All posts tagged: Coworker

People Who Brag About Stress At Work Sound Incompetent & Unlikable

People Who Brag About Stress At Work Sound Incompetent & Unlikable

Published by Jenni Sidey

Feeling stressed out at work is an unfortunate common denominator in any job, whether you’re a CEO or a server at a restaurant. While one way to deal with work stress is by commiserating with co-workers, scientists discovered that venting too hard is a bad habit to get into. A study revealed that stress is the one conversation topic at work that makes people look ‘incompetent’ and less likable. According to research from the University of Georgia Terry College of Business, stress bragging is a common workplace phenomenon that can actively harm interpersonal relationships. The study found that stress bragging can have “resoundingly negative implications” on employees’ professional and personal reputations. Anatoliy Cherkas | Shutterstock Every profession has its fair share of tasks and tribulations that can spike anyone’s blood pressure, from toxically positive bosses and endless morning meetings to managers who steal credit for your work and customers who don’t tip after eating at a restaurant. However, workers who brag about how stressed out they are by these work scenarios are seen as less …

Meet Microsoft Scout, Your AI Coworker That Never Logs Off

Meet Microsoft Scout, Your AI Coworker That Never Logs Off

Published by skeptic

Soon, your coworkers in Microsoft Teams might not all be human. Scout, an always-on AI agent announced at Microsoft’s Build developer conference on Tuesday, can go through your work messages, calendar, and email inbox to automate tasks, reschedule meeting conflicts, and draft professional-sounding responses. Microsoft more or less built an enterprise agent on top of OpenClaw, the AI tool that riveted San Francisco’s early adopters at the start of 2026. Scout is designed specifically to be an assistant for office folks, who can send commands directly in Teams as if the agent was a carbon-based coworker. Scout is part of Microsoft’s larger, agent-first transformation, automating how knowledge workers use software and inserting AI assistants into daily office interactions. “Your company essentially hires your assistant,” says Omar Shahine, the newly appointed corporate vice president of Microsoft Scout. “The whole point of having a personal assistant is that they’re working when you’re not working.” So, while you’re munching on some Doritos and gossiping next to the office vending machine, Scout is busy blocking off calendar time for …

Are you truly infatuated with your co-worker, or do you just see them 40 hours a week?

Are you truly infatuated with your co-worker, or do you just see them 40 hours a week?

Published by Sam Flores

Does having an affair with a married co-worker (who is in a loveless marriage, and whose wife is having an affair too, but they’re staying together for their child) make me, morally, a bad person? That depends on what you believe a “bad” person to be. If your married co-worker and their spouse have both communicated and acknowledged the refined terms of their relationship to each other — that their romantic relationship is over, and that they are both free to pursue connections outside of their marriage while continuing their domestic partnership and performing whatever outer auspices of their relationship to ensure their child has a stable home until they come of age — then your co-worker and their spouse are essentially in an open relationship that prioritizes co-parenting. But the nature of this agreement, and the consequences of actions stemming from it, all depends on whether this agreement is mutually consensual and clear. The word “morally” carries a weight with different subjective meanings. Generally it refers to undertaking an action in accordance with certain …

5 Signs Your Coworker Is a Smart Person

5 Signs Your Coworker Is a Smart Person

Published by Jenni Sidey

Our coworkers affect us in a variety of ways. Smart coworkers can increase our own success, most directly on joint projects on which everyone shares the credit. But there are other benefits too: learning from how they work, a more pleasant day-to-day experience, and the iron-sharpens-iron principle whereby smart people naturally cause each other to raise their game. Here are some ways to spot a smart coworker, so that you can try to get and keep them on your team. Or, just so that you can observe their strengths and learn from them more. 1. They See Simple Ways to Test Assumptions Your team is planning a customer appreciation event. It’ll be for families. You’ve penciled in to book a face painter and balloon artist. Neither of you has young children. Your coworker texts a friend who attends similar events regularly to ask how long the lines for these are when they’re at an event with both. The friend tells them face paint lines can be 45 minutes or more, but balloon animals aren’t popular. …

