Working hours have an end, which is fixed and cannot be changed just because some boss wants to exploit their employees.
Being an employee is really hard, especially if you have to put up with an annoying boss who takes pride in pushing you over your working hours, micromanaging you, and ignoring your complaints and recommendations. We can use a thousand tips to make the situation better, but the truth is, there is no out till you resign or you change bosses. So really, it isn’t particularly in your power how your manager treats you. Of course you could always get the law involved as you are working extra hours for free, but it will most likely just categorize you as a difficult employee, which is worse.
So what can the person in this story do? Nothing? Well, she could try to do a quick checkup at 4:30 so she could leave on time, or maybe she could express the issues to human resources in the hope that they would fix it. But really, nothing guarantees that this toxic workspace will change into a good one, because the toxic part is just the boss. So she can only really hope that her manager lives or that she finds a new job where the environment is different.
There is actually no certain way to be sure that a workspace isn’t toxic till you are a part of it. So what do other people do to know that they won’t be miserable at their job? Accept their fate? Work remotely? Be your own boss? I’m actually curious how employees manage to know this information beforehand or how they fix the environment once they are already a part of the company. How can we change something like this? Is the toxic aspect really just the manager of this office? Do we just look forward to escalating the career ladder to avoid having bosses? I really don’t know how to help this girl. It seems like she’s deemed, and she just has to accept it or leave.Â



