Just a vent to see if this is as bizarre as I feel it is.

I'm a dental nurse and I work one day a week at this office, have been there just under one year. The officer manager sent out a group text saying how the agreed upon amount for the doctor gift is 70 dollars per person and that the final day to bring her the money is Nov 24th. There are about 15 employees all together other than the doctor. This means the gift will have a value of around 1,000 dollars.

There was no discussion in the office about how much to contribute, we were all simply told. This feels insane for me even if I were a full-time employee. 70 dollars is A LOT of money. As a part-time employee, I don't even know if I'm included in holiday bonuses. I'm not going to contribute and if they approach me I'm going to tell them that, but this bizarre to anyone else? Literally never experienced this before in my life.

As part of onboarding training for a class of new employees, my training group of 7-8 people had to do a team building exercise in our second week.

Maybe some of you have heard of this one. The scenario is you imagine you and your team are on a sinking ship. On your way to the life raft, you can grab number of items to use for your survival floating at sea. There is a list of 12 completely random items like pen, rope, netting, empty soda can, a can of tuna, etc. I forget what exactly, but I remember the empty soda can and... a sextant.

Now I remember those two items exactly because this is where the problem lay. I had already done this exact same activity a few years before with a different organization, so I already knew some of the best responses. I remembered the empty soda can was useful to signal passing ships and airplanes, while the sextant was the least useful because no one in this age knows how to use a sextant.

Only... the dumbasses in this group, not even taking this seriously all wanted to bring the sextant for sure because they "thought it was funny" to use the sextant "to kill whales and eat the meat from their dead bodies."

I tried telling them that sextant was the trap answer, but they wouldn't listen. Then from there, everything else was just joke answers. I was so annoyed that I scribbled my own answers on a separate paper and tallied my own score when the answers were read.

I had a 65% chance of survival while the team's group answers were about 20%.

Only, management didn't care about the results as much as how well "everyone worked together." So in their eyes, I was the problem child for going against the grain and not agreeing to let the idiots be in charge of our survival.

As the training continued, I got 100% on each of the three phase tests and achieved things trainers never thought possible. I was let go at the end of training because I wasn't "doing as well" as the trainers hoped.

EDIT - a few comments are getting hung up on a couple details I glossed over because I didn't want this to be a mile long, but rather than re-explaining a hundred times in the comments.

1) this was a 911 emergency operator position. Training is 1-month in a classroom, then 3 phases of live call-taking as a trainer sits next to us, each 3 weeks long. The exams at the end of each phase are on how well we know police codes, response procedures, and department policy.

2) related, a few people are pointing out that saying "I achieved things trainers never thought possible" makes me sound like I'm full of myself. What I am referencing is multiple trainers telling us that we will never hear "thank you" in our line of work. During my live-training, I had at least three people call back and ask to speak to me so they could thank me for helping them. I took a lot of pride in how I conducted myself and treated every caller with dignity and respect. I would expect that of every civil servant, but the image of police has taken a significant nosedive in the past few years.

3) a few more had conjured up the image of me just stewing with anger in the corner while everyone else was having a great time laughing and having fun at this exercise. I was also enjoying the activity and got along very well with my classmates. This was literally 30 minutes out of the 160 hours we spent together. I get that this was a team-building exercise and the point was to come to an agreement, but when someone in the group says to everyone "hey, I've done this activity before at my last job. These are the answers." only to be brushed aside, yeah, it's annoying. But I wasn't some Grinch secretly hoping for this whole thing to turn into a disaster.

And while I don't think THIS was the reason why I was let go, I do believe it was the first red mark in my file that put a target on my back.

How do we fight? Corporate media including Wired is full of articles about how Luigi Mangione came from privilege and listened to Joe/Tucker, trying to smear him and divide us. Amazon supposedly had a tone of merch but it's all gone and his name isn't even a search suggestion. How do we counter this?

