Surviving Corporate Hell | Reddit Workplace Stories ⭐

Is this... what adult life is?

Every workplace has its own politics, personalities, and unwritten rules—and somehow we're all expected to figure them out as we go. This week, we're unpacking Reddit workplace stories about career growth, salary conversations, difficult managers, and the workplace dynamics no one teaches you.

Hit follow for more cozy, chaotic Reddit dives every week.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I'm Sam of Don't Jump Podcast. I'm Simone of the same podcast obviously I'm sitting on this couch.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Okay, this is the Reddit Workplace podcast where we read Reddit stories about working and we talk about them.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Because what?

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Working sucks. Working really sucks. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

I'm so happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

I'm happy to be here too, but I need electrolytes.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Sounded really good in cartoonish.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Coconut water with my electrolyte power.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Cocoa, coconut water. Summer is here. Yeah. Nobody is back. We're going on a boat. It's great.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

I'm just I'm so happy. You know what would make it better? Quitting? You're so close. Don't take the words out of my mouth. If we didn't have to work for a living, you know what my therapist said to me the other day? I'm always quoting her. Shout out to my therapist.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Shout out to your therapist.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

She said, humans are the only creatures on this planet that have to labor for their existence.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

So true. Yeah. So true. Because I wasn't saying no, like birds, they have to fly. That's labor.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

But they're not laboring for their existence. That is part of their existence.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Exactly. And we still have to do the eating and the cooking and all that stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

But on that note, I thought it would be good to like take it back to the basics today. So since we're talking about how much working sucks, I thought I'd bring it right back to that feeling of starting out working for the first time in your life. When did you start working? Oh, like ever? Like first part-time job or first full-time job or for first any job, even internships.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Honestly, college. I had work study. I don't really count babysitting because that's family, friends of friends, but real money paycheck had to fill out a it's not a W-2 when it's part-time. What is it? Like an ID. W2, yeah. Um, college, I did production work. Nice. Um, I was an RA, so that was abusive. I could do a whole episode on like we should do an episode on college. Because how am I your mother and I'm a year older than you?

SPEAKER_00 1:58

See, I always thought we're so off topic, but I always thought I always thought the whole RA thing was a scam because I was like, yeah, you get free housing, but then you can't do anything five nights a week.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

It wasn't worth it. Did I tell you about the time that I saw someone jump out of a six-story building?

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Did it on purpose?

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Yeah, they were on acid and they thought they could fly. And then the school suspended them for doing drugs. Like he survived, broke both of his legs because he fell like a big thing.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Oh my god, you need to change on a drug. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Anyway, like working has just really I shouldn't have ever been in that situation, but I have to do that.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

No, you shouldn't have.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

That's my job. And I just saw the scariest thing in my entire life, and now I have to write a report about it. What?

SPEAKER_00 2:40

That's that's some Syracuse shit.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

I know.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Okay. Alright. So, anyways, the reason I asked that is just I'm just curious what your perspective is gonna be. I've been working for a very long time since I was. Chipotle! Yeah, 15. First job, Chipotle. Used to work 40 hour weeks during the summer. I don't know if that's legal, doesn't matter. Point is, this is someone who is experiencing their first time in the workplace. User Bright underscore tennis underscore 1075 says, first time working eight hours a day, five days a week in office. Is this my life now?

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Oh baby.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Yeah, it is the life. I'm sorry. I'm a student graduating in December and I'm interning for a company over the summer. Granted, it's only my first week, but it's Friday now, and all I can say is what an exhausting experience it's been. You're here for a wild ride, bro.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

I'm so sorry. I know you're laughing, but I feel so badly for bro.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

The company itself is great and the people are nice, but the biggest challenge is being in the office for eight hours and waking up to get here by 8 a.m. Luckily, I'm only in this role for two months, but omge, is this my life now? Yeah. I don't understand how people with children or even pets can do this day in and day out. Everyone just tells me I'll get used to it because this is my life now, whether it's with this company or another. The thing is, I wouldn't want to be working in retail, restaurant, business, or trade, so I guess this is my only choice. Open to any advice or other rants from fellow interns to make me feel better.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

That's I know that feeling exactly. My first job in college, that production job, my feet were swollen. I came back to my dorm, and my boyfriend at the time, I was like, is I had the same exact reaction, like, this is terrible, I'm so tired. I threw my wig off and I just started crying. Like, I can't do this. He's like, Yeah, because he was working like you since he was 15 years old. He's like, This is what a job is, baby girl. Yeah, and I just saw my whole life flash in front of me, and it it's dark. It's a terrible system that humans created.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

