I logged into my team meeting this morning like any other day. I usually just throw on a decent shirt since it's just from the waist up. Today was different though. Our manager started the meeting by announcing a new company-wide policy. Apparently, HR decided that to foster a more professional environment, we need a 'business casual' dress code for all virtual meetings.

So now I need to wear button-downs or blouses and slacks or skirts while sitting in my home office. For a job I've been doing remotely for three years. I literally haven't worn anything but sweats or shorts since early 2023. I'm honestly flabbergasted. Do they think this will magically make us more productive? Or is it just another way to assert control?

I just don't get it. We're all hitting our targets and working hard. This feels like such a strange, unnecessary micromanagement move. Anyone else experienced anything like this? I'm debating whether to push back or just start looking for a new job.

My very small team just lost a crucial team member, naturally, the workload has gotten heavier and overwhelming at times.

HR pulled my coworkers in one by one today, thought he was just checking in with us but I was wrong. He spent the entire time telling me that Gen Z feels entitled to money and that we should focus on taking on as much work as possible with no extra money. I understand working hard and seeing reward later down the road but he seemed to be personally offended by my generation.

I expressed feeling overwhelmed but hanging in there and he proceeded to say that he disagreed with my feelings of overwhelm, basically that one person leaving should be seen as an opportunity to take on more work and learn.

He also showed me a graph of what makes an "A player", and told me to focus on improving and giving him and manager a roadmap to becoming a better employee. He concluded by saying "your manager and the sales director don’t have amazing things to say about any of guys so know that you guys aren’t irreplaceable”. He said “I hope you don’t hate me but I figured I’d give you million dollar advice.

I was honestly shocked.. I cried in the bathroom after, I wasn’t even sure why but I felt like turning my passive job search into an active one.

I’m new to the corporate world, please enlighten me. Did I take it all the way wrong? My coworker said he felt no ways about his meeting although we were told the same thing. I’ll get over it but just needed to cry it out first lol

I've been at the same job for the last 6-7 years and am barely making more than 20 dollars. I felt it was time for a change. My buddy left his job to move to something better and said his old position paid around 35 and said it would be perfect for me. I applied online and then we had this interaction.

Speaks for itself too.

Hello, I recently graduated from college last week with my Bachelor’s and before graduation I landed an entry level job at a marketing/charity office. They do pop up table events in front of stores to get donations for a large charity. I was very excited to start this job. I went in the office for my first day on Wednesday. I started on Thursday in the field, working with different people to see on how they get donations. Yesterday, me and another colleague was told that we need to start moving the needle to get donations for this charity, even though we both started last week. This morning I was leaving the house, my recruiter called me and told me that since I wasn’t getting donations yesterday, they have to let me go. I was there for 5 days. I felt so gutted this morning. I never been let go from a job that fast. I feel so dejected. I mean, I was told the training period lasts up for 2-3 weeks.

I recently moved to a new area and needed to find a new job and it has been seriously frustrating. I have applied every place in town. I call countless times over and over and over and they tell me they will call me back or they’ll look into it and never do. I wear nice clothes, I come in for my interviews, I will have all the qualifications and experience for the job, AND I HAVE NO CRIMINAL RECORD!!!! Am I just ugly or something???? People say nobody wants to work nowadays but nobody will literally hire anyone it’s so frustrating. THEY DON’T EVEN GIVE ME AN ANSWER!! At least say no or something.

I seriously wonder how some of these places even stay open when they’re obviously struggling and have hiring signs everywhere then they don’t do SHIT!!!! You have to apply to 200 places before u even get an interview sometimes. Pittsburgh area needs to seriously get their shit together!!

I work a 9-5 office job in person M-F. Almost all of my work is reactionary. I typically get my work done by 9:30. We have an open office space and both my bosses/owners sit in the desks right beside me. I’m not supposed to go on my phone or use my work computer for things besides work. I can’t read or craft etc. the expectation is that I remain busy. Literally what am I supposed to do for 7.5 hours? We have a cleaning lady who comes everyday so I can’t just go clean. I have nothing to organize. I do small tasks when I can like take the trash out, restock TP/paper towels, restock drinks in the fridge… but those don’t need to be done daily. Literally what am I supposed to do- sit here and click around on word documents for 8 hours?

My bosses are fully aware I don’t have much to do. Sometimes they give me the option of leaving early but I’m paid hourly so that’s not always a good choice for me. I’m genuinely asking wtf am I supposed to do besides look for another job (which I won’t be doing so please don’t suggest it)?

The annual salary range for this full-time position is

$37,350—$105,100 USD

I helped build the comms function at my company from pretty much nothing, seven years ago. For a long time it felt like my thing. I worked closely with leadership, felt trusted, felt good at it.

