ask the readers

Looking for crowdsourced wisdom? Here are reader discussions about life at work.

what’s the most Machiavellian thing you’ve seen or done at work?

A few years back, we talked about Machiavellian things we’ve seen done at work — self-serving schemes or manipulation that you watched being carried out (or carried out yourself!). The stories were amazing, including someone who pretended to be Canadian for months in order to get a day off for Canadian Thanksgiving, someone who submitted […]

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it’s Leap Day! let’s discuss ridiculous workplace policies

It’s Leap Day and so in honor of the Leap Year employee who finally gets her birthday off this year, we must talk about bizarre, nonsensical policies your employers have had. Did they ban humor? Refuse to let you say “how are you?”  to customers? Tell you that you couldn’t wear your wedding ring because […]

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my store is doing great because I’m breaking all our policies

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: I have been the manager of a clothing retailer (think along the lines of Forever 21, H&M, etc.) for two-ish years. Unfortunately, the brand at large is not doing very well. My store, however, has outdone our performance metrics by over 400% and for the […]

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