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Getting rid of beloved possessions can be tough, especially when your most precious belonging is an ancient, all-powerful, corrupted, malignant, semi-sentient gold Ring. Ah, yes, Precious… My Precious. 

It's that time of the year again when we all must do a bit of spring cleaning, and it seems that the most difficult items to throw away are the ones with sentimental value. Even if the sentimental item is literal garbage, like a receipt from a first date or your 2nd grader's poorly drawn family portrait, it seems almost impossible to get rid of. Now imagine you're Isildur or Frodo at the gates of Mount Doom. How does one relinquish the most sentimental item in their grasp? Especially if said trinket whispers evil nothings to them in their sleep, rousing them to commit atrocities across all of Middle Earth? See, this hesitation is the reason Isildur sent the world into a spiraling war of good vs. evil 3000 years ago. 

Elrond was there; he witnessed it and was still unable to intervene. Oh, the fragility of Man. 

Isildur's bane may have been the One Ring of power, but as I tackle my own spring cleaning, I realize that he and I are not too different. It's hard to throw away perfectly functional things because I don't need them anymore. I can donate them, sure, but what if I need this collection of miscellaneous electronic wires one day? I couldn't possibly muster the courage and the strength to cast them into the fiery lava pits of a living volcano. 

Perhaps if those under the spell of the One Ring of power could just channel their inner Marie Kondo, asking themselves, "Does this spark joy?" As we all know, as devout Lord of the Rings fans, there's one thing that the Ring of Power sparks, and it's certainly never joy. It sparks the war-cry screeching of the Nazgûl, summons the monster spiders from their lair, and raises armies of orc and uruk-hai from the muddy swamps of a fallen forest. 

There's nothing joyful about the Ring, except, of course, the feeling of relief when you finally cast it into the fire and destroy it. 

A guy just wants to understand his bonus, which turns out not to be a bonus at all, but his normal paycheck wearing a cheap disguise. Management sells it like a reward, nodding proudly while repackaging what he was already owed, and somehow, he's the one who ends up on trial for noticing.  

I'm sure no one's surprised that a workplace kingdom that's usually at ease, tranquil and comfy shows its true colors the second a serf dares to point out the noble lords changed how language works and are now referring to regular pay, the thing we used to call "salary," as bonuses.

He tries to be professional, brings actual paperwork, and stays calm. His boss immediately combusts. Starts talking about loyalty, taxes, and attitude. The whole thing turns into a performance review sponsored by insecurity. You can sense the energy shift that happens when someone powerful realizes they don't have facts on their side anymore. He didn't raise his voice once, which probably made it worse, because nothing enrages fake authority faster than composure.  

Then HR enters, not to help, of course, but to do what HR does best, change the subject. The issue magically becomes his glasses. Suddenly, there are whispers about illegal recording, threats about policy, and a lot of serious faces pretending this is about privacy instead of power. It's straight out of the bad‑management playbook. When all else fails, invent a crisis and make the calm one look suspicious. 

Let this story serve as a potent reminder that the human resources department is not there to protect humans per se. They are there to protect the company at all costs, even if their methods are wildly unethical and, in this case, a complete revision of what happened.

This employee experienced an unexpected medical emergency that required him to be admitted to the hospital. Thankfully, he ended up recovering well, but the last thing he expected was justifying what he said on the phone to his manager the day he fell ill.

During that conversation, he told his manager that he was going to miss work until he was fully recovered and permitted by medical professionals to return. However, on that same phone call, he mentioned to his manager that he understood if there were consequences as a result of his absence. This might not have been the wisest thing to abstractly mention. Still, he was referring to perks or timing preferences for future shifts upon his return. He did not mean to preemptively accept termination from his job entirely.

That's right. When this guy left the hospital, he noticed a missed phone call from HR that sounded urgent. When he got back in touch with them, they informed him that his resignation had been accepted. This, of course, made the employee immediately confused. Resignation? Nobody said anything about anyone quitting! Well, it turns out that these folks thought they could twist the employee's words against him and reframe his comments as a resignation. Keep scrolling below for the full breakdown of how this went down!