The boss breathing down your neck. You know that feeling. If not personally, you still know the kind of stress it causes, from your friends or family.
If that wasn’t enough, a lot of the time such bosses really aren’t in the business of saying what exactly you should be doing to improve. It’s as if they’re just biding their time, waiting for the most opportune moment to fire you…
A German woman was going through these exact motions with a boss who wanted her gone, but lucky for her, he had no easy way to get rid of her.
More info: Reddit
For reasons yet unknown by scientists, some people just hate you, but instead of saying it, they just politely try to sabotage you at every turn
Image credits: Manuel Cernuda (not the actual photo)
A woman went to the antiwork community to share her most recent victory against her boss and entire company
Image credits: doxeaxx1
Image credits: Afshin Taylor Darian (not the actual photo)
She overheard that her boss wanted to fire her, but couldn't figure out a single reason why, as she's always been a diligent worker
Image credits: doxeaxx1
She simply doesn't engage in their bullying tactics and enjoys the fact that according to Germany's labor law, she can't be fired without good cause
Image credits: doxeaxx1
Image credits: Blake Patterson (not the actual photo)
She can't figure out why her boss stopped liking her, but speculates it may be related to some form of jealousy as she had recently married
Image credits: doxeaxx1
In an update, she detailed how the bosses tried to fire or get her to quit in a meeting, but neither she, nor the union head supporting her budged
Image credits: doxeaxx1
After she refused an agreement that would set the company free from paying substantial severance pay, they agreed to have her move to a different team
The single biggest mystery in this whole story is the reason as to why the boss doesn't like the poster, doxeaxx1.
From what she’s telling us, it seems that she is a stellar worker. She mentions that although she is a Junior, she’s doing the work that is worth the Senior title. In my mind, this just confirms the fact that Jr. positions are used as an excuse to underpay workers while encouraging them to work even harder - that Senior badge is just over the next hill, trust me!
Despite this, she stands tall, at least a head taller than her boss, who has resorted to giving her the cold shoulder and piling annoying jobs solely on her.
Imagine being an adult, a boss of a company or branch even, and playing such kindergarten courtyard games with your employees. I get that they don’t want to fire her because they’d have to shell out quite a bit, but there has to be a better way to solve the problem.
She even tried being the adult in the situation and asking her boss what’s wrong, but didn’t get any useful feedback from him at all.
The childish games didn’t end there, though. The post had been posted Friday, but doxeaxx1 came back with an update this Monday.
When they couldn’t give any actual evidence that she was underperforming at work, they suggested she quit, because “she looks sad.” You heard that right too, by the way, they need actual good evidence to fire someone out of the blue over in Germany.
Looking sad is also a commendable reason to quit or be fired. They’ve probably never heard of the age-old “that’s just my face, thanks.”
At the end of the day, the company still couldn’t fire her, resorting to moving her to a different team. It’s also amazing to see the union rep standing shoulder to shoulder with an employee under duress.
Image credits: -drik S. (not the actual photo)
To get another perspective on the issue, Bored Panda reached out to Ryo on Instagram, who has spent about 8 years of her life living in Germany from the age of 12. As she has a lot of life experience, and has also lived in the USA for 3 years and 10 in Lithuania, she’s the perfect person to tell us more about how the social security systems stack up in different countries.
Ryo further mentions that she’s enjoyed her time in Germany the most, especially because of the culture and advanced healthcare system, further adding that her experience in Lithuania has been far from perfect because of a significant amount of racism that she has suffered.
For a start, Ryo helped us out by explaining the “unbefristet” term that the poster used in more detail. The term refers to your job contract which has no specific expiration date and the employer pays a monthly salary.
You also can’t get fired for no reason, unless you broke your own contract, disappeared from your workplace for a long time or did something else inappropriate. Additionally, overtime is always paid for and there are even more laws that protect employees.
However, there are rules, like having to inform your employer 3-4 months in advance before quitting.
Image credits: Stefan Flod (not the actual photo)
Ryo also clarified that it’s more difficult to be fired out of the blue after your trial period, but you can be fired for missing just 1 day during the trial period, depending on the job. In some cases, you also have only 3 days to mail a doctor’s note if you come down with something and need time off.
In Ryo’s experience, labor unions are popular in the country, especially in the public transportation industry, buses and trains included. She mentions that these industries are particularly well disposed towards their union because of the hard work they have to do and the comparatively low pay that comes with it.
As rail and bus are the most popular and efficient modes of transportation in Germany, these strikes, which happen comparatively often, inconvenience a lot of people.
Take the 2023 German public transport strike which happened this March, involving over 400,000 transport workers, pretty much paralyzing Germany for 24 hours. That was enough to restart the negotiations with companies and net them a significant pay raise.
Finally, we asked Ryo what she thinks about other countries’ social security systems in comparison to Germany’s, using the USA as an example.
“It scares me how the people there are uncared for, because our country thrives on the fact that we have free healthcare for everyone, and the fact that we have a lot of financial support for people with disabilities, including mental illnesses.”
People who can’t find work get housing and benefits, which has reduced homelessness. Child support benefits are significant as well, which seemingly used to scale in the past, but as of 2023 is fixed at $273 (250€) per child per month, no matter how many children you have. There are more ways to get other benefits from the government, which obviously means that less people suffer poverty. Additionally, children who are studying receive child benefits until they are 25 years of age or finish their first degree.
If you’d like to follow Ryo on Instagram or ask her more questions about her experience, feel free to do so on her page!
The poster’s story collected 14k upvotes and over 700 comments, across her several-day-spanning string of updates. The commenters shared how envious they were of the German system and congratulated her for doing well for herself.
What are your thoughts on Germany's social security system? Type them up in the comments below!
A lot of the comments mentioned how jealous they were of the German labor laws and enjoyed the poster's epic win
