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Whatever you do, do not decorate your office for Halloween using "ghosts" of people who used to work there. Like, specific employees with names and everything. You're gonna have a bad time. Just figured this should be included in the list.

Oh, what list, I hear you saying, dear Panda? Why, the list you can find below, of course. A list of red flags Redditors were pointing out that are sure to make anyone regret ever applying to work at a certain company. But like, red flags as in ones that scream "don't work here".

And Bored Panda has collected some of the most spot-on observations and turned them into a list. So, scroll down, upvote, comment, and share your thoughts and red flags in the comment section below!

More Info: Reddit

#1

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online At the interview they offer you water. Suddenly you start feeling groggy. Next thing you know you are waking up in a bathtub full of ice with your kidneys missing.

Fool me once Hobby Lobby. Fool me once.

TimeTravelMishap , abdallahh Report

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Headless Roach
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yeah, waking up with a missing a kidney *might* suggest there is something off there. Keep observing.

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#2

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online Everyone you meet has been working there less than 2 years and it isn't a startup.

LeeroyTC , Chad Miller Report

#3

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online When your initial interview doesn’t start on time, and you’re waiting. They don’t respect your time. Which essentially means they don’t respect their workers.

Street_Vacation_2730 , Caetano Candal Sato Report

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Alexia
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Same, when they require "great communication skills" but never bother to give feedback after the interview

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#4

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online The owners children are in high management / executive positions

secretbaldspot , Scott Schiller Report

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Alexia
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

There are small family-run businesses that are ok in this formula. I'm thinking of a small bakery near me; 6 people in total, 4 of them are the 2 owners and their 2 sons. But there is no "high management" position, and everybody works their fingers to the bone

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#5

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online "Were like a family"

"Be willing to work in a fast-paced environment"

This is just code for "we will guilt you into doing things beyond your job, and we are poorly managed"

Slawth_x , Zach Tirrell Report

#6

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online If all of the other employees look sullen and depressed. If you walk into the office area and feel like you've walked into a funeral service. Nobody's smiling, nobody's laughing. Nobody looks remotely happy or content.

Just turn around and walk back to your car. That is not a good place to be working at.

Jasons_Brain , Cristian Ungureanu Report

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John Topper
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This one is extremely important for highly competative jobs. You see a much of people d doing a cool, high status job and they all look miserable to be doing it. I get that it was hard to get that job, but for your own sake turn and walk away. It's not worth it.

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#7

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online If you ever hear a higher up say anything along the lines of “I don’t have to do that because I’m a X”

As a manager/owner/lead/etc… Your job is to support your team, if that means as a store owner you’re cleaning puke off the bathroom floor guess what, you’re cleaning puke off the bathroom floor.

If you ever see a boss refusing to help when it’s busy or delegating a task poorly (eg the blind guy has to go pick stock while ur boss hangs out in the back room taking calls) quit.

GardenSpecialist5619 , Juhan Sonin Report

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Thegoodboi
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This, I used to work in fast food and we would be getting hammered with orders and complaints. The manager and his favorite worker would be kicked back having a good time in the office knowing we were busy and a phone ringing non-stop right next to them.

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#8

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online Information overload. They expect you to understand everything and will somewhat train you Day 1. But after that day, they expect you to do everything to a tee.

Training takes a while.

simajae , Chris Betcher Report

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AndThenICommented
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

A more practical way to say this: ask about onboarding process during interview. Be specific about how they will guide you through, how well organised policies are, can you look at their org chart and understand how to navigate, etc… Doesn’t have to be a deal breaker but it will expose HUGE red flags

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#9

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online Team activities that happen every week. Casual fridays, team meetings, group presentations. Just let me do my job we don’t need to dress up for halloween at the office

BarryPalmedTheDip , Split the Kipper Report

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Karl Baxter
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

God I hate teambuilding events with a passion. I was even once put on a disciplinary for refusing to wear their stupid T-shirt.

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#10

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online I had a job interview a long time ago where I asked if there was any office dress code. The response I got was, "Just try not to wear your gang colors all the time."

BobVilasBeard , ptxdview Report

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#11

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online If a larger company buys your company out but says "Nothing is changing but the name and address that your paycheck is coming from" But then everything changes.

