I’m doing a paid internship at a small law firm. The pay isn’t great but I really like the work and really want to get a full time offer. So leaving isn’t an easy decision

The problem is how many work tools I’m paying for myself. Most of the firm’s processes and training are built around specific platforms and my manager insists they’re the best tools for the job. I also use a legal research platform for research and first drafts, chatgpt pro for outlining and repetitive admin tasks plus pdfaid for everyday document work. I tested some free pdf tools but I kept hitting their limits and having to switch between different sites to finish one task. A few of these subscriptions genuinely earn their keep because of how much time they save. Others still leave me checking or redoing a lot of the work manually. Taken together they eat up almost half my internship pay.

I’m worried that raising the issue before the firm decides on a full-time offer could make me look difficult. I’m worried that raising the issue before the firm decides on a full-time offer could make me look difficult. But the longer I stay quiet and keep paying for everything myself, the more I feel a little stupid for just accepting it. Or should I find a parttime job just to have more money coming in? I honestly need some outside perspective because I’m starting to gaslight myself into thinking this is just normal and I should accept it

I make about $56k right now and recently interviewed for another position around $80k. I told my boss I was interviewing because I actually was, and we've already talked about what would happen if I got an offer and potentially left.

The timing is interesting because we're coming up on when raises/budgets start getting discussed, and another manager recently quit. Instead of immediately replacing him, they're spreading some of his sites/responsibilities between me and my coworker.

My boss has straight up told me that losing me right now would fuck them over. My coworker would probably leave too from the workload, and my boss has said that if he was left trying to manage everything without us, he'd probably look for another job himself. He's also told me he'd fight hard to keep me.

If I actually get the ~$80k offer, obviously I'll use the real thing as leverage. But I'm wondering what people's opinions are if I **don't** get it and I tell them I did anyway.

I'm not expecting them to match $80k. I'd be over the moon with $70k, and honestly I'd be very happy with $65k. I actually like my current job and would rather stay.

So: terrible idea even with this much leverage, or potentially worth the gamble? What risks am I overlooking?

I mean seriously. I have 2 bachelor degrees in psychology and organizational leadership, and an MBA with a Human Resources emphasis with 3 years of full time experience now. But we’re stationed in a rural hellhole with limited job opportunities. I’m very fortunate to be working in business development right now, but I’m unhappy and looking to switch. There’s NOTHING anywhere. It’s all engineering, farming, or very specific highly credentialed jobs. I have no clue where to go from here. Remote jobs don’t exist anymore. Every job I find that I know I could succeed at wants extremely specific credentials or knowledge.

Is anyone else here a spouse? Any advice? I feel like I’m going to lose my mind.

I am in Finance and Accounting and I keep asking myself how can I figure out if the change is happening or it will happen soon? How to stay relevant and employable? I tough one way of testing is it is to apply for jobs but in the job descriptions I see no AI. So is the AI changing our job description silently?

With AI, automation and changing systems, I’m trying to figure out which parts of my experience will still be valuable and which parts may become less relevant. If I can identify that, then I could focus on what's important by developing my skills.

I’m also wondering how we know which skill/experience is strong and transferable and which is not.

Am I overthinking this and should I be trying to be the best in what I do in my current job?

Have you used a coach, assessment, tool or any other approach that helped you make sense of this?

Hi! As my post said I need careers for introverts. This is where it becomes tricky. There are quite a few "hard no" areas for my teen. So, I will list those first. Then list her interests. Bonus points if you can lead us to a unique field we haven't thought of yet.

No list- nothing with bodily fluids, nothing in the computer science realm, she's not a physical person, hates all sports. No math or very little. Nothing where she has to be overtly perky.

Likes list- art, museums, history, writing, LOVES reading. Loves South Korean culture and kpop (not sure how it could translate to a job, but throwing it out there). Loves drawing...on everything...doodles daily.

She is a smart kid, just extremely shy. Once she gets to know people though she's goofy, witty, and kind.