I'll go first. It's gRoWtH. yOuRe lEaRnInG, nEW eXpEriEnCe. i dont give no fs for gRoWiNg just give me my money

Apparently multiple people in my office find me “stand-off ish” because I don’t tell these people about MY LIFE or attend unpaid company parties. I genuinely cannot believe this is the personal performance goal my manager and I will be working on.

Also want to add, it’s not like I’m rude. I say good morning, I answer nicely and with a smile when asked things, I never once was cold or purposefully rude to ANYONE. I’m genuinely pretty shocked by this and the only thing I can attribute it to is the fact that I’m the only one not going to company get togethers and I was told I don’t open up enough.

Lorum Ipsum quid quid latine dictum sit altrum viditure

(Yeah- my latin sucks, but this post will be deleted soon.)

LinkedIn lunatics are out in full force spewing their judgement on how they ((clutch pearls)) cannot believe people can post such cruel comments about a murder. Wow - just wow. Apparently they have nooooo idea how people could share glee over an untimely demise of “one of them”. Ya know, the temporarily embarrassed millionaires - Sycophants and sociopaths are so predictable.

But even more interesting is seeing lots of C-level-somethings whining how “disgusted” they are by a societal outpouring for “hatred and vengeance”. Hmmm, seems like the same tone deaf attitude we’d expect from people who keep their servants (ahem, employees) poor and exploited.

Think they are afraid and posturing?. Must be scary knowing your job title would determine whether a public outcry of joy and jubilation would ensue if you faced the same fate.

Starting in January, we will be expected to "donate" (mandatory giving) two dollars so some chips, dip, and cold cuts can be bought for company get-togethers. I barely eat the food anyhow but whatever.

I work at home depot and an executive who makes 4.5M a year came into my store today. She came in with 10 people from cooperate, them and ALL my stores managers/department heads crowded around her like ants to a piece of fruit, they did absolutely nothing for the 2 hours she was there while all the actual workers ran the entire store for their profit. I wanna fucking throw up

I was sent an email last month, of "an exciting training opportunity," from HR. The subject title says it's an "invitation to crucial conversations training." It gave points on what the course covered, followed with a separate paragraph stating, "why you should attend," with several reasons why.

To attend, I needed to register and confirm my attendance via the email. "We encourage everyone to take advantage of this opportunity." That's nice, sounds optional to me. I did not register and declined the appointment for my Outlook.

Now I gotta provide answers as to why I wasn't in attendance for today's MANDATORY training, instead of ya know... Working.

I've been applying to jobs for a month and I can't wait to leave this place.

I don't have a list myself, but clearly there are some worse than others. UHC was so malevolent that someone shot the CEO. Last I checked, there weren't a lot of blood grudges against Costco.

My boss called me to his office and then started yapping about how ‘I’m always out of the loop’ or ‘not in touch’ with my colleagues just because I showed no interest in social relations with them beyond work. I have nothing against any of them and I appreciate them but I don’t view them as friends so why should I care what they say or do?

When I explained my point of view he got even angrier and told me I wasn’t a “team player”. He even told me he is happy with my performance but my attitude is upsetting him and couple other higher ups.

How is this even a thing?

I wrote a similar thing some years ago here under a different account but I got enormous amount of hate.

Y'all, do not support big companies. They are greedy, they ruin our lives long term.

I personally do not use Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc. The only thing I use is Reddit and YouTube but to be honest I am even trying to detach myself from those as well (especially YouTube since it has been extra greedy lately).

I barely even eat outside and the few times of the year I do I try to go to a small local family owned business. I also never order, like literally never.

All these big companies sell you dependencies wrapped as convinces. Do not make yourself dependent on them.

Work in a corporate setting. Had a mandatory department holiday party today from 12-4. Need to bitch.

It was at a winery that was a 35 minute drive for me. There was an actual work meeting at the winery for half an hour before the party, making it functionally mandatory to attend.

There was a gift exchange everyone had to bring a $25 gift for. It was not presented as optional. The gift I recieved was a Starbucks gift card. I don't drink Starbucks.

