Her bosses wore the same sneakers but only she got fired. So she took them to court and won.

Elizabeth Benassi was 18, the youngest person in her office, and fired after three months.

Adam Albright-Hanna

Mar 18, 2026

By Adam Albright-Hanna

March 18, 2026

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A jogger ties her running shoes – Photo credit: Canva

Elizabeth Benassi was 18 years old, three months into her first professional job, and trying hard not to stand out. She had even quietly asked her manager not to mention her age to coworkers, worried they’d write her off as the kid of the group.

The manager told them anyway, at a bowling alley team-building night.

That detail didn’t make it into the headline-grabbing part of Benassi’s story, but it sets the scene for everything that followed. Benassi had joined Maximus UK Services in August 2022, a firm that works with the UK’s Department for Work and Pensions to help people back into employment. Her colleagues were mostly in their early twenties. She was the youngest by a noticeable margin, and she felt it.

Office, workers, open office — Employees working in open office. Photo credit: Canva

Then came the trainers incident. One morning, Benassi wore athletic shoes to the office, unaware the company had a dress code against them. Her manager, Ishrat Ashraf, called her out on it immediately. Benassi apologized. But as she looked around the room, she noticed something: other colleagues were wearing the same style of shoes. No one had said a word to them.

She sent Ashraf a measured email. “This morning you mentioned that I am not allowed to wear trainers to work,” she wrote, as reported by The Metro. “Despite not being aware of this, as I have never worn trainers to work before, I apologized for this, and you rolled your eyes. I have now realized that I am not the only one wearing trainers today, and I have not seen anyone receive the same chat that I have.”

The email made things worse. Ashraf escalated it to the operations manager, who emailed Benassi to say her footwear was “totally unacceptable.” A month later, she was called into a probationary review meeting and dismissed. The company cited her performance, conduct, attendance, timekeeping, and the dress code violation. Benassi pushed back, filing a legal case for victimisation and age-related harassment.

@andyyjiang
i bet they regret this now 🤦‍♂️ ♬ original sound – Andy Jiang

The case was heard at an employment tribunal in Croydon, south London. The tribunal dismissed the age harassment claim, but it upheld the victimisation finding, and the picture it painted of Benassi’s time at the company was pointed. Employment Judge Forwell noted that no allowance had been made for the fact that she was new and might not have known about the dress code, and concluded the treatment showed “a desire to find fault” with her from the start. As HR Magazine reported, the judge observed that Benassi was “literally being scrutinised from the moment of her arrival.”

The company’s explanation for why other employees weren’t pulled up over their trainers, that one colleague had a sore foot, was also rejected. The judge noted that if that were true, Ashraf would have mentioned it at the time.

Benassi was awarded £29,187 in compensation (around $37,800 in US dollars). In her testimony, she described what she had been trying to avoid all along. “I didn’t want to be treated differently, or as I had put it, ‘as the baby of the group,’” she told the tribunal. The ruling suggests that’s exactly how she was treated anyway.

This article originally appeared earlier this year.

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A note from a Walmart manager to the employtees – Photo credit: u/Grizzlypupper / Reddit

Society, Uncategorized, Work

This hand-written Walmart note about employee hours is a real head-scratcher

“It’s about the principle.”

Adam Albright-Hanna

3/9/2026

A handwritten notice posted at a Walmart store has gone viral, and the more people read it, the more complicated the conversation got.

The sign, photographed and shared to r/walmart by user u/grizzlypupper in April 2024, begins plainly enough: “Attention all associates. Everyone needs to only work as many hours as they are scheduled. (If you are scheduled 5 hours do not go over that.)” So far, standard retail stuff. But the notice then lists six employees by name and tells each of them to leave early to compensate for a few minutes they’d already worked over their scheduled shifts the day before. One worker was told to clock out ten minutes early. Several others were directed to shave off five minutes.

The response on social media was immediate. Some workers defended the practice as straightforward scheduling management, arguing that staying over even a few minutes without authorization creates payroll headaches. Others found the optics jarring, given that most of the workers named had gone over by less than fifteen minutes, seemingly out of dedication rather than negligence.

A note from the manager to the employees. Photo Credit: @Grizzlyupper/Reddit

But the comment that drew the most attention came from someone who identified themselves as a current Walmart employee, as reported by Distractify in their coverage of the post. According to that commenter, the notice may actually violate Walmart’s own corporate policy. “Associates can report it to the wage and hour hotline,” they wrote, “and I’m pretty sure they will have to pay out the OT. I know for such a petty amount like this it won’t make a difference on your paycheck, but it’s about the principle.”

Walmart’s own ethics page states explicitly that the company is “committed to complying fully with all applicable laws and regulations dealing with wage and hour issues, including off-the-clock work” and overtime pay. Whether a store-level manager directing employees to offset previously worked minutes crosses that line is a question workers would need to raise through official channels.

It’s not the first time Walmart has faced scrutiny over hour management. As Market Realist noted in covering the story, the Pechman Law Group has documented at least two separate lawsuits from former Walmart employees alleging the company skimped on overtime pay, in one case by allegedly adjusting time clock records manually to avoid paying the time-and-a-half rate that kicks in over 40 hours.

