gave my two weeks notice not long after. She was not happy. Keep in mind, she and I were the only two attorneys in the office at that point, so she was going to be by herself.

This is the short and condensed version of events. It does not cover every horrible scenario I had with her personally, but it hits the highlights.

Thanks to everyone who bothered to read.

I’ll give you little more context, I’m currently a support worker for adults with learning disabilities and I’ve been at this residence for 6 months the fact that managers don’t know what’s it’s even about makes my heart pumping, I’ve never been in a position like this and I don’t know to react to it. I’m at my wits end.

I’ve heard this term before and I wonder if this is what’s going on?

I’ve been with the company for 4 years, and I’ve moved up from worker to supervisor

Things were going well, but admittedly in the past few months, I’ve been making a lot of stupid mistakes with my work.

It’s been causing problems for other people’s es work and I’m not here to make excuses for myself

I have been warned several times about making mistakes and being on the cell phone too much, and excessive socializing. I was sent home on one occasion. And I have been formally written up. My manager told me something to the effect of “we pay you too much to be acting like this”.

I am told that I cannot come in any earlier than when my shift starts because I talk too much to the people who start earlier and distract them from of their work.

Now my desk is being moved far from anyone else. I will not have computer or email access anymore. And that every day I will be given a type written list of tasks and instructions for the day.

When I asked about this to my manager, I was told that I talk too much. I distract other people, and I get distracted too easily.

What is this what they mean when they say quiet firing? do you think I have time to turn this around? or should I start looking to start over somewhere else?

I recently met with my supervisor, Lucy, to seek clarification on a task assigned to me by my subordinate supervisor, Cheryl. Cheryl had instructed me to sweep and wipe the tables, which I promptly began to do. However, upon noticing a significant amount of debris on the floor, I made the decision to sweep it up rather than risk stepping on it and potentially causing an accident.

To my surprise, Cheryl expressed displeasure with my actions, stating that I should have solely focused on wiping the tables as instructed. This was followed by a conversation with the head of the department, who reprimanded me for insubordination. Specifically, I was questioned about seeking guidance from a coworker regarding the location of a skirt for the stage and offering assistance to a colleague with ticket duties. The head of the department emphasized the importance of individual responsibility and learning essential tasks.

I am committed to fulfilling my duties effectively and efficiently. However, the recent events have left me feeling uncertain about my abilities and the expectations placed upon me. I kindly request guidance and support in understanding the appropriate course of action in such situations.

Hello, I’ve got this coworker that for some reason every couple weeks seems to always give me an attitude whenever I ask for help on something, it’s just me she does this to, so it’s weird to me because as a person she’s cool, but I’m losing my patience with the attitude, should I try talking to her or my boss first ?

Usually, I send the customer an email, and then I call him later to explain to him what is in the email. I take screenshots and write in clear text the 5 or 7 steps that he needs to do.

In contrast, when I ask the software company a question they reply to my email with a phone call. it usually goes like this:

Him: have you tried to increase the UDP timer in the QoS setting?

Me: which one there are like 30 different settings all called UDP timer QoS settings.

Him: Change the relevant one under Global UDP keep alive

me: There are like 12 of them. Do the others have any effect since some of them are global some local.

Him: I will check this and call you later.

me: just send me an email or we can do a TeamViwer session

Him: which version is the BIOS is it R007561010_alo02 or R007561001_alo02 ( he reads it out loud on the phone)

me: I have no clue I have to reboot the system to see it when it boots

How do you feel about colleague suddenly asking you to take over their work due to sudden situation that doesn’t allow them to come to work? Personally for me the colleague should be excused from the duty and make up for it on other days. But what if they were already given time to find their replacement beforehand, shouldn’t they ask the colleague first instead of waiting until the deadline itself and forcing anyone to take over their job or even asking the colleague to take over last minute? Kinda mean when I say that I reject anyone giving me last minute task because I think it’s not being considerate to my time unless I volunteered to.