Gbrusse , Bradley Gordon Report

#12

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online If you get asked in interviews about how you deal with workplace conflict and how you get along with difficult personalities. If they’re asking about how you deal with difficult customers, that’s one thing. If they basically ask how you handle a toxic work environment, it’s going to be a toxic work environment. I very naively learned this the hard way.

nosuchthingasa_ , Chris Lott Report

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Jerry Mathers
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I disagree with this one. Conflict is an inevitable part of dealing with people. Asking how a potential employee handles conflict can tell you things like are they likely to try and resolve it themselves vs running right to a manger, do they involve others, how things went afterwards, and you may also get a feel for how often they are involved in conflict and to what degree do things get escalated. All these are important to try and understand before bringing someone in. Hiring someone who always runs to management or doesn't have the skills to deal with disagreements could be toxic and could turn a tight, well functioning team into a toxic mess.

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#13

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online Morning screaming and chants. Ringing a bell when you hit your quota.

mdotca , Christian Odendaal Report

#14

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online Oh man i feel like my work place is filled with red flags. Like tonight for example, we had a 16 yr old get fired for being drunk while on the job and unable to function. They fired the kid about a month ago, I show up today and that same kid who they fired got his job back and was at work tonight.

It's sad when a place of business is so hard up on finding workers that they will rehire a 16yr old drunk

plebsfrost , abbilder Report

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#15

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online High turnover. A team with 10% turnover in three years had a few bad employees. A team with 110% turnover in three years is a bad employer.

zugabdu , autorevo Report

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Lakota Wolf
Community Member
1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Sounds like when I worked in the Vitamins department at a certain farmer's market. I was there 2 1/2 years. While I was there, we went through probably 20+ employees; average time they stayed in the job was a few months. It was all because we had an utterly toxic, narcissistic dept manager (who sported a Karen haircut, outwardly hated other female employees, thought COVID was fake, and kept a kitchen steak knife in the desk drawer to open our load boxes with). I was the only one who was there for over a year. I was mysteriously "let go" after I'd had enough and reported her s**t to HR. From what I hear, she was "out sick" for 8+ weeks recently, but is back to her old shenanigans of chasing off every vitamins employee.

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#16

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online The hiring manager who brought you in quit.

Sarged117 , Amtec Photos Report

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Hypoxia Smurf
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Worse: An interview, apparently successful, but the firm files for bankruptcy the next week. Are such new-hires merely more liabilities on a balance sheet?

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#17

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online They’re looking for “rockstars”.

Marquetan , Yohanes Sanjaya Report

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VodkaInMySweetTea
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

There's a chiropractor in my town that says they're looking for "an individual who can demonstrate amazing multitask abilities (workplace kung-fu) ... self-motivated, hard working, high energy, as well as loves games and rewards for reaching targets." They have had this listing continuously reposted on Indeed for over 2 years, and a sign out front of their building that says *always hiring*. Like that's a positive thing???? They literally can't keep their staff. They also say in ALL CAPS that no masks or vaccines are needed.... but that's a different conversation. Related. But different.

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#18

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online One thing I look for when interviewing onsite is checking out peoples desks as I walk through the halls. If there are no personal effects or decor in workers cubicles, then that makes me think people just hate being there. I think if there are decorations, people are more comfortable and enjoy their job and workspaces and it's likely a more friendly place to work.

nice_touch , Toms Baugis Report

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Oerff On Tour
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Or the opposite is true: they live there! Pictures of their children? They only see them when they finally have a day off

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#19

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online Trainers sleeping with the trainees.

Poor retention of staff.

Wine bottles in the toilet bins.

People constantly phoning in sick.

Companies that outsource majority of staff from agencies, 0 hour contracts are the norm.

Constantly having to speak with HR because of incorrect pay or not paid at all, bonus missing and all that s**t.

Companies not being able to supply all the kit needed for the job, you having to spend own money on kit.

Has a team specifically for beefing up its own reviews online.

An absolute huge team that deals with complaints and all things f****d.

I could go on but that’s kind of the flavour.

Whatsallthefussabou1 , Mark Hillary Report

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#20

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online Extremely high pay for what is a very simple, low effort job.

Bonus points if they have a sign that says 'Now hiring' outside, year round.

This indicates that even with a high pay rate, they cant keep people on.

lowexpectationsguy , Tyler Report

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Alexia
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

There is a big company that always has job openings (and I've known them for at least 7-8 years). I've heard that it is their HR "strategy" to have a sort of database with CVs of potential candidates, as many as possible. But they also have a high turnover rate.

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#21

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online “Work hard, play hard” = “You won’t have a life outside the office, but we’ll pump you full of booze!”