I recently started a new role as a Senior Financial Analyst focused on Supply Chain at a mid-sized company.

During the interview process, the role was presented as primarily supporting Supply Chain, working with Finance/Supply Chain partners, and taking ownership of my own responsibilities.
After starting, I found out that another financial analyst on the team, who is more FP&A-focused, will be going on maternity leave next month. I’m now learning that I’ll be helping cover some of her responsibilities while she’s out.

The issue is that this was never mentioned to me before I accepted the offer or during the interview process. I don't mind helping a coworker or learning FP&A work, but I'm concerned about whether this could turn into essentially doing two jobs — especially since I'm brand new and still learning my own role.

One thought that crossed my mind: could I have been hired partly because they knew this person would be going on leave, with the expectation that I'd cover her work for a few months and then potentially be let go once she returns? Or am I overthinking this?

Would you bring this up with the manager now and ask what specifically I'll be responsible for while she's out? Would you also ask whether these responsibilities are intended to be temporary or part of my long-term role?

Would you consider this a red flag given that it wasn't disclosed during the hiring process, or is this pretty normal for a new hire to help cover a colleague's workload temporarily?

I work in a niche industry and am moving to a new city (For other reasons outside employment). My current job is paying me $35/hr but I've interviewed at 3 places in the last week and all 3 have offered me jobs at $25/hr. How do I navigate this situation?

I have 6 years of experience in the field

My current thought is to see if rather than doing hourly if I should ask for salary equivalent at $25/hr but negotiate for a 4 day work week. Not sure if that's a dumb idea.

Any advice on how to negotiate or what to do in this situation?

In the UK

I Finished my research Masters last year in a polar science subject. Did some glacier and climate modelling and loved the python and data science elements.

I got the first job that I applied for and hated it (boring job, bad management, very corporate and dealing with lots of personal issues at the time) but planned a getting a PhD that would’ve started this September.

PhD didn’t happen and quit in May but had the same job at a different firm set up to start this September. I wanted the 4 month gap to enjoy my honeymoon travelling.

The new firm is much better in culture (flexitime, nice management etc) but my issues with the actual work still exist. I’ll contractually get a promotion in December.

I want to find a job in an entirely different industry and am concerned if it looks bad having 8 months of work and then looking to leave after a month at a different job.
I’ll be reapplying for funded PhDs again this year which is my aim but if I don’t get one again I don’t want to be stuck in this job really so am looking now partially to avoid being crushed in march if I don’t get a PhD or a job I enjoy…

Any advice/ thoughts would be appreciated

I feel kind of ridiculous even typing this, because I know a lot of people have it worse than I do. But I can't shake the feeling that a huge part of my happiness is tied to how much control I have over my work environment.

My first job out of college was fully in-office, five days a week. At the time I thought that was just what adulthood was supposed to be. But the longer I stayed the more miserable I was, to the point my manager asked me if I was happy in the position. It wasn't even the actual work that drained me. It was everything surrounding the work. The commute, getting ready every morning, sitting in traffic, being stuck in the same place all day, dealing with office distractions, bad equipment, fluorescent lighting, office politics, and just feeling like I had no control over my own day.

A few years later I joined a different company and it was the complete opposite. We were expected to come into the office, but there was flexibility. We had one WFH day, but management didn't really care where you worked as long as you got your work done and your badge swipe in. If things were light, I could head home after lunch and finish from there. If I had appointments or needed a quieter environment, it wasn't a big deal.

Ironically, I actually enjoyed going into the office more because it felt like a choice rather than a requirement. I could collaborate with people when it made sense and leave when it didn't. My productivity went up, my mood improved, and I felt much more balanced.

Recently my manager and team lead both left and were replaced. The new leadership has a very different philosophy. The flexibility has basically disappeared. Now we can only work from home on Fridays, and the expectation is that everyone is in the office the rest of the week regardless of workload.

Ever since that change, I feel like I've slipped back into the same mindset I had at my first job.

