Arrogant co-worker who constantly undermines my work. Till what point is this behavior acceptable?

How do you deal with co-workers who constantly undermine or are arrogant towards you?

Without going too into details, I’ve been working in this company for almost 2 years now. This teammate who is at a lower job level, but has had four years of experience has taken it upon himself to undermine every single thing I do/say.

“Make sure you do it properly and run it by me” is the phrase often used by this guy, who I don’t even report to, nor is my mentor.

Am I supposed to keep tolerating this behavior cuz I’ve been itching to vent out to my manager about this whole situation?

Netizens’ comments

• If you are not under him, why do you have to run things through him? Has the department specifically mentioned that you are under his jurisdiction? Or any content has to pass through his moderation/verification? Otherwise, just ignore. No need to entertain. Escalate if necessary. No one likes a condescending co-worker.
  • (OP) Absolute zero jurisdiction. I’m supposed to only report to my mentor or manager. Hell, this dude belongs to a different vertical within the same team as well. But idk why he’s got a stick so far up his ass. Either way with performance reviews coming up, I’m genuinely considering letting my manager know.
• “Sure, will do that if you would send me an email for it”
• His insecurity is screaming, people who constantly check on others and how they’re doing their work has nothing else prioritised in life, for reals.

Seeking advice from those who cancelled BTO before key collection. Is there anyone who managed to get a waiver from HDB on downpayment and what was your reason?

Hi all, my boyfriend rushed me to BTO with him but he recently changed his mind and broke up with me. In his haste to end the relationship, he promised to bear the full cost incurred by forfeiture of BTO, but is now reneging on the promise and insisting I pay (half?) for fairness sake.

I am only earning half of his salary so I am extremely troubled by this incoming huge financial blow.

So far, the 5% downpayment has been paid and we had secured a housing loan. Still a long way from key collection. The BTO completion date was also pushed back once before.

Saw an article (Seedly, 2021) whereby those who got affected by delays can appeal to HDB to cancel the BTO without penalty.

Want to hear if anyone managed to get a waiver on downpayment based on this or any other reason.

Appreciate any advice.

Netizens’ comments

• Check with HDB. There is always an officer in charge of your BTO. Best to speak to the officer directly, because many waivers or appeals are on a case by case basis.
• You can cancel the BTO without penalty. But there is a clause that you have to purchase a house in 6 months for you to effectively walk free from hdb. I suggest you give HDB a call.
• You can only get refund if you purchase a resale flat. I think in this case your 5% is gone unless HDB decides to be kind

My husband said I disrespected him by buying something without asking first

I took our son to my salon appointment yesterday. It took longer than expected but my son was so patient. So when we went grocery shopping after I let him get a toy he wanted.

At home my son showed my husband the new toy. My husband looked at me and said, “we will talk about this later”. I felt anxious the next couple hours.

Later in our bedroom he said, “I didn’t tell you you could buy him that”

I explained that I didn’t think he would care because I spend money on our children and myself all the time.

He told me, “I usually don’t care because you ask me sweetly. It’s not about the money, it’s about respecting me since I am paying for it”

I apologized. He said he knows I meant well and won’t do it again. And he said I will “make it up” to him tonight.

I honestly felt like crying. I don’t know if I deserved that.

Dealing with toxic coworkers

When I was 21, I accepted an offer for a position in management in a clinical/healthcare setting. I was the youngest in the company, and I worked very hard to be the best, stayed overtime, and helped my staff beyond my scope. I was eventually promoted after one year to one of the busiest locations. My team was primarily composed of females, older in their mid-30s-50s, and at my new location, two older workers often commented about me (not about my work ethic) but about how young I was.

This one employee, in particular, started to go to my superiors and say I was not qualified for the position on multiple occasions, along with another complaint with another lead at my site. Even when my bosses decided to shadow me, they concluded that I was doing my job well, and I kept my position. She never stopped complaining, even about me staying “overtime” to prepare for tomorrow’s work. Even if I showed up with makeup, she would harass me that I was trying to look pretty for X, Y. Z reasons.