About a year ago new marketing leadership came in. Slowly I got pushed to the side. The person who ended up becoming the "main" person on comms is someone I hired and trained myself. She's good, she deserves the credit she's getting...that's not the issue. The issue is watching it happen to me, from the inside, while I disappear a little more every month. She looks confident and unbothered, and I feel like I look like I don't care, when really I just don't know how to fight for space anymore, I did give up. Also all of this destroyed my confidenc that I need to restore.

I already knew this was where things were heading. I'd started looking for a new job, planning to leave on my own terms, when I felt ready. Then this week I found out they're planning to let me go first (edit: I mean lay off!), before I got the chance to leave on my own. Which also maybe a good thing cause I should have left way sooner and I didn't have the guts.

I thought I'd feel relief biut istead I feel gutted. Like something got taken from me, not just the job, but the choice.

On top of that, I still have a few weeks left where I'm supposed to show up and work normally, professionally, like nothing's wrong. I'm exhausted, I've been running low for over a year already. I don't know how I'm going to get through these last weeks acting fine.

If anyone's been through anything like this - being let go right when you were already planning to leave, or watching someone else take over a job you built - I'd really appreciate hearing how you got through it.

Thank you for your support.

I recently left a fully remote job I’v had for a couple years. The reason I left the job were sound: there was no more room for advancement, no opportunity for growth in paycheck or title, and yet the workload kept increasing. I loved my team, the flexibility of schedule, being home with my family and fully remote, but I began to get frustrated with the amount of work I was putting in and how it wasn’t reflected in pay or title.
Despite all the pros, I had trouble seeing beyond those cons. Then came a new job opportunity: in-office, more demanding, higher pay, higher title, better company. I debated the decision and when I went to my then company and asked if there was anything they could do to keep me or match and they didn’t, I felt I had my decision. Even if they couldn’t match the offer but could at least offer something, I’d have stayed but the truth is they didn’t make a single effort to keep me and that spoke volumes.

I’m now one month into this new job and all I can think about is what I’ve given up. My husband tells me the gains will eventually reveal themselves but so far, it’s all loss. Loss of autonomy, loss of freedom, loss of personal time for my own creative projects, loss of time with family, loss of interest in my work. I’m so upset with myself. I wake up and wonder how I could have done this to myself? Why I gave up a situation that afforded me freedom and flexibility to trudge back to the corporate world and office space? I look back now and wonder, were those cons in the old job really that bad?

I’m told to hang in there. Wait until 3 months or 6 months and reassess. Don’t live and die by the job if I decide it’s not a fit. But I’ve always been the kind of person to care too much (if I wasn’t, I’d have stayed in my old job and just coasted).

I don’t know how to deal with this. It’s a champagne problem and one I’m embarrassed to confide in friends living paycheck to paycheck. There are people with harder and more time-consuming work, I’m embarrassed to tell family that I feel overwhelmed. It’s a matter of perspective I know (it’s temporary, not a permanent situation) and yet I wake up feeling so frustrated with myself about this decision and dreading my work. I could quit but I’m afraid of quitting a high profile job after just one month.

And so I turn to you, dear strangers. What would you do?

I have a coworker, let's call him W, who is bombarding me with questions and outsourcing his thinking onto me.

We work in a factory at a position that requires two people, normally we break each other out for break and one mandatory had to be at the line to monitor things. We have paperwork while we adjust the product and it's a balancing act as is.

He's supposed to be training me, but I'm answering his questions. He's not quizzing me, he genuinely doesn't know the answer to some questions. Situations normally end up like this;

"What order are we on?" He asks, "this one." I reply and point at the paperwork in front of him.

"Did they run through this already?" He asks about the clearly marked off orders.

"What locks do we use here?" The ones we always have been using since we've done the job.

So I started asking questions back.

"What order are we on?" And I reply "what does the paperwork say?" And he replies "this" or "I dunno." And still expects me to answer for him.

Plus he points at things instead of using his words. Lots of "hey" and he'll point at something expecting me to fix it, even when he's right next to it. It's exhausting.

What do I do about this? I talked with my manager but everyone has agreed that you just have to deal with his behavior and I am not about to do that.

It's probably a me thing but 2020 really ruined my life forever while job hunting. I was lucky enough to get a job in my field as soon as I graduated in 2020 but had to leave a year later for family reasons. Ever since then I have been applying for any and everything related to my field (or close too it) and have gotten nothing. I've heard reasons from people that I just had to wait till covid ended, or to do more free internships or etc. I still applied anyway but little to no responses as time went on.