A cashier takes payment from a customer. Photo credit: Canva

Walmart has not commented publicly on the specific notice. The store location was not identified in the Reddit post.

For many workers in the comments, the frustration wasn’t about the policy itself but the execution. “When they cut our hours, it’s like one or a half an hour each day,” wrote u/Wooden_Tomato919. “Just give me a whole half day off. But that would benefit me, not them.” Another user, u/JediFed, offered a manager’s perspective: “If I need another 10 minutes to clean everything up, I should take that 10 minutes and clean everything up.”

A notice meant to manage labor costs ended up raising a question that goes a bit further than scheduling: if an employee works the time, are they owed the pay? Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, for most hourly workers, the answer is yes.

This article originally appeared last year.

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Martin Luther King Jr. became involved not just in fights over racial equality but also economic hardship. – Photo credit: Ted S. Warren/AP

Culture, History, Justice, Money, Society

Martin Luther King Jr. was ahead of his time in pushing for universal basic income

He believed UBI could go a long way toward helping those oppressed by unjust systems.

Tarah Williams

Andrew Bloeser

1/13/2026

Each year on the holiday that bears his name, Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered for his immense contributions to the struggle for racial equality. What is less often remembered but equally important is that King saw the fight for racial equality as deeply intertwined with economic justice.

To address inequality – and out of growing concern for how automation might displace workers – King became an early advocate for universal basic income. Under universal basic income, the government provides direct cash payments to all citizens to help them afford life’s expenses.

In recent years, more than a dozen U.S. cities have run universal basic income programs, often smaller or pilot programs that have offered guaranteed basic incomes to select groups of needy residents. As political scientists, we have followed these experiments closely.

One of us recently co-authored a study which found that universal basic income is generally popular. In two out of three surveys analyzed, majorities of white Americans supported a universal basic income proposal. Support is particularly high among those with low incomes.

King’s intuition was that white people with lower incomes would support this type of policy because they could also benefit from it. In 1967, King argued, “It seems to me that the Civil Rights Movement must now begin to organize for the guaranteed annual income … which I believe will go a long, long way toward dealing with the Negro’s economic problem and the economic problem with many other poor people confronting our nation.”

But there is one notable group that does not support universal basic income: those with higher levels of racial resentment. Racial resentment is a scale that social scientists have used to describe and measure anti-Black prejudice since the 1980s.

Economic self-interest can trump resentment

At the same time, the results of the study also suggest that coalition building is possible, even among the racially resentful.

Economic status matters. Racially resentful whites with lower incomes tend to be supportive of universal basic income. In short, self-interest seems to trump racial resentment. This is consistent with King’s idea of how an economic coalition could be built and pave the way toward racial progress.

As mayor of Stockton, Calif., Michael Tubbs ran a pioneering program that provided a basic income to a limited number of residents. Rich Pedroncelli/AP

Income is not the only thing that shapes attitudes, however. Some of the strongest supporters of universal basic income are those who have higher incomes but low levels of racial resentment. This suggests an opportunity to build coalitions across economic lines, something King believed was necessary. “The rich must not ignore the poor,” he argued in his Nobel Peace Prize lecture, “because both rich and poor are tied in a single garment of destiny.” Our data shows that this is possible.

This approach to coalition building is also suggested by our earlier research. Using American National Election Studies surveys from 2004-2016, we found that for white Americans, racial resentment predicted lower support for social welfare policies. But we also found that economic position mattered, too.

Economic need can unite white Americans in support of more generous welfare policies, including among some who are racially prejudiced. At a minimum, this suggests that racial resentment does not necessarily prevent white Americans from supporting policies that would also benefit Black Americans.

Building lasting coalitions

During his career as an activist in the 1950s and 1960s, King struggled with building long-term, multiracial coalitions. He understood that many forms of racial prejudice could undermine his work. He therefore sought strategies that could forge alliances across lines of difference. He helped build coalitions of poor and working-class Americans, including those who are white. He was not so naive as to think that shared economic progress would eliminate racial prejudice, but he saw it as a place to start.

Martin Luther King Jr. believed Americans of different racial backgrounds could coalesce around shared economic interests. AP

Currently, the nation faces an affordability crisis, and artificial intelligence poses new threats to jobs. These factors have increased calls for universal basic income.

Racial prejudice continues to fuel opposition to universal basic income, as well as other forms of social welfare. But our research suggests that this is not insurmountable.

As King knew, progress toward economic equality is not inevitable. But, as his legacy reminds us, progress does remain possible through organizing around shared interests.

This article originally appeared on The Conversation. You can read it here.

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A doctor holds a roll of toilet paper – Photo credit: Canva

Civic Life, Culture, Past Events, Society

17 everyday things we do now that the future will find utterly bizarre

An online community imagined looking back from the year 2075, and their predictions about our current “primitive” habits are surprisingly convincing.