I still treated her with respect and kindness after all of that. After my superiors asked her to drop the claims, she went to HR and proposed that I had inappropriate relations with a provider in one of our procedure rooms. HR started an investigation and interviewed the whole location. HR asked me questions like, “Who are you having intercourse with? Have you ever had intercourse with X” and after a long week of continuous interviews asking providers, etc if I had been inappropriate with them, they concluded that these claims were false. The individual was later fired. She later keyed my car as well. (I had video evidence and just didn’t press charges because I was so emotionally drained)

I was heartbroken and humiliated that in my first job- a job I gave my heart and soul to. This was happening during COVID, and there were many layoffs in our company; it was eventually just my site manager, one other co-worker, at the height of COVID.

Now, I am older and wiser (hopefully), but I’m starting a new job (part-time) at another sizeable medical system in research (hoping to get published). I think I have a bit of PTSD due to that whole occurrence, especially while still in the healthcare realm.

Just something I wanted to get off my chest this whole time, something that has plagued my confidence as well as being fearful of having to work with toxic co-workers again. Sorry if it was long!

Me and my wife know we are cheating on each other

I (35M) have been married to my wife (35F) for 8 years. Tougher for 9. Before I continue I want to say now I absolutely adore my wife Jane. She has been my best friend since we were toddlers (family friend) and we’ve been through thick and thin and I would be anything to ensure she’s happy and safe. Which is why for the past six months I’ve bashed myself for cheating on her with Mike (33M).

Mike is a work friend who had recently shown interest in me. He never knew I was married until I told him, about a month ago. He was pissed off as I expected and told me to tell Jane the truth or he would. I, obviously not wanting Jane to find out she’s being cheated on by not only the person I was having an affair with but a man nonetheless.

So, after about a week since that conversation I told her. I sat her down and admitted to my gender preferences, how I loved her so much but wasn’t attracted to her at all. And I cried about how I felt so guilty about keeping this from her and leading her on. She stayed quiet until the end of my little confession. And then she laughed.

Jane started to cry and tell me how she was also cheating on me…with a woman. She apparently came out to her family at 16 and they threatened to kick her out and said she hadn’t met the right guy yet. So Jane saw me as an opportunity to continue to have a roof over her head and stay relatively close to her family when I asked her out .

I was shocked but also thrilled because someone could meet her needs better then I ever could and also because it in a way lifted the guilt off my shoulders.

We decided to pop open a bottle of wine and chat about our secret spouses. I told her about Mike and she told me about this lovely woman named Rebecca WHO’D she’d been seeing for a little over a year. As the night continued and we got more drunk we began to talk about our intimate life and poked fun at each other for our lack of knowledge on how to pleasure of each other haha (we were always very awkward). I felt like a teenage girl talking about boys and it was one of the best feelings I’ve ever had in my life.

It’s obviously been a while since that talk and we’ve set up a ‘double date’ for tonight. I’ve talked to Mike about and he’s fine with it, and so is Rebecca. If my family or Jane’s find out we’ve decided to just say we were hanging out with ‘friends’. It isn’t a lie, I’d love to get to know Rebecca. I can’t wait to meet her, I hope she treats Jane like the queen she is and spoils her a bunch.

Me and Jane aren’t planning on getting divorced, to much stress when we’re both happy to stay with one another. And we’ve talked about it with Mike and Rebecca and it hasn’t caused any issues as of right now

Thank you for reading through all of this. This exciting for both me and Jane:) Wish me luck

okay so you may prolly be scared for your a levels paper tmr, trust me, I’ve been there and done that. I would say I did generally quite well for prelims, yet i still feel a bit nervous when i walked into the exam halls.