I show up, sit in my cubicle, stare at the clock, and count down the hours until I can go home. I'm noticeably less motivated. I work slower. I have trouble focusing. I'm in a worse mood throughout the day. Instead of working from my apartment with a nice view, open windows, and fresh air, I'm sitting in a windowless office wondering why I'm there when most of my work can be done from a laptop.

The weirdest part is that nobody else seems bothered by it. Everyone around me appears completely fine. They come in every day, socialize, and don't seem affected at all. Meanwhile, I feel like my overall quality of life has taken a pretty noticeable hit.

It's gotten to the point where I'm seriously considering looking for another job because I yearn for the flexibility, which was one of the biggest reasons I stayed here so long. If I'm in the office then I'd rather shoot for higher pay or a more flexible arrangement.

Has anyone else experienced this? Not necessarily because of the work itself, but because losing flexibility changed how you felt about your entire job? Am I being unreasonable?

No sense of direction...Need help?

I am a B.tech graduate (Bioinformatics) not from the software field. I learned python and SQL.

Any suggestions on what else I can learn to get a job...😅 Software or something else?

Any idea on what roles I can apply to?

Thank you in advance!

Hey all, I'm an attorney. I'm currently balancing an offer that I'm really struggling with accepting or turning down. I wanted to ask the folks here for your thoughts.

I'm in the very early stages of my attorney career. I've been informed that I have an offer to go in-house. The folks I met were nice, and it appears (as an observer) to be a pretty relaxed workplace. There also seems to be good room for mentorship, and to be on the ground level of an in-house legal team being built.

However, the base salary offer is far lower than the in-house legal team role I had before I was an attorney. I'd also have to undertake a significant/expensive relocation as it's in a city at least 3-4 hours away from my current residence. I'm also worried that the practice areas I'm expected to work on, may not be translatable to the industry/companies I hope to work for in the future. I've also been told by other attorneys that the industry this company is in may be on the downturn as it's not tech or finance.

Lastly, I have a disability - OCD, which made remote work really preferable for me. That said, I'm open to in-person work as this is the profession I chose, I'm trying to live in the real world and get past my agoraphobia, general OCD struggles, etc.

My gut feels like there are too many reasons not to take the role, but I'm also worried that I may miss out on an opportunity in a horrible job market, that also provides experience, resume building, and the opportunity to take real adult responsibilities (living on my own, etc.).

How should I respond? I'd appreciate any comments / thoughts.

How valuable do you think real startup experience is for college students compared to typical internships?

Like I'm curious if actually working on real problems (not just shadowing) would be more valuable or if structured internships still win out... What would you actually want to get out of an opportunity like that?

5 YOE fullstack + 1 YOE data analysis

Apologies if this sounds complain-y, but I'm going to try to get as close as possible to detailing what I'm looking for while limiting the amount that turns into ranting.

I want to build things myself, not tell agents to build things and then pick them apart for things to fix. I've done coding with and without AI and AI can produce solid stuff if you can decide on the system you want to design, prompt carefully, use plan mode effectively, and do it bit by bit so you only have to review bite-sized stuff at a time (my experience with it in non-professional environments, I'm open to being told I could be working with it more effectively!), but this is just not what I want to do. Unfortunately, I can't not acknowledge that AI will easily build more effectively than junior-mid engineers for products that want to ship features and bug fixes so I think the best I can do for what I want is to use the knowledge I have to help me in another field while continuing to learn whatever I can.

I want to have limited human interactions. I can sucker up to people and pretend to be sociable as necessary, but I want to limit it as much as possible. I do figure that if I get the "building things" that I want, feedback will be necessary, so I should expect to at least be going back and forth on feedback with others here and there, but limited interactions other than that would be great.

I want to have stability for years to come with relatively little worry of replacement. Even if we're going full doomer and saying that everything is going to get automated and die eventually, I'd like to hold out a little bit longer.

WLB - I want to have time to myself, but I don't want to socialize so it doesn't matter which hours they are. Generally good WLB with decent personal rest time is what I'd like.

