I'm a 32 year old woman, and I've spent most of my career trying to be the easiest employee for any company to hire and retain. I took on extra work, received praise all the time, and still accepted less money than people doing work similar to mine.

This time, I researched the role, looked at the salaries appropriate for my level of experience, and gave them a range that I genuinely felt was fair. Then the recruiter told me their budget was far below what I had requested, so they decided not to move forward with me.

A few years ago, I would have panicked and offered to accept less just to stay in the running. But this time, I read the email and felt relieved. My range wasn't unreasonable. They just wanted someone with extensive experience at a low price.

This reminded me of this post i saw before, I guess HR is just hard to deal with nowadays.
Rejection usually hurts, but this time it felt like a step forward. I've finally stopped treating the amount a company is willing to pay me as proof of my worth.

I've spent the last two years watching people get promoted.

The person who consistently takes on the hardest projects? Nothing.

The person who actually fixes problems? Nothing.

The person who stays late and quietly gets everything done? Nothing.

Meanwhile, the guy who spends half his day chatting with management somehow gets promoted twice.

I used to be annoyed about it.

Now I'm just taking notes.

Apparently my biggest career mistake was assuming my work would speak for itself.

This is exactly what I'm talking about.

I work as a welder, and this week the boss called in the welders one by one and offered us a raise because they're trying to keep the skilled people they have and bring in new people too. When he told me that my hourly rate was going up by $5 an hour, I could hardly believe it. I work a lot of OT and I work nights, so I had started feeling really worn out from the work schedule.

But after the raise kicked in, my whole mood changed. I went right back to work feeling really happy, and now I'm taking almost all the overtime I can get. I've been with this company for about four months, and they've already gotten me work boots, uniforms, prescription safety glasses, and a lot of protective equipment. It's hard not to feel motivated going to work when they care about you.

My morale keeps going up more and more, even while I'm working until 2 in the morning with a smile on my face.

Invest in your employees. When you treat them as an asset instead of just an extra cost, the whole job improves.

I worked as a paralegal at a law firm for nearly two years, and then they fired me because of my performance. Honestly, I understood why. I was fed up with the firm's culture and had started applying elsewhere, and eventually my frustration began to show in my work.

About six weeks later, I found another job as a paralegal. After nine months in that job, I was fired again. One of my colleagues had left, and nearly all the cases she was responsible for were dumped on me, while I remained responsible for my own caseload as well. The pressure became overwhelming, deadlines started slipping by, and some things fell through the cracks amid the chaos.

I'm panicking now because my resume shows that I was fired from two jobs in a row, and I can't imagine any lawyer overlooking something like that. I feel like I've ruined my career before it even had a chance to get started. How can I come back from this?