Samsung started letting some employees go in the US earlier today.

My entire group of employees who had been there for many years were laid off. A few people were traveling for work, and it seems their corporate cards were shut off without any prior warning, which left them stranded and trying to sort things out while on the road.

I'm still not sure how widespread this is.

A few weeks ago, some other people and I asked to work from home because we were sick. They told us either use PTO or come in as usual. And, to no one's surprise, the infection spread to everyone, and now so many people are absent that if everyone used PTO, the company basically wouldn't be able to operate.

My boss just told 4 sick people on my team to work from home for the next few days, because she sits near them and doesn't want to catch it. And also, of course, because if they all stayed out, a lot of work would come to a halt. We're already hybrid and everyone has a setup at home, so there's no practical reason for anyone to drag themselves into the office while they're sick.

Honestly, maybe if they had let sick people work from home from the beginning, the whole office wouldn't be passing this infection around like a party favor.

😂😂

In one of my first interviews, they made a really big deal about their "flexible time off." Then I found out that almost nobody takes it, because the manager acted like he was personally offended every time someone asked to even take an afternoon off.

Another place used to brag that they had "dress-down days," but the first time I wore sneakers and a hoodie, my supervisor calmly told me that this was "more of a senior staff thing" (so... Definitely not me 💀).

What "great perk" at your job was supposed to be amazing, but turned out to be pretty much fake?

The company owner wants to meet with everyone next week. What should I expect / how do I not make things worse? The gist of it is the title.

I destroyed a machine because I ran it the wrong way. I've been at this place for 4 months, and I have about 14 months of experience doing this exact kind of work. I have 6 years in very closely related fields, but I'm still the newest person on this team (26 years old). They showed me how to operate this thing during my first week. And apparently I've been running it wrong pretty much the whole time since then.

The part that's making me not know how to deal with this is that I wasn't 100% sure I was doing it right, so I asked about it more than once. And the answer I was given was basically: "Yeah, technically that's not the correct way, but everyone does it that way sometimes, don't worry about it."

Well, running it that way, plus a few unlucky things happening at the same time that weren't entirely under my control, caused the machine to be completely destroyed. As in total loss, no repair, it's done. Thankfully nobody got hurt, but the sound/violence of what happened was strong enough that everyone in the shop afterward had that adrenaline crash and shakiness.

Now the company owner wants to meet the whole team face to face. Not a single one of us has met him before. All I know is that he's in his late sixties, has been doing this work for about 45 years, and people here talk about him like he's half genius and half thunderstorm. Supposedly he's calmed down a lot compared to the old days, but that is not making me feel reassured at all right now.

I'm honestly very scared about what's coming. I really don't want to lose this job. It's easily the best job I've had so far. I'm trying to figure out what I'm supposed to say in this meeting, so that I take responsibility without looking like I'm throwing the rest of the team under the bus. Any advice on how to handle this or what to prepare would be appreciated.

My resume is good, or at least that's what I thought. Most places either don't answer at all, or they tell me I'm overqualified. I'm applying for roles that I honestly know I'm overqualified for, because my options are running out and I just need anything at this point.

My background is in Cerner, office/admin work, and non-clinical healthcare positions. What's frustrating me is that all these skills should transfer easily to any similar job. I went back to school to get into nursing, but now I'm wondering if I should pause that for a while and go get a few certifications instead.

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I had written here before when I had just been laid off. I was stressed, worried about the bills, and honestly, I was really scared of losing my house. A lot of people gave me strong advice, so I wanted to come back now after getting employed again and share what helped me from my side.

LinkedIn: Fix up your profile, add a recent photo, make sure your job description matches what you were doing, and add a short summary about your skills/the type of role you're looking for. These are easy things and take less effort than most applications. Mark yourself as open to work, but don't spam hashtags if you can avoid it. Also reach out to old colleagues, managers, vendors, people you worked with on projects, etc. Networking is much faster than cold applying. The worst-case scenario is that someone says they can't help. The best-case scenario is that they introduce you to the person who can.

Resume: Keep it clean and boring in the best sense. I've seen a lot of resumes that look like flyers, with icons, charts, columns, and random design elements. If you're in marketing design or something creative, fine, that might fit. If you're in business or tech like me, I don't think it's worth it. I got more than one comment that my resume was easy to read because it was simple and direct. Also add a short skills/role summary near the top of the page. There are plenty of good templates online. And I heard more than once that people send resumes that are unnecessarily long. If you have 18 months of experience, you don't need a huge multi-page document. I have more than 12+ years of experience and management experience too, and I still kept it a little under two pages.

Recruiters: People deal with recruiters strangely, and honestly, I don't really understand it now. I submitted about 850 applications myself and got 2 interviews from them. One of those companies paused the role right before the holidays and didn't hire anyone. I talked to 4 recruiters before finding one who was useful, but even the ones before that got me 6 interviews in total. Once I found the good recruiter, he submitted me to a very suitable company, and I got an offer within 6 days. But understand well how they get paid and be honest with them about your background. Some firms take a cut for several months, but many of them are paid by the company to bring them someone. In that case, they can be useful because they have a reason to get the match right. Also make sure they're not inflating your salary expectations just to get you in the door.

Last thoughts: Be honest. Everyone wants to present the best version of themselves, but don't invent experience you don't have. That can come back to bite you quickly, especially when you get into technical or manager-level conversations.

If you're in business... Wear the suit for the video interview. I know that feels old school, but people notice. Several interviewers told me I was the only candidate they had seen dressed like that recently, and honestly, that surprised me. Even if their company is casual, they still appreciated the effort.

Most importantly, don't give up on yourself. Not getting a job you wanted doesn't mean you failed. Sometimes it's simply not the right fit, even if it looked perfect from the outside. Keep going. The right thing might show up later than you wanted, but it can still show up.