DefinitelyABot475632 , home thods Report

#22

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online Employers acting like they are doing a you a favor and they own you.

SuvenPan , Mark Turnauckas Report

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Michael Largey
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

If they act like that in the interview, they are doing you a favor.

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#23

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online If they're plastering "It's so much FUN to work here!", all over the place, RUN. I believe in good workplace morale, but if they have to advertise it, it's not.

notthesedays , Russell Yarwood Report

#24

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online If they have a black out period for PTO from November to January 2nd.

sisterfister69hitler , tiredcynic Report

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Mobey Drunk
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I can see this with some jobs. However, if it's a medical/emergency services job. That's what you signed up for. Also, be thankful for those who dedicate themselves to care for us when needed.

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#25

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online Machinists , if the shop is dirty and disorganized, if the coolant is disgusting and stinky, if everyone working there looks pissed off or dead in the eyes, if the person walking you around talks about how smart and important they are. Do not work there

Ecstatic_Conflict621 , Official U.S. Navy Page Report

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Chucky Cheezburger
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This all damn day. If it's nasty and disorganized, they are probably worked like a rented mule trying to meet B.S. deadlines made by some salesperson or manager that wouldn't know an end mill if it was stuck up their butt, much less how to use it.

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#26

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online If there is a staff parking lot and all the cars are older / beater cars besides the management/owners cars.

javajunky46 , Phil Wiffen Report

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Shannon Epps
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I got hired many many years ago at Red lobster as a server and my first day of work when I was walking in I noticed five cars parked in front of the restaurant that all had all four tires slashed. I later learned that that was the entire management team and a former employee had done it. That should have been my first red flag! First of all why is the management team parking directly in front of the front door those spots should be reserved for customers anybody who works in a restaurant or retail knows that. So that shows you how entitled the management team is. At the end of that first day the chef and prep cook would take two lobsters out of the fish tank take the rubber bands off their claws and take bets on who would win in a fight and then let the lobsters fight. And sometimes they would actually eat the lobsters but sometimes they would just throw them away. I only went back the second day to return my uniform and training book and never went back.

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#27

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online When your supervisor and/or coworkers act like they think you hung the moon and stars by the end of the first month.

In my experience, this behavior just means that 1) they are two-faced backstabbers who talk s**t and spread rumors about you, and/or 2) they have very black-and-white thinking, and you’re handling a time bomb. Meaning if they think you’re an “amazing” person, and you do one little thing they don’t like such as make a mistake or ask them to correct something, they do a hard 180 and decide you deserve their eternal hatred.

Choice_Bid_7941 , AUIC Oficial Report

#28

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online Being hired on the spot

Icy-Maintenance7738 , Flazingo Photos Report

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Ba-Na-Na
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yep! Once, I was hired on the spot. It was the most toxic place I have ever worked at!!!

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#29

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online This might be controversial, and its probably not universally applicable... but for the sake of something original: Nobody on staff really seem like they are "friends" with one another.

This comes from personal experience with a large portion of my life where I used to job hop a lot. I feel like I could always tell whether the job would be good or not within a few days of starting just by seeing how the staff interact with each other. If your co workers talk a fair amount about non-work related stuff, or have inside jokes or hang out OUTSIDE of work hours, those are all generally super good indicators of a really solid and happy workplace culture.

Every job I have ever had where the workers only discussed work and didn't seem to have any interest in a more casual work relationship all ended up being miserable jobs by the end of my time there.

There truly is a "vibe" to a workplace... It doesn't take long to pick up on. I have had really tough jobs (for example, being a dockhand) that were incredibly fun and fulfilling, as well as jobs that should have been incredibly fun (like a rock climbing instructor) become the complete opposite purely off the vibes of the team.

NiceGuyWillis , ender_stdcall Report

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Mark Fergel
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Nah. I have no real interest in being friends with coworkers. I have my own group of friends. I don't need work people knowing a lot of personal stuff about me. There might be a couple people I chat with about outside stuff but that's it.

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#30

30 Signs That The Workplace You’ve Entered Isn’t Worth Staying In, As Shared By Folks Online There are some very very new workers and a group that has been there from the start,youre going to be treated like s**t by the latter.

CaptainQuoth , Debs (ò‿ó)♪ Report

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Alexia
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I had such a female colleague who'd form small groups and bully the new colleagues, especially if they were young and inexperienced. As a former victim of bullying and mobbing, I don't react well to such things and I'm ready to step in (that includes written report to HR). Perhaps that's why she always avoided me.

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