I am possibly in one of the ickiest situations. I recently started as a retail employee at am amusement park. It was fine the first few weeks until I met this other coworker, we'll call him Jon. Jon is your typical class-clown guy, he thinks he's super funny but he's actually really insensitive and rude and he stresses me out. Unfortunately, because I feel stressed or surprised by the things he says, my body doesn't know how to react other than UNCONTROLLABLE LAUGHTER. I'm not kidding, and I wish to god my stupid body wouldn't do that. So of course, he thinks I think he's funny. So it encourages him. I just got back from a shift and I'm super stressed out I know we now work the same shift at the same location.. so that means I'm going to have to see him literally ever shift and it demotivates me from going. Before you tell me to tell my supervisor, he is friends with them. My supervisor is actually really sweet but idk how to explain to them that I don't wanna be around Jon when they literally have seen us work "fine" together. What can I do? Unfortunately I don't think Jon has technically broken any rules, he just as the mentality and humor of an 11 year old boy. (Unless playfully calling me a slur counts) Is there a way that I can just switch locations (it's a big theme park), or will HR wanna investigate more? Am I literally helpless? What can I do? :(

I wanna preface this by saying I already have plenty of tattoos, both of my arms are full, and so is my chest. I have over 20+ tattoos, this is not my first. I also have been working this job for over 2 years, I love it, it's great. I have never been asked to hide my tattoos whenever I am wearing short sleeves.

I want to get my hand tattooed, nothing dark or nefarious, I just want some daisies with a bunch of leaves. My work doesn't have any policies or dress codes against tattoos, but I am still scared to get it, afraid it will affect how managers view me, or that if I ever leave (which I don't want, nor plan to) will affect my eligibility in the future.

so, any tips? should I just go for it and pray for the best? work harder so no one pays attention to my more visible tattoos?

I just started a new job at a golf course a while ago. My job is to check guests in and greet them. and I love it there but I quickly noticed that when some guests come in they’ll see me at my desk and they’ll see my boss on the other side and will clearly choose to approach my boss rather than me, even though my boss is doing management work.

I also get spoken over A LOT. Was checking a guest in and while I was just asking for his name he completely ignored me and started asking my boss why we don’t have beer. I try not to interrupt guests but part of job is making sure everyone try’s to get play on time.

Ive also noticed that when I explain things to customers they take the information I give with a grain of salt. And sometimes they’ll re-ask my boss get the exact same information and trust their word more than mine. At first I thought it was because I didn’t sound confident in the information I was giving so I tried to improve my delivery when speaking to guests but nothing has changed at all. Guests still prefer to talk to my boss than me, the person they hired for the job..

Lastly I’m going to be honest, I’m no golf veteran but I’ve been working hard and applying myself to the job and learning everything I can to better help my guests and myself. Any advice for me? It’s mildly frustrating at times and of course not everyone treats me that way but I just want to know if there’s anything I can do to make it better for myself at least. I haven’t let the frustration affect my customer service and I intend to keep it that way so any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Note: my bosses can help check guests in, but they do also have important work to do. Lastly I was hired for a reason and I’ve been told my bosses that I’m doing great and they see great potential in me. And they also try to direct guests my way most of the time.

I've looking for a job for almost 7 months now, I even took a summer school break to be look work because if not, I won't be able to pay my rent, anyways I was able to find a nearby bin store to work in, (if you don't know what's that, you can google it) And I started working from the very first hour, I begging the manager to work there after he liked my resume, since I saw a lot of resumes with him and told me to come later next week for testing but I told him I can work right away so after some begging he let me work, and I worked for 6 hours, but other coworkers there saw me as (new stupid workers) whom they can just relay on for all of their tasks, they would start a task and let me continue it, they would yell my name and tell me to continue the task, I did about 5 tasks that other people were supposed to do, it is only 4 people who kept doing that, the rest of them were really nice, I thought about talking to the manager about this issue but I didn't want him to think of me as a bad worker or someone who compliments a lot from the very first day, so I didn't know what to do actually like how to reply to them, and they were supposed to teach me how to work in some areas as the manager asked they to but they didn't do that all the times they used to task advantage of me.

So is there anything I can do so this comedy play would stop from their part would?

Sorry if the post was naive but I usually work in companies not places like this but I moved to this country last month.

Started a job about a month ago, and I just started noticing the owner do this. The space is VERY small so anyone can overhear. I want this job, but feeling uncomfortable...Basically, everyone talks about each other:(

BUT, overall the "team" as one entity is a good one. Everyone works hard and the team work is very good as far as others helping one another. But, people just don't care that other people can hear them talking!! I feel the owner should talk privately with staff members, though it is a very busy environment and maybe it's easier to just handle it ASAP....