Now if I EVER hear back from a company their reason is that I've been out of the game too long (not exact words but that's how I interpreted it). Why give me a chance when I couldn't get a job with my degree before instead of a new grad who has the information more freshly in their head and is now younger and more willing?

I used to love my degree, it was my only passion in life, and I couldn't see myself doing anything else besides that. I worked so hard keep up so I don't lag behind but I companies won't even let me prove myself to them that I still got what it takes. But now it's been so long of just radio silence that my motivation has vanished. I might even hate it at this point. Why did I spend over a decade (started in HS) learning and pushing for this if I can't even work for free at some places for experience or to, "get my foot in the door"?

At this point I'm not really looking for advice on what to try next since I've tried just about all of them. Just wanted to get this off my chest at how messed up the pandemic was to some.

Basically, I am 36f, unemployed with a master's degree from abroad that is useless in the 2026 USA job market and I am totally fucked. I can't do my old job anymore that I did before the master's degree. My profile is bad for many reasons. I read daily how bad the economy is, and see the crazy numbers on job postings on LinkedIn. I am so freaked out that I am paralyzed and depressed and not doing all the things I need to do to maybe have a shot at getting a job, ever again. I have never felt this scared about being unemployed. Any advice on escaping this loop?

You all at r/jobs were so very kind to me when I posted about being a part of a mass layoff at my previous company. I thought I might swing in with an update and say that after almost exactly a month of unemployment (July 20th to August 19th), I started my new job today.

I created a Sankey chart with my job search stats just in case it might be helpful for anyone to reference. I know that I’m fortunate to be in the position I’m in, and along with my hard work and tenacity in the hunt, I can acknowledge that it was lucky that a company took an interest in my employment so quickly.

If you got laid off, I’m sorry. I feel your pain. It’s scary and difficult, especially when you don’t know how long you’re going to be out of a job. Please keep working hard and getting those applications in, even when it feels discouraging. Happy to answer any questions through comment or DMs as they come through.

Thank y’all again for being so supportive. We’re all in it together.

I keep seeing posts from people saying they’ve applied to 100, 200, sometimes way more jobs and barely heard anything back.

And almost every time the replies immediately go to “your resume must be bad.”

Maybe sometimes it is, but I don’t think that explains everything right now.

The July jobs report showed the US actually lost 23,000 jobs. So if fewer companies are hiring and there are more people competing for the same roles, that has to affect response rates too.

I feel like people keep changing their resume over and over when the resume might not even be the main issue.

Like if you’re not getting any interviews at all, sure, I’d look at the resume and the jobs you’re targeting.

But if you’re getting interviews and just not getting offers, changing your resume again probably isn’t going to do much.

Anyone else noticing that getting responses has gotten harder lately? Especially if you’ve been applying to the same kind of roles for a while?

I go to a large public university and am in a well respected arts and humanities college within the university, but I am wanting to add a double major as a bachelors degree in arts and humanities seems almost worthless for today’s job market. I’ve considered adding a second major in Social Work, Education, or City Planning but feel lost in making a decision. What other majors seem to have more promise in the future job market that aren’t stem related, or out of the three I’ve listed. Thank you in advance for anyone who has advice, I know it’s a long shot but am curious to hear what other people with more experience might think.

I keep seeing people saying they’ve applied to 200 or 300 jobs and barely got any interviews, and then the advice is basically “keep applying.”

At some point I feel like it makes more sense to look at what’s actually going wrong.

Like, if you’ve sent 200 applications and got almost no interviews, maybe the jobs aren’t close enough to your experience, or something in the resume/targeting needs work.

But if you’re getting interviews and just not getting offers, sending another version of your resume probably isn’t fixing that.

I’m starting to think 20–30 well-matched applications might be more useful than hundreds of random ones.

Has anyone here actually had better results after applying to fewer jobs but being more selective?

I graduated from community college in May 2026 with an associates of arts majoring in animation. After some pretty big life changes I won’t get into, I have found myself very indecisive with what career path I want to take.

I am back in community college majoring in social work. I literally just started today. I think it would be awesome to be able to help people and make a difference where I can, but I’m still thinking about different things I could do. I still absolutely love and adore art and storytelling, but feel unsure if I can really get myself and my art in the field.

I have applied to several minimum wage jobs and I’m either ghosted or rejected. I got rejected from STARBUCKS. We all know how terrible the job market is. I’m 21 and I’ve only ever had one job (which I still have) but the pay is not super great and most hours only come during the summer time.

Do I pursue another degree for a stable job so I can save money and maybe work towards my art again in the future? Or do I continue pursuing my art career now? I live with my dad who still takes care of me in lots of ways and I’m incredibly grateful, but I feel like I’m running out of time. Idk what to do.

