No matter how much you enjoy your corporate job, you will have days when you’d rather be elsewhere than in the office. Every new email drains half of your energy, and it’s not even midday yet. And let’s not even get started with tomorrow’s 9 AM meeting.
Fortunately, there are platforms like The Office Hag Instagram page that express the plight of every employee. It’s an online community that shares memes about annoying coworkers (we’ve all had one), performance reviews, and your boss calling out your punctuation errors on a 200-slide deck.
For anyone who’s worked (or is still working) in an office, let these memes bring you some much-needed levity today.
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Bottom right was prepared and drank 5 cups of coffee before the zoom meeting
Monsters. Why not just call an all-hands at 4:30 on Friday, and be done with it?
I recognise that ginger cat from the "single guys age 35+ on dating apps" meme!
The "boring" and "pointless" lives that book characters go on quests to avoid are all lives I want
I like boring. Boring means that all hell has not broken loose. Boring is good
Me right now. 5 emails a day. Getting paid $25 an hour to hang with my cats.
I've been horribly overworked and have been horribly bored in jobs, and I'd take the former.
According to the American Institute of Stress, work-related stress has increased over the past few decades. Their statistics show that 47% of employees say their primary stressors come from work, while 77% believe their work-related difficulties have negatively impacted their mental health.
71% of employees have also claimed that the stresses brought on by their jobs have somehow caused personal relationships to end, whether through break-ups or divorce.
By now, everyone realizes that the psychopath jerks they knew as kids all become bosses, right?
Load More Replies...I worked in similar place except no cubicles, it was open plan. The boss was skimpy so no heating during winter. He never seemed to mind when the boys put on air con during summer though, even if it was 15°C outside kind of summer. I’ve worn 5 layers at my desk every single day and still shivered. I had a meeting once in big company’s office building and their open plan office was nice and cosy and warm, they had plants around and warm tone lightbulbs. The toilets were clean and smelled good. I quit soon after because going back to my office made me more depressed than ever after this experience.
Agreed, I hate having to share irrelevant personal info about myself just because it's "polite" or "social" or "a basic part of society / human interaction", especially because answering anything other than "good" to "how was [thing]" will often start an unskippable cutscene of follow-up questions
Yep. I'm no doubt considered aloof and unsociable at my job, but I know that once you open those floodgates, you'll be dealing with more conversations in the future that you do not want to have. I do my work, I am civil, gracious and polite when I have to deal with people, but I don't have time for small talk or being forced to turn coworkers into friends.
Load More Replies...Like not a people person but you just say fine or good. That's it. Don't need to be a jerk
How tempted are you all to invent a secret life that only exists for this purpose? At one job i invented a hobby that occupied all my spare time... saved revealing anything about my real life to folks who didn't need to know.
That begs an important question: What aspects of work are the common sources of stress? According to the American Psychological Association (APA), it could be due to low salaries and excessive workloads, a job that isn’t challenging enough, a lack of social support and growth opportunities, and unclear expectations from superiors.
The APA notes that a stressful work environment may lead to physical symptoms like headaches, irritability, and high blood pressure, as well as mental issues like anxiety and depression.
I remember a bar I managed when I hit 35 😂 my 19-25 yr old staff took me to holy moley golf and I had maybe two or three cocktails (I don’t drink), aparently I drank with the youngings in another bar after and I don’t remember how I got home and I had so much trouble working the next day. It just can’t be done. I used to rock up to shifts when I was young on acid still and function well 😂 alcohol killed me
I used to go to school still tripping from the night before....or drop acid right before school to keep the day interesting. We'd go to a rave the next state over friday night, when the party closed down at 5 am, we'd move the party to my place and keep it going till monday morning, realize "oh F&CK....work" take a shower do a bump or three and put in a full day without issue. Booze....absolutely not. You're either still stupid from the drink, or hung over and either way not worth it and not managable.
Load More Replies...I'm nearly 60. To heck with BS. If I get a meeting invite, it's immediately 'decline'. So many useless meetings around here! I have a weekly call with my engineers just so they can update me on their progress and that's it.
Yes! And I just learned who that was a few weeks ago.
Load More Replies...Yaps, if you don't realize this till your 30s, you'll be like forever a company-droid.
Managing work-related stress requires complete detachment from it. An article by Harvard Business Review notes that the mere thought of work prevents you from fully recovering from it.
HBR emphasizes the importance of dedicating a fixed time each day to devote all your attention and energy to activities unrelated to your job. Mindfulness activities also allow for the recognition of stress triggers and, therefore, enable effective detachment.
