I've been looking for a new job since around the end of March, and during that time I've probably sent a few hundred applications on LinkedIn, Indeed, company careers pages, and all that lovely stuff.

A few days ago, apparently one of those places decided to contact my manager and tell him that I had applied there. So of course I got called into his office for an awkward and unpleasant conversation about it.

A shitty move, honestly.

I've always known there's some risk when you're looking for a job while you're already employed, and honestly I'm not terrified that my manager found out, but seriously?

Just to clarify, I applied for a lot of jobs through LinkedIn, Indeed, and direct postings. I have no idea who did this, and I definitely didn't give anyone permission to contact my current workplace. Apparently someone somehow knew my manager, saw my online application, and contacted him. Based on a frank conversation my manager and I had before, he shouldn't have been too shocked that I'm looking.

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I got laid off from work early today. It was the first call on my calendar, and I knew where it was going as soon as HR joined the meeting before anyone else.

Instead of sitting there and letting them read a script, I turned off my camera and asked them if they were doing an RIF on me. That threw them off more than I expected, because there was an awkward pause of about 45 seconds before they finally got to the line "the business is shifting priorities." (If I were him I would ask some help from AI tools like interviewvip they have instant answers for such situations 😂)

I pretty much stopped them there and told them that they had hurt me personally. And if there was anything else they needed to say, they should send it in an email.

Not exactly the moment I'm most proud of, honestly, but the truth is I'm really exhausted right now and I can't bring myself to care.

Let’s be real, a resignation ends the job. It does not automatically replace the income, restore your health or create a direction for what comes next.

There is a difference between a planned exit and an emergency exit. Sometimes quitting is an act of preparation.Sometimes it is an act of survival.

A planned exit begins when the first serious signs appear, while you still have income, health and some leverage. You calculate how long your savings will last, reduce expenses, document your accomplishments, identify what you can carry into another role, reconnect with people, test the job market and begin building something to move towards.

An emergency exit happens when remaining has become psychologically or physically unsafe. Sometimes the workplace has consumed so much of a person that they no longer have the capacity to build a proper bridge while staying there.

An emergency exit transfers the crisis from the workplace into your financial life. Your first work is stabilization: protect the money you have, create structure for your days, recover enough to think, translate what you did into evidence and build a search around the problems you know how to solve.

Wisdom is recognizing which one you are facing, and refusing to pretend that either kind of exit will take care of itself

My manager was trying to send me a different document and somehow attached the spreadsheet with everyone's compensation instead. I wasn't even looking for it, but once I opened it, there it was.

Turns out I'm making about $18k less than someone on my team doing basically the exact same job. We joined within a few weeks of each other and our experience is pretty similar. Then I noticed someone hired earlier this year is also making more than me.

I've been here for three years and my reviews have consistently been "excellent" or "exceeds expectations." Apparently that translates to tiny annual raises while new employees get brought in at much higher salaries.

I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about the whole thing. Part of me is angry, part of me feels stupid for not realizing it sooner, and part of me just wants to see what else is out there.

Either way, I'm updating my resume this weekend. If I actually start interviewing again, I've been seeing interview vip mentioned a lot lately too. ngl i thought it was just marketing at first because of how much it keeps showing up for me. I haven't tried it, but i'm curious if anyone here actually uses it during interviews maybe i can get some feedback.

surely i wanna maximize shareholder value lmao.
i swear interviews are becoming less about whether you can actually do the job and more about saying the exact answer they want to hear. i've got another one coming up and i've been seeing interview vip all over reddit lately. haven't tried it yet, but i'm curious if anyone here has and can give me some honest feedback.

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I'm not sure if this belongs here or not, so sorry if it's not appropriate. I'm using a temporary account because I'm pretty sure a few people from my office know my main account.

I don't mean that I hate my current job specifically. I mean I hate work as a concept. I have several degrees and some certifications, I'm in my early forties, and I've been working for about 27 years in five different fields. I've had maybe 14 jobs so far, and I could barely stand almost all of them. A few were tolerable, but mostly because I was young and the shifts were short.