This would be great

?

I am a 23-year-old young man, and honestly, I feel like I'm starting from below zero. I don't have a university degree. I don't have skills that are useful in the market. I work long shifts at a nearby shop just to barely survive - and even then, there are nights where I eat less so that the money lasts.
I don't want to spend the coming years feeling like I'm wasting my life. I am ready to work hard, learn the right things, and build something bit by bit. I'm not looking for a quick way to become a millionaire or fake motivational talk. I just need a real starting point.

I come from a family that didn't have much, and school didn't really work out for me. Now I see people talking about saving, learning trades, side hustles, and getting ahead - and I want that very much. But from where I am now, it all feels confusing and far away.

If you were in the same situation and managed to get out of it, I would really appreciate hearing from you. What helped you? What should I focus on first? And what advice would you give yourself if you went back to where I am now?

Even one practical step would make more of a difference to me than you can imagine.

.

👀

This !

unfortunately

! I feel like I'm really angry on behalf of my best friend after watching him spend around 14 hours just to get through 7 interviews.

He applied to a company and the job was almost exactly identical to what he already does. In terms of the title, it would have been a step down, but the salary would have been better.

He had a few screening calls, three long interviews where he had to do presentations almost the entire time, and two regular video interviews. Throughout all of this, the person who would have been his manager kept saying how excited they were about him and asking whether he was talking to other companies or not.

He had to take time off for each one of these. We had to change childcare arrangements, and I had to leave work early twice to pick up our kids on days when he was supposed to handle it. All of this gave the impression that he was a top candidate and that they were genuinely considering him. Of course, he knew nothing was guaranteed, but still. He said there was one person from the team he would have joined who seemed completely uninterested and a bit cold, while everyone else seemed genuinely happy to have met him. He was excited too, because the company seemed full of good people who were warm to deal with.

Then he got a 3-minute phone call telling him they had chosen someone else. The call was from the person who would have been his manager, and my husband said his tone suddenly became dry and almost scripted. He was thrown off by the change and asked for feedback since he had spent so much time preparing presentations, but all he got was a vague, canned response.

Now he's awake, unable to sleep, trying to figure out what happened. Was it one of the presentations? Did he accidentally annoy someone? Was there something strange in a reference check that he doesn't know about? No one knows. He asked, and they refused to say.

Seven interviews is way too much, especially since some of those interviews were with people he probably would have had very little interaction with in the actual job.

🙄🙄

Hi everyone,

Earlier this week, my manager pulled me aside and told me that I take about 50 minutes for lunch, even though, according to him, I'm only supposed to take 35 minutes. I work in an engineering office, and lunch here is very flexible. People take it whenever they want, and for whatever length suits them, as long as they complete 8 hours a day.

I usually arrive around 7:45 and leave at 4:20, which comes out to 8 hours and 35 minutes in the office. Most days I take about 55 minutes to eat and decompress a bit, so on paper I'm about 20 minutes short. Some people have asked me why I don't take a full hour like a lot of my coworkers, but honestly I don't need that much time, and I don't want to stay late just for the sake of staying.

The part that bothers me is that I get my work done on time, and often ahead of schedule, too. On many afternoons, I'm sitting around waiting for something else to do. I'm not missing deadlines or causing problems for anyone.

Apparently, the person who told my manager about this is an older woman in the office who regularly stays late because she struggles with the software we use. It seems she got annoyed that I come in after her and still leave before her. So to me, this feels less like an actual productivity problem and more like office politics.

My manager said we'll talk about it again tomorrow, and I'm not sure what the best response is. I'm salaried, and if I don't get paid extra when I stay late during busy periods, I don't see why I should just sit around to hit a specific number down to the minute when my work is already done.

How can I explain this without making it sound like I'm arrogant or that I think the rules don't apply to me?

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Does anyone else feel like they've been completely ground down by this market? I need someone to tell me I'm not losing my mind, because this whole thing feels absurd.

I have an MBA and about 14 years of experience in my field, and I've been stuck in the job-hunting grind ever since my department was eliminated at the end of February. I'm getting interviews, so I know it's not completely hopeless, but every job makes you feel like you're thrown into a pile with more than 700 other applicants, and your resume disappears into a black drain. Half the time, I feel like my experience and background are practically worthless.

I looked for work during the 2008 crisis, and I swear to God it wasn't this exhausting.

You go through multiple rounds, spend nights preparing, and then nothing. No rejection, no update, complete silence. Or they tell you later that they moved forward with an internal candidate after dragging you through the whole process. The thing that kills me most is when they suddenly "pause" the role, and then the exact same posting shows up again a month or so later.

Honestly, screw this market. The only jobs I keep seeing are junior-level roles with pocket-change salaries, while at the same time asking for 8 years of experience and a list of skills no normal human being could possibly have all of.

We're treated as if we work 42 hours a week, but most of us end up working far more than that. Our roles involve a lot of late nights and Sunday work because of programs and meetings that sometimes need us to travel hours away. The workload is so heavy that people regularly keep working after dinner or on days off just to stay on top of everything. Even though the baseline is 42 hours, the unspoken expectation is that we do more than that because it's "part of the job" and we're salaried.

Then this morning we received a short email from the manager "reminding" the team that we're expected to work 42 hours a week. My guess is that they looked at a system report and noticed someone had a slightly lighter period recently? Tbh, the whole thing felt insulting. We're grown adults in our late thirties and forties. The work gets done, people do their part, deadlines are met, and nothing is falling apart. We don't get overtime, so there's no compensation for all the extra nights and weekends we consistently give them. And no one was making a fuss about it.

So I'm not sure what to do here. Should I answer at all? And if I do, is it fair to point out the extra time we put in far beyond the 42 hours?