Four Workplace Stories Show How Poor Boundaries Strain Young Employees

Workplace problems don’t always arrive as formal complaints or dramatic resignations. Sometimes they show up in small, recurring moments: a senior colleague shouting over formatting, a junior employee asked to pay for a meal they barely touched, or an intern pulled into a dispute between coworkers. Four young adults describe experiences that left them questioning workplace norms, professional boundaries and their own roles on the job.

The accounts, edited for clarity, range from a month-long internship at a major Singapore law firm to everyday friction in media and marketing teams. Together, they show how conduct that may seem minor to those with more authority can weigh heavily on people who are new, junior or unsure what they’re expected to tolerate.

When criticism becomes a daily spectacle

A 29-year-old law student says an internship at one of Singapore’s Big Four law firms, secured about a year into graduate studies, proved harsher than expected. Work-life balance was nearly absent, and a partner regularly shouted at junior staff over details such as font choices and document formatting.

The partner often left the office door open during these outbursts, making the reprimands audible across the floor. The intern had heard that the partner wanted to be seen as intimidating. Whether deliberate or not, the effect was clear: the student felt shaken, even though they were never personally targeted.

Watching the behaviour prompted a more fundamental question about the profession. Would a future legal career mean being shouted at every day? One trainee who worked under the partner left a year-long traineeship after eight months, unable to manage the workload and what the student describes as a toxic environment.

The internship itself lasted just a month. The student endured those 30 days and left, concluding that they would not join a Big Four law firm again. For junior employees, the episode illustrates how a senior person’s conduct can shape the perceived cost of an entire career path, even when the junior worker isn’t the direct target.

A lunch bill turns into a fairness test

A 25-year-old writer who later became a marketing executive recalls a farewell lunch during the first week of a full-time writing job. Around 10 to 13 people attended, including two interns, and the team ordered a substantial spread of dim sum.

The editor-in-chief, the most senior employee present, brought his own food and did not offer to pay. Expecting the other bosses to cover the meal, the new employee offered them dishes first and ate sparingly, having just five pieces of dim sum. When the bill arrived, the deputy editor paid. Back at the office, the writer was asked to transfer S$30. The interns also paid, but each received a “discount” of S$15.

The writer was left wondering whether it was unreasonable to object to an equal split when people had eaten very different amounts, or whether the senior staff had handled the situation poorly. The account doesn’t establish what anyone else ate or how the bill was divided; its point is the employee’s discomfort at being charged after holding back on the assumption that the meal was being treated.

Since changing companies, the writer says they haven’t faced the same situation. Their current bosses regularly treat the team to meals. The difference, as described, has made generosity at work feel less like an accounting question and more like a signal about how a team treats its members.

An office argument carries on after the meeting

A 26-year-old communications executive thought workplace disputes over name-calling belonged to childhood. That changed during a small meeting between two departments. From a desk outside the meeting room, the employee heard vulgar language and a heated argument, while others in the room tried to calm the participants.

The initial commotion faded, but the conflict resumed three hours later outside a toilet. One colleague objected to the other’s tone and insisted they didn’t use vulgar language; the other pushed back. Their voices rose until one told the other to stop talking to them, ending the exchange for the moment.

The executive found the scene both baffling and funny: two adult colleagues, old enough to be the employee’s father, were arguing over who had sworn first. The episode offers a different kind of workplace strain from the partner’s daily shouting. Here, the conflict was mutual and seemingly centred on the argument itself, while nearby employees were left to witness the escalation without knowing what had started it.

When an intern becomes the confidant

A 25-year-old marketing worker describes becoming an informal go-between during a recent internship. Two colleagues separately invited the intern to lunch. Unwilling to disappoint either, the intern arranged two consecutive 30-minute meetings.

At the first lunch, colleague A said colleague B had failed to credit her for work they had presented together earlier that day. At the next, colleague B arrived with red eyes after crying in the office nap room and said she felt wronged too. She believed she had credited A appropriately.

The intern suddenly found themself listening to both sides of a dispute they hadn’t agreed to mediate. The situation felt stressful: as a temporary, junior team member, the intern wasn’t sure what to do or why both colleagues had chosen them. Perhaps the intern seemed less likely to become entangled in team tensions; perhaps both genuinely trusted them.

In the end, the intern listened, offered reassurance and suggested that the two colleagues speak directly. They later had coffee together and appeared to resolve their differences. The intern joked about adding conflict mediator to a résumé, but the experience points to a real boundary question: being trusted by coworkers can be meaningful, while being placed between them can also be an unexpected burden.

These four accounts don’t describe one shared workplace or prove that every team behaves this way. They do show how power, money, conflict and emotional labour can shape a young employee’s day. For people starting out, the practical challenge is often recognising where ordinary workplace friction ends and an unhealthy expectation begins.