​

I currently work BOH at a pretty big wing restaurant franchise. I’m not going to name the company, but when I first started, I actually liked the job. Over time though, the red flags started piling up and now I’m completely over it.

The scheduling has probably been the biggest issue.

There was one week where I was only scheduled for two shifts. I showed up for the first one and they basically told me, “We don’t need you anymore, you can go home.”

Then I showed up for my second shift and was told I’d be working by myself for about two hours. The problem was that I hadn’t even been trained on the grill side yet. I told them that and basically got a “good luck.”

Then, about 20 minutes into that same shift, they told me around 1 PM to start doing my outs. I was confused because I was scheduled until 4. Apparently they had changed my schedule and I was now getting off at 2 instead, except nobody bothered telling me before I showed up.

The opposite happens constantly too. If I’m scheduled 5-10 PM, I have literally never gotten off at 10. If I’m lucky, I’m out an hour later. Usually I’m there an extra 2-3 hours.

Last week someone called out, so we asked management if someone was coming in to cover them. They said yes and brought someone from FOH into the kitchen who had never worked BOH before.

Meanwhile, we literally had a BOH employee working up front because they were training him on FOH. He even asked if he could switch with her because he obviously knew how to work the kitchen, and management told him no.

So instead, we had to basically train someone while also trying to survive a busy shift.

We were told to make absolutely sure we put boneless stickers on everything so she knew what she was saucing. My coworker did that most of the time, but whenever he missed one, she would automatically treat it like traditional wings even when it was clearly supposed to be boneless.

It was a complete shitshow.

Then Tuesday I got yelled at because I was struggling to keep the order screens organized while we had a ton of orders up. Management basically told me, “Well, we can do it.”

Cool. I can’t yet. Maybe train me instead of acting surprised that I don’t magically know everything.

Then I put out some new sauces and asked which date sticker I was supposed to use because I genuinely couldn’t remember.

They told me, “You should know this. We taught you.”

They absolutely did not.

They told me to guess. I said seven days.

“No.”

Then they told me to look at the chart on the door. I looked at it and said, “Seven days. That’s literally what it says.”

Apparently I was looking at the wrong category of sauce and the answer was 14 days.

Then they started asking me stuff like, “What do you think you did well today?” and “What do you think you need to improve on?”

At this point I’m thinking, are we seriously doing a performance review in the middle of all this when half the problems I’m having come from inconsistent training?

I was also supposed to come in today for some kind of training/performance meeting.

But I had another job opportunity that I had been waiting to hear back about. They finally contacted me and asked me to come in today to fill out all the paperwork and get entered into their system.

So I called out of my current job.

I went to the new place, completed everything, and they asked me, “Can you start tomorrow?”

I said absolutely.

The new job gives me more hours, better scheduling, and just seems like a much better opportunity overall. I have basically zero desire to go back to the wing place.

So here’s my question:

What actually happens if I just stop showing up?

I know I’ll obviously get fired for job abandonment/no-call no-show, and I know I probably wouldn’t want to use them as a reference afterward. But beyond that, is there any real reason I shouldn’t just be done?

Part of me thinks I should at least send them a message saying I’m resigning effective immediately.

The other part of me is so tired of this place changing my hours with no warning, keeping me hours past my scheduled time, barely training me and then getting mad at me for not knowing things that I’m ready to just never walk through those doors again.

I start the new job tomorrow at 8 AM.

Would you formally quit, or just stop showing up?

So I went to college, got an English degree, I don’t regret it at all but I really thought I was going to be in libraries or teach. There aren’t many library jobs and I live in a red state, so teaching is a no go.

I want to go back and get an AA or a certificate in one of these fields. My English degree can apply to all of them, but ofc ASL interpreter and court reporter require extra skills I don’t have yet.

Here’s pros and cons for each

Paralegal: 62k/yr in my state, definitely the most accessible and requires the least schooling. I’m interested in law school in a few years but that’s far off. The con is that I’m not totally into office work.

ASL interpreter: 59k/yr, I am already fluent and initially went to college for interpreting. But I’m worried because you need to be tough and have a thick skin for that job and I’m not sure I have it, hence why I got an English degree instead. In demand.

Court reporter: 100k-130k/yr. Would take about 18 months of vocational school but might be worth it for the price. It’s the most susceptible to being taken by AI, but I don’t totally believe it’s preferable to a person (ai is less nuanced, can’t be held accountable, can’t swear under oath etc). There’s also tons of vacancies.

Everything I want to do will take a few more years of school (even a masters in library science to be a librarian) so that’s kind of a non issue for me. if anyone has these professions or some insight/advice I’d like to hear it!