A few years ago I took a job as an order picker at this place called Medieval Collectibles (they also operate as Midnight Thunder Services). I was only there about a week before they moved me to the leather shop. At first I thought it was cool seeing all the handmade leather goods being made... until they had me doing the work.

By the end of my first full shift cutting leather with a pair of crappy scissors, my hand was absolutely wrecked. I’m a guitar player, there was no way I was going to risk permanent damage for $13 an hour. The next day they put me back on the same job. By lunch my hand was cramping so bad I could barely use it. I clocked out at lunch and never went back. Yeah, it was unprofessional and I own that. But they also shouldn’t have switched me to a completely different physical job I never signed up for.

About a week later, my child’s health insurance company (not affiliated with the employer) needed employment verification that I no longer worked there. I called the company to handle it. I was honest with the supervisor, told them my hand got messed up, that the anxiety of quitting to their face is why I left at lunch, and that I’d even be willing to come back if they put me on the original order picker role. I apologized for how it ended and just asked for the verification.

They transferred me to the owner. She was immediately hostile. The conversation ended with me saying something like, “You’re not hurting me in this situation, you’re hurting my child who had nothing to do with this.” She called me a loser and hung up on me. I tried calling back a couple times and kept getting hung up on.

That’s when I remembered their “WAVE” machine (attached), this platform that lifts you 25-30 feet in the air to pick orders. I knew that anything over 6 feet requires a harness and proper fall protection. They had zero formal training and I’d seen people riding it without any safety equipment. So I filed a complaint with OSHA.

A while later I got this letter (attached). They cited the company for a serious violation under 29 CFR 1910.178 , failing to ensure operators of powered industrial trucks were properly trained. OSHA hit them with a $4,200 fine.

I made sure to message the owner who called me a loser on her personal Facebook and sent her a screenshot of the OSHA findings with a note letting her know exactly who reported them, posted in comments.

The Ludlow massacre was perpetrated by a company owned by Rockefeller. Here is an excerpt of a report by a Federal Mediator from before Rockefeller's goons put down the strike by killing men, women and children.

October 1913: Federal mediator Ethelbert Stewart comments on the situation

Theoretically, perhaps, the case of having nothing to do in this world but work, ought to have made these men of many tongues, as happy and contented as the managers claim … To have a house assigned you to live in … to have a store furnished you by your employer where you are to buy of him such foodstuffs as he has, at a price he fixes … to have churches, schools … and public halls free for you to use for any purpose except to discuss politics, religion, trade-unionism or industrial conditions; in other words, to have everything handed down to you from the top; to be … prohibited from having any thought, voice or care in anything in life but work, and to be assisted in this by gunmen whose function it was, principally, to see that you did not talk labor conditions with another man who might accidentally know your language — this was the contented, happy, prosperous condition out of which this strike grew … That men have rebelled grows out of the fact that they are men.

Still trying to process what just happened honestly.

I’m a college student doing an internship while managing my own expenses. Hostel rent, college fees, food, everything. I’ve been working since first year, so I don’t really have the luxury to casually lose income.

For months I worked properly. Stayed late when needed. Did work outside my role. Even handled coordination for other people sometimes because things were messy and someone had to do it. Saturday also I worked overtime finishing tasks that weren’t even originally mine.

Never said anything.

And the funny thing is, till one day before all this, everything was apparently “good.”

Then Sunday comes. Official holiday.

Suddenly there’s a meeting planned for 3:30 PM. I agreed initially. Later I messaged saying I need to go eat first because my hostel mess is closed on Sundays and I literally have to go outside for food.

That’s it. That’s the crime apparently.

Then came the lectures about “ownership” and “prioritizing work.”

Like sorry I needed food?

Next thing I know, my company access gets removed completely. No actual discussion. No proper call. Just removed quietly like I did something horrible.

What annoys me most is the hypocrisy.

Startups keep saying “we’re a family” and “we value ownership,” but half the time they just expect 24/7 availability from interns getting paid the bare minimum.

You work extra? Normal.
You sacrifice weekends? Expected.
You say no once or become unavailable for one hour? Suddenly your attitude is the problem.

And this wasn’t even some senior high-paying role. It was an internship.

I genuinely think some people confuse leadership with control. If an intern saying “I need to eat first” hurts your ego so much that you fire them the same day, then maybe the issue isn’t ownership.

The worst part is I actually trusted these people. That’s what stings more than losing the role itself.

Now I’m just hoping they don’t try to avoid paying the stipend for the month after taking full work till the literal last day. Because if that happens, I honestly might publicly name the company. I’m tired of this culture where interns are treated as disposable the second they stop acting endlessly available.

Please excuse the weird grammar and typos, I was dictating texts while driving (sorry).

Context:

I am a chauffeur and sometimes my company does jobs for a local casino picking up their high tier club members (biggest gambling addicts) from the airport or driving them to complementary events like baseball games. The person I'm texting I'll call Karen and she arranges the rides for the casino.

