r/WorkAdvice

I've been with the company going on 12 years and 3 in my current department. Part of my job involves carrying tires and car batteries. I took took the service writer position last October after performing the evening duties roughly 2 years. I know my capabilities and limitations.

This is where it gets tricky. Last week a "new guy" transferred from the front registers to my department to take over the evening shift (the two people who took it between October and then moved on for reasons). I've dealt with enough new people to understand there's a learning curb, but this guy thinks he knows more about my abilities and job than I do.

When I went to pull 4 tires for an order, he saw me carrying 2 at a time and started lecturing to "work smarter, not harder" took one of the tires from me and insisted on doing the same with the other 2. A job that normally takes 5 minutes to do took 10 because he refused to let me do it by myself, 20 if you consider it was 2 people doing it. The tires themselves weren't heavy to me (I've had 3 years to build up my strength and those tires were far from are biggest or heaviest). I told him I know my strength and can do it myself, but he didn't seem to listen.

Another instance I had bought tires to the counter to sell as carry outs. These tires were bigger, but not that heavy to me and I was only handling one at a time to put on the counter to get the DOTs off them. New guy sees and tells me I shouldn't be handling them because I'll hurt my back. I tell him I know my limits and to back off trying to tell me how to do my job.

I'm getting annoyed at this. I don't like complaining and I do get help when I actually need it (like getting a heavy battery off a shelf above my head), but this . . . I left my previous department mostly because of a coworker bullying me and pushing her work off on me (as in if she didn'twant to do something, she'd push it off on me or if I was doing work related to my job description she would belittle it to sound like I was doing nothing). This situation is demeaning. I know my limits, I know my department, I know my responsibilities. I've tried explaining that to him, but he either ignores it or isn't listening. My next move is to take to our supervisor about it, but if my words aren't getting thru to him our supervisor or manager's would have to.

Also, there's no chance of him stealing my job any time soon. New Guy has only been in the department a week and our manager already knows and has praised my work and quick learning. It's why he even considered letting me transferred in and why I was given first refusal when the Service writer position was opened. I say this because I have had new people (both male and female in both this and my old department) come in and tell me to my face they're going to take my job. While he hasn't said that's his goal, it still feels like the same level of disrespect when he tries to "help" me do things I can easily get done on my own and faster that doesn't involve his training.

If anyone has any advice before I take this to my supervisor, I'll be glad to hear it.

I'm a 26F hotel receptionist & I've been at my current workplace since August 2025.

Some important info: We have one front office manager, 4 receptionists (a 37 year old female who is new, a 20? year old female who rarely works as she has another job and uni, a 74 year old male, myself, and two directors who are both old men).

In my interview and job description it's a typical hotel receptionist role. Answering calls, checking people in/out, responding to emails & messages through third parties, processing payments, general duties (like folding towels, filing some paperwork away, making sure things are printed, etc) and corresponding with maintenance/housekeeping.

However, we had a housekeeping (will refer to at HSK) supervisor who left at the end of January, and wasn't replaced. Then our HSK manager went on holiday for 6 weeks a couple weeks after the supervisor left. Instead of them hiring a supervisor to fill the duties of the manager while she was away, they put it on reception. At first, my manager (who is an amazing manager) was doing all of the HSK paperwork (basically she'd come in an hour earlier than usual (7AM), assign HsK to their jobs for the day, print it out, tell them which rooms have checked out, etc, which easily takes an hour or more, then we have to be expected to be on the desk from 8AM) and I felt really bad, so I told her to show me how to do it. Big mistake.

She then taught the 37F (who is very new) how to do it. After a few times doing it, I asked one of the directors when the HSK manager would be back. April 10th. He asked why. I told him that I thought it was unfair. He said "Well the other places I've run, reception always did the HSK job." I should've told him that it wasn't in the job description when I applied, and if it was I wouldn't have applied.

I let it go, and I told the front office manager the next day about my convo with him, and she said that when the HSK manager is back, they want to keep it as receptionists job.

Why does this bother me so much? Well, he's expecting us to do a lot of extra work for nothing extra. For Christmas, the directors didn't even thank the team for their work and working over the holidays. No card, not even a box of chocolates or a gift card. Legit nothing. Everyone was obviously upset about this. Oh, the funny thing though - one of the directors is a smoker and he gets the maintenance man to roll him cigarettes for $20! The director even paid a guest $5 the other day to roll him cigarettes... So we were down $5.