I guess I can only speak for myself, but I never had that moment that OP is having of realization that this is my life now because it was became my life early enough to where it just felt like it was part of me already. Trauma.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Trauma.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Um the the commenters are trying to be helpful, but it's honestly reality, so how helpful can you be? First commenter says, Phoenix YT2217 says, 22-year-old here, bro. I don't so love 22. Sorry. Um, 22-year-old here. It definitely hits you hard at first. For the first couple of weeks, you will come home mentally wiped out and ready for bed, but I will say it gets much easier, way quicker than you think. I just celebrated my one-year anniversary at my job, and I am not joking when I say it went by in the blink of an eye. You get into a very nice rhythm, and with time you learn how to balance work in life. Of course, it does help to have coworkers that you like to show up for. My tip of advice is to keep an open mind. Go into every day wanting to learn something new and always leave the door open for better opportunities. Above all, just enjoy it. I have found the beauty in having a thick schedule, a consistent paycheck, good benefits, and not to toot my own horn, but a job that I'm very good at.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

You know what, 22-year-old Sally girl, that was good advice. It is a matter, you know what, you change your perspective. You know why? Why did your voice dropping Octo? You don't know that. TikTok me it's like a TikTok, yeah. Do not plugged in to Sorry, I'm old. Yeah, you're old. Um, but that was really, really good advice. I think, yes, in time it gets better. And to Sally's point, she mentioned Where are you getting Sally from? Yeah, she was getting Sally. Okay, yeah. She mentioned find that balance. Obviously, it's easier in some roles than others to force that balance, but it's really key to make sure your work doesn't become your life and that your job just funds your life, and you'll figure that balance out. It's day one for OP, so we have faith in this person, but yeah, it is a sobering, sobering realization.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Whatever 32657 says, it's always a shock when you go from life being on your own terms, free as a flower, to being owned by a company for most of your waking hours. Five days a week, burning you out so much that you don't even feel like getting up unless precious two days off each week. Then the realization hits that this is what life looks like for the next 40 years or so. So to that point, I want to say to OP, it's been a day, so maybe give it a week, give it a month. Also, it's an internship, and we all need internships to get our jobs. This is an internship, it ends, and all you need to do is get through it and then use the experience to potentially open a door later. But if you realize that this is literally just not for you, you can find your way into freelancing. Like it's it's not just work a trade or sit at a desk and hate your life. Like there's there's options out there, they just take effort, and I personally don't like putting in effort, but because you already did it.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

You already did it when you were 21 years old.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

10 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Something else I don't like putting effort into is fighting for more pay at work. I feel like you should just give me more money because I'm good at my job. Yeah. Um, what would you do if you found out that your coworker who does the exact same work as you puts in the exact same effort, was making like 20k more than you?

SPEAKER_01 7:44

20k? Let's call it 18. I definitely would have a conversation with my hiring man, like my team. Say what? Hey, I know I actually it's not a comfortable conversation, but I had a very similar one where I understood I was being underpaid on the team by a substantial amount, and I advocated for myself, like, hey, I'm doing X, Y, and Z either scale the workload appropriately or compensate me. The compensation wasn't in the budget. So I did prioritize leaving and I left. It was a it was more than an ego thing, it's like an ethics thing, right? We had the same amount of experience too, and so maybe where you're going, if this poster is greener, newer in this field, and they're hiring the uh co-worker for their experience, like maybe there's nuance to it, but even still, 18k is a huge difference.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

You're not gonna like this story. Ooh, okay. In our work, user fun underscore fall199 says, found out my co-worker makes 18k more than me for the exact same job, and I have to sit next to him every single day. We have the same title, started within four months of each other, and I have been here longer. Ooh! Mm-hmm. I went back to my desk and just sat there for about 20 minutes pretending to work while doing nothing except staring at my screen, thinking about every time I stayed late, every project I carried, and every performance review where I was told I was doing great, and that hard work gets noticed here. I have about 4,000 saves up on Rolling Riches, which I used to think was decent progress, and now it just feels like a symbol of how long I've been undervaluing myself without realizing it. The part that is messing with me more than the number itself is that I like this guy. He's not the problem. He just negotiated better than me or got lucky with timing or both. And I can't even be mad at him for that. I've been on my phone all evening just playing around and thinking about it if I should complain or ask for a race.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

Is this person what's their gender? Do they say?