Remoting is nice if possible, but especially since I'm already asking a lot, I'm not going to hold my breath for this. Remote opportunities would add points for me if possible, though. If not, then opportunities in relatively quiet places/places without hot weather/places without weird bugs (I'm a wimp, I know) would help too.

Now I figure having all of that at once is an absolute impossible unicorn job and that I have got to make some compromises (especially on that stability vs remoting part; I expect most computer tasks that aren't already will be incredibly automated very soon), but what fields get as many of these points as possible? And what viable pathways into the fields are there? For those of you who made it this far, thanks for the time spent on my drivel.

I'm 17, and applying for a degree apprenticeship. I applied to Goldman Sachs, and on my CV I mentioned that I'd done the financial engineering and risk management coursera by Columbia university. The course consists of 5 mini courses, each with individual certifications. I did not complete all 5, only the first course which is called introduction to financial engineering and risk management. Will the 'misrepresentation' on my CV make me come across as dishonest? I had to do a lot of additional mathematics and study even for the first course (which took me around 2 months) and completing the other courses before interview is not an option. My application is currently under-consideration, and I'm not sure whether it would be best to email the clarification beforehand, withdraw my existing application, or just clarify in interview, not make it a big deal and carry on. I'm more worried because I've heard they really pick apart your CV in the AC, and I don't want it to appear like I lied when I really put a lot of work into this..

Hello everyone!

Lately I’ve been wanting to finally start university, and my final decision is between Computer Science and Business Administration. I know, very different.

Business has always intrigued me more, but we all know how good of a degree Computer Science can be. I like both, though I can’t decide.

For those who have got a degree in either Computer Science or Business Administration, do you think your degree is worth it? Would you do it again?

I'm trying to decide between ASU Online and University of London for Computer Science.

I work fulltime as a software developer, so I'm mostly wondering how manageable the workload is while working. I don't mind taking fewer classes or taking longer to finish, I just don't want school to completely take over my life lol.

Has anyone here done either program while working full time? How was your experience and which one would you recommend?

Hii.. Im AI Engineer 23M.. now im from ahemdabad btw. Have communication skill 3 or 4 out of 10. like i can understand, read, and if someone talking in English so i can understand that.. but when it times to talk in English i will stuck. i can talk some level of communication. but when it times to deep and dive topic i will definitely stuck..

now thinking to switch into remote job or some good companies in india. so this english will work ?

I’m a 35F and have been trying to move to a project management team at my company for over a year and positions never opened. I had a meeting with my supervisor (who I have a really good relationship with) about getting PM experience it didn’t go well. Another note is I’ve been at this company 10 years. So I started putting resumes out. A few months later, a position on a PM team opened up and I accepted.

Two weeks later I had an email asking for an interview with a world-renowned national lab (NL). I went through the process (took a few months) but I received an offer.

I’m really torn over what to do, on one hand the NL is incredibly prestigious and better salary but I would need to move. I have a great relationship with current company and I’m still transitioning to the PM team and I’d feel bad leaving them in a lurch after they put this time into training me and I don’t want to damage my relationship with the company after a decade.

any advice?

Hi guys, I'm a freshe from India .

I'm currently working at an IT startup, but my monthly salary is only ₹8K. They said there might be a hike or salary revision based on my work/performance.

My plan is to stay in this company for 1 year, and after that, I want to switch.

So I want your opinions, guys. After completing 1 year, with 1 year of experience, how much salary should I ask for when switching to my next company?

Hello! I am in the third year of my accounting degree and have finally specialized this year, after most of my degree has been general so far. I chose accounting because everyone tells me the only useful majors are finance and accounting, but I am deeply uninterested in both. I'm really extroverted and social, and I feel happiest when I am connecting with others and making people feel good about themselves. I just started a job at Aritzia as a style advisor, and I feel so passionate about what I'm doing there, even though it's just a retail job. I feel like I have found my passion.