I have two jobs, both managerial. I had to complete a 3 month plan and schedule. Almost done with the plan, the schedule is due today. Only thing I needed for the schedule to be complete is a list of employees but I don’t have access to that info. I messaged my boss and she read the message but didn’t respond. Should I assume that she’ll take over that end of the schedule? I’d be more than happy to input the employees info but I don’t have access to it. If it were pressing issue I’d assume she’d just respond. Just don’t want to look lazy.

I recently started working with my sister, (a manager,) and she and her GM have a good relationship.

BUT. He’s always asking me questions.. through my sister. There was a time when we were all in the same building and he asked my sister to ask me a question.. I was 10 feet away from him.. so I kinda just laughed it off.

Yesterday.. him and I were working, (sister wasn’t there,) and he came up to me to say, “__ your sister is calling you.” I thought it was an emergency, so I went outside and called her back.. she told me, “the GM wants to know if you can work tomorrow,” ..

.. she thought he left.. and I told her he asked me to call her.. so instead of just asking me he had my sister call me to ask a question.. when I went back inside I found out he left.

Does he dislike me? 🥲

this was calculated over two years. where 40% of workers quit. most of them were replaced with new employees who have zero experience.

2 years is the minimum experience needed to do your job correctly and almost no one is staying that long.

Training and certifications cost about $ 40,000 per employee over 5 years on average.

management does not see this as a problem. Any thoughts?

I recently became a senior at my job. We work with kids and hence have a toy room at the work place. The toy room is always super messy. Even if the cupboards are cleaned once in a while, the employees maintain it for a few days and then forget about it. Can I get some tips on how to monitor who is making the mess or any ideas of how do I get my juniors to maintain the cleanliness?

I am a sales and marketing manager, one of my top performers that manages the software for the team has been doing well and now the one of the VPs in tech wants him on his team. Should I just accept it and let the employee decide? I have never been in a situation where another department asked to take one of my employees.

[Manager Name],

This is my formal resignation from my position at [company], effective two weeks from yesterday. My last day of employment will be Friday, May 24th. While I appreciate the relationships I have formed with several of my peers throughout the company, I have observed that the management culture does not align with my personal values or professional goals. I will ensure my immediate peers have a smooth transition during this time.

I anticipate that my accrued PTO will be reflected in my final paycheck.

[Signed]

I was bullied so severely by my management that it caused a mental health crisis and I ended up having a completely nervous breakdown. This is a very large company with many branches. I am still a student and this is just a job to me, and I do not need it for a reference. I have no respect for my direct management and wanted to give a subtle fuck you to everything she has put me through mentally.

My father said the line about management was a terrible call and now that they will withhold my final pay. That I am obligated to do an exit interview now (I just read that I am not?) and that I can expect to be asked to stop working immediately now.

How badly did I mess up here?

Hello everyone, I work construction and was making 29 an hour at my current job. I was offered by another company to join them for 33 an hour. I told my current job and they matched it right away. To make it even crazier I told the other company I was staying because my current employer matched their offer; Right away the owner texted me telling me they will pay me 38 an hour and I couldn’t pass that up. When I put in my two weeks to join the new company, I was immediately matched with 40 an hour and 3 weeks vacation time. This is all within a week of my review when I told my employer I was leaving for the other company. Should I be suspicious of my current employer for holding back “my worth”? Thank you in advance for the advice

Hello, I'm working for almost 3 years (in sites not office) and the company decided to relocate to a new city , however it's good I will see new things and learn more , but the company is not giving me training but some senior from department are available for support be call or videos.

There's some seniors from other departments some times we meet together in the site looking at me like I'm nothing or I'm still very small and don't know the things, every day I tried my best but I'm going back home daily feeling that I'm nothing and tired I spent whole nights reading and trying to learn I'm always thankful for people who support me , I'm not asking there support for everything but in this city the machines and the systems are not the same what i have experienced before , and I'm ready to try and learn never say no that I will not try but some times I need help!

Any advice??

I know what some of you are thinking. “Your job is doing YOU a favor by allowing you to work there and earn money.” But at this point I don’t care. As tired as I get (I don’t express it to anyone) I still want to work and I do it very well.

More recently I’ve been getting sent home since were slow, but I’m the only one that gets sent home. I desperately need hours because I’m trying to save for things but they keep letting me go early and it’s hard to do so. I even expressed with the manager how important I need this and they’re saying I’m taking it personal. Its not fair how I get sent home but then they need me to pick up a few shifts at other facilities, attend work meetings off the clock and go the extra mile without compensation.