But I guess if you’re reading this you need help calming your nerves and I guess I can split this into a few segments.

firstly, to do good you need to feel good. The night before make sure you get plenty of sleep. I slept at 10.30pm? for all my papers and woke up at 5.30 am for my morning papers and 11pm-8am for my afternoon papers which was most of them. A good sleep is very very important. Oh but I know you’re wondering, ” what if i cant sleep”. well time to panic and cry. jk lol the reasons why you cant sleep is cause your brain is so occupied. I would say just sit up on your bed, relax and just calm down like really, I would look through funny videos to just chill and all. Okay now that you and nice and tucked into bed go sleep.

Now that you’ve woken up, I think showering is very important. You feel better and more awake I guess after a shower? (If you don’t shower normally when going school you’re weird) Now go make some breakfast, I like to eat oats with nutella and blueberry and yogurt and tea. Yum yum in my tum tum mmmm. Okay now go to school

On your way to school idk what you wear ? your lucky socks ? (I actually have one and I do wear them for the harder papers lmao) Carry your notes to get the school kid aesthetics. I would only read the important parts ( turns out its everything in the syllabus) but srsly, I would ve been roughly quite well versed in certain topics already. But I would read up more on certain parts that I don’t feel as confident about first, then read those that I’m confident about, then re read those I’m not confident again. Repeat until you reach school. I would scroll through my phone once in awhile and look through insta or tiktok to see my boy magic john and his 28 deg privacy protection.

Now you’re in school. Walk in like a boss, knowing you are gonna do well in every paper dab. Make sure you left early lmao or you gonna start running 2.4 in 1 min to your class. ( I was actually late for 1 paper HAHAHAHHAHAHA) Find somewhere quiet and read your notes, think about what your teachers told you and the strategies that you maybe developed for the paper. My strat for tackling the qns can be found in one of my posts go find it. But in summary, GP: choose 3 qns I am confident, and then plan out and see which points are better and do that one. Paper 2 just annotate and make sure I read the question types correctly, if no time for AQ just whack ah. Econs: I love macro econs so I always do that first. Chem: I like to do organic so i did those first then ill do those regurgitate type of qns you know like periodic table then ill do those calc qns then do those impossible to do noble prize typa qns. Bio: I usually do from the back HAHAHAHAHHAHA then i do the front then to the centre, generally i found that’s how the difficulty of qns are spread, paper 3 I always do the front part first then the essays. Math: Paper 1 I just do the back then the front same thing yea, paper 2 I do stats first before doing pure math.

Okay next now you’re in the classroom, take out your pens and stuff and lay out in front of you. Put your entry proof with your ez linlk/IC on the top right hand to facilitate checking of your ID. When you get the paper, check everyth and you know sneakily look out the qns and see where the easy ones are and rmb them so you can get to them straight, so you know you don’t waste time. Also don’t be a dick and set alarms of when the paper ends, you just gonna cause panic to yourself and others.

Okay so now you’re doing the paper. If you dk how to do, skip lol. Lose 5 marks better than 30 marks. Forgive but don’t forget about the betrayal Cambridge just gave you and just like my ex- they are always cunning and always hurt you in ways you least expect it. Once you do finish everyth (hopefully) continue with the questions you dk. Personally I like to go toilet in exams AHAHHAHAH, its to send a msg to others and tell them “Yea Im so good at this I don’t need extra time to do this mhm, and yes I have small bladder mhm” jkjk I go toilet to just take small mental breaks and refresh myself esp during aftnoon papers you maybe sleepy and make some careless mistakes. Once you’re done with the paper, check and check and check again. You can never be too safe. Dont sleep in the paper pls thanks, check until the time runs out.

Now you’re done with one paper, but what if you F up? Dont worry. If you F up, chances are everyone else F up. Unless the only blank you can fill in is your name and register number then yea you’re pretty F-ed. But don’t worry, just be sad for awhile and stop thinking about it already. Dont let it keep affecting you and your future with other papers. Just like my ex, they always scar you for life and make you scared of another rs and make you overthink about whether you are worthy and what went wrong, Cambridge does the same thing. (Gee taking exams is like breaking up, no wonder no one likes exams) But yes just focus on the next paper, ask around what type of qns came out, and focus your energy and what hasn’t came out yet.

