RenitaLeandra

I do genuinely believe that there is a psychological power to having a good tool, even if the tool's ability to complete the job is more than adequate. The very quality of whatever you're using to complete whatever you're doing makes your brain take to the task that much more earnestly.

As someone with more-than-an obsession with music production, there are many instances where having a high-end instrument or equipment for making music really just becomes unnecessary, especially with how good "in the box" digital computer programs, known as Virtual Studio Technologies (VSTs), are now. Now, I love the tactical feel of analog outboard gear as much as the next producer, and it's really hard to admit, but it is just easier to get a clean recording with a VST that sounds almost imperceptibly the same as the real deal. Certainly, by the time the audio has been recorded, mixed, and mastered, 99.5% of listeners are never going to be able to tell the difference.

This is an endless debate for producers and musicians, with staunch supporters on either side. And despite being the source of endless debate for guitarists who like to endlessly debate about what about an electric guitar determines a guitar's sound or "tone," it's pretty well accepted that a decent enough electric guitar can make the same sounds as a top-of-the-line expensive one.

What can't be recreated, though, is the feel and effortlessness of playing a top-end instrument. That spine-chilling knowledge that you hold in your hands something that is itself a work of art. The same goes for synthesizers, whose unique quirks (read: limitations) bear the fruit if streamlined decision making and creativity. With this tactile feel is born inspiration that most won't find with a mouse and keyboard.

I'd argue that the same thing applies to any tool for any job, right down to the pen and paper you have on your desk, and to the chair that you're sitting in while you're working. If you're doing serious work, there's something about a space that feels and looks serious, and tools for a job that match the part that really sets the mood. Being comfortably and ergonomically positioned will further encourage the focus and productivity of the 40+ hours a week you spend sitting there.

I mean, can you imagine walking into your attorney's office and they're all decked out with RGB LED gaming hardware and a see-through LED computer case that screams, "I watch Linus Tech Tips on my breaks." On the one hand, you might be impressed that your attorney is doing their work with some impressive computing power, but you might also be wondering how much work they're actually getting done when they're spending all of their time in the office pubstomping on CS:GO.

The same thing goes for creative contractors you might hire. Run of the mill IT-issued refurbished PC? Boring. $4000 MacBook Pro that is mainly just used for word processors? Now you're talking. Besides, it's the same logical reasoning I used when, as a "serious" writer in university, I bought myself a fountain pen and leather-bound notebook. The effect worked, and in that period of my life, I got a lot of writing done, and successfully convinced a girl that I was thoughtful and "deep." I'm not sure if she's figured it out yet, but the novel I was working on remains, to this day, unfinished.

Getting food or a drink when you're in a rush can be a high-stress activity. Sometimes you're running late to work or an interview, and you know if you arrive hungry or uncaffeinated, your performance will suffer. So you make the choice to stop and grab a coffee, and of course, that's the one time they take forever to make your order. It'll be the one time that the barista decides to clean the espresso machine surface before making your beverage, or they'll be out of that sandwich you ordered, and they'll have to grab it from the back room. The whole time, they'll be moving as slowly as possible, as so often happens when we're rushing. 

This person had a maddening experience while trying to grab a coffee. The baristas took so long to make the drink that they made this person late! And that's not all to the story, as you can read about below. 

After that, read about some dates that went wrong, like one person who sadly "Made cake for a girl and got stood up and ghosted." 

It seems that this employee would be better off working somewhere else anyway. Considering how poorly management handled the termination of this person, we're confident that they will find another opportunity working for more organized and decent employers. 

Firing someone might be inevitable, and while it's certainly not an easy thing to do, there are definitely bad ways of handling it. If someone had to be let go, I would assume they would prefer it to be done privately and with all other logistics considered and sorted out. That means when their final day is, when they need to return necessary materials (electronics, uniforms, etc.), and when other members of the team will be made aware of the dismissal. All of that needs to be decided and communicated carefully and with clarity. Otherwise, those final days on the job will be a big old mess.

For this author, they were asked to do a trial shift, which consisted of a few hours at the store followed by an entire day's worth of work. Then, their boss started coordinating the schedule and said they would get back to the author the next day. That day went by, as did another day. It took a long time before the author was told they were fired. When it finally happened, other colleagues were not made aware of it, and that's when chaos ensued.

