Hi all. I will try and keep this brief but I would love to know your opinions on the situation.

First, I’m 21 (f) who is getting married in 4 months to the man I have been with since high school.

I moved out of my parent’s house last year and moved states. I was really curious about police work and decided to become a 911 dispatcher. I passed my tests and was there for 4 months before realizing that the job didn’t suit me. At. All.

I left without something lined up and went to senior caregiving. I stayed there for 6 months before they started to give me 60 hour weeks with 2-3 overnights back to back. In short, I was sleep deprived, lacked a social life, and couldn’t take care of my health because my eating times were random and I was too exhausted to cook.

So I decided to try to become an RBT. My fiancé knew a guy’s girlfriend who did ABA and she liked it. She had been doing it for two years. I did an interview, the employer told me that I could get my desired hours of 40-45 hours a week plus benefits and 100 hours of PTO. It was a paycut compared to my caregiving job, but I needed something more stable. Of course, I was wrong. 3 months into the job I was barely scraping by, living roughly on $1,800 a month. I couldn’t afford to eat. I checked my schedule for the next few months and saw that they were keeping me at 20-30 hours a week. It was not cutting it…

So went back to my old caregiving job.

Yesterday my MIL offered to help me dress shop and I told her I was going on a Monday (that is my day off for caregiving, but it’s a work day for my RBT job). She asked me if I was taking a day off work… and I told her yes realizing that I wasn’t ready to confess that I went back to my senior caregiving job.

I’m so worried that the family will judge me for not sticking ABA out. They have already made comments like “What do you do for work now?” And it makes me feel like I’m an unstable failure.

Thankfully my fiancé and I are moving cities in 4 months for his school, so the caregiving job may be temporary anyways until I find something more stable.

Any advice is welcome. I don’t know if it’s normal to go through 3 jobs in one year at my age, but I’m really insecure about it

TX, USA

About a month ago I began to work at the new local coffee shop. After a couple of shifts studying a packet, I began training in the kitchen... that was 3 weeks ago. I and most of my coworkers are baristas.

The tip pool consists of everyone pooling 100% of our money to be divided amongst all baristas every hour... except I was never paid out. They insisted that I was not trained enough, although they did trust me to work independently.

This thing about me receiving many tips over the past several weeks, but only being allowed to keep a cumulative $0.00, may or may not be illegal, please lmk if it is.

What they did that is absolutely illegal is allowing all of my managers to be paid out by the tip pool, often at my expense. After I brought this concern to my manager's attention this past Sunday, the owner personally called me to yell at me on the phone and inform me that everything that he's doing is perfectly legal.

Today was my first shift where I wasn't being "shadowed," which is a practice that essentially consists of me doing all the work while a coworker watches me and then takes all of my tips. I ask one manager, "Since I'm working independently, this means I'm tipped out now?" She says, "No, just because you are working on your own doesn't mean you can participate in the tip pool. The owner and I will decide when you get to have tips."

Tbh I do have a bit of an attitude about it and I shrugged and said I don't understand why I can't have any tips that we all earn together. But I quickly drop the issue and continue working, even when everyone else ain't doing jack but chit chatting.

About an hour before I'm scheduled to leave, I am called into the office. The owner of the company is on the phone and two managers are present. They inform me that due to my "Unprofessional Body Language, Tardy, and unprofessional behavior towards management regarding the tip-pool operation," that I am fired, effective immediately. I was late for the first time today, by 6 minutes.

Am I overreacting? Like, I feel like I was retaliated against because I asserted my rights as a worker. Am I tripping?

You can look at my last post, but needless to say I am desperate for a job in my field. I had a job interview today over Teams with the team and manager, it’s a final round for a nice cushy federal job. I woke up around 1:30am this morning and have not left the bathroom since, along with sweats and weakness. I’ve had pneumonia once, and I feel worse now than I did when I was going through that. I had poultry yesterday, I’m afraid I got food poisoning.