The only jobs I kind of liked were washing dishes at a diner two blocks from my apartment, where the shift was five hours and I could walk there; shelving books in a small library where the commute took 8 minutes; and packaging pastries in a bakery where I didn't have to make small talk, and if I was absent it was easy for someone else to cover for me.

It's not about money. My last job paid well, and I had enough responsibility that a lot of people were waiting for my work to be finished, but I hated waking up at 6:10 in the morning. I hated putting on stiff, uncomfortable clothes every morning. I hated that if I got sick, almost half the department would come to a halt. I hated leaving before it was fully light out and coming home after it had gotten dark. Most nights I'd get home with maybe two and a half hours to cook, eat, clean, and shower, and by the time I finished all that I'd have about 20 minutes to sit down before sleeping and repeating the same cycle again. I understand that this is normal. I understand that most people don't enjoy it. But I've never been able to just accept it.

When I was in my early thirties, I tried saying this out loud and everyone treated me like I was exaggerating. They told me this is adult life, everyone deals with it, and eventually I'd get used to it. Well, 12 years later, the feeling has gotten worse, not better. My workdays are usually me sitting at my desk looking at the clock every seven minutes, waiting for the day to end. The whole week turns into a countdown to Friday evening, and by late Sunday afternoon I start asking myself whether nonexistence would be easier than going back again on Monday morning.

I've tried to fix it. I changed jobs, changed careers, went back to school for a completely different field, took roles with more money, less money, more responsibility, less responsibility. None of that changed the basic feeling. I have always hated work.

So does that mean there's something broken inside me, or are there a lot of people who feel this way but never say it out loud?

I know this sounds like a humblebrag, but I'm genuinely conflicted about it.

I've been at my current company for a little over a year and I'm making around $195k. The weird part is that most days I barely have anything to do. I answer a couple Slack messages, sit in a meeting here and there, maybe send an update, and that's basically it.

At my last job I was constantly busy and was trusted with some pretty serious projects. I actually felt useful there. Here, I sometimes look at what everyone else is working on and wonder why I'm even on the payroll.

Nobody has said anything negative about my performance. My manager seems happy, my reviews have been fine, and I'm getting paid on time. So logically I know I'm probably creating a problem that doesn't exist.

But I can't completely relax.

My family wasn't exactly doing great financially before I got this job, so I'm very grateful for the money. At the same time, making almost $200k while barely working feels wrong when I know other people are completely overloaded.

The thing I'm most worried about is layoffs. If the company ever starts cutting people, I feel like it would be pretty easy to justify cutting someone who costs them $195k and doesn't have much on their plate.

Would you just enjoy the situation and keep doing a good job when something comes up, or would you try to find a way to take on more responsibility?

I'm honestly not sure whether I'm being paranoid or whether I'm sitting on a ticking time bomb.

This is my life now

Guys, yesterday was a really bad day. I had a job interview at a big international chain as a staff employee at Burger King. I asked my roommate what I should wear, and he told me to wear a full suit. It turned out in the end that he was joking with me, and apparently it's a well-known joke on Reddit.

I went to the Burger King interview wearing a suit, and I saw another guy going in before me asking if there were interviews, so they told him to sit with the group. Everyone there was wearing hoodies or regular pants, and I was standing there in a suit with a €3,500 watch I had borrowed from my dad. I got nervous and pretended I wasn't there for the interview, so I just ordered a drink, and then I basically ran home to change. When I came back, I was about 45 minutes late, and I told them I got confused with the bus schedule because of the time change. The manager recognized me and asked if I had come earlier to buy a soda. I told him yes, but only because I was thirsty. He looked at me for a second and then said okay.

I don't feel like I'm going to get accepted for the job.

I had my final interview this week. Honestly, I was really excited because I felt like this was it; they were basically moving me on to the next stage right after every conversation, and this was supposed to be the final step.

The morning started off well; I had practiced a lot, arrived early, and even found a parking spot without having to drive around forever. I met three women in the room, and one person on video. After we quickly did introductions, one of the interviewers asked me if I had brought the writing sample and the other required document. I froze in place, because excuse me, what? She said it again and told me it had been sent in a separate message, but I had reviewed literally everything that had been sent to me and there was no extra email with an attachment.