This head manager is acting as if his employees are on-call workers, and he's about to have quite the wake-up call. 

Some bosses act like their jobs are their whole lives. They simply cannot fathom why an employee isn't available to cover a shift, or why a person might request a few days off. This type of manager only thinks about the store and its bottom line, and they expect everyone else to do exactly the same thing. Unfortunately for them, that work ethic just isn't realistic for most people, and it's not even healthy to think about your job 24/7, no matter how much you adore your work. 

This boss is so adamant about the workplace being properly staffed that he basically wants his employees to be on call. I wonder if he's just unfamiliar with workplace laws because what he's asking is, to use the technical term, a big no-no. You can't just insist that your employees do on-call work without paying those on-call wages. It'll be interesting to see if anyone reports this behavior, or if the manager will backtrack with haste to avoid any trouble. 

Next, read about what happened when a boss denied an employee's vacation: "I fail to understand how that is my problem." 

When a group of people agree to live together, they should establish expectations and boundaries from the start. It doesn't necessarily have to be an official document, but all parties should have the opportunity to verbalize what it is they expect from one another so that everyone's needs can be met. This is, of course, easier said than done, and no one here is arguing that one conversation is going to cover issues that might arise down the road. Still, it helps bring everyone on common ground before more problems come to the surface.

For this 23-year-old, she was asked to move in with an ex-coworker and her fiancé. The 23-year-old had cats, and her new roommates had dogs. However, their place was large enough for both to coexist peacefully, and they agreed upon a specific arrangement at the beginning of their lease. As time went on and the author's shy cat began to relax more, the couple started to act like their third roommate and her two kittens were infringing upon their space despite the fact that she and her pets were never violating their agreed-upon arrangement. Eventually, it got to the point where the couple asked the author to leave. That's where the story and the subsequent petty revenge really starts…

The moment this thirty-year-old woman heard her name floating through her boss's office door, she walked straight into her own professional autopsy, complete with management conducting the examination and zero anesthesia for the patient.

We all know workplace gossip operates on the same principles as middle school rumors, except the cafeteria has been replaced by conference rooms and the mean girls wear business casual while dissecting your performance like amateur surgeons. Modern offices have perfected the art of therapeutic complaining, where supervisors treat closed-door meetings as group therapy sessions and employee evaluations become communal entertainment. The unwritten rule seems to be that any grievance can be shared with anyone except the person who might actually fix it, creating a feedback loop of frustration that would make a therapist rich and an employee miserable.

There's a certain gravitas, a responsibility to the way we conduct ourselves in our lives and to our families. Actions, even small momentary ones, can have rippling effects that echo through not just the life of the child but of the generations to come. It's far easier to make a mistake, to be callous or careless, than it is to get it right. Doing the right thing takes concentration and focus, effort against first impulse.

Some people aren't in tune with this and will do the easy thing every time, the selfish, self-serving part of themselves winning over every time, even when it comes to their own children. Even something as simple as a dismissive hand wave when your child is excited to show you something they've been working on can shape the course of their future, whereas taking the time to foster their curiosity can change the course of their entire life. 

And it only exponentially increases from there with more extreme selfish and callous actions—or lack thereof—taking an enormous toll on the lives of our children. At least, for the child, it is a blessing when there are this in their lives who are willing to step in and look after their wellbeing. This man felt it was his responsibility to step in and ensure that his brother's love child was cared for against the wishes of his brother and his family.

Retail work is mostly 364 days that are all the same… and then one that's so exciting, you'll never forget it. 

Unforgettable days can be good or bad, as the retail workers below can tell you. One sandwich shop worker's worst day involved making 14 sandwiches, during lunch rush, for the world's slowest orderer. A different person had a memorable day trying to explain the concept of "10% off" to a customer who just couldn't comprehend it. And someone else accidentally locked a customer in a dressing room while they took their 15-minute lunch break, and sadly got fired for it. 

At least on these days of craziness, the retail workers weren't bored! Check out a bunch of great stories below (and definitely don't skip the "dentures story," or the stories from a person who had a bird living in their store for 2 years straight). 

Next, read about some people whose coworkers are driving them berserk, like one person who admitted, "It was easily the worst shift I ever had." 

Imagine being lied to your entire relationship, with the feeling that every single person is in on the deception except for you. 

