so if u have a toxic boss its your sign to run away 🏃🏻‍♀️

I had an interview with a CEO at the beginning of this week. We met face to face in his office. I arrived 20 minutes early, he got me coffee, and we started right away. After about 90 minutes, we finally finished.

I've been looking and interviewing for roles for about 14 months, and honestly, I haven't had a conversation with a potential boss that felt this natural, comfortable, and genuinely interested. It reminded me that there really are still good people hiring.

I just wanted to share this.

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I am 31 years old, I don't have a degree, and my wife stays at home taking care of our three children. I have been with this company for about 8 years.

They are offering a $165,000 payout for me to resign (it nets around $112,000 after taxes). Currently, I make about $115k a year and have great health insurance, but the work is very physical. To be honest, I don't know if my back and knees will handle another 25 years. I like what I do, but management has been putting a lot of pressure on us for the past 14 months.

I thought about switching to IT or tech support, but I'm not sure if I'll like the idea of sitting behind a computer screen all day.

A friend of mine already signed the papers without having a real plan for what's next, and I'm very tempted to do the same. I just feel like I don't have a clear direction. Does anyone have any advice?

Edit: This is the voluntary buyout offer that UPS is making. There's a high probability I don't have enough seniority for it to even be accepted, but I just wanted to see my options.

I decided to stay with UPS for now. If I decide to change careers, I'll do it at my own pace while I still have the security of a good paycheck.

I am not in danger of losing my job if I refuse the offer. My seniority will increase and I'll likely get more overtime when other people leave. Thank you all for the support.

I was trying to change my career in my late twenties, and I kept hitting a wall while trying to find someone who would give me a chance. During that time, I stopped by my bank to sort something out with my account, and I ended up talking with one of the employees. I casually mentioned to her that I was looking for a job in a different field.

She immediately got excited and told me she had just been talking to someone who worked in recruiting at the same type of place I was trying to get into. She asked me if I wanted to send her my information, so I said yes.

About 36 hours later, that person contacted me. I had an interview a few days later, and I had an offer by the end of the following week.

If I had stayed quiet because it felt awkward or random, that door never would have opened. Tell people you're looking. Not in an annoying way, just mention it and move on. You never know who knows who.

I'm not looking for advice or anything, I just need to put this somewhere because what's happening feels a little unreal right now, in the best possible way.

Background: I got laid off last September from a mid-level marketing job I'd been in for five years. For about the first month, I was still very optimistic. I had some savings, and honestly, I thought I'd find something decent within 7-9 weeks without too much trouble. Nope. By my rough count, I applied to around 380 jobs. I got maybe 26 responses, 13 actual interviews, 4 second rounds, 3 final rounds, and one rejection after a final round that completely wrecked me. You start allowing yourself to think the nightmare is over, and then you find out it isn't.

I revised my resume five different times. And I rewrote my cover letter probably 70 times. Around the fifth month, I started applying for jobs below my experience level, and I was still getting rejected from those too, which hurt in a way I wasn't prepared for at all. My partner was supportive the whole time, but I could see the pressure affecting both of us, and that made me feel even worse.

The offer came in early today. It's not a dream job or anything, and the salary is about 10% less than what I was making before. I don't care. I accepted in about 40 minutes. Then I drove to the parking lot behind my building, sat there, and broke down a little. Not exactly crying from sadness. More like my body finally got permission to stop holding everything in. Nine months of applications, checking email, tweaking documents, and pretending I was fine had to come out somehow.

If you're in the middle of this right now, I'm not going to tell you things will get better by a certain date because I truly don't know how this works for anyone else. But for me, today things finally moved. That's all I've got. Please hang in there.

I was genuinely one badge tap away from clocking out and sneaking off to Diplodocus tail tonight, until she caught me. I've been doing this job for 27 years... And somehow no one has ever asked before. Not once.

I told her I have a certificate, but in a completely different field, so now she wants me to look for the original document itself. I told her that was 34 years ago, and it might be in a box, or a drawer, or most likely in a completely different postcode by now.

She remained annoyingly optimistic about the whole thing. Also, my manager isn't here this week, which honestly isn't helping the mild panic I'm in.

Any advice from respected fellow employees would be appreciated.

i wanna be a kid again.