SPEAKER_00 9:48

They don't say.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

I am assuming that's a that's a woman.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Because she specifically called out that her coworker who's a man.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah, I am pretty sure. And it's it's really it's sad because it's a combination of things. A, we don't know how or what we can negotiate towards or to like we don't know how to push a boundary. But that is a skill that you can learn, and I think it's totally fair to open up that conversation with your boss. I think pay transparency isn't a s it shouldn't be a secret, and it's okay that they know that you know that you're being underpaid. I think that that's okay. Well what's the secret in that? Really important for OB to advocate for herself because hey, nobody else really will to the extent that they should.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Yep. Top comment says the same thing. Don't complain, talk to your manager about getting an equitable raise. Do not say you know what the other person makes, don't mention the other person. Do strongly love them know that you are seeking fair market value. If this fails, then you can bring up the compensation. You can also try to get another job and use that as leverage.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

I brought up my co-workers' pay. Like choice to say don't mention that you know that you're being underpaid in comparison to other people on the team. I stand by that. I don't think that that's a bad thing. You don't have to name drop him specifically. You can just say a market value, market research, and also company research. Check your your jobs, um, like job postings. Sometimes they have a range on there. Yeah, see if you can have an internal benchmark that you can reference that is more public, but at the end of the day, some conversation needs to be had because you're gonna sit there, you're just gonna have resentment. I know I would. I would be incredibly pissed every day. 18k? That's not nothing.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

That's a huge difference for the same amount of work. Right. Um, responsible underscore ask 396 says honestly, so glad that salary is super transparent at my job. Salary is public for anyone to look up. It should be like that at every job.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

That was a government, because government you have to list what it is.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Well, no, there's a push for that, like culturally what what is it called? Transparent transparency. It's called like transparent something. I don't know. I don't know. One time we were having an all hands at one of my old jobs, and we were supposed to submit questions, and I was like, Will you guys ever do transparent pay? And they literally went, no. They were like, no, because in order for us to be able to make sure we pay people their worth, that it would be uncomfortable for you if we were transparent about what we pay. So because we want you to be comfortable in your job, we can't do that. Exactly. Oh, my toes were on the floor for too long and they're like stuck curled now.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Okay, I thought something was wrong with the mic. I can handle my toes. Your toes crumping. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

I need to crumbling They're doing gangs on you. You know, like when you spaz out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway. I was using that as a transition though. And you gotta you brought it back to my feet. So imagine my feet on the beach. Imagine my feet on the beach while I'm on PTO. Now imagine my feet on the beach while I'm on PTO, and then my phone buzzes, and it's an email saying that I just got fired. Oh, mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Oh, really damn good beach time.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Well, I would honestly just order a drink and deal with it later, but user OK Insurance284 says, got fired during vacation. Yesterday was the first day of my vacation that I got approved for PTO and the bereavement pay. I texted my boss just confirming that they can put in the PTO to follow my two days' bereavement as I took five days off. She responded saying my obituary had no dates on it, but she already approved everything weeks ago. I responded with, okay, I'm slightly confused. Are you revoking the approval of the bereavement because the dates aren't on the obituary? She left me on red. This morning I was emailed a termination letter. I plan on quitting anyway, but does this mean she doesn't have to pay me my PTO or bereavement?

SPEAKER_01 13:57

I thought you had to get paid your unused PTO anyway.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

It depends on the state.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

And they didn't share that information, so I cannot offer.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

So so probably not, considering he a he or she asked this question. I'm more like, does your boss think you killed somebody? Like, I don't think you're lying about someone being dead. Who does that?

SPEAKER_00 14:18

That's crazy. I just was I talk- I don't know if I was talking to you or if I was talking to my partner. I think I'm talking to my therapist, because that's who I talk to the most.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

You said last time that was the last time you were gonna mention your therapist.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

She loves you, girl. I love my therapist. She loves you. Yeah. Um, because something I've been working on is reminding myself that people at my job aren't out to get me. And the reason I have to work on that is because of all my other jobs, people have been out to get me. So it's like, how am I supposed to know that no one's out to get me when everyone's always been out to get me, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:50

And sound logic. Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

And I'll go to her and I'll be like, This happened, and I freaked out for an hour, and I was having heart palpitations, and she'll be like, What happened after that? And I'm like, Oh, someone told me I did a good job, and she's like, right. So what I'm hearing is, you did a good job. And I'm like, Yeah, but I freaked out about it, and that's stressful to me. She's like, Yeah, well, you in the past they would have told you to go fuck yourself, even though you did a good job. So it's like your body learning it. It's people like this manager who are why I have heart palpitations. Yeah. While being at my very good job.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Trauma.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Because what like if someone is sending, putting in for bereavement leave, they're going through stuff. They're going through, like, I don't I don't care what the dates on the obituary are. I don't care if it's a fake obituary, to be honest. If you're going so far to send me an obituary to get some time off, you have very issues anyway. You have something going on, and then to just not respond to OP and leave them on red and then email a termination letter, are are you sick in the head?

