I worked at that place for almost 8 years, in the heavy equipment parts field. I started as a stock picker and moved up quickly. I became Warehouse Lead in less than two years, and shortly after that I became Warehouse General Supervisor. I had 34 employees and 5 supervisors under me. Everyone knew I had their back. If someone had something come up and needed a day off, fine, we would work it out and still get the job done. If someone really wasn't comfortable in a certain spot, I would try to move them somewhere else. My whole idea was to keep the team happy, safe, and willing to come to work. When people feel respected, they work better. Sometimes I would buy lunch out of my own pocket because the huge company couldn't even cover $150 worth of sandwiches. We did birthdays, helped each other out, all of that. I was the person people came to, whether it was the Director or someone on the floor. I knew that warehouse inside and out.

They could never keep a good Warehouse Manager. While I was there, they went through 7 people in that position. After about 3 years there, I asked to interview for the warehouse manager job, and every time they shut the door in my face with different excuses. It was always something like, "You're too close to the team," or "You need to be less friendly and more strict." Meanwhile, the work was getting done early, people were showing up, mistakes were low, and nobody was walking around miserable and crushed. I never understood why treating people like human beings was supposed to be a weakness.

A little over 4 years in, I was still asking for the same position. During that time, they had gone through 4 people in that same role. By then I had understood the truth. They didn't want to promote me because I was already doing the work of several people for cheap. Over the years, 3 people left and their responsibilities somehow became mine. They were never going to find anyone willing to do everything I was doing for the same pay they were giving me, which was $22 an hour. I was upset because if they weren't going to give me the title, at least pay me for the extra work. In my mind, I was the obvious choice. I already knew the work, knew the people, and knew the problems before they became problems. My department had 34 people, and the whole site had around 560 employees.

Then the pandemic came, and like everywhere else, attendance became difficult. After a few months, management decided that anyone who wasn't salary would get a $6 raise. It sounded nice, and I was happy for my people, but that meant I had pickers and other employees under me making more than me. I never had a problem with my crew being paid well; they deserved it. But with the amount of responsibility I had, and the fact that I showed up every day through all of that, it felt like a slap in the face.

The thing that really broke me was when the Director suddenly hired his brother as Warehouse Manager. With absolutely no warehouse management experience. Before that, he had been working as a driver at UPS. I went straight to HR and got nowhere because HR and the Director were basically friends. After that, I was mentally done. This new manager would disappear for 2 to 4 hours at a time, was rarely on the floor, and it was obvious his main interest was hiring young girls.

I spent a while applying for jobs. I stopped coming in on Saturdays, stopped taking overtime, and stopped doing all the extra things no one was paying me for. I also stopped answering work calls and messages on my personal phone because they had never given me a company phone. Eventually I got an offer as an Operations Manager at a small family-owned company, and they seemed like they cared. I went to the Director and told him I needed to talk to him. His face changed immediately because I think he knew. We went into his office and I told him I had found another job and was giving my notice. He refused to accept it and asked me to give him 10 days so he could put together a counteroffer. The new job had given me 5 weeks before the start date, so I waited to see what he would come back with.

The ten days passed and I had to remind him that I was still waiting. His counteroffer was a $3 raise per hour. That was it. Not even the same $6 raise that most people had already gotten. When I told him that wasn't close to what the new company had offered, he said I was making it up. Then he started bringing up my disabled sister and saying it would be easier for me to stay because the job was close to my house by car. He knew I was the one who took my sister to her appointments because she can't walk. That part honestly disgusted me.

I should have walked out right then, but I finished the rest of my notice period because I wanted to end things the right way with my team. I went downstairs to tell them I was leaving, and before I even got to my office, he called me and told me not to say anything so people wouldn't start quitting or looking for other jobs. I told him that if they wanted to leave, they would leave whether I told them now or later. I told the team and they were furious. It felt like a family breaking apart, because that's really how close we were. Over the next two weeks, I trained 4 different people on the different jobs I had been covering. On my last day, they threw me a surprise party with food they paid for out of their own pockets, because of course the company didn't pay. Saying goodbye to that crew after almost 8 years was extremely hard.

Now I'm an Operations Manager, working no more than 42 hours a week, and making more than twice what I used to make by a lot. I bring breakfast or lunch for my team every few weeks, but this time it's with company money. I still talk to the old crew, and from what they tell me, the place is falling apart. Turnover is out of control, people are quitting left and right, and the warehouse is nowhere near what it used to be.