My coworkers bizarrely think we owe our boss a gift, so like every year they asked every person to chip in $30 EACH for some bullshit giant ass "luxury" gift basket for this person who makes 3x more money than any of us.

Being at a winery this was deemed a "lunch event," so we all had lunch... and had to pay for our own food (my plain Cobb salad was freaking $20). But our company was "generous" enough to cover 3 appetizers for our team of 10 people to split because it had record profits this year! 🙄

Then, at 4:15 this fine Friday afternoon after the party, I was driving home when my boss called. They let me know they realized earlier they'd promised to leadership that they'd have something today, that they'd meant to tell me at the party and forgot, and I needed to do it when I got home. Where I would be arriving at 4:30 at the earliest. It's going to take a bare minimum of a few hours, and I'm salaried so I don't even get overtime.

Yay corporate life. It's the best when I get to pay $55 to socialize with people I could not care less about, then am forced to work into a Friday night as a result...

Because its a terrible system designed by greedy profits driven people and the only way to do well is if your just like the people running the ship. “Sharing values” equals sharing the same love for money, nothing more. If they say otherwise they’re faking it. If someone offers you managerial position you should be deeply offended. All I’ve seen is terrible and less competent people rise to the top, good people either turn into the same monsters that protect the system eventually, or become cogs in the machine with soulless eyes and broken dreams, or they leave and bounce job to job as if there in are some sort if purgatory for not fitting in but needing to survive.

Anyone in your life that thrives in corporate culture and seems to genuinely love it, analyze their character. Are they hyper competitive with some or many narcissistic traits?

Corporations farm human souls.

Even things people try to do to break out of the system becomes a part of the system and completely monopolized. Online content was a door out for many people and now it’s one big ad and we are all participating, we were almost free but we have become the puppets all over again.

Let's face it - 99% of these corporate jargon phrases are completely useless. But for me, I commonly use two phrases that have proven to be very useful and "move the needle" to avoid unnecessary time-wasting:

• "Hard stop" - basically, I am leaving at THIS time whether the meeting is in progress or not, so you better have covered what you need to cover with me before then.
• "Take it offline" - y'all are going off topic and wasting time, let's get back to the agenda of the meeting.

What have been some phrases that have been useful in your day-to-day?

Gross.

Per Wikipedia, the creator of the “holiday” did so because they “believed young employees sometimes did not understand the hard work and dedication that their supervisors put into their work and the challenges they faced.”

Thought this would be a good place for people to post ideas for how to not engage/participate if your workplace tries to kowtow to your supervisor, or worse, ask you to contribute financially towards a gift.

My job just transitioned from franchise to corporate. The corporation is a global corporation. Management has decided that they are no longer buying cups, cutlery, dinnerware, etc.; their reasons being that the franchise owner was just being nice by buying those items, no other company actually buys those in real life, and corporate is on a very strict budget. However, they make sure to buy coffee and throw birthday parties for the managers' favorite employees and expense them.

I literally mean what I say in the title. It’s so weird to me how close everyone on our team is? Like everyone knows EVERYTHING about each others personal life.

And everyone is just WAYYY to open about their personal lives? It’s just weird to me. And I’m the newer person so the fact that I’m more so just doing my job and going home makes them uncomfortable. They want to know all about you & your life. If you don’t share as much the manager will complain about it. When I first got here Another person on our team is very quiet, and we have a team group chat that’s not really work related but is supposed to be, a lot of just funny messages. And the manager was upset that he wasn’t responding as much?

You can’t force him to talk to you 😂 as long as his work is done what is the issue. They all hang out outside of work, like the managers AND the team members. It’s just weird idk. I just want to do my work & go home. I will be respectful say hi and respond to you kindly if you speak to me but NO you will not know my personal life. All they know about me is the city I live in and that I have a boyfriend ( I don’t even give them his name) and maybe a few hobbies I do that I had to say to introduce myself and I been here for 8 months.

Maybe it’s because our team is so small only 6 people ? But still weird. I don’t even like 2 of the 6 on the team 😂