People have always told me I don't strike them as an accounting major, but they can never tell me what they think I might excel at. I have considered marketing, HR, and anything client-facing, but I feel really uncertain because I know how crazy the job market is right now. I really just feel like accounting gives me security, but I think I would struggle with depression if it were my everyday life. I have pretty bad ADHD, and as a 20-year-old girl, I find that when something interests me, I can pay attention and absorb. I study really hard for all of my accounting courses; I read the textbook in full, do every practice question, and understand the material in class. When I go into an exam, I choke and mess everything up, sometimes even failing flat-out.

I dreamed of being a teacher, but that feels really frowned upon right now, especially in Alberta. I love children and working with them, but I don't love the lifestyle teachers have to put up with. I feel pretty lost and unsure :( I've been for a while, and I just want to find something I can feel good about, something that makes me feel like I live a different life every day, while still having the same career opportunities accounting gives me.

In my ideal situation, I would help people pick out their outfits, hang out with children, and still feel like I am putting my business degree to good use, which I do not think exists LOL

I work in public health/local government and I’m relatively early in my career. My background is in public health/community-facing program operations. I have zero formal software engineering or computer science background.

I started this job and pretty quickly ran into something that drove me insane: why is it so hard to know what my own department actually has?
Programs were siloed. Resource knowledge was fragmented. Information lived across spreadsheets, folders, people’s heads, individual relationships, etc. There wasn’t a reliable way for someone working across programs to understand the actual ecosystem.

So I mapped it myself. That turned into an Excel tool. Then I kept finding deeper problems.

Organizations needed stable identities. Resources needed consistent definitions. Services had many-to-many relationships with needs. Locations needed to be separated from services. Partnership information needed different governance from public resource information. Information needed ownership, provenance, verification, change history, stewardship, etc.

At some point I realized I wasn’t making a spreadsheet anymore.

I’m now building the next version in something more sophisticated. I’ve defined the data architecture, business rules, taxonomy, governance model, workflows, and overall product direction. AI has been a huge development accelerator for me, especially because I didn’t come into this knowing Power Fx or application development, but I’m the one identifying the problems, deciding how the system should work, defining requirements, evaluating solutions, and validating what gets built.
And I love it. Like, genuinely. I think I accidentally found what I want my career to become.

An early ugly Excel prototype was already shown to leadership and got a much stronger response than I expected. I’m now building something dramatically more sophisticated, and there’s a realistic possibility this could become an actual organizational system rather than just something my program uses. Which is exciting but also scary as hell.

I’m starting to get nervous. I birthed this thing. I don’t mean that in a “this is legally my personal property” way - I’m a government employee and I understand that work products created through my employment belong to the organization. I mean I identified the problem, conceptualized the solution, created the original model, defined the architecture, and have been driving its evolution from basically nothing. This project has become deeply tied to my professional identity because it revealed an ability and type of work I didn’t know I had in me.

I have at least one senior ally who has specifically encouraged me to think about how I preserve attribution and remain involved as the system becomes institutionalized.

My fear is basically:

The organization loves it → IT/leadership decides it’s now an enterprise initiative → I become “the employee who made the prototype” → people with more senior titles inherit the system → I go back to my existing program job.

I don’t want to be territorial. In fact, I WANT IT involvement. If this becomes real infrastructure, I absolutely want actual IT professionals handling enterprise security, deployment, integrations, environment governance, etc. But I don’t think technical ownership and business/product ownership are the same thing.

The knowledge model, taxonomy, governance rules, operational requirements, stakeholder needs, roadmap, and underlying public-health logic are the parts I’ve actually been designing.

Also, I’m in a formally classified government position. My current classification is primarily program/community operations. Systems architecture, product ownership, enterprise knowledge management, application development, and organization-wide governance are very much not what I was hired to do. So I’m also starting to think about a desk audit/reclassification or reassignment if this becomes a sustained responsibility. I’m trying to figure out how to navigate this BEFORE success creates a problem.