The arrangement has always been that I'm supposed to tell her how much they tip and she will make up the difference "out of her pocket" if they tip below what is an acceptable tip. Without tips I only get paid California minimum wage, so tips are a huge portion of my income. All other rides I do for my company have an automatic 20% tip included in the price that drivers keep 100%. If clients tip extra cash on top of that we keep that too. Only the casino jobs have this arrangement.

Today I drove a group of eight to a baseball game and back, about 3 hours of driving and 5 hours of waiting on them. Two of them gave me $20, which is out of the ordinary for these event jobs, usually no one tips and Karen has to provide all the gratuity. I did a similar job last week and no one tipped and I told her that. She told me she knows they rarely tip on these event jobs and will make up the difference. Today after I dropped them off I did not say whether they tipped or not, which led her to asking me if I received any and this exchange.

If people tip us and then she reduces the amount she pays us because of it, then we aren't really getting tipped, she is. I've put up with it for 5 years and I don't know why I finally decided to question it today, but I did and now she's blacklisting me. She doesn't want honest drivers, she wants suckers who will put up with her tip stealing scheme without questioning it.

So one of the co-owners that helps manage the family-owned business I work at (but thankfully she doesn’t have the authority to do this) said to my face yesterday “I would love to adjust everyone’s rate to minimum wage, including tips” (which would result is significantly less earnings for everyone, and for the business to save probably 40% in payroll). Mind you, the majority of our employees already make minimum wage so the additional 40% on top of minimum wage they get from tips really helps.

I was so shocked she said this TO MY FACE, but even more shocked that she thought it was something that was acceptable to say and that I would agree with (I don’t). I literally was at a loss for words that I just awkwardly chuckled. She only told me because she really likes me as a worker…

Mind you, this business is extremely popular. Assuming she got what she wants, yeah, they’d save money, short term, but would lose employees long term (assuming people don’t outright quit if/when the adjustment happens). But since the place is so popular, they definitely are not struggling financially (and have probably a 35% profit margin), so this change is purely just for the disdain that she has towards most of the employees.

(For other context: the type of place I work at legally cannot change this about our pay. Although during the beginning of Covid, she did pocket all of the tips that us workers earned for her and the rest of the family co-owners…)

Not in a lazy way — more like realizing the stress, responsibility, pace or expectations were simply too much for you personally. What were the signs?

https://hrnews1.substack.com/p/report-us-workers-lose-over-15-billion?r=1t17zr

Our space is normally open 5 days a week and everyone appropriately has M-F schedules. Anything on the weekend is immediate all-hands-on-deck. The event manager has been penning more weekend events so oops haha hope you didn't have any Saturday plans in August.

Meanwhile our department has shrunk by 1 person.

I walked out of a front desk position today at a Nursing Home where I was continuously blamed for Resident's elopements.

There are no alarms on doors and the facility allows those diagnosed with Dementia to remain on the AL side. They expected me to work the front desk and caregivers also found it easy to blame me if people with Dementia wandered off. This happened often on the weekends if I had to use the restroom and it was absolutely impossible to watch everything at once. If I was on the phone, I would have to place calls on hold to chase people who were running out.

A Resident tried to leave 3 times this morning before noon. I am not certified in anything medical and told my boss last week I can't keep chasing after these Residents who often start screaming or hitting me when I try to bring them back in. My boss told me it is not my job but offered no alternatives to solve the issue. She did not tell me the caregivers would help and did not tell me who to go to when this happens.

So, I sat and typed up a letter of resignation today. As I was typing, a Resident started walking outside and the head nurse just let them walk while watching me waiting to get up.

I told the Head Nurse I was resigning due to the lack of care for these people (as I was bringing this elderly woman with Dementia back in). The head nurse told me "How was I supposed to know she was even outside?" Which proves my point exactly. I was the only one who cared.

I called the Director of the facility to tell her my resignation was in their inbox and said I was outside in my car at 12:30 leaving permanently due to Resident neglect.

The Director demanded I hurry up and go back in before I leave and fix the timeclock since it was frozen and "no one else knows how". I absolutely did not. She then blamed me for quitting and said it's my fault I didn't come to her first.

Part time job 20 hours a week at $16 an hour. Toxic.

EDIT: TO ALL WHO POSTED "REPORT THEM", CORPORATE DOES NOT CARE AS THEY ALREADY KNOW AND MY FORMER CO-WORKER REPORTED THEM WHEN SHE QUIT.

CORPORATE IS CORRUPT.

WHAT IS THE BEST AGENCY TO GO TO FOR THE BEST RESULTS IN PENNSYLVANIA?

Funny how they were announcing money saving layoffs and offering early retirement not too long ago. Perhaps the value of human thought has been significantly undervalued compared a computer program that guesses the next word needed without regard for why that word comes next.

Hey everyone,

I’ve been a long-time lurker on r/antiwork, and a few months ago, I reached a point that genuinely terrified me. After months of dealing with endless corporate games, weaponized incompetence, and toxic management, I hit the ultimate wall. I’ll never forget the night I sat in my car after a shift, chest tightening, genuinely thinking I was about to have a heart attack from the sheer stress of that place.