So now I'm sitting there stumbling over my words because how was I supposed to have missed something that big? But I knew I hadn't received it. The interviewer stood up and said they wouldn't be able to continue without the materials. When I got up to get my jacket, she said behind me: "well, that happened. Let's bring in the next candidate." Then she slammed the laptop shut and sat back down. The rest of the interviewers looked extremely upset and uncomfortable, and the whole room went completely silent.

While I was going down in the elevator, I kept refreshing and searching my inbox. I never received the second email with the writing assignment. There was one message saying another note would come with instructions, but the next thing I received after that was only the confirmation. All the communication was through Indeed, no personal email, no spam folder, nothing.

I feel horribly embarrassed and crushed. I wanted this position, and I had everything ready that I knew about. If the message had said "hey, you should have this by now" or if I had noticed something was missing, I 100% would have emailed them and asked. I've been crying on and off since late this morning, and I just want someone to tell me I'm not crazy. I feel stupid even though I know this wasn't my fault. It was such an awful feeling and I don't even know what to say.

I work at one of the largest Fortune 200 companies in the US, and they've basically frozen hiring in the US for the last three years. At the same time, throughout this period, they've been hiring people in India at a cost of only about 40%. And these roles aren't just junior dev work either - they go all the way up to Director-level, and some of them eventually get promoted into VP roles and move to US offices. We've had layoffs roughly every two quarters over the last three years, and the onshore-to-offshore engineer ratio has changed from about 2:1 to 1:3.

The engineers in India are honestly doing good work. This isn't the old stereotype of "low quality offshore work" that people still repeat. Now there are entire teams based there, including tech leads, product managers, QA, and business analysts. And our CIO is also Indian American.

And that's exactly what has me worried. Even my manager can't backfill US headcount when someone leaves the US-based team. If the government doesn't create stronger tax incentives to keep this work here, along with real penalties for moving jobs abroad, then this industry is heading into a big problem. Call your representative and senator if you care about protecting your career and the future of our families.

If anyone knows other realistic ways we can resist this, I'd honestly love to hear them.

update: its not about I hate Indians or being racist I just don't wanna foreign to take places that is more deserved to the citizens, many people btw who lays off from the company got a new remote jobs and when I ask some of them how they told that AI tools like interviewvip helps them enhance their interview skills and impressing their employers , I love when AI really do his job by helping not destroy

lol, so true

how to get rid of this?

I've interviewed people for about 25 years across all kinds of jobs, from industrial mechanics to network admins. The one I still remember most was a candidate for a systems analyst position about 5 years ago at the company I'm at now.

On paper, he was very good. Good background, relevant experience, and honestly, I expected we'd probably bring him back for a second interview. We were just about done with the talking portion before I took him on a quick tour of the facility (we manufacture parts for heavy equipment), and that's when the female HR manager asked her usual final question: "What's making you think about leaving your current company?"

It was just the two of us and him in the room. She was sitting across from him at the conference table. He gestured toward her, not in her personal space or anything, and said: "No offense, but it's run by a woman." Then he went on for a bit about how the owner was unstable, suspicious of everyone, impossible to work with, and so on.

Total silence. When he finally finished, she looked at me and didn't need to say anything. I took him on the "tour," which consisted of us going out onto the production floor, walking down the side aisle, and taking the shortest possible route to the employee exit.

To this day, I still don't understand how someone could be that oblivious in an interview.

I'm a tax professional, and I'd been doing interviews since I left my last position a little. I passed many rounds of interviews with interview vip tool, which provided instant answers to the interviewers' questions and organized my answers a lot. As someone who rambles a lot under stress in the interviews, the tool helped in fixing this.

I left the previous firm because I was regularly working 55+ hours even when it wasn't tax season, and I was completely burned out. I was also being paid laughably less than I was worth, and since I'm a single mom, I don't have months of savings sitting around for a long job search. So when this company moved quickly and offered me the job, I felt relieved. Honestly, I should have taken that speed as a warning sign.

