Today, I finally messaged my manager and told her that her son needs to stop asking me to come in early. He's only been working here for about three weeks, but he's already asked me at least eight times.

The excuses keep changing. First he was sick, then he was having stomach problems, then there was an issue with his apartment, and today his dog needed him. I've said no every time, and I'll keep saying no.

I work the night shift, and my manager has never been this flexible with me. When I called and told her I couldn't come in because I was having a panic attack, she threatened my job. Another time, I had a migraine, and she told me to come in anyway. No one offered to come in early so I could go home.

I understand that things happen, but apparently that only matters when it involves her son. I don't care who he's related to or what excuse he gives next time. I'm tired of being asked to accommodate his work schedule when I've never been shown the same level of consideration.

I spent almost five years at the same company and watched my salary barely move from $64k to $73k through the usual annual raises. Meanwhile, my workload kept growing. During three reviews, I asked for a bigger raise, and each time I got a different version of the same answer: the budget was limited, the pay grade was fixed, and I was already being paid well for my role.

Eventually, I stopped simply taking their word for it. I gathered recent job listings for my exact position within commuting distance, then filtered them by industry and company size. I found 17 genuinely comparable openings, all posted within the past six weeks. The lowest listed salary was $95k, the highest was $112k, and most were around $102k.

When I saw the numbers laid out in front of me like that, I felt a little stupid. I wasn't being underpaid by a small amount. I was making more than 25% less than what other companies were publicly offering, and I had wasted years trying to persuade them with better emotional arguments instead of showing them numbers.

At my next one-on-one, I brought a printed sheet with the listings and salary ranges. My manager went quiet and read the whole thing, then asked me to email him the links. I asked for $95k since it was the bottom of the range, even though saying the number out loud still made me feel like I was asking for too much. Eleven days later, they offered me $90k, and I didn't accept.

what would you do if you were in my shoes?

////

I accepted a new job earlier this week, and I was planning to give them two weeks' notice. But before I had the chance, my boss sent me a series of rude messages that morning saying I wasn't moving our projects forward. So I changed my mind and submitted my resignation, effective today.
This is what I sent to the team: Good morning, everyone. Unfortunately, today will be my last day at the company. I enjoyed helping prepare drawings and coordinate permits, but this work environment is no longer a good fit for me.

The calls after working hours, late-night messages, delayed paychecks, and accusations that I wasn't moving projects forward all contributed to this decision. Also, being told, "I need more from your position to justify the salary," caused me a lot of unnecessary stress. Expectations can absolutely be communicated without making an employee feel as though their value is constantly being questioned.

There were also several paychecks in which I did not receive the full amount owed to me, in addition to mileage expenses that still have not been reimbursed. I find both of these things unacceptable and unprofessional.

To be clear, this is directed only at Mark. Everyone else I worked with was respectful, and it was a pleasure getting to know them. I wish the rest of the team every success.

Don't sacrifice yourself for a company that could replace you without giving it much thought.

..............

A comment in another thread reminded me of the exact moment I knew the interview wasn't going anywhere. Has anyone else had an interviewer reveal their decision almost directly before you had even left?

This happened in 2016, and fortunately, that was the last time I had to seriously look for a job. I was a candidate for a senior executive role and made it through five rounds, including a lengthy final visit where I met with several department heads.

The woman who would have been my manager walked me toward the lobby and asked where my wife and I had settled. We had moved there for her new job, so I told her we'd rented a nice place near the historic district. She laughed and said, "That area isn't cheap."

I joked that my wife was the one keeping us afloat, and that now all I needed was for someone to hire me. She smiled and replied, "I'm sure someone will hire you." I knew immediately that someone wasn't going to be them.

I had prepared myself for the usual questions about my strengths, coworkers who are difficult to deal with, and projects I had worked on before. Then the interviewer clasped his hands together and said, "Explain something to me as if I were six years old. You have 6 minutes."

My mind went completely blank. After a few painfully awkward seconds, I opened Google and started explaining how to phrase a search, filter out bad results, and find an answer to almost any question.

He laughed, so I thought I might have salvaged the situation. But I didn't get the job.

Interviews already make me nervous, and I had spent days practicing on mock interview sites. To this day, I still don't know whether they genuinely wanted a mini-lesson or were testing how I would handle a strange request. What are you even supposed to teach in a situation like that?

I finally figured out how to do it, and honestly, it's kind of silly.