Two, the 74 year old male receptionist we have does no extra work. All he does is check people in. He leaves emails for us, he's extremely rude to people (we have negative reviews and they all mention the old angry receptionist). They haven't taught him to do the HSK boards, and they won't since he's an exception.. He makes a LOT of mistakes. So basically the rest of us are being paid the same as him, but doing more work. Not only that, but when my manager is on annual leave, I do a lot of her work. I do maintenance timesheets, I do power bills & charging the owners.

Anyway I looked at the roster for next week, and she has me doing HSK paperwork again even though the HSK manager is back. I feel like telling her that I'm not comfortable doing it any longer if the male receptionist isn't expected to.

Sorry this is also me venting since I have no one else to talk to, and I'd really like advice. I can't apply to jobs yet as I'm going on holiday at the end of April for 3 weeks. Like most places the job market is hard, so I want to focus on what I need to do right now to make my current place of work less stressful.

Hi everyone, I could really use some advice.

I’m in a tough situation where one of my direct reports is also a close personal friend. We worked together for ~3 years previously and stayed friends outside of work too — she supported me during a difficult time (even helped me after a minor accident), was a bridesmaid at my wedding, and I was there for her big life events as well.

A couple of years ago, after she had a child and was out of the workforce for a while, I helped her get a role in my team. I’ll admit I even advocated for her during the hiring process because I trusted her and wanted to help.

Fast forward ~1.5 years, and things aren’t going well professionally:

- Her work quality hasn’t improved and often has errors that I end up fixing as the manager.

- She has missed deadlines and hasn’t communicated blockers in time, which has put me in difficult positions with my boss.

- Her punctuality has recently become an issue — logging in 1–2 hours late, frequently needing attendance corrections, and informing me only after her shift has started.

- I have another reportee who ends up picking up extra work without complaining, which makes me feel guilty.

I’ve already had some direct conversations with her about performance and communication, but I’m not seeing sustained improvement.

On one hand, I feel a sense of responsibility and gratitude toward her personally. On the other hand, this is affecting team performance, fairness, and my own credibility with my manager.

I’m struggling with:

- How to separate friendship from professional accountability

- How firm I should be, given the history

- Whether I should escalate formally or continue trying to coach her

- How to ensure fairness to my other reportee

Has anyone dealt with managing a friend or someone they feel personally indebted to? How did you draw boundaries and handle performance issues without damaging the relationship (or your team)?

Appreciate any perspectives 🙏

Nagpaalam ako sa TL ko to resign. 2 weeks prior mg resignation end date ko nag lalong lumala hika ko. Hindi ako pinayagan. Nag sick leave ako, 7 days unfit to work binigay sa akin ng doctor, ngayon kukuha ako ng fit to work, walang binigay na fit to work yung doctor naka indicate lang don is avoid trigger.

Simula kase nung lumipat kami ng office from Taguig to Parañaque halos 1 hour na biyahe araw-araw papunta and pabalik, napansin kong mas napapadalas yung asthma ko. Dati nadadaan pa sa inhaler, ngayon napapadalas pag nenebulizer ko.

Ayaw akong payagan ng TL ko to do immediate. Before pa ako mag resign, nagpa APE kame sa company, comment ng doctor sa akin "ang lakas ng tunog ng sa likod mo, ma'am". Nafifeel talaga ng body ko yung stess. Nag provide ako sa TL ko ng med cert. but still ayaw pa din akong payagan. Itatag niya daw ako ng AWOL.