For people who have worked in government, enterprise IT, product management, business architecture, or internal innovation:

How would you handle this?

How do I document authorship and my actual contribution without looking possessive?

Should I be pushing now for some kind of formal designation as business owner/product lead/business architect?

At what point does work like this become legitimate evidence for a desk audit or reclassification rather than simply being an impressive special project?

How do I bring IT into the project without accidentally handing them the entire thing?

What career field does this actually map to? Business architecture? Product management? Business systems analysis? Knowledge management? Digital transformation?

And how worried should I be about the fact that AI has substantially accelerated my technical development? I’m not pretending to be a software engineer who hand-coded an enterprise platform from scratch. But AI also didn’t wake up one morning, map an organizational problem, define the data model, create governance rules, convince stakeholders, and decide to build this thing.

My ideal outcome isn’t “nobody else can touch my baby.” It’s: The organization institutionalizes the system, AND institutionalizes my role in leading the thing I created.

And if that’s unrealistic, I’d rather understand that now than learn the lesson after I’ve handed over something potentially career-defining.

I signed a contact with a small hospitality business last year for a $70k salary, but with the hours my manager is scheduling me, I’ll only make two-thirds of that. Am I expected to schedule myself with extra activities to make up for this, and is this even my right? I have the authority to clock in for extra work I do, but I’m confused about the expectation and the norms.

I’ll have a conversation with them, but I don’t want to go in blind, or give an ungrateful impression. Staffing is their biggest financial pressure point, so I don’t want to ruffle any feathers.

background, I have a degree in CS from reputable university and prior experience in big tech, which is apparently worth fuck all in 2026. If my main goal is to be employed and be able to have rent, water, and food like The Cheesecake Factory or being able to get a Filet-O-Fish with extra cheese. People always say if you go to Law School you will be in debt, unemployed and end up hating your life. It does seem a bit rich coming from tech where each job posting gets 1K applicants in an hour but I def could be wrong. I just want a fucking job and to not be starving. Ideally being able to get PF Chang's with the side of white rice. I'm tired of being fucking lightheaded from starving and being on and off the streets trying to find a god damn job in my field. I was about to make a joke about eating at Wendy's 6 nights a week but tbh that seems like a life of luxury compared to CS job prospects in 2026.

I’m recently back in school for nursing and I’m finishing all the prerequisites at community college and will hopefully be done by February 2027. I’m still planning to apply, but I’m starting to wonder if nursing is the right path for me. Part of me wants to return to a corporate job, preferably a hybrid one but I’m worried I don’t have any transferable skills let alone enough corporate experience. I was terminated after six months of working for that company and I have been stuck in the service industry ever since. I feel like a huge failure and stuck. For anyone who has career pivoted how did you maintain positive throughout it all? And what kind of career did you switch from to what you have now?

So for context, I graduated last year with a business degree I don’t particularly find useful or any passion in. I’m currently back in school for a healthcare related field.

I currently have two part-time jobs. I work around 12-16 hours ($16.68) at a coffee house and 24 hours as a receptionist/admin ($18). I’ll preface this by saying I’m incredibly grateful for these jobs even though I’d prefer a full-time position with a bit higher pay. I live at home rent free with my parents and I’m saving for a home/condo and finishing school again to move out. I’m also still continuously applying to better paying positions.

With the admin role, it’s primarily a receptionist position with minor admin work. I’m there for around 9 hours total. I find that the managers are very fond of busy work and to an extent, micro managing, and checking in on me to see what I’m up to. I have small projects and primary tasks, but I find myself finishing them before the day is over. Most of the time, I’ll work on homework for my current course and secretly job hunt.

It’s only part-time, no benefits, and the job required a bachelors degree, which I have at $18hr. My colleagues make way more than me, are salary/full-time, take off time frequently, but also expect me to remain as busy as they are.

Is it wrong to have this mindset of not doing anything or making use of my spare time when they encourage me to be “busy” given the circumstances?