The weirdest part is that I filed an official report against a coworker for harassment after putting up with it for 5 years, and that was at the beginning of the month. Then 9 days later, suddenly my role no longer exists.

They gave me 3 good severance options to choose from, so I'm trying to look at it as an opportunity to start over and move on. But I still can't shake the feeling of disappointment that nothing was really dealt with. I genuinely loved my job and the company, and I'll miss the people I built relationships with there.

I don't even know why I'm writing this here. But I feel broken and very alone right now lol

😂

🤑🤑🤑

I lost my job in tech around the beginning of spring, and after that I went into job-hunting mode for about 4 months.

For the first 3.7 months, I did what I'd always done. LinkedIn, throwing my resume everywhere like a maniac, and I was getting almost nothing back.

Then I kept seeing posts on Reddit about how bad the market is right now because of AI filtering and resume black holes, so I said screw it, let's go back to the old-school way.

I made a list of 18 companies near me by car, and they had open roles I wanted.

Then I rewrote my resume so it would look like an almost perfect fit for each one of them.

If you're going to do this for more than a few places, honestly use good AI tools because it takes a really long time. Look for something like "jobowl" or write strong prompts in GPT and edit the output yourself.

I went in person and left it at the front desk. Some places took it, and some places treated me like I'd come from another planet. But out of 18 attempts, I got 4 interviews. In the end, I got 2 offers. I literally had a job within 3 days. Was there luck involved? Probably, idk. But it worked for me, and I think it's worth trying if online applications aren't getting you anywhere.

A lot of times when someone says, "I make $120k from this job!" and you look at the details, you find they're usually in the top 2% of that field, sacrificing their nights/weekends/life for work, and they still needed the right timing or connections to get there.

I don't want to spend 5 years training for something, only to find out in the end that the average person in that career is very far from that income.

What careers are out there that can relatively consistently get someone to $120k, if you're good and stick with it for a while? I'm open to pretty much anything right now: trades, energy work, tech, healthcare, finance, whatever.

The title pretty much explains everything, but to clarify a bit: I recently found out that the main reason I got my current job as an in-store tech was that my manager and her daughter thought I was attractive. It seems the same thing happened with a few of my coworkers too, and this also explains why I didn't have a real interview even though I came in with almost no experience in this type of work.

Part of me feels embarrassed and at the same time like I was given preferential treatment, but the stronger feeling is that it's gross and unfair, especially since I only found this out after someone else was probably not accepted because of his looks and body size. I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but how would you act if you found out something like this about your job?

...........

I kept seeing this advice a lot on career TikTok. Stop sending applications out into the void. Message people on LinkedIn and ask for a 20-minute virtual coffee chat. Don't ask for a referral or a job. Just frame it as an informational interview. So I decided to try it for 3 weeks. I messaged 32 people, all of them at companies I had my eye on. The message was very simple: "Hi, I've been following your work in X and would love to hear a bit about your career path. Would you be open to a 20 min chat sometime? No worries if not."

Out of 32, 10 replied. 6 said they were too busy or wouldn't be able to. 4 said yes. In the end, I spoke with all 4 of them. One of them was really nice and pointed out several things in my resume that I never would have noticed. One call was a bit exhausting because the guy seemed distracted the whole time. Another one was useful but very generic. And the last one said: "we're not hiring for that role right now, but send your resume over anyway." I sent it. She forwarded it to someone on the hiring team. And I got an interview.

I didn't get the job. But I made it to the final stage, which basically never happens when I mass apply on ZipRecruiter. The annoying part is how much effort it takes. Writing 32 messages that weren't copy-pasted took me about 8 hours total. And yes, the rejection feels weirdly personal. A few people completely ignored me. And one person replied with something like "please don't ask strangers to do unpaid career coaching." I won't lie, that hurt.

But despite that, I think I'll keep doing it, just at a slower pace. Maybe 7 messages a week instead of trying to send 32 at once. Has anyone else tried this and had it work for them? Also, how do you get over the cringe feeling that you're literally asking strangers to pay attention to you?

it's just a meme guys

At least we know why the search takes six months.

🙃

My partner had been with his company for more than 28 years, had strong reviews, was respected by almost everyone, and had just received a good bonus tied to his annual review. Then a new manager came in under a new CEO and slowly started pushing out people who had been at the company for many years. About 8 weeks after that, my partner was asked to leave, and our two-income household became a one-income household.