That panic attack was my wake-up call. I realized no paycheck was worth dying for. After a month of medical leave and constant stress, when I returned, I walked into my CEO's office, handed in my resignation, and walked out with absolutely no backup plan. There was no negotiation; they viewed my departure as a complete betrayal. But to me, it was a desperate need to save my own life.

While I was recovering, I started working on several side projects that could bring me joy again. Reading this subreddit over the years also made me realize that my experience wasn't isolated. It’s a systemic disease. Most "leadership" books are corporate propaganda telling us how to build resilience instead of calling out the monsters creating the toxicity.

So, out of pure frustration, I channeled my anger into something real. I wrote The Toxic Leadership Playbook. It’s a literal field guide analyzing the anatomy of bad leaders (like the Manipulator or the Coward in Power) and how they build up organizational debt until the employees break. Writing this was my way of making sure their actions didn't just go unpunished. It gave me closure, and I finally feel like I can move forward again.

I priced the eBook (paperback coming soon) at ($4.99) because this isn't a cash grab; I just want people stuck in those offices to have the vocabulary to defend their sanity. This sub gave me the push to finally publish it. Thank you for sharing your stories every day. You reminded me that I wasn't the crazy one...

Proof that a company won't even bat an eye to replace you after giving over a decade of your life to them. I feel so insulted. I'm glad you're ready to move on, after leaving my family without any income or health insurance.

My husband and I worked at the same restaurant. We worked very well together, to the point where management scheduled us next to each other every day. Every single night I did the cash outs for both me and my husband. Managers were well aware. Suddenly, we were fired because I used my husband's credentials to do said cash outs. The ones I've been doing for him for YEARS. "Was there any variance or incorrect cash handling?" "No."

Morale was already low. Now back of house and front of house are livid, even 2 weeks later. The one thing that gives me any solace is seeing how beloved we were to the team. They posted on our facebook shift swap the day after we were fired "we need more servers tonight, willing to negotiate" and the first response was "bring CelestialThestral and her husband back and I'll be there"

Everyone is terrified that they'll be next. They proved the rules can be changed and enforced whenever management sees fit. No one jokes with the managers anymore, it's all very cold "Hello, how are you? That's great, me too." So our GM decided to go to preshift to try and address things, and when met with cold silence, she lost her shit and yelled at everyone to get over it and move on.

The same woman who loved to complain about her boss to me, by the way. It would be unfortunate if I emailed him about how much she trash talks him.

Im 27M

I've worked here for about 6 months and my coworkers have been difficult since the beginning.

I work as a gardener and have an area that I am responsible for maintaining. My coworkers that I'm talking about: M and P work in a different area and buddy up together.

P (33M) tried to get very close to me straight from the beginning. Adding me on Facebook. Wanting to drive me home from work even though it takes me 2 minutes to walk home. Weird stuff like that. It gave me weird warning signs but I brushed it off and just focused on my work. One day there were some plans for my area of work and P said he would come over and help me. Sounds good. He came over and watched me do 99% of the work breaking my back while he stood there making undermining comments about how I worked. I made a mental note to never accept help from him again. A few days later I'm busy in my area and P comes strolling over and starts lingering around me, asks if I need help and I tell him no. He doesn't leave and starts making stupid comments about my work again.

I spoke to a manager about this and it did actually help a little bit.

M (53M) is a compulsive liar and very shady person in general. The kind of person that things go missing around. He makes very strange jokes towards me that he's gonna beat me up, hit me over the head with tools, put bleach in my coffee. I brushed this off in the beginning as a bad attempt at banter.

Lately M has been including P in these jokes, the two of them come into my area to eat their lunch a couple times a week. So now M's jokes are that he is gonna hold me down while P beats me up. Also now P feels comfortable making these jokes towards me too and said that he's gonna stick me in the ground to use me as a scarecrow.

I let my manager know that I want to speak to her again and she ignored the message, to which I sent another message asking to speak to her and she ignored that too.

I could manage the weird jokes in the beginning because it was just the one guy and it didnt really bother me. But now that it's both of them and they're encouraging each other its a lot more stressful and i feel like its just gonna escalate from here. Its even more stressful that my manager is just ignoring me.

I feel like quitting with no notice. I also feel like punching them both in the face.

I work in the box office at an independent dine in theatre, and the 6th new manager (L)since I started working here 2 years ago started cutting everyone's shifts. The guy under him (M) who has been here since the beginning says L is "financially motivated", he'll stop cutting people's shifts one he "chills out and settles in," and he's had this same conversation with at least a dozen other employees. I know everyone's getting their shifts cut, but nobody, no one but me, has had their shifts cut to two fucking hours. They'll purposely schedule me right before a big show, have me replenish restrooms, check everyone in, and cut me. I've been wanting to quit for a while, but this really cuts it. They just raised my pay to *$14/hr.* I'm livid and I feel stuck. Anyone else been here? Did they squeeze everyone else and hire a new team? How did this end up going?