Alright repeat these steps until you finish your paper and you should be good to go. But before that here’s some motivation.

You have already done your best in this preparation. A lvls is no doubt an important exam, but don’t think that if you F up, this will be the end of you and your life. There are many opportunities to do better one. Rmb all the papers you’ve done and just focus up. The papers may be hard but you got this! jys and atb

Can you keep your monsters at home if you cannot tame them?

Look, I am not against kids but if you don’t have basic public manner and ethics then I will say you better stay home.

During weekend, I went to buy food at a nearby mall. The store is quite famous hence there’s a shirt queue, about 7-8 people.

Behind me and my sister was an elderly woman and behind her was a mother and son. The son looks like he is 6-7.

The son is very mischievous and kept running about and trying to in between the lines, thinking it was fun. But he kept stepping on people’s feet without caring or apologizing. His mother did nothing to stop him except shouting perfunctorily “don’t run ah.” And continue texting on her phone.

One of the uncle in front told him to stop doing that as he stepped on his feet twice already but obviously the boy doesn’t care. And so does the mother, it’s obviously loud enough for her to hear.

Finally he stepped on the elder woman (behind me) feet. She grabbed him and stopped him from continuing his nuisance. The boy then started screaming for his mother and try to break free.

This is the first time the mother finally look away from her phone and asked what happened? She looked a little annoyed that her kid is being held by the woman.

The elder woman said he had repeatedly cause inconvenience and nuisance to others. So she is going to tell him off.

The mother is offended and went on to say it’s her kid lah, don’t kpo lah, it’s public and her kid can do whatever he wants lah, it’s not like he committed a crime. Blah blah.

The uncle who previously scolded him also joined in and say it’s not ok, he has been stepping on people’s feet and thinking it’s ok. And worst is the mother also thinking it’s ok.

The mother went on to defend that they’re being too kaypoh, why need to care about how people educated their kids, also called the uncle complain-king as others also never say anything. I turned around and rolled my eyes at her, I have been stepped by her kid too.

Then the lady behind her suan her, “people never say doesn’t mean you’re right.” The mother just grabbed her kid and walked away.

Why got this kind of people? Thinking it’s ok to do anything in public!? Why not pee in public too? See police catch or not.

not wanting to have any relation to my siblings.

I was never your typical book-smart student. My grades in primary school through secondary school were not great.

I got 168 for my PSLE and went to NA in a neighbourhood sec sch and for this, I was constantly bullied by my siblings, yes.. my very own siblings, for having poor grades.

They constantly called me names such as the 168 girl, NA retard etc. All in front of my parents. What pisses me off and scars me till this day is that my parents did NOTHING about this. All they said is “Transfer to Express stream and they will stop.” I honestly still hold a grudge against my parents for not doing anything about the bullying I faced from my siblings.

Of course when I stepped into Secondary school, my self-confidence plummeted like mad. I became very withdrawn and I hated socialising with people.

Went to poly, started doing better…. average GPA of 3.4, went to Uni and now doing my postgrad.

A series of events happened over the past few years with my siblings and my parents have been trying to persuade me to step in to talk to them and advice them. However, I refuse to. I do not want to have any relation to them. Neither do I want to have anything to do with them.

Over the years I was met only with hostility and they did jack shit to help me so now I am thinking, why should I?

So, am I being an asshole/petty for not wanting to have any relation to them?

Here are what netizens think:

• Do what makes you happy. The fact that your parents did not do their duty of protecting their child makes it worse. All the best, man.

• U were all young, all were not taught well, even some parents were not taught well for their own parents. Now u r all grown-up, received good education, hope these education had taught u well in morals besides getting good grades for yr job. Make a change, improve yr relationship with yr family n fellow humans. Learn to forgive , it will help u find joy in yr remaining life.