Provided you think they'll expect Gen Alpha to do the same and afford them similar respect.
Load More Replies...Respect goes both ways. If you want to set hard boundaries, then expect to live by others boundaries including the company’s. I like to give my staff slack, but I don’t take s#!t from staff who are rigid, uncaring or disrespectful. I have great staff - we cover and care for each other. Nobody works ‘for’ me - we’re a team, we all work ‘with’ each other, together. I went back to an old team after 6 years. They were all happy to see me back to help. I’m 68. There are good and bad people in all age groups.
I’m gen X I’ve worked with many boomers, other gen xers, millennials and gen Z. I left the doctors office I worked at for 17 years to work remotely from home. I still get asked if I want my job back even a year later! They had to hire 3 people to do the work I used to do daily. The gen Z’s they hired to replace me don’t seem to care that they haven’t completed their work before the end of their day. This would be fine in any other job but not healthcare. You HAVE to care about what you’re doing because people’s lives literally depend on it. I understand work and life balance however sometimes those people (patients) need you to stay and work above and beyond. Anyone wonder why healthcare care is severely declining? This is why. You can’t pay people to care. They either do or they don’t and sadly the younger generations just don’t.
I’m Gen X. We do all these things but we make management believe we are really busy and working extremely hard. Fold in a little fake enthusiasm for whatever stupid thing corporate is doing this week and you too can have a successful career. Gen Z needs to work harder at faking it.
Rise to the top of what? Just be mediocre and no one will expect more than your willing to give
Always tried to live my life like this, 35 years later still fighting the fight
Brace yourself, they're not going to lead the way. They will be swallowed up, and rightly so.
Someone has got to work, go to the jobs that provide the things and entertainment that is their hobbies/passions/wtf. Who is going to do the jobs??
Isn't it funny how the next generation always seems to be disenfranchised? Remember how the boomers became hippies? And before them the silent generation became beatniks? And now it's gen z "following their passion". Seems lik e gen x was the only one that battened down the hatches and did the work.😐
The problem is stereotyping and generalizing...as if all Boomers are the same, or all Gen xers.
Load More Replies...Speaking of mindfulness activities, the APA recommends tracking stressors through journaling. Journaling involves recording thoughts and feelings about stress triggers, including the people and circumstances that caused them.
Taking notes through journaling allows you to identify stress patterns and how you react to them. It then gives you a clear idea of the necessary coping methods.
I bring a sort of attitude of "We tried doing it that way 15 years ago, and it didn't work. Then we tried it again 12 years ago, and it didn't work. Then we tried it 8 years ago, and it didn't work. Why the ever-loving F*** are you telling me we have to do it that way AGAIN??" that supervisors really don't like.
Asking "why" in the office is a straight way to become marked as "uncooperative" and "difficult" employee 😂
Also: "not a team player" and a "loose cannon."
Load More Replies...This is me. I'm freelance and have to often ask, "why do we do this?". The number of times I'm meet with shrugs astounds me
Oh no we want those tampons are you kidding me? Those things are fücking expensive.
I guarantee you they’re the cheapest, most uncomfortable tampons you’ll ever use. They were bought by men.
Load More Replies...We’d also like to hear from you, our readers. If you’re working a corporate job, what about it do you dislike the most? How do you handle work-related stress? Let us know in the comments!
"Work was more fun when I could wear my pyjama pants and have a cat on my lap" - my mum
I hated those meetings cos they want to impose a fun almost tv fantasy life of office life but if you do implement it, the bosses tell you to stop being a stupid kid and get back to work cos it visually appears like you’re not working 😂
And appearance is far more important than reality.
Load More Replies...For the nth time, in this context it is LYING in bed.
Load More Replies...My current solution is to flag/report all head office "Rah, rah!" emails as spam and phishing.
They're going to die anyway? Might as well enjoy the show.
Load More Replies...This artwork is called "The Prologue and the Promise" by McCall and was made for EPCOT. 🤔
..or them going back and doing your job again to see how much more time consuming and pointless some suggestions are.
OMG I've got one of those bosses who is always just overwhelmed. But he also spends hours every day chatting about non-work-related things with certain coworkers who also have incredibly poor time-management skills. So the other day he comes over to my workstation and tells me all the things we need to start doing for a certain project, and I keep trying to interject, but he won't let me interrupt for like 3 minutes until he finishes -- at which point I tell him that all the things he asked me to do were already done that morning, and "I _think_ you were CC'd on those emails, but maybe not..." (He definitely was.)