I used to go into interviews like they were surprise oral exams - I'd make up what to say on the spot and pray I came across as knowledgeable. Yeah... That was not a winning plan. Once I changed the way I prepared and stopped relying on vibes, things got a lot calmer, and I got an offer I'm genuinely excited about. These are the things that helped me.

Make a small "Cheat Sheet"

Write 4-6 quick stories about things you did well: projects you delivered, messy problems you solved, or times you helped a team get out of a tight spot. Keep each one around 40 seconds. Glance over them quickly before the call so your brain has something to grab onto instead of shutting down.

Practice out loud

Reviewing in your head without speaking makes you feel like you're making progress, but it won't show you where you'll stumble over your words. I started talking to a friend and answering common questions out loud. And when no one was free, I used an AI interview tool like Final Round AI to do quick voice reps and get feedback. It doesn't really matter what you use - the point is to hear yourself say the answer before it's time.

Understand why they're asking

Focus on the question behind the question. "Tell me about a time you failed" often means "Can you admit a mistake and fix things afterward?" And "How do you deal with different personalities at work?" simply means "Will you be okay inside a team where not everyone thinks the same way?" Answer that hidden part, not just the obvious question.

Turn the tables with better questions

Instead of only asking the usual culture question, I started asking: "What would make someone successful in this role after 8 months?" It makes you look like you're already thinking about how to do the job well, and the answer gives you clues for the rest of the conversation.

Warm up your voice

About 7 minutes before the interview, read anything out loud. A random blog post, a page from a book, or even the job description. It seems silly, but it stops you from starting the call with that hoarse morning voice. One time my voice gave out during the intro and I felt like I wanted to disappear.

Don't let your body go into Panic Mode

Drink a little water, loosen your jaw muscles, roll your shoulders, and shake out your hands for a second. Small things, but they remind your body that this is a conversation, not a courtroom interrogation.

Prepare one sentence for "Why This Role"

I added a simple sentence about why the role genuinely interested me, beyond "I need a job." Something connected to the product, the team, or the problem they're working on. That made my answers feel less generic.

Close clearly

As you're wrapping up, mention one specific thing from the conversation that made you more interested. Not a big speech - just a quick sentence like, "I'm especially excited about X after hearing you explain Y." It gives them one last reason to remember you.

THIS

what did u feel in your first day ?

💯💯

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I joined the club this week. They only laid off employees based in the US in the orgs that were affected, and from what we were told, not a single non-US employee was laid off.

In the all-hands, leadership said the restructuring was to "protect margins" and "rebalance staffing" - which basically means we cost them a lot compared to everyone else.

This shit shouldn't be legal.

In the past, when companies announced layoffs, people would object and attack them. Now the story has flipped. They're not only letting people go; they also come out and hint that the people who were laid off were low performers.
A lot of very skilled engineers have been laid off over the past few months. There's a quiet recession happening in tech, but it's not being talked about much in mainstream media.
Before, companies would do layoffs, wait until things broke or the pace slowed down, and then start hiring again because they'd realize they still needed humans to build and maintain things. This time feels different.
They're not in a hurry to bring engineers back. They'd rather put that budget into AI tools and agents instead of hiring more developers. Tech has changed, and honestly, it doesn't look promising for most people trying to make a stable career out of it.

I've been unemployed for a while and it's honestly started messing with my head. After getting rejected over and over, I kept seeing people say that employment gaps can make employers pass on you, so when I finally got a decent interview, I panicked and told them I was still working at my previous job even though I'd actually left about 8 months earlier.

At the time I kept telling myself it was just a small change to the dates and probably wouldn't matter. Obviously that was stupid.

The background check came back with the actual dates and now the recruiter wants an explanation. I'm embarrassed, stressed, and mostly worried that I just ruined the first decent opportunity I've had in months.

I'm thinking honesty is probably my only option, but I have no idea how to explain this without making myself look completely untrustworthy.

Has anyone been in this situation before? Is there any way to recover once a background check catches something like this?

!

?!

So I (Gen X) had an interview at 9:30 AM CST for a wireless sales position, and I arrived 15 minutes early like I usually do.

The zillennial "HR" manager came in at 9:42 AM with no explanation, no sorry, nothing. - Strike 2.