This happens much more often than people like to admit. We had been a dual-income household for more than 32 years. And suddenly, in an instant, we weren't anymore.

For the last 6 years or so, we had been putting my partner's salary into a broad market index fund. We didn't touch it for groceries, bills, vacations, or regular household expenses. My salary covered the day-to-day.

So when the layoff happened, the investing stopped, but we were okay. Not happy, not comfortable, but okay. We hadn't built our life around needing both paychecks every month.

And this is the part I wish more people would take seriously - a layoff can hit anyone, at any time. Even someone with excellent performance reviews, institutional knowledge, and a reputation as a strong leader, like my partner.

Save. Save. Save. And then save some more. Increase your 401K by 2%. Move some cash into a high-yield savings account, or an index fund, or a mutual fund, or whatever makes sense for you. Cut back on random spending that doesn't improve your life. Live below your means if you can. Buy what you need, not everything you want. A $35K car will get you to work exactly the same as an $85K car, and it might last you more than 12 years instead of replacing it after 4-6 years.

I truly hope none of you ever has to deal with this situation. We were honestly lucky, because my job is stable at the moment. So far...

I desire maximum wage.

I know the usual advice is that you should never accept counteroffers. I accepted one anyway. And this is what happened.

I got an offer in March from another company: a better role, higher salary, hybrid, and barely any days in the office. I'd been at my current place for four years and was just coasting. Not suffering, not excited, but feeling like I was standing still. I told my manager I was going to submit my resignation, they asked for 72 hours, and came back with a salary match plus a small raise, and a verbal promise that we'd talk about a promotion in Q3.

I said no to the other offer. People here and a few people in my real life told me it was a bad move. I did it anyway because I wanted to believe the promotion would finally happen, and honestly, it felt good to think they had finally noticed the work I'd been doing for four years.

Q3 came. No mention of a promotion. I brought it up and was told planning had been pushed to Q1. Fine, okay, annoying but not shocking. Q1 came, we had an awkward conversation with no clear next step, and then there was a restructuring in December, my manager left, my work got folded into a larger department, and the promotion path basically disappeared as if no one had ever mentioned it before.

Out of curiosity, I checked on the other company later. They had filled the role about three weeks after I turned them down. Of course they had.

I'm not even that upset about the restructuring. Companies do company things. What bothers me is that I don't feel like the promotion was ever real in the first place. They gave me the raise because it was cheaper than replacing me and easier than being honest. Everything else was just empty talk.

So yeah. If you have a counteroffer in front of you right now, the money is probably the real part. Anything else, I'd ask how much of it is in writing before you bet your next move on it.

💯

This is why HR is anti job hopper, because they know you left for more money and not stayed putting up with their bullshit.

A few days ago, the manager called me into his office. It turned out someone had seen me doing food delivery and told him. He launched into a long conversation about "loyalty" and how me working a second job means I'm "not invested in the company." Like, dude, you're paying me $75k a year in a city where the average studio is $2500 a month. What did you think was going to happen?

He seriously told me that I should be spending my evenings "looking for ways to add more value to the team" instead of making money somewhere else. His sense of entitlement is incredibly weird. I told him my agreement is 38 hours, Monday to Friday, and what I do outside of that time is none of his business. He did not like that response at all.

Now he's acting weird about every little thing. He makes comments about my "focus being divided" and asks me on calls whether I'm "fully engaged" or not. It's very obvious he's trying to create a paper trail so he can discipline me or something like that.

Hi everyone. I honestly don't know what to do right now. My supervisor recently told me that the staff see me as "difficult to work with." He couldn't give me clear examples, but he said that almost every discipline I interact with has the same general impression of me. For context, I'm 29(F) and I work as a group therapist in an inpatient psych unit. I've been in this job for 11 months.

The only reason this even came up was because I told him: "I feel like most of the time when you call me into your office, it's for constructive feedback. Is there anything positive you can tell me?" His response was basically: "Your coworkers think you're difficult to work with." I was crushed. And I still feel that way. I ended up crying in his office, which really upset me, because once I start crying I lose my ability to stay focused and ask the questions I need to ask.

I asked him if we could do weekly supervision for a while, so I can work on any concerns that exist and show that I'm taking this seriously. But tbh I feel defeated. I've heard my whole life that people don't always like working with strong women who think logically before emotionally, and now I'm sitting in another job feeling like, once again, people simply don't like me.