SPEAKER_01 15:52

It's actually doesn't sound legal. It doesn't sound legal at all.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Suspicious. And back thing I said in one of our first episodes we ever taped is we all needed two more.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

I think OP should suit. I don't know. No, no, that does sound super illegal.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

I'm not, stoop, sto, sto, sto, sto, stoo, uh stup. Okay. Final story today. Also from our work, if you haven't noticed the theme, really trying to like do a broad variety of stories across the workplace diaspora. Am I allowed to say that? I don't I think, I think so. Okay, yeah. Shea was here, says, I disrupted a corporate team building meeting by saying I'm only there to do my job. Am I the asshole here? I'm feeling really thrown off after confronting my boss and coworkers during a mandatory team building session today. The company hired a corporate coach to help us improve both socially and professionally. I'm perfectly functional when it comes to the social aspects of my job, but at the end of the day, I'm a programmer. My skill sets aren't supposed to be those of a project manager or a salesman. They're teaching us techniques on how to deal with difficult coworkers. I ended up lighting a torch under the meeting by saying that while I obviously need to be cooperative and capable of working in a team, it shouldn't be my responsibility to manage difficult personalities on top of doing the actual job I'm paid for. Programming. Real? But I feel like they probably said blunt.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Yeah. The entire team looked at me in absolute disbelief and completely disagreed with my take. Now I'm sitting here wondering if I'm just a massive asshole who refuses to deal with anyone's crap. They argued that these corporate coaching sessions are beneficial because they teach life skills. But honestly, I couldn't care less about socializing at work. I go there because I get paid. Is it a hot take, or does anyone else here agree with me? I agree with you. Why did you say it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Are you kidding me? I think I think no one truly understands my hate towards corporatism, the workplace. The nonsense. Because I'm I'm good at masking it. And I know my audience, right? My audience is here on this couch with my good friend Samantha. Hello. It's not to my boss who pays me and all my co-workers who I work with on a daily basis. Yeah, that's my circle drip crew, not my be real crew. Hello, like time and place. Not everybody deserves or can handle realness. Yeah, hello. And usually not in corporate, like people there, their brains are broke.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

No, they are. They have to be broken. It's like, it's like that one movie, um, Sucker Punch, where the girls actually just like had a lobotomy and it was all in their head, but like the the fantasy was how they escaped from the fact that they were getting lobotomies. Like, everyone has a lobotomy at work and they're all just I wanted to see that movie so bad, but I wasn't allowed to.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Yeah, so thanks for the spoilers.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Oh, I read the Wikipedia. We should watch it together. I never actually saw it. Anyway, forget about I didn't say that.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

We're pro-lobotomy, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

No.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

No. No.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

We're pro the movie Sucker Punch.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

We're pro we're pro knowing your audience and not being overly honest. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

And Top Comment says that's the kind of shit you say to co-workers when the boss is not around. The commenter underneath that said, you know when people put like capital lowercase, capital, lowercase. But he is perfectly functional at the social aspects of his job. You don't need to bully him. Obviously, like he is not functional at the social aspects if you couldn't pick up on that. But that sounds like a problem for his friends.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Yeah, I do think they're gonna fire him though, so good luck.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

I don't think they're gonna fire him.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

They're gonna fire him. If there are layoffs, which there are always layoffs, the first person who's getting the boot is the person who says, I only love you for the money that you give me, which is fair and real and valid.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

Why else do we love our jobs though?

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Because we're all friends and we love each other and we're a family, and we're working on really important projects that are gonna provide not only worth to the shareholders, but to the world at large.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

What worth do the shareholders give me?

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Um PTO, I don't They don't give me that. Yeah, you gotta fake it, brother. This is such a learning lesson. You're you're real, real, hashtag real, I get it. But um, yeah, your boss is not trying to hear all that.

unknown 20:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

I'm trying to think, let me pose the question back to you. If you were a boss, if you own the company and some the what is he, a software engineer?

SPEAKER_00 20:19

This is an improbable scenario because I'm not paying for any extra training and I'm I'm not making anyone do anything that I wouldn't want to do, I wouldn't want to do this.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

In this world, you do, right? You're the same exact version of you, but you met this life coach and you're like, oh my god, my team would really extrapolate some sort of value from this person giving them these life skills. So you're super excited about this person coming in to teach your team how to be better team members, and the engineer is like, Why are we doing this? This is so silly. How would you react?

SPEAKER_00 20:54

I'd say, hey Tom, remember three weeks ago when you were put in a call to explain how the program works to a client and you couldn't get one sentence out of your mouth without saying um or like that's why you're in this meeting right now, Tom. Shut the fuck up. Right. That's what I'd say.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Right, so you're on team boss. You are the boss. And you just you forced me into the scenario. Yeah, yeah, but and I mean to play devil's advocate to his point. He's saying he's not a project manager, he shouldn't be on these calls. Okay. That's not his job.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

And that's exactly why I wouldn't have had Tom in the meeting in the first place if this was real when I came out. It's all silly, it's all dumb. It's all fake, none of it's real. But this episode is real, we're real. That was fun.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Um, I don't know. Wrap it up, brother. That is gonna wrap up. This episode is real.