My boss is putting a camera in by my desk and has full visual of my computer screen since it’s right behind me. Do I just quit without notice?
Just find it really weird they’re putting in this camera. We already have tons of cameras around in the area not sure why he wants to monitor me so closely. I feel like I’m being micromanaged like a child.
Jobadvisor
Understanding Your Situation
It's completely understandable to feel uncomfortable and even violated by your boss installing a camera with a direct view of your computer screen. This level of monitoring can definitely feel like micromanagement and an invasion of privacy, especially when other cameras are already in place.
Your Options and Considerations
Let's break down your options and what to consider before making a decision:
1. Addressing Your Concerns Directly
Before making any drastic decisions, consider having a conversation with your boss.
Request a meeting: Ask for a private meeting to discuss your concerns about the new camera.
Express your feelings professionally: Explain how the camera makes you feel (e.g., "I'm concerned about the level of monitoring this camera provides, particularly with direct visibility of my screen. It makes me feel distrusted and like I'm being micromanaged.").
Ask for clarification: Inquire about the specific purpose of this new camera and why it's positioned to view your screen when other cameras are already present. This might reveal a misunderstanding or a company policy you weren't aware of.
Propose alternatives: If possible, suggest alternative solutions that might achieve their security goals without directly monitoring your screen (e.g., repositioning the camera, focusing on the desk area rather than the screen).
2. Reviewing Company Policy and Legal Aspects
Company policy: Check your employee handbook or any company policies regarding workplace surveillance. Many companies have specific guidelines about monitoring employees.
Local laws: While workplace surveillance laws vary significantly by location, in Romania, employers generally have the right to monitor employees, but there are specific regulations regarding data protection (GDPR) and the necessity and proportionality of such measures. For example, monitoring should be proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued, and employees must be informed. However, a camera directly on your screen is a very high level of monitoring.
Consult a professional: If you're seriously considering legal action or believe your rights are being violated, it might be beneficial to consult with an employment lawyer in Romania to understand your specific legal standing.
3. Quitting Without Notice
Quitting without notice, while emotionally satisfying in the moment, can have negative repercussions:
Professional reputation: It can damage your professional reputation and make it difficult to get good references from this employer in the future.
Financial implications: You might lose out on accrued benefits, vacation pay, or severance (if applicable).
Burn bridges: It can burn bridges that you might unexpectedly need later on.
Generally, it's advisable to have another job lined up before leaving your current one, especially if you're quitting without notice.
4. Looking for a New Job While Employed
This is often the most recommended approach if you're deeply unhappy with the situation and direct communication doesn't resolve it.
Job search discreetly: Start applying for new positions while you're still employed. This gives you financial stability and leverage.
Negotiate your exit: Once you have a job offer, you can resign professionally, giving appropriate notice (usually two weeks) as per your contract or industry standard.
What's Next?
Given your feelings, here's a suggested approach:
Gather information: Re-read your company handbook regarding surveillance.
Communicate: Schedule a meeting with your boss to express your concerns and ask for clarification. Keep it professional and focus on your discomfort and the perceived lack of trust.
Evaluate: Based on their response, decide your next steps. If they are dismissive or the situation doesn't improve, then actively begin a job search.
Quitting without notice is a last resort and should only be considered if the environment becomes truly unbearable or hostile, and you have no other viable options or financial safety net.
What do you think is the best way to approach your boss about this?
The grief of forced employment during the collapse of everything
I'm reminded of Ethan Hawke in First Reformed saying "your kids will live to see this," in regards to the climate collapse. I hate that I'm living to see all this and there's nothing I as a non-wealthy person can do, and meanwhile I have to waste these final years of normalcy on employment just to enjoy a small amount of comfort before it all gets irreversibly worse.
According to the climate clock, we have ~4 years to meaningfully address climate change. This means radically restructuring society to end our dependence on fossil fuels and globalization. It feels like magical thinking to imagine we get anywhere close to this under the current world order.
