It really raises my hackles when I think of the way we are "forced" to give. A few years ago we were allowed to wear jeans on Fridays. Then the policy was changed to no jeans at all. When the annual giving to charity season came, money was raised by charging 2$ and currently to 3$ so that you can wear jeans on Fridays. This campaign starts say in September until December. Of course there are other fundraisers as well bake sales, hot dog sales and such. Don't get me wrong its great to give to charity, I just don't like the way employers at times force it upon employees. They even have a savings goal each year. Is that a part of the culture at your job as well?

So annoyed.

I feel the same way every payday when I see how much the IRS takes.

My company offers a pre-tax deduction for the United Way. I gave my first year, and then I thought about other charities I would like to give to so I stopped.

I think it's sad that they make you contribute if you want to wear jeans on Friday. I'm stubborn and wouldn't want anyone to force me to give, so I'd wear my uniform or dress clothes to work on Fridays out of principle. Don't give in if you don't want to follow the herd.

Maybe I missed something, but how is it forced upon you? The policy is no jeans at all. You're paying for a waiver to the policy. You can choose to pay for the waiver or refuse or not wear jeans. So where does the forcing come in?

We give quite a bit to charity every year. But I have a personal objection to the United Way. I don't like how they operate and I really hate how they get businesses and government agencies to use their resources and time to extort money out of employees!

I hope everyone realizes that when you give to the UW they take a cut off the top for themselves. You can just as well write a check directly to the charities you choose to support.

My issue with them is they changed the Friday jeans policy just so they can raise money to go towards the charity. In a way to me they are forcing employees to give especially if you want the option to wear jeans on Friday.

One of the things I love about my job is that wearing jeans is dressing up! I wore a jacket and tie almost every day for a few years. That was fine. But nothing beats shorts and flip flops every day!

Everybody at one time or another I am hoping have been through this....

I am on a big project at my job, I along with some other colleagues are at the bottom of the totem tole.

We are hired to work alongside the older set who have been there 30 years and more.

They treat us in a manner I am not particularly too keen on, we have to "prove" ourselves.

Everything we say have to be double and triple checked.

Keep in mind the reason why we were hired is because we are considered to be "experts" in different business areas.

Once this project is complete we will still be here and they will completely retire.

How can we be expected to own this project when we are blocked at every point.

How do you deal with roadblocks such as this in your professional life?

What's your advise for my situation?

The colleagues that are at the same level as I, feel the same.

They are not able to vent their frustrations correctly, today I spoke to my team lead.

She states it is not personal they do that to each other all the time. I don't like that particular trait amongst ourselves at work.

The lack of trust is glaringly embarrassing amongst the younger crowd.

What burns me is all the pep rally talk that our director gives about all of us being on equal footing and how we are all responsible for this thing going bad etc. etc.

I feel dumb and niave for actually believing it. We seem to have been hired to be glorified testers.

Rant, finished.

Here's my "rant" from Humpday.

Yesterday (Wednesday) we went out for a team lunch. It was a little Chinese restaurant. I had one of the lunch specials, costing $11.95. Tax was $1.55 (13%), for a total bill of $13.50.

"Perfect," I figured. When tipping, I usually just look at the tax and use that figure (wait staff in Canada are guaranteed minimum wage, and are thus less reliant on tips as in the US. 10-15% tip is considered fair).

So I gave her a $20 bill, expecting to get back $6.50 in change (a $5 bill, a loonie [$1 coin] and 2 quarters). I'd leave her the coins ($1.50) and take the $5 bill.

She comes back with 3 toonies ($2 coins) and 2 quarters.

She got me.

She made it impossible for me to tip her $1.50. I now had to tip her at least $2, or take all 3 toonies and leave her with just $0.50, looking like a cheapskate.

So not only was I forced into tipping more than I intended, I now had a pocket full of change I didn't want, instead of a nice paper bill I could have slipped back into my wallet.

I was annoyed, but I bit my tongue and left a toonie. The rest of the change ended up in my change bowl at home. I have $5 less in my wallet than I expected, and I feel like the meal cost me $20 instead of $15 (I know, I know, I technically still have the money, but in a change bowl at home instead of in my wallet - pyschologically, it feels like I have less money left to spend).

Clever girl. She got me.

Fantasma, it sounds frustrating but it also sounds like you are rising as a leader by talking to the team lead. You probably just need to be patient and do your best to learn from the greybeards. Your favorite response should be "Why?" -- if they shoot something down, ask why. Give them the benefit of the doubt that they are right and try to learn what it is about their experience that makes them think what they do. Don't challenge people, if they just say "based on experience" then leave it at that but go to them privately and say you'd like to learn from their experience and understand.

If you heard some of the debates my boss and I have you'd think we hate each other. Actually we almost always agree in the end because we both base decisions on evidence and theory rather than opinion. So, we have spirited debate that others interpret as disagreement then we come to a conclusion and pass it along for others to implement. Often those "others" question what we came up with and we can sometime be a-holes about it because we have already thought through things and don't want to waste time entertaining additional pointless debate. But shame on us for that. We also try very hard to answer the "why" questions and help the younger people understand our though process.

And Kombat...get over it, admit defeat. A waitress tricked you out of 50 cents. You should be proud of her! Just carry a loonie and two quarters with you from now on to thwart her future efforts.

I would have asked her to make change for the toonie. Any grief or eye rolling would have resulted in no toonie nor loonie.

I'd have asked for change for the quarter.

Kombat,

Having been a waitress, I really doubt she gave you that change just to force you to tip more. She probably just wanted to get rid of the heavy coins she was carrying around! My back hurts just thinking about the weight of a changepurse for a Canadian waitress.

You're probably right Kaitlyn, but that's the same reason I wanted to tip her $1.50 - I wanted a nice, light $5 bill back, that fits in my wallet, instead of a bunch of noisy, heavy change jingling around in my pocket. The bill would stay with me until I can spend it. The change gets dumped as quickly as possible, because it's annoying.

I'm more miffed about having a bunch of change ditched on me unnecessarily than I am about being forced into tipping an extra $0.50. I'm not that cheap.