Gen Z Worker Has Accommodation That She Cannot Interact With Co-Worker

Gen Z Worker Has Accommodation That She Cannot Interact With Co-Worker

Published by Jenni Sidey

Getting an accommodation at work isn’t unheard of. But more often than not, they’re centered on creating a safe work environment for employees with disabilities. One Gen Z worker described the unique accommodation that prevents her from working with one specific co-worker. Gen Z has a reputation when it comes to the workplace, and it’s not always good. The truth remains, however, that most of the complaints are unfounded and should actually be applauded. We need to rely on young people to change the status quo and evoke change. This particular worker has an accommodation that protects her from an employee who would create a hostile environment should they both be in the same store at the same time. And while this is not typical, it proves that businesses that care about their employees can ensure workplace safety remains a priority. A Gen Z employee explained the work accommodation that says she cannot interact with one particular co-worker. TikTok user Opal Fay Spring shared the interesting accommodation she has at work with her followers. “So, …

Employee Creates Graveyard To Remember All Of Her Favorite Co-Workers Who Left The Job

Employee Creates Graveyard To Remember All Of Her Favorite Co-Workers Who Left The Job

Published by Jenni Sidey

A woman named Alexia shared the humorous and poignant remembrance she created in honor of her co-worker friends who no longer worked with her. She created a “graveyard” by printing out pictures of resigned co-workers and taping them to her desktop monitor. While her social media post was meant to be all in good fun, the truth is that co-workers impact our lives. These are people you spend a significant amount of your life with, and when they are no longer a part of your daily routine, that creates loss. Work friends make the day more manageable. They give you an outlet for frustration. They offer support and camaraderie and even a little spark of joy in often otherwise monotonous days. An employee created a ‘graveyard’ to remember her favorite co-workers who left the job. AnnaStills | Shutterstock Alexia captioned her Instagram post simply “Why do my favs keep leaving?!” The four images of smiling faces were followed by a gravestone reading R.I.P. She didn’t have their pictures on top of her desk, but rather …

Woman Takes On Former Co-Worker’s Job Responsibilities Without Pay

Woman Takes On Former Co-Worker’s Job Responsibilities Without Pay

Published by Jenni Sidey

After her co-worker quit, a corporate employee’s supervisor tried to give her the majority of her former colleague’s work tasks without any extra pay. In our current employer market, increased responsibility and limited resources seem to be the growing trend because employees are tethered to their jobs whether they like it or not. The corporate world often seems to run according to its own set of rules and regulations that aren’t necessarily explained to workers, as though it were a club that only a chosen few have access to. In a supportive working environment, younger workers have mentors, people who support them and who guide them to the next stages of their careers. But most of the time, employees are left to fend for themselves, as one office worker discovered when her job description changed abruptly. After a woman’s co-worker quit, she was told that 80% of her job was now her responsibility, without any extra pay. The corporate worker explained that the office manager at her company had given her two weeks’ notice, which …

Your First Humanoid Robot Coworker Will Probably Be Chinese

Your First Humanoid Robot Coworker Will Probably Be Chinese

Published by skeptic

But language models can only do so much, and what robots need most urgently is a new kind of model that understands the physical world the way an LLM understands the written word. And to build that model, engineers need way more data. While walking around BAAI, I see scores of workers behind desks. They’re teleoperating various robot arms and grippers to teach algorithms simple manipulation tasks such as sweeping up beans on a table, pouring liquids from a jug into different cups, and picking items from shelves. A young man wearing a virtual reality headset appears to be making tea as a camera records his every move. The idea is that with enough training data, robots will intuit how to do all sorts of things without specific training. The trouble is, nobody quite knows what data is most useful to the robots, let alone how much they need or how best to collect it. And for humanoids to become ubiquitous, people need to invent hardware that better mimics a human hand. For a robot, …