Location: Manila

I work with a female colleague in a difficult tech environment. We are the only two people in our non-technical field. We have to collaborate a lot with engineers and managers who have technical backgrounds. I don't have a technical background myself, but I'm very interested in technology. Even after many years at the company, my colleague struggles to integrate into the environment. She isn't exactly flexible when it comes to tasks, she's bossy toward others, and she sticks so strictly to our process that she leaves very little room for deviation. When other colleagues (mostly men) try to explain something to her, she always sees it as mansplaining and her behavior toward those colleagues becomes aggressive. She once yelled at a manager at the top of her lungs in front of others during a meeting. She's also bad at networking with other colleagues. Sometimes it's hard for me to work with her because she tells me how terrible all these male egos are and that she's treated poorly by everyone because she's a woman. I always try not to engage further when that happens. Honestly, I don't really see it as my problem. When we have these conversations, I always try to tell her how I handle such situations—that I try to go with the flow and defer to the majority opinion to keep the peace. I'd say we're a progressive company. We have a relatively high percentage of women and a female CEO. I'm just tired of having to deal with her hostilities and want to focus on my own work.

The company says it was just an accdent, but everyone on site knew it could happen. We had been raising concerns about the loose scaffolding and unsafe setup nothing was done. I got seriously injured after it gave way. It hurts how fast they brushed it off... A lot of us had already spoken up before it happened. I’m honestly angry and disappointed because this isn’t just about the site, it affects families too. I have kids at home, bills to pay, and now there’s no paycheck coming in. I only got around $4,800 in savings. I’m just wondering how fast everything at home could fall apart.

asked if I was religious and believed in god during the interview process and when answered asked again to make sure it was a yes since I gave a loose answer. Worked a whole month with no w2 papers or youth employment permit. Only got paid a week after after quitting after asking twice on Venmo with no pay stubs after she removed me from the sling so I couldn’t confirm hours worked and I couldn’t make sure I was paid the right amount and even then I worked before I was added. Also was just a passive aggressive and nasty person so I don’t feel the need to protect her in anyway sorry about the wording I copy and pasted this from quickly explaining to someone else

like am I cooked what should I do im 16 and can't really cancel the trip bc its to visit my grandma whos very lowkey dying for TEN DAYS. is there even a chance I'll get hired or is that way too much time. please just any advice on how to tell them or if im just going to make a fool of myself.

I (19F) have been working a senior admin position for a company for the last 2 years, having started on an internship. Love my colleagues, love working there, got a promotion 6 months ago and all going really well.

2 weeks ago a new colleague (36M) started and I was moved into an office with him. There is no-one else in the office. There is a crossover between our jobs and I am supposed to be learning from him because I am studying in his field.

All went well for the first 2 days, and then I started to get really uncomfortable with him. He keeps getting up and coming over to my desk and leaning right over me to 'look at my screen'. Or else he crouches right down beside me so he is on the same level as me and our faces are so close. He has also asked me over to help him 'format documents' and wanted me to use his mouse etc, if I do as he wants our bodies are basically touching each other. We always keep our office door open but one morning last week he closed it twice. I got up to go out on an errand each time so I could come back and leave it open. Then he closed it a third time and came over to my desk, put one hand down on the desk and leaned right over me, he is a good bit taller so his body was right over mine. My phone rang and I grabbed it and answered it. I would barely look at him after and am being very cold and abrupt with him in the hopes he will get the message and back off. To be clear, he has never said anything; he has never touched me deliberately, but once or twice brushingly.

If he was a colleague on a different team I could get on with it and avoid him as much as possible, but we are supposed to be working on a number of projects together, and he is always so keen for us to have '2 of us together time'.

I am so uncomfortable and tense, feels like there is a huge knot in my chest. Since I got the vibe off him, I haven't relaxed once while he is in the office. Even when I come home or on the weekends, I can't get it out of my head, I am so anxious and getting stress patches on my skin. I dread going into the office every morning. There have been 3 days where he is not in the office, on those days I am fine but dreading if he comes in in the afternoon.

I told my boss (43M) at the end of last week. I explained that I was uncomfortable due to how physically close this employee gets, but didn't go into much detail. I kind of froze up when telling him, it not being the easiest thing to explain. He suggested I could move desk but that it wouldn't actually address the problem. He asked did I want him to speak with the employee, I said maybe but would it just make things more awkward. He asked could I say it to him myself, I said I wouldn't be comfortable doing that but he (my boss) didn't understand that. The way we left it was that he would think about it and talk to me early this coming week.