Just give every year a minimum of 5% raise in wages over the inflation-rate.
Every time I see this picture, I can’t help but think that Cillian Murphy needs to star in a David Byrne biopic.
I think I'm that "one annoying co-worker".. sorry to everyone who agrees with this post 👍
I'm totally that annoying co-worker. But in my defense, we usually have a lobby full of walk-in patients almost as soon as we unlock the clinic doors
Or, as the person answering the phone when I called in "I'm calling in tired" after 3 weeks with no days off. "You can't DO that".."Just write it down"...my boss laughed the next day.
Management has no business knowing why you need the time off. If you have PTO it is not/should not be required that you explain it. I had a boss once who said they only granted PTO requests if the employee had plans (and reservations!) to go somewhere. Heck, on my time off I like to watch Netflix in my sweatpants. No one else's business.
It looks tempting but I'm only five feet tall. I'd have to elbow someone in the knee
There’s something a bit farther up that would be more devastating…
Load More Replies...I’m right on the cusp (1980). Can also relate. They forgot drinking too much and crying about the life you could have had with whatever guy. Meh.
Load More Replies...The "cheapest country to retire".part is much easier, when you are coming from a cheaper country, planning to work in the richer country till your retirement, then move back, buy an apartment/house in your original country with your savings, and live comfortable there with your retirement money, what you get from the richer country. Many eastern-europeans working and living in Western Europe, have this plan. And seeing my german colleagues, I think, I'm lucky. My chef should retire in 7 years, regarding to his age. But he won't, because the cost of living from a pension with two pre-teen kids are relatively high. So, he has to work part-time for years till his kids can stand on their own feet. Stable.
Yeh they don't get that I collaborate better from afar. Forced interaction makes me retreat inside myself
Same, yet school / work / society in general don't care what I think or feel
Load More Replies...Translation for fellow Yanks - MD is Managing Director, not Medical Doctor.
They said I had to come to the office. They didn’t say I had to stay there….
I fought top management to let my engineers work from home. They're doing a lot of research and coding (setting up an environment where we can process many gigabytes of machine data daily and run machine learning models without using cloud services). We have a very small team and they'd be hugely distracted in the office by all the typical M&R activity. I come into the office because I'm a VP and should be seen.
We give them the power and wealth they have. If you're annoyed by it, don't follow influencers. Do not like, do not subscribe.
Don't see how me not doing those things is gonna affect the millions of people who do
Load More Replies...I'm kinda old. When Windows first came out a friend was working for a company that insisted on installing it on all their machines. Unfortunately none of the computers had mice. For 6 months they ran Windows without a mouse. Even now he still does a lot of Windows navigation with keyboard shortcuts - and is faster than I am with the mouse.
Not gonna lie, I used to be pretty impressed with myself for doing this. 🤣🤣
I guess in college I should have bragged about writing advanced Excel macros when hitting bars and parties. "Wanna come to my place and check out my CONFIG.SYS file??"
Load More Replies...My plant manager expected everyone in leadership to be connected to the plant 24/7 via Teams, no exceptions unless you were on planned pto. And even then he required you to notify him that you would not be replying while you were off.
Six beers in on a Friday evening, I'm sending Teams messages with new ideas for my guys but don't expect them to reply until it's convenient for them. It's just that I'm better off writing things when I think of them. C**p memory.
Bold to assume that the boss would recognize a punctuation error or even read the deck.
People like that keep people like me employed. Let ‘em nitpick all they want. (I’m an editor.)
Me but it's a science presentation that only had to be a quarter of the amount that I made it to be
Same, but when gen 2 added Umbreon and Espeon I was stoked. (For the sake of this meme I am Leafeon.)
Load More Replies...I'm definitely over 35 but none of that. (Well, no social media because I don't do social media...)
Every night at the local brewery with my pup on my lap. Talking to anyone willing to lend an ear...
Load More Replies...I am doing a thing where I'm assigning everyone at work their own job profile number. Every job profile comes with a list of everything they should have access to, every email group they should be a part of, all software/websites they'll need, that jobs profiles home page on the company site that contains everything tey need to do their job, so when we hire or people switch jobs or they exit, I'm automating all the switches.
Took me two months to get software on my laptop when I got hired. Like....🙄
Load More Replies...Like the single co-worker complaining to me about pay being too low after burning a no pay sick day and going to the casino.. to me, a head of household with 2 kids who works all the OT he can get..."Yes, it's very difficult".