Fuck, man

She sits at the desk right beside me, it’s so awkward, she was super chatty and friendly towards me when she joined the team, about 6 months ago. She would talk about her life, what she did on her weekends, would go down for lunch with me etc. But over the past two weeks, she completely changed, it feels like we barely talked to eachother before, it’s very uncomfortable especially when the other team are downstairs or it’s just her and me in the upstairs working in silence. Yet she continues to speak to all other colleagues and she’s willing to engage in conversation and stuff without acting distracted.

I would not be someone to chat for long, or disturb her from her work every 2 minutes, as I like to focus on my own work, but it’s nice to have small talk sometimes, than silence, every now and then with the person who I see everyday, especially since we did it previously. I tried to initiate it last week by before work begins or lunchtime, but she acts so distracted with only short sentences and no intention on continuing the conversation and it makes me feel she really doesn’t want to speak to me if possible.

We never had any disagreements or anything so I don’t really understand I what changed. Maybe it’s her personal life I don’t know.

Should I just distance myself also from her and just greet her without any further interactions? It’s not me to be rude or antisocial to people though. Thanks for reading!

I’ve worked at my part time job going on 3 years now, I’m 22. I’m about to finish college and at this point I’m kinda tired of working there. I managed to become a manager there but I’m making $16 an hour. The reasons I want to leave is because I don’t want to deal with my ex anymore, it’s just become toxic and she made our relationship public so it’s just a lot how she treats me. Also the fact that since I’m the only part time manager all the full time managers and owners exclude me from stuff. For example they have a new store opening and the owners had everyone see it and talked to them about moving over but me. I just feel excluded from the day to day stuff and I don’t know sometimes the new policies they implement or if so I get told last from everyone.

I get it’s not smart to quit a job without having another lined up, but at this point I’m just tired. My parents said they’d support my bills until I find something and I really appreciate it. I’d just miss some of my coworkers, but eventually they’ll leave too for college and some of them want to leave. I’d also miss leading but at the same time I think I need to do something new, I’m just scared to actually leave because this was my first job. Just wanted some opinions on this.

I got contracted, to a company doing work for them. So one of the representative is saying that the transfer cost I will bear it. Is this ok? or they should bear the cost?

I have a job at a coca cola warehouse and i work 4 days a week, 10 hours a day. 7-5. Is there any way to make this more tolerable? By far the worst of it is the achy feet, my feet were numb just a few days ago. The loud music that i can’t opt out of Isn’t helping either. Is there any way to make these shifts more bearable so that i don’t lose my mind?

So I started a new job recently, did 2 days of training, worked my first shift out of training, and then the morning of my next work day I got a message that they were letting their part time staff go and would not need my services anymore. (I don’t believe this to be the actual reason because I was told on my previous shift that they only have one full time employee) it was very frustrating because I worked really hard to learn everything in my 2 days of training, and on my first day on my own I kept up with everybody else in a fast paced environment, so I feel that I deserve actual explanation for my termination, because if I did something wrong I want to know so I can work to be better.

So now I’ve reached out to see when I can get my last paycheck (which should be 2 days of training pay, plus one day or regular pay plus my CC tips.) and I have not heard anything back from management so I am starting to worry. Any advice?

Help my boss hates me

So I started a new job where I was hired through an agency last august. I am so grateful it’s my first official 9-5 there’s a union and insurance and I get paid weekly. My role is the front desk so there are some limitations that come with that (reasonable) I know that with different roles there are different responsibilities and allowances. But I am basically chained to that desk. I am adult and for one of the first times in a while I have to ask you use the restroom, keep my water intake down so I’m not continuously asking to use the bathroom. The goal is to help people accomplish their tasks. But I cannot get up from my desk to verify if someone is there often times my colleagues ignore or silence their phones so they don’t hear my calls and I’m left sitting there (looking quite foolish) when I can accomplish the same but by getting up and getting the person who is needed. I am barely given any responsibility but then it’s an issue because I “look bored” I am not allowed to be on my phone or read. And recently my colleague (the only one who comes by and checks in on me) was just chastised for doing so yet others in the office have loud (and constant continuous conversations). Today my boss kept pacing past me (it felt like she was hovering)every time she’d pass she’d look at me like something she scraped off her foot. I don’t know what to do and I just want to cry. I know workplaces aren’t all fun and games but I feel like I’m being held to an unfair standard any advice is welcome thank you