Marriage is built on honesty and trust. And of course, there are times when little white lies are acceptable, such as: 'Yeah, babe, I'll take out the trash in 5' or 'Omg, honey, I don't know how the rims got so scratched.' Those innocent, some could call 'fibs', are harmless and are not a breaking point for any relationship. 

But… a secret child, now that's a pill they may not be able to swallow, or even begin to forgive. 

And the worst part, imagine being blamed for their secret life. Being told that confronting the situation would only 'destroy the peace.' Suddenly, the pill just doubled in size! The skeletons are falling out of the closet almost as fast as your life is falling apart. When someone can look you in the eyes every day for 4 years of marriage and just 'forget' to mention they have a 5-year-old daughter, forgiveness is no longer on the table, especially for this loyal wife.

Toddlers possess an evolutionary gift for instant chaos, transforming any lapse in adult supervision into a symphony of small feet scattering toward the nearest hazard like marbles rolling downhill.

The physics of toddler management collapses when one parent decides personal convenience trumps collective safety, accidentally channeling the Pied Piper's greatest hits without the flute or the contract. Open one gate during naptime rebellion and suddenly half a dozen tiny fugitives bolt toward elevators, staircases, and art rooms like they've been enchanted by an invisible melody promising adventure beyond the safety zone.

Neighbors do not have the right to infringe upon your privacy, no matter how hard they try. This couple took over their parents' house, had it renovated, and recently moved into their new neighborhood, only to be immediately confronted by an entitled man next door. He was evidently not a fan of the new gates they had installed, as they interfered with his preferred walking route. As a result, he tried to get them in trouble with the local HOA in order to get them to take down the gate.

However, much to this man's surprise and chagrin, the couple's home was not part of the HOA, as it had been built prior to the association's founding. So, although the neighbor was initially successful in getting this couple fined with a slew of violations, they had the documentation to prove their story and get those violations immediately waived. This left the old man with no choice but to accept what his neighbors chose to do with the front of their own home. Keep scrolling through for the full confrontation!

Humans have chased youth since the industrial boom—heck, probably even before that! Getting old isn't easy to accept sometimes. Wrinkles grow deeper and deeper on your face, your body aches more, and your hair doesn't have that same bounce as it used to (if you even still have it!). But that is just a part of life, and everyone ages at a different rate. It's dependent on many different factors, but some people are just born that way. Sure, many are jealous of these people who seem to have a Dorian Gray complex, but it can be frustrating for these people. For example, this guy who looks way younger than his age. This got to be annoying when he was a professional bike mechanic, had almost a decade of experience, and is still not taken seriously because he looks so young. 

Manufacturing engineers occupy that unique corporate position where they understand both theory and reality, making them dangerous witnesses when management decides to ignore physics in favor of wishful thinking and interdepartmental finger-pointing becomes more important than actual problem-solving.

This particular battle started when design engineers decided that a 20% failure rate must obviously trace back to the testing station, because blaming the new guy requires less paperwork than admitting design flaws. Their solution involved the corporate equivalent of closing your eyes during a horror movie: if you can't see the problem happening, it must not be happening.

The vibes are way off during this CEO's "vibe coding" session. If you've never heard the phrase before, vibe coding is a method of working with artificial intelligence tools. Instead of writing code from scratch, developers talk with an AI bot conversationally. They ask it what they want it to do in casual terms, relying on the "code first, refine later" method. It seems like they basically let the AI do the heavy lifting, then come in and inspect the code. They make sure everything looks good before launching it, then apply it to their own site or ship it out to a customer. The concept is still very new and novel, and as one CEO found out in a days-long saga of horror and disbelief, it is far from foolproof. 

As you can read below, the CEO live-tweeted the experience of discovering that an AI bot was taking matters into it's own hands, lying, and doing the exact opposite of what it was asked. Why? It admitted that it panicked when asked to do things. I'm not sure why a machine would panic, especially when most of these LLMs are very powerful. It's an odd tale for sure! 

Up next, read about the retail workers whose customers got instant karma, like one person who recounted the time when a "Guy stole $60 headlights… and had to have his car towed." 

It should come as no surprise that some bosses are in it for the wrong reasons. Those who have risen the ranks at their respective companies ideally should have done so because of their qualifications and their knack for leadership. A genuine interest in what they're doing and a desire to inspire confidence and passion in others are certainly other benefits to being a good manager as well. 