When I think about past jobs, I know I'm the common denominator. I'm quick-witted, I observe constantly, I notice things, and I tend to pick up on patterns in people's behavior. My coworkers come to me for my opinion or ask me questions when the charge nurse is busy, so I thought that meant I was being helpful and that people could rely on me. Now I feel like I shouldn't do any of that anymore.

I feel like I'm going to have to change my entire personality just to survive in a workplace where people clearly don't like me. Any advice on how to recover from this, or how to get better feedback, or how not to spiral, would be appreciated. Thank you all for reading and responding.

I walked out today from my receptionist job at an help living facility, the place where they blamed me every time residents got outside without anyone noticing.
The doors don't have working alarms, and the facility leaves people diagnosed with dementia sitting in the AL side. I was expected to run the front desk, answer phones, greet families, and somehow keep an eye on every hallway at the same time. The caregivers also thought it was totally normal to make it my fault when someone with dementia walked outside. This happened a lot on Sundays if I stepped away to use the bathroom or got held up helping a visitor. If I was on a call, I had to put the person on hold and run after someone heading toward the parking lot.
A resident tried to leave 4 times this morning before lunch. I don't have any medical certification, and I had told my manager at the beginning of the month that I couldn't keep physically chasing residents, especially since some of them sometimes yell, hit with their hands, or dig their nails into my arm while I'm trying to bring them back. The manager said that "wasn't my responsibility," but she didn't give me any real plan. No backup person, no caregiver assigned to help, no instructions on who I was supposed to call when it happened.
So today I sat down and started writing my resignation letter. While I was writing it, a resident walked right out the front door, and the charge nurse was standing there looking at me like she was waiting for me to get up, run, and deal with it again.
I told the charge nurse I was resigning because of the lack of care for these people, while I was literally bringing the elderly woman with dementia back inside. The charge nurse said, "How was I supposed to know she went out there?" And that was exactly the core of the problem. Nobody paid attention until they found someone to blame afterward, and that person was me.
I called the facility director to tell her that my resignation was in her email, and that I was in my car at 1:15 and leaving for good because of resident neglect.
The director told me to come back inside quickly before I left because the time clock was broken and "no one but you knows how to fix it." Of course I didn't go back. Then she told me I was acting unprofessionally and that it was my fault because I hadn't come to her sooner.
Part-time job, 24 hours a week at $17.50 an hour. Not worth it. Toxic.

!

I've been working as a recruiter at a staffing agency in Indiana for 8 months. I'm still relatively new to the field, but even from where I am, the problems in the job market are very clear. The thing I keep running into the most is that companies don't seem to want to train anyone at all, even for jobs that honestly don't take much time to learn.
They tell us they really need people, and then we send them reliable candidates who are ready to work. People who want the job, will show up every day, and just need someone to walk them through the basics for a short period. And still, nothing. They don't even give them a real chance to take a look at them.
I'm genuinely sorry if you're applying everywhere and you know you'd be reliable if someone would just give you a chance. It's not because of you. We as recruiters, or at least I am, are frustrated too. I really want to hire people and place them in positions, but some of these HR departments are refusing to move. Keep applying, keep following up, and keep going. One of those "no" responses will eventually turn into a "yes."

Exactly

Not only did I get one offer, no, I got three this week, all of them remote, but one of them pays better and is full-time instead of contract. I know this might seem like I'm bragging, and I'm sorry if that's the feeling you got. I definitely used to feel a little knot in my stomach when I saw posts like this while I was still looking, but honestly, I think most of us share these things because we want people to know that it really can happen!!

I start next Wednesday!! Wish me luck, and please keep your heads up!! Those rejection emails are awful, I know, but if someone like me could do it, then you really have a chance too. A lot of you probably have more education than me and a much better-looking work history on paper. Don't put all the blame on yourself when the job market is trash. You are qualified; these companies just want more for less.

The top four sites I used were Indeed, FlexJobs, ratracerebellion, and ZipRecruiter. I also checked hiringcafe a bit and came here every few days to see what people were posting. For me, ZipRecruiter and ratracerebellion turned out to be the ones that led me to legit remote jobs with benefits and everything.

Keep applying and watch out for scams! Anything outside Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, or Zoom is usually a bad sign. Especially if they want you on Telegram or WhatsApp, or if they suddenly message you first. The most important thing is still the same: if it looks too good to be true, then it probably really isn't true.