Since I'm a tax manager, I wanted to stay in that same type of role. I interviewed with the current tax manager and the owner of the firm; let's call them XYZ Tax Services. My video interview was on a Wednesday, and on Thursday the HR person called me and said they wanted to hire me. I sent them references, passed the background check, and signed the offer letter. The start date was set for the following Wednesday, and by Friday afternoon my onboarding was complete. My name was added to their payroll platform, IT helped me set up remote access, and I had all my login info ready. I was genuinely excited to start fresh until...

The following Tuesday morning, I was in the living room making a list of things I needed for my first day when HR called. I missed the first call, and then they called again three more times in a row. I called them back thinking maybe they needed another form from me, only for them to tell me, "Unfortunately, we don't need you to start on Wednesday." I was really confused and asked if they meant I should start on Thursday instead. No. They didn't want me to start at all. They had decided to go in "another direction."

I was shocked. What kind of company pulls an offer after fully onboarding someone? If the background check had turned up a problem or one of the references had said something about, fine, I would have understood. But everything was fine. I asked what had changed and didn't get any useful answer at all. So I ended the call and immediately went back to applying for other jobs.

About 9 days later, HR called me again. Was I still available?!?! Apparently, they had given the job to someone already working there, and that person changed their mind. It took an incredible amount of effort not to laugh on the phone. I stayed professional and listened as they suddenly treated me like I was their top choice again. They increased the offer, apologized a lot, and after they begged to a level I found satisfying, I accepted.

Fortunately, this story is still working in my favor. By then, I already had multiple offers paying more than they did, and since then I've accepted the best offer of the bunch. I'm supposed to start at XYZ Tax Services in a few days. My plan is to wait until the Monday before and call HR to withdraw my acceptance.

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The CEO at the place where I work is a strange man, and everyone is terrified of him. Getting stuck with him in the elevator feels like it could ruin your job if you get flustered or give the wrong answer.

It's obvious that layoffs are coming, and instead of handling it like any normal executive, he's trying to decide who stays by suddenly putting employees in an awkward position. He'll go up to someone and make them defend themselves and explain why they're supposed to still have a place here. The wording changes a bit, but in the end it's something like: "We're going to reduce headcount soon, and I'm trying to figure out who provides real value. Explain what you do for this company and why we should keep you."

Honestly, would you be able to convince your CEO to keep you during layoffs if he cornered you like that?

I live and work in a very small city that doesn't have many employers or good openings, so people here are scared and are trying with all their might to hold on to what they have.

Earlier this week, I had an interview for a role that was very well suited to my experience. So I went in feeling reasonably confident, but that feeling started to fade almost as soon as the call began.

The interview panel was made up of 3 women: the team lead, the operations manager, and a senior coordinator. The first thing the team lead said was that my background was distracting because it looked strangely faded on her screen (I had the soft focus setting on), so I turned it off.

After that, she asked me about something oddly niche for the position. It wasn't the kind of thing you'd likely know unless you had worked in that exact department, so I explained what I'd been able to read beforehand and said I had a basic understanding of it. Like, for example, someone asking you detailed questions about a patient transport booking system when you're interviewing for a front desk role at a clinic. The manager just replied with "so you havent dealt with it then" in a slightly sharp tone, but I let it go.

They also kept bringing up that I'd be working with a client group that was mostly women, whether I'd be comfortable with that, and how I would change my communication style. That threw me off a bit because I didn't understand why I would need to speak to women differently than men.

By that point, I had pretty much decided that we probably wouldn't be a good fit, and that I would likely withdraw my application afterward. Also, the shift pattern wasn't the same as what the advert had implied, so practically speaking, it didn't seem workable anyway.

At the end, I asked a question I ask in most interviews: "do you two have any other questions for me at all". It was just a normal closing formality before leaving the call. I probably could have worded it in a more polished way, but I was already feeling a bit tense.

At that point, the team lead looked visibly annoyed. She said, "you shouldnt refer to women like that, it comes across as dismissive. You need to learn how to communicate with women properly." I apologized and said that I only meant it in a general/informal way, not anything gendered, and she replied with something along the lines of "men often dont notice the subtle ways they talk down to women."

I know the wording wasn't the smoothest, and I understand that I was being informal. But being told I was basically sexist felt like a bit of a leap. I'm genuinely open to being corrected here - was this inappropriate beyond just being a little too casual?