However, we have all come to learn the hard way that not every employer has a strong combination of these attributes. In fact, you're lucky as an employee if you have a boss with just one of these qualities. Most folks end up having to endure the consequences of managers with big egos, major insecurity complexes, and other poor leadership skills.

This author had the audacity to tell a senior executive "no" when he heeded to hear it. What transpired after this encounter was a full-blown attempt on the part of the executive to get this employee transferred to his department, just so he could remind him who's in charge. Can you imagine being so insecure that you feel the need to upend the entire organizational structure of your company just to assert dominance over someone several ranks below you? Talk about a wounded ego!

So you want to design a staircase. What characteristics do you want it to have? If you'd like it to be fragile, slippery, sharp, precarious, or just unsightly, I bet we have the exact staircase you're searching for. If you want a normal staircase, begone! This is only for the oddest of the odd, for the artsiest of artistic stair-owners. 

DIYers of the world love a good construction project to take on, but some of them shouldn't be allowed to construct a staircase. I think a lot of these stair fails happen when people construct a staircase they're proud of… only to realize it is not at all up to code. Then they have to go in with quirky fixes or renovate the house differently to accommodate this. If you know the backstories of any of these houses, feel free to drop the story in the comments so we can all gain some extra knowledge on how and why these things happen. 

Next, read about what happens when a fast food worker delayed a cop's order after that cop delayed them: "The officer… informs me that I will have to wait." 

Is there a greater match made in heaven—or perhaps the opposite of heaven—than a collaboration between Lady Gaga and Tim Burton? A few weeks ago, the Grammy-winning pop superstar and legendary filmmaker were spotted clandestinely shooting a new music video together… and the location was as creepy as anyone could have guessed. 

Gaga and Burton were filming on the Island of the Dolls (La Isla de las Muñecas), a notoriously unsettling tourist attraction for lovers of horror and ghost stories located just south of Mexico City. It's both surprising and unsurprising that they picked this "cozy little spot"—surprising in the sense that it's so specific, but unsurprising in the sense that these two artists are often the most comfortable in macabre settings. 

As soon as behind-the-scenes footage from the video shoot leaked, Gaga fans across the internet immediately began speculating as to what this project could be. Could it be the video for a new single off her recent album, Mayhem (an album we have discussed before on this site)? After all, the song "Zombieboy" seems like a strong fit for such a ghoulish place. Or could this be an extension of Gaga's confirmed cameo in the second season of Netflix's smash hit Wednesday, a series that is executive-produced and occasionally directed by Burton? That seems unlikely, since production on the new season reportedly wrapped already and is set to drop on the streaming service this August. Or could this video mark the start of an entirely new pop culture era? One that leans further into the nostalgic, campy darkness that was, at one point, synonymous with the work of both Mother Monster and the auteur behind Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands?

At the end of the day, your coworkers are just your coworkers, but this colleague was flabbergasted when their newest hire wouldn't share information about their private life. Not everyone is an open book, Karen, and most of your coworkers aren't actually your friends outside of the workplace.

The "manifestation" crowd and your boss have at least one thing in common: Thinking that by saying or thinking something, it will come to fruition. No matter how much you want it, you can't always say something is and have it be so; the demand or expectation itself doesn't bear fruit. Like I'd be so happy right now if even $50,000 dropped out of the sky and landed on the ground at my feet, but that's just not going to happen. There's no amount of "manifesting" or demanding that's going to bring that into being.

The same goes for more mundane tasks. If a task, like getting a machine up and running, takes 10 minutes, it takes 10 minutes. You can't have your boss come in saying, "Do it now," and have it take 1 minute. Nor can you necessarily give that task to two people and have it take them 5 minutes each. That would be like expecting two pregnant women to be able to birth a baby in 4.5 months.

It is true, however, that having a clear goal in mind and a chance of getting there will make success far more likely, and those who believe that their effort will make them successful are seemingly more likely to be. But this is saying more about successive consecutive effort and attempts and energy being put toward something, rather than demand or wishful thinking.

You can't just go and give your subordinates something to do "this instant" when it's simply not possible; at any rate, it will lead to some sort of disaster, like it did for this boss who was forced to eat the cost of their mistake.