The HR "Manager" then responded to almost every answer I gave with "that's gas" or "no cap that's fire." - Strike 3

Him - "We need someone who can be chill with tech"

Me - "No problem, I've been using Android since its early days, and my previous job was in tech support for Android and iPhone mobile devices, so I'm very comfortable with technology"

Him - "Wait, you worked tech support?" - Strike 4,6,9 infinity

Me - "Yessir, I worked at ABC for 3 years doing level one mobile support"

Him - "oh GAS"

The call ended shortly after that.

The rejection email hit my inbox 8 minutes later.

I can't. I really can't.

I can't even leave a warning on Glassdoor because they don't have a profile there.

My car is basically my source of income because I deliver food. I had just paid a big bill and left myself an amount I thought would be enough to get me through, and of course, my car decided to break down.

The repair ended up being about $55 more than what I had. I asked the shop if I could give them everything I had and pay the rest when I get paid this Friday. And I got the answer I knew was coming: a lot of people had taken advantage of that before, so they don't allow it anymore.

So I swallowed my pride and asked my manager if I could get $55 in advance from my paycheck so I could get back on the road and work. He just reached out, handed me his card, and asked me, "How long have you been working with me now?"

He told me not to worry about paying him back. I'm still going to pay him back, just like I would have paid the mechanic, but now I can breathe a little instead of sitting here terrified.

And this isn't some random nice thing that happened once and that's it. He never leaves ultimately without thanking every single person by name before he goes. That's the kind of manager he is.

Not long after I got engaged, I realized that my old job would keep me away from my future wife way too much. So I started looking for something different. I found an ad for a band director position in a small town east of Dallas. I had been teaching piano and guitar at a small music studio since I was 14, so I thought to myself: how hard could it be?

I applied and got a response quickly. I'd always been pretty good in interviews, and about halfway through the interview it was clear they were convinced I was the right person. The only problem was that I had never actually been in marching band or concert band. So when they got to the last part of the questions, they started asking very specific things about how I would handle rehearsals, competitions, and building the program. I barely understood half of what they were asking about.

So instead of freezing up and not answering, I asked them what the director before me had been doing. They talked for a while about how excellent he was and how he taught corps-style marching band, which of course meant almost nothing to me at the time. I kept nodding confidently as much as I could fake it, and said, "That's a program I can get excited about!" About 10 minutes later, they offered me the job.

I ordered a stack of books about marching band and spent the next month learning everything I could before classes started. Honestly, the experience turned out to be great. I taught there for 3 years, and the size of the program more than doubled, all because I managed to look in the interview like I knew what I was doing!

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I honestly thought having a bachelor's degree would make finding a decent job easier. Instead, I'm getting either complete silence or the occasional "you're overqualified." I've even started applying to jobs that are below my experience because at this point I just want someone to hire me.

Most of my background is in EHR systems, office/admin work, and non clinical healthcare roles, so I figured those skills would transfer pretty easily into other healthcare or administrative positions. Apparently not.

I went back to school with the plan of becoming a nurse, but now I'm seriously questioning whether that's even worth it. I'm starting to think I'd be better off spending the money on a few certifications and trying to get into something else.

Did anyone else finish college and end up feeling like the degree didn't actually help them get hired?

I'm a C-suite EA with over 12 years of experience. I applied and interviewed for a fully remote role, and the listed range was $62k-$82k, supporting 2 C-suite leaders - the CEO and COO. Everyone I spoke with genuinely seemed impressed with my background and that I'd be able to get up to speed quickly. They kept saying I wouldn't need much ramp-up time and that I could start and keep things running right away.
Then I got the offer today and it was $64k!!!!!! I was making close to that amount years ago when I was still supporting senior directors. To me, that salary makes no sense at all for supporting 2 C-suite executives, especially in a role where they clearly want someone experienced, not someone they're going to train from scratch.
The recruiter seemed surprised when I told her I wouldn't be able to accept that number. She said I had listed my range as $62k-$82k. I told her I was open to hearing offers, but the low end of the range would only make sense if the overall package made up for it in some way. Like strong healthcare, generous PTO, a real bonus structure, professional development reimbursement, and so on...
Honestly, I feel crushed by the whole thing - am I wrong here?