Any advice welcome please. Am I being sensitive or is it reasonable? What should I be looking for here as a response from my boss or what is the best thing to do? I don't honestly think my boss understands how I'm feeling etc as a young woman. He basically said to me there was nothing definite to go on and implied I'm making a fuss over nothing. He also seems to think that if someone says a little something to this guy that it'll all be fixed. I tried to explain that from my perspective I will still not be comfortable with or trust this guy at least for a while, once you get this energy from a man it's not easy to be comfortable around him even if he starts acting normally.

I have never had this kind of a problem with any of my other coworkers in the 2 years. My boss also suggested doing a general talk for everyone, but I also want to highlight to him that I don't want to ruin the relationship with any of the other men on the team who I am close to and have a good relationship with. I would hate for them to think it was targeted at them.

I really just don't know what to do, or what kind of line to take with my boss in our meeting.

Part 1

I (27F) was making a coffee in the office just before a meeting when a coworker (~40M) I hadn't met before struck up a conversation with me. It was his 3rd day at the company; he'd recently moved from London to the north of the UK for this job, and had only been in the UK for about a year, originally from Jamaica. He suggested we grab a coffee sometime, which I felt was a bit forward for a first interaction, but I assumed positive intent since he was new to the company and area.

The next day he messaged me on Teams to follow up, and I agreed. I told 2 coworkers on my team, who I consider mates, where I'm going and who with. We went to a nearby café, and the conversation was normal until we sat down. I mentioned I'm from London and go back often to see friends, family, and my partner. He then asked if my partner visits much; I said sometimes, but I’m usually in London as I have more people to see. He made his first inappropriate comment by saying, "If I was him, I'd be up here all the time." That made me uncomfortable, so I quickly finished my coffee and suggested we head back.

On the walk back, things were normal again until he made another strange comment just before entering the office; he said, "You remind me of my ex wife. You're very slim like her and you walk like her," and continued to talk about his past marriage. I kept things polite and ended the conversation once we got back. I didn't make things awkward during this interaction as I like to avoid conflict and awkwardness in an office environment.

I told the same 2 coworkers what happened, and we laughed it off. Later, he messaged saying he enjoyed chatting to me over coffee and suggested we go for drinks — I didn't respond. A few hours later, he messaged again and said "I'm done for the day. Here's my number, message me if you like." I responded with "Have a good evening," and told the same colleagues, who were more concerned. After that, I avoided engaging, and he seemed to take the hint.

Part 2

A few months later, a coworker (~30F) from his team approached me. We’re not close, but we chat occasionally. She’d heard about my experience via one of my teammates after raising concerns about him, and asked to speak discreetly as she’d had issues too.

I told her what happened and things had been fine since. She then described her own experiences: on his first day, he said his birthday had been three days earlier and jokingly asked if she made him a cake - with male colleagues present, she felt singled out as the only woman; he sat uncomfortably close while she showed him something on her monitor; and they've been having general work disagreements regarding how to handle clients. She raised concerns with their manager, who tried to defuse the situation.

He later messaged her suggesting they get coffee and “start over." She vehemently declined, saying she’d only interact in a professional setting and preferably with someone else present. She listed her reasons, referring to the issues I outlined above, and he responded with a list of points rebutting her concerns, even mentioning that she once lightheartedly said he smelled like coco butter. She said they now only speak when necessary and that he’s negatively affected team dynamics.

She asked me to report my experience to HR to support her case. I politely declined as our situations are separate, nothing had happened with him for months, and I didn’t feel escalation was necessary in my case. I felt it wasn’t appropriate for her to ask me to report him to HR, since she hadn’t done so herself. She also suggested that I email her manager to describe my experience, which I felt was a bad idea.

I'm aware I wouldn't be in this situation if I had kept matters to myself. I'm more interested to know if I handled part 2 correctly?