Adam Albright Hanna

GOOD Staff

12/19/2025

Hindsight is 20/20, but foresight is a little more complicated. Just as we look back at the Victorian era—with its arsenic makeup and child labor—and shudder, future generations will undoubtedly look back at 2025 and wonder, “What were they thinking?”
A recent thread on r/AskReddit posed a fascinating thought experiment: “What’s something normal to us in 2025 that by 2075 will be seen as barbaric?”
The thread exploded with over 4,500 upvotes, generating a mix of hopeful medical predictions, environmental critiques, and harsh truths about our social norms. Here are 17 of the most compelling things we do today that might horrify the history students of tomorrow.

A factory farm with rows of crops Canva

The “Primitive” Hygiene & Diet
1. Wiping with dry paper The concept of chopping down forests to dry-wipe our bodies baffled many users.
“They cut down trees just to wipe themselves?!” one user imagined a future citizen asking. Another, u/Dramatic-Avocado4687, was blunt: “Wiping our asses with toilet paper.” The Future: High-tech bidets becoming the global standard.
2. Factory farming This was a top answer. The industrial scale of animal agriculture was predicted to be looked upon with deep shame.
“The worst hell on earth that humans have ever created,” wrote u/w0ke_brrr_4444.
The Future: Lab-grown meat that is indistinguishable from the real thing, without the suffering.
3. Eating animals entirely Some users went a step further, suggesting that 2075 society might be entirely vegetarian.
“We don’t care because we don’t see it,” u/Zetsubou51 noted about our current disconnect from food sources. “Factory farms are awful for the animals and the people that work in them.”

An empty hospital room Canva

The “Dark Ages” of Medicine
4. Chemotherapy While it saves lives today, “poisoning the whole body to kill a tumor” will likely look crude to future doctors.
“We still poison the whole body with chemo and hope the cancer dies first,” noted u/Vocalscpunk.
The Future: Targeted genetic therapies that delete cancer without making the patient sick.
5. Drilling into teeth Dentistry involving drills and metal rods might be viewed the way we view Civil War amputations.
u/nomiis19 offered a hopeful alternative: “Pull the tooth, get injection, grow a new tooth.”
6. Ignoring women’s pain The medical industry’s historical dismissal of women’s pain was a major point of contention.
“Not giving anesthesia with placing IUDs,” wrote u/tt_DVM2011. u/ThatRoryNearThePark shared a personal horror story: “Worst pain of my life… couldn’t sit upright for at least 48 hours.”
7. Medical bankruptcy The idea that getting sick could make you homeless is a concept many hope will be extinct.
“Medical bankruptcies and for-profit healthcare leaving people to die if uninsured,” wrote u/SarlacFace.
8. Orthopedic hardware
“Orthopedic surgery with drills, rods, and screws?” asked u/Orthocorey.
Future surgeons might view our titanium pins and screws as barbaric carpentry rather than medicine.

Trash floating on the surface of the ocean Canva

The Environmental & Social Reckoning
9. Single-use plastics We wrap fruit in plastic, drink from plastic, and wear plastic.
“Plastic everywhere, all the time,” wrote u/letthisbeanewstart. u/MarkNutt25 added that “plastic textiles” and microfibers will likely be viewed as an environmental disaster we willingly wore.
10. Burning fossil fuels Burning liquefied dinosaurs to move cars will likely seem inefficient and dirty.
u/loftier_fish offered a grim reality check: “If the answer isn’t ‘using fossil fuels,’ there will be a lot fewer humans to deem anything barbaric in 2075.”
11. Humans driving cars We let imperfect, distracted, tired apes pilot two-ton metal death machines at 70 mph.
“Driving yourself will seem barbaric,” predicted u/CranberryCheese1997. The Future: Fully autonomous transport networks that eliminate traffic accidents.
12. Fast fashion The cycle of buying cheap clothes to wear once and throw away was called out by u/rabbity_devotee for filling landfills and exploiting labor.
13. Animal entertainment
“Drugged dolphins in resorts and whales at SeaWorld. Barbaric,” wrote u/w0ke_brrr_4444. Future generations may view zoos and marine parks the way we view old-timey circuses.
The “What Were We Thinking?” Lifestyle
14. Child influencers Putting children on the internet for profit before they can consent was a major ethical concern.
“Hopefully, monetizing your children for social media will seem barbaric,” wrote u/TheWorstWitch.
15. The 40-hour workweek
“Working a 9-5 just to survive? Barbaric,” said u/DeathofSmallTalk1. Though u/EvaMayShadee cynically noted, “We’ll probably be working 60-hour weeks by then.”
16. Doomscrolling Spending our one wild and precious life staring at a glowing rectangle.
“Spending multiple hours, every day, scrolling mindlessly on social media,” predicted u/cornylilbugger.
17. The optimistic twist Finally, one user suggested that we might be the civilized ones compared to what is coming.
“By 2075, we’re gonna be way more barbaric… we’ll fight over everything once food gets scarce,” u/NapoleonDonutHeart warned.
Let’s hope the optimists win this round.

This article originally appeared earlier this year.

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workplace discrimination, employment law, young workers, dress code, UK employment tribunal

Society