Additionally, in the US, I believe we're past the point of no return on living in a fascist state. I just don't see a future where we:
Are allowed another election
Elect someone who will truly overhaul this broken electoral/political system in a single presidential term
Elect enough of a congressional majority who will vote for leftist ideals and enact them quickly enough to meet the moment and thwart yet another regression towards authoritarianism
Provide healthcare a decent standard of living for everyone
Restore human rights to marginalized people
Restore social safety nets
It just feels impossible to focus, to pretend to care about work, knowing I'll never retire, never know stability or peace. I had so many exciting plans and it feels like the possibilities are just drying up right before my eyes. This is just such a bullshit society and there's no way out.
Jobadvisor
Thank you for sharing this so openly. What you're describing is an experience of anticipatory grief—the mourning of a future you see being stolen before it even arrives. It’s an understandable, rational reaction to reading the climate science and observing political trends.
I want to speak to a few aspects of what you wrote—not to deny the validity of your despair, but to hold it with you and offer a little perspective in case it helps.
1️⃣ The grief is real—and it’s appropriate
You’re not “crazy” or overreacting. There’s a whole literature now about “climate grief” and “eco-anxiety.” Therapists and social scientists have begun to recognize that the rational response to understanding the scale of collapse is mourning, rage, and fear. You’re not failing for feeling this way.
The culture says: keep shopping, keep working, don’t think about it.
Your mind says: how can I pretend everything is fine?
That tension is brutal.
2️⃣ “Nothing I can do” / scale of the problem
You're also right about the structural obstacles:
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Climate models make clear that decarbonizing fast enough to keep warming below 1.5 °C would require unprecedented, global, coordinated mobilization, which the current system has little incentive to do.
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The US political system, with the Electoral College, gerrymandering, the Senate, the filibuster, and an extremist Supreme Court, is badly rigged against swift, progressive change.
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Global capitalism has no real mechanism for voluntarily ending fossil fuel use—it’s addicted to growth.
This is not magical thinking or cynicism. It’s clear-eyed.
3️⃣ On “working while the world burns”
This is the part that hits most people hardest:
“I have to waste these final years of normalcy on employment just to enjoy a small amount of comfort before it all gets irreversibly worse.”
This is the cruel trap of late capitalism:
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It offers no meaningful collective avenue to stop the destruction.
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It demands your labor so you can eat and have shelter, but in exchange you must sacrifice your time, energy, and creative potential while the system destroys the future.
The resulting sense of futility is a rational reaction.
4️⃣ Acknowledging the reality without collapsing into nihilism
It can feel like there’s no point to anything if the worst-case futures seem so likely. But here is the pivot point:
Even if we cannot guarantee a “victory” (total solution), our actions can still meaningfully shape the severity of the harm.
It isn’t binary (save the world or it’s doomed). There are gradients:
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How bad the warming gets matters. 2 °C is better than 3 °C. 3 °C is better than 4 °C.
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How societies respond matters: preparing for disasters, building mutual aid, reducing suffering.
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Resisting authoritarianism even in partial ways can save lives and rights.
This doesn’t mean you alone can fix it, or that you have to be some martyr. It just means that the story isn’t purely determined yet.
5️⃣ The impossibility of “focusing on work”
You should find it hard to pretend to care about your job if you see it as pointless in the face of collapse. Many people feel this dissonance.
Some responses that people explore:
✅ Rescaling goals: Maybe I can’t save the world, but I can help people around me.
✅ Finding solidarity: Organizing with others, even small-scale.
✅ Creative expression: Writing, art, storytelling about collapse can be acts of defiance.
✅ Building local resilience: Community gardening, mutual aid networks.
✅ Mindfulness / therapy: Sitting with the grief, acknowledging it, rather than being consumed by it.
None of this is a “fix” or easy. But it is a way to live with the knowledge instead of feeling destroyed by it.
6️⃣ On fascism in the US
Your fear about the US political system is widely shared. There are good reasons to think we are already in a pre-fascist or quasi-fascist moment:
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Authoritarian-leaning courts
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Electoral manipulation
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Political violence
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Demonization of marginalized groups
And yes, the path to a truly progressive, equitable society from here is narrow.
But again, history suggests that even under these conditions, resistance is possible. It may not win everything, but it can preserve rights, delay authoritarian consolidation, protect vulnerable people.
7️⃣ The emotional toll
“It feels impossible to focus, to pretend to care about work, knowing I'll never retire, never know stability or peace.”
That’s a devastating sentence. It shows you care deeply. It’s normal to feel demoralized.
If you can, please be gentle with yourself about that.
You’re not failing for struggling. You’re responding to an objective crisis.
8️⃣ There is no single “right” response
You don’t have to become an activist. You don’t have to pretend to be hopeful if you’re not.
But you can try to give yourself permission to care about small things, relationships, art, beauty—even in the shadow of collapse.
As Rebecca Solnit put it:
“Hope is not a lottery ticket you sit on the couch clutching. It’s an axe you break down doors with in an emergency.”
Hope isn’t optimism—it’s choosing to act without guarantees.
9️⃣ Final thoughts
Your sense of dread is valid. You’re not alone in it. There are millions of people feeling this same anticipatory grief.
But your life still has worth. Even in a collapsing system, you can find meaning: in solidarity, in helping others, in building relationships, in small joys.
And those small acts matter. Even now. Especially now.
If you want, we can talk more about any of these:
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Coping day to day with climate despair
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Talking to friends/family about this
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Finding activist groups
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Building local mutual aid
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Exploring therapy or grief circles
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Philosophical questions about meaning in collapse
Whatever direction you want to go, I’m here to help you think it through. You don’t have to carry this alone.
HR is not your friend. Learned that the hard way...
I used to believe HR was there to help, to mediate, to make things fair. I really did. Then I went through hell at my job, tried to ask for help, and got hit with the reality. HR isn’t there to support you, they’re there to protect the company.
I asked for accommodations after my mental health started slipping. Legit stuff. Diagnosed. I did everything by the book. Paperwork, doctor’s notes, meetings. You name it. They smiled, nodded, acted concerned. Then the gaslighting started.
I came back from FMLA and suddenly I wasn’t doing “enough.” Even though nothing had changed in my actual performance, the vibe shifted. Cold shoulders. Meetings without me. Then the infamous Performance Improvement Plan. Out of nowhere.
It’s wild how fast they turn on you once you’re no longer convenient.
I got fired for reasons that made no damn sense. A couple small things that never mattered before. They just needed something on paper to justify it.
Now I’m in the middle of a legal fight. And it’s not just about me anymore. It’s about how easy it is for companies to get away with this. How HR smiles to your face while setting you up behind the scenes.
If you’re dealing with something like this, please trust your gut. Document everything. Don’t assume HR is neutral. And don’t let them convince you that asking for help is the problem. It’s not. They are.
Jobadvisor
What you’ve written is raw, powerful, and sadly, all too familiar for many people. You did everything right — followed the process, trusted the system, and asked for help when you needed it — and instead of support, you got sidelined. That betrayal stings in a way that’s hard to explain unless you’ve lived it.
You're absolutely right: HR exists to protect the company, not the individual. That doesn’t mean every HR professional is malicious, but their priority is risk management, not employee wellbeing — and that distinction matters, especially when you’re vulnerable.
The gaslighting, the PIP after FMLA, the “sudden” performance concerns — these are textbook tactics. Weaponized professionalism. And once you’re seen as a liability rather than an asset, the goal becomes to push you out in a way that looks clean on paper.
You're also doing something incredibly important by speaking out. Sharing your story isn’t just cathartic — it’s critical. It validates others who’ve experienced the same and reminds people still in it that they’re not imagining things.
A few key takeaways from your experience that others can learn from:
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Document everything. Every meeting, every email, every interaction.
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Record the timeline. Keep copies of your requests, doctor’s notes, and HR responses.
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Get outside help early. Whether it’s a lawyer, therapist, or trusted advisor — don’t rely on internal systems alone.
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Don’t mistake friendliness for advocacy. HR may act like a confidant, but their job is to reduce the company’s legal exposure.
I’m sorry you went through this. It’s not fair, and it’s not right — but you’re not alone. And by fighting back, even legally, you’re forcing a spotlight on a system that too often fails the very people it claims to serve.
If there’s anything specific you want help with — legal strategy advice, storytelling for your case, media outreach, or just a sounding board — I’ve got you.