I have a really nice co-worker who invited my wife and I to dinner at his house with his wife and him. We are all about the same age (late 20s), me being slightly older. We've never hung out before. I got a promotion to manager recently, so he now is junior to me on the project, although I'm not his direct manager. I just told my wife about this, and she wasn't happy about me accepting the invitation. My wife absolutely does not want to socialize with any of my co-workers anymore, having been burned by my last two jobs, which I admit were over the top with socialization (but we were young and new to town and didn't know anyone). One dinner will not be a problem, and we would not need to reciprocate. My wife says that they'll expect a reciprocation, it'll be rude not to reciprocate, and that she can't trust me to set a boundary and say no if it ever got uncomfortable. She also says that it's not a good idea to socialize with more junior co-workers at the exclusion of others now that I'm a manager. I had already accepted the invitation, and now I can't decline and have it be awkward, and my wife agrees it would be weird to say no because we'll have to eventually accept. He's an amazing colleague, so I can't upset him by not going in case he leaves the company because he's upset (he had confided in me that he had gotten a job offer at our direct competitor but was staying because of me). I don't see how this one time will hurt either. How should I navigate this? What do you do if your co-worker extends an invitation to your spouse but they don't want to go?

Some context: I am at US a Fortune 1000 company at a manger-level. I started less than a year ago. I signed a singing bonus with an 18 month cliff.

I asked while I was interviewing what weekend work looked like and was told it was possible but limited to one or two times per year.

In my first performance review I got an average job rating which felt correct.

I didn’t click with the job or team at first but felt like things have been on an upswing. There have been a lot of outside things happening that have caused stress including a seizure I had. I had to go off my antidepressants and that caused a lot of emotional volatility but I’m on new meds now that work great!

Anyways, because of the seizure and the fact I couldn’t drive, I got a waiver to go into the office only one day per week and work remotely otherwise.

———

I was assigned to work on two projects. One very high visibility but I would be the support role and one much smaller one where I was on the main role. I was asked to prioritize the smaller one but offer to help out on the bigger one when I could.

I felt like I did a good job communicating of when I was free and that was documented well and Teams and email. I did not do much for that project because when I asked, I was told there really wasn’t anything I could easily jump in on even though the project was super crazy and all consuming for the team. I also was doing a lot of weekend work for the smaller project and it was taking up a lot of my time and so I was tied up and could not offer more time to the main project.

Anyways, I got feedback via my manager from the leaders (an EVP and VP) of the high-visibility project who said I was uncommunicative and lacked the situational awareness (eg when the team was spending late nights at the office, I also should have been).

Also, I got feedback that as I was working on something for this project, I told them I vomited and then didn’t reply back for 24 hours.

With this, I had already told folks my son had norovirus, I sent what I had and told them I was vomiting, another team member said they would finish it, and I was already off the next day on PTO (also communicated), and so didn’t feel the need to share that I would be unavailable until the next day anyways.

I was not given this feedback during the project and I was very surprised and insulted by it. Also I feel like it validated my original feeling that I did not click with the team or the job.

I have decided this job and work environment are the wrong fits and I should look for other jobs.

My question is how I can approach HR and my manager about a mutual separation. It’s clear there is misalignment and I would obviously rather not forfeit the signing bonus. How should I go about this and negotiate?

Hi, posting to ask advice for a friend. They're currently gathering evidence of their workplace's wrongdoings and internal communication to support their stance in case this goes to court.

Context: South African based. As the title asks, can they keep work emails on their personal phone for evidence? We're worried that when they resign effective immediately, the employer will try to take them to court for claims (the employer has been completely unfair, withholding payment, underpaying them, refusing to allow them to work from home even though they literally cannot commute to work due to commission payment being withheld). We're printing as many emails as we can, but in the case that their emails will be wiped from the server/access blocked, they want to screenshot the rest and keep it on their personal phone. They're worried this might count against their case.

Apologies if this isnt the right subreddit, we're just really stressed right now. Thank you in advance.

So I have a high performance role, I am constantly expected to work on multiple projects as a designer. Appreciation is hardly there but if I make one mistake, or something that I did get any feedback, why is it that I am into the limelight? So, I have been a quiet worker, did my work before deadlines, no trouble employee. But, recently work has become 4 folds and all eyes are on me, I had a bad week of work, people criticising, me being called out in meetings it was a terrible week (tbh, I wasn't at fault, like it was because of 2/3 people but only I was called out.) After that, I fixed a few things, and the situation got better. But, because I am an anxious person and I expect my work to be perfect Every morning since that week I am waking up with heaviness, anxiety, especially Mondays. With every meeting, every email I am getting anxiety. What if a new mistake is found out? what if I get replaced? it's so so draining and how do you focus on your personal life? how do you focus on the good around you when work is not good.