There’s a thread doing the rounds that I’ve been mulling over for a few days now, and it touches on something that genuinely gets under my skin — the intersection of bad management, AI-generated nonsense, and the quiet erosion of worker trust.

Someone posted about receiving a fairly formal email from their manager flagging “patterns” in their sick leave. On the surface, sounds reasonable enough. Twenty-six days in twelve months is above the standard ten-day FTE entitlement, the manager wants medical certificates going forward — fine, that’s within their rights. But then you read the details and the whole thing starts to unravel a bit.

I’ve been mulling over a discussion I stumbled across recently about workplace flexibility and whether certain groups get preferential treatment. It’s one of those topics that really gets under my skin because it touches on something fundamental about fairness in the workplace – and frankly, it’s a conversation that’s long overdue.

The situation described was painfully familiar: a company with a rigid five-day office mandate that offers “exemptions” for flexible work arrangements. But here’s the kicker – those exemptions seem to follow an unwritten hierarchy. Parents? Approved without question. Pet owners? Not a chance. Someone wanting flexible hours to pursue a master’s degree? “Can you postpone your plans?”