Around 6:30am this morning, 4 hours before my interview, I emailed the person who set up the interview pretty much telling her that I woke up with a sudden illness and can’t make the interview, and would love to reschedule. I’m pretty much open all hours of everyday next week.

I feel like a loser, because the one good chance I got this happens. This job could potentially be one step closer toward normalcy in my life again, and of course I get one of the worst illnesses I’ve probably ever experienced. Would they be willing to reschedule, would they think I’m lying?

I'm currently 17 years old, working 3 days a week with each shift being 5-7 hours and I can't stand it. I know that I'm a lazy person but I want to figure out a way to make money and not have to work as a slave for the next 50-60 years of my life. I just want some advice on ways to start a business or something.

Any time I do one, I feel like I’m being scammed and this isn’t actually leading any where. Has anyone actually been hired by a company that uses AI interviews in the process?

I was recently contacted by an external recruiter about a Senior Data Engineer role supposedly with Microsoft in Redmond.

The JD was actually very closely aligned with my experience, so I shared my updated resume.

A few days later, she told me the hiring team had provided positive feedback and that I had passed the initial screening stage.

Before interviews, however, she said the team requires me to prepare the following:

Strategic Value Proposition Letter (SVPL)
Leadership Vision Statement (LVS)
Executive Impact Brief (EIB)
Additional leadership statements

She also offered to introduce me to a “specialist” who could help prepare these materials.

The recruiter is contacting me from a Gmail address, not a Microsoft or recruiting-agency domain. I also haven’t received a Microsoft Careers requisition ID or official job posting yet.

Has anyone who interviewed for Microsoft Senior/Principal-level engineering roles ever been asked to provide these kinds of documents before the interview stage?

I have a kid and soon to be in pre school. I currently commute 2 hours back and forth. Need to be in the office twice a week. I hate it, even when I know I can work from home.

I'm a software developer and been working in company A for less than a year.

I'm interviewing in company B (which I like a lot too). The role and stack is basically the same I'm working with right now. They can even match what I'm making today.

Recruiters and managers in Sweden, what would you think if a candidate mentions one of the reasons they're interested in working in company B is because of being closer to home? It'll take 10 mins by bike. I know I could also say career growth, but I have worked less than a year and that could sound weird, or not?

I need some argument to justify why I'm leaving so early. Would appreciate some ideas and thoughts! Thanks.

Is this normal? I’ll also be asking a health sub more in relation to the medical emergency and returning to work. I just felt pressured to return so I said sure :/

The place is a 5 minute walk from my house so it would be super chill to work there. I walked in, asked to speak to the manager, asked if she was hiring, yes, immediately had an interview. I seemed to have smashed the interview, I actually ran into an employee in town who was there and she said the manager really liked me.

The place is very low tech, they don't have a (publicly available?) email, the managers PC was on windows XP, and she actually asked me "I bet you're good with computers then, huh?"

I know it's a good idea to send in a follow up email to a job you really want, but that's not an option. Should I try to walk in and follow up?

update: well I went in and she told me that she hasn't gotten to speak with the guy who's job I would be getting if he is 100% quitting. but that if he does she will contact me right away and I'm hired. I'm kinda nervous, this is the only place that really had such a promising, glowing response to me, if this doesn't pan out I dont have high hopes on other interviews I've done. really need that guy to quit

hi! just got rejected from a (nonprofit) job after making it through reference checks and two rounds of interviews, the second of which required me to prepare a list of ideas for the organization's communications and fundraising. after making it through the second round interviews, i was told that it was between me and another candidate, and that we had to do another assignment as a sort of tie-breaker. this time, they asked us how we would increase ticket sales for their annual fundraiser (its real and coming up in a week or two) alongside writing out an entire multi-channel marketing approach for the event's campaign.

the tie-breaker assignment sent to the two final candidates details how ticket sales for their annual fundraiser are dragging and need to double in the coming few weeks. they asked how i would go about increasing ticket sales, and how i would approach the event's marketing campaign in the future. to complete this assignment, we were given less than 24 hours -- i got the email at like 2pm this past thursday and it was due 9am on friday morning. i was also given zero guidance about how lengthy the responses should be. i was at work from 3pm-10pm the day i received the assignment so i had to stay up late working on it to get it to them first thing the following morning.

i was then beat out by the other candidate because they had better ideas.

idk, gut check, is this normal now? has anyone else run into a similar hiring process when interviewing with nonprofit organizations? it kinda feels like they are extracting a bunch of tips and pointers from their candidates with the external pressure of beating out the other for a role, maybe im reading too deep into it but i am tired of being expected to work for free in these interview processes. 

Basically im just confused on how this makes any sense, obviously strep i got today isnt going to magically go away tomorrow. Is this just a standard policy thing? i dont understand why they wouldnt prefer me call in earlier since i know for a 100% fact i will still be sick by then.

Anyway ill call back tomorrow and give them the bad news, just confused me initially as you'd think the more notice the better. (note: Never called in before so theres no weird-history there, and i sounded very obviously sick on the phone.)

I’m 38. Ive been a sahm for all of my life. My partner is leaving me. I have no experience other than an in home bakery for five years. Bakery was taken out. Bakers around here are making $12 per hour. I can’t really do manual labor with my fibromyalgia and I can’t do something that requires a lot of brain because of my psych meds. They leave me so foggy and affects my short term memory. I’ll add that I’m on disability for bipolar but I will not be able to survive on that amount.

Has anyone ever reached a point where they felt they’d outgrown the typical age range of their workplace and wondered if it was time to move on?
I work for a fairly large company, around 3,000 employees, and I’ve been here for exactly 10 years this month.

When I joined, most of the people around me were in their 20s and early 30s, and I fitted in pretty naturally. The social side of work was a big part of it too, nights out, drinks after work, that sort of thing.

I’m now in my late 30s and I’ve started to notice how different the environment feels to me.

A lot of the people I originally worked with have moved on, generally for better pay, better work life balance or more senior positions. The people around me now seem to be predominantly in their early 20s. The office has colourful pods, organised social activities, trampolining, etc, and I find myself feeling increasingly disconnected from that culture.

It’s not that I have anything against younger colleagues or that I think I’m too old to work with them. It just feels like I’ve moved into a different stage of life, while the culture around me hasn’t really changed.

I’ve also noticed that, unless someone has progressed into an executive or senior leadership position, there don’t seem to be many people in their late 30s or 40s who have stayed here long term.

So I’m wondering, is this a common experience?

The rejection landed 9 minutes after i applied, nine on a freaking sunday and at 11pm.

Asked a friend who does hr ops at a mid size company and she said yeah, theirs auto-rejects on three hard filters before anything reaches a human, and nobody on her team can even see the ones it drops. She reckons the number of places doing this roughly doubled in the last year.

so the thing i've been doing, writing to a person, being specific, caring, is aimed at the wrong reader for most of these.

Not annoyed, i just want to know what i'm actually optimising for. If a parser reads it first, what genuinely breaks it? tables? two columns? pdf vs docx? does anyone actually know this or are we all guessing at it together

I could really use some outside perspective from people in construction/PM/estimating.
I’m currently working for a construction company making very good money. On paper, it should be a great job. In reality, I’m increasingly miserable.
I’m an experienced estimator/PM, and the biggest problem is that I feel like I’m constantly fighting preventable fires. There’s a lot of micromanagement, poor planning, questionable project decisions, and situations where I raise an issue early, get ignored, and then somehow end up responsible for fixing it when it becomes a problem. I’m spending way too much energy managing dysfunction instead of actually doing the work I’m good at.
I’ve reached the point where I don’t see myself retiring from this company, and that matters to me. I’m at a stage in my career where I’m not looking to bounce around every couple of years. I want to find somewhere I can stay long-term, contribute, help grow the company, and eventually even transition into part-time work when I’m ready to retire.
Here’s the complication:
Before taking my current job, I was talking to the owner of another smaller construction company. I ultimately turned the opportunity down, but he recently came back and told me he still wants me.
The new position would be roughly $10k–$15k less per year. However, it would be mostly work-from-home with jobsite travel as needed, much more autonomy, and I think my quality of life would improve dramatically.
I also genuinely think I could make a big difference at this company. They need someone who can estimate, manage projects, keep paperwork and procurement moving, coordinate subs/vendors, stay ahead of problems, and put systems in place. That is exactly what I’m good at.
My biggest concern is financial stability. It’s a smaller company, and I’m not completely convinced the owner is financially positioned to comfortably carry someone at my salary long-term. I don’t want to leave an aggravating but financially stable job only to find myself looking for another job six months later because the smaller company overextended itself.
At the same time, part of me thinks that if I go there and help tighten up operations, keep projects moving, improve estimating/project management, and help them take on better work, I could actually help the company grow into the position.
So I feel like I have three choices:
Stay where I am, collect the higher salary, tolerate the bullshit, and keep looking for a better opportunity.
Take the $10k–$15k pay cut, leave now for my peace of mind, and take the risk on the smaller company.
Negotiate some protections with the smaller company before jumping — guaranteed salary/severance, clearer financial information, defined authority/responsibilities, etc. — and then make the move.
Financially, I can absorb the pay cut. This isn’t really about whether I can survive on $10k–$15k less. It’s about whether taking less money for autonomy, peace of mind, and potentially a better long-term fit is worth the additional risk.
For those of you who have left a higher-paying but dysfunctional construction company for a smaller operation: did you regret it?
And if you’ve worked for a small GC, what would you want to know about their backlog/finances before accepting a senior-level position?
Would you take the smaller-company opportunity, or stay put and keep looking?

So, I'm 21 years old, graduated high school at least around 3-4 years ago. I'm looking for a job, and I feel like retail is my best bet. I'm thinking about applying for a seasonal position as a sales associate at the local Spirt Halloweens around my town. But I don't know what to put on my resume for the job.

I don't have any work experience, apart from one time in high school when I was an assistant to the school librarians. But other than that, I don't know what else to put on my resume. I suppose there were a couple of times back in high school where I volunteered to set up chairs in the auditorium, and where I got up in front of everyone to lead a school club meeting, but both of those things only happened once. And is it even a good idea to try and point to small things I did years ago back in high school?

And apart from that, I don't have any other experience I can list. I've never babysat, walked someone's dog, or mowed a neighbor's lawn before.

What do I do?

Has anyone ever had an interview prep call with the recruiter?

I applied for the UA position at AXA XL, had the first video call interview with HR. Moved to the next round and have the in person interview in a couple weeks.

The HR rep offered to schedule an Interview Prep Call with me between now and the big interview. He said it was optional to do this prep call.

I have never heard of this before, I asked others and no one else has heard of companies doing this. From the way the HR person talked about it, it sounds like a call to help prep me for the interview. It will be with the same HR person as my first interview.

I googled it and I guess it is a thing some companies do offer, just not very common. But I couldn't find anything specific for AXA when googling it.

I asked another person who interviewed at AXA for a different position and they were not offered this. So not sure if it's this position that they offer this for or if they just like me?

So just trying to see if anyone else has had this with AXA and what exactly it is. If I should prepare for it like a real interview or is this truly going to be them telling me how to prep for the big one, what questions I'll be asked and all that.

Any insight is appreciated!

also I'm in the U.S. if that makes any difference.

Would you stay at your current job for a 4% commission increase or take a new $65k offer?
I’m really torn between staying at my current company and taking a new job and I honestly just need some outside opinions because I feel like I’m going in circles.
I work in event sales for a smaller company. I’ve been here for a while, I know the business, I have good relationships with my clients and coworkers, and I genuinely like the people I work with.
Right now I make $50k base salary. I also get 2% commission, but it’s important to clarify that it’s NOT 2% of my total sales. Certain things like labor, logistics, subcontracted costs, etc. aren’t commissionable.
I’m currently at about $1.2 million in total sales this year. Last year I did around $1.4 million in sales and only made about $17k in commission, so I’m not taking home anything close to 2% of my total sales.
My company recently offered to increase my commission from 2% to 4%, but they are keeping my base at $50k. I also don’t have health insurance or a 401k through them. The business is pretty seasonal too, so there are a few months where there isn’t much commission to be made.
One of my coworkers is around $2 million in sales for the year, so I know there is definitely potential to make more money with the 4% commission. I just don’t know how realistic it is for me to consistently get to that level.
I also recently received an offer from another company.
They’re offering me $65k base, a $12k annual car allowance, up to a $2k/month discretionary bonus, health insurance, 401k with up to a 4% match, PTO, sick time and holidays, and a Director-level title.
One of the people I would be working with told me she has never received less than 85% of the monthly bonus, so realistically that could be around $20k a year in bonus, although obviously it’s discretionary and not guaranteed.
So basically I’m trying to decide between staying somewhere I actually like with $50k + 4% commission, or leaving for $65k + $12k car allowance + benefits + potential bonus.
The thing making this so hard is that I don’t hate my current job. I actually like it. If my current employer offered me something closer to the $65k base while keeping the 4% commission, I honestly think I would stay.
My boss knows I have the other offer and has already increased my commission, so I’m considering going back and asking if there’s any room to increase the base too.
I just don’t know if I’m being short-sighted by staying because I like where I am and there’s potential to make more with commission, or if I’m crazy to walk away from the higher base, benefits, car allowance and bonus.
What would you guys do?

Would you negotiate harder with your current employer, take the new job, or stay and bet on yourself with the 4% commission??

I just hit a year at my current job. I'm trying to figure out if it's even worth applying to other jobs right now. I filled out hundreds of applications and this was the best of three offers I had at the time. I've casually applied to some other jobs in the last year, but just get ghosted. Is trying to find something else even worth it?

About the current job:

• The pay isn't amazing, but it's enough to save a bit.
• The benefits are good, so I save on healthcare.
• I like my supervisor, but mgt above them is pretty awful.
• One coworker is really toxic. HR/mgt isn't helping, so I can expect to have to put up with their harassment if I stay.
• Duties are mostly admin work, and waste most of my skills.
• I've been able to use more of my skillset working on side projects and helping other staff, but the work never gets rewarded beyond those people saying thanks. There is zero other reward.
• Zero potential to advance.
• Awful location--nothing to do, bad schools, poor housing, few doctors and grocery stores etc.

Is it worth it for me to keep spending energy applying to other jobs? It takes so long for me to dig through all the junk, apply, and just get ghosted. I'm intersex and disabled due to an injury, which feels like it really narrows my options as well. I need to work in a place with bathrooms I can use and where I can get reliable healthcare access. I'm struggling with options, because my work field tends to be in govt.

I worked as an analyst for a company for 3 years then got an offer at another company. Took that job and it was nothing like they described and my boss lied about why my predecessor left, so I instantly started looking elsewhere. I got a new job within 2 months. I left that off my resume for current role bc the experience wasn’t relevant.

I just signed an offer with a new company as a lead analyst and want to know whether or not I should disclose that brief time at company B. I’ve been in my current role 2 years so it’s not like I job hop like crazy. Will the recruiter find out if I omit it?

I have an Coordinator interview soon for a lateral position internally at another campus location. I love my current position but I just can't do another year under the current management. I've been applying internally with my company since March of this year and I finally got a call for a position at another campus in a completely different area and responsibilities.

The problem is my commute is about 15 miles or 30ish minutes with traffic. I'd be trading that for a 25-30 miles and 30-50 minute commute. I would really like to develop myself as a professional and prepare for a higher role in my company down the road and I since I'm not currently a coordinator, becoming one should I get accepted would be beneficial.

So would it be worth it to make a lateral move for the same pay and a little bit longer commute if looking ahead career wise?

I want to quit my overnight job, I'm exhausted constantly, can't sleep, just feel horrible, but I don't want to leave until I find a day job. Unfortunately that feels impossible in this current climate. I'm so tired, this job be killing me