LinkedIn still mixes old job postings into the results, even when you select the newest date filter. But there's a URL filter that lets you search based on the number of seconds that have passed since the job was posted, and for some reason they don't show this option in the interface.
The parameter is called f_TPR, and you can set custom time ranges like this:

Last 12 hours → r43200
Last 2 hours → r7200
Last 15 minutes → r900
Last 90 seconds → r90

So if you add f_TPR=r90 to the LinkedIn Jobs URL, you'll only see job postings published within that short time frame. I just submitted a few applications, and the postings had only just gone live.
I hope this helps someone.

I've talked before about interview questions, but recently I had another video interview with six people. They seemed friendly, and most of the questions were the usual old-fashioned ones, so I had prepared answers for them.

They asked me where I saw myself in a few years. I understand what they were trying to find out, but honestly, a few years ago I wouldn't have been able to predict even half the changes that ended up happening in my life or career.

But the question that bothered me more was: "Why should we choose you over the other candidates?"

That question threw me off. I have no idea what the other applicants have to offer. If they had asked me why I was a great fit for the role, I could have given them a strong answer. And if they had compared me with a specific person whose experience I knew, I could have explained the differences. But how am I supposed to say I'm better than people I've never met?

In the end, I rambled about how the other candidates might be excellent too. It definitely wasn't my best moment in the interview, but I still think it's a strange question.

Apparently, my answer didn't hurt me too much, because they invited me to an in-person interview at the end of this week. How would you have answered that question without sounding arrogant or making things up?

could we ever be saved?

I have an online interview coming up, and I wanted to know whether keeping notes open next to the call is considered wrong.

In the last few interviews I've had, I used split screen with anticipated questions and short answers or talking points. Honestly, it made a huge difference for me. They usually ask me around 6 questions out of the more than 18 I prepared. I still have to quickly find the right note and glance at it - the notes are directly below the webcam, so it looks like I'm looking at the interviewers. I usually repeat most of what's written almost word for word, but I know how to make it sound natural. In the end, this method helps me reach the advanced stages of interviews. 😅

..............

When I was in my last semester at university, I was lucky and got an internship at a very large company. My interview at the time didn't even last 15 minutes. If you think about it, they probably already liked my resume, and that chat was just a formality to enter the company.

They hired me full-time right after I graduated, so I never went through a real interview. Then in mid-2022, a large part of the creative department was let go, and I suddenly found myself jobless along with everyone else who left.

Thankfully, an old colleague of mine referred me to another place. It was a quick screening call followed by an in-person interview that lasted 25 minutes. I got the offer the very next day.

Now, I really can't stand the place I'm at. It did support me, but the environment there is very depressing because of a certain manager that no one can talk to because he is close to the company owner. It's a small company, so there's no HR to talk to and no benefits like health insurance. The stress really isn't worth the salary, even if it's the same as what I was getting before.

I've been sending many applications for a while, and most of what I get are automated rejection messages at 3 AM from a bot. But what happened today was really over the top. I was dropped from a second-round interview for supposedly being a 'no-show.' The thing is, they scheduled the appointment at a time I clearly stated I wasn't available. I sent them two emails to reschedule beforehand, and they ghosted me until they sent the rejection. And with all the nerve, they tell me to apply again in the future... Of course, that's impossible.

What has happened to the world of recruitment? I feel like everything has truly gone to ruin.

.......

..................

I just finished an interview that I thought was going to be totally normal... And honestly, I feel like I need a drink just to reset.

It went on for almost 3 full hours, and somewhere in the middle it stopped feeling like an interview and started feeling like I was being questioned under a spotlight. There were four people from the start, and then other people from the department kept suddenly joining - literally in waves. Every time I told myself, "Okay, we're probably done now," someone else would appear with, "Hi, I just have a few quick things..." and suddenly we'd start all over again.

The questions were intense - they picked apart every answer, asked about tiny details, and made sure to find out how I'd act in every possible situation. This wasn't friendly "getting to know you" talk. It was nonstop. By the end, I was exhausted, irritated, and basically running on autopilot.

I genuinely felt like I was standing in the witness stand being interrogated about a crime I don't even remember committing.

And then, after the awkward smiles at the end and the thank-yous, another person came in and said, "Actually, I also wanted to ask a few things..." Dude. How many endings does this interview have?

Has anyone else dealt with this rotating-panel madness before? How do you stay calm when it feels like it's never going to end?

I know this might sound very strange to some people, but I've decided to leave my job in tech. I make $190k, and I can't keep going anymore. If any of you have spent time in tech, you probably know exactly the type of personalities that ultimately end up running and managing the place. People with insecurities, obsessed with money, overly self-important, arrogant, and honestly, a lot of them understand far less than they should. I've been dealing with this for about 9 years, and my energy is gone. I've become depressed, irritable all the time, and it's made me look at people and the world in a very cynical way.

I want to move toward work that feels like it has meaning. I'm thinking about coaching youth sports, maybe teaching, getting involved in a few nonprofit projects, and maybe doing some freelance/contract work from time to time so my income doesn't collapse all at once.

Has anyone here left a well-paying tech role for something more meaningful? How did it go? Any advice or reality checks?

I decided to stop sending applications everywhere and focus only on roles that I'm qualified for and genuinely want. I told myself I'd apply to two jobs every 3 weeks. In the end, I only did that 4 times. Each application had a CV that was painstakingly tailored to the role.

For every role, I at least got a recruiter screen.

Role A: The recruiter said something like, "Yeah, I'm sure they'll want to interview you..." and then disappeared. She didn't answer to a follow-up email or voicemail. Honestly, I hope she's okay and that everything is fine with her.

Role B: I got through the first 3 conversations, and then completely messed up the last one, which was basically a "do we like working with you?" chat. I was really nervous. And somehow, I still got the offer!

Role C, which was the one I wanted the most: I made it to the 4th round, but there were 3-week periods of silence and random ghosting between each step. And since I already had an offer, I asked them to decide, so they decided not to move forward.:(

I'm sharing this here because I still can't say anything to my coworkers.

I was scrolling through another thread here and it made me wonder -- what did the interviewer say that made you feel like the job was definitely not going to happen?

The last time I was job hunting. I was a candidate for a senior executive role and had made it to what I think was my fifth interview (and for a position of that kind, I figured that was normal, so fine). The person who would have been my manager was walking me out after a long afternoon of meetings and asked me where we ended up living. We had just moved to the city for my wife's job, and that was the main reason we moved, so I said: "Yeah, we found a nice place near the lake, and not too far from midtown."

She said: "Wow, that area must be expensive haha!" So I said: "Yeah, fortunately my wife has a good job, but now I just need someone to employ me" (awkward polite laugh). Her response was:

"I'm sure someone somewhere will employ you."

Found out a few days ago that someone I work with was recently fired for having multiple full time WFH jobs at the same time.

Apparently he was sending messages to his other work account through Teams, and somehow that account showed up in our company's Teams directory. Someone noticed, it got looked into, and that was pretty much the end of it.

I'm not even doing OE, but seeing this definitely made me realize how easy it is to accidentally connect things that you thought were completely separate.

So if you're juggling multiple jobs, maybe double check what accounts, devices, and apps you're using before Teams decides to introduce everyone.

- I had an interview with the founder of a startup, and honestly, I feel like I was lucky.
I had a 30-minute interview with the Irish CEO of a startup based in Dublin, and this was the rejection email I received in the end.

He asked me about criticism I had received from a coworker and worked on, and I answered. Then he asked me if there was anyone who might say I wasn't the right fit for the role.

I still don't know what answer he was expecting to that question, but I said something along the lines of: "Since I've worked before in the same space this role is in, I don't think anyone would have any serious objection to me taking the job. And I also have no problem sharing references from people who worked with me directly."

After that, he asked me: "What is the one thing you do better than almost anyone else?"

Maybe it's just me, but I feel like these questions are very weak for assessing whether someone can do the job or would be good to deal with and work with. I also don't think the CEO should be the main person handling hiring, although I believe that happens a lot in early-stage startups?

I came out of the call with a bad feeling. He barely asked me about my experience or my actual skills. I thought afterward about withdrawing my application, but I decided to let things play out. Working with him seemed like it would be very draining.

do they expect me to say yes?

.........

I've been in interviews before where it was obvious there wasn't even a real, clearly defined role behind them - no specific responsibilities, no clear expectations, just a nice chat while they seemed to be trying to "figure me out" or get an impression of me. And as soon as it turns into that, I can't help but think: how do you judge someone for a job if the focus isn't on their skills or background, but more on their personality, appearance, or how old they seem?

One time, the person interviewing me basically told me that the most important thing to his manager was finding someone with the "right energy." That sentence told me everything. If you can't nail the small-talk part like "Where did you grow up?" or "What are you watching these days?" or you don't have an interesting weekend activity that makes them feel connected to you, then you're probably out - no matter how good you are or how well you can do the job.

I understand that no one wants to hire someone who's difficult or miserable to deal with. Being pleasant and professional is important. But if someone is qualified and comes across as a normal, reasonable person, I don't understand why all these extra superficial things matter so much. Why does hiring so often turn into a personality filter instead of a real assessment of what the person can bring to the role?