this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2026
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Wondering if it's just me and my own legitimate fuck-ups at work or if this is possibly part of a broader trend. I've been at my current blue collar job for almost two years. For the first few months I was just training and not touching anything, but I've been on my own for about a year and a half. Starting maybe six months ago, my managers have called me into meeting after meeting, usually every few weeks, to talk about how I suck and how they're going to fire me. In their defense, I was legitimately fucking up. And before you tell me to unionize: I already talked about it with my coworkers (white males on the older side) and they aren't interested. I'm on my own at this job for 99% of the time I'm out there so I barely talk with them anyway.

One manager called me recently to thank me for my hard work. Two meetings ago, he basically said I had nothing to worry about, with regard to one of my recent fuck-ups; then we just had another meeting yesterday where he and another manager once again threatened to fire me (over the same fuck-up). We have regular safety meetings with my coworkers—a few safety meetings ago, the managers gave us a list of items all of us needed to have in our work vehicles. One meeting later, they told us we had too many items in our work vehicles. They're just kind of all over the place, and I'm wondering if this is because they're under pressure from their superiors or market trends or they feel emboldened by Trump? What do you think?

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[–] Alaskaball@hexbear.net 24 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I notice in my slice of the world that around the beginning of every year the local management team gets pressured by their bosses to peddle more paperwork of them enforcing corporate laws on their workers as a part of a drive to fire people for whatever infraction they can get. It usually lasts for a month or two until they can satisfy whatever arbitrary quota their bosses set or the workers start getting pissed off enough they start doing shit to cut into company profits and timetables noticeably enough for the local managers to figure out they should ease off the toe-stepping before they really piss the people that makes the company materially function.

[–] duderium@hexbear.net 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I’m afraid to even ask my coworkers if they’re also getting fucked because at least one of them seems pissed at me for fucking up 😑

[–] Alaskaball@hexbear.net 18 points 2 days ago

Can't please everyone. Best you can do is bluntly ask for advice on what or how to improve as the young kid on the block, to smooth over any